Ever since I read just this one
sentence, I can’t forget it. It says something
that pretty much everyone agrees with. Yet
at the same time, they resist living it out.
What am I talking about? I’m
talking about a quote that appeared on the screen this morning, one by the
novelist George
McDonald. McDonald said; “The first
thing in all progress is to leave something behind.”
That’s pretty obvious. I mean.
If you want to go to Fort Lauderdale, you have to leave Hollywood
behind. You can’t be in both places at
the same time. Yet, when it comes to
making significant changes, even in places where change so much needs to
happen, you can resist. Why? You know.
If I move forward to the place I need to be, I have to leave where I am
behind. And that can be hard.
Someone once was complaining to a
friend about how awful their life had become.
But when the friend suggested changes, do you know what the person said. She said.
“Yes, my life may be hell, but at least here I know all the names of the
streets.” It can be hard to let go,
even of things that make your life miserable.
And what messes up relationships,
including marriages, are what people won’t leave behind. For any relationship to work, for it to
become everything that God created it to be, God calls you to leave a lot
behind. And only as you do that do you
unleash the power that will enable any relationship in your life to become
great whether it be in your marriage or with your family or your workplace or
with your network of friends. So what
does God call you to leave behind? In
these words, God tells you. So let’s
listen and hear what God has to say.
In these words focused on
marriage, God actually gives you the two key relationships that you have to
leave behind in order to make any relationship become all that God created that
relationship to be. What do you have to
leave behind? You have to leave behind
yourself, and you have to leave behind your home.
Now what do I mean? To unpack what God is telling us, let’s begin
by looking at the first of those two things, the leaving behind of
yourself. How can you even do that? And even if you could, why would you want
to? Well, what God is talking about
here is your preoccupation with yourself, and how that preoccupation hampers
every relationship you enter. That’s
why at the beginning of this passage, God gives this command. “Submit yourself to one another out of
reverence for Christ.” In that succinct
sentence, God is simply saying this.
Get over yourself. Leave it
behind. Your
relationship will only work to the extent that you let your self get out of the
way.
As my car has gotten older, it
has developed a slight oil leak, and so I am more diligent than ever about
checking those oil levels. I know. That leak may be slight, but if my oil goes,
then my engine goes, and without that engine, my car is kaput. That oil provides the lubrication my car
needs to run. It reduces the friction
that otherwise would stop it dead in its tracks.
And when you let go of self in
marriage or any relationship, it works like the oil in a car. It keeps things moving. It reduces the friction that every relationship
has. It provides the lubrication that
enables any relationship to run, to become everything God created it to be.
Now what does that look
like? Here are three questions that as
they are true of you show you how much you have actually left your self behind. First, how well can you hear criticism and
not be crushed or reactive? Second, how
good are you at giving criticism (if you even get up the gumption to do it at
all) without crushing others? Third,
how good are you at forgiving people without having any residual anger?
You see. If you are crushed by criticism or react
defensively, what does that that tell you?
It tells you that when someone criticizes something you did, you take it
as a criticism of who you are. It’s
not. And even if they intended it that
way, who died and made them God? But if
you have left your self behind in that moment, you can hear the truth in their
words. Even in people who criticize you
with ill intent, you can gain insight from their words, no matter how harsh. Why?
You’re not taking it personally.
You have moved your self out of the way.
And if you can’t give criticism,
let’s be honest, it’s rarely ever about your concern for the other person’s feelings. No, it’s really concern about how those
feelings will negatively affect you. It’s
not about them. It’s about you, about
your unwillingness to let your self get out of the way of a truth that you need
to say. But instead of taking that risk, of entering
into that danger zone, you avoid it. And
as the preacher Bill Coffin put it, Love without criticism it’s a kind of
betrayal. If you truly care about
someone, then you have to find the courage to let your own self concern go, to
be honest with them even about the difficult things. And on the other hand, that focus on self
can lead you in the opposite direction to deliver truth in a way that
crushes. It is hard to be right and not
hurt somebody with it. In fact, it only
happens when you have let your self get out of the way. It only happens when you are telling the truth
not out of your own anger or self-righteousness but because you are absolutely
focused on that other person, on their well-being not your own.
And do you tell others that you
have forgiven them, that you have let that offense go? But when you think about what you supposedly
have let go, you feel your resentment rise up.
And if that anger sits there, it will poison that relationship. It will linger below the surface of every
interaction you have, where it can rise up at a moment’s notice. Or maybe it will simply sit there, subtly
undermining that relationship, maybe even killing it in the end. And why does that happen? It happens because you haven’t let your self
get out of the way, because when you do then your resentment will go with
it.
But God doesn’t stop there. Not only do you need to leave your self
behind, you need to leave your home behind too. It’s why Paul quotes that passage from
Genesis. “Therefore, a man shall leave
his father and his mother and be joined to his wife…” But too often that joining can’t happen
because one of the partners has never left home. When you marry, you are creating a new
relationship. And you can’t create the
new relationship until you’ve left your old relationships behind, and that can
be harder to do than you realize.
A few weeks ago, as we talked
about Ephesians in the morning Bible study, one of the folks there, Bert told
me a story. He talked about a couple he
knew that almost blew up over a television.
In the husband’s house growing
up, his parents had kept the television on all the time. It served as background noise throughout the
day. And even when they had serious
discussions with one another, they kept it on.
And that worked for them. They
could multi-task that way.
But in the wife’s house, a whole
different pattern occurred. Whenever big
discussions happened, everything got turned off. That discussion had to be the sole focus, and
nothing could be going on but that.
So can you imagine what
happened? The wife wanted to touch base
with her husband about something, and he was watching the game on TV. But do you think he turned it off? No, of course not. And do you think she got angry? Oh, you bet. Now whatever you think of the best way to
have a conversation, the reason for that conflict had little to do with
that. It had to do with the reality that
neither of them had left home. They
came into that marriage with certain assumptions about how things needed to be,
simply because that was the way it worked for their parents. But if you’re married, you’re not living in
your old family. You are making a new
one. And what God is saying here is that
you have to leave the ways of that old family behind if you want to make this
new family work.
More than that, God is saying
that when it comes to your marriage, that marriage has to be your number one
priority, over work, over friendships, even over your kids. Think about it. Your kids, if you raise them well, will
eventually leave, but hopefully not your spouse. Your marriage was there before your kids
came, and it will be there after they leave, so that relationship has to have
priority.
And if you don’t leave the
baggage from your family behind, it will drag down all sorts of
relationships. It will affect how you
relate in your workplace or with your children. It will create issues in your
friendships. And let’s be clear, if you hate your parents,
then you haven’t left home either.
Why? It’s because even in your
hatred, they still control you. If you say, “I’m
not going to do that, because my dad always did that and I hated it.” Well, why are you not doing it? It’s still because of your father isn’t it? That relationship is still controlling you because
of how you are reacting against it.
In relationships for them to move
forward you have to leave a lot behind.
You have to leave behind yourself, and you have to leave behind your
home. But it’s one thing to say that,
but how do you gain the power to actually do it? You look to the one who left himself behind for
you. You look to the one who left his
home behind so that you would find it.
In Jesus, in his life, in his death, God emptied himself of everything
for you. And the more you experience that love that
left it all behind for you, the more it frees you to leave what you need to
leave behind too.
So no matter what criticism comes,
it can’t crush you. Why? God has already shown you on that cross how
infinitely valued you are. And that same
sense of worth frees you to move beyond the fear to share hard truths with
others. And when you share, you can do
so without crushing. Why? You know the grace of God that saved you came
as a gift that you did not earn, and so that grace humbles you even as it lifts
you up. And out of that grace, you
become free to forgive, to let your anger go, because you know the love of a
God who paid the ultimate price to forgive and let his anger go towards you. And in the security of that love, you find
a new home, a home that heals the wounds of your past that frees you from its
baggage. In the power of Jesus’
relationship with you, you discover the power to make every relationship in
your life all that God intended them to be.
Where do you need that
power? What is Jesus calling you to
leave behind today? Where do you need
to let Jesus free you, to free your relationships to become all that God
intended them to be. Let us pray.
No comments:
Post a Comment