New Hope CE, May 2006
William Gaultiere, Ph.D.
Intro
I have two different classes prepared. We can discuss “How
to Overcome Negatives with Positives” or we could discuss “How
to Overcome Positives with Negatives.” Which do you prefer?
We serve in a ministry of the church that is known as the Possibility
Thinking capital of the world. But do we really understand Dr.
Schuller’s message? Are we practicing it in our ministry
as New Hope Counselors?
Each of us must face negative situations every day. Problems
at work. Problems at home. Too much to do and not enough time
to do it. Or not enough to do and too much time to do it! Disappointments.
Health challenges. Traffic on the freeway. Solicitors at our
door. Junk mail. Telemarketers. Spam in our e-mail. We all have
stresses to deal with. How do we learn to see the silver lining
in the dark clouds?
Failures. Criticisms. Rejections. Doubts. Injustice. Anger.
Sin. We’re all sinned against by others and we all sin.
How do we overcome evil with good?
And in our New Hope ministry we face challenges. You answer
the phone or respond in the chat room, “Hello, New Hope.
What do you need help with today?” And you never know what’s
on the other end of the line, but you’re likely to be challenged
by temptations to give into:
- Feeling inadequate to help someone in crisis
- Hesitancy to open your heart and be yourself
- Complaining about people who are stuck or difficult
- Resentment about being unappreciated
- Irritation at those who mistreat you
We’re going to discuss how in each difficult situation
like this at New Hope and in life we can learn to overcome negatives
with a positive (Romans 12:21) by trusting in Jesus to help us
to think and respond with him.
First, let me just point out that although there are challenges
in being a New Hope Counselor, participating in our ministry
is itself a positive that can help you overcome many negatives
in life.
- You’re learning new things, which stimulates your mind
and keeps you young.
- You’re making connections with people, which adds meaning
to your life.
- You’re meeting with God and doing his work, which blesses
you in every way.
Scientific research supports the power of volunteering as a
New Hope Counselor.
You didn’t know that we’ve had scientists in white
coats observing our ministry to collect and analyze data?
Dr. Robert Putnam reported on his research in his book Bowling
Alone that "Joining one group cuts in half your odds of
dying next year." Just belonging to one group benefits your
health. So by participating in New Hope you’re increasing
your life expectancy!
One of the most thorough research projects ever done on relationships
was the Almeda County Study, which was headed up by a Harvard
social scientist. This study tracked 7,000 people over nine years,
and found that relationally isolated people were three times
more likely to die than those who had healthy, meaningful relationships.
They found that people with bad health habits (e.g. smoking,
poor eating habits, obesity and alcohol), but had strong social
ties live significantly longer than people who had great health
habits but were relationally isolated.
Based on this study, John Ortburg, author and pastor, concluded
that it’s better for your health to eat twinkies with a
friend than to eat broccoli alone!
And a scientist named Cohen published a study in the American
Medical Association in which 276 people were infected with the
common cold virus – how would you like to volunteer for
that one? – and those with strong emotional bonds were
significantly less susceptible to getting sick than others who
were isolated. The socially connected were found to produce dramatically
less mucous – yes, less mucous.
This proves that unfriendly people are snotty!
Overcome Negatives with Positives
We have all sorts of ineffective ways for dealing with sin and
stress. We feel bad. We project and blame others. We try to be
perfect. We expect others to be perfect. We idealize ourselves.
We idealize others. We run from it in compulsive behaviors. These
are all ways that we deny – rather than accept and
deal with – the reality that goodness and badness are both
a part of ourselves, others, and the world we live in.
Today I want to talk with you about learning with God’s
help to overcome evil with good. In Romans 12:21 Paul says: “Do
not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans
12:21).
Specifically, I want to bring out five of the ways that Paul
teaches us to overcome evil with good in Romans 12:
- Rely on God’s grace as your confidence (overcome inadequacy
with grace)
- Use your gifts to help others in the body of Christ (overcome
fear with love)
- Be grateful – even in difficulty (overcome complaining
with gratitude)
- When you’re wronged forgive, entrust your anger to
God (overcome resentment with forgiveness)
- Bless those who persecute you; don’t repay evil for
evil (overcome mistreatment with offering blessings)
These are real challenges for us! I think each of us struggle
with one or more of these areas. Let’s pray and ask Jesus
to help us to learn from him…
Overcome Inadequacy with Grace
Maybe you feel inadequate to help certain types of people, especially
those in crisis. But your effectiveness as a New Hope Counselor
depends not so much on your skills or knowledge as it does on
your heart connection to God. Seemingly every person in the Bible
that God called to serve him felt inadequate and had to learn
to rely on God’s assistance and strength.
Romans 12 begins with Paul saying: “In view of God’s
mercy.”
Many people have trouble receiving, internalizing, metabolizing,
and relying upon God’s goodness. Maybe you’re one
of them. When you look in the mirror you feel bad. This hurts
you and others. For God’s grace to flow freely through
you to others it has to get in you.
If this is you then probably your feelings of shame have a long
history. Maybe you were abused or neglected as a child. Maybe
you grew up in an alcoholic home. Maybe you felt that your parents
weren’t pleased with you no matter how hard you tried to
do good. Maybe you’ve just felt lost in this world, like
nobody really understands you.
Or maybe your shame is tied to sinful things you’ve done.
Ways that you’ve violated God and others and your own self.
If you feel bad about yourself you need to learn to open your
heart to God’s mercy and grace, to see yourself as he does:
forgiven, loved, being transformed. In other words, God’s
goodness needs to overcome the badness inside you.
David, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in Psalm 16
said,
“As for the saints who are in the land they are the glorious
ones in whom is all my delight.”
The Apostle Paul said the same thing: As you trust in Christ
you are a GLORIOUS ONE. You’re created in God’s image.
Yes, you’ve sinned, but you’ve been forgiven and
Christ is at work transforming you with ever increasing glory:
“And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's
glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing
glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2
Corinthians 3:18).
Do you believe this? I don’t think you do! I want you
to listen to Jesus’ words: “You are the light
of the world…” (Matthew 5:14). YOU are the light
of the world. Yes, YOU.
I know you’re thinking, “Jesus is the light of the
world.” Yes, he is, but he’s also given his light
to you to shine through you. If you don’t shine your light
in your world where you are then it’ll be dark in that
place. Other people who need God’s light through you will
miss out.
So turn to the person next to you and say, “You are
the light of the world!”
We all need to receive God’s grace – his kindness
to us and his affirmations of his goodness in us – through
one another as Christ’s Ambassadors. This helps us to discern
and trust in his grace as it’s revealed to us through his
Word, the sacraments, spiritual disciplines, and nature.
When you go home tonight I want you to practice this. Look in
the mirror. Smile. And say out loud Jesus’ words to yourself: “You
are the light of the world!”
For some of you this will be really hard. You’ll laugh.
You’ll feel awkward. Maybe you’ll cry. You need to
practice this. Meditate on God’s grace to you. Memorize
and pray over Scriptures. Get with grace-giving friends and take
risks of trust and work at internalizing his goodness.
Overcome Fear with Sharing your Gifts
In Romans 12 Paul reminds us that each one of us has a gift
for the body of Christ, something good to offer to other people.
“We have different gifts according to the grace given
us” (Romans 12:6).
He goes on to identify seven “Service Gifts” needed
in the church: Prophecy (Truth-telling), Serving, Teaching, Encouraging,
Contributing Financially, Leading, Mercy/Compassion. And he encourages
us to use our gifts by loving one another in a variety of ways.
Each of the last three years I’ve led a spiritual formation
group with some New Hope Counselors called “Christ’s
Ambassadors Spiritual Growth Group.” It’s for a small
group of people who want more than anything to grow to be more
like Jesus. We meet weekly for ten months to practice spiritual
disciplines, share our stories, and pray for one another. My
inspiration and guidance for this group is having gone through
Ray Ortlund’s discipleship group. I tell people that the
Christ’s Ambassadors Group is not a Bible study, though
we’ll study Scripture. And it’s not a support group,
though we’ll pray for one another. It’s a spiritual
growth group: we share our relationship with God with one another.
One of my favorite parts of the Christ’s Ambassadors group
is helping members to come to appreciate the SHAPE that God has
made them in and to see them expand in using their unique SHAPE
in ministry. So many of us are afraid or hesitant to extend ourselves
to others – especially in spiritual things. We tend to
keep our relationship with God private and feel awkward talking
about it or praying out loud with others.
In our Christ’s Ambassadors small group we overcome those
hesitations and fears as we share our spiritual stories and pray
for one another. Group members learn that God has given them
a sacred story, a unique voice, a special song to sing and they
gain confidence in doing that with one another and others. And
they learn how to share the gift of spiritual hospitality by
inviting others into God’s presence with them (Romans 12:13).
In other words to help someone spiritually you don’t need
to preach at them! You listen. You offer care in Jesus’ name.
You ask questions that make people thirsty for God’s loving
presence. You let people see how much you love Jesus.
(In September of 2006 I may start a new Christ’s Ambassadors
Group with five or six New Hope Counselors. If you’re interested
in an in-person local group or an e-mail and teleconference group
please let me know soon.)
Overcome Complaining with Gratitude
Another way that we need to overcome negativity with positivity
is in the area of complaining. Paul teaches us in Romans 12:
“Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor,
serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful
in prayer” (Romans 12:11-12).
These are challenging words for us as New Hope Counselors. We
volunteer our time and offer our hearts, but no matter how much
we give some people just don’t appreciate us. It seems
so unfair. Every caller and chatter should appreciate us and
bless us for the care we freely give.
We need to look at our expectations. Most of us in our culture
today have a problem with entitlement. We’re a self-absorbed
generation. Even in the church. We expect God to make our lives
go like we want. Sometimes we treat God like our bellboy: “Get
me this… Do that… Fix this for me…” God
is patient with us. And he wants to bless us, no doubt, but the
best blessing he could give us is himself. If only we could see
how good God is and trust him!
If we’d get just a glimpse of what a beautiful person
Jesus is, if we’d savor just a taste of his sweet words
of love, then we’d be so satisfied that we wouldn’t
complain about our disappointments and injustices.
Dallas Willard through his books and seminars has been a mentor
to me. One of the things I’ve learned from his is to “Abandon
outcomes to the Lord.”
What this means is that in life I do my best and then leave
the results to him. In the morning I pray,
“Dear God, you are sovereign. You are Lord of all and
I want you to be my Lord. I ask you to ordain all the events
of my day. Let everything that happens to me pass through your
hands. Use each situation I encounter today to teach me to become
more like Jesus – to think your heavenly thoughts, to desire
what you desire, to say and do what you’re saying and doing.”
Then as I go about my day I look to accept disappointments,
rejections, failures, frustrations as opportunities to learn
from God. Instead of complaining or stressing out to get people
to do what I want or to get situations to turn out like I want
I work at listening to what God is teaching me and to pray. Then
I move forward doing my “response-able” best as God
leads and strengthens me.
Recently I came across the soul-stirring old hymn Close to
Thee by Fanny Crosby. It’s one of more than 8,000
hymns that she wrote in the mid 1800’s. Her life story
and the inspiring faith in Christ she expressed in her hymns
is a powerful example. She experienced many bad things, but
instead of complaining or becoming embittered she was grateful
for God’s goodness to her.
Fanny Crosby became blind at six weeks old when a doctor, filling
in for her family doctor, destroyed her eyesight by wrongly treating
the inflammation in her eyes due to a slight cold with hot poultices.
Upon learning that his treatment blinded little Fanny he skipped
town.
And yet, near the end of her life Fanny wrote in her Memories
of Eighty Years:
“I have not for a moment, in more than eighty-five years,
felt a spark of resentment against [the doctor]; for I have always
believed that the good Lord, in His infinite mercy, by this means
consecrated me to the work that I am still permitted to do. When
I remember how I have been blessed, how can I repine?”
Fanny was blind, but she learned to see with her heart! She
was mistreated, but she forgave. She also suffered tragic losses
like the death of her father when she was one year old and not
being able to go to school with other children, but even in grief
she learned to rejoice greatly in God’s goodness to her.
She said,
“Darkness may throw a shadow over my outer vision, but
there is not a cloud that can keep the sunlight of hope from
a trustful soul.”
Fanny’s story and her words to her hymn Close to Thee so
inspired me that I have been memorizing this hymn and praying
through it again and again. As I did it was like Fanny became
my spiritual friend and her faith in Christ was formed in my
own heart such that more and more I wanted the one thing that
delighted her soul: to walk close to Jesus. What else matters?
I invite you to pray with me Fanny’s hymn, Close to
Thee. Your heart will see God and sing!
Thou, my everlasting portion, more than friend or life to me,
All along my pilgrim journey, Saviour, let me walk with Thee.
Close to Thee, close to Thee, close to Thee, close to Thee;
All along my pilgrim journey, Saviour, let me walk with Thee.
Not for ease or worldly pleasure, nor for fame my prayer shall
be;
Gladly will I toil and suffer, only let me walk with Thee.
Close to Thee, close to Thee, close to Thee, close to Thee;
Gladly will I toil and suffer, only let me walk with Thee.
Lead me thro' the vale of shadows, bear me o'er life's fitful
sea;
Then the gate of life eternal may I enter, Lord, with Thee.
Close to Thee, close to Thee, close to Thee, close to Thee;
Then the gate of life eternal may I enter, Lord, with Thee.
Jesus became Fanny’s “everlasting portion.” Like
David who prayed to the Lord, “Your love is better than
life” (Psalm 63:3), Fanny prayed, “You are
more than friend or life to me.” She wanted to keep
Jesus before her mind and in her heart each step of her pilgrim
journey. For her the comforts, pleasures, and applause of this
world meant nothing. Hard work and suffering were of little consequence.
She just wanted to be close to Jesus – always!
Do you want a closer relationship with Jesus like this? Do you
want to keep his goodness before your mind continually? I do!
Let’s pray and let our souls sing with Fanny:
“Jesus you are my everlasting portion, more than friend
or life to me. Day-by-day, step-by-step I want to walk close
to Thee. Lord, I don’t ask for an easy life, worldly pleasures,
or people to be impressed with me. In all my work and in all
my painful trials all I ask is that you let me walk close to
Thee. You alone get me through dark valleys and over stormy seas.
You alone can open the gate of life. I praise you Jesus! I love
you!”
Gratitude for God like Fanny Crosby’s will always overcome
complaining.
Overcome Resentment with Forgiveness
Forgiveness is a huge issue for overcoming evil with good. Really
it’s the main issue. Receiving forgiveness for our sins
and forgiving others who sin against us. The two go together.
You can’t do one without the other. Jesus teaches this
right after giving us the Lord’s Prayer as a pattern for
how to pray:
“If you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly
Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their
sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew
6:14-15).
In Romans 12:17-19 Paul teaches us:
“Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what
is right… Live at peace with everyone… Leave room
for God's wrath” (Romans 12:17-19).
Let’s consider what this kind of forgiveness looks like.
Have you seen the movie “End of Spear”? Let me tell
you the story behind the movie.
In January of 1956 Jim Elliot and four of his friends, including
Nate Saint, left their families in America went on a mission
to share the gospel of Jesus with the Aucas, a remote and savage
tribe in the Amazon jungles of Ecuador. They had learned the
Aucas’ language from one of the tribe’s woman who
had been exiled in order to befriend and share Jesus’ love
with the most violent social group in modern history. All five
young missionaries were brutally stabbed to death with spears
and their bodies were thrown into a river.
To the world that read about what happened in a ten-page feature
article in Life magazine it seemed like such a tragic, nonsensical
waste of five lives. But such people don’t understand a
heart like Jim Elliot’s who wrote in his prayer journal
before he left for his mission in the Amazon:
“God, I pray thee, light these idle sticks of my life
and may I burn for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine.
I seek not a long life, but a full one, like you, Lord Jesus.”
Martyred at just 29-years of age, Jim Elliot and his friends
left behind a legacy of countless hearts set ablaze for Jesus.
A whole generation of Christian missionaries headed off to foreign
fields, saying with the slain Elliot,
“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what
he cannot lose.”
But the harvest from these five precious kernels of wheat that
fell to the ground and died for Jesus doesn’t stop there – it
yielded many more seeds of life. Less than two years later, Jim
Elliot’s widow, Elizabeth, along with the sister of Nate
Saint, Rachel Saint, went to the Aucas to extend the forgiveness
of Jesus Christ to the men who killed their family members.
As a result, the Aucas, meaning “naked savages,” were
so transformed that they became known as the Waodani, meaning “true
people!” And today the Waodani have the New Testament
in their language and one-fourth of the tribe has put their trust
in Jesus as their Lord and Savior, including seven of the nine
who speared to death Jim Elliot and his friends! Rachel Saint
and the son of her martyred brother, Steve, lived peacefully
with the Waodani for over four decades. As a teenager, Steve,
and his sister were baptized by two of the killers in the same
river where their father’s body had been discarded. The
ripples in the water from this baptism showed that God’s
forgiveness had come full circle.
This is a true story. And it’s a story that’s being
replayed in one way or another by Christians everyday. For instance,
I helped a woman I’ll call Kari. Kari was verbally and
emotionally abused by her mother and she’d been sexually
abused by her uncle and other men. She was depressed and resentful.
And she kept getting into abusive relationships with men.
Of course, being in psychotherapy with a male therapist put
her trust issues front and center to work through. She had many
issues she dealt with but the one I want to tell you about is
how she learned to forgive her mother.
She told her story to me. She cried and cried. She trembled
and hid underneath the blanket on my couch. She screamed and
cried some more. We put her mother in the empty chair in my office
and she confronted her. Then she started writing letters to her
mother that she didn’t send. Then she brought her mother
into my office and “spoke the truth in love to her.” And
she forgave her mother.
Then she decided that she wanted to reconcile with her
mother – even though her mother was sometimes critical
and judgmental. But Kari had progressed in her emotional healing
and developed stronger boundaries. And she was learning to guard
her heart with her mother, to resist expecting her mom to be
motherly, but to see her as she was: someone who could be harsh
and controlling sometimes. Kari wanted to renew contact with
her to honor her as her mother and for her kids to have contact
with their grandmother.
She needed support from me and her friends and a lot of prayer,
but this is what she did. When her mother died she had no regrets.
She learned to love her as Jesus would have if he was Kari. God’s
forgiveness completely overcame her resentment.
Overcome Mistreatment with Blessing
In his Great Commission Jesus said,
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to
me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded
you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the
age” (Matthew 28:18b-20, NIV).
Jesus commissioned us to make disciples to him. To be
Jesus’ disciple is to be his apprentice in all of life.
It’s to be baptized or immersed in Trinitarian living.
It’s to learn to obey everything that Jesus taught us to
do.
Here are some of Jesus’ teachings:
“If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two
miles… Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute
you… Give to the one who asks you” (Matthew 5:42,
44, 48, NIV) and “Bless those who curse you” (Luke
6:28, NIV).
These seem like hard teachings to us. Let’s focus on “Bless
those who curse you.” Paul says similar words in Romans
12:14:
“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse” (Romans
12:14).
When was the last time you heard a sermon on blessing those
who curse you? We need to be taught how to obey Jesus like this.
He showed us how to live this way and we can learn to follow
his example by relying on his Spirit and strength.
Blessing those who curse us is an important way of learning
to overcome evil with good. It’s related to forgiveness
and it’s a very practical issue that we encounter routinely.
We can practice this. We can learn to rely on Jesus and his grace
to overflow through us even when we’re mistreated.
This week you’ll probably be criticized or mistreated
by someone you love. No doubt you’ll be slighted or offended
by someone you encounter whether in line at the grocery store
or while at work.
Or how about on your shifts at New Hope? Sometimes you get a
bad call that gives you a chance to practice blessing someone
who curses you.
A couple of years ago God led me to start practicing this with
his help. He convicted me for the angry reactions that rose up
within me when I was driving and other drivers cut me off or
rode my rear bumper. I’d mutter under my breath, “Hey!
I was here first!” or “What’s the matter
with you? You could hurt someone!” Sometimes I even
honked my horn or sped ahead and glared at the other driver!
I shake my head at myself now, especially since sometimes these
angry reactions were interrupting a time I was setting aside
for prayer or meditation. I was letting rude or reckless strangers
disrupt my silence and solitude with God. And I was getting drawn
into my own rude and reckless behavior!
I decided to treat getting into my car like going to God’s
gym for a forgiveness work out. As Jesus has said to his disciples
in the garden, my spirit was willing (that’s why I was
praying to God or listening to Christian teaching CD’s
while driving) but my flesh was weak so I needed to “watch
and pray” with Jesus so that I didn’t fall into sin.
“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.
The spirit is willing, but the [flesh] is weak” (Matthew
26:41).
I needed to anticipate my vulnerability to angry reactions on
the road and to prepare myself for the inevitable temptations
that would come by putting my trust Jesus. My plan was that whenever
a driver cut me off or irritated me in some way I would simply
pray, “Hallowed by Thy name. Father, you are so precious
to me.” Over time as I learned to respond to offensive
drivers by worshiping the Lord and appreciating his goodness
to me with this simple prayer I found that I loosened my grip
on my steering wheel and stayed in God’s peace. Much to
my surprise, I started noticing drivers who were in a hurry or
inconsiderate and I slowed down to let them cut in front of me
as I prayed, “Father, this man can go first. I’m
happy to go last with Jesus. Please watch over this man and bring
him safely home to his family.” Jesus had taken a hold
of the steering wheel! Lord, help me not to grab it back and
get impatient and irritated with other drivers!
Practicing this daily discipline of blessing those who cursed
me on the freeway has helped me to share God’s mercy and
grace in other situations. Trusting God and dying to self in
this small trial day-by-day has empowered me to trust him and
grow in his life in other and larger challenges I’ve faced.
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