Kerry Shook - Trouble
Kerry Shook: Well, Chris and I are kicking off a new series this weekend we're calling "Relationship Games," and we're going to use some classic board games and have a little bit of fun to illustrate some powerful and relationship-changing principles because it's just so easy in our closest relationships to get stuck in a vicious cycle of destructive games. And in this series, we're going to look at biblical principles that can rescue your relationships out of these unproductive and destructive patterns of relating and then take our relationships to a new depth of unity and connection.
Chris Shook: How many of you have ever played the classic game Trouble? Does this look familiar to any of you? It came out in 1965 and it was a huge hit because of this revolutionary pop-o-matic die. That click, click when you push it was addictive, and it caught on like wildfire and players could cause big trouble. The way you win the game is you would take your person out, go all the way around and try to get all four of your little men into your home base before your opponent.
But if at some point along the way, inevitably right as you're about to win, your opponent would land on you and yell trouble and, boom, you're sent back to the start. It was awful. It just stole all your joy, knocked you all the way back; and in our relationships, our very closest relationships, the same thing can happen. Everything's going smoothly, you think you're doing really well and then, boom, unexpected trouble hits and it steals away our joy and makes us lose that close connection, but it doesn't have to be that way.
Kerry Shook: So what I want you to do is open your Bibles to John 16:33. It's our key verse. And would you stand in honor of God's Word, Woodlands Church? And it's just a really short verse, but yet it's very powerful. And we want to welcome all you guys worshiping with us through our online broadcast and through our broadcast ministry, and all you guys worshiping with us at our satellite campuses, and everyone here in the Woodlands as we're trying to stay warm and, I know God has a real Word for you today from his Word. Jesus said this in John 16:33: "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart for I have overcome the world".
Now, I want you to notice in this key verse Jesus didn't say in this world you might have trouble. He didn't say in this world there's a slight chance you'll have trouble or in this world there's a high probability that you will have trouble. No. He said in this world you will have trouble. Count on it. Expect it. Jesus was saying in this world you will have trouble, and in your relationships you will have trouble. Count on it in your closest relationships. Expect it in your closest relationships.
Every marriage will have trouble. Every close friendship will have some choppy waters to navigate. Every parent-child relationship is going to experience problems. But I'm so glad that Jesus didn't leave us there. He said, "But take heart for I have overcome the world". He was saying, "I want to give you both the power and the strength to overcome whatever problem you're facing in your relationship". Jesus wants to take us from trouble to treasure.
Now, the amazing thing is whatever area in your relationship you're having the most trouble in, that's the very area that God wants to use to take you to a deeper connection. In fact, the trouble is the X that marks the place where the real treasure is buried. We're going to study that today. We're going to do a study of Ephesians chapter 4 because it shows us how to move from trouble and take it to treasure. In Ephesians 4:3 it says, "Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace".
So focus in on that phrase, unity of the Spirit, because this is the goal of a close relationship: unity. Spiritual unity, emotional unity, and in the marriage relationship also the physical unity, but unity is not uniformity. It's not agreeing on everything. You're going to disagree on a lot of things, but you want to come to unity where you're one. You have different personalities, different needs, different backgrounds, different desires, but yet you have this oneness spiritually and emotionally.
Now look at this phrase, make every effort to keep the unity. Make every effort to keep the unity. I mean, it takes hard work to do this, and the goal of a marriage relationship is that unity. Not uniformity where you think alike and you agree on everything, but unity where you have this oneness, this connection that has a whole new depth. And it takes work constantly to know, "This is our goal, and this is what we've got to do". And there are four things this passage tells us, this chapter in Ephesians 4. That's your homework. Study Ephesians chapter 4 and look at it closely, write down what God shows you because it tells us the four things to do to make every effort so we can have unity.
Chris Shook: And the first is to face your troubles with truth. Verses 14 and 15 say, "As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of people, by craftiness in deceitful scheming: but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, that is, Christ". What it's saying is, according to Ephesians 4, God says our goal is to stop acting like little children and grow up in all aspects to become like Christ. In other words, we're supposed to mature and become like Christ. Wow. Becoming Christ-like, that's the win in life. That's what God says a win in life is.
And how are we to do that? Well, the baseline way to start, the starting place for all of it is also in that same verse, which is we are to speak the truth in love. We're not going to be mature if we can't learn to speak the truth in love. This is a big one, speaking truth. Now, I love that God put us in relationship, in communities, in groups of people because this is exactly where this is played out. We learn to grow spiritually in our interactions with others.
Now, when I read my Bible and I spend time praying, I worship God and I can learn so much about him and his Word, but relationships are where we put that into practice. The only way you could love is practice loving, practice being loving. All the things we're asked to do are in relationship. So in our relationships is our place to grow spiritually. Seeing that way, it revolutionizes the way that we view trouble and relationships. Instead of just being a problem that we need to get around; it's an opportunity, the only best opportunity for growth, to grow to become the one thing we're supposed to be in life, which is like Christ.
In other words, instead of thinking that marriage should make me happy; that Kerry and I should make each other happy, that that's our goal, which is actually what we thought when we got married, that, "Okay, we're just going to make each other happy". That's not our goal anymore. A marriage isn't to make each other happy; it's to make each other holy. That's our goal, and it has changed the way we view conflict. It's changed the way we view a lot of things.
Now, no longer is the goal just that we're going to make each other happy and please each other and who's doing a better job at that and whose fault is it, but how are we doing at helping each other become more and more like Christ. A big part of that has been for us learning to be truth tellers. It sounds pretty basic. Well, just say the truth. We found that it's a lot more nuanced than that. When you get down to the nitty-gritty details of life, that truth-telling is actually a skill, a practice that we still have to work on every day. A few ways that that looks in our relationship is, number one baseline, it absolutely means if you're asked a question you tell the truth straight up. Just the absolute truth. If you forgot to pick up the milk at the store, then you don't say, "Oh, they were out of it".
You say, "I forgot. I'm sorry". Even in a little white lies things that you think wouldn't really make a difference, "Well, what's the difference? We're not going to have milk either way. I might as well save myself here". It's choosing to be honest. And then it also means that whenever we are talking about a subject, we choose to talk about everything. We bring everything into the light, and that's how we think of it. In the Bible it talks about the Bible is truth and love and light, and we step into the light. That means we don't leave any details in the shadows waiting to see if the other person asks about them. Instead, we drag everything into the light all the time. And it does look like dragging sometimes, but getting everything into the light together and being proactive and taking initiative in that.
So we're still on this journey of every day, every year becoming more and more truth tellers. It comes more easily. It takes work, just like any relational skill, it takes work. And the way we grow spiritually, by the way, it doesn't happen just, bam, overnight. It happens the same way we grow physically. When you're a baby, you're not just a baby for a long time and then one day you wake up and you're an adult. No. We grow little by little, day by day; and that's the same way we grow spiritually. Day by day and a thousand little choices and decisions that we make, we grow spiritually. And just like children, when you're the parent of a child you can hardly tell what they look like different day to day, but then you run into someone who hasn't seen your child for a while and they say, "Oh, wow, they've grown. They're so different".
You think, "Really"? Well, that's because you're so up close you can't see the change. In the same way, it's hard to perceive that spiritual growth sometimes in your own life, but when you step back and look you'll think, "Wow, this issue that used to cause so much problem in our marriage, somehow now we're able to handle it". So there's so much hope in this. So we can't leave it there, though. Not only do you speak the truth, but it matters a lot how you do it. Speak the truth in love. You have to speak the truth in love because you want that unity. Your motivation is coming from the right place. You're telling someone hard things and having hard conversations, but it's because your goal is unity and in the end you really want the other one to be able to on that day where they stand alone before God to say, "You know what? They're ready to meet you".
Kerry Shook: That brings us to the second thing. Fight for relational unity, not personal victory. Thirty-seven years ago when Chris and I were on our honeymoon, we were getting ready to snorkel in the turquoise beautiful pristine waters of the Caribbean and we decided that before we went out we needed to make sure that we had some signals in case we ran into trouble. And so Chris said, "Well, this signal means shark, and this signal means there's a stingray". And we went on and we made up several signals to signify trouble, but one signal that we didn't think of was barracuda. And we got out there on the reef and there was this huge barracuda.
Now, usually they're pretty small. This one was huge, and it was right under me and you could see the teeth, you know, with the sunlight hitting those sharp teeth. And it was just kind of shining off the teeth and it's just like, "That's a barracuda, but there's no signal for a barracuda. What do I do"? So I just raised my head up and I yelled barracuda, and then I just took off swimming as fast as I could to the shore because I realized that I needed to save myself first because I was a very poor swimmer and Chris had been a lifeguard, you know, for a long time and that she was a great swimmer. She was a lifesaver.
And so I was doing this all for her because if I could get closer to shore, she would have less territory to rescue me. But then I looked up when I almost got to shore and she was still snorkeling because she didn't hear my signal. She was just snorkeling happily, but then she looked up and she saw that I was almost ashore and she swam up to shore, says, "What's the problem"? I said, "There's a huge barracuda, but you didn't hear my signal. I yelled it really loud".
Chris Shook: Maybe she wasn't afraid of it.
Kerry Shook: Yeah, that's probably what it was. And she said, "Whoa, why didn't you save me and protect me? Why did you swim away and save yourself"? And I said, "Because you're a great swimmer and I knew that, you know".
Chris Shook: It didn't go over well for him.
Kerry Shook: No, it didn't go over well. In fact, she brings this story up once a month for the last 37 years. I mean, literally. And she calls it a word picture. She says, "Let me give you a word picture. Don't barracuda this one". I mean, once, maybe twice a month for 37 years, and what she's saying, when she says, "Don't barracuda this," what she's saying, "I need you to get in this and fight. Don't withdraw. I need you to protect me, to fight for our relationship, to fight for unity; to deal with this conflict, this area. I need you to be in the game, protecting me and not yourself".
Chris Shook: This is just hours after we'd stood in front of a lot of people and he said, "In sickness and in health, till death do us part, I am here to protect you".
Kerry Shook: And now I always add to my ceremonies that I preach barracuda. You know, "In facing a barracuda, do you promise"? No, I mean, you know, I didn't even think about that one. But every month she reminds me with that word picture and I know exactly what it means and it's like got to get in there and got to fight because it is a fight. But it's for relational unity, not for personal victory. Because when you tell the truth, you're going to have some conflict and that conflict will involve anger.
In Ephesians 4:26 it says, "In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you're still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold". He's saying in your anger don't sin. That means anger is not necessarily a sin. It all depends on how you use that anger. In fact, sometimes anger is the most loving emotion you can have in a relationship because you care about the relationship and it's going the wrong direction you're going to have anger. And so what do you do when you have anger? First, don't ignore it. You ought to write that down somewhere. Don't ignore angry feelings. It's dangerous to ignore angry feelings, and I say that because a lot of times Christians think when they feel anger, "Oh, I shouldn't feel this way. I shouldn't feel..."
But even Jesus got angry, but he didn't sin. "I shouldn't feel this way". And so they stuff it down. But feelings aren't right and wrong; they're just feelings. And feelings are meant to be felt, not suppressed. And if you stuff down those feelings, you go, "Oh, this is wrong. I shouldn't feel this way," and you try not to feel that way, then you're going to stuff it down and it's going to turn into bitterness. That's why it says don't let the sun set on your anger because if you stuff it down it turns into bitterness. And trouble can lead you to treasure, but bitterness can only lead you to broken relationship.
And so you've got to deal with that bitterness, but you've got to express those angry feelings when they come up. And then in Ephesians 4:31 it says, "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice". So we got to get rid of the bitterness but also that anger that's rage because some people just vent their anger and they blow up or they explode, and that's just as destructive. So what do you do with your anger? You channel your anger into unity, not victory. I said it many times you can win the argument but lose the relationship.
So what you've got to do is say, "I feel angry when you do this. I feel frustrated. I feel hurt. I feel..." And you get right down to it and you talk about your feelings that aren't right and wrong, and the other person doesn't say, "Well, you shouldn't feel that way. That's wrong". You listen to those feelings and you try to understand each other for unity's sake. You got to recognize the demon dialogues, and it's got to be a lot of forgiveness. We're going to talk about that next week. Sorry is next week. And how do you forgive, and what is forgiveness? There are a lot of misconceptions about it so don't miss that.
Chris Shook: And then thirdly, be willing to die a little in order to live a lot. There's a idea going around in popular culture that says when you get married, that you should be 100% just yourself. You should be all you. Anything that you don't like, you know, you shouldn't change. You should never change for your spouse. They should never change for you. Everybody's going to stay just exactly the way they are. The culture told us the generation before this, well, being in love means never having to say you're sorry. I want to say that after all these years of marriage, after decades, that's baloney. That just doesn't work.
Why would I want to stay the same as I was so many years ago? How sad that in this one opportunity we have to actually grow and become better people to grow closer to Christ to be less selfish? How sad would it be if we settled for saying, "You know what? I will never change you in any way, and you will never change me". I hope that we're constantly changing each other for the better, constantly turning each other's heads toward Christ and saying, "No, this is not all there is, and we want to grow up". I hope that I can be more mature.
When you see a baby, there's nothing more cute than a sweet little baby that you have to help do everything and spoon-feed them, and they're so cute and they have those chubby cheeks. There is nothing cute about a grown man or grown woman who acts like an infant. There's nothing more frustrating because you want to grow in that relationship. So Kerry and I are a lot farther along than we were when we got married, but yet we still can see we have a long way to go. And as many years as the Lord gives us on this earth I hope we will continue to keep challenging each other become more, the same with our family relationships.
With all of your closest relationships, let's challenge each other. This is what community is for. In Ephesians chapter 4, verses 22 through 24 it says, "You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness". So this is talking about our old self, which is our fleshly selfish desires; and contrast it with our new self, who we are in Christ. When you become a believer in Christ and Christ comes to live inside of you you are now a new creation, and we're created to be like him in every way and to continue growing; growing up, maturing, becoming more like him all the time.
Kerry Shook: There's a fourth thing as we move into this series. Make room for God. Make room for God. Whatever relationship is hurting, maybe it's parent and teenager, make room for God. Make room for God's hope. There is hope. And maybe you feel like you're in a relationship right now that's hopeless, just make room for a little bit of hope because God can do miracles. We've seen it over and over. And sometimes when you have a spouse who just won't wake up, they're being unfaithful, they're going the wrong direction and you try and try and try, sometimes you got to shut the door on hope on the marriage as your only hope to wake them up. But just make some room for hope as we move into this series because we're going to see miracles, we're going to see restoration. Some of you have some deep wounds from close relationships that God wants to miraculously heal during this series. Make room for hope.
Chris Shook: You may be thinking, "But you guys don't know what shambles my personal life is in right now. You don't know how much water is under the bridge in this close relationship I have and how hopeless it feels". But as Kerry said, just crack the door to hope. You may be thinking, "I can't do it. This is too hard. This stuff is too hard". You know what? God understands. He knows. He created us. He understands. And if you're thinking you can't do this by yourself you're right, but you don't have to. See, God gave us a gift. If you're a believer, the Holy Spirit lives within you, Christ within us the hope of glory. He's the one who can do all things through us. He is our hope.
In John 14:26 it says, "But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, the Father will send Him in My name. He'll teach you all things and remind you of everything I've told you". You won't go through this alone. Just as an aeronautics student has an experienced pilot sitting in the cockpit with him for hours, thousands of hours as he learns to fly a plane, just as a student teacher always has an experienced educator in the room to help them when they need it, just as a young doctor serves in residency for years following someone with more experience who can show them the ropes, show them how it's done, we have the Holy Spirit. God did not leave us alone in this world, and the Holy Spirit in you, Christ within you gives you all the hope you need. So we encourage you, don't give up. Make room for hope.