November 9, 2025 • 52 mins
WEEK 8: TRIGGERED // COPE LIKE CHRIST // PASTOR BRIE DAVIS
At the root of every crash out is a coping mechanism we created to survive. And when we are triggered, it isn’t random, it’s an invitation from God to reveal where He wants to transform us. In Week 8 of the Triggered Series, Pastor Brie teaches us how to shift from Crash Out Coping to Christ-like Coping. This message helps us learn how to choose community over conflict, obedience over oppression, prayer over powering through, and empowerment over externalizing. When the triggers hit (and they will) — you don’t have to cope like culture… you can cope like Christ, even in the crash out.
Scripture References:
Matthew 11:28-30 NLT
Mark 14:33-34 NLT
Mark 14:36 NLT
Matthew 26:39 NLT
Matthew 26:42 NLT
Matthew 26:44 NLT
Luke 22:43 NLT
At the root of every crash out is a coping mechanism we created to survive. And when we are triggered, it isn’t random, it’s an invitation from God to reveal where He wants to transform us. In Week 8 of the Triggered Series, Pastor Brie teaches us how to shift from Crash Out Coping to Christ-like Coping. This message helps us learn how to choose community over conflict, obedience over oppression, prayer over powering through, and empowerment over externalizing. When the triggers hit (and they will) — you don’t have to cope like culture… you can cope like Christ, even in the crash out.
Scripture References:
Matthew 11:28-30 NLT
Mark 14:33-34 NLT
Mark 14:36 NLT
Matthew 26:39 NLT
Matthew 26:42 NLT
Matthew 26:44 NLT
Luke 22:43 NLT
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Transformation Church podcast, where we represent God to
the lost and found for transformation in Christ. We're so
glad you're here and wherever you're listening from, we believe
God will transform your life. Do today's message.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
This is week eight of a sermon series that we're
calling Trigger.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Pastor Mike started this sermon.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Series a couple months ago, and I remember when we
were talking about this series before it started. We're talking
about what God wanted to do through this series and
specifically using the term triggered, because that is one of
our kind of buzz words for right now. There are
many different people who talk about how triggered they are
in today's time. And this is not a word that
(00:45):
was used ages ago or years ago in the manner
in which we use it now now. When we talk
about it, we're talking about some type of emotional disturbance that.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Takes place in our life.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
That's what a trigger is. And when we started the
first week of this sermon series.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Passing my ass, he said, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
What are your triggers? And there were people in the
room that unashamedly yelled out the triggers that they have
in their life. Some people talked about dirty dishes being
a trigger. Anybody out there dirty dishes a trigger?
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I feel like it's a lot of mamas who said
yes to that. So all the kids need to button
it up, come on, get it together. Some people said
that bad drivers was a trigger. Anybody bad drivers? Okay?
So I thought to myself, I think today, what we're
gonna do is we're gonna start with I'm just gonna
love the play feeling and tell you some of my
(01:37):
own triggers today. Okay, I have a list, so here
we go. Some of my triggers are first, one is
lazy people. And I know somebody feels me on this one. Okay,
lazy people, it's like, can.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
You get up and do something? Can you help please? Okay?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
A lazy person. Another one of my triggers I have,
and this one will send me immediately an unexpected bill.
An unexpected bill, I don't care if the bill is
seven dollars and sixteen cents.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Don't send me.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Nothing unless you called me beforehand, told me that bill
was on the way. Okay. A good trigger for me
is an unexpected bill. Ask my husband. I'll flip out
every time. Okay, someone making me late to something. Now.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Listen, there's a caveat to this.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Okay, because I didn't say me being late that's not
the trigger, because I am often late on.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
My own accord. But if someone else, hello.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Somebody, if somebody else makes.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Me late, that's the trigger right there.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Now.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
If I'm gonna be late, let it be my fault
while I'm late.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
I don't want to be late because you made me late.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Okay. I have more hurd on mean or rude people.
Y'all feel me on that one.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Take it up one more notch though, especially when those
people are church people. I can't stand it.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
I can't stand it. I can't stand it.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I cannot stand how you gonna let the Lord but
not love people like that don't even make sense. That
is a trigger, y'all feel me on that way. Okay,
All right, okay, okay, schemers, I won't go no further.
Bad hair days, y'all see how much hair I got
on top of this here.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Sometimes I wake up and it looked like who done it?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
And what fu? Every curl going which way but the
right way? I'm like God helped me today. Okay. Bad
hair days?
Speaker 3 (03:40):
And then my last and.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Final one that I have And this is specific to me.
This may not be one for you, okay, but I
cannot stand stinky trash in my home. Specifically, if I
smell trash, it's like something got to be done. We
have to throw away the whole entire house. At this point,
I thought them trash cans were supposed to those trash
(04:02):
bags were supposed to smell good. Why is think like that?
Speaker 3 (04:05):
What's in there? Some dad up in there?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
You know, you be thinking something day.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
It's some day.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
It's not like something died up in here. We need
to get something going up here. So these are just
some of my triggers, y'all. Oh, I had another one
hold on spiritual bypassing.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Okay, I want to kind of talk about.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
This one a little bit today. Spiritual bypassing is when
we use scripture or spiritual practices or even God to
bypass reality. When we use God's word to actually avoid
something that is real that needs to be dealt with.
(04:43):
Instead of doing that, we use scripture, slap a scripture
on it, and act like it's not a thing at all.
Spiritual bypassing is when God is actually trying to do
some work of transformation in our lives.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
But because we don't want to do the hard work.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
That often takes a lot of sacrifice to transform in
our lives. Instead, we'll act like, oh, his grace is sufficient.
He also wants you to change doing that.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Spiritual bypasses is one of those things.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
If you know a little bit about me and Aaron,
my husband, the love of my life, the lover of
my life.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
I love you, husband.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Y'all give it up with my husband. He hates that.
If you know anything about our story, you know that
over the last year we went through significant tragedy. We
lost our son last year, and in that whole situation,
we have learned so much about God and about grief
(05:40):
and about how we actually include God in our reality
versus acting like our reality is not a real thing.
And even though for me grief has been such a
difficult process because I don't like that grief is unpredictable
and so you never know what days you're gonna feel low,
or what days you may feel sad, or what days
I'm gonna missed my son and all of that, it's
(06:02):
really been difficult, so much so that one of the
things I want to do is spiritually bypass it. One
of the things I want to do is move past
it like it's not actually as hurtful and painful acts
it actually is. And I remember one time I was
talking to a friend of mine and she was asking
me how I was doing, and I said, you know, sad,
(06:23):
you know, mad, all the things that I was feeling
at the time, I said. But also at the same time,
God has really just blessed us with such a wonderful life,
such a great community, all the beautiful things which is
well and true. And she said to me, she said,
I love that for you. I'm so happy that you
feel that way. And at the same time, I want
(06:44):
you to know when you go through tragedy like that,
when you go through something hard like that, I don't
think that it might be the best mood, the best
thing for you to say to your nervous system, but
look at all the blessings we have, because essentially what
you're doing is telling your own body, let's ignore the
(07:04):
pain and pretend like it's not there. And shouldn't you
be grateful for the life that you have? So shouldn't
you should only see the stars and the flowers and
the things that are taking place in your life that
are blessings and if you focus on that, maybe you'll
get over the pain that you've been through. Today, I
want to talk to you a little bit about this
(07:25):
because this is the thing that I think trips us
up as believers. It's a lack of self awareness, knowing
where we actually are, not where we are.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Pretending to be.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
There's nothing wrong with being aware of your blessings, and
there's nothing wrong with gratitude. Has saved my life a
many of days over this past year, so there's absolutely
nothing wrong with that at all. At the same time,
can we be believers that deal with reality, that know
that our God is big enough to be in the
(08:02):
real day to day with us and still help us
move through it? And so today I want to talk
to you a little bit about that because one of
the things that I have learned, especially as we've been
walking through this series, is we've been talking about triggers,
and triggers are what Pastor Mike gave us a definition.
He said, triggers are the things that sets you off.
In other words, they create some type of emotional disturbance.
(08:26):
And not only is trigger a thing that causes emotional disturbance,
it's also a place where maybe the Lord is inviting
you and I into transformation, that this emotional disturbance is
there for a reason. Now, in order to say that
you have a trigger, you have to know it's attached
to your emotions, that there is some emotional disturbance that's
(08:49):
going on inside of you.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
A lot of people, a trigger feels like anger.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Another person that can feel like sadness, another person that
can feel like embarrassment. There's so many different emotions that.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Go along with trigger.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
But if we open our eyes to see the greater
reality that God has us in this Kingdom of Heaven
that we actually live in today, this trigger is not
only a place of emotional disturbance, it's also an invitation
from God for transformation in our lives. So today I
want to talk to you about some things, and I
want to be honest. Today may feel a little bit
(09:22):
like group therapy.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Okay, I am not a therapist.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
And at the same time, I'm gonna be using some
language that sounds like maybe you sin in therapy.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
So I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
When's the last time you had your therapy appointment.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Look at your neighbor, say when selest ner.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
I don't ask them that just kid it, just kid it.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
But today we're gonna talk through a little some things.
And I want to call today's sermon cope like Christ,
Cope like Christ. Let me tell you why. That's the
tiitle of today's sermon.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
When we have a.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Crash y'all, which our definition right now, crash out is
where we get to when we have unaddressed triggers, things
that have caused an emotional disturbance.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
And now I'm crashing out.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Because I haven't actually addressed the triggers in my life
that I need to, the things that have called cause
emotional disturbance. When we have a crash out, A crash
out is just a coping mechanism. That's it. A crashout
is just a coping mechanism. Now, a coping mechanism is
a strategy, strategy, or something we put in place in
(10:29):
order to find relief.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
In our life.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Usually, if we have a trigger of some kind, it
has roued up some type of emotion on the inside
of us. It's caused us some type of emotional overwhelmed.
When we get to that emotional overwhelmed, then we turn
into a crash out.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Then we crash out but.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
The only reason we crash out is because we're actually
trying to cope with this disturbance or this overwhelmed that
we have had emotionally, and we don't know how to
do it in a healthy way. Coping mechanisms are neutral.
They can be healthy or unhealthy. There are ways that
you can cope with stress in life that's unhealthy and
(11:09):
not helpful for you or anybody around you. And there
are ways that you can cope with stresses in life
that actually are very healthy and can lund you forward
into your future, into your God given destiny. And so
today I want to talk about how do we cope
like Christ? And today is going to take We're going
(11:29):
to do a little digging into our own selves and
becoming a little bit more self aware about us so
that we can see how do I cope now?
Speaker 3 (11:40):
And is it like the way that Christ would cope?
Speaker 2 (11:43):
So what I want you to do is turning your
Bible to Matthew eleven. Matthew eleven twenty eight through thirty.
This is the actual scripture passage that we started the
sermon series with. Also, Jesus is talking here in Matthew eleven,
and it says, come to me all of you who
are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give
(12:07):
you rest or relief.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Take my yoke upon you.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle
at heart, and you will find rest or relief for
your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and
the burden I give you is liked. What Jesus is
saying in this scripture is I have another way for
(12:34):
you to live. I have a new way for you
to live that is not based off of your culture,
based off your family, based off your ethnicity, based off
of your gender, based off of what the world is
telling you how to live. I have a brand new
way for you to live. And in this way that
you are living now, it's heavy, and it's burdened down,
(12:58):
and it may actually be too much for you to bear.
But the way that I want you to live is
in a life of lightness.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
And ease and a place of relief.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Our coping mechanisms is only us trying to find some relief.
So today my question for you is going to be
do you want to live differently? Do you want to
live in an easy yoke and a light burden? Do
you want to live in a place of constant relief
(13:29):
in a healthy way that doesn't damage you, your soul
or the people around you. Because every single one of
us born into this world because of the families we
grew up in, the neighborhoods, we grew up in the culture.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
That we live in.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Because of what society tells us, every single one of
us have adopted some type of unhealthy coping mechanism, some
type of way that we cope with emotional disturbance and
stressing our life that is actually not the way the
crisis asked us to cope. And So today, as we
are going going through some of the things I want
to talk about today, the question is do you wanna
(14:05):
live differently?
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Don't you think the way.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
That we decided to live without Christ in the middle
of that, that that is just too heavy for us.
The stress that we feel, the worry, the anxiety that
we feel, the depression that we feel, the anger that
we feel, is all really too much because it's not
the way that Christ wants us to cope. So I'm
gonna walk us through four different things today, and these
(14:32):
are what I'm calling crash out coping. These are the
ways that we crash out, and we try to cope
with the stresses of life and the emotional disturbances that
we have in this I want you to now, as
I'm going through these things, you gonna see somebody else,
maybe your husband, your wife, your kids, your mama, and
(14:53):
your daddy. You're gonna see somebody else as we're going
through these things. But listen, this is what I'm asking
you to do today.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Keep your eye on the sparial.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Okay, look at only you today. Today is about self awareness. Okay,
today is about self awareness.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
So these are.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Four things, and I want to give you kind of
a little setup for them. So they're gonna put a
chart on the screen. You'll see a couple of different
things here. The first thing is passion. Mike told us this.
He said, sometimes when we crash out, we crash out internally,
and other times we crash out externally. Now, usually when
somebody says they're crashing out or ever, other people know
that someone's crashing out is because it's external. But there
(15:32):
are ways that we internally crash out too. So some
of these ways that we crash out, you're gonna see.
We feel them on the inside, even if you can't
see them on the outside, you.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Feel them on the inside.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Other ones you're gonna see that you can see these
on the outside. And then another thing that I want
you to remember as we're going through these is some
of these crash outs it's just you and you alone.
Other ones you have to have other people involved in.
Some people crash out own other people. Some people crash
out in themselves. Okay, so the question is can you
(16:07):
find yourself today? What I'm gonna do is I'm going
through these four things. And this is an acronym for
cope cope. Okay, just try to make it so that
you can remember it when you leave out this place.
So the first thing is how we crash out cope.
First person usually crashed out.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Cope by conflict. This is a.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Person that when they are triggered and they have too
many triggers that are piling up and they crash out.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
They crash out on.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
The people around them and they find someone to battle.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
They battle other people.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Let me give you an example of this in the
scripture first Sevenel nineteen Saul here is the king of Israel,
and he is the first person that God has called
and asked to take on this type of role. So
it was a prestigious role obviously, first time having a
king of Israel. God chose and favored Saul. He wanted
Saul to take on this, and yet Saul was not
(17:02):
secure in the role that God gave him. So when David,
a young David came around, who would be the king eventually.
But when David came around, Saul felt threatened and his
so much so that when people were going around, they
were saying David killed his ten thousands, but Saul only
killed his thousands, and Saul was like, uh uh, I
can't take this. He was triggered and he crashed out.
(17:25):
And when Saul crashed out, he decided to pick a
fight with David.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
David wasn't against Saul at all, he wasn't studying that
man like that.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
But Saul was completely offended by the fact that David
was doing it well, and because of that, he picked
a fight with him. So these type of people, when
they crash out, they find and pick fights. They find
somebody that they're gonna battle, somebody that they're gonna go
(17:56):
and start something with because in their mind and the
only way I can get relief, which is a coping mechanism.
The only way I can get relief is through control,
not through connection.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Through control.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
So these are the people who when you are talking
about a current issue, they may be the ones that
bring up old issues. It's like, that's not what we're
talking about right now, But last year when I did
the same thing, you got mad when I said, okay,
that's a whole different situation that we're not talking about.
These are the people that find anger safer than vulnerability.
(18:32):
So this emotion of anger is a place that feels
safe for them, So they go to this place whenever
they feel crashed, like they're about to crash out.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
When they're triggered enough, they'll go to anger. But if
you know anything about.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
The emotion anger, what you know is the emotion anger
is just a surface level of emotion. Underneath any person
that's dealing with anger, they're probably dealing with some hurt.
They're probably dealing with some type of shame, some type
of guilt type something that is underneath that anger. Anger
is just a surface level emotion, meaning that there's something
(19:06):
underneath that that's actually impacting you. But for these people,
because conflict seems like a safe place and anger feels
like a safe place. They can't actually heal or deal
with what's actually going on inside of them because they
go to the surface level emotion instead of dealing with
what's underneath it, instead of just saying I'm.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Hurt by that.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
That really offended me the way that I felt belittle
when you said that. Instead, these people are gonna puff up,
go into anger and cause some.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Type of conflict. So these are the people that do that.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
They may even exaggerate details.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
In order to just start a fight.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
So anytime in a fight or argument, and take this
home with you, be take it gently, okay. And you
go around saying you always, you never everybody always. Those
are called absoluteses, and those are never ever. That's true,
And I'm gonna use absolute for that. Those are never true.
Because you may say to your husband, you never take
(20:06):
out the trash, well, there had to be one time
in fifteen years that he took out the trash. I mean,
come on, now, when we exaggerate the details, exaggerate the
details in order to have a fight, that may mean
that you run to conflict as a coping mechanism. Maybe
you are the type of person who transfers guilt when
(20:27):
somebody says, hey, I didn't like when you did that,
and then you look back at them and say, oh,
you perfect, You ain't never made a mistake before, instead
of taking ownership for what has actually taken place. These
are the people who run to conflict as a coping mechanism.
(20:48):
The worst part about this type of person is they
usually pick on their safest people around them. So instead
of dealing with the fact that you're triggered at work
because you work a job that you know that God
has called you to do more, but you haven't taken
the time to actually step out in faith and do
(21:08):
what God has asked you to do. You come home
with those triggers from work, and your wife and your
kids are the ones.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
You pick a fight with.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
These are the people that, if you look at Saul's story,
David was a safe place for Saul. David only wanted
the best for Saul. He only wanted him to be
able to be everything that God has called him to be.
He was only helping. But because Saul was triggered by
what people were saying and he needn't actually deal with
(21:43):
the fact that he was jealous of somebody else, he
took it out on someone that was safer and even
seemingly weaker. So this is the type of thing when
we say coping mechanisms, these ways of finding relief. If
you think about but Jesus says in Matthew eleven that
I would give you a yoke that is easy and
(22:04):
a burden that is light. This is the opposite of that.
Although for some of us it feels like our norm,
our norm is to run to conflict, to start some
type of drama as a way to deal with the
triggers that we have in our life. So see it's
for a conflict. Oh is very different than conflict. This
(22:26):
one stands for oppression. These are the people that in
some type of way, they start their crash out internally,
but eventually you see it outside. Instead of avoiding their emotions,
they sink into their emotions and their emotions become the
drivers in their life.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
And the heavy burden.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
That they feel is because they focus all their attention
on how they feel. There is a balance that is
necessary when we are following God. Feel all the feelings,
but don't let the feelings be the your life. Don't
let the feelings be the decision makers in your life.
Let them inform the decisions that you make, but not
(23:08):
be the ones who are making the decisions in your life.
These people are the people that withdraw, that isolate, that
eventually you see over time less and less answering calls,
less and less coming outside to hang. These people are
the people that are going to go within their brains,
in their emotions and in their thoughts because that is
the way that they cope with the triggers in their life.
(23:33):
This is much different than the conflict. The conflict person's
gonna come out guns blazing. They're gonna come out with
their dukes up. Everybody need to have their box and
gloves on right now, okay, because conflict is coming to
start something. Those that go into oppression sink back and
eventually you ain't heard from them in weeks, and when
(23:53):
you ask them how they're doing, they're saying, okay, I'm good,
but they're not actually dealing with what's going on on
the inside of them, trying to detach because if they
detach enough, it feels safe to them.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
This is what happened with Elijah.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
That Pastor Will talked about last week. When Elijah was triggered,
he sunk into his hole where he buried himself in
his emotions. His emotions didn't just inform him. They were
his God, And sometimes our emotions can be our God.
Elijah was triggered by what Jezebel said to her said
(24:30):
to him, and when he was triggered, he went to
God and said, I'd rather die now.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
God had done all these wonderful.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Exploits in Elijah's life, all these miracle signs and wonders,
but all of that was scratched when he was triggered.
So even though you may not think you see this
on the outside, this is one you see on the outside,
because this person becomes more and more invisible, quieter, with drawn, isolated.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
And here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
For each one of these coping mechanisms. Someone taught us
that this is how we survive. Someone taught us that
this is.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
How you find relief in your life.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Maybe growing up, the easiest thing to do when there
was chaos.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
At home was a shrink.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
The easiest thing to do was to go to your room,
close the door and pretend like none of that is happening.
The easiest thing to do is to detach from all
of the healthy community that God has put around you.
Because This is how you have found relief. So see
is for conflict, always for oppression. P is for those
(25:50):
of us that power through. These are the people that
you're not gonna sink. You may not even take it
out on other people. But you now are overfunctioning because
you are going to busy yourself instead of actually dealing
with the emotions that you need to deal with the
triggers that in the emotional disturbance that you have going
(26:10):
on in your life. Instead of doing that, you're gonna
power through pretending like none of it exists.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
And you're gonna overfunction.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
You're gonna busy yourself, and you're gonna do way more
than God asked you to do, which is also called disobedience.
Because we see this and with the story of Moses. Now,
Moses had to lead a lot of people out of
slavery into the promised lamp.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
And when he did this, this was a hard job
for Moses as a leader.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
I mean I would have been he had to cut
somebody out at some point because.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
That was hard. That was a hard job. Okay, The
people was complaining all the time.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
One of the times that they were complaining to Moses,
they said, we don't have any water out here. We're thirsty.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
You should take us back to slavery. I would have said,
gone back, gone back, because I'm sick of it out.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Here, trying to help you. Okay, pray for me.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
They said to Moses. They said, Moses, there's no water
out here.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
What are we supposed to do? Moses goes to God.
God says, I want you to take the stick in
your hand. I want you to strike the rock one time,
and water's gonna come from it.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Moses goes and does that. It happens, The people are relieved,
they're happy, and all all their complaints are gone.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
It happens again. Exact same thing happens again, and then
come to Moses, take us back to slavery.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
We ain't got none to drink out here. I'll be
like drink a spit dog on it. Sick of it again,
Pray for me. Okay. Moses goes to God and he says, God,
what am I supposed to do?
Speaker 3 (27:44):
These people are thirsty again, and God.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Says, this time, don't do anything that's going to cause
you to have to use your own strength. No striking
the rock this time. This time, I want you to
go to the rock and speak to it and tell
it to do what it needs to do. Moses says bet.
Moses goes back to the people. He's so triggered by
(28:09):
the people that instead of doing what God told him
to do, he does more than what God told him
to do, because that's his way of crashing out. So
what happens is Moses goes back to the rock the
first time he struck the rock once God told him
this time to speak to the rock. Well, he doesn't
go back and strike the rock one time. He goes
and strikes the rock twice, this time using way more
(28:32):
energy than he needed to use because all he had
to do was speak to the rock.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Water did come out of the rock still when he
struck it twice.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
But God told him you will not inherit the Promised
Land because you disobey me. So for every person that
fills up their schedule with unnecessary things, and every person
that God did not tell you to help, every single
person in your family, maybe that one person he called
you to, but you decide that you're gonna play savior
for everybody in your life, for every person that acts
(29:02):
like you don't need a sabbath, and you don't need
a day of rest for every person that busies themselves
as a coping mechanism, because maybe if I need it somewhere,
I won't feel all the feelings that I'm feeling on
the inside. Maybe I won't be so emotionally disturbed if
I feel in the gap for every person in my life.
Could it be that that, although looks like a good thing,
(29:25):
is disobedience. These are the people that power through. You
would almost never even know that they're triggered because they're
everywhere all the time.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
It's like they're our nission.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
It's like, what are you.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
God himself? You at every event.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Making sure everybody's celebrated, your kids in every sport. Why
every sport.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
I'm gonna tell you right now.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
They're not gonna make it to the NFL, the NBA
and the soccer league whatever it's called.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
I'm sorry, I'm black. I don't I don't generally know whether.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Okay, anyway, pray for me I fee Yu's prayers.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
These are the people that busy themselves, so they overfunction,
they overhelp others. They never seem to really have a
bad day because.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
They don't go low called emotional.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
These are just emotions that God has given us, but
they don't allow themselves to sink there. These are people
that will fight through everything to not cry, which I
want to say, tears actually release toxicity in our life,
and so I always say, if you don't cry, you
must be toxic because because that's just biologically the way
(30:38):
that God set us up.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Anyways, these are people.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
That are often disconnected from their own needs, physical needs
that they have. So oftentimes they don't take a break
until their body makes them take a break. They don't
take a break until they have to take a break.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
And I know what that's like.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
I know what it's like to go through the day
and think to myself, when did I eat?
Speaker 3 (30:58):
I didn't even eat today.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
These are the people that power through as a way
of crashing out, and you may not even notice it
because more than you see it on the outside, this
person has to be aware enough to know what they're
feeling on the inside. They have to know that this
is my way of coping. That someone taught me somewhere,
(31:22):
either by showing me or telling me that you being
needed is what makes you significant.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
That your value only comes.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
When you're able to answer every call and every text
message and be there for every person in your life
and show up at every event. And the truth is
what you actually need. The healing for your soul. The
rest that Jesus talks about in Matthew eleven is some
stillness to be with your emotions and your God, to
(31:54):
ask him what's going on on the inside of me?
What am I running from? Cause I'm running in my life.
I'm running from something. The people that power through last
one is e and this is the people that externalize.
By this, I mean they blame others for their triggers. Now, okay,
(32:18):
somebody felt that, okay, and we praise God.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Your trigger is just that your trigger. And how you
know this is true is that we all have.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Different triggers based on the way that we see life
and the way that we deem something that's right or wrong,
and everybody has a different way of the measuring that
that we have our own triggers. So when we take
a trigger and we blame somebody else, what we're doing
is we're externalizing, and instead of dealing with the things
that we need to deal with, we're asking somebody else
(32:52):
to take on our work.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Here's the thing about that.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
If somebody else is at fault for your trigger, then
that means that they have to be the one to
own your freedom. And I don't know about anybody else,
but I don't want nobody else having to be the
person that gives me my freedom. I want my freedom
on my own. The only way that I'm gonna get
my freedom from myself is to know that the things,
the woundings, the bondages, the.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
Triggers that I have are also mine too.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
So these are the people that may go around trying
to figure out who it is that I need to
blame as to why I.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Am acting this way.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
But everything that we do, every temptation we fall into,
the Bible says, comes from our own desires.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
There is no such thing as someone making you mad.
You have to choose that.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
It's a quick decision, but you have to choose that.
And if you externalize that, then that means that you
don't get your freedom unless that person doesn't make you
mad anymore.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
How thought, that person still does.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
What they're doing, but then you don't find yourself as
mad as you did before because God has transformed you.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
This is what happened in Genesis.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
After adam Ate the fruit of the tree that God
said do not eat from.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
He said, what are you doing? First thing Adam does
points a finger, She made me do it.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Me and I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
I love y'all. And then when he points a finger
to Eve, he said, God says something. Even he says,
the serpent made me do it.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Nobody took ownership for their own actions and their own behavior.
As people of God, we should be the most confessional
community on earth. And you know why, because we serve
a God that no matter what we do, no matter
what mistakes we make, no matter how many people we heard,
(34:56):
no matter how many issues we have, he still loves
us unconditionally. So it shouldn't make us more confessional. It
should make us tell on ourselves more. It should make
us be more honest and take ownership of our stuff.
Saw when he was called into being king, it says
(35:18):
that he hid in his baggage. How many of us
do that every day, hiding in our own baggage when
freedom is promised to us. So when it comes to this,
we can't say things like I forgive them when they apologize.
(35:40):
That's beneath the standard. That's not what Jesus talks about.
A yoke that's easy and a burden that's light. In
Matthew eleven, he's saying, do you want another way to live?
How about someone offends you and hurts you, and you
live so light and easy you forgive them before they
even realize that's what they did.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
What does that look like.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
It's a different way to live. So these are ways
that we cope, different ways that we go into situations
that trigger us and we find conflict, or we sink
into oppression, or maybe we power through or even externalize.
But there is a different way to live. And this
(36:26):
is what we love about God. He gives us a
new way to live that doesn't require us to lean
into our old ways.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Here's what I want to say.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
When we become believers, we do become new creations in Christ,
new creatures in Christ. Because now the righteousness of Christ
is what God sees when he sees.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Us, what Jesus did on the cross.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
And yet your soul has to walk through process of
transformation because when we come into Christ, no matter how
old you are, when you come into your relationship with Christ,
you got some old ways, some old habits, some old
ways of thinking, some old belief systems. And your belief
system is what actually creates your thoughts, that create your behavior,
(37:09):
that creates your habits, that creates your destiny. And so
we have to, even in a relationship with God, submit
our baggage, our issues, our triggers back to God and
say where you help me? Because I want to live
a different way. And as long as we are on
this earth, we'll be asking God, will you help me
because I want to live a different way. I know
(37:32):
that I used to have those triggers, but God going
to now I.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Got these triggers. Where you help me?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Because I want to live a way that is light
and easy, as Jesus talks about.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
So I want to go through real quick things that.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Jesus did to cope, and specifically in one situation, which
was a situation that pastor will have talked about last
week too, which is a garden of gassimone business before
Jesus is going to the cross to die for a
bunch of people, some who love him and some who
hate him, and he is going to the cross for us.
And the thing about when you say you got triggers,
(38:05):
my God, can you imagine what kind of triggers Jesus
had that this could cause an absolute crash out.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
The things that he.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Was about to do, which was to die for the
sins of other people, none of which he committed. He
was going to go die for those sins. Four things
Jesus did in this story, and I'm gonna kind of
flip through the different gospels of how they share them,
and Mark fourteen thirty three through thirty four. It says
that Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him and
they became deeply troubled and distressed. He told them, my
(38:37):
soul is crushed with grief to the point of death.
Stay here and keep watch with me. First thing in
christ like coping is community. One of the best ways
that we can cope is to have a healthy community
around us that we can call on to say, Hey,
(38:58):
here's what I'm going through, here's what i'm feeling.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Girl, I'm about to crash out. I need your health.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
And I'm not talking about the community that'd be like,
come on, let's go slash tires together. Okay, that feels good,
Like we'll.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
Say I had a friend said that to me once
other maybe, uh, it feels good, but.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
It's not christ Like coping. I'm talking about a healthy
community that's gonna help you see that Christ is the
way to go.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
What happens in this story.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Is so beautiful because Jesus shows us that he invited
his community into this situation and they didn't even hold
him up the way he needed to be held up.
But he's still invited community in. And not only did
he invite them in, he didn't just leave him outside.
And I tell him what was going on, he said,
my soul is crushed to the point of death.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
He was vulnerable with his community.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
If you're going to cope in a healthy christ Like way,
you have to have community. Jesus showed us going further
into that scripture what our old stands for, and that
is a In Mark fourteen thirty six, Jesus says ab Father,
he cried out, everything is possible for you. Please take
(40:09):
this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want
your will to be done, not mine. I think we
under estimate the power of obeying God in the midsts
of being triggered, that oftentimes we use our triggers as
an excuse as to why we disobey God.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Because God knows I'm triggered.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Yes, he does, and he created a way of escape
for every temptation. Everything that you want to get out
of you can get out of. Every emotion that you
want to deal with in a healthy way, you can
deal with in a healthy way. Is called obedience. This
is when we sacrifice. This is when God says to
forgive those who despitefully use you.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
When we decide to.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Forgive, even when we're triggered by somebody's actions, that's called obedience.
And obedience has fruit in our lives. We see that
as we obey that fruit is coming in our lives.
Peace comes. Joy comes because all of that fruit has
to be in the opposite environment.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Meaning I don't know if I.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Have peace unless I'm in the mist chaos. I don't
know if I have joy unless I'm in the mist
of sorrow. It's not because the things externally are going
the way that I want them to go.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
It's because I have a greater.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
A greater covenant, not just with myself, but a covenant
to God that when I said yes to Him, I
said yes to his ways, not just yes to him,
yes to his ways. Jesus went to cross to die
(41:45):
for people who didn't care about him. Jesus got on
the cross and said, Father, forgive them, for they know
not what they do. That's the way of Jesus and
Matthew eleven.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
He's asking, do.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
You want another way? When you say you committed to
me and you're in covenant with me, are you saying
that you're in covenant a covenant with my ways? Because
that looks like obedience. The P stands for prayer Matthew
(42:18):
twenty six. And this is the way that Matthew wrote
this whole entire story was different than everybody else because
Matthew shows us in the story that Jesus went to
pray three different times in.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
The same setting. He says in verse forty.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Four, So when he went to pray a third time,
saying the same.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
Things again, have you ever met.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Somebody that lives beneath their privilege? I had a friend
one time who needed some money, and instead of just
asking for money, he went and donated some plasma or
something like that, And I remember all of our friends
were like, why didn't you just ask for some money?
Like you're living beneath your privilege. You're going and doing
(43:03):
things that you don't need to do on your own,
where you could have just.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
Asked for some help.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
When we live a prayerless life, we're living beneath our privilege.
Do you understand that the creator of the entire universe
is tuned into you, that he has never ever missed
a second of your life, that he knows the number
of hairs on your head, that he knows your thoughts
(43:29):
before you even think them. That's how a tuned he
is and attached he is to you. And yet oftentimes
we decide not to pray to that God. We live
beneath our privilege as believers when we don't live a
life of prayer. Prayer is our access to Heaven. And
(43:50):
let me let me demystify some things.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
Prayer is communion with God.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
You ain't got the robot showed now you can if
you want to, but you don't got to. A tear
can be prayer, a whisper can be prayer. Sometimes the boldest,
biggest prayer that you can say is God help me.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
Sometimes you don't have what it.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Takes to say all the soliloquies and know all the
scriptures when you pray. But if you know that you
got a God who's leaned down to hear you, you
gonna say something because there is a power that is
released to us through the act of prayer. And that's
what Jesus did in this situation. He didn't go at
it alone. He didn't power it through it. He decided
(44:35):
to pray. Last one is empowerment. And Luke Luca is
the only gospel who says this about this story Luke
twenty two and forty three. It talks about how Jesus
is praying, and then it says, then an angel from
heaven appeared and strengthened him. Fourth and final thing, and
(44:58):
I want to end like this. There is a power
that is available to you and myself when we say
yes to God and we receive that gift of salvation.
Jesus left this earth and he said, I'm gonna leave.
But the only reason I'm leaving is because I'm sending
you something greater.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
There is a power.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
The spirit of God lives on the inside of you.
And do you know what that means? That in a
very natural world we get to live supernaturally. That means
we have something that the world cannot give us. And
as the saints old saints say, the world cannot take away.
(45:42):
I remember one time, if you know anything about me
and my husband's story. We didne have been through hell
and back, and in our first couple of years of marriage,
we used to argue, like nobody's business.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
I want to practically.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Apply this, okay, cause when we talk about the Holy
Spirit sometimes to an ethereal thing, let me bring it
down to your house, okay. So we used to argue
all the time, I mean, anything was set off an
argument because we were just so broken, so triggered all
the time, always crashing out on one another. And I'll
never forget One day we were in an argument and
I went to another room and I said to the
(46:15):
Holy Spirit, I don't even know if I fully believed
it when I said it, but I said, I need patience.
I need patience. And that's really all I got out.
Didn't know if I fully believed it, didn't know if
it was gonna happen, but I knew what I did
not have the offer at the time, and that was patience.
And I kid you not, this is something that happens
(46:37):
on the inside of you as a believer, that there
are times where you will ask for something and you
will feel the answer to that prayer in the moment.
And I was standing in this room, and I asked
the Holy Spirit for that. By the time I walked
over the threshold of the door to walk out of
that room, I had what I know only came from heaven,
(47:00):
patience that was long suffering in that moment. Do you
know what kind of power lives on the inside of you?
Do you understand that the God of all creation lives
on the inside of you? And not just so you
can go do big exploits, and not just so you
(47:21):
can go become a millionaire, and not so you can
just go get married, not just those things I need.
In the conversations that you're having, I'm talking about in
the moments where you feel alone and you want to
sink into your feelings and you.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
Say, God, I need some joy.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
I don't know where I'm gonna get that joy from,
but I need some joy. And the moments where you
feel like you're about to crash out and everybody about
to get it because you got your dukes up right now,
you say, God, I need some peace, and you know
I'm a fighter and I need some peace. There are
so many moments where we negate this power that lives
(47:59):
on the inside, this power that we have because of
the God that we serve. And what I want to
say to you today is the same thing Jesus said
in Matthew eleven. Do you want to live a different way?
Do you want a different way to live where the
triggers don't have to be as triggering, Where the crash
(48:19):
out doesn't have to be the way that you cope,
Where you can be vulnerable and true and honest about
the emotions that you're feeling. Where you can find a
community that actually doesn't see you as a burden. They
are a burden that they want to carry. That you
can be in a place where the things that used
to take you out set you off and emotionally disturb
(48:41):
you to the point of not being able to see
straight that God can heal you from that. There's a
power on the inside of you. And when we crash
out cope. Essentially, what we're saying is that power ain't
strong enough today. I think God wants to open up
(49:08):
all of our eyes to this empowerment that He wants
to give us. That yes, I am a devout believer
in therapy and making sure you have tools and breathing techniques,
all the things, because I do believe God uses very
practical things to help us not crash out. And at
the same time, a very practical thing that he also
(49:30):
offers us is his spirit that's a teacher and a comforter,
and it's gentle and it delights in the details of
your life, and it wants to know what's upsetting you
and how can I help you. Jesus went up.
Speaker 3 (49:47):
To blind Bartimaeus. It was obvious what his issues were.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
He was blind, and yet Jesus said to him, what
do you want me to do.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
Today?
Speaker 2 (50:00):
We don't have to live the way that we've been living.
In whatever little way. God is speaking to you individually
and your situation. Imagine Jesus standing in front of you saying,
what do you want me to do? Because that power
lives on the inside of you. Let's pray God, we
(50:21):
are so grateful for who you are in our lives.
Thank you for being a God that gives us a
way of escape for everything that we want to crash out,
every time we want to crash out, every trigger that
comes our way. You've created a way that looks like
your son, one that includes community, one that includes obedience,
(50:46):
one that includes prayer and goodness. Your empowerment. Today, God,
will you empower us to live a different way than
the way we've lived before. Then, even just yesterday, and
the triggers that don't seem that big, don't seem like
that big of a deal, even those are invitations for transformation. Today,
(51:12):
we surrender ourselves to you over and over again. Have
your way in us in the name of Jesus. While
every head is bound in every eye closed. Somebody in
this room today are watching online today you want to
receive this free gift of salvation. With this freak gift,
(51:34):
there's so many things that come with it, one of
them being the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. And today,
if you want to receive that gift, all you have
to do is pray a prayer, confess with your mouth,
and believe in your heart, and just like that, you're saved. So,
if you want to say that prayer with me, if
(51:56):
you want to receive that gift of salvation, I'm going
to ask you to say this prayer with me. And
because we're a family here at Transformation Church, I'm gonna
ask everybody to repeat this prayer after me. Say, Dear God,
I admit I made mistakes. I admit I need a savior.
I ask that you change my heart, that you change
(52:20):
my motives, that you changed my life. I believe you lived,
you die, and you rose again. So change me, renew me,
and transform me. I'm yours in the name of Jesus.
(52:41):
We pray and everybody says Amen, Amen, Amen,
Welcome to Transformation Church podcast, where we represent God to
the lost and found for transformation in Christ. We're so
glad you're here and wherever you're listening from, we believe
God will transform your life. Do today's message.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
This is week eight of a sermon series that we're
calling Trigger.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Pastor Mike started this sermon.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Series a couple months ago, and I remember when we
were talking about this series before it started. We're talking
about what God wanted to do through this series and
specifically using the term triggered, because that is one of
our kind of buzz words for right now. There are
many different people who talk about how triggered they are
in today's time. And this is not a word that
(00:45):
was used ages ago or years ago in the manner
in which we use it now now. When we talk
about it, we're talking about some type of emotional disturbance that.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Takes place in our life.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
That's what a trigger is. And when we started the
first week of this sermon series.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Passing my ass, he said, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
What are your triggers? And there were people in the
room that unashamedly yelled out the triggers that they have
in their life. Some people talked about dirty dishes being
a trigger. Anybody out there dirty dishes a trigger?
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I feel like it's a lot of mamas who said
yes to that. So all the kids need to button
it up, come on, get it together. Some people said
that bad drivers was a trigger. Anybody bad drivers? Okay?
So I thought to myself, I think today, what we're
gonna do is we're gonna start with I'm just gonna
love the play feeling and tell you some of my
(01:37):
own triggers today. Okay, I have a list, so here
we go. Some of my triggers are first, one is
lazy people. And I know somebody feels me on this one. Okay,
lazy people, it's like, can.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
You get up and do something? Can you help please? Okay?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
A lazy person. Another one of my triggers I have,
and this one will send me immediately an unexpected bill.
An unexpected bill, I don't care if the bill is
seven dollars and sixteen cents.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Don't send me.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Nothing unless you called me beforehand, told me that bill
was on the way. Okay. A good trigger for me
is an unexpected bill. Ask my husband. I'll flip out
every time. Okay, someone making me late to something. Now.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Listen, there's a caveat to this.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Okay, because I didn't say me being late that's not
the trigger, because I am often late on.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
My own accord. But if someone else, hello.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Somebody, if somebody else makes.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Me late, that's the trigger right there.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Now.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
If I'm gonna be late, let it be my fault
while I'm late.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
I don't want to be late because you made me late.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Okay. I have more hurd on mean or rude people.
Y'all feel me on that one.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Take it up one more notch though, especially when those
people are church people. I can't stand it.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
I can't stand it. I can't stand it.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I cannot stand how you gonna let the Lord but
not love people like that don't even make sense. That
is a trigger, y'all feel me on that way. Okay,
All right, okay, okay, schemers, I won't go no further.
Bad hair days, y'all see how much hair I got
on top of this here.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Sometimes I wake up and it looked like who done it?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
And what fu? Every curl going which way but the
right way? I'm like God helped me today. Okay. Bad
hair days?
Speaker 3 (03:40):
And then my last and.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Final one that I have And this is specific to me.
This may not be one for you, okay, but I
cannot stand stinky trash in my home. Specifically, if I
smell trash, it's like something got to be done. We
have to throw away the whole entire house. At this point,
I thought them trash cans were supposed to those trash
(04:02):
bags were supposed to smell good. Why is think like that?
Speaker 3 (04:05):
What's in there? Some dad up in there?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
You know, you be thinking something day.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
It's some day.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
It's not like something died up in here. We need
to get something going up here. So these are just
some of my triggers, y'all. Oh, I had another one
hold on spiritual bypassing.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Okay, I want to kind of talk about.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
This one a little bit today. Spiritual bypassing is when
we use scripture or spiritual practices or even God to
bypass reality. When we use God's word to actually avoid
something that is real that needs to be dealt with.
(04:43):
Instead of doing that, we use scripture, slap a scripture
on it, and act like it's not a thing at all.
Spiritual bypassing is when God is actually trying to do
some work of transformation in our lives.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
But because we don't want to do the hard work.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
That often takes a lot of sacrifice to transform in
our lives. Instead, we'll act like, oh, his grace is sufficient.
He also wants you to change doing that.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Spiritual bypasses is one of those things.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
If you know a little bit about me and Aaron,
my husband, the love of my life, the lover of
my life.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
I love you, husband.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Y'all give it up with my husband. He hates that.
If you know anything about our story, you know that
over the last year we went through significant tragedy. We
lost our son last year, and in that whole situation,
we have learned so much about God and about grief
(05:40):
and about how we actually include God in our reality
versus acting like our reality is not a real thing.
And even though for me grief has been such a
difficult process because I don't like that grief is unpredictable
and so you never know what days you're gonna feel low,
or what days you may feel sad, or what days
I'm gonna missed my son and all of that, it's
(06:02):
really been difficult, so much so that one of the
things I want to do is spiritually bypass it. One
of the things I want to do is move past
it like it's not actually as hurtful and painful acts
it actually is. And I remember one time I was
talking to a friend of mine and she was asking
me how I was doing, and I said, you know, sad,
(06:23):
you know, mad, all the things that I was feeling
at the time, I said. But also at the same time,
God has really just blessed us with such a wonderful life,
such a great community, all the beautiful things which is
well and true. And she said to me, she said,
I love that for you. I'm so happy that you
feel that way. And at the same time, I want
(06:44):
you to know when you go through tragedy like that,
when you go through something hard like that, I don't
think that it might be the best mood, the best
thing for you to say to your nervous system, but
look at all the blessings we have, because essentially what
you're doing is telling your own body, let's ignore the
(07:04):
pain and pretend like it's not there. And shouldn't you
be grateful for the life that you have? So shouldn't
you should only see the stars and the flowers and
the things that are taking place in your life that
are blessings and if you focus on that, maybe you'll
get over the pain that you've been through. Today, I
want to talk to you a little bit about this
(07:25):
because this is the thing that I think trips us
up as believers. It's a lack of self awareness, knowing
where we actually are, not where we are.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Pretending to be.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
There's nothing wrong with being aware of your blessings, and
there's nothing wrong with gratitude. Has saved my life a
many of days over this past year, so there's absolutely
nothing wrong with that at all. At the same time,
can we be believers that deal with reality, that know
that our God is big enough to be in the
(08:02):
real day to day with us and still help us
move through it? And so today I want to talk
to you a little bit about that because one of
the things that I have learned, especially as we've been
walking through this series, is we've been talking about triggers,
and triggers are what Pastor Mike gave us a definition.
He said, triggers are the things that sets you off.
In other words, they create some type of emotional disturbance.
(08:26):
And not only is trigger a thing that causes emotional disturbance,
it's also a place where maybe the Lord is inviting
you and I into transformation, that this emotional disturbance is
there for a reason. Now, in order to say that
you have a trigger, you have to know it's attached
to your emotions, that there is some emotional disturbance that's
(08:49):
going on inside of you.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
A lot of people, a trigger feels like anger.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Another person that can feel like sadness, another person that
can feel like embarrassment. There's so many different emotions that.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Go along with trigger.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
But if we open our eyes to see the greater
reality that God has us in this Kingdom of Heaven
that we actually live in today, this trigger is not
only a place of emotional disturbance, it's also an invitation
from God for transformation in our lives. So today I
want to talk to you about some things, and I
want to be honest. Today may feel a little bit
(09:22):
like group therapy.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Okay, I am not a therapist.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
And at the same time, I'm gonna be using some
language that sounds like maybe you sin in therapy.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
So I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
When's the last time you had your therapy appointment.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Look at your neighbor, say when selest ner.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
I don't ask them that just kid it, just kid it.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
But today we're gonna talk through a little some things.
And I want to call today's sermon cope like Christ,
Cope like Christ. Let me tell you why. That's the
tiitle of today's sermon.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
When we have a.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Crash y'all, which our definition right now, crash out is
where we get to when we have unaddressed triggers, things
that have caused an emotional disturbance.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
And now I'm crashing out.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Because I haven't actually addressed the triggers in my life
that I need to, the things that have called cause
emotional disturbance. When we have a crash out, A crash
out is just a coping mechanism. That's it. A crashout
is just a coping mechanism. Now, a coping mechanism is
a strategy, strategy, or something we put in place in
(10:29):
order to find relief.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
In our life.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Usually, if we have a trigger of some kind, it
has roued up some type of emotion on the inside
of us. It's caused us some type of emotional overwhelmed.
When we get to that emotional overwhelmed, then we turn
into a crash out.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Then we crash out but.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
The only reason we crash out is because we're actually
trying to cope with this disturbance or this overwhelmed that
we have had emotionally, and we don't know how to
do it in a healthy way. Coping mechanisms are neutral.
They can be healthy or unhealthy. There are ways that
you can cope with stress in life that's unhealthy and
(11:09):
not helpful for you or anybody around you. And there
are ways that you can cope with stresses in life
that actually are very healthy and can lund you forward
into your future, into your God given destiny. And so
today I want to talk about how do we cope
like Christ? And today is going to take We're going
(11:29):
to do a little digging into our own selves and
becoming a little bit more self aware about us so
that we can see how do I cope now?
Speaker 3 (11:40):
And is it like the way that Christ would cope?
Speaker 2 (11:43):
So what I want you to do is turning your
Bible to Matthew eleven. Matthew eleven twenty eight through thirty.
This is the actual scripture passage that we started the
sermon series with. Also, Jesus is talking here in Matthew eleven,
and it says, come to me all of you who
are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give
(12:07):
you rest or relief.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Take my yoke upon you.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle
at heart, and you will find rest or relief for
your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and
the burden I give you is liked. What Jesus is
saying in this scripture is I have another way for
(12:34):
you to live. I have a new way for you
to live that is not based off of your culture,
based off your family, based off your ethnicity, based off
of your gender, based off of what the world is
telling you how to live. I have a brand new
way for you to live. And in this way that
you are living now, it's heavy, and it's burdened down,
(12:58):
and it may actually be too much for you to bear.
But the way that I want you to live is
in a life of lightness.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
And ease and a place of relief.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Our coping mechanisms is only us trying to find some relief.
So today my question for you is going to be
do you want to live differently? Do you want to
live in an easy yoke and a light burden? Do
you want to live in a place of constant relief
(13:29):
in a healthy way that doesn't damage you, your soul
or the people around you. Because every single one of
us born into this world because of the families we
grew up in, the neighborhoods, we grew up in the culture.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
That we live in.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Because of what society tells us, every single one of
us have adopted some type of unhealthy coping mechanism, some
type of way that we cope with emotional disturbance and
stressing our life that is actually not the way the
crisis asked us to cope. And So today, as we
are going going through some of the things I want
to talk about today, the question is do you wanna
(14:05):
live differently?
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Don't you think the way.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
That we decided to live without Christ in the middle
of that, that that is just too heavy for us.
The stress that we feel, the worry, the anxiety that
we feel, the depression that we feel, the anger that
we feel, is all really too much because it's not
the way that Christ wants us to cope. So I'm
gonna walk us through four different things today, and these
(14:32):
are what I'm calling crash out coping. These are the
ways that we crash out, and we try to cope
with the stresses of life and the emotional disturbances that
we have in this I want you to now, as
I'm going through these things, you gonna see somebody else,
maybe your husband, your wife, your kids, your mama, and
(14:53):
your daddy. You're gonna see somebody else as we're going
through these things. But listen, this is what I'm asking
you to do today.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Keep your eye on the sparial.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Okay, look at only you today. Today is about self awareness. Okay,
today is about self awareness.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
So these are.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Four things, and I want to give you kind of
a little setup for them. So they're gonna put a
chart on the screen. You'll see a couple of different
things here. The first thing is passion. Mike told us this.
He said, sometimes when we crash out, we crash out internally,
and other times we crash out externally. Now, usually when
somebody says they're crashing out or ever, other people know
that someone's crashing out is because it's external. But there
(15:32):
are ways that we internally crash out too. So some
of these ways that we crash out, you're gonna see.
We feel them on the inside, even if you can't
see them on the outside, you.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Feel them on the inside.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Other ones you're gonna see that you can see these
on the outside. And then another thing that I want
you to remember as we're going through these is some
of these crash outs it's just you and you alone.
Other ones you have to have other people involved in.
Some people crash out own other people. Some people crash
out in themselves. Okay, so the question is can you
(16:07):
find yourself today? What I'm gonna do is I'm going
through these four things. And this is an acronym for
cope cope. Okay, just try to make it so that
you can remember it when you leave out this place.
So the first thing is how we crash out cope.
First person usually crashed out.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Cope by conflict. This is a.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Person that when they are triggered and they have too
many triggers that are piling up and they crash out.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
They crash out on.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
The people around them and they find someone to battle.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
They battle other people.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Let me give you an example of this in the
scripture first Sevenel nineteen Saul here is the king of Israel,
and he is the first person that God has called
and asked to take on this type of role. So
it was a prestigious role obviously, first time having a
king of Israel. God chose and favored Saul. He wanted
Saul to take on this, and yet Saul was not
(17:02):
secure in the role that God gave him. So when David,
a young David came around, who would be the king eventually.
But when David came around, Saul felt threatened and his
so much so that when people were going around, they
were saying David killed his ten thousands, but Saul only
killed his thousands, and Saul was like, uh uh, I
can't take this. He was triggered and he crashed out.
(17:25):
And when Saul crashed out, he decided to pick a
fight with David.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
David wasn't against Saul at all, he wasn't studying that
man like that.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
But Saul was completely offended by the fact that David
was doing it well, and because of that, he picked
a fight with him. So these type of people, when
they crash out, they find and pick fights. They find
somebody that they're gonna battle, somebody that they're gonna go
(17:56):
and start something with because in their mind and the
only way I can get relief, which is a coping mechanism.
The only way I can get relief is through control,
not through connection.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Through control.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
So these are the people who when you are talking
about a current issue, they may be the ones that
bring up old issues. It's like, that's not what we're
talking about right now, But last year when I did
the same thing, you got mad when I said, okay,
that's a whole different situation that we're not talking about.
These are the people that find anger safer than vulnerability.
(18:32):
So this emotion of anger is a place that feels
safe for them, So they go to this place whenever
they feel crashed, like they're about to crash out.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
When they're triggered enough, they'll go to anger. But if
you know anything about.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
The emotion anger, what you know is the emotion anger
is just a surface level of emotion. Underneath any person
that's dealing with anger, they're probably dealing with some hurt.
They're probably dealing with some type of shame, some type
of guilt type something that is underneath that anger. Anger
is just a surface level emotion, meaning that there's something
(19:06):
underneath that that's actually impacting you. But for these people,
because conflict seems like a safe place and anger feels
like a safe place. They can't actually heal or deal
with what's actually going on inside of them because they
go to the surface level emotion instead of dealing with
what's underneath it, instead of just saying I'm.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Hurt by that.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
That really offended me the way that I felt belittle
when you said that. Instead, these people are gonna puff up,
go into anger and cause some.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Type of conflict. So these are the people that do that.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
They may even exaggerate details.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
In order to just start a fight.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
So anytime in a fight or argument, and take this
home with you, be take it gently, okay. And you
go around saying you always, you never everybody always. Those
are called absoluteses, and those are never ever. That's true,
And I'm gonna use absolute for that. Those are never true.
Because you may say to your husband, you never take
(20:06):
out the trash, well, there had to be one time
in fifteen years that he took out the trash. I mean,
come on, now, when we exaggerate the details, exaggerate the
details in order to have a fight, that may mean
that you run to conflict as a coping mechanism. Maybe
you are the type of person who transfers guilt when
(20:27):
somebody says, hey, I didn't like when you did that,
and then you look back at them and say, oh,
you perfect, You ain't never made a mistake before, instead
of taking ownership for what has actually taken place. These
are the people who run to conflict as a coping mechanism.
(20:48):
The worst part about this type of person is they
usually pick on their safest people around them. So instead
of dealing with the fact that you're triggered at work
because you work a job that you know that God
has called you to do more, but you haven't taken
the time to actually step out in faith and do
(21:08):
what God has asked you to do. You come home
with those triggers from work, and your wife and your
kids are the ones.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
You pick a fight with.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
These are the people that, if you look at Saul's story,
David was a safe place for Saul. David only wanted
the best for Saul. He only wanted him to be
able to be everything that God has called him to be.
He was only helping. But because Saul was triggered by
what people were saying and he needn't actually deal with
(21:43):
the fact that he was jealous of somebody else, he
took it out on someone that was safer and even
seemingly weaker. So this is the type of thing when
we say coping mechanisms, these ways of finding relief. If
you think about but Jesus says in Matthew eleven that
I would give you a yoke that is easy and
(22:04):
a burden that is light. This is the opposite of that.
Although for some of us it feels like our norm,
our norm is to run to conflict, to start some
type of drama as a way to deal with the
triggers that we have in our life. So see it's
for a conflict. Oh is very different than conflict. This
(22:26):
one stands for oppression. These are the people that in
some type of way, they start their crash out internally,
but eventually you see it outside. Instead of avoiding their emotions,
they sink into their emotions and their emotions become the
drivers in their life.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
And the heavy burden.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
That they feel is because they focus all their attention
on how they feel. There is a balance that is
necessary when we are following God. Feel all the feelings,
but don't let the feelings be the your life. Don't
let the feelings be the decision makers in your life.
Let them inform the decisions that you make, but not
(23:08):
be the ones who are making the decisions in your life.
These people are the people that withdraw, that isolate, that
eventually you see over time less and less answering calls,
less and less coming outside to hang. These people are
the people that are going to go within their brains,
in their emotions and in their thoughts because that is
the way that they cope with the triggers in their life.
(23:33):
This is much different than the conflict. The conflict person's
gonna come out guns blazing. They're gonna come out with
their dukes up. Everybody need to have their box and
gloves on right now, okay, because conflict is coming to
start something. Those that go into oppression sink back and
eventually you ain't heard from them in weeks, and when
(23:53):
you ask them how they're doing, they're saying, okay, I'm good,
but they're not actually dealing with what's going on on
the inside of them, trying to detach because if they
detach enough, it feels safe to them.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
This is what happened with Elijah.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
That Pastor Will talked about last week. When Elijah was triggered,
he sunk into his hole where he buried himself in
his emotions. His emotions didn't just inform him. They were
his God, And sometimes our emotions can be our God.
Elijah was triggered by what Jezebel said to her said
(24:30):
to him, and when he was triggered, he went to
God and said, I'd rather die now.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
God had done all these wonderful.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Exploits in Elijah's life, all these miracle signs and wonders,
but all of that was scratched when he was triggered.
So even though you may not think you see this
on the outside, this is one you see on the outside,
because this person becomes more and more invisible, quieter, with drawn, isolated.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
And here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
For each one of these coping mechanisms. Someone taught us
that this is how we survive. Someone taught us that
this is.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
How you find relief in your life.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Maybe growing up, the easiest thing to do when there
was chaos.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
At home was a shrink.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
The easiest thing to do was to go to your room,
close the door and pretend like none of that is happening.
The easiest thing to do is to detach from all
of the healthy community that God has put around you.
Because This is how you have found relief. So see
is for conflict, always for oppression. P is for those
(25:50):
of us that power through. These are the people that
you're not gonna sink. You may not even take it
out on other people. But you now are overfunctioning because
you are going to busy yourself instead of actually dealing
with the emotions that you need to deal with the
triggers that in the emotional disturbance that you have going
(26:10):
on in your life. Instead of doing that, you're gonna
power through pretending like none of it exists.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
And you're gonna overfunction.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
You're gonna busy yourself, and you're gonna do way more
than God asked you to do, which is also called disobedience.
Because we see this and with the story of Moses. Now,
Moses had to lead a lot of people out of
slavery into the promised lamp.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
And when he did this, this was a hard job
for Moses as a leader.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
I mean I would have been he had to cut
somebody out at some point because.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
That was hard. That was a hard job. Okay, The
people was complaining all the time.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
One of the times that they were complaining to Moses,
they said, we don't have any water out here. We're thirsty.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
You should take us back to slavery. I would have said,
gone back, gone back, because I'm sick of it out.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Here, trying to help you. Okay, pray for me.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
They said to Moses. They said, Moses, there's no water
out here.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
What are we supposed to do? Moses goes to God.
God says, I want you to take the stick in
your hand. I want you to strike the rock one time,
and water's gonna come from it.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Moses goes and does that. It happens, The people are relieved,
they're happy, and all all their complaints are gone.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
It happens again. Exact same thing happens again, and then
come to Moses, take us back to slavery.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
We ain't got none to drink out here. I'll be
like drink a spit dog on it. Sick of it again,
Pray for me. Okay. Moses goes to God and he says, God,
what am I supposed to do?
Speaker 3 (27:44):
These people are thirsty again, and God.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Says, this time, don't do anything that's going to cause
you to have to use your own strength. No striking
the rock this time. This time, I want you to
go to the rock and speak to it and tell
it to do what it needs to do. Moses says bet.
Moses goes back to the people. He's so triggered by
(28:09):
the people that instead of doing what God told him
to do, he does more than what God told him
to do, because that's his way of crashing out. So
what happens is Moses goes back to the rock the
first time he struck the rock once God told him
this time to speak to the rock. Well, he doesn't
go back and strike the rock one time. He goes
and strikes the rock twice, this time using way more
(28:32):
energy than he needed to use because all he had
to do was speak to the rock.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Water did come out of the rock still when he
struck it twice.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
But God told him you will not inherit the Promised
Land because you disobey me. So for every person that
fills up their schedule with unnecessary things, and every person
that God did not tell you to help, every single
person in your family, maybe that one person he called
you to, but you decide that you're gonna play savior
for everybody in your life, for every person that acts
(29:02):
like you don't need a sabbath, and you don't need
a day of rest for every person that busies themselves
as a coping mechanism, because maybe if I need it somewhere,
I won't feel all the feelings that I'm feeling on
the inside. Maybe I won't be so emotionally disturbed if
I feel in the gap for every person in my life.
Could it be that that, although looks like a good thing,
(29:25):
is disobedience. These are the people that power through. You
would almost never even know that they're triggered because they're
everywhere all the time.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
It's like they're our nission.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
It's like, what are you.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
God himself? You at every event.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Making sure everybody's celebrated, your kids in every sport. Why
every sport.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
I'm gonna tell you right now.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
They're not gonna make it to the NFL, the NBA
and the soccer league whatever it's called.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
I'm sorry, I'm black. I don't I don't generally know whether.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Okay, anyway, pray for me I fee Yu's prayers.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
These are the people that busy themselves, so they overfunction,
they overhelp others. They never seem to really have a
bad day because.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
They don't go low called emotional.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
These are just emotions that God has given us, but
they don't allow themselves to sink there. These are people
that will fight through everything to not cry, which I
want to say, tears actually release toxicity in our life,
and so I always say, if you don't cry, you
must be toxic because because that's just biologically the way
(30:38):
that God set us up.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Anyways, these are people.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
That are often disconnected from their own needs, physical needs
that they have. So oftentimes they don't take a break
until their body makes them take a break. They don't
take a break until they have to take a break.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
And I know what that's like.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
I know what it's like to go through the day
and think to myself, when did I eat?
Speaker 3 (30:58):
I didn't even eat today.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
These are the people that power through as a way
of crashing out, and you may not even notice it
because more than you see it on the outside, this
person has to be aware enough to know what they're
feeling on the inside. They have to know that this
is my way of coping. That someone taught me somewhere,
(31:22):
either by showing me or telling me that you being
needed is what makes you significant.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
That your value only comes.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
When you're able to answer every call and every text
message and be there for every person in your life
and show up at every event. And the truth is
what you actually need. The healing for your soul. The
rest that Jesus talks about in Matthew eleven is some
stillness to be with your emotions and your God, to
(31:54):
ask him what's going on on the inside of me?
What am I running from? Cause I'm running in my life.
I'm running from something. The people that power through last
one is e and this is the people that externalize.
By this, I mean they blame others for their triggers. Now, okay,
(32:18):
somebody felt that, okay, and we praise God.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Your trigger is just that your trigger. And how you
know this is true is that we all have.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Different triggers based on the way that we see life
and the way that we deem something that's right or wrong,
and everybody has a different way of the measuring that
that we have our own triggers. So when we take
a trigger and we blame somebody else, what we're doing
is we're externalizing, and instead of dealing with the things
that we need to deal with, we're asking somebody else
(32:52):
to take on our work.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Here's the thing about that.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
If somebody else is at fault for your trigger, then
that means that they have to be the one to
own your freedom. And I don't know about anybody else,
but I don't want nobody else having to be the
person that gives me my freedom. I want my freedom
on my own. The only way that I'm gonna get
my freedom from myself is to know that the things,
the woundings, the bondages, the.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
Triggers that I have are also mine too.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
So these are the people that may go around trying
to figure out who it is that I need to
blame as to why I.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Am acting this way.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
But everything that we do, every temptation we fall into,
the Bible says, comes from our own desires.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
There is no such thing as someone making you mad.
You have to choose that.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
It's a quick decision, but you have to choose that.
And if you externalize that, then that means that you
don't get your freedom unless that person doesn't make you
mad anymore.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
How thought, that person still does.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
What they're doing, but then you don't find yourself as
mad as you did before because God has transformed you.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
This is what happened in Genesis.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
After adam Ate the fruit of the tree that God
said do not eat from.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
He said, what are you doing? First thing Adam does
points a finger, She made me do it.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Me and I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
I love y'all. And then when he points a finger
to Eve, he said, God says something. Even he says,
the serpent made me do it.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Nobody took ownership for their own actions and their own behavior.
As people of God, we should be the most confessional
community on earth. And you know why, because we serve
a God that no matter what we do, no matter
what mistakes we make, no matter how many people we heard,
(34:56):
no matter how many issues we have, he still loves
us unconditionally. So it shouldn't make us more confessional. It
should make us tell on ourselves more. It should make
us be more honest and take ownership of our stuff.
Saw when he was called into being king, it says
(35:18):
that he hid in his baggage. How many of us
do that every day, hiding in our own baggage when
freedom is promised to us. So when it comes to this,
we can't say things like I forgive them when they apologize.
(35:40):
That's beneath the standard. That's not what Jesus talks about.
A yoke that's easy and a burden that's light. In
Matthew eleven, he's saying, do you want another way to live?
How about someone offends you and hurts you, and you
live so light and easy you forgive them before they
even realize that's what they did.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
What does that look like.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
It's a different way to live. So these are ways
that we cope, different ways that we go into situations
that trigger us and we find conflict, or we sink
into oppression, or maybe we power through or even externalize.
But there is a different way to live. And this
(36:26):
is what we love about God. He gives us a
new way to live that doesn't require us to lean
into our old ways.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Here's what I want to say.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
When we become believers, we do become new creations in Christ,
new creatures in Christ. Because now the righteousness of Christ
is what God sees when he sees.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Us, what Jesus did on the cross.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
And yet your soul has to walk through process of
transformation because when we come into Christ, no matter how
old you are, when you come into your relationship with Christ,
you got some old ways, some old habits, some old
ways of thinking, some old belief systems. And your belief
system is what actually creates your thoughts, that create your behavior,
(37:09):
that creates your habits, that creates your destiny. And so
we have to, even in a relationship with God, submit
our baggage, our issues, our triggers back to God and
say where you help me? Because I want to live
a different way. And as long as we are on
this earth, we'll be asking God, will you help me
because I want to live a different way. I know
(37:32):
that I used to have those triggers, but God going
to now I.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Got these triggers. Where you help me?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Because I want to live a way that is light
and easy, as Jesus talks about.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
So I want to go through real quick things that.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Jesus did to cope, and specifically in one situation, which
was a situation that pastor will have talked about last
week too, which is a garden of gassimone business before
Jesus is going to the cross to die for a
bunch of people, some who love him and some who
hate him, and he is going to the cross for us.
And the thing about when you say you got triggers,
(38:05):
my God, can you imagine what kind of triggers Jesus
had that this could cause an absolute crash out.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
The things that he.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Was about to do, which was to die for the
sins of other people, none of which he committed. He
was going to go die for those sins. Four things
Jesus did in this story, and I'm gonna kind of
flip through the different gospels of how they share them,
and Mark fourteen thirty three through thirty four. It says
that Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him and
they became deeply troubled and distressed. He told them, my
(38:37):
soul is crushed with grief to the point of death.
Stay here and keep watch with me. First thing in
christ like coping is community. One of the best ways
that we can cope is to have a healthy community
around us that we can call on to say, Hey,
(38:58):
here's what I'm going through, here's what i'm feeling.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Girl, I'm about to crash out. I need your health.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
And I'm not talking about the community that'd be like,
come on, let's go slash tires together. Okay, that feels good,
Like we'll.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
Say I had a friend said that to me once
other maybe, uh, it feels good, but.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
It's not christ Like coping. I'm talking about a healthy
community that's gonna help you see that Christ is the
way to go.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
What happens in this story.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Is so beautiful because Jesus shows us that he invited
his community into this situation and they didn't even hold
him up the way he needed to be held up.
But he's still invited community in. And not only did
he invite them in, he didn't just leave him outside.
And I tell him what was going on, he said,
my soul is crushed to the point of death.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
He was vulnerable with his community.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
If you're going to cope in a healthy christ Like way,
you have to have community. Jesus showed us going further
into that scripture what our old stands for, and that
is a In Mark fourteen thirty six, Jesus says ab Father,
he cried out, everything is possible for you. Please take
(40:09):
this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want
your will to be done, not mine. I think we
under estimate the power of obeying God in the midsts
of being triggered, that oftentimes we use our triggers as
an excuse as to why we disobey God.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Because God knows I'm triggered.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Yes, he does, and he created a way of escape
for every temptation. Everything that you want to get out
of you can get out of. Every emotion that you
want to deal with in a healthy way, you can
deal with in a healthy way. Is called obedience. This
is when we sacrifice. This is when God says to
forgive those who despitefully use you.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
When we decide to.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Forgive, even when we're triggered by somebody's actions, that's called obedience.
And obedience has fruit in our lives. We see that
as we obey that fruit is coming in our lives.
Peace comes. Joy comes because all of that fruit has
to be in the opposite environment.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Meaning I don't know if I.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Have peace unless I'm in the mist chaos. I don't
know if I have joy unless I'm in the mist
of sorrow. It's not because the things externally are going
the way that I want them to go.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
It's because I have a greater.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
A greater covenant, not just with myself, but a covenant
to God that when I said yes to Him, I
said yes to his ways, not just yes to him,
yes to his ways. Jesus went to cross to die
(41:45):
for people who didn't care about him. Jesus got on
the cross and said, Father, forgive them, for they know
not what they do. That's the way of Jesus and
Matthew eleven.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
He's asking, do.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
You want another way? When you say you committed to
me and you're in covenant with me, are you saying
that you're in covenant a covenant with my ways? Because
that looks like obedience. The P stands for prayer Matthew
(42:18):
twenty six. And this is the way that Matthew wrote
this whole entire story was different than everybody else because
Matthew shows us in the story that Jesus went to
pray three different times in.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
The same setting. He says in verse forty.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Four, So when he went to pray a third time,
saying the same.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
Things again, have you ever met.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Somebody that lives beneath their privilege? I had a friend
one time who needed some money, and instead of just
asking for money, he went and donated some plasma or
something like that, And I remember all of our friends
were like, why didn't you just ask for some money?
Like you're living beneath your privilege. You're going and doing
(43:03):
things that you don't need to do on your own,
where you could have just.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
Asked for some help.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
When we live a prayerless life, we're living beneath our privilege.
Do you understand that the creator of the entire universe
is tuned into you, that he has never ever missed
a second of your life, that he knows the number
of hairs on your head, that he knows your thoughts
(43:29):
before you even think them. That's how a tuned he
is and attached he is to you. And yet oftentimes
we decide not to pray to that God. We live
beneath our privilege as believers when we don't live a
life of prayer. Prayer is our access to Heaven. And
(43:50):
let me let me demystify some things.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
Prayer is communion with God.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
You ain't got the robot showed now you can if
you want to, but you don't got to. A tear
can be prayer, a whisper can be prayer. Sometimes the boldest,
biggest prayer that you can say is God help me.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
Sometimes you don't have what it.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Takes to say all the soliloquies and know all the
scriptures when you pray. But if you know that you
got a God who's leaned down to hear you, you
gonna say something because there is a power that is
released to us through the act of prayer. And that's
what Jesus did in this situation. He didn't go at
it alone. He didn't power it through it. He decided
(44:35):
to pray. Last one is empowerment. And Luke Luca is
the only gospel who says this about this story Luke
twenty two and forty three. It talks about how Jesus
is praying, and then it says, then an angel from
heaven appeared and strengthened him. Fourth and final thing, and
(44:58):
I want to end like this. There is a power
that is available to you and myself when we say
yes to God and we receive that gift of salvation.
Jesus left this earth and he said, I'm gonna leave.
But the only reason I'm leaving is because I'm sending
you something greater.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
There is a power.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
The spirit of God lives on the inside of you.
And do you know what that means? That in a
very natural world we get to live supernaturally. That means
we have something that the world cannot give us. And
as the saints old saints say, the world cannot take away.
(45:42):
I remember one time, if you know anything about me
and my husband's story. We didne have been through hell
and back, and in our first couple of years of marriage,
we used to argue, like nobody's business.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
I want to practically.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Apply this, okay, cause when we talk about the Holy
Spirit sometimes to an ethereal thing, let me bring it
down to your house, okay. So we used to argue
all the time, I mean, anything was set off an
argument because we were just so broken, so triggered all
the time, always crashing out on one another. And I'll
never forget One day we were in an argument and
I went to another room and I said to the
(46:15):
Holy Spirit, I don't even know if I fully believed
it when I said it, but I said, I need patience.
I need patience. And that's really all I got out.
Didn't know if I fully believed it, didn't know if
it was gonna happen, but I knew what I did
not have the offer at the time, and that was patience.
And I kid you not, this is something that happens
(46:37):
on the inside of you as a believer, that there
are times where you will ask for something and you
will feel the answer to that prayer in the moment.
And I was standing in this room, and I asked
the Holy Spirit for that. By the time I walked
over the threshold of the door to walk out of
that room, I had what I know only came from heaven,
(47:00):
patience that was long suffering in that moment. Do you
know what kind of power lives on the inside of you?
Do you understand that the God of all creation lives
on the inside of you? And not just so you
can go do big exploits, and not just so you
(47:21):
can go become a millionaire, and not so you can
just go get married, not just those things I need.
In the conversations that you're having, I'm talking about in
the moments where you feel alone and you want to
sink into your feelings and you.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
Say, God, I need some joy.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
I don't know where I'm gonna get that joy from,
but I need some joy. And the moments where you
feel like you're about to crash out and everybody about
to get it because you got your dukes up right now,
you say, God, I need some peace, and you know
I'm a fighter and I need some peace. There are
so many moments where we negate this power that lives
(47:59):
on the inside, this power that we have because of
the God that we serve. And what I want to
say to you today is the same thing Jesus said
in Matthew eleven. Do you want to live a different way?
Do you want a different way to live where the
triggers don't have to be as triggering, Where the crash
(48:19):
out doesn't have to be the way that you cope,
Where you can be vulnerable and true and honest about
the emotions that you're feeling. Where you can find a
community that actually doesn't see you as a burden. They
are a burden that they want to carry. That you
can be in a place where the things that used
to take you out set you off and emotionally disturb
(48:41):
you to the point of not being able to see
straight that God can heal you from that. There's a
power on the inside of you. And when we crash
out cope. Essentially, what we're saying is that power ain't
strong enough today. I think God wants to open up
(49:08):
all of our eyes to this empowerment that He wants
to give us. That yes, I am a devout believer
in therapy and making sure you have tools and breathing techniques,
all the things, because I do believe God uses very
practical things to help us not crash out. And at
the same time, a very practical thing that he also
(49:30):
offers us is his spirit that's a teacher and a comforter,
and it's gentle and it delights in the details of
your life, and it wants to know what's upsetting you
and how can I help you. Jesus went up.
Speaker 3 (49:47):
To blind Bartimaeus. It was obvious what his issues were.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
He was blind, and yet Jesus said to him, what
do you want me to do.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
Today?
Speaker 2 (50:00):
We don't have to live the way that we've been living.
In whatever little way. God is speaking to you individually
and your situation. Imagine Jesus standing in front of you saying,
what do you want me to do? Because that power
lives on the inside of you. Let's pray God, we
(50:21):
are so grateful for who you are in our lives.
Thank you for being a God that gives us a
way of escape for everything that we want to crash out,
every time we want to crash out, every trigger that
comes our way. You've created a way that looks like
your son, one that includes community, one that includes obedience,
(50:46):
one that includes prayer and goodness. Your empowerment. Today, God,
will you empower us to live a different way than
the way we've lived before. Then, even just yesterday, and
the triggers that don't seem that big, don't seem like
that big of a deal, even those are invitations for transformation. Today,
(51:12):
we surrender ourselves to you over and over again. Have
your way in us in the name of Jesus. While
every head is bound in every eye closed. Somebody in
this room today are watching online today you want to
receive this free gift of salvation. With this freak gift,
(51:34):
there's so many things that come with it, one of
them being the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. And today,
if you want to receive that gift, all you have
to do is pray a prayer, confess with your mouth,
and believe in your heart, and just like that, you're saved. So,
if you want to say that prayer with me, if
(51:56):
you want to receive that gift of salvation, I'm going
to ask you to say this prayer with me. And
because we're a family here at Transformation Church, I'm gonna
ask everybody to repeat this prayer after me. Say, Dear God,
I admit I made mistakes. I admit I need a savior.
I ask that you change my heart, that you change
(52:20):
my motives, that you changed my life. I believe you lived,
you die, and you rose again. So change me, renew me,
and transform me. I'm yours in the name of Jesus.
(52:41):
We pray and everybody says Amen, Amen, Amen,
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