"Hurt People Hurt People" #3

Sermon Outline

Prepared by

Dr. Joseph P. Metoyer, Jr., Pastor/Teacher

May 11, 2003 "Mother’s Day"

Text: 1 Corinthians13: 11

Subject: "Help For Healing Our Hurts"

Introductions: Most of our adult life problems are the result of childhood solutions. In other words, something happened a long time ago that hurt us. We protected ourselves the only way we knew how. But somewhere along the way to adulthood, our method stopped working.

I. Preliminaries to Change (v. 11a) When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child…

A. The choices we made as to how we dealt with hurtful issues in the past while we were children worked then, but not now. As an adult person where do we typically focus when we want to change something? Our adult lifestyles and relationships, right? That’s only natural. "But our adult lives, with their hurting and hurtful ways, are the composites of earlier and repeated choices. Here’s what I mean. What we live with, we learn, and what we learn, we practice. What we practice, we become, and what we become has consequences.

B. Most people seek counseling of one kind or another when we want to get different consequences from our prevailing life styles. But we never examine what causes the lifestyle to be as it is. Some of us expect to keep sowing the same seeds in the same soil and yet reap a different crop. (v. 11a) When I was a child, I spoke as a child; I understood as a child, I thought as a child… We are no longer children!

C. If we want genuine change in the ‘fruits’ of our lives, we must first clear out the weeds of deception, loosen the soil with honesty, and then sow seeds of truth. In other words, if we want new consequences, we must make new choices. And if we do, our lives will change.

II. The Practice Of Change (v.11b) When I became a man, I put away childish things.

A. Making and consistently practicing new choices produces change.

New Choices + Consistent Practice = Change. This of course is from a human perspective. The internal changes we make must be guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit in order for them to be of eternal value.

B. I put away childish things. New choices require that we put away old choices. The perfect tense of "Put away" indicates a change of state which still continues. That’s the consistent practice. In other words Paul is saying that he has made a new choice and that new choice is being consistently practiced and that equals a change.

 

Application: We have to respect the power of our own actions; Col. 1:9-12 For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; 12giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.

 

Picture a slinky; that toy all kids and even adults love to get and stretch it to its limits. Christian growth is somewhat like a slinky that’s being stretched to its limits. We cycle from one experience to another as we ascend upward in Christian maturity… The growth process begins with a knowledge of God’s will, which we find in God’s Word. His truth must enter our hearts for us to spiritually understand how it applies to life in all wisdom. The cycle isn’t complete, however, until we choose to live according to what we understand. Living by faith requires us to exercise our will by being submissive through humble obedience. When we do, we grow in the knowledge of God, and the cycle comes full circle, back to where we started.

If we are going to "Heal" form our hurts and change we have to enter this Christian growth process. We got to make a "New Choice", and then we have to practice that new choice consistently, in order for change to take affect. Paul said, 1 Cor. 13:11 "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." He is explaining (Vv. 8-10)… "Love" to a child is different then love to an adult! (Vv. 4-7)…

As we go through the Christian growth cycle there are spin offs: We increase in spiritual strength, endurance, patience, joy, and thankfulness, which become increasingly evident in our character.

Just as Paul, we must have a right perspective of "love".

"Love Lifted Me"