now i want to talk to you about confrontation because one of the things that we need to do if we're going to live bold courageous lives is be willing to confront the things that we need to confront if i said to you today how many of you don't like confrontation who would put their hand up well i mean who really does you know i mean i'm kind of a bulldog and it might be easier for me than some people but i don't like it either i don't like making people mad i don't like hurting people
and i don't like it when people don't like me none of us do and so really for all intent and purposes i don't think any of us are in love with confrontation it seems like people either confront too quickly without even thinking about what they're going to say how many have that problem or we just don't confront at all and so just a few things i want to remind you of always be willing to confront people that are trying to control you or manipulate you and the world's full of them all the enemy has to
find is somebody that he can work through because he is a controller and a manipulator my father was a controller and a manipulator there's nothing worse than having somebody always trying to run your life for you where you never have any freedom and you're constantly being told how to act what to say what to do and the longer you let a relationship like that go on the harder it is to get out of it and some of you have already got a pretty big problem and i want to encourage you today that you have to
make a change and you have to start confronting things because jesus died to make us free he whom the son is set free is really truly and genuinely free and the only person that should be controlling us is the holy spirit [Applause] and i'm not talking about being rebellious and not submitting to authority that's not what i mean we all need to know how to submit to the right authority that god puts over us but i am talking about when somebody's trying to manipulate you and control you and they're always trying to make you do
what they think you should do galatians 1 10 paul said if i were trying to be popular with people i would not now be an apostle of the lord jesus christ that is so good and i can actually say if i were just only cared about being popular with people which i do want people to like me but if that was all that concerned me i wouldn't be here today and many of you are borderline on missing your destiny because you're overly concerned about what people think and you know what haters are going to hate
and complainers are going to complain and if they're picking on you at least they're leaving somebody else alone [Applause] jesus made himself of no reputation he got that over the quick so he could go ahead and do what god sent him to do there was always some pharisee watching to accuse but i tell you when you know who you are in christ then you don't have to be overly concerned about the accusations of other people that's part of being courageous in acts 5 29 i went to a church one time and the pastor i think
preached on this for three months and so i'll never forget acts 5 29 we must obey god rather than man and these these apostles were being threatened with jail and they'd been told not to preach in that name and if you do you're going to be beaten and you're going to be put in jail and here they are out preaching and when they came to him and said we told you not to do that they said we must obey god rather than man [Music] come on that's a good scripture for you to hang on to
we must obey god rather than man let me tell you something if you're left with nobody but god you still got the best deal [Applause] don't give up your relationship with him to keep a bunch of people that probably don't care anything about you anyway [Applause] confront your past my father sexually abused me and it was like the big secret in the house it was like the elephant in the room it was like everybody knew but nobody talked my mother knew because she had caught him at one time i told her when i was nine
but she was cowardly she didn't know how to face the scandal nobody talked about something like that that many years ago and of course he lied to her and she was afraid of him because he was violent bottom line is her fear destroyed her life really hurt mine destroyed my brother's life and actually did not help my father sometimes you can help people be free from something if you'll confront them and not just let them keep getting by with it but the bottom line is it was just like we didn't talk about it well i
left home when i was 18 thinking that i was going to get away from the problem but the problem was i took the problem with me it was just in my soul just getting away from something doesn't mean it's over you got to deal with it but i believe that it was necessary for me to confront that place of fear in my life because i had lived my whole life in fear of him and dave would even tell me after we got married and been married a few years he said when you're when you when
we go to your mom and dad's house or your dad comes around he said you you become like a different person you act different well when you don't deal with those things that are in your soul you do act different and for some of you confronting your past may be as simple as sitting down with a trusted friend and talking about something that you did a long time ago that still bothers you are talking about something that somebody did to you a long time ago that still bothers you you know how many people there are
that were abused in their childhood that are 50 and 60 and 70 years old and have never told anybody and if you believe you're totally free from and i'm not telling you you have to do anything but i'm just saying we need to have safe friends that will keep our secrets that we can talk to because sometimes you just need to vent come on we just need to be able to tell somebody this this that and something else and then we need to learn how to confront problems between us and other people and do it
in a biblical godly way do you know that one or two sentences of straightforward communication can solve so many problems because a lot of times we're thinking that they're thinking and they're not thinking at all so we're acting weird toward them because we think they're thinking and so it's better just to say are you thinking huh no but you know why we don't do that we don't want anybody to think we're silly and so don't be afraid to ask who cares if they think you're silly most of the time it really has nothing to do
with you at all so many problems are caused because when you have a problem with someone instead of going to them you go to a bunch of other people which then becomes gossip and it spreads strife we try to teach people in our office this if you're having a problem with somebody in your department do what the bible says and go first to your brother privately if your brother wrongs you go and show him his fault between you and him privately privately come on and if he listens you've won back your brother and then it
goes on to say if he doesn't listen then you can take a couple of others with you the whole point is you're trying to restore him not ruin his reputation but invariably what happens is because people don't want to confront come on this is good they'll go to somebody else and actually make the problem worse and boy we need to stop doing that don't be the kind of person that's afraid to confront things do what you need to do and let god give you victory in your life
