I've Got a New Attitude pt. 5

Paul Sheppard: We often set ourselves up for disappointment because of these false assumptions. And so you have to make up in your mind in a marriage relationship you're going to quit focusing on false assumptions and get recalibrated to the real circumstance.
Guest (Male): They say men are from Mars and women are from Venus, but they meet and marry right here on Earth. Hello and thanks for stopping by for today's Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Sheppard. Have you ever noticed that the people who let you down most are often the ones who love you best? The parents, your children, your spouse. Part of the reason is that we often place unrealistic expectations on them. Today you'll get some biblical advice about how to have a loving, healthy marriage even if you sometimes let one another down. Be sure to visit our website, pastorpaul.net. That's where you can listen to any recent message on demand, including today's, pastorpaul.net. This Destined for Victory message is called I've Got a New Attitude and it starts right now.
Paul Sheppard: Romans chapter 12, verses one and two. Paul says this, "Therefore I urge you brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good, pleasing, and perfect will." We have covered a lot of ground so far in this series as we have looked at the fact that God wants to make us new creations in Him. Second Corinthians 5:17 declares if anyone be in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed, the new has come. And we've been looking at the question of how do we become new experientially? We know that we are new instantaneously when we come to Christ, that is, He gives us a new identity. But how do we live out that identity and really experience being new, a new kind of person in Christ? And as we've explored that, we have covered a lot of ground. Currently, we're looking at God's desire to make us new in the way we deal with our challenged and broken relationships because if your relationships aren't working, then your life is not going to express the renewal that God has in mind for all of us. So we've been looking at how God will in fact teach us to think differently and have a renewed mind about challenged and broken relationships. And to do that, we are currently in Second Timothy chapter four. I'd like you to go there with me again as we're learning from the Apostle Paul what that new attitude about relationships really looks like. And he has identified for us the fact that there are some people in our lives who I have called deserters. That's the word he uses in Second Timothy 4 and verse 10. He's telling Timothy in verse nine, come to me quickly, do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas, who because he loved this world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. All of us as we walk with Christ are going to deal with people who desert us, who leave us high and dry, who do not follow through on the role that they ought to be playing in our lives. And many of us have already experienced it. If you haven't, you will experience it. Some people will come short of what they ought to be doing in your life. Paul said Demas, who was a faithful supporter of his for some years, has now flat out deserted him. And we talk very practically about how to deal with our deserters according to this renewed mind. Now currently, we're looking at a second category of people, and those people are disappointers. They are represented in this text by Crescens and Titus. Paul says they're not with me because they are in other cities. Now, they were serving the Lord, Paul knew where they were, unlike Demas who had just gotten lost and doing his own thing because he loved this present world. These brothers, Crescens and Titus, he knew what they were doing, but they are disappointers. Disappointers are people who love us. We know they love us. We know that they care about us, and they would never intentionally do harm to us. But disappointers are people who although you love them and they love you, and although there are times that they've really come through for you, they are also people who because of other commitments or preoccupations or an inability to empathize and understand where you really are, sometimes the people who love you don't come through for you. And what we have to learn to do is to understand that God doesn't want us to throw these people out of our lives. If you get into the habit of throwing out of your life everybody who disappoints you, sooner or later you're going to be by yourself. Because there are some people who although they love you, they are definitely going to disappoint you. You ought to understand that people who love you are going to disappoint you because you disappoint yourself sometimes. Now, if the person in the mirror disappoints you, then you can know the other people will not always come through for you. And in the last message, I began making this point, and I said there are folks who really do believe that old song: If you need me, call me, no matter where you are, no matter how far. Just call my name, I'll be there in a hurry, on that you can depend, and never worry. No wind, no rain, no winter storm, no winter's cold can stop me, baby, if you're my goal. Ain't no mountain high enough, ain't no river wide enough, ain't no valley low enough to keep me from getting to you. That's a disappointer's song. Because Diana and everybody else who sang it meant it when they sang it. But try being on the other side of the river, and you will find that your disappointers, although they love you, they are not swimming that river to get to you. That's a song. They will text you from the other side of the river and say I love you, but I can't come, you be strong though. And Paul shows us here he doesn't have an attitude with Crescens and Titus. He's disappointed, but he understands they love him. He understands they just got other things. There are people who love you, and you've got to realize and remind yourself they love me, but they can't always come through for me. They have a limited ability to meet me at the point of my needs. Not only are they sometimes physically unavailable to you, but haven't you had the experience of having a disappointer right there with you? They love you, but they still can't be where you are in your mental and emotional place. They're looking at you, but can't identify. You ever talk to somebody and you're trying to pour out your heart, and they just looking at you? They want to understand, they want to be there, but they got other things. They can't connect with that. I don't get it. I love you, but I don't get it. And God wants us to understand that we are to accept and appreciate our disappointers for who they are and despite who they are not. Don't throw folks out who love you, who are acting, generally speaking, in your best interest, just because they can't always come through for you. And disappointers, Paul had them. Everybody who walks with the Lord is going to have them. Back in the Old Testament, Joseph had a disappointer. After all that he went through personally, being betrayed by his brothers, then being seduced or attempted seduction by Potiphar's wife, ended up in jail for years for a crime he didn't commit. And while he's in jail, having gone through all of this, he befriends a couple of the king's servants who were thrown in jail because they made the king mad. One of the servants was the king's butler or valet, and he had a dream one night. And Joseph interpreted the dream because the Lord was with Joseph. Gave him the interpretation of the dream. And the interpretation of the butler's dream was that in three days your job is going to be restored to you. And then Joseph just had a reasonable expectation of him. He said now that I've blessed you and now that I've encouraged you and let you know that God is going to give you your job back, when you get back into the presence of the Pharaoh, would you please remember me to the Pharaoh? Would you please explain to him that I am a young man of God and that I am in jail on false charges and do what you can to get me out of here? Reasonable request. The reason why sometimes we're challenged in dealing with disappointers is because we know what we're asking of them is reasonable. But just because it's reasonable doesn't mean they are able to come through for you 100 percent of the time. That was a reasonable request, but the man was human. So human that when he got his job back, he was so excited that the king's not mad anymore that he forgot all about Joseph. That's one of the saddest verses in your Bible, where at the end of Genesis chapter 40, it says the butler, however, forgot about Joseph. Have you ever helped folk and blessed folk and done all you can for them? And just when you need them to do one thing for you, they show up surprisingly human and incapable of meeting your need of that moment? That's what happened with Joseph. But he had to keep bitterness out of his heart because God still was going to be at work in his life even though the man forgot him. And you need to know that about your life. Despite the fact that the people who love you don't always come through for you, the Lord is with you. He is the one who began a good work and He will bring it to completion. So stop trying to change your disappointers. Stop trying to beat your disappointers into perfection. This is a word for somebody. Stop trying to beat them and shape them into perfection so that you can have a happy life. Because God is not going to let any individual be responsible for your ultimate happiness. He gave you His spirit who is responsible for cultivating joy. And joy is different than happiness because happiness depends on what happens. And because your life is not going to be perfect circumstantially and your friends and disappointers will not always be there in every way that you wish they were, you stand no chance of having permanent happiness. You're going to have those moments where people just don't come through for you. And we have to learn to quit beating up our disappointers and trying to beat them into shape. Our marriages in the Kingdom of God would be stronger if we learned that we married a human being. You didn't marry God's answer to your every imperfection. You married a human being. And so hopefully they love you, hopefully they're committed, hopefully they're trying to live out that commitment. That's what we owe one another in the Kingdom of God as spouses. But ultimately, you've got to give them some rope and you've got to understand they can't be everything you need. They're not even everything they need. They're growing, they're learning, they're striving. And so we have to give one another permission. See, a lot of us, I've said it many times before, but it bears repeating because I want you to get this disappointers point. A lot of us married with false assumptions to begin with. A lot of women married men thinking he will change. And a lot of men married women thinking she won't change. Let me unpack this for you real quick. A lot of women married men as a project. He didn't know he was a project in your mind. He thought he was the bomb because you were good at stroking his ego, making him feel all special, called him up in the middle of the day just thinking about you, boo, how you doing? And he think he the man, he walking around his job, man, that's my girl calling me, she jocking me all the time. He think he the man, and he doesn't know he's a project. Because in your mind you say he has some potential, I like some things about him, so I think I'm going to go ahead and marry him and then I'll change him along the way. And sister girl, I got a word from the Lord for you. And that word is the Lord did not determine in eternity past when He saved you by His grace that He was going to give you the power to change a person's life. He said that power will reside with Me. I will use people in the process to be a positive example and all of that, but ultimately no individual can be the change agent in the life of another individual. And so, but you didn't understand that. So you married him as a project and now here you are totally frustrated because years later, in some cases I've even seen it months later, you are thoroughly through and frustrated because your project is behind schedule and over budget. And you are mad. And then some of you make it worse because then you go about the business of trying to force the change that you want. And you do it through a number of means. Some people manipulate with their attitude and try to manipulate change with your attitude. Some people try to talk change and just quarrel change and nag change and if I fuss long enough he'll hear me. And you don't understand your man. Let me help you understand him. God made you emotionally wired in a different way than a man. And it can be a blessing, but it can also be a challenge. And you don't understand that nagging and quarreling and all of that doesn't motivate him to change. It motivates him to hit his switch. Men have an internal switch. Women have never seen it, but let me expose it for you for a moment. There is an internal switch within every man and he can only take so much nagging and quarreling. He had to put up with it with his mother. He didn't have any choice. He was in her house. She got to say it and say it as loud and long as she wanted to say it. He was a captive. Now he is an adult. He doesn't need another mama. You say, well he wasn't raised right. Too late. Too late. God did not call you to re-raise your husband. And so he now has an on-off switch. And you think it's still a conversation. And you don't know that five minutes ago he said click. He can still be looking at you. He can still be saying, uh-huh. But he is gone. My man is somewhere, his mind is somewhere, God knows where. And so you've got to understand that you started out with a false assumption and it led you down the road of disappointment. It happened for men too. Men often marry thinking women won't change and all that focused attention and all of that. You don't understand that she did love you, she did care about you, and still does. And hopefully she has not lost all sensitivity to your needs. But the fact of the matter is as she moves through life, she's going to move through seasons of change. It is perfectly normal, don't try to say something's wrong with it. No, people change as they live their lives and go through seasons. And a woman has seasons of change in her life. And so when she was in the season where she could dedicate all of her time and focus to you, she gladly did it. Now that you're married, she starts nesting and getting focused on security and long-term and I want to get our lives together. We're in this for the long haul, let's prioritize things. And she wants you to stop spending money frivolously and let's get focused on our future and what have you. And you got to delay gratification and you got to prepare and plan and all of that and you're starting to feel like, oh man, I can't just do what I want. No, she's trying to really bless you all by securing your future, but it's frustrating you. And then the children come, and you see this child come into her life and she is such a wonderful and focused mother and all that little special dedicated attention and all that charm and everything that you used to get, now you see that you have to share that. And sometimes the kid gets the lion's share of it. And you come in from work and all of that loving is going to some kid who doesn't even have a job. And you are frustrated. What in the world is going on? I didn't marry to be ignored. You didn't understand. She loves you, but some things have changed. And because you thought you married a fantasy and now you're living in the real world, you're walking down the road of disappointment. Because if you had talked to me, I'd have told you ahead of time, life is not going to be a dream, a fantasy. And you've got to learn to reorient and recalibrate. You live in the real world and God wants to bless you in the real world. But if you're not careful, it'll stir deep feelings of resentment because you thought you married a fantasy and you married a woman who is bound to go through seasons of change which, if you cooperate, will bless you in the long run. But you've got to understand that things aren't going to be the way they always were. And so we often set ourselves up for disappointment because of these false assumptions. And so you have to make up in your mind in a marriage relationship you're going to quit focusing on false assumptions and get recalibrated to the real circumstance. Ladies, make up in your mind I'm going to stop trying to re-mother my husband. I'm going to stop nagging him. I'm going to let God give me a renewed mind and try to give him positive affirmation and love and acceptance and pray that the Lord will help Him to grow and to change in some ways that will bless me. But I'm going to stop nagging. I'm going to read the Bible. I'm going to read Proverbs 27:15 that says a quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day. Right in your Bible, don't say, well what translation is that? You can read any translation you want. Thank you. They put it up on the screen for me. Thank you, thank you. Told you it was in the Bible. And so what you've got to do is understand that's not my method. You guys have got to quit being angry, thinking anger is going to motivate your wife to change. Come in the house barking. Tired of this now, I'm sick of things being the way they are, I want some change around here. Let me give you a word from the Lord, brother. Barking and fussing and being angry with your wife is not going to motivate her to change in the ways you want. Let me give you another word. She ain't scared of you.