Video Transcript: Influence Wrecking Habits 4.2

Video Transcript: Influence Wrecking Habits 4.2

Steve and Henry here. Welcome back. So, we're deep into the discussion of influence wrecking habits. And we always start these presentations off with one influencing wrecking habit is not a walk with God. We talked about the seven connections walking with God. So we talked before about how prayer and influence come together and we've talked  about how marriage you know, just the opportunity to have influence of you influence your wife spiritually and your children that that's a practice ground or spouse, that's a practice ground for influence. How do you feel a walk with God in, let's jump to connection six? So connection three is family connection? Four is your small group of friends, connection five, is within your church spiritual community in worship is. what about the kingdom is there some influence in the kingdom and a spiritual walk that come to your mind?

A walk is with God, and then the spheres of people that you hang out with. Your marriage, family, small groups or friends, church. Kingdom is that larger group in some way that Christian leaders Institute, you're part of a kingdom thing, because it's not just people from your church. I'm not in your church, you're not in there. You know, we're in different churches, and yet we're coming together and sharing life together and encouragement together. So getting influenced from something broader than your small circle, is definitely a good way to then have something to share with others. I mean, we learn so much from what God is doing in the church all over the world. That's the advantage that we have here at Christian Leaders Institute, and you go online, you can, you know,

Even meet people in the other part of Africa, that works for instance. So you really do have that kingdom, cross pollination that walk with God as it applies to different cultures.

So not only can you be influenced by that kingdom walk, but now you can be an influencer. You can be an influence to someone on the other side of the world. Because we can talk to each other globally now.

Pretty cool. Well, let's keep going. So here's a really bad habit for getting beaten influencer. Using guilt trips to get your way. Proverbs 10 Verse 23, a fool finds pleasure and evil conduct, but a man of understanding delights in wisdom. So guilt trips. Why would that hurt? In some of the literature or even the Christian literature was really interesting and talked about in Christian literature, like when you preach that use duty language, that you just make people just like go after? What's duty language? How would you define duty language.

God loves us, He loves us so much that He sent His Son to die for us, and we should respond by loving others. So the word should. You should do this not, you get to do this. You know, the opportunity or what a blessing it is, which is a positive. Now, you're not doing it right now. And you should. So it's a hint is, is get that guilt in it. And in fact, it's it's those kinds of words. Those words, why the word preaching is often negative, you know? Don't preach to me. You know, and it's that shame, guilt. I'm trying to motivate you by making you feel good and what you're not doing, rather than turning it into a positive that, you get to do this, this is an opportunity. And we do it as parents to we, you know, we see our kids and we want them to do something.

Clean your room. Yeah, you should clean your room.

You should, because some of it is just laziness. We haven't thought of what is the positive reason for cleaning the room. Why should he do that? Why should I go to church? Well, there's some really good reasons why this is great benefit. But instead of sitting down and thinking about those, we just, that's easier to make them feel guilty

When they have that whole concept of a man of understanding delights in wisdom, because it takes more effort to actually to see what's going on. It's easier just to say you should this you should that. Why aren't you doing that? I mean, you know, there's different ways of duty language, you should do this, you should do that. Why aren't you doing that? Why aren't you? Why did you do that?

You know, have you thinking when you did?

What were you thinking? You know, like, what is the Christian church thinking about when it's you see sermons were, it's very easy to, like, make it into a guilt trip. When I was growing up in the church, I was confused, because the minister on the one hand would say, grace is free. There's nothing that you do. Okay. That was one message. The other message was all the stuff that we should do if we were Christians. And I was always late as a kid. I'm like, I thought it was free. Is it free? Isn't it free? Because on one hand, you're saying it's free. On the other hand, you're telling me all these things I should do? What if I don’t? Am I not a Christian then? It took me a long time to realize that grace is free. And my response to that is doing good things because I want to. A guy, I've been blessed so much, I want to  share it with others, more of a positive reasons for doing things than this. I owe God. And so I better do it.

I think this area, I know, Bruce Ballast in our preaching Professor around here, in blogs, talking about this, I think is something that could need a coach for if you're preaching a lot, I think when you are young or when you're trying to figure this out, there are things that you just fall into,

I noticed that whenever I have a young person get up and given a short little message like a five minute message. Or when we remember we did the planner, and we had a verse of people had a one application. Every new person that started to do that, they'd always use the should language, they always given this preaching mode, they'd read a verse and say, Okay, we should now do this. This verse says, We should be kind to, it'll say something, and then we right away, that's the default setting. Should. And God has blessed us so much. Why don't we do this? Rather than talk to a person to say, you know, instead of just slip into, instead of saying, should, it's an opportunity?

Like, what opportunities do we have to take our walk to the next level?

Yeah, we get to take, you know, we get to have a relationship with the God of the universe, that you're not doing it right now.  Well, what a opportunity in front of you? Yeah, if you don't have a walk with God, wow, you have this wonderful thing in front of you. How are we going to do this? Now let's talk about some habits.

Now a while ago, we were talking about like, you know, how we did seminars, and very few people could get that walk with God. Now you go back to that, we could have done this way. So you are a Christian. And a Christian has relationship with God. And you now know about reading the Bible and praying everyday, and you know, you should do it. And you know, that you don't do it. And why don't you do it? Okay. It's sort of like, Whoa, we're not that doesn't feel respectful.

No.

And from an influence standpoint, you feel like, you're  demeaning me to go like that, this is what you lack,

Instead of saying, you know, you've never had ice cream before. Wow. You have an incredible treat in front of you. You've never had a consistent walk with God. Wow. I can't wait to show you what this is and watch your experience it. See that? I want that.

It is more respectful and also is hard to ever walk with God, but it's hard to change. It's hard to like walk in the way of success in anything we do. Being abusive. Proverbs 3:31 do not envy a violent man or choose any of his ways. Yeah, I guess we're just gonna say enough said.

Yeah, abusive is where you're trying to have influence by power, Or your authority. And that only works as long as you're there and your authority is there and it doesn't get reproduced, it doesn’t expand. So if you're going to run a church with power, there's only so many people Then you're gonna have power over.

Well, and the thing that's interesting about this, too, is positions of authority are sacred trust. And, you know, there's so many news stories of ministers who, pastors who were senior pastors and so forth, and then they basically didn't realize how their power was giving them opportunity for, like sexual harassment. And, again, this, you know, we can say Enough said, there really, there's a lot to say about it. And when you have those kinds of opportunities, just to keep the humble walk,

And that's a good point that the whole thing of this class here is about influence, And be wary of the negative influence that you can have on somebody, and the hurt that you can put onto somebody because you're, you know, you don't have walk with God, you're not helping them in the right way. Or you're pushing people, instead of letting them choose for themselves, and really want someone to walk with God, you want all these blessings to them. But as you push them into it, they are not really having a walk with God, they're having your walk with God. And when you're gone, they don't have it at anymore. Because we're impatient. And because we want to control it. Especially with your kids, you want to control your kids, you don't want to see them go down bad trails and see if, and then they run away and do their own thing. Instead of saying, you know, I trust that God is working in you, you know, letting them choose for themselves.

Very, very important. So when you're in a position of power, whether it's a staff position, things like sexual harassment issues matter. Whether you're in the position of power as a parent, to take away someone's ability to own their own life, or a pastor where you're just sort of walking for them, those are like either even preaching styles, and we've seen them before, I want to tell you today, how you, you know, the relationship is like, you don't have your own walk, you walk through me.

I'm the authority on this.

Okay, so wasting time in words, whoever corrects a mocker, invites, insults, whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse. One of the fascinating things about the literature of influence is talking about how that there are times when people aren't buying what you're saying, and move on to someone who isn't what you're doing. 

Yeah, you're trying to be an influence. And you're just kicking at dead horse. It's just not  working. And it gets spend your whole life trying to help this one person, or triage and move on to the next one who wants help, who wants to do something different?

Now, you are good at that and I'm better at now. But you should have seen me 25 years ago, you know, like, work and work, and we're in Steve helped me to really, you know, cross pollinate friends. And that's when they receive me because I would stay with somebody in the process, someone who could be helped. I can't.

Some people will say this, they go, Well, you know, if one person has helped, then all of this was worth it, things like that. But you might have been able to help 10, instead of the one, So it's not just, you know, well, of course, helping one person is worth everything. But you could have helped 10 In that same time period. And so nine people got hurt, we get stuck with the one the whole time. Jesus himself didn't heal everybody, he preached and people that rejected, he moved on.

That's a stark reality. Being stingy. Proverbs 3:27 do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it is in your power to act. Proverbs 23 verse seven, for he is the kind of man who always is thinking about the cost, eat drink, and he says, you know, his heart is now with you. Now, what's fascinating about in the literature on this subject to this is sort of the opposite of you know, moving on, and the last time we just came to the slide, wasting time, you know, but always know that, even that person who you think is a waste, maybe you need to be very careful to not waste your time in triage. But on the other hand, you never know. Anyone out, If it's in your power to act, be generous in your love and don't pigeonhole them or profile them as not being reached by the love of Christ. And I think in money wise, I think that I mean, this one kind of has that money feeling and don't be stingy. And I, that's another thing that you read about is, is people who are always like counting the pennies. There's something about that feels like you don't want to be around that person.

They're not trusting God, for one thing, they're trusting in their own ability to get their own money. And their fear is themselves and I'm not gonna have enough. So again, their focus is on themselves. A generous person is thinking of others.

Here's one that we did talk about this previous about complaining about parents and you brought up the subject am you complaining, but this one is constant complaining, I guess we'd love to talk too much about it. But here's some great passages, Proverbs 15, verse two, the title of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouth of fools, gushes folly. Proverbs 21, verse nine, better to live on  the corner of the house roof, than to share a house with a quarrelsome wife. It is true, I have a hard time following someone who's complaining all the time. Now, having said that, I know that some of us and some of you truly were victims, and you were abused. And maybe part of your journey is to process some of that, well, you're hoping for some relief and  encouragement. But here's some of the message that I've learned. I'm curious how you've seen in your years. You know, if somebody remember this, and I can give several stories on this, I remember, just in my last church, if somebody was hurt in their marriage, the guy cheated. And, you know, really, in a lot of ways, it was just terrible. So the gal was at our church, and in every time she came, it really was to talk about how she was hurt and all of those things. And I remember this, and now the years I've been in the ministry, that I've noticed that if you take the role of the constant complainer, at first people are very sympathetic. Okay, and they will sign on that you are project to them. And they will say next to prayer, send a card, all of those things. But I found that that spirit of being the victim eventually has at work, who even wants to be around them. And that very person who received all that love and support through this hard time will eventually leave that church, because she or he himself doesn't want to be profiled in that way. But everybody is so used to doing that, and even when they turn change, is the change has not occurred. It's almost as if they profiled themselves, and then their influence leaves and they don't want to be there and the people in the church, it's a problem. 

Well, you know, complaining is not doing right, you're right, complaining about something. And you know, we all do it, and there's a certain I suppose it makes us feel good. You know, we've been hurt and then we complain about suffering, and makes us feel good. And in counseling, sometimes you listen to a person and they're complaining about their life and so on. But coaching in the end, you always come to so what do you want to do about it? So now we're on to a positive complaining is the negative thing. What happened is bad it was this is unfair, it was. And you can sit on that for quite a while. But none of that gets anything better. Nothing improves until someone says Okay, so now what are we going to do? Once what that focus is now, forward is now positive. It's now let's strategize we're not on the same team, going  somewhere where the other is like, you're going down, down is dragging people. And so complaining  is great. When someone's complaining. You listened long enough to finally ask somebody what to do. Now that turns everything around. So it's a great opportunity, actually, when people are complaining to try your coaching skills

I love it. The last one for today is being too real. Against the sort of, like, we talked earlier about being like, over emotional. This is could be emotional, couldn't it be not emotional? Just like, so transparent. So  proverbs 12 Verse 16, a fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult. You know, we're often unoffended, you know, just jump to, you know something that

Your emotions are always on the surface and you're always, you know, I just kind of tell you, this is how I'm feeling. Every minute, every minute, everything you say I'm reacting to, and I'm letting you know all the nuances of my feelings to the point where we can’t even have a discussion.

And even in preaching, I've seen ministers that you know, that they spent all week preparing a message in the morning, they wake up and something strikes, I prepared July of something else that I'm just want to share what I'm feeling this morning, you know, again, and I know the Holy Spirit works in this way. And I'm but again, it's be careful with that. It can become like sort of like any other people smart class, there is a session about are you a thermometer? Or are you a thermostat? Many of you may have taken that class and you remember that. And what that is, is a thermostat is one who sets the temperature in a room. A thermometer is the temperature. So you just are. There are some times when you're not feeling great, but you still are called to exert influence.  So how do you balance that together.

I don’t know.

With that we’ll end today and move on to our next session.