As I mentioned in my last post, we heard lots of teaching this week on all aspects of relationships from a
veteran YWAMer named Dean Sherman (via DVD). And since I think you might
appreciate reading some of the highlights, and because our journal each week is
supposed to include a summary the week’s lecture topic, I’m going to put some
of the main points in a blog post. Note that this is a distillation of
11hour-long sessions and about 20 pages of notes, so there are obviously quite a
few here. But anyway, I hope it’s helpful.
Dean started off with a session called “One Message,” where he
simplified the entire message of the Bible to a single point: Love One Another (1 John 3:11). In
fact, if you do not love, you do not know God (1 John 4:7-8). It is impossible
to know God, except in relationship with other people. He went on from here to
explain the difference between Greek knowing and Jewish knowing, which is a
very important distinction. All of us in Western cultures have been brought up
with the Greek idea of knowing, which consists simply of brain agreement,
understanding something in our minds, and objective substantiation of truth.
Much of the rest of the world, however, thinks of “knowing” like the Jews did –
as a subjective experience of truth integrated into life, such that if you
don’t live something out you don’t really know it. He talked about how we need
both of these ideas of knowing, and how the Bible includes both. In fact, the
Old Testament is all about Jewish knowing – a people group living out the
principles and truths of God – while the New Testament is more concerned with
Greek knowing – a philosophical understanding of God and salvation. So when we
read that we cannot know God unless we love people, it becomes much easier to
understand when we realize that John is coming from a Jewish perspective of
knowing.
Anyway, the main point here is that the one message that we all have to get is to love, both God
and our neighbor. In fact, every problem in the world today comes from a
problem with not loving. So we can make the Bible really, really simple: There
is one message, which is to love one another, and there is one problem in the
entire world, which is relationship. And so, what is the one thing we all need
to be good at? Relating to other people. Because if we can’t relate well to
others, we are part of the problem. In fact, Jesus pretty much said that the
key to the entire world knowing Him is for his people to love one another and
be completely united with God and each other (see John 13:35 and John
17:21-23). Unfortunately, this seems to be the thing the church has the most
trouble with…
In the next session, Dean went on to define what love is, using 1 John
3:16 as a foundation. “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us,
and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” And that makes it pretty
clear. Love is defined by Christ laying down his life for us: Love is defined by the cross. Specifically,
the cross means death to selfishness, service to others, and humbling ourselves
(Romans 12:3 – pride is the biggest relationship problem). In fact, if we are
both in humility, it is impossible not to get along. We have to deny self and
be crucified with Christ, but after the cross comes resurrection!
Besides defining love by the cross, Dean defined love in a few other
ways:
- Love is defined by the Truth. If I don’t do and say the truth, my love is baloney. People don’t expect us to be perfect, but when we don’t live by the truth, we have to be open, say sorry, and repent.
- Love is defined as choosing the best and highest. Love is not a feeling, it is a choice to honor another person by doing what is best and highest for them.
- Love is defined as choosing what is appropriate. Here is way to approach life without legalism. Before any action, ask: Is it the loving thing to do here and now? Is it the highest and best?? Is this the best time, best tone of voice, best attitude, etc.? We don’t have to define everything as being right or wrong, we just have ask whether it is loving.
OK, well that’s just two of the sessions, so I’m going to have to
shorten this up a lot because I don’t want to write a novel here. So here’s
session three, titled “Understanding Value”:
- Relationships are necessary because people have value. Relate to people according to value, not behavior. Fortunately, this is what God did to us. We were still sinning when Jesus came to save us (Romans 5:8). Shouldn’t we still choose the highest and best for others even if they are behaving badly? Shouldn’t we forgive people while they are “yet sinning”?
- Relationships are possible. Jesus came to restore relationships, and he did! We have been brought near to God, and he has removed the enmity between people (Ephesians 2:13-14). God already did everything.
- God’s value system: I = you, you = me.
From there, Dean moved on to begin to talk more about relationships
with the opposite sex. He explained why it was so important to talk about this:
- This is the biggest emotional impact in our society.
- We have a problem (note the prevalence of divorce, adultery, fornication…).
He went on to explain that God thought up and created two sexes, along
with attraction, sexuality, hormones, etc. – and he said it was good. We have
such a problem with these things not because sex is a problem, but because
selfishness is. He also tackled identity problems that we all have, asserting
that we are each 100% male or 100% female, no matter what social type casts or
media images may tell us about ourselves.
I’m still writing too much, so here’s everything else in bullet points:
- God gave everyone an attraction gifts within our personality and we need to realize we have it and how it works.
- Romantic attraction can be and must be controlled by your choice, based on truth and God’s direction.
- God has REASONS for every command that He gave. The boundaries He placed around romantic relationships are logical, loving limits. God has never said, “Because I said so.”
- 1 Corinthians 6:12-20. You can’t touch body without touching spirit (where Jesus dwells). Sex is never just a physical thing – it is the intermingling of body, soul, and spirit.
- Why is sex outside of marriage wrong? Because it damages you! There is a lack of commitment, you are unprotected from the Enemy, it destroys an amount of intimacy, and it can put a negative weight on your future marriage. Reasons.
- When authority fails you and/or you rebel, that’s when we go for sin and indulge in fleshly desires. If this is the case, we need to forgive the authorities that failed us and submit to the authority of God. We can reparent, with God as father and the church as our accountability/mother.
- We have to have a relationship philosophy, or we are just set up for failure and hurt. For you unmarried types, here’s Dean’s relationship philosophy:
- Get your motives right
- Avoid the Dating Syndrome (dating for the sake of dating)
- Give up your rights to sex and marriage. If we give it up as a right, God will give it back as a wonderful privilege (which he delights to do).
- Take time to develop non-romantic relationships!
- Determine to please God with your relationships.
- Get your life free and straight (don’t bring someone else in when there’s still all kinds of sin in your life).
- Develop personality more than dateability.
- The progression to go through in approaching a romantic relationship:
- Admit in honesty that it is romantic.
- Seek God.
- Make Jesus the Lord off your emotions.
- Communicate to an objective (not emotionally involved) person!
- THEN, Communicate to partner – right timing, unselfishly (do not shock or manipulate), continually
- If there is sexual sin or wounds in your past, the cross is capable of making you 100% new, cleansed, and free! The past is left at the cross.
So there's 11 hours worth of teaching boiled down into about 1,400 words. Hopefully you learned something new!
Love one another, (that's all!)
Dan
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