TEACHING

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2021
10:30 AM (ONE GATHERING, In-person + livestream, IBC campus)
LOVE WELL Matthew 22:37-40, 11:19,10:34-36
“Love, in practice, is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”
Loving well is the goal of the Christian life. Jesus preached great messages to the crowds, but he knew it was not enough for people to “get it”. He did life together with closer disciples for three years in a small group. Story-telling and listening to speeches are not enough to move beyond emotional infancy. Many models of church fail to create disciples because they do not cause us to go deeper. Join us as we talk about being WITH people.
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READ: Matthew 22:37-40, 11:19,10:34-36

“Love, in practice, is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”
Loving well is the goal of the Christian life. Jesus preached great messages to the crowds, but he knew it was not enough for people to “get it”. He did life together with closer disciples for three years in a small group. Story-telling and listening to speeches are not enough to move beyond emotional infancy. Many models of church fail to create disciples because they do not cause us to go deeper. Join us as we talk about being WITH people.

MAIN IDEA: Loving well is the goal of the Christian life. Easier in dreams than in practice. It requires we grow into emotional adulthood in Christ.

TAKE OFF

FLIGHT
What is emotional Immaturity?
Scarrezo: 

• How can I be quick to hear and slow to speak? How can I be angry and not sin?
• How can I watch my heart above all else (since that is the place from which flows)?
• How can I speak the truth in love?
• How can I be a true peacemaker?
• How can I mourn?
• How can I not bear false witness against my neighbour?
• How can I get rid of all bitterness, rage, and envy?

Infant, Children, Adolescents, Adults
EMOTIONAL INFANTS

• Look for others to take care of them
• Have great difficulty entering into the world of others
• Are driven by the need for instant gratification
• Use others as objects to meet their needs

EMOTIONAL CHILDREN

• Are content and happy as long as they receive what they want
• Unravel quickly from stress, disappointments, trials
• Interpret disagreements as personal offences
• Are easily hurt
• Complain, withdraw, manipulate, take revenge, become sarcastic when they don't get their way
• Have great difficulty calmly discussing their needs and wants in a mature, loving way

EMOTIONAL ADOLESCENTS

• Tend to often be defensive
• Are threatened and alarmed by criticism
• Keep score of what they give so they can ask for something later in return
• Deal with conflict poorly, often blaming, appeasing, going to a third party, pouting, or ignoring the issue entirely
• Become preoccupied with themselves.
• Have great difficulty truly listening to another person's pain, disappointments, or needs.
• Are critical and judgmental

EMOTIONAL ADULTS

• Are able to ask for what they need, want, or prefer-clearly, directly, honestly
• Recognize, manage, and take responsibility for their own thoughts and feelings
• Can, when under stress, state their own beliefs and values without becoming adversarial
• Respect others without having to change them Give people room to make mistakes and not be perfect
• Appreciate people for who they are the good, bad, and ugly not for what they give back
• Accurately assess their own limits, strengths, and weaknesses and are able to freely discuss them with others
• Are deeply in tune with their own emotional world and able to enter into the feelings, needs, and concerns of others without losing themselves
• Have the capacity to resolve conflict maturely and negotiate solutions that consider the perspectives of others
• We are called to take delight in others. This requires that we “discover the ‘otherness’ of a spouse, friend, boss, child, and coworker and to see them as separate, unique human beings--without losing yourself--is also a Copernican revolution of emotional maturity” (EHS 181).

We Don't Resolve Conflict Without Maturity

• Ignoring conflict - false peacemaking

​

• Embracing Conflict - the true path to peace

LIE AND PRETENSE are not true peace. "They must be exposed to the light and replaced with the truth. This is the mature, loving thing to do" (EHS, 185).

KEY SKILLS (and why we need an ongoing discipleship track on peace)

• Love is not simply some feeling. It's many good principles but hard to do. We need to repeatedly practice mature, godly behaviours to break lifelong cycles of emotional immaturity.
• Speaking and Listening
• Charter of Rights
• Assumptions
• Expectations
• Allergies and Triggers

LANDING THE PLANE

Pray together: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me. I am aware, Lord, of how often I treat people as Its, as objects, instead of looking at them with the eyes and heart of Christ. Lord, I have unhealthy ways of relating that are deeply embedded in me. Please change me. Make me a vessel to spread mature, steady, reliable love so that people with whom I come in contact, sense your tenderness and kindness. Deliver me from false peacemaking that is driven by fear. Lord Jesus, help me love well, like you. Grow me, I pray, into an emotionally mature adult through the Holy Spirit's power. In Jesus' name, Amen.

​For Reflection and Discussion

(From Emotionally Healthy Church workbook)
Jesus made it clear love is the mark of the church in the world. We are to learn how to love well, like Jesus did and does.

1. Name one person in your life who has loved you well. Describe their qualities. What caused them to stand out from all others in your life?
   
2. “Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.” What was your experience of being listened to growing up? How has it influenced you today?
   
3. Read Phil. 2:5-11. Based on this passage what did it costs Jesus to enter our world? Specifically...
   
4. What does it cost you and me to leave our reality and comfort to truly walk in another person’s shoes and enter his or her world?
   
5. Jesus never ceased to be fully God when he became human. God does not call us to lose ourselves in an unhealthy way as we enter another’s world. How can we listen and “be present” with someone, loving unconditionally, when we do not necessarily agree with them or like what they are saying?
   
6. What is the great promise for us, based on the life of Jesus, if we choose this downward path of incarnational love (vv. 9-11)?
   
7. Final thought: “Making incarnation a priority can disrupt our lives. Life is no longer simply doing more, “fixing” people, or arranging the world as we see fit. It is about loving well like Jesus. Pray that God would slow you down in order that you might be an incarnational presence to at least one or two other people this coming week.