What is my role in the world?

There will be a quiz

Open loop - don’t take notes until I tell you

This will transform you’re relationships with others

“Be True to Yourself”

“How to be true to yourself and live the life you want depends on your authenticity, ability to be unapologetically you and to take off the mask.”

“Being true to yourself starts with knowing who you are and accepting yourself; knowing your strengths, passions, limitations and purpose in life and then living that way all the time.”

“To be true to yourself means to act in accordance with who you are and what you believe.

If you know and love yourself you will find it effortless to be true to yourself.”

What if you identify as a serial killer?

I’m lazy, have introvert tendancies which means I find that interactions with people drain me. What would it mean for me to be true to myself?

If I were to be true to myself I’d avoid the anxiety and hard work that goes into prepping a sermon, turning up to leader’s meetings, helping put up a marquee and sit back and just be a consumer in church.

If you were REALLY true to yourself, how would you behave in society?

What should we be True to?

Quiz!

Conformity

Which should we be conforming with? Rank in priority order if there’s a conflict ...

Our friends

The Bible’s teaching

The church’s teaching

They’re not always mutually exclusive!

Commandments in the bible

I have three commandments that I want us to rank in order of priority ...

Matthew 28:19 ESV

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

2.

Bob 12:24

Verily I say unto you … make sure that you police the behaviour of the world around you

3.

Mark 12:29–31 ESV

Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

They’re not designed to be mutually exclusive, they are perfectly in harmony, however if your version of going into the world compromises the greatest commandment, then something is terribly wrong.

The Heart Condition

I’m saddened when I see those that profess to be Christians demonstrating hate to the world. The church turning it’s back on those that need grace, simply because they’ve made life decisions that it disagrees with. We are not called to be behaviour police, we’re called to be beacons of light that shine the love of Jesus in this world. We’re called to be set apart, an example, a visible presence of Jesus.

Jesus is attractive, his message is compelling and good news.

We all have been born with a heart condition … the bible calls it sin. Jesus is the cure to the root cause, spending time and energy on behviour is only sparring with symptoms.

The New Way to be Human

The cure to the heart condition is by us being transformed by Jesus through the Holy Spirit.

2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

Ezekiel 36:26 ESV

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

But we are called to a life of sacrifice ...

Romans 12:1–2 ESV

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Luke 9:23 ESV

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

The System

I want to share with you my system which is a practical way that we can ensure that in every interaction we are loving our neighbours.

This will transform your relationship with your family, friends, colleagues, teachers, etc..

It means we’ll have to exercise some sacrifice, but you’ll be amazed at the results. It’s simple but not necessarily easy!

My system is called “SHARE” - S. H. A. R. E. Take notes now!

Suspend Judgement

We are judging others all the time … creating our own picture of what they’re like and their motives. Psychologists tell us that where we have gaps in our understanding of someone, we’ll tend to fill those gaps with a negative.

People you’re with will sometimes say something you disagree with, and sometimes you might have an emotional reaction to it.

autoappraisers! - useful to protect ourselves, useless in social situations!

An auto-appraiser being triggered in a discussion is probably due to a negative we’ve ASSUMED of the other person, and a therefore a perceived threat.

Interrupt your emotional response. Like code in a software programme. Suspend your judgement.

Humble Yourself

“I’m right and therefore I’m better than you! I need to tell you how you’re wrong.”

Recognise this in scripture? This is the attitude of some of the pharisees that we read about.

Change to:

This person is just like me, they have faults and I have faults. They’re in different ways but we both need the grace of God in our lives.

If we’ve just suspended our judgement to an emotional response, then this is difficult and painful to do but not impossible … and I promise you it gets easier with practice and prayer.

We’re choosing to be true to what Jesus calls us to be, rather than being “True to ourselves”. This is sacrifice ...

Luke 9:23 ESV

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

Mark 8:15 ESV

And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”

Pharisees = I’m holier than you, I’m better than you.

Remove Leaven for passover, leven = evil

Leaven = yeast, yeast multiplies

Actively Listen

What is one way that we can love someone else? Listen to them!

Active Listening is a skill that is not natural for us. It’s a skill in itself.

Active listening means that you sacrifice your agenda, your opinion and direct all of your attention and energy on the other person.

Your sole objective is to listen and comprehend what the other person is saying, even if it means at the end of your time together you’ve not had a chance to say your bit.

Active Listening involves you asking the open questions - what and how. To dig deeper and find out more.

This is showing love, prioritising someone else over your agenda, sacrificing your desire to get a word in.

Actively Listening is not agreeing with someone

Replay

Paraphrase what they tell you back to them … paraphrasing shows not just that you’ve listened but that you’ve understood what they’re saying and their point of view

Repeating to show understanding is not agreeing with someone

Earn the right

What you’ve just done will transform how the other person sees you. Someone who is caring, loving and interested in them. This could be the start of a deeper relationship. You’ve just earned the right to be heard yourself, having a better view of that person, gaps are not automatically filled with negatives.

SHARE

Suspend Judgement

Humble yourself

Actively Listen

Replay

= Earn the right

Example

I want you to picture a female friend of yours. (WAIT)

Now imagine she tells you she’s decided to have an abortion … what are you feeling right now?

Some will be horrified, some will be filled with compassion

That is your auto-appraiser kicking in, and you can’t control that original feeling, but guess what, there is no threat that you need to react to.

Suspend Judgement

Catch it and ..

2 Corinthians 10:5 - Take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ.

Humble Yourself

Now think about all the mistakes you’ve made in your life, bad decisions or the things that you’d be ashamed of if other people knew. You and I are no better than others … it is ONLY because of Jesus that you are redeemed and seen as Holy.

Banish that condescending “I’m better than her” pharisee thinking from your mind.

Actively Listen

Try not to let on with your body language that you’ve felt uncomfortable. Choose LOVE reactions.

Nothing you’ve done here has been in agreement with the decision!

Don’t ‘push’ information. Use open questions to ‘pull’ information. “Tell me more ...”, “How does that make you feel?”, “What is the situation at home?”.

Repeat

“I’m so sorry you’ve had to make a difficult decision, it sounds like you’ve been feeling ...”

“I’m glad that you’ve told me that you have support around you during this difficult time”

Earn the Right

At this point your bond with this person will be much stronger. You’ve been fulfilling God’s call on your life - “Love your neighbour”. You have not entertained your personal desire to “weigh in” on the issue and you have now started to earn the right to speak into her life. Make sure it comes from LOVE and not the pharisee within you.

You aren’t telling her about Jesus … you’re showing her Jesus and he is the cure for the root cause.

I want you to live your life this way when interacting with others, make it your new mission, your crusade. You’ll see a huge shift in how others engage with you and treat you.

Loving your neighbour will start to feel like a super power.

The Sower

Mark 4:26–29 ESV

And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

We need to self sacrifice, let God do the heavy lifiting. My yoke is easy and my burden is light

Trying to do God’s work for him ...

Our role is to plant seed. This is pointing to Jesus, only he can transform a person. Take no more responsibility than this.

We don’t take the credit when someone’s life changes, but we don’t take the blame if it doesn’t.

People are on a journey in life, very rarely does someone have a lightning bolt moment when suddenly they get life changing revelation. Of course this does happen and it is not us that does this! It is Holy Spirit.