Rick Warren - Keeping the Crazymakers from Making You Crazy - Part 2
Crazymakers use conflict to get your attention. Everybody has a deep need to be loved. We all have a deep need for approval. If you cannot get approval, then you’ll get attention, either good or bad. You can see this in teenagers all the time. If they cannot get the approval of their parents, then they’re gonna get attention some way through all kinds of bizarre behavior or bizarre dress or bizarre lifestyle or whatever. They’re gonna get attention, either negative or positive, because I’m gonna get your attention one way or the other, so you know that I’m valuable. And when people try to get your attention through conflict, they’re just trying to hook you.
Now, this used to not be such a big deal, but now with the internet, it’s very easy to get hooked. 'Cause you’re reading along on there and somebody makes some kind of off-the-wall statement on the internet and you go, «I’m gonna tell them». And in the background, that person’s thinking, «Got him, I just hooked a big one». Two hundred and fifty years before the internet, Thomas Paine, remember him from the American Revolution? Said this, «To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead». In other words, it’s a waste of breath. Now he said just don’t play their game, don’t get sucked into the argument, don’t get sucked into the debate, don’t get sucked in, just walk on by.
Proverbs 26 verse 21 says this: «Just as charcoal and wood keep a fire going, a quarrelsome person keeps an argument going». You got it? He says, you know, this person likes to keep the argument going, they want to engage you in an argument. They find their meaning, they find their purpose, they find their value, they find their attention in actually getting you upset. Don’t play that game, don’t get drawn into it, don’t be hooked into it. Now, how many people does it take to argue? It takes two, right? Okay, now if one of the people walk away, what happens to the argument? The fire goes out. The Bible says here, «Just as charcoal and wood keep a fire going, a quarrelsome person keeps an argument going». But if you don’t join in, the fire goes out. Don’t engage a quarrelsome person.
Now, those of you who are business owners, you got a small business, you got 1 or 2 or 3 employees, or maybe you’re a manager over 15 or 20 in a larger organization. Most people have no understanding how badly disharmony among a staff destroys productivity. Disharmony among the staff will destroy productivity faster than anything else. And so if you are an employer, you need to fire quarrelsome people quickly. The rest of your team deserves a peaceful work environment, to not be stressed out having one troublemaker constantly stirring everything up, causing contention, causing conflict, causing gossip, you need to owe it to them as a leader to remove that person out of the business.
Now, let me give you two verses. These aren’t on your outlines, so write them down. Proverbs 22 verse 10. Proverbs 22 verse 10 says this in the Living Bible, «Throw out the mocker and you’ll be rid of tension, fighting, and quarrels». You wanna get the tension, the fighting, and the quarrels out of your business? Throw out the mocker, the person who’s the troublemaker, the quarrelsome, the crazymaker who likes to argue. Let me give you another one. Titus 3:10, Titus 3:10. This one’s actually advice to pastors. And it says that if there’s a troublemaker in a church, you give them two warnings and the pastor is to put him out of the church. We graciously invite you to go visit some other church. You just dismiss them, say, «Look, you had two warnings, but you’re causing chaos, you’re causing conflict, » and the Bible says, pastor, you’re supposed to take them out. No, you refuse to play their game.
Number five, the fifth step in dealing with troublemaker is you refuse to cave in. You refuse to cave in, to give in to their demands, to what they want. The crazymaker who is demanding or demeaning or derogatory or deafening or destructive or, you know, discontented or disapproving, whatever we’re talking about here, the crazymaker in your life, you refuse to cave in. You do not allow them to manipulate your life. Love is not allowing people to manipulate you. That’s unloving to you, it’s unloving to God, it’s unloving to them. Love is not giving in to manipulation. That is not the loving thing to do.
Now many believers just don’t get this, what I’m about to talk about, so I’m gonna camp on this for just a minute because a lot of Christians think that the Christian way to respond to irritating or crazymaking people in their life is just let them have their way. In other words, just passively acquiesce. I submit, I let you have your way, I give in to the crazymakers, I let them run all over me, I lay down and I become a doormat. There is not one verse in this book, the Holy Bible, that says God wants you to be a doormat, not one verse.
Now you say, but wait a minute, aren’t we supposed to forgive? Didn’t we just talk about love and forgiveness? Yes, we did. But forgiveness and trust are two different things. Let’s review it again, we’ve covered this before. Forgiveness is instant and it is by grace, trust is by works and it takes time. The illustration I gave you before was if a woman’s husband is beating her, he’s alcoholic and in a drunken rage he beats his wife, and she kicks him out of the house, and he comes back that night and he says, «Will you forgive me»? She has to forgive him. Yes, I do forgive you. First, God commands it. Second, she’s been forgiven. Third, she’s gonna need more forgiveness in the future, and fourth, she doesn’t want to have that resentment stuck in her life, which hurts her more than it hurts him. She has to forgive him, but he says, «Will you let me back in the house»? «Oh no, that’s a different matter».
Forgiveness is instant, trust is earned. Does that make sense? And that’s why people don’t understand when a leader has a moral failure, some people say, «Well, we should forgive them, just let them go on». No, no. Forgiveness, instant, yes, but you don’t restore them to leadership instantly, they need to go through a restoration process. Forgiveness is instant, trust is built over time. And forgiveness does not mean when you hurt me, I forgive you, but I’m gonna keep on letting you hurt me. Those are two different, very two different issues.
Now, the Bible teaches us not to cave in to crazymakers. Let me give you some examples. Let’s say you’re asked to violate your conscience at work, and you know it’s wrong, and you feel pressured and manipulated to do it. What are you gonna do? Let me give you another example. What if you’re asked to work a schedule where you never get to go to worship anymore? What are you gonna do? What if you’re standing by the water cooler or you’re with some friends on the side of a little league game, and you hear a disparaging remark about a Christian. You’re gonna keep your mouth shut? What are you gonna do? You’re gonna cave on that? You’re gonna wimp out on that? What does the Bible want you to do?
Look at the next verse, Romans 14:16. «Do not allow, » notice, «Do not allow, do not allow what you consider good to be spoken evil of». That’s what the Bible says. The Bible says speak up, don’t cave in. You see, many Christians are afraid to speak up and they are letting all kinds of people get away with murder in their life, and that’s not what God wants you to do. People say, wait a minute, aren’t Christians supposed to be meek? Yes, we are, but meek is not weak. Those are two very different things. Meek is incredibly strong, weak is incredibly weak. We are to be meek people, not weak people. What is meek? The word meek is a Greek term that actually means, it was a term used for training a wild stallion. Once that wild stallion is trained, it is broken, it is brought under control so it can be ridden by the master, that stallion that was wild is called meek. It is now a meek stallion.
Now, has that wild stallion lost any of its strength? Absolutely not. That horse is still just as strong as it was when it was wild and unbroken. Meek does not mean weak, it means brought under control, bottled up for the master’s use. And that’s what it means to be meek. I’m not a weak person, I’m a strong person, but it is under control of the master. I don’t just go off and, you know, fly off on a tangent because I’d like to. Meek means strength under control for the master’s use, and that’s what God wants you to be.
You know, Paul actually chided the Corinthians, he started a church in a place called Corinth, Greece, and he wrote two letters to them, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and he chides the Corinthians for being wimps with the bullies. He says, «You just keep on giving in to all the bullies in your life. What’s wrong with you guys? You keep letting people intimidate you, you just cave in all the time». Look at this verse up here on the screen. 2 Corinthians 11:20 says this: «You let people make slaves of you and cheat you and steal from you. Why, you even let them strut around and slap you in the face». That’s the Contemporary English Version, let me read the same verse in the NIV, New International.
Paul says, «You guys there in Corinth, you even put up, » he says, «you just put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you, » he said, «You just put up with it, what are you thinking? Or pushes himself forward or slaps you in the face». What is Paul saying? God does not expect you to be a doormat, that is not a Christ-like thing. Meekness is strength under control. Do you know Paul wrote an entire book about this? Paul wrote an entire book of the Bible about not being pressured, manipulated, and controlled by the expectations and the opinions of other people. It’s called the book of Galatians.
Paul wrote the book of Galatians for this very problem. Paul started a church in an area of Greece called Galatia, and after he left, some of these crazymaking religious crazymakers, these Judaizers, these Pharisees came in and said, «Oh yeah, you know everything Paul taught, that’s right on about grace, but you need to add these things. You gotta keep this rule and keep this law and keep this rule, and you gotta do this tradition, you gotta do this, » and they loaded people down with so many dos and don’ts, they were suffering and suffocating from the load of legalism.
And Paul writes them a letter and goes, «Wait, what are you guys talking about? Where’d your freedom go? Jesus Christ set you free from all that junk. You’re set free from the law». He said, «Jesus set you free from the fear of death, and Jesus set you free from the pain of bitterness, and Jesus set you free from the guilt of your sin, but he also set you free from the expectations of others. You’re not living for anybody else’s plan for your life. What happened to you? Have you so quickly gone back into legalism»? Here’s what he says.
Look at the next verse, Galatians 5:1, «We have freedom now, because Christ made us free. So stand strong. Do not change and go back into the slavery of the law». 'Cause you’ve been set free. And listen, friends, as your pastor who loves you, I just want you to know that even today there are these Judaizers, there are these religious Pharisees, religious people who wanna box you in, into all kinds of rules and regulations and restrictions that are unbiblical, and they’re on the radio, and they’re on the internet, and they’re in books. And I’m telling you, don’t let anybody steal your freedom, the freedom of grace that you have been given in Christ. This not only happens with you, it happened with Jesus, happened all the time.
People were all of the time trying to restrict Jesus. And they said, «Oh, what Jesus does offends us because, you know, he, you know, he doesn’t follow all those little bitty rules on the Sabbath that we made up». In Matthew 15, verse 12 to 14, «The disciples came to Jesus and they asked him, 'Lord, do you realize you offended the Pharisees by what you just said? '» Now imagine this, here’s the disciples coming to the Son of God, «Lord, you wanna reconsider this one? I mean, what you just said, that was a little radical, it was a little over the top, it was a little edgy. Jesus, you might want to tone it down, you’re talking to religious people there. Do you realize, Lord, that you offended some religious people»?
You know what Jesus’s response to that was? Look at the rest of the verse. «Jesus said, 'Well you guys, you know, every plant not planted by my Father will be rooted up, so ignore them! '» Ignore them, circle that, star that, underline it, ignore them. Jesus is saying, «Ignore the legalists who try to bring you under religious bondage, don’t allow them to do it». I’m not gonna play your game and I’m gonna refuse to cave in. He says, «Ignore them». Now remember, I said this two weeks ago, even God can’t please everybody, and only a fool would try to do what even God can’t do. I can’t please everybody, you can’t please everybody, nobody can. Finally, there’s one more step you need to know, and this is the most difficult of all.
When it comes to crazymakers, always take the high ground. Always take the high ground. Always do the right thing, whether they do it or not. If they insult you, you treat them with kindness. If they’re unloving to you, you be loving to them. If they are resentful to you, you be forgiving to them. If they’re mean to you, you be nice to them. You always take the high ground, no matter what the crazymakers do. Always, always, always take the high ground. Now, you cannot control what other people think about you. You cannot control what other people say about you. You cannot control what other people do about you. You have no control over those issues. But you do have 100% control over how you respond, and that’s your choice. And you can be better and respond with grace and love and kindness, and that pleases God.
Now, the classic chapter on taking the high ground with crazymakers is Romans chapter 12. And so I’m gonna close with three different verses from Romans chapter 12. Romans 12 verse 14, he starts with this. «Ask God to bless those who persecute you, yes, ask him to bless and not curse». Now you may say, Rick, I don’t have anybody persecuting me. Okay, let’s cross out the word «persecute» and write in the word «makes you crazy, » okay? Ask God to bless those who make you crazy. Yes, ask God to bless them, not curse them. The people who irritate you, the people who make you crazy. Friends, this right here, that verse right there is the definition of real love. Shoot, real love isn’t loving somebody who’s lovable, it’s easy to love lovely people like you.
See, I can love people like me because I’m cool, you can love people like you because you’re cool. Real love loves the unlovable, real love is loving the unlovely, real love is loving the person who at that moment is spitting in your face. You’re not backing down, you’re not playing their game, but you’re also not letting them fight fire with fire, and you are loving, you are responding with love, that is real love. Now in the next verse is Romans 12:17 and 18, it says this: «If someone has done you wrong, do not repay him with a wrong. Try to do whatever everyone considers to be good. Do everything possible on your part to live in peace with everybody». And then the pièce de résistance is verse 21 of Romans 12, where he says this: «Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good».
Now, what happens if I actually follow what the Bible says to do with crazymakers, 'cause this is not the way you’re taught in school. What you’re taught in our society today, if somebody punches you, you punch them back, and you hit them harder. And don’t get mad, get even. What if somebody in my life who is demeaning, destructive, discontented, you know, demanding, disapproving, this person in my life, and I refuse to be offended and I don’t wait for an apology, I just go ahead and automatically forgive them the moment they hurt me, and then I make a commitment, I’m not only just gonna forgive them, I’m not gonna gossip about them, I’m not gonna talk about them to other people.
But I’m gonna refuse to play their game, and I’m gonna refuse to cave in, but I’m always gonna take the high ground and return love for no matter what they throw at me. What happens when you do that? You get the smile of God on your life. Proverbs 16:7, the last verse. «When a man’s ways are pleasing to the Lord, he makes even his enemies to live at peace with him». Wow, as your pastor who loves you, I want that verse to be true in your life. I want your ways to so please the Lord that God makes even your enemies to live in peace with you. Let’s bow our heads. And as I pray, follow me in this prayer, just say, «Me too, God».
Father, you know the crazymakers in my life. You know who they are, so I’m asking that even when they mean to hurt me that you’ll use it for good in my life. I want to learn to respond to them the way Jesus does. I want to be spiritually and emotionally mature, so help me to practice these steps this week. And dear Lord, when people do things that offend me, help me to not take it personally. Help me to have a tender heart and a tough skin, to just not get offended so much by what people say or the way they look or what they say to me or look at me. Help me to look past offensive behavior, to see the fear or the hurt or the pain or the insecurity that’s causing it. Give me wisdom in my relationships. Right now, without even their asking, I forgive that crazymaker in my life. I forgive them right now, Lord. And I ask you to help me not to retaliate with gossip. Give me the strength to stand strong where I need to stand strong, to not let other people manipulate me. Father, I’m tired of playing games. I’m tired of their games, and I’m tired of caving in. Help me, Holy Spirit, to not allow what I know is good to be talked about poorly. Give me the courage to speak up and to stand up for what’s right and for other believers. But in all my responses, Lord, help me to take the high ground, to show love, to return good for evil. Lord, there’s no way I can do this on my own, so Jesus Christ, I need you in my life, I need your power to do this. So I ask you to come into every area of my life and control every part of me this week. In your name I pray, amen.