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- [00:05]
A
Mature Christians honor the people they're protecting by always seeking permission first. Welcome to Living Influence. Well, alrighty, Bill, we've got a couple of words to unpack here in this session that we're going to talk about with mature leaders. Protecting. So we want to talk about protecting as what? What does it mean to be protecting someone? Certainly, I'm going to protect my children and I want to protect my children. So protection is one of the words that I think is new to our audience. And the other word is permission. Seeking permission. Now it makes sense. The people that I'm protecting, I need to always see, seek permission. I've noticed other people do that with me. Could I offer a piece of wisdom here for you? And they ask a question before they just tell me what I should do. But yeah, talk about that. Let's start with the protection word. Talk about the protection work first.
- [01:08]
B
Way back in the Old Testament, In Exodus, chapter 34, and again in Deuteronomy 6, 7, God does a very interesting thing. He gives the law to Moses a second time. And when he gave the law to Moses the first time, he said to Moses, tell Israel I am that I am the great Jehovah God. But when he gave the law to Moses a second time, he said to them, moses, I want you to tell Israel this time that I'm a jealous God. And God can't be jealous of anything. So he's always jealous for something. To be jealous for something is actually a love concept that has to do with protecting. In essence, he was saying, would you please tell Israel that they are mine and they mean so much to me and I want to do everything I can to protect them. Would they please let me protect them? Because he had a very positive negative statement this time through Moses in Deuteronomy, he expands it and he says, do you know, Israel, if you don't let me protect you, you will be open, vulnerable to every form of evil. You'll even offer one day your children to the idols in the land. I like to make this assumption. When they're hearing that for the first time, let's just say you've never heard it before. And Moses is saying, now God is saying that you're going to become vulnerable to sin and offer your children. And they're all going, ain't ever going to happen. I'm never, ever, ever going to stop it, stop it, stop it. But you know, it's what they did. Scott, when we have this understanding, you mentioned it as a parent, as a leader, as a fellow Christian, how do I offer to you because of how important you are to me. The protection I have in love, that when you trust it, it'll keep you from being vulnerable to evil. That's an amazing concept. That's an amazing concept. And so protection is a decision on my part to honor you because you are so important to me. And whoever that you is, whether it's my child, my mate, my neighbor, anyone. Who is it? And I'll say this. Who is it that actually needs another person's protection? Every one of us. Why? Because we're vulnerable. You and I and everyone else, we're really, really vulnerable. Last week we were talking about hidden issues, and I've never met a person yet without some. So I'm just saying we're all vulnerable. So what does that look like? John lynch, our dear friend, when he gave that talk years ago and he gave this illustration. I just love this illustration. Protection is to come alongside somebody, put your arm around them, even with all of their stuff and your stuff in front of you, and you look at each other and you say, what are we going to do about this? The control, Scott, does something else for many, many Christians. They live in environments not of protection, but of control. And what happens is we stand facing each other with all our stuff in front of us, and instead of putting our arms around each other to protect each other, because we both know how vulnerable we are, we put our behavior in front of us with an attempt to ask each other, what are you going to do about that? What are you going to do about that?
- [05:13]
A
Yeah, it's horrible. And you see it with people like, well, I can't have a relationship with that person because I would then be supporting what they do, and they're a sinner, and I can't, you know, so it just brings. It brings such. It causes us Christians to look so hypocritical when we do that.
- [05:34]
B
I want to thank you for saying that, Scott, because we need to be called out on it. Grace just does something. When I. And when you. When we together experience grace, our relationship will always be more important than our behavior. Every time.
- [05:55]
A
Yeah.
- [05:56]
B
When we don't experience grace, our behavior will always top our relationship. We literally live in Christian communities looking for ways to discard one another instead of living in communities of grace where our primary motive is to honor one another.
- [06:17]
A
That's kind of what Jesus did, like with the woman at the well. He honored her, he had a conversation with her, he valued her. And the only reason he made mention that she had several husbands was so that she would understand who she was talking to.
- [06:35]
B
You asked me about both words. That other word is that people, they are protected by always seeking permission, never assuming it. Permission is an incredibly important relational word because permission says this. Who am I going to let in to who I am? Who am I going to let in? The principle we're talking about separates protection from control. I gave you that illustration. Your influence, as significant as it is, because whoever you are does not grant access to me. Your position, no matter how high it is, does not grant access to me. The history of how significant you are doesn't grant access to me. Even your love doesn't grant access to me until I give you my permission. And next week, we're going to talk about this again. But I want to just say it right here. Permission is my decision to let you affect me. It sounds almost unheard of, but it's so deep. See, nobody. Nobody can love me until I let them. Scott. Nobody, not even God. Nobody can teach me truth until I let them. Nobody can give me any guidance in my life until I let them.
- [08:05]
A
So we're saying, before you try to help someone, get their permission to help them. Would you give me your permission to speak into what you just shared with me?
- [08:19]
B
Amen. Scott, those are some of the most important words any of us could ever share.
- [08:25]
A
If I'm protecting you, and I'm asking you for permission to have access to you, what I. What I need to bring is a message of. Do you understand who God says you are? Because we're not saying just get permission and then go dump the law on a person. Oh, you should. You should never do this. You should stop that. You should start doing this. Give me permission to tell you that. Right? We're actually talking about a different path.
- [09:01]
B
Absolutely, Scott. I. I'll scream. Amen again.
- [09:05]
A
You're.
- [09:06]
B
You're hitting it right on the head. When someone gives me permission to who they are, what will I do? What will I do with that permission? Will I love them? Will I teach them truth? Do you know that I cannot transfer truth to anyone that I have not experienced? I cannot. So when someone gives me permission, am I able? Do I really have. Have I personally experienced truth that I can share with them? Scott, our. Our primary message to you and I is. Is a message of grace. By God's grace. That's our primary message. I see us as stewards of the message of grace. But I would say this. I cannot teach grace that I have not experienced as grace. I can't do it. I cannot teach truth that I have not experienced as truth. This is a huge, big statement. I wish I could just scream it right now, but I want to say this. There are people who have given people permission to only be violated by teaching them something that doesn't work. I'm very cautious, Scott. You know me well. I'm very cautious when I'm meeting with someone. I'm. I'm about as like I am right now with this audience. I want. I want to say this. Am I able to honor the reason you trust me when you give me permission? Am I able to honor it? See, I cannot honor the permission you give me if I am not able to love you. And in order to love you, I have to experience love. I can't give you grace if I have not experienced grace. I cannot give you guidance if I
- [11:21]
A
have not experienced guidance, protection and permission. And permission opens the door not forgiving the law, but forgiving truth about who a person is. Yeah, it's so cool, because I think in our culture, we. We're taught to demean ourselves.
- [11:45]
B
Oh.
- [11:47]
A
Oh, yeah. That's not. That's not true about me, you know. Oh, yeah, I'm. Yeah, I'm just. I'm just a sinner. And so this seeking permission to tell someone. Do you realize God's in your heart and that he's changed it and that you really could trust it? It's amazing what that does to a person when they begin to really grab
- [12:11]
B
a hold of it. I trust you, Scott, with me because I have watched you humbly trust God with you. I'm going to say that again. I trust you, Scott, with me because I have watched you humbly trust God with you. That's a very important sequence that lots and lots of leaders, they lead from their position and their knowledge. They do not lead from their person. Jesus led from his person. He led from his person. And when he led from his person in humility, he became vulnerable to humanity. I said words just now I can't even fathom. I cannot fathom my own words. Jesus, the Son of God, in humility as a man, became vulnerable to humanity for the purposes of God.
- [13:13]
A
He trusted humanity as they put him on the cross.
- [13:16]
B
And they put him on a cross for humanity's sake. They thought they were killing a foe, an enemy, and they were in fact using the cross as the great redemptive plan of God. So as you come back to this, protecting each other by seeking permission, I'll say this. This is what Jesus modeled. This church that was just kind of wasted and going nowhere. He said they were blind and naked. He said to them, behold, I say at the door and knock. I Jesus Christ, rap, rap, rap. I would like to have permission to come into your life. And even though he had described them accurately, he didn't look for permission to condemn them. This is so beautiful. He actually asked them, would they like to have a dinner with him? Would you guys like to have a meal with me? And that's the behavior of Jesus. The behavior of Jesus is he becomes vulnerable to the needs of humanity by asking our permission to meet our needs.
- [14:29]
A
That's really great. So let's say you have a child and you want to protect your child. Have you ever thought of asking your child permission to influence their thinking? Wow.
- [14:48]
B
I think I would say to you because of what you just said, I just wish every Christian parent who has a teenager could just hear what you just said. Because children are the ones who quickly will assume your protection is control because they fear your authority rather than you becoming vulnerable as a person, as a father, for the benefit of your child. So they will give you access to them. That's a whole other podcast, but I just thought I'd add that in.
- [15:26]
A
Yeah, yeah. Seek permission from those that you're trying to protect. Please, like subscribe, share and comment. We love your comments. I read them. I try to like them all when I see them. And we'll see you next week. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for listening to Living Influence. We appreciate you. Just a call to action. We would love it if you would share our podcast with one or two people this week. Thanks again.