Kerry Shook - Fight For Connection
Kerry Shook: Yeah. We're ready to rumble. Yeah. Chris and I are in the boxing ring because we're in this series we're calling "Fighting Fair," and conflict is inevitable in every close relationship. Whether it's a business partnership, a relationship with a coworker, a friend, a dating relationship, marriage, or family, conflict is inevitable. But it's how you handle the conflict, it's how you fight that will determine if the relationship goes deeper and a little bit closer every time or if you destroy the relationship a little bit at a time. It all comes down to how you handle the conflict.
Chris Shook And conflict is messy and it's uncomfortable and it's awkward, and that's why we usually just don't want to do it. We'd rather avoid conflict at all costs, but Kerry and I have learned through almost 33 years of marriage that conflict is not only necessary but it's good. Conflict is a good thing. It's a good thing because it's our path to connection. You see, we used to think that when we would have an argument, if we would have a conflict, and I hate to burst your bubble and let you know that your pastor and his wife have conflicts. But we do. And we're just two imperfect people, and we used to think that when we would have a conflict that the goal was just like in boxing, it was a knockout.
I mean, whoever could take the other one down first wins, whoever made their argument the best, whoever could flatten the other one. But we've learned that the real goal isn't to knock the other one out, it's connection, and that's true whether you're talking about a marriage relationship or a relationship with your kids, or your parents, a work relationship, your friends. It's all about connection. The goal, the reason that you enter the ring and go through the conflict, it's for connection. Because for Kerry and I in marriage, if at the end of an argument one of us wins, we both lose. The goal isn't to have one winner. In marriage we're one. So if one wins and one loses, we actually both lose. Our goal is to be so connected that when one of us cries the other one tastes salt. That's the goal.
Kerry Shook: If you're not fighting for connection in a relationship, then you'll be falling into disconnection because relationships never stand still. But the great news is with God's power we can take this ring of conflict and turn it into a ring of connection. And so we're going to look today, as we take the gloves off and get really serious about conflict resolution, we're going to look at Jesus Christ, our great example, because he always fought for connection with us. So I want you to open your Bibles to 1 John chapter 4. And would you stand in honor of God's Word? Because here we see God fighting for connection with us because of his love for us.
So follow along with me. "God sent His only Son into the world so we might live through Him. This is the kind of love we're talking about, not that we once upon a time loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they've done to our relationship with God. My dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other". I want you to look at this passage with me. And would you underline a very interesting phrase that says not that we once upon a time loved God? Underline that. Not that we once upon a time loved God.
I love that because he's saying this is not a fairytale, fake kind of love. Our sins created this great disconnection, this distance between us and holy God, but he loved us so much that he fought for us. He fought so much that he sacrificed his life to really undo the damage that our disconnection and sins had caused. And then he goes on to say in this passage since God loved us that way, since he fought for connection with us, we're also to fight for connection with the people in our lives. We're to fight in the same way. So the question today that we're going to look at is, how did Jesus fight for connection with us? Because remember, you're either fighting for connection in a relationship or you're falling into disconnection because relationships never stand still.
Chris Shook And the first way to do that, the first way to fight for connection is to risk revealing your emotions, risk revealing your emotions. Now, Jesus is a great example for this, and a lot of times we just forget that Jesus had emotions. We think of him as some several hundred-year-old painting that we saw once of someone with a halo around his head and his hands perfectly pressed together and totally void of emotion, but that is not the picture that scripture paints of Jesus for us. In fact, Jesus took on our emotions. When he put on human flesh, he put on our human emotions and he felt things as we do, and he wasn't afraid to share his emotions, to show his emotions, and to use them to connect with the people around him. He was constantly connecting, always wanting to make himself known to others and wanting to know them.
Actually modeling what a great relationship looked like. And then when he sent his disciples out, it seems to make sense that he would have sent them out all by themselves to cover the most ground. But no, he sent them out two by two as if to say, again, "No, it's important that you do life together. Keep doing things together. Keep working together". The fact is, that you just can't disengage from life and from others and from emotions and yet feel like you're really modeling your life imitating Jesus Christ.
In John 13:21, it says, "Now Jesus was deeply troubled, and He exclaimed, 'I tell you the truth, one of you will betray Me.'" Underline that phrase deeply troubled. Jesus felt the burning wound of betrayal. He was deeply troubled. It hurt him just as it would hurt you or I if we are betrayed by someone we are very close to. You see, Jesus embraced the full range of emotions. He didn't shy away from the bad ones. The Bible says that he laughed, that he cried, that he engaged and played and interacted with others, that he got angry, that he got tired sometimes and just worn out. He had that full range of emotions that we do, but yet he didn't try to hide them. He just shared them.
Kerry Shook: Connection really brings fulfillment in our lives. And we run so fast doing so many things and we skim on relationships and we skip out on connection and we wonder why something feels like it's missing from our lives. We wonder what's wrong. It's that connection. "Well, I don't have time for connection". Well, you have to make time for connection. Christ always pushes us toward it. That's why you ought to join the church. If you haven't joined already, you need a church family to be connected to.
And so it's so important for us to know that we have to risk revealing our heart because when you begin revealing your emotions and your heart, and that's not natural for me, but I've learned over the years to start awkwardly risking revealing my feelings, my heart, my emotions. And it feels unnatural, it feels awkward, but it connects. That's what people connect to. People connect to your heart. You have to risk revealing your heart. That means you risk being hurt when you reveal your heart, who you really are. But until you risk revealing who you really are, you'll never feel accepted because you'll always be hiding your emotions. Jesus always risked revealing his emotions. He was all God, all human, but he risked revealing those human emotions 'cause he felt all the emotions we feel.
Chris Shook And a big part of that, revealing our emotions, is getting honest about the pain in our lives, the hurt that we've experienced, and fully engaging in that; and the way to do that is to start grieving your losses, start grieving your losses. I say start because grieving can be a really long process, but you just have to choose to start. You see, we've all had deep hurts in our lives. Part of being human is that when we lose something or someone we love, it hurts, it aches. We feel it deeply. You may have lost a loved one to death or divorce. You may have lost a dream that you held so dear. You may have lost your health.
There's all kinds of losses, and you may be in the middle of one right now or maybe it happened a long time ago but it still feels like it just happened because it hurt so badly. And the Bible says it's okay to feel grief. Grief is an emotion that was given to us along with the rest with the purpose of helping us to connect to God and connect to others. And if you are grieving today, if you're hurting, we want you to know that your tears are not a sign of a lack of faith. Tears are part of it. Hurting deeply is part of being human at times, and it's what we're here for as a church. As a family together, we hurt for each other, we grieve for each other; and it's an opportunity for us to get to be Jesus Christ to each other.
Kerry Shook: And there's times in a marriage relationship where you have to surrender it all to the Lord and say, you know, "Not my will, but your will, Lord". And you have to choose as an act of your will to fight for connection in spite of your feelings.
Chris Shook A little while back when there were a lot of floods here in the Houston area, our church gathered together and hundreds and hundreds of you went out in our flood relief teams to help mud-out homes that had been completely underwater. And it was hot, back-breaking work, but more than that, it was emotionally gut-wrenching to, alongside these families, go back to their homes once the water receded and go in. And when they could see what they had lost and face that devastation, oh, I just hurt for them. I cried with so many people, so many people as we went back into their homes and they just hurt for everything they'd lost. But then what we did is we would go into the homes and mud things out.
It was rubble and destruction and mud and slime everywhere, but yet there were always things that could be rescued. We would go into a home and then in a living room on a top shelf there would be a picture of the kids when they were in grade school or somehow the water hadn't gotten into one area where there were some special, meaningful, priceless items. Maybe it was china from their wedding. Maybe it was some artwork that their child had made. There was so much good, and we took everything we could out of the home. Some of the things had gotten all wet and soggy, but we could hose them off and clean them and they were good as new.
You see, there was a lot to be redeemed in those houses, but the initial feeling was such overwhelming grief that I wouldn't have blamed any of them if they just said, "Forget it. This is just too painful to even look at. It's covered in mud. It stinks. Everything looks horrible. I don't see anything worth salvaging here". But yet in every single home we went in, there were lots of things, we were getting so much hope, so much redemption. And it was such a joy as our teams would, we'd be digging through stuff and putting stuff on wheelbarrows, but then we'd come across something great. We'd run out to the yard. We'd usually let them sit, like, in a lawn chair or something in the yard or under, try to find some shade and let them make decisions about all these items, and it was, oh, the joy of being able to recover and redeem good things out of the bad, really good things.
And that's what it's like with grief. When something happens that hurts us really deeply, our gut reaction is to just, "This hurts too, I can't even deal with this. There's nothing here". You just want to turn away and not deal with it at all because it's just way too painful. But when we do the hard work of sharing our grief with others, sharing it with God and work through that, we face our fears, there's great things to be recovered. There's so much good that can be redeemed from the mess of our lives, and that's what God wants to do. It hurts a lot to not deal with grief, and the only thing that hurts worse than that is not dealing with grief and doing it all by yourself.
And so we want you to know that there's no conflict, there's nothing that God can't work through. There's nothing that has happened in your life that God can't use for his purposes of connection with him and with others, and the thing to do in that is just surrender and say, "God, I'm hurting". Just admit it. "I'm hurting. This hurts so badly. I'm broken, God. I need you".
In John 16:20, it says, "I will, I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn over what is going to happen to Me, but the world will rejoice. You will grieve, but your grief will suddenly turn to wonderful joy". There's good, there's good to be found in that most painful episode of your life, and as a church, we want to be here for you. We have incredible programs of grief share, divorce care. We have those programs also for kids. There's so many places. No matter what you're dealing with, I guarantee you there's someone else here, probably many, dealing with the same thing. And that's what the church is. We want to connect with you. We want to help. We want to walk alongside you.
Kerry Shook: So the first thing I have to do is risk revealing my emotions, and then I have to start grieving my losses. 'Cause we all will have a lot of losses as we go through life, but God can take the losses and redeem them if we surrender. But the third thing is keep fighting when things get tough, keep fighting when things get tough. Jesus Christ kept fighting for connection with us even when every human emotion within him felt like giving up and leaving the ring. Remember in the garden of Gethsemane, when he was struggling with all his human emotions, knowing he was going to the cross, knowing he was going to take on the sins of the world and die this horrible death and be in terrible agony in the crucifixion; and as he prayed, he said to his Father, "I don't feel like doing this. I don't have these feelings of love". But he loved us.
And here's what happened in Luke 22:41. He prayed, "'Father, remove this cup from Me. But please, not what I want. What do You want?' At once an angel from heaven was at His side, strengthening Him. He prayed on all the harder. Sweat, wrung from Him like drops of blood, poured off His face". So Jesus being all God and yet all human, all of his human emotions felt like giving up. He didn't feel these loving feelings for you and me at that moment, but he loved us completely, and so he surrendered to his Father. He said, "I don't feel like going to the cross. Is there another way? But not what I feel like, it's what you want, Father".
He surrendered to his Father, and then he chose as an act of his will to ignore his feelings at that time and keep fighting for connection with us. That's real love. He surrendered his feelings and he chose as an act of his will to keep fighting for connection. And there's times in a marriage relationship where you have to surrender it all to the Lord and say, you know, "Not my will, but your will, Lord". And you have to choose as an act of your will to fight for connection in spite of your feelings. You have to choose to fight no matter what your feelings are. You can't let your feelings dictate it because feelings come and go. Sometimes we feel totally in love, sometimes the feelings just aren't there, but love is not a feeling. It's a choice that produces powerful feelings. But it's not a feeling, it's a commitment. It's a choice.
And so sometimes you just surrender and you say, "God, I give it to you and I choose as an act of my will to engage, to keep fighting for connection, whether I feel like it or not, 'cause it's not about my feelings". That's real maturity. That's what mature love is all about. We always say that commitment is willing to be miserable for a while. That's commitment. Commitment is that choice. A lot of times in marriage counseling, one or both will feel like, "I'm ready to do this work if I know for sure it's all going to work. But what if I put in all this work and all this effort and then it falls apart anyway? Well, I don't want to do that". No, that's the risk you have to take because that's what love is.
You have to surrender the result to God and choose to keep fighting because he calls you to do that, and that's when he fills you with his power. There's a big difference between giving up and surrendering. When you surrender, God fills you with his power to keep fighting. When you give up, you lose all your power. In fact, that's what Jesus did. He surrendered. When he came to that place of surrender and said, "Father, it's what you want. I don't feel like it, but it's not about my feelings," and he surrendered, his Father sent an angel to strengthen him, it says, and then he prayed on harder. You know, whenever you surrender to God the result and say, "God, that's in your hands, I'm just going to obey. I'm going to do what you call me to do," he fills you with his power. He gives you fulfillment. He fills you with passion.
It's an amazing thing. You surrender and God lifts you up with his strength. One of my favorite movies of all time is "Rocky". Not "Rocky" 9 or 10 or 11 or however many there are now, but I mean the original classic "Rocky" where this unknown fighter, Rocky Balboa, fights the great champion Apollo Creed, and Apollo Creed is just beating the pulp out of Rocky until about the middle of the fight something happens. It's like Rocky surrenders. He surrenders the result. It's like he doesn't care if he wins or loses anymore. He doesn't care what everyone in the crowd thinks about him. He surrenders his reputation. He doesn't care if they call him champ or call him a loser. He doesn't care if he lives or dies. He just totally surrenders and he's filled with this strength and power, and he starts fighting back and the music picks up and it just gets so exciting.
You know, Rocky's fighting back and Apollo Creed realizes, "This guy's not going to stay on the ground. Something's going on here". And it all comes out of this surrender. And when you get to the place where you don't care what anyone else thinks about you, you don't care about the result, you don't care about how things are going to end up, you don't care about your reputation, you don't care whether you live or die, it's all in God's hands. When you get to that place of surrender, God fills you up with his power. Because it's not about the result, it's about the redeemer. You know that he'll redeem every single thing. He'll redeem your losses. He'll redeem the pain. He'll redeem everything for his purpose, and you trust in him and he fills you with his strength.
Chris Shook I'm so, so grateful that our God is in the active business of redeeming. In Joel 2:25 he says, "And I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten". You may feel like at this point your life is just too messed up. There have been too great of mistakes made either by you or someone else that affected your life or that illness, that problem, that situation, that death, and you don't know how you're ever going to get past it, but God wants to redeem it. There's no tragedy that you've suffered that he can't redeem and create something beautiful out of it. Our part is just to keep turning toward him especially in the darkness. When we can't see which end is up, if we continue to walk with him, to follow him, to keep praying, to keep connecting, to keep taking the baby steps, he will do the miracle work of bringing about beauty. And even if we don't understand his whole plan of what happened in this lifetime, if his plan isn't revealed to us, he promises to reveal his purpose of knowing himself. He'll reveal himself to us as we seek him.
Kerry Shook: But a lot of people stop fighting just before the blessing. You know, they give up just before the blessing is there. They fight and fight and fight, then they give up and they miss the blessing. It reminds me of Jacob in the Old Testament. He fought God his whole life, rebelled against God, wanted his own way, always fighting against God until finally one night God literally came to him and fought him. And they wrestled and God wanted to show him that what he'd been doing all his life was fighting God. And so God let the fight go on for a little while and then finally God just touched Jacob's hip and his hip went out of socket and it was match over. God was showing him, "You can fight against me, but that's a losing battle because I'm God and you're not".
And finally Jacob surrenders to God's will, to God's purpose. But the amazing thing is he stops fighting to get away from God and he starts fighting to hold on to God, and God says, "I've got to leave. The sun's coming up". And Jacob says, "No, I won't let you go until you bless me". He keeps holding on and fighting God until he gets the blessing, and a lot of people give up just before the blessing. If you feel like giving up, don't give up. Just surrender to God. Surrender the result to God and he'll fill you with his strength to keep fighting. And don't give up, the blessing is just around the bend, and no pain can stop God's purpose in your life. Don't give up.