Hot Seat Part 3

We've got the uh, lionhead bunny and we have a blessing seeing, knowing, and calling and you can see those eyeballs. They're hearing these really seeing. So that's pretty awesome. Those will be up on the website, but I wanted to put that out there for you to see the artwork that they do. Anyway, we're doing this hot seat model thing. If you're new with us, don't want to freak you out. Does not mean we're going to put a chair in the middle here, heated up and make you confess.

That's not what the hotseat model is. It's simply a system or a way of thinking about some problems in life that we developed about eight years ago in our small groups and people who have been talking to me and saying, Eric, you need to present this to everybody. It would be good for you to get on video, Yada, Yada. Here we are, 2015, and so I want to quickly run through this model for you and then we'll kind of dive into where we left off. So this model starts with a problem.

Everybody has problems, right? That's why we need Jesus. We have problems, but problems are defined by events. You can't usually problems. Our problems are not just big general things. We feel like they're big general things, but events define what they are. Those events, events that we experience, like you know, having a conversation with somebody usually has a negative emotion attached to it.

Lots of our problems of negative emotions attached to them and usually, and this is wrong on here, I realized usually we end up with some kind of false belief, not false identity that comes from our negative emotions that we experience in an event. And here's the whole purpose of this hotseat model is this little table of decision where you see you, Satan and Jesus.

And the whole point is just to help us look at different events in our life and come to a place where we're understanding what we're believing that isn't true. And then we're understanding what the enemy is telling us and what Jesus is telling us. And we can begin to see where we're making choices in our lives to live under the burden of the enemy. And so here's where this idea comes from. In Matthew Chapter Eleven, Jesus is talking to his, uh, to the disciples in Matthew Chapter Eleven.

And he's talking to everybody actually, verse Twenty Eight, he says this, come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle, humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Here's the idea that that I was wrestling with on as I read this text about eight years ago. What I realized is that Jesus is talking about the rabbis burden on the Israel lights. See Rabbis.

Teachings are burdens, and so what Jesus are saying is he saying, I know that the teachings of the rabbis and the law that's weighted on you is a really heavy burden. My burden, my teachings are really light. And on top of that, guess what? I'm gentle and I'm humble. Okay? And so as I was thinking about that, I realized that you and I, we don't sit under the rabbis burden, the rabbis teaching of the first century.

Most of us don't anyway, but we do sit under the enemy's burden, that there is a teaching of evil.

There's a teaching of Satan, rabbi saying, you can think of it that way and his teachings of evil and we sit under that burden and we live in that burden and the new testament talks about that burden over and over again, and what I realized is that we come to choices in our life and we don't even realize that we're living under the burden of the enemy and we don't have a very good idea of what the teachings of Jesus evened are.

And so this whole model is just to slow down things in your life that usually happened really fast so that you can actually hear the kinds of conversations that are going on in your head and going on around you when you expend experience, particular events in life. Okay, so that's kind of how this model works.

Now, we talked about problem an event two weeks ago, and I told you that a problem is basically an area where you're not well, so it could be in your relationships, it could be in your emotions. It could be in your spiritual life, your environment, your occupation, your intellect, your your mind, and how it thinks are your physical body. These are places that we aren't well and we experienced them very generally. Then we have an event in life that defines those things.

So if I feel like I'm struggling in my relationships and somebody says to me, well, can you give me some specifics on that? Maybe I could talk about my relationship with my mother. You know, that's an easy one, right? For most of us, when it comes to relationships, we can talk a little bit about our relationship with our mom. There might be a moment that defines that relationship, right? So that's an event. Okay, so tonight I just want it.

Last week we went over negative emotions and we went over false beliefs, but I want to kind of jump back into this negative emotion thing and kind of review it a little bit before we get to the next part and get you kind of keyed into things. Okay. To do that, I need to kind of tell you two stories and remind you of two stories that we've been going through.

So the first story is in Genesis Chapter Twelve, and I'm just going to tell it to you, um, instead of read it to you, but there's this guy named Abraham and God met a rum and said, hey, guess what, Abraham, I love you. I'm going to call you out and I'm going to make you the father of many nations. Gives him this great promise. Problem is Abraham has no children.

So in chapter 12, Abraham and his family and wife, they're headed to Egypt because there's a famine and he gets to the border and he looks over at his wife Sarah, and she flashes her all her white teeth, which is unusual for women of that time. And he says, wow, she's beautiful and he's blinded by these white teeth. And he gets really scared, right? This is why he finds her beautiful is due to her teeth because that's a good thing back then is having your teeth anyway as he. I'm working it.

Come on guys. Okay. So at that moment that he realizes she's beautiful, he has a negative experience, and the reason we know this is because of what he does. He tells her we're in trouble. Your beautiful. We're married, we're going to Egypt. They're going to see that you're beautiful and if you say your my wife, they'll kill me and take you, but I have a great plan for all of us. You tell them that you're my sister and I'll agree to that, right?

So we know that he has some kind of negative experience. He's afraid of losing his life. He has a negative emotion of fear, right? When you think about the negative emotions in your life, when you experience events that aren't good, the thing I want you to think of is the one that you experienced right away. The physiological thing, not a secondary one. Like I feel afraid and then I'm angry.

Even though I have anger up there, I want you to think about what is the feeling that I experienced right when my mother said, I never want to see you again. Boom. What did you feel like? That's what you want to get at when you're thinking about negative emotions. Okay. Now let me just give you an example of this. I've been working in this swamp cooler example because I never want to do swamp coolers again, so if I tell the story over and over again, maybe you'll help me.

Now. That's nothing to do with it. It's. This is how it works though. In the beginning of the summer I come to church and it's hot and by the way, I just want to pause. I went around two weeks ago telling everybody that it was going to get cool and then it's like going to be 101. We're having record heat, so it's my fault. You can all blame me. I've been telling everybody we're going to have a cold, wet summer.

I mean winter, but that's not happened anyway, so an early in the summer I walk in and it's hot and I realized I have to fix the swamp coolers. All right, and immediately when I think hot roof swamp cooler, the experience I have, this is important. The negative emotion I experienced is despair. Okay? That was my negative emotion, like, Oh God, that was immediately what I experienced.

Okay. Now, last week I told you if you forget anything about the, if you remember anything, this is the moment that you need to remember identifying your negative emotions in events because I read to you, I want to quickly read through first Peter and you can write all these down. I'm just going to run around passages, but first peter chapter five, verse eight says this, this is Peter Talking. He says, be alert and sober-minded your enemy.

The devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Okay, so the thing I said last week is this kind of alertness is the kind of alertness when it's about 10:00 at night and you think somebody's prowling around in your backyard, you think you saw somebody you know and the hair picks up in the back of your neck. That's the kind of soberness and alertness that Peter's talking about.

He wants you to be really aware that the enemy in which he calls the devil, and we'll talk a little bit about this, is prowling around looking for whom he can devour. Now that devour is a consume. I told you last week that it's kind of one commentator said, it's like taking a gigantic Straw and sucking up a slurpee all at once. That's what the enemy is looking to do to you. Here's why I tell you this verse, because when you have a negative emotion, fear, despair, anxiety, connected to an event.

I would argue to you that this is the moment when the enemy decides to stop, prowling around and to hone in on you. Your negative emotions, not the ones you chose. The physiological response to something is where the enemy begins his conflict with you. So I want to stop because we're going to talk a lot about seeing tonight and talk just a little bit about evil and about the enemy because we need to know what we're dealing with before we kind of move forward. All right?

Because I think there's a battle that happens in our emotions that the enemy is involved in. So first I want to start in John Chapter Eight, and I'm just going to jump all over the place, so please again, as I said, just write these down. You don't have to flip around then you can look them up later. But John Chapter Eight, verse 44 says this, and this is Jesus speaking to the Jewish people and mostly to the rulers and leaders.

You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language. For He is a liar and the father of lies. So the enemy, Satan, we're going to give him a name right now and we'll talk about in a minute. His language is lying. Okay? So anytime that you hear lies, think about lies, engage in lies. That is the language of Satan.

That is the language of the enemy. Now, if you go into rebel is revelation chapter 12 and we'll read it to you, but write this down. Revelation Chapter Twelve, verses seven through 11, John Again says he expands and says that Satan is the accuser of the brethren, so not only does this enemy speak lies at you. If you were a follower of Jesus, his main mode with you is to accuse you. Okay?

So if the enemy is prowling around looking for whom he can devour, evil is prowling around and your negative emotions are beginning of the Babel, that when you experienced the spare doubt, envy, anger, guilt. When they those visceral experiences, the enemy begins a process of lying and accusing you you. This is where the fertile ground for this to start happening. Okay? But I want to just expand this idea of Satan and just think about it maybe in a little bit broader, broader terms.

I'm going to read to you Ephesians chapter six. These are chapter six. We'll start in verse 10. This is Paul speaking. It says, finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power, put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of the dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

And then he goes on to tell us how to resist and we'll talk more about that later, um, next week. But I want to talk about this idea of evil because Satan, if I don't have long, I don't have all day to go over all the scriptures about Satan, but Satan is a being and he's not an Omni present being and he's referred to as a being that has intentions of being the does things. It makes choices, has plans, but evil is the thing that is not personify. There isn't like the people.

Evil. Evil is everywhere and evil is slimy and evil creeps into places and evil slips in everywhere. It's slips into your relationships. It slips into churches. It slips into the institutions that slips into countries. It's slimy. It's dark and it's gross and it does do the bidding of the enemy and it holds onto the Satan's agenda and it is about accusation and it is about destruction, but it's not something you can pin down and it's gross and it's horrible.

And that's the thing that stops to devour you. And your negative emotions saying doesn't show up to every single one of you. It doesn't have time. He's bound by time just like you and me. But evil is everywhere. And it's gross. And it's nasty. And it goes after your negative emotions. And so when you experienced those negative emotions, you move into something called false belief. And heres the thing.

The reason that we would stop and ask somebody to, to just kinda contemplate an event in their life that's negative and and think about it so that we can kinda hear the emotions that they have is that we want to understand the false beliefs that they believe that didn't just develop out of this particular event in life, but it developed over a long period of time. And so these negative emotions, my despair, Abraham's fear. They have things attached to them sentences, and here's the thing.

Out of our negative emotions, we developed false beliefs that involve ourself. We develop false beliefs that involve others and we believe have false beliefs. They involve God. Okay, so if you think about Abraham, when he's sitting at the border of Egypt and he decides that he wants to lie and save his own skin, he just moved away from God, promising him that he was going to have a huge family.

He has no children, and now he's trying to survive his false belief out of his fear, and you see it in a story. If you read Abram's story in genesis is that God is not trustworthy, that God's not going to come through, but God's not going to do what he said he's going to do, but not only did he develop a false does he have a false belief about God. He has a false belief about the Egyptians. He's unwilling to risk anything with the Egyptians.

He's not going to go in there and say, Hey, this is my wife, because he doesn't think they're trustworthy, but he doesn't know. That might be true, but he doesn't know that, and then he has a false belief about himself out of that negative emotion and that is that when things get tough, nobody's going to look out for him, so he's got to look out for himself. He's the one who's going to take care of things. Okay?

Same thing when I walk in here and I have that disparate experience because I have to do these swamp coolers. I have a set of false beliefs. Number one, it's about others, right? I think nobody really wants to help me. False belief. I have a belief about God, my belief about God, and this is not out of swamp coolers. It's connected to spare all the way through my life.

It just comes up because I despaired about Islam Cooler, but like I have, I've got to earn God's love and I'm not doing enough so I have to do some pendants and get up on the roof and fix the swamp coolers. Like the God expects something of me right before I get a reward. I haven't exchanged system with him, but then I also have a false belief about me and that is that I'm not valuable enough to ask anybody to help. Like I'm not worth it. Like nobody's going to inconvenience themselves for me.

Right? So I have sentences. I have false beliefs connected to my despair. We all have this, right? So this is where the enemy begins his conflict. This is where the battle starts with evil, but we have to get to the table because you make some choices and the reason we analyze events is we're analyzing to see where you actually chose to follow the teachings of Rabbi Satan or an evil instead of Jesus. And so we come to a table with our false beliefs.

I come to the decision about the swamp coolers with I'm not worth it, guy. I got to earn it with God and nobody cares. Valley Abraham comes to a decision with his wife and going into Egypt and he's like, I'm the one who has to handle this. God's not trustworthy. The Egyptians aren't trustworthy, right? So he goes into making a decision. Right now, there are three kinds of teachings are ways that the enemy I believe interacts with us and we're not.

These are not in our conscious, like their inner subconscious, the things that we've been rehearsing over a long time. That's why we're slowing it down. That's why we're looking at the event. Okay, so the first thing is affirmation of, of, of false belief, right? This is how this works. You have these false beliefs and the enemy says to you, remember Eric, remember when this happened to you? It's just like the swamp coolers or to Abraham.

Remember that one time where you had to take care of it yourself? It's just affirmation of false belief, right? And here's what happens there. This is the important part. The enemy's main goal is to fuel your negative emotion.

So if I'm feeling despair, the enemy's accusations and lives are being driven to get my anxiety higher, to get my despair higher, to get my fear higher, because when I can get to a place where I'm worked up where my emotions are worked up, I'm going to make bad choices, right? I'm going to make bad choices.

And a lot of times what happens here, and this is in our subconscious, a lot of times where we do this when we can't sleep at night, but we rehearse all the things that the enemy where when we're feeling anxious, we rehearsed. Oh yeah. When I felt anxious, when my dad did that, I felt anxious. When that thing happened to me there, I felt terrified when this happened to me here, right?

We will begin to like believe like we get things are connected to the emotions and we be to believe that those false beliefs that become more entrenched in our emotion. Okay? To the point where I feel despair and immediately I just have a set of beliefs that I don't even think about because I have decided to agree with the enemy. And this is really key is that on this side of the table, you remember Jesus is on the other seven on this side of the table. It's a partnership.

I'm shaking hands with the enemy and saying, yeah, that's true when you tell me that about myself. That's true, right? So the first choice to follow the teachings of the rabbi saying is to hang on to his affirmations, to agree with them, to not resist them at any level. Now the second thing is relief. This is a big thing because if our emotions are worked up to a certain level, right? If we have our distress, our anxieties, all those things worked up to a certain level, we need relief.

We want relief, right? So if my despair is so much so intense, all I'm going to do is get rid of the despair of Abraham. Sphere is so intense. All he wants to do is figure out a solution to get away from the fear, right? And so two things happen in relief. These two things are offered to us. Number one is, in a way it's the arts part of I guess the relief is our part, like in a partnership, is that we make a vow.

Often what we do and looking for relief is what we say is I will never feel this way again. I will never be put in this situation again. Right? So the relief that we're looking for in the way that we kind of work ourselves into relief is to say, I'll never experienced this again. I don't ever want to be in this place. And in that point the enemy makes an agreement with you and this is how the relief happens. He says, that's fine. Let me install something. I will install anger.

I will install content. I will install a set of destructive behaviors that help you distract from the pain you're feeling.

When you, when you need relief, the thing you want to do is escape. So let's look at my swamp cooler thing. I'm feeling despaired. My false belief is that I. it's up to me like I'm the only one that can do this. I can earn some points with God, he'll like me, I'm going to go up on the roof and I'm going to fix it and I'm going to get it done. I'll do it real fast and it'll all be finished and then I won't feel this despair inside and I can just push it away. Right?

So the relief for me is actually to take control, take over. Right. For Abraham, his relief as he's sitting there at the border is to lie, right? His relief is we're gonna. Pretend like reality isn't reality. That's his relief. Escape, move away from reality. Now, most often, the way you and ideal with our negative emotions and the relief we're looking for and wrestling with are false beliefs, is that we just have a set of addictions that we like. Some of US exercise way too much.

Some of us are obsessed about our food. Some of us are hooked on drugs. Some of US drink too much. Some of US visit the frigerator way too often at like 11:00 at night. Some of US Binge Watch on Netflix so we don't have to feel or think about anything. Some of us pile up the amount of television or video games or physical outlets that we look for to distract ourselves. You See, relief is a distraction from reality from what we experienced from living in the present.

Okay, so those are the two things that the enemy offers us. So if we choose to believe it's false beliefs or his affirmations that he gives us, the second way that we choose to follow the enemy and his teachings is to buy in to his destructive behaviors that he offers us and to the relief options that he offers us. Here's the problem.

They only work for a little bit and you have to increase them and increase them or change them or very them until eventually what you end up living is very numb and not attached to anything. Right? You're very separate from stuff and so that is the second way.

Now, if you decide to agree with Satan on his affirmations of your false identity, basically your about yourself and others and God and your false beliefs, and you're willing to follow through with the relief, it's very hard for us to do destructive behaviors without justifying them where we are humans and we feel like we need to justify our behaviors. So what'd you clicked me one? Nevermind. I found it. I got, I got. Um, we feel like we need to justify them. We can't.

I just can't go and eat ice cream at 11:00 at night before I go to bed because I'm feeling sad just for the heck of it. Now I made think that I can, but then I'm justifying it by saying, well, I can do what I want to do. Right? I just justified it. Right? We are always making an argument for why we're going to participate in relief and we have many, many justifications and none of them make any sense, but to us now this is how these justifications work. Number one, we attack other people.

This is key. Think about how I might justify saying, I'm just going to take care of these swamp coolers. I'm not gonna. Ask anybody I'm not going to do this. Well, my first justification for that is to attack other people as I'm pulling pads out and scrubbing things, I'm thinking nobody cares about me, man. They don't even know him up on the roof.

And I began to defame their character and create conversations with them and because I'm justifying the stupid choices I'm making, Abraham justifies his choice. What does he say? We have to do this because I'm going to die if we don't. That's his justification for his relief, which is a lie. His relief is to lie so the his situation won't be uncomfortable and he won't be risking any. Won't be trusting God. Right? His justification is his life. That seems like a legit justification.

That's not right. So we, we, we lie, we attack other people. Another one they use for justification is pride. We justify choices we make by thinking, well, I deserve it. I deserve to watch three more episodes of white color, right? Or Longmeyer, which are the two shows that I sometimes use to get some relief in life, right? Um, I justify it because I deserve it. I have a hard life, whatever, right? We, we have these, this pride in us, the things that we deserve some kind of relief, right?

That's one way of justifying. The other thing is we justify it as in an apathy and a depression. It just doesn't matter anymore. My health doesn't matter. I don't care like it's, it's pointless. So yes, I'm going to go drink way too much. I'm going to go hang out with people I shouldn't be hanging out with because it just doesn't matter. I just don't care. It's how we justify it. Okay? Now I want you to understand something that this model is not designed to fix your problems.

This model is simply designed for you to begin to understand that with inside of you, there is a battle that happens with evil and with the enemy and that you are spending a lot of your time listening to his teaching and living under his way. And it's really subtle. Like it's not. It's sometimes it's super obvious to a lot of us, but most of the time it's subtle, so here's what my hope is. Next week we're going to talk about the Gospel and we're gonna.

Talk about what Jesus says to all of these things and how he communicates to our identity and all that kind of stuff, but tonight what I want you to hold onto is the next time, and I said this last week, but this is the most important thing. The next time that you have a negative emotion where you experienced anxiety, where you experienced fear and an event in life, doubt, even anger. Even though anchors is somewhat of a secondary emotion.

When you experienced those things, I want you to think something. Oh, wait a minute. Yes, where I am on the table. I'm about to believe some things that aren't true about myself and other people. Right? Like I want you to stop and think, the enemy is actually fighting me here. There's going to be a conflict. Darkness wants to hold me here, but that there's something else.

God has something else for us that could change everything, and this is why this is important because if you're unwilling to really deal with those things, what happens is you're going to sit in this loop and you're going to go into sleep over and over and over again and you won't find healing and you won't understand how the enemy is oppressing you and you won't learn that the sweetness of Jesus and the Gospel. So the time is it six? Oh seven.

Alright, so next week is the very last hot seat model. I have some time to answer some questions, clarify some things, make sense of stuff, argue whatever you want to do. Anybody have any questions? Any thoughts? Want to know how this works in their life? Go for it. Okay.

My willingness to justify it, my willingness to entertain the enemy's accusation and lies against me. That's where I would argue that. Any other questions? Oh yes, back here. No.

Um, so that I can be again to understand the kinds of tapes that are playing in my head that maybe I'm not even conscious of that that's one option. Think any, anybody? Yes, ma'am. Um, I, I think that all three are often going on. So her question is, do you, when you begin to think about false belief, do you, is it just one of these or all of them? And I would say all of them all every time, except sometimes one is more major than the other. So, but they're all interlaced.

Yes. Oh No, no, no, no. There are, I mean obviously evil takes good things and distorts them. Um, so no, I would say that I would say that if your negative emotion is anxiety and despair and you're using your walk simply to distract yourself but actually deal with what's happening in that emotion and what's going on and what you're believing, then yeah, I would say relief is Matt case. It is

And what happens when preachers do it is then we just say stupid stuff. In fact, I was listening to nt Wright who I really respect and is a very great theologian and he said, I don't like to talk about it because it's very dangerous and when you begin to open your mouth and try to describe it, it will come after you. And so, um, it's very difficult to quantify. I know it's important, but I'm, there was somebody over here and then I'm gonna go with rest and emily and then I got to be done. Yes.

We can start getting into my head and I'm trying to think how I I believe or how do I, how would reject this other person in their goal and hard because I grew up, my brother came over here. You're like, I don't want to feel angry and I'm hopeful because the Lord is giving you likes to be cuddled. What I want so badly.

What did him in his car, he doesn't get UPP that I'd have to shine light on that youthful in order to be good for my children, but then I feel like I need by holding them accountable and blaming him. Yeah. I feel and I feel really guilty about breaking down today because that's not what the word wall really hard right now.

Father, um, we don't have a lot of words and now we can have nice little neat diagrams and ways of trying to understand ourselves. The world is painful and our lives have a lot of pain in them.

So father, I lift up Jennifer to you and I want to ask that you would speak into her life, that you would wrap your arms around her, that you would give her comfort, that you would assure her that she is yours, that she is the daughter of the god of the universe, since she's the sister of Jesus, and that the Holy Spirit rests on her and that you love her deeply and that you die for her. And that the cross is a place where you hug her and say, I love you. I've forgiven you.

I, I'm in the care for you. It's again, I asked that she could experience that and that in this painful time she would know that your burden is light, that you would hug her and hold her in many different ways and give her wisdom and direction and protect her from the enemy and his accusations about her value and the lies he tells her about her relationship with her kids and her ex partner and all those kinds of things and what she's supposed to do.

I just ask that you would stop those in your name. Jesus. Amen. I'm going to pause your guys's questions. Um, I'm going to pray again and we're going to close. Jesus. Thank you that you're in the process of healing us and that were two or three of us are gathered. You're here and there. Your transformative power happens not through expertise but through love, our love for you and our love for one another. Christ's love poured out over us, so thank you for that. Continue to give us hope, Jesus.

Amen.