← Living Influence with Bill Thrall and Scott Boyd
Living Influence with Bill Thrall and Scott Boyd
Why Knowledge Alone Can't Transform a Person's Life
00:23:47
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- [00:05]
A
Hey guys, I just want to tell you about something else that Bill Voldemort and I are working on. It's called Living Influence Leadership. It's for business leaders who also happen to be Christians. We think we've got some great stuff that can be amazing in your company as it was in mine. Check us out@livinginfluenceleadership.com welcome to Living Influence. We've been talking about the process of maturing and today we're going to talk about this process of maturing where we, we, we make sure that we don't outpace the person, right? So I got a story. I would take my sons on a trip when they would turn 13. And so back in the day there was only one bass pro shop. They're all over the country now. But back in the day there was one. It was in Springfield, Missouri.
- [00:53]
B
That's right.
- [00:54]
A
And so I went, I've been there, by the way. Have you been there? Yeah. And it's the Springfield, the headquarters. They've got all of these mounts of, you know, eight foot tall bears. They have all these aquariums with like 10 pound bass in them. It's really phenomenal. And back in the day there was nothing like it. So I would take my sons there. So I'm taking my middle son Matt, and we stopped to see my grandma and grandpa. And we're my grandma and grandpa's and Matt's there with me. And my grandma is just heaping praise on what a fine young man Matt is. And she's just laying it on thin. I mean, for me, I was feeling like she's really laying it on thick. And I'm thinking she doesn't know all that I know about Matt because if she knew all that I knew about my son, she wouldn't say such great things about him. And I had a God moment where I felt like, I felt like the Holy Spirit just interrupted those thoughts, those negative thoughts I was having. And it's like, Scott, maybe she spoke that way to you too. Maybe she actually knows more than you're giving her credit. Oh, wow.
- [02:08]
B
For great story.
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A
And maybe she's actually seeing Matt for who he is, not just for what he does. I mean, it was not all those exact words, but it was very much that.
- [02:22]
B
A teaching moment.
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A
Teaching moment for me of like, oh my gosh. Because I had, you know, I had grown up with an alcoholic dad. My alcoholic dad was really good at giving you advice. And here my grandma was this super positive woman. It had had an effect on me. I loved her dearly. She meant a lot to me.
- [02:46]
B
Absolutely.
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A
She and my grandpa made me feel special, which in retrospect is, I think, how God wants us to feel.
- [02:57]
B
Amen.
- [02:58]
A
And so it just fit, I felt like, with this topic of make sure not to push them beyond the pace for which they're able to handle. And so, yeah. So talk about.
- [03:11]
B
In this process of maturing, I want to make a statement, and then I want to try to back it up. In the process of maturing, we can make a mistake, unintentional. And that is we can teach believers.
- [03:28]
A
To know.
- [03:31]
B
A lot about this book. And when they know a lot about this book, they'll end up getting right answers on a Bible quiz. Yeah, they'll get right answers. But the statement we want to make is this. Right answers do not equate to right choices. So when we are in this process, this sacred process, used that word last week, that sacred process where we are in a relationship with someone who is beginning to mature, we want to be careful that we are teaching them something very profound, actually something even more important than knowing this book, and that's trusting this book.
- [04:19]
A
Yeah.
- [04:20]
B
And that what we want to be able to do is give them space to experience trusting so that the evidence of their trusting will be their lives will never be the same. I am a victim of the statement personally. I went to Bible college and I got a lot of right answers, a lot of theologically tight right answers. But my life was a mess. And I say that because what happened was because I had the theology down and I'm a communicator, I was beginning to get a lot of opportunities to do things that were way beyond my maturity. And what happened is it began to. To literally cause me to withdraw. I knew that I was not who they thought I was because of what I knew. And so what I wanted to say to this point is, what if we had. We talked about this last week? What if there was a safe place where people were given time to learn to trust truth? I make this distinction, Scott. Knowledge, the right answers can produce in me an attitude of compliance. I will comply to what I think the Bible says that I know. But trust does something. When I trust this book and I trust its truth about God, about me, about our relationship, all the things we've been talking about, trust does something. Trust gives me a freedom to obey. Compliance is not obedience. Compliance is an action of the will. Obedience is, in fact, a process of maturing because it's an act of the heart.
- [06:32]
A
It's actually a fruit of the maturing.
- [06:34]
B
It's a fruit of the maturing. So that I am learning to trust. Now what happens is when I learn to trust truth, I will act upon it. When I act upon truth, it will transform me. And listen to this. And it will change my choices. Isn't that amazing? So that here I can be. And I was a young man in my 20s, late into my late 20s, doing a lot of preaching and teaching. But it was all from a position of what I knew I was not yet I was 27, 29, and 30 when I began to understand at a very elementary level the things we've been teaching and being able to trust who God says I am, being able to trust my heart, the things we talk about a lot. But the point I want to make here is this. When we are nurturing others, help them to learn, bring them to a point of trusting this book so they can mature.
- [07:50]
A
Yeah.
- [07:51]
B
And does it mean sometimes people hear me say, well, then you. Are you telling people they shouldn't know the Bible? No, listen, you got to know the Bible so you can discover its truth, but you don't want to know it just for the sake of knowing it. This is a negative statement. Excuse me, for some of you, but the knowledge of this book cannot transform you. Only the truth in this book can. And it cannot transform you until you trust it. That's the whole point of this lesson. Can I understand that sometimes it takes seasons for me to learn to trust, for people to learn to trust God in new ways, over new issues, over new relationships, over new circumstances. As I'm speaking, I'm thinking of one of the women that I've been working with the last couple of years. And if she was sitting here, she would say to you, I've got all the right answers. I've had them for years. I'm a holy mess. Yeah, she would say that. Yeah, because it's true.
- [08:55]
A
It's interesting. So it's a nuanced thing. I don't know what to call it. Trusting truth versus doing what you know, doing. Exactly. And what were the words that you used Versus. Oh, obedience versus compliance. Compliance. I will often say this because I'll talk about when I learned about grace. I ended up developing this doing radar where I would notice when people would talk about things that you should do. And the interesting thing is there are people who can do absolutely and do well. You tell me to do, I'm going to do that.
- [09:39]
B
Absolutely.
- [09:40]
A
But I'll talk about there's a cost if you go in that order. And you do, because you should. And the cost that I see is the people that do because they should and are able to do what comes.
- [09:57]
B
With it is judgment.
- [09:59]
A
They then judge others who aren't doing as well, who aren't doing as ours.
- [10:04]
B
Often or as effectively.
- [10:06]
A
Right. And that creates a lack of love.
- [10:12]
B
Absolutely. Which is the evidence of a lack of maturity. Isn't that weird?
- [10:17]
A
Yeah.
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B
The evidence of a lack of maturity is, in fact, a judgment that robs the other person from being loved.
- [10:26]
A
Well, that robs the other person from being loved. Yeah.
- [10:29]
B
This comes into this whole subject of effort and you've teased me, Bill. You've got to write an essay on effort.
- [10:35]
A
On effort. Yeah.
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B
And you're right.
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A
Yeah. Where's the effort?
- [10:38]
B
Exactly. And so let's just pause here for a minute. We have a propensity, we're humans, to do stuff. So tell me something to do. Something to do.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And so grace, we talk a lot about grace. That's the foundation for everything we're teaching. Grace is not adverse to effort at all.
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A
Yeah. It's not adverse to standards either.
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B
At all.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Effort is not to become. Effort is the response of being. Think of effort in that. It's the response of being who I am. What is the effort of who I am? Jesus. Words are to love. Love your neighbor as yourself. Okay. That takes some effort. I thought about that.
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A
Okay.
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B
That takes some effort. Love one another. That takes some effort. Anything has audacity to say this. Love your enemies. Now, wait a second. Wait a minute. And what I've discovered, Scott, over many years, I've discovered that it's easier for people to try to work on their sin than it is to put effort into love and being loved. It's easier because I get to do something and I'm working hard. But in order to love, I have to be something. I have to be something. Am I understanding that this process of my maturing is my, again, foundational being at a place where I'm trusting and living into who God says I am? That's a really important place. And let's go there. Let's take that to our next subject.
- [12:30]
A
Yeah. Here's your statement. I'm just going to read it, please. Young believers and maturing believers will adapt themselves to your expectations.
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B
Right.
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A
What in the world do you mean by that?
- [12:45]
B
It's a big deal. I have to back it up again by saying these are some things I've learned over the years. I've learned there are certain things that wound us. Certain things wound us. One of the Things that wound us. Somebody sins against us. One of the things that wound us is that I didn't get love the way I thought I could. But the one that is often missing is the power of expectations. Unmet expectations create a lot of wounding. They create a lot of wounding. You should not have done what you did. Whatever my rationale is. So now I'm an influencer, let's say. And I have these young people that I'm nurturing, let's say. I've got to be very, very careful that I am not directing their lives to honor the expectations that they believe I have of them. I've got to make it very, very clear. This is not about you honoring my expectations. This is about me teaching you truth that you get to act upon parents. Christian parents can be horribly bad at this. Scott, these are statistics. I don't make them up. They're just everybody knows them. I've been working with some youth pastors recently. Here's a tragic reality. It used to be 70%. It's even higher now. Almost 80% of all teenagers who go to college who were in a youth group, almost 80% of them, by the time they end college, never go to church again. Wow. Now I go, oh, that can't be true. Can't be true. It is true. Now my point is this. Many, many, many of those kids did not learn from their parents how to trust truth. What they lear their parents is how to meet their parents expectations.
- [14:44]
A
Yeah.
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B
And the minute, minute I live to meet your expectations or somebody lives to meet my expectations, I am teaching them compliance. And here's a tragic reality. The tragic reality is this. Children who grow up honoring their parents expectations are compliant. But when they leave home, they will blame their parents for their life choices because they never were taught to make their own.
- [15:18]
A
Yeah. My late wife had an expectation that I would balance the checkbook to the penny. And I met that every month.
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B
Wow.
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A
Balanced it to the penny. But I haven't balanced my checkbook in the sexually since she passed.
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B
Just to prove your point. But you were compliant.
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A
I was compliant.
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B
You were compliant, but I haven't balanced my checkbook. Yes, because she created an expectation for you.
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A
Okay. And so what should she have done?
- [15:52]
B
Probably my opinion. Probably what she should have done is sat with you and the two of you decide which of us should redo the checkbook. The reason I give you that answer is because that's the decision, Grace that I made. By the way, I'm a CPA and I have not written a check out of Our checking account in over 30 years. I haven't reconciled our bank account in 30 years. Because, Scott, she is the one who needed it to be reconciled. She's the one. And so let her do it. And she loves to do it. She's not more happy than that. But it's a living illustration of a lesson we're trying to understand.
- [16:34]
A
Yeah, you're talking about parents expectations of children and children being. Until they leave. So now, real simple, practically, what does that mean?
- [16:44]
B
What that means is, let's just take it into the context of my, say, nurturing young believers or believers of any age.
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A
Doesn't matter. Yeah.
- [16:53]
B
Do you know what they want to do, Scott? They want to honor me. And you know what they're going to do? They're going to. In the name of honoring me, they're going to comply to my expectations. And neither of us understand the penalty they're living under.
- [17:10]
A
And what kind of expectations might they be complying to?
- [17:14]
B
Like, for instance, lots of them. You understand that I expect you to have a quiet time every day. I expect that of you to honor me. Guess what? Have a quiet time every day. I expect you to memorize these verses. I expect you to be in the Bible. I expect this, I expect this, I expect this. And all the time what they're doing is they're honoring my expectations. But what if my attitude was this? There are things that I want to make sure that we are practicing, things that we are doing that I believe will help mature us, that will help us grow, that will help us actually learn together how to trust truth. So rather than giving you practices to do that, I expect you to do. What if I taught you truths that I've experienced? What if I could give you examples of times in my life with great struggle that I had to learn a lesson? What if I gave you that? I'll give you a really, really critical lesson. I went to meet with an organization and the president of the organization, I don't remember, in the first hour of our meeting, he made a statement about his daughter and how struggle. How much they were struggling with his daughter. And so we went out the whole day and we got all done. And I said to him, I'd like to talk to you about your daughter. What? He said, I'd like to talk about why. Why is your daughter struggling so much? What is she struggling with? And the parents were so disappointed in this girl's behavior that they literally had gotten to the point where she could not touch any food in the refrigerator that did not have her Name on it. This is a Christian, a leader of.
- [19:09]
A
A Christian organization and his daughter.
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B
And I said to him, I'd like to make a suggestion. What's that? He said, I think you should sit with your girl. You know what? Your girl doesn't know you. She doesn't have a clue who you are. She's complying, and she's tired of complying. So she's rebelling. Not against you. She's rebelling against all your crazy rules. Sit down and tell your daughter who you are. Give her a story where you struggled. And he said to me, oh, oh, my gosh. Okay, I'll try it. And he did. I love her response. So he sits his daughter down and he gives her a story. And she said, dad, you're lying to me. That was her response to his story. You're lying to me. That never happened to you. You never did anything like that. You're just lying to make me feel better about myself. So he calls me up. He said, it didn't work. I said, no, it worked perfectly. It worked perfectly. She heard you. Now go back and tell her another story. Tell her 10 more stories. Do you know what? She doesn't know her dad. She said to him, dad, I don't know who you are. Those were her exact words. Not because I'm a prophet, but those were her exact words.
- [20:21]
A
So how did you know that from his story about the refrigerator?
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B
Because what I knew was this. That if that child's behavior had driven him to the point where the only way he could make any sense out of it was to reduce the refrigerator to hers and theirs, I went, this kid doesn't believe anything he teaches her because she doesn't know him. His lessons did not match his behavior. I knew that. But more importantly, she did, Scott. Yeah, more importantly, she did. Now, as ministries interview these young adults who don't go back to church, I don't know the percentage. A very high percentage of them say this. Their response is, because my parents themselves never believed the things they were teaching me that I had to do. The high majority of them, because what they're saying is this. You're asking me to comply to living in a Christian family, doing Christian things, when you yourself are a hypocrite of what you believe. I don't trust you, mom and dad. Yeah, I don't trust you. But what if I learned a different lesson? What if I learned to model for others? The things in this book that I actually trust that are transforming me with the hope that they could experience that same transformation?
- [21:49]
A
So in your experience, do people trust the same things? No.
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B
Gosh, no. That's the beautiful thing. No, I mean, tell me about that. Oh, no. I mean, there are some primary things we need to trust.
- [22:01]
A
Sure.
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B
But there are lots and lots of examples of individuals who are trusting God in an area of their life that maybe never touch mine. We want to be careful. There's a principle behind this. I want to make sure. I'm going to say carefully. We want to make be careful. I'll teasingly tell you a story of this. That we do not create patterns in the process of teaching trusting truth. I'll give you a teasing story.
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A
Yeah, yeah. That's religion.
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B
That's religion. David killed a giant with a slingshot. If David lived today, every Christian in America would buy a slingshot. Yes. Yeah, That's a great truth. Because there would be an assumption that the slingshot is the. Is the key.
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A
It's the key.
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B
Killing giants.
- [22:55]
A
Yeah.
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B
So that would be the assumption. Because we have a propensity to create a pattern when we trust truth. If I trust truth this way, I transfer to you my pattern. No, I'd rather transfer you the principle of trusting truth and let you discover before God the truth he wants you to trust.
- [23:15]
A
Yeah.
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B
That's the key to this lesson.
- [23:18]
A
Yeah. So here's where we're going to end. What are the truths that you trust?
- [23:21]
B
Amen.
- [23:23]
A
It's a great question to think about. Thanks for watching Living Influence. We hope to see you next week. Thanks again for listening to Living Influence. We appreciate you. We'd love it if you'd go to livinginfluence.com, contact us and send us an email. We'd love to know what you're thinking. See you next week.