 Hey everybody, I want to redeem the time, so if I could have your attention, you'll notice as you came in you received a personal assessment. Please resist taking it while I'm speaking, alright? You need some time where you can focus in on this, and the one thing I'll say up front, and I'll say it at the end. When you do take it, if you would please be extremely honest as if no one else was going to read it except you and the Holy Spirit. Now for some of you, that'll even be hard for you to be honest. But as we talk further, you'll see why it's so essential that you are honest. Then I'm going to encourage many of you who are married to then have your spouse go through those questions, not to disagree with you, but to put the numbers that your spouse would put. Now the only way that you can do this spouse is if you take the assessment also, and your spouse gets to do the same thing. So I want to encourage you in that direction, okay everybody? Welcome. I'm Les Beacham. I'm from Omaha, Nebraska. I'm thrilled to be here. Yeah, go Big Red. Let's thank you. I'm thrilled to be here, and I can't wait to see what the Lord wants to do. As we were in worship, I felt impressed by the Lord to go to Revelation chapter 4 on purpose. And it says this, and I believe this is the opportunity that you have in this workshop. After John had heard Jesus, and of course the message to the seven churches, then the word of God says this. After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, come up here. And I will show you what must take place after this. I believe this. You're in this seminar whether you know it or not, because there's a door open in heaven. And the Spirit of God is saying to you today, come up here and I will show you things that you need to see, and things that have the potential to change the very course of your life and your ministry. I believe that with all my heart. You don't need more information. You can listen to podcasts. You can get online and watch YouTube messages about what I'm talking about. But you're here and now. This moment will never happen again. And I believe it's because the Holy Spirit brought you no matter what you're feeling. And he's saying this, I'm going to open a door, and if you'll be humble and teachable, you can walk through it. And as you do, you'll be changed and you won't be the same person. Can that really happen? That's the way God wants it to happen. So let's just open our hearts. Holy Spirit of God, we need you. I pray in the might of Jesus' name that when we hear things that sound familiar, we would listen like we've never heard them before. I pray rather than listening to confirm what we already know, we'd listen to discover what we don't know. I pray you differentiate the difference between knowing with our minds and knowing with our lives. And I pray the result would be that we would grow in emotional, spiritual maturity and become like Jesus. And in so doing, we would invite people into a life that's whole and healthy and growing and vibrant. Holy Spirit, I bind every lie. I bind every attempt of our minds to categorize. And I ask that you give us an open heaven so that we could walk through the door that you're showing us in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. This is entitled, The Neglected Essential, The Emotional Health of Pastors and Spiritual Leaders. And I would add to that of followers of Jesus, the emotional health. Now when you hear that, the immediate sense is, okay, he's going to talk about burnout. He's going to talk about wipeout. He's going to talk about depression. Actually, I don't know that I'll even mention those words again. I'm going to talk about emotional maturity. Now I'm less, I am a pastor of a mega church, Lifegate Church in Omaha, Nebraska. We're one church in five locations. Two of those locations are in Serbia. And when pastors hear that, it's like, well, I wonder how many people they have and how many pastors you have and how many still will. Let me tell you some more about me. I'm a husband and I'm a father of two amazing children. And I am a grandfather of three. I am poppy to them. That's my claim to fame being poppy. And they're perfect. And I love them with all of my heart. And now you're impressed too because he's married. He's been married all these years and all of this. But the thing you don't know about me is that I am a recovering manipulator, perfectionist. I'm a recovering luster. I'm a huge recovering people pleaser. And I know I don't look like him, but I'm also a recovering messiah. And I'm recovering because the journey, once you begin it to emotional maturity, is lifelong with great gains though. And I'm recovering from these things. I grew up in a very strict home. My father was a Marine Corps colonel. Three of my growing up years, he was overseas fighting wars. My mother tried to raise us. When he was home, we had to rediscover him every time because he'd been away and he'd become a different person. And then there was a conflict between mom and he about who ran the home and all of that. His discipline style was shouting at us, whippings with a belt or a stick, and insults. He loved my mother. He was faithful to my mother, has always been. He provided well for us. But he was very, very firm. And we feared him. I can remember in third grade in Lincoln, Nebraska, it was freezing cold below zero temperatures, snow on the ground. And we kids were goofing around on our beds, my brothers and I. He came down and said, boys, you need to be quiet and go to sleep right now. And we persisted. He said, I'm going to tell you one more time. And we persisted and he went down and jerked us out of the bed, dragged us up the stairs, pushed us out the door in the snow and said, if you're not going to go to sleep, then you just got to get out of this house. He slammed the door, third grade, if you can imagine, in my PJs and they weren't footies. So I'm standing there and we looked at each other. I mean, what do we do? And we decided, we can't stay here. So we ran across the street, we were in a cul-de-sac and we stood on the porch of the neighbors shivering, wondering, are we going to die out here? And then after about five minutes, he yelled at us, get back in here. So we got back in, we got in bed and we didn't make any noise after that. It was just amazing. It's just rules oriented. So I knew that to make my father happy, I needed to perform. And if he was going to love me in any way, it was because I performed. And I got that deep inside. My mom, on the other hand, she's an adult child of an alcoholic with all the dysfunctions of that. When she was growing up, her dad played in bands and he would take her with him. His wife wouldn't go because she was fed up with his alcoholism. And she can remember numerous times as a little kid that he'd play in a band, he'd get drunk, he'd go home and he'd leave her at the place where the band was playing. And then her mother would get upset and say, where's Judith? And they'd have to go back and find her terrified. Was it any wonder until I left home at 18, 19 years old that every night I can remember being awakened at midnight by my mother's screams? No, stop. Don't, don't stop. And my father would calmly say, it's okay, Judith, it's all right. Because I knew that she had to wipe his brow over a toilet, her father growing up, because his wife refused to do it. And I don't know what else happened to her. But I believe she was abused. My mother, you would love her. She went to be with Jesus in October at 85 years old after falling down and hitting her head. If you could spend time with you, you'd love her. But every time I interacted with her, every single phone call of my adult life, by the end of the call, she made it clear that if I did this and so, I would be a better son. You know, if you would come out more, you know, if you would call more, you know if you would do this or do that more. I love my mother. I want to honor my mother. I love my father. My father met Jesus at 70. He's 90 right now. But he's still my dad, because he's not grown in emotional maturity one bit in those last 20 years. I have an older brother. He was rebellious, cruel, mean, beat me up all the time, beat my brother up all the time, had big parties in the house. I'd come home finding semen in my bed and the people he'd had over. He held my father at gunpoint with the family rifle, demanded the car when he was 17 years old, was thrown in jail, went through treatment, hated my parents. You know what happens when you hate your dad? You become like him. So he joined the Marine Corps. Of course he did. And for 25 years, he was a Marine being arrested from time to time because of his alcoholism. He's had three wives. He's met Jesus. He's an amazing guy. But he is addicted to opioids. Three different prescriptions. But admits it and is walking through recovery right now. You'd love him. I have a younger brother. He began ministry right after college and he was a worship leader. And then the affairs of the pastor and the dysfunction of the church discouraged him so he went into the marketplace, which worked against him because his calling was in ministry. Eventually his marriage started to crumble and it fell apart. The very woman that I married, he and she together, college sweethearts now divorced. He is on his fourth marriage. But God is changing him and he is being transformed one step, one decision at a time. I love my mom. I love my dad. I love my brothers. You know what I would say? You probably feel the same way about yours. And many of you would say this. You know, they did the best that they could. I'm sharing my story with the hope that you'll start contemplating your story. If we had time, we'd get a big board up here and we'd go through your genogram, which is your family tree and we'd see what your parents were like and their parents were like it. And we'd walk through this because one of the first steps to becoming an emotionally mature person is realizing very, very deeply that your family of origin does impact you. Now, right now, something's happening in the room, theologically. You see, some of you are going, wait a second. Hang on. I appreciate you, Pastor Liz, but not my God. My God, it took care of all my past. My God, it's all under the blood. My God, he's changed everything. That's not a part of my past anymore. I have a few, and all those things are great and I've preached like that before. But they have very little to do with the real emotional health and real emotional maturity. Because the fact of the matter is you are not the sum total of your past and it doesn't have to define you but unless you're willing to admit your past and let Jesus and his spirit address it, it will define you. I just want that to settle in. I just had a conversation with a gentleman. I described this and his answer to me was the way I made it through all these years and lovely man was the anointing, was the anointing. And I'm so thrilled and he told stories of miraculous things but he didn't say anything about his emotional maturity. And God is concerned and I'll explain why with our growth in emotional maturity. In Hebrews chapter 7 verse 23 through 25 and by the way if I could write this on the board I would but the board's not here. So if you would write down in your notes R. Williams, R. Williams at discoverlifegate.com R. Williams is my assistant Robin. These notes are yours immediately after you email her. So some of you can relax because you're viral note takers like I am and just relax and take this in and you get all these notes and hopefully you can write down those insights. So here's what it says. So R. Williams at discoverlifegate.com Here's what it says in Hebrews chapter 7 verse 23 and following. Also there were many priests because they were prevented by death from continuing but he because he continues forever. Jesus has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore he is able also to save to the uttermost. Would you say the uttermost? The uttermost. Do you know what's beyond the uttermost? Nothing. All the way. He's able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through him since he always lives to make intercession for them. Now listen, you know this. I know this. Saved doesn't just mean saved from hell. You're saved, you're being saved and you will be saved glorified. So here's a little unpacking. Have you ever read this in Philippians? Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. I'm going to read it in the passion version. That's Philippians 2.12. My beloved ones, just like you always listen to everything I've taught you in the past, I'm asking you now to keep following my instructions as though I were right there with you. Now you must continue to make this new life fully manifested. What I'm talking about in emotional maturity is helping you fully manifest the new life Jesus has purchased for you. Fully manifested. Work out your salvation as you live in the holy awe of God which brings you trembling into his presence. God will continually revitalize you implanting within you the passion to do what pleases him. So in this time we have, I apologize for talking fast but it's difficult to burr the concept quickly in one session, but I want to do that somehow and get you started. I want to light a fire under you so I'm going to talk fast. God's plan for every one of us is that we would have wholeness of spirit, soul, mind, will and emotions and body unhindered, transparent, loving relationship with him and with one another. Completely whole, spirit, soul and body unhindered, transparent relationship with Vance. Love filled relationship. Not only with God or one another. Can you imagine this in your church? If all of you had unhindered, transparent relationships with one another, what that would do to you and can you imagine, the word would get out and people would have to be a part of this. Here is the why of emotional health. Then we're going to go into the what of it and then the how of it. The why is rooted in 1 Thessalonians 523 and 24. May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together, spirit, soul and body and keep you fit for the coming of our master Jesus Christ. The one who called you is completely dependable and if he said it, he's going to do it. Now I want to break this down so you understand this. We understand wholeness of spirit. We were dead to God. Now we're alive to God. We were far off from him. Now we're filled with him but we rarely understand really being whole in our soul. The fact of the matter is we have to start with understanding this. We are made up of our spirit, soul and body. We have mind, will and emotions but because of the fall your mind is darkened. Because of that you need to renew it. Your appetites are inflamed. Because of that you need to grow in self-control. Your will is weakened because of the fall and growing in Christ is strengthening that and your emotions are wounded or stunted and God wants to mature them and heal them. Now healing of damaged emotions is something that wouldn't surprise any of us but you need to know this. The pastor who married me 37 years ago wrote a book that was radical opposed and it was entitled The Healing of Damaged Emotions by David Siemens. It was radical because people separated emotions from the spirit. Now it's common to talk about this but unless you press into this you'll just talk about it and you'll continue to be as I was an emotional infant. Now beware of the chief opposition to emotional maturity. People will say this, you just want to focus on yourself. You want a naval gaze. You want to do this. All I ever found in my naval was land and that's all you want to do and the opposition will come theologically and it will be denied because of what I believe is a misplaced truth and that is it's all under the blood. Now everyone, it is under the blood. Our sin, its power, is immediately under the blood and we are immediately forgiven but realize this, our sins impact and power in our life is under the blood and is delivered progressively. That's what we call sanctification in many other areas but it's the same when it comes to emotional maturity. There is a progression of this. So when you share with someone that you're being tempted to be really, really angry and they say put it under the blood. You got to put that under the blood. You have to declare the blood of Jesus. That actually becomes kind of like magic. Just shake this thing over it rather than let's talk about this. What do you think is causing you to feel angry? What's bumping? Oh, you want to get into all this psycho babble stuff where you're dissecting people? No, I don't want, I don't have time for that but we realize everything has roots and those roots produce shoots and shoots always produce fruits and if you don't start with the roots you'll never take care of the fruits. Peter Schizzaro in his seminal book I just urge all of you you must get this Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Schizzaro. It'll be up here so you can copy it. It's easy to Amazon, Google it or whatever else. Someone gave me this book and we were going through the worst time of our entire life and I was stunned. I actually started with the Emotionally Healthy Church, the book that he'd written and I realized how toxic the culture of our church was. How utterly emotionally immature a very, very spiritual church could be. Here are a couple of excerpts without going too far. Christian spirituality without an integration of emotional health can be deadly to yourself, your relationship with God and the people around you. In fact, the spirituality of most current discipleship models only adds an additional protective layer against people growing up emotionally. The emphasis on witnessing, the emphasis on reading your Bible, the emphasis on this, but not an emphasis on deep contemplation of what's going on inside of you. Contemporary spiritual models address some of the 90% of the iceberg underneath the water, but they do not answer the needs for emotionally healthy spirituality. Now this is the biggie and I agree with him. It is not possible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature. Now rather than giving you a definition of what is emotional maturity, one of the definitions is that the backside of your assessment it describes an emotionally mature adult. See, after you take your assessment you're going to discover if you're an infant emotionally. What's one of the characteristics of infants? They blow up over everything. They want things their way. You're like, oh, shouldn't I? Well, you might be an infant, okay? And so if you're really honest you might find there's a lot of infantile in you. But when you become an emotionally mature adult you'll start to discover what emotional, spiritual maturity really, really looks like. So rather than giving you a definition I want to give you a story. So you can just imagine, here's Pastor Les, I mean mega church, I mean five locations, I mean 3,000 people on the weekend, I mean city leader connected with the city leaders and I'm so toxic in my emotional immaturity at the same time. I don't know about you. I've always been a performer. You don't get loved unless you perform. I've been a performer and a wooer and a manipulator and thankfully, and my wife would tell you if she was here, the manipulator has gone. And it's changed. And then add to that, I've always been a comedian. I always made everybody laugh and it's a great gift but it can be a great cover-up. I noticed this. When I performed well I was noticed. When I spoke well people, they blessed me and they encouraged me. My first exposure to the impact of things going on in my emotions was these little flashes I would get when I was in seminary. I was afraid all the time of being rejected. I was constantly guilty. I'd wake up guilty because I wasn't doing enough. I was afraid that God was mad at me even though I believed fully in the grace of God but I really didn't believe fully in the grace of God. It hadn't got down into my emotions. It got into my head and my theology but not down into my heart. I struggled with secret sins. All through college I chewed red man chewing tobacco on the back fire escape of the dorm. You know why I chewed too in tobacco? My father chewed too in tobacco. When I chewed too in tobacco I was like my dad and when I took some chewed tobacco from my dad I was connected to... You know guys how it is? You're connected to him. For some of you it's having a beer. For some of you it's doing this. For some of you it's whatever. Watching violent movies and eating junk food or whatever it is that you connect. I realized I was struggling. I had sins. I had secret sexual sins. I still didn't have full self-control and I was still finding comfort through self-gratification through sexual sin in my college years and I thought once I get married all that will go away. It doesn't go away. If you're not married it doesn't go away. It just goes into hiding. I compared myself all the time. I tried to be falsely humble. I was unhealthy, competitive and then I was really nice because you know what I realized when you're nice people like you and so I was nice to everybody and it was a false niceness. Looking back I looked and I realized that I avoided reflection because in myself I couldn't measure up to what I knew a person who was going to minister to people needed to be. You need it together man. You're leading people into being together and leading it. I got it all together and I didn't understand one bit. Then I started pastoring. Went to seminary, speaking all over the place and then I began pastoring with all this stuff inside of me and I was gifted and smart and anointed and messed up. I beefed up the spiritual to avoid the pain. My wife knew I was messed up. I had no idea I was messed up because of my family being messed up and their family being messed up and generational iniquities on me. All these things I didn't realize and I got kind of close and I went to Neil Anderson's Steps Through Freedom but even still you can go through those things but if you don't scrutinize yourself with the Holy Spirit and hopefully in community you will remain an emotional infant or child at best. Some of you are still like he's pretty good but I want to point out how this started to show itself and how it got worse. I go to a church and I am the pastor under the founding pastor and our founding pastor was an associate pastor with A.W. Tozer. So when he quoted Tozer he wasn't quoting a book he was quoting conversations that they had and so intimidation and then he was super spiritual and he was tall and he had just pure white hair which adds to it you know the kind of the Moses effect and so I come from a dad, for real I come from a dad whose military his style of encouragement was correction he had the famous red pen and you'd have a meeting with him and it was all in red and he thought it was to encourage you he'd been kicked out of three churches for standing for the truth and this was a church split that I became a part of it split off from the Christian missionary alliance about the truth always about the truth by the way if you want a key watch word for emotional immaturity it's always putting the truth above loving people always putting the truth above loving people I don't want to put him in any bad light but a real light I'm indebted to him he taught me many things he was extremely gifted charismatically so when a person's really gifted charismatic when the Holy Spirit would come upon him I mean it was like and when the person's that gifted how can you disagree with that person because people are being healed demons are going wow coming out all this stuff I mean how can you disagree with Moses and so what happens is this dysfunctional culture because he was greatly admired and he was consistently explosive he shared things that he'd want you to do and when you did he blew up because you didn't ask him again if you could do it and he did it in front of the staff so you were shamed so he used a shame he used name calling he used all the things my dad used now there are two kinds of people in this room maybe three either you're like him right now or you're enduring him right now or you've been protected from that do you know why people control the most and why people are unpredictable like that because they're afraid do you know why they're afraid because of the things they've experienced think about the rejection he'd experienced in three different churches do you think in his mind he had it pretty clear I'm not going to trust anyone and I got to be in control here you know what were the requirements to be on his staff was you cannot have personal friends you can be friends with your wife to get married but you cannot have personal friends because you will compromise if you have a personal friend and this was an old school model and you need to be wise and friendship but the answer is not not having friends but that was his answer he required everyone to call him pastor everybody and when finally I asked if I could call him the familiar nickname when I became the senior pastor after much prayer said yes and then a year later called me back and asked my forgiveness because he compromised in allowing me to call him other than pastor and when he asked my forgiveness I was like this is weird it was emotionally immature that title pastor now I don't let little kids call me less because they need to call me mister or pastor or whatever but it was a sign that something wasn't right confident yet controlling entertaining brilliant probably an eight on the enneagram let me read it to you the challenger people of his personality are essentially unwilling to be controlled by either by others or their circumstances they fully intend to be masters of their fate eights are strong-willed practical tough-minded and energetic now there are many positives about an eight but he expressed many of the negatives and you know what I thought even this was even though it was uncomfortable I guess this is how you lead God's people did you know this the Bible says hang around an angry man and you'll become angry even if you don't want to it comes it rubs off on you and I could see the things I didn't like but I could feel the things like him in me like when someone questioned my authority I got defensive and I pushed back and that's exactly what he did and so I became the pastor here's how it was expressed in my life just a little list here I tried to meet the needs of all the people under my care I was responsible for them you know that's emotionally immature you're responsible for your baby and your children but you're responsible to other people you're not responsible for all those people those are his people you're responsible to them but I was responsible for them therefore I was on call 24-7 doctors are not even on call 24-7 but I thought to be a good pastor and of course God will love me if I am available like the Holy Spirit to the people all the time being told not to say no here's how I was trained when someone wants to sit down with you talk with you meet you and many people do this I would and they say hey could we get together I'd like to get to know you better you know what I say no I said the span of my responsibilities there are other people that actually you will like better and I gotta hand you to them so now if you're a pastor of a church of 150 don't do that okay but if you're a pastor of a church of 3000 you must do that and if you're not doing that then you're probably doing something wrong but that's what I did I argued with my wife over her frustrations of my lack of time at home and the lateness I was late for so many dinners she should get an award for this and historically it was because I was counseling and the trump card of it all was she says you're late again to dinner it's dry the chicken's dry I said honey I'm leading this guy to the Lord you're calling me I'm not picking up because he's right coming into the kingdom and you expect me to leave the birthing room to eat some chicken and I was just I was killing her that's a stupid answer because we weren't mature enough for me to be able to say something like that or think something like that we were totally disunified I had a feeling being affirmed by people the firm that God loved me I was angry and judgmental towards certain people but nice to their face I avoided certain people in my church you avoid certain people in your church that's my life but listen to this see if this relates to your church all of these are not spiritual emotional immature statements a board member never says I was wrong or sorry and reminds you often that he's an elder the kids church leader constantly complains about parents and criticizes them to the ministry team that's being an emotional infant the high control pastor does not tolerate different points of view and reminds you they've been doing this longer than you have been alive the middle aged dad with two toddlers who volunteers with the youth who's secretly addicted to porn the worship leader interprets any suggestion as a personal attack and a rejection of him as a person or her as a person the youth pastor who's struggling with feelings of bitterness to admit them or say anything to him so he says it to other people the model servant who tirelessly volunteers at four different ministries but rarely if ever takes personal time to take care of himself or herself but wants to burn out for God two intercessors who use the prayer meeting to escape their painful reality in their marriages the person who lost their spouse in a tragic way an approach by people wanting to comfort declares boldly they're in a better place brother I haven't cried yet because I don't need to in Jesus that my friends is emotional immaturity and it's toxic the pastor puts up with the emotional tirades of a staff member because of the contribution they bring to the ministry is so important it would be difficult to replace them so the pastor puts up with this and some of you say well that these are just sins you know what they are before their sins their wounds and their immaturity showing themselves and they need to be addressed as such rather than just repent they can repent of doing it and they'll do it again you know why they haven't been healed yet it hasn't been addressed the wound hasn't been cleansed out the lie hasn't been exposed you're dealing with the fruit you're not going to the root that's with our Lord Jesus I love him so much he's so mature he's so awesome he's so brilliant here's some characteristics you may not have looked at have you ever had a person do this to you or someone you know they heard that you had a miscarriage they come up and say oh I heard you had a miscarriage that's terrible but you know what they're in a better place now Jesus has another baby worshiping around the throne that's the baby you've ever had and you have a second term miscarriage where you bird that baby and held that baby in your hands and they're telling you Jesus needed another baby up in heaven and they're not saying one time I am so sorry you know what that is that is emotional immaturity you know what we don't know how to do in the church everybody I'm not against the church I am for the church the church is for us in keeping us emotionally immature we don't even know how to grieve it says weep of those our Jewish friends they sit shiba for seven days what's that mean I just sit in your house with you I just ache with you and I cry with you we don't grieve as those we have no hope you know what the scripture didn't say it didn't say we don't grieve at all our grief has hope We realize this, unless we grieve, we stay stunted. We don't fully feel, and if you don't fully feel the pain of loss and death, you can't fully express compassion. You see, he was tempted in every way that we are, but he felt everything that we feel. And so God's design is that our losses would expand our souls. Did you know your soul is expandable? If we feel our losses will break our soul, God's designed our losses to expand our soul and to release in us the reality of fellowshiping with the suffering of Jesus. The theology that says you don't need to suffer for your Christian, you lack faith, that's not true at all, everybody. You actually were called to suffer. Suffer individually and then suffer with other people. The church needs a full theology of suffering. Jesus, he shed tears. It says in Luke 1941, he wept uncontrollably as he came into Jerusalem. Just thinking about it moves me every single time. He did it in front of everybody. He was filled with joy. Luke chapter 10, verse 21, upon the return of his disciples. His heart was filled with deep anguish. He admitted this in the garden and he sought the help of his friends. Can you come be with me? My soul is in deep anguish. He was angry in the temple. He showed great sorrow over the loss of a particular individual. He felt compassion in Luke 7, 13. He felt sorrow and wept openly at Lazarus. Can you imagine this? He knows God's gonna raise him but he is so connected with us and he is so emotionally mature that he loses it at Lazarus' tomb. Even though God's gonna raise him from the dead. He showed astonishment and amazement at the centurion who said, you don't need to come to my house. He said he was astonished. He was astonished by the unbelief of his followers and he made it known. He felt distress over the Pharisees hard hard and over the baptism of suffering that he knew he would have to endure. Jesus was a person. Jesus has personhood. Our God has personhood. When you start reading the scripture with a mind of emotional maturity, you'll go back to Genesis and it grieved God's heart that he made humanity. God had a broken heart in Genesis. Why is it then that we feel Christians can't have broken hearts? I have a friend whose son took his own life, successful lawyer, battled with mental illness for years and took his own life and he's in year six or seven now and if he even thinks about it, it dumps him for a day or two and you know how many people have said this to him? When are you going to get over this? You're stuck, we like to say that. You know what I like to say? You don't ever get over that. You walk through it. You know how long you walk through it? Till you get to see him face to face. That's how long you walk through it. Are we presenting to our people a Jesus who grieves? And though he grieves, he turns back to his father, read Psalm 22. Yet I will fulfill my vow. So the combination of being honest about our feelings and resolved in our will, do you see how that's healing there? Your will is saying I'm going to do this God even though I don't feel it but I'm not going to deny my feelings. Why would we do that? Because we have a misunderstanding of what it means to be a human being in God. And God wants to free us. Why emotional health and then what? Because it's God's plan for complete wholeness, your total salvation, the uttermost. Because Jesus modeled emotionally healthy spirituality for us and we want to be made into the image of Jesus. Therefore if you're made, she can leave because she's on our team so it doesn't matter. Okay, just kidding, I tease you. She's one of our pastors. And so he wants us transformed into his image because we produce after our own kind and your emotional maturity is going to be reflected. You're going to produce that because there is no such thing. I'm going to say it again everybody. There's no such thing as spiritual maturity apart from emotional maturity. It doesn't exist. Well, what is it? It's first this. It's a willingness to say yes to self reflection and awareness. You know what that means? Just being willing to be aware of what you're feeling and to be honest about it, to not shove it under, to not say, I can't be feeling that, the word, the word, the word, the word, but being honest because feelings have reasons. And so you're willing to be open to self reflection. Say yes to this. Next, a personal relationship with God that is not utilitarian. I got to get my time in. I got to read the word. You know, I got to get word in me. I got his word in me. And you know what we miss? One thing I demand. This is what I ask for. That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. This is an intimacy that focuses on relationship and not mission and call. This is an intimacy that demands silence and listening. This is an intimacy that then results in David saying, for in the day of trouble, he will keep me safe in his tabernacle. Do you know what he's saying? I am gazing upon him every day. When the trouble day comes, his tabernacle's portable. You see, that's my safe place in the place of intimacy with him, in the place of intimacy for knowing him, not serving him. Remember, God doesn't need you. First, he wants you. And so he wants you to know him because he wants you and then he wants to partner with you, but he doesn't need you. Pastor, he doesn't need you. He can do everything you can do better, okay? Being, and then finally, here's the tough one. What does it mean? It means being broken and expanded through your losses and life's difficulties. Being broken and expanding. Here's a short list. I'm just gonna run, I'm gonna skip this stone across the, are you doing okay, everybody? Okay, if you have questions, I'll answer them afterwards. You can come up and, but hopefully as you read this book and as you contemplate this and you take your assessment a lot and you listen to Schizzaro's podcasts and you read boundaries again, but this time read it to become an emotionally mature adult. You're gonna discover, oh, I've been welcomed into a door open in heaven. Here are five or six common symptoms of emotionally unhealthy spirituality. You use God to run from God. If you're a person who says God told me all the time, I'd like to sit down with you and talk to him, but he really does. He talks to me personally all the time. And you know what, we want that, but if you use that, it can become a virus that basically when you interact with other people, it shuts off all conversation. If you're the pastor, you said, God said, you know what my axiom is? I hear God best in community. I hear him best. Now I hear him and I say, I think the Lord's saying this to me, but then you know what? He'll affirm it in community, the community of elders and the community of faith and all of that. But the pastor who doesn't and feels he has to get the word from God, I think that sometimes there's emotional immaturity here. Do you know many people in ministry, their marriages are falling apart, they're failing, we're watching it on the news, et cetera. Why? Because God told them, because I want to say something. God's telling you to get emotionally mature. I believe that with all my heart. Yeah, let me say it another way. God's telling you to grow up emotionally. And not stay in infant. God's telling you to deal with your past and your family of origin in a productive way and stop denying it. God's telling me to tell you to stop using him to cover up for your immaturity. Number two, ignoring the emotions of anger, sadness and fear. Christians don't get angry. They just get frustrated. Okay? See? Then why is it that over half the Psalms are filled with anger? You ever thought about that? Yeah. The Psalms are inspired by God. They're either angry, many of them, or they're lamenting. They're hopeless. Now think about this. You have a child who's frustrated but can't get it out and you write him a little script, hand it to him. Oh, dad, you make me so angry. Why is it that things you say never come true? Why is it that they don't happen? You see, you've given the, you know what God's given us? He's given us the script to be angry with him. Do you know why? Because expressing anger is a healthy thing rather than keeping it in. Keeping it in, you get depressed. Letting it out, you can get transformed in the right sense with the right people and the right people is God. The right person is God. Next, denying your past and its impact on your present. If you're the under the blood person, I love you. You're wrong. Next, doing God, doing for God rather than being for God. You've heard this before. You're a human being. You're not a human doing, but it's really, really true. Next, spiritually, spiritualizing away conflict. Well, I don't do conflict. Well, God does conflict. I don't do confrontation. God does confrontation. And if you're a spiritual leader in your family, in your relationships, in your church, you do conflict, but you do it in an open, honest, honoring way. Covering number six, covering your brokenness, weakness, addictions and failures. As you look for alternative comfort because you're hurting, you're afraid, you're rejectable. So we all have that area of temptation. If you were the devil, how would you destroy you? That's usually that area. Here's a biggie, living without limits. I, someone's gotta tell you, you are not Superman. And you are not superwoman. And you are not, I am not either. I wanna say this, my failing as a messiah, for years I was a messiah, was that I was more spiritual than Jesus. You know what that means? It means if I'd been at the pool of Bethesda, guess what I would have done? Healed everybody. And in that mindset, there's a little knock on Jesus. Cause he only healed one. What was it, a photo op? I mean, what was this? Doesn't he have compassion? He has compassion from the spirit for the right things at the right time. And if you get more spiritual than Jesus, it will destroy you. And it will destroy your ministry and it will destroy your marriage. I wasn't aware of this, do you know why? The lure and the deception of success. 3,000 adults every weekend. Influence in the city. Team members in Afghanistan for 20 years going back and forth there. Commercials done monthly with 2 million impressions a month for a hundred mile radius telling people about Jesus. And then I hit the wall. Cause I'm not Superman. My wife was diagnosed the second time with breast cancer. This time it was more serious and she had a double mastectomy. Radical surgery. I can't even describe it to you or take the time. After that, she had her ovaries removed and she had 15 surgeries after that to repair her and create some sense of femininity on her body. I don't think I took a day off during that whole time. As she was healing, we were walking around a local lake that we walk around and we're walking and she said, I know you're having an affair. And I stopped and I was like, I'm not having an affair. No, I know you are. I said, honey, I'm not. You're the only one from now. We've gone through breast cancer. She has nothing up here and all of this stuff. And I think, is she thinking I'm seeing somebody? She said, yeah, I can tell you her name. Her name is Trinity. We were called Trinity Church then. You always give your best to her. Your best energy. You give your best time. You give us leftovers. When you're home, you're not home. I hit the wall, everybody. My face was smashed up against that wall. I didn't even know what to do. I didn't know how to get on a path of emotional maturity. I'd never heard of it before. It was about that time that my college president, vice president friend gave me this book. I said, just read this. But God had more wall for me than that. It was a mess at home. She said this, I'm not gonna divorce you because I don't believe in divorce and I still love you. But we're not gonna wait for you anymore. We're not gonna wait for you to come home so we can eat at eight o'clock at night. We're not gonna wait for you to write that last message so you can spend a few minutes with the kids on a Saturday. Then you add a Saturday night service and even that's gone. We've just, honey, we're not gonna wait for you anymore. I'm gonna keep loving you. I'm gonna honor you in front of the kids. But you are AWOL. You're absent without leave. And in my mind I'm still argued, yeah, but the Holy Spirit and the fruit and the this and the that. And don't you tell me you're not that unlike me in your need for healing, in your need to be convinced about the grace of God that says, there is nothing I can do at all to make God love me more. I can't serve more, I can't sacrifice. He loves me so perfectly and there's nothing I can do to make him love me less, nothing. And until that gets deep, deep, deep, deep inside of you, you will tend as I tended to perform. We went on sabbatical, the year 2006 in the summertime and we're staying on the beach in Alabama and Gulf Shores and one day we had a house with four porches, four levels crazy. She's above me and I'm below her. The dolphins start swimming. We love dolphins. They're out there and they're pooling up and schooling up and they're herding fish and all this stuff. And she says, hey, come and see them. I said, no, you come down here. And we didn't wanna leave because we could miss them and finally we got together. We said, this is awesome. They work together, they're so playful in the midst of their work and they're just the sunshine shimmering off them and while we're talking, there's a dragonfly and we're on the deck here and he's trying to fly and get away but he's hitting the upper deck and he's hitting it and he's hitting it and he's hitting it and so we're trying to watch the dolphins and the dragonflies hitting it and hitting it and hitting it and it's irritating to me. You know, it irritates you when someone's killing themselves, all right? And so I take my shirt off and my wife's like, whoa. And so, and I start trying to hit the dragonfly down and it took quite a bit of effort and then finally I hit him down to the ground and I said, this is it, he's saved. This is awesome. And he starts shaking his wings and you know, and goes right back up. And the moment he does that, the Holy Spirit says, that's you and I want you to become that playful, free, in community, honest, not driven, not destroying yourself. So I started studying margins and Sabbath and all these different things and emotional healing and looking into this and I started those coming months teaching the church and they did not want that. And therefore they saw because I was being not nearly as transparent as I am with you that I was damaged goods and someone they needed to fix because their pastor can't not have it altogether. These are people I had served for nearly 20 years already but they were gonna fix me and the elders demanded and then the prophets got involved. Now if you were here last year for the seminar and these prophets shared with the a few elders, three or four elders, not with me, you know, if you have a prophecy share it with the person don't go tell some other people. So those people heard the prophecy, one of them was there's an idol in the house and it's less. The next one was he has the spirit of Antichrist. He has a spirit of Baal, he has a spirit of Balaam. If he doesn't repent he's gonna lose his salvation. But you see if you have a dysfunctional team and they're emotionally immature and they are enamored with prophecy they took it all very, very seriously. He has the spirit of Antichrist. I couldn't figure that one out. And as they confronted me I was too submissive. Did you know I was still trying to perform so you obey those in authority? Even when those in authority are crazy. And so they demanded that I go for treatment with my wife to Fresno, California to link care. We were there for five weeks when we got there they read the portfolio and the overseer said where are your horns? I said what do you mean? He says the description you should have horns because the way they've described you. We walked through the conclusion was as they continue to have these secret elders meetings and then try some hostile takeovers the conclusion was as we were sent for treatment that they were amazed at how resilient our marriage was through two bouts of cancer and through the struggles of the church and that they encouraged the leaders to continue following the point that God has established in this house. By the way 70% of those who went to link care do not go back into ministry. Missionaries and pastors because they're too emotionally broken by the church, by the missions organization by all of those things. Their marriages are too fragile. 11, well we come back and we read the report that link care gave and they said this you have manipulated that guy because you are such a great manipulator. And at that point I said God am I going crazy? I called the guy they said I manipulated he said ah, last they called for two hours to try to get me to convince that you manipulated the process. He said they want to run the church and they're gonna do it. And then he said you need to make a decision if you're gonna stay or not because we're fearful for Chris's life. She was so fragile physically and we decided to stay. Two things that helped us. A word to my wife not to me I asked God let me work with plants. I love plants, let me garden, let me do something. Lord I don't wanna be around these people anymore. So poisonous and when we offer some measure of help there's even more poison. So finally we had this confrontation which culminated in me begging them to fire me because God says you can't leave. I said I can't leave. But then a word from a friend who had been kicked out of his church and very carefully said I think God might be saying this less. This whole thing is not about you. Now for a performer that's very freeing you know. He said there are things in my church that I'm no longer gonna put up with and I'm gonna expose them. For I am still the Lord of my church and I am your friend. That word became a shield for me over the next three years as the next Sunday 10 of the 11 elected elders resigned and left the church. Another one stayed a year and then eventually left the church. Five of our primary pastors left the church and started their ministries that they wanted to start before. 1800 people left, $2 million left. They took us to the newspaper. They created a website that accused us of all kinds of things. They took us to the attorney general of the state of Nebraska with a bylaw infraction and then they demanded that we return everyone's last 10 years of tithe. We were so toxic as a culture that these were the outcomes of this toxicity. We said Lord, at that point I started to get serious about this. We had an eldership that stepped in to help walk us through. This was by 2009, the battle finally ended and the repair started. We took 1300 of our 1600 adults in small groups through emotionally healthy spirituality and it was a huge revelation to them of what it meant to be a disciple but grow in emotional maturity. It changed the very culture and atmosphere. People started to be honest with their feelings and their emotions. People started to trail them back to their sources. Families started to communicate about things they've never communicated about. We had one of our pastors who's a clinical psychologist coaching us as a team and coaching people. Reconciliation happened between us and the church we split from. We went secretly with our elders and we pled with them to forgive us for splitting over these truths that are debatable to many, many denominations. They wept and threw themselves on us and blessed us and we went from flat to starting to increase. Unfortunately of the 1800 who left about 10 have come back to try to reconcile. Most of them don't go to church anymore. It was one of the most devastating things that our city has ever experienced. Oh, I went to God that you've stepped through this door with me. That today you take your assessment and go I have some work to do and there are very clear answers. Here's the way and we're almost out of time. I love this almost. I love saying that. Here's the way. It's very simple. Number one, admit that you need emotional maturity and admit its vital importance. It has to start with you admitting it. Hopefully the assessment's going to help you. Take the assessment. Number two, commit to a lifelong journey. Commit to a journey. In that journey is the pursuit of insight and revelation. Like coming today, like reading Peter Schizzaro's book and really reading it seriously asking in your position of leadership, in your position of marriage, how could this change you? Don't neglect John Townsend and Henry Cloud. There are important works of boundaries, absolutely essential and in the business realm and for those in the marketplace, get Patrick Lencioni's book, The Advantage and here's his statement. Why organizational health trumps everything else in an organization? It's the same concept but in business. So then pursue this insight and pursue others to walk with you. Attend a restoration event that we put on every year, a chirus event at Gateway, attend Peter Schizzaro's event that you can get on his website and you can go through it to jump start yourself. Next, I'm landing now. Pursue counseling. I thought we made it through. That was 2010, 2014. Overwhelmed with all the symptoms of PTSD. I was on Ambium for four years. I couldn't sleep from 2014 to 2018. Counseling the first three years, once a week. Hypervigilant everywhere I went. I was looking for who was gonna attack us next. There was more work to do. You know what I discovered? I wish I had more time to unpack this. Three big lessons in all that counseling. Here's the first one. I'm not right, I'm not right. About anything really completely, seriously. Number two, I learned it doesn't matter. So many of the things that upset you emotionally, they really don't matter. And then the last thing I learned is I'm not in control. Let it go. Let me say it again. I'm not right. I will love you over being right every time. Number two, please understand this. It doesn't matter. And then finally, I'm not in control. I'm not in control. And then, lead your family. Lead your church. And then God asks this, well, my pastor's not here and he's an under the blood guy, then you change until he can tell. Or she can tell. And when he or she asks, then you say, I have discovered something that has utterly changed my life. And I can only wish it for you and dream it for you and pray it for you. Okay everybody, how are you doing? Has anyone gained any insight here? Okay, good. Okay, I'm gonna pray. Now our Father in heaven, I thank you that only you can use words to transform spirit, soul and body. I pray this Lord, I pray they will have walked through this door and never turn back. If I see them next year, I pray they would be different persons spiritually, emotionally they'd be emotional adults. Now Lord, I pray for all the challenges, all the wounds, all the losses, all the pain that they've endured. And I ask Lord that you would make yourself real in the mighty name of Jesus, amen. God bless all of you, God bless you. Thank you.