Nov. 09, 2025

The Unavoidable Adventure: Life with People.  

We call it an adventure because relationships are messy.  And in that mess, we discover it can be truly difficult to love others well.  So we have to ask ourselves, Why is it a challenge to love others well?

There are two parts to this series.  Part one is what we talk about on Sunday morning.  Part two is our midweek class that takes us deeper and gives us time to talk it out.  In this series, we want to avoid the more superficial tips and techniques on how to deal with people, and we want to go much deeper and deal with the real source of why loving others can be such a challenge. 

Sam’s opening last week was a real eye-opener.  He started with a challenging thought.  The source of our pain in relationships might be us.  When we think about relationships and our frustrations with people, don’t we assume the source of our pain is other people?  For example, your marriage struggles are because of your spouse, not you, right?  Your family struggles are because of your parents, not you, right?  The source of your relationship pain is other people in church, at work, in the community, or in school; it’s not you. 

Sam shared that the starting point to live and love well is awareness.  Answering questions like, Where do my thoughts and beliefs come from?  What has shaped how I view and interpret life.  What am I passing on to my loved ones and those around me?  Remember the quote he gave us?

"What doesn't get healed gets passed on, and you are not responsible for the world that shaped your beliefs, but you are very responsible for the world you create through your beliefs."  Unknown

Today, we talk about the stunning reason why we can’t love others well.  I want to share five realities with you.

Reality #1: It’s unavoidable; our family impacts who we are and how we live.  Like wet cement, when we are kids, our families make an imprint on us, and as we become adults, the cement hardens.  Then we live out that imprint without giving it much thought.  I really enjoyed last week when Sam said, We didn’t choose our lives, our families, our hurts, we were born into them. 

Here is an example.  A few years ago, my uncle passed away.  At the funeral, my cousin spoke and said, ‘My dad felt like he won in life because the years my dad lived as a retiree were longer than the years he worked.’  That struck me because I was raised in a completely different home.  My cousin was raised in a home where they focused on, talked about, and valued money, insurance, and comfort.  Like wet cement, the imprint in my cousin’s life was in large part about money.  And I must add, all my cousins in that family have all retired early.  And that is a good thing to understand.

I was raised in a home where we never talked about money.  My parents were missionaries, pastors, and church planters.  I was raised in a home where we focused on, talked about, and valued stuff around the church.  Like wet cement, the imprint in my life was in large part about the mission of Jesus through the church.  I must add that my brother and I deeply value the church.  Just to be clear, I’m not saying my family was better or worse.  Truth is, I wish I had heard more about money growing up. 

It’s unavoidable that our family impacts who we are and how we live.  As a child, we just accept what happens to us because, as a child, we don’t have an adult understanding of life.  And if we are raised in a home where this is hurt or dysfunction, that impacts us too.  As children, we don’t ask, ‘What’s wrong with this environment where I am growing up?’  As children, we ask, ‘What is wrong with me?’  And we carry that wound and dysfunction into adulthood. 

Do you connect with reality #1?  It’s unavoidable that our family impacts who we are and how we live.  This leads us to reality #2.

Reality #2: When we surrender our lives to Jesus, we become disciples of Jesus, and we are in a new family.  We are forgiven.  The Holy Spirit lives inside us.  And we are to focus on and care about the kingdom of God.  We are a part of a new spiritual family, and we play a role in our new family.  The Holy Spirit gives us a gift to share with others in our new family.  And the way we know we are spiritually growing up is we see our value and use our gift to encourage and build others up in our spiritual family.

1 Corinthians 12:27 You are the body of Christ. Each one of you is a part of it. NIRV

1 Corinthians 12:4-11 God’s various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful. MSG

Do you connect with reality #2?  When we surrender our lives to Jesus, we are now disciples of Jesus, and we are in a new family.  This leads to reality #3.

Reality #3: We discover that loving others is hard because it’s not natural to us, so we must begin the process of putting off our old life and putting on a new life. 

Let’s read about it.

Ephesians 4:17-19 And so I insist - and God backs me up on this - that there be no going along with the crowd, the empty-headed, mindless crowd. They’ve refused for so long to deal with God that they’ve lost touch not only with God but with reality itself. They can’t think straight anymore. Feeling no pain, they let themselves go in sexual obsession, addicted to every sort of perversion.

20-24 But that’s no life for you. You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything - and I do mean everything - connected with that old way of life has to go. It’s rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life - a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you. MSG

We are called to love.  And loving others can be a real challenge.  Here is what is interesting as disciples of Jesus.  What Jesus and the Bible ask of us many times conflicts with how we were raised.  Have you experienced this? 

A couple of examples.  We have been forgiven by Jesus, so we are expected to forgive others.  But what do you do when you learned from your family to hold onto your hurt to use it to hurt others and get justice or revenge?  We have been loved by Jesus, so we are expected to love and even love our enemies.  But what do you do when you learned from your family to only love those who love you back?  You may have been wounded in life, and Jesus is there to help you heal from that wound.  But what do you do when you learned from your family to hold onto that wound and use it against people? 

Do you see it?  We are called to love others well, but the family imprint in our lives may make it difficult to love others well. 

And that’s the power of Discipleship.  Discipleship is learning how to put off the sinful, destructive patterns of our family and learn how to live in our new spiritual family.  We call it a God fashioned life where God reproduces His character in us.  It requires that we slow down.  It takes work.  This process requires us to make choices.  And we can measure how we are doing.  How?  When we break through any destructive family imprints in our lives to love others well. 

Let’s recap.  Reality #1: It’s unavoidable that our family impacts who we are and how we live.  Reality #2: When we surrender our lives to Jesus, we are now disciples of Jesus, and we are in a new family.  Reality #3: We discover that loving others is hard because it’s not natural to us, so we must begin the process of discipleship, putting off our old life and putting on a new one.  This leads to reality #4.

Reality #4: There is a problem.  Most people don’t want to do the work of discipleship.  Most want an easy pass to make it into heaven without making any changes.  They want the fire insurance policy, not a life fully surrendered and changed by God.  They avoid the power of discipleship that can change their life and love others well.  Why?  Because it requires them to slow down, do work, and make choices.   

And this is the real reason why we can’t love others well.  We avoid the power of discipleship. 

We stay stuck in our family patterns.  Many people become Christians and never think about or process why they feel the way they feel and why they do what they do.  They continue to live out the imprint their family left on them.  This includes good things, bad things, and maybe destructive things.  When this happens, we are just repeating behaviors from one generation to another.  And this is why people who attend church don’t always make great humans.  You can be saved, but that doesn’t mean you are walking through discipleship to be emotionally or spiritually healthy.  You can be saved, but that doesn’t mean you're good at forgiving or loving or surrendering your life to walk with God.  I told my daughters in dating, just because a guy goes to church, it doesn’t mean that he has fully surrendered his life to God.  Many times, people attend church and are just repeating behaviors from one generation to another.

Scripture explains this.

Exodus 34:6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes [Behaviors and patterns tend to repeat] the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.” NIV

You have seen this, right?  You see a family where grandpa was short-tempered.  The dad is short-tempered.  And the son is short-tempered.  What is happening?  Like wet cement, the grandpa was imprinted with being short-tempered, and it was repeated through the generations.  And what does everyone in the community say about the short-tempered family?  ‘Oh, that’s just who they are.’

Let me give you five more examples.

In the area of money, you may have learned that money is the best source of security, or that the more money you have, the more important you are.  And as a Christian, you live it out without giving it much thought.

In the area of conflict, you may have learned to avoid conflict at all costs, or loud, angry, constant fighting is normal.  And as a Christian, you live it out without giving it much thought.

In the area of grief and loss, you may have learned that you are not allowed to be depressed or that you are expected to get over losses quickly and move on.  And as a Christian, you live it out without giving it much thought.

In the area of anger, you may have learned that anger is dangerous and bad, or you must explode in anger to make a point.  And as a Christian, you live it out without giving it much thought.

In the area of Jesus and the church, you may have learned to have an Instagram life where you look right in church but live the rest of your life unchanged; you still are angry, still drunk, still bitter, and still unforgiving, etc.  And you live it out without giving it much thought.

How does this happen?  Like wet cement, you are living out the imprint your family left on you.  It’s what God said would happen in Exodus 34: you will repeat what the previous generation did.  And it is making it hard to love others well.

When we don’t do the hard work of discipleship, it has huge implications.  We can go to church and not make good humans.  We just carry all our hurts, wounds, unhealthy behaviors, patterns, and charge through life, hurting others.  And we fail to love others well.  Our spouse.  Our family.  Those at work, in school, and in church. 

This leads to reality #5.

Reality 5: We can do something!  Real spirituality is when we do something.  We slow down, do work, and make choices.  Real spirituality is when we aggressively learn how to love others well; it’s our goal.  To keep the analogy going, we break the hardened cement so we can love well.  Real spirituality is discipleship.

Fake spirituality is to ignore the power of discipleship and continue with no change.  Fake spirituality is when we just repeat things that were imprinted on us.  We give no thought to emotional or spiritual health.  I think you know what I am about to tell you.  Fake spirituality does damage.  It damages us.  It damages our relationships.  It’s why people look at the church and think, ‘If that is what it means to be a Christian, I’m not interested.’

If you think about it, why would someone not want real spirituality?  Of course, isn’t it obvious, everyone wants to learn how to love others well, right?  The answer, sadly, is that it’s not true.  In the past, almost twenty-five years of ministry, we have discovered that most people don’t want to change anything.  Why?  I want to share what we have experienced.

Some just don’t want to deal with reality.  It’s kind of a lazy response, but it seems easier not to deal with this.  They ignore the behaviors and patterns in their family.  And where it is true that it is easier not to do anything today, they don’t fully recognize how much harder they are making their lives years from now.  Example.  Imagine your family imprints you with a sense of unforgiveness and never dealing with it.  Then raise kids and model unforgiveness.  They can go to Sunday school class and be in a youth group, and even be given the title, ‘leader’.  What do you think you will see when they are adults?  Research tells us they will live with a sense of unforgiveness, and it will break your heart years from now.

Some believe that it’s not a big deal.  And that is a lie.  They think, ‘It’s okay, I’m good enough.’  We think we can overcome what has been imprinted in our lives just by moving on.  The problem is, like a lie, the truth will come out.  Sometime down the road, as hard as you try, you will repeat what was imprinted on you.  You will say, ‘I will never be like my dad’ or ‘I will never be like my mom’.  And then, without realizing it, you are living out the very behaviors and patterns that were modeled for you. 

Example.  Imagine being raised in a very controlling home.  You tell your spouse; I will never be like my dad or mom.  Then years go by.  The kids grow older, and you feel like you are losing control.  And then it happens, you become controlling, and no one can tell you differently without you exploding with, ‘I am not the same as my mother, and anyway, my situation is different.’

Real spirituality is when we do something.  It’s when we get really honest and deal with the reality of our lives.  We enter into discipleship to break the hardened cement imprint and intentionally invite God to reproduce His character in us.  Our entire goal as disciples of Jesus is to be able to love others well and never allow anything to stop us.

I want you to do two things right now.  First, understand, to love others well, to build love into your family, to build love in your spiritual family, we must make sense of our own story.  We must ask, like wet cement, what was the imprint on my heart that hardened?  I want you to see this, as a parent, if you can make sense of your story, it will totally change your kid's reality. 

Second, take a Discipleship Assessment. https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/mature/