The Problem With People (Luke 6:31)

Introduction

I want to begin tonight with an article that appeared in Psychology Today by a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University named Mark Leary. And the title of the article caught my attention because this was the title of my sermon. The problem with people. And he says in the beginning of the article that most problems are people problems. And then he starts with this opening observation, which I think is so very true. Self-preoccupation lies at the heart of many of life’s difficulties. Now just let that sink in. We’re going to be talking about that a lot through the lesson tonight. Self preoccupation, he says. He talks about lives being filled with many challenges, and I have condensed this part of what he says that involve personal struggles like anxiety, depression, self-doubt, stress, worries.

He said, then there’s the problem of relationships with our partners, children, etc. And society heaps a lot of other problems on us as well that are beyond our control. He says these problems are complex and their solutions elusive. He says there are a few problems that don’t require human collusion, he called it. Most problems are people problems. There’s a few things, and he mentioned tornadoes, but since we live here, I mentioned hurricanes, because I think that’s something we are more familiar with. People don’t cause this. Okay, but a lot of the problems we encounter are indeed people problems, as he concludes, human behavior is by far the single largest cause of the difficulties that each of us experience in life. Most problems are people problems. And the people who cause our problems are quite often us.

Therein lies the paradox of human nature and human behavior. And he talks about the capacity of individuals to bring intelligence to the table, creativity, to cooperate with each other, to produce great achievements and accomplishments and even help people. And while he mentions all of that, he then comes to this conclusion that human beings also behave in highly maladaptive ways. Now that means mal is bad, okay? Maladaptive ways that create a slew of social, relational, and personal problems, both for themselves and for others. How can people so intelligent be so intelligent and effective, yet also be so dysfunctional? And you’ve asked this question before. What is wrong with people? Well, his conclusion is that the core of many of these problems is the pervasive human tendency, self-preoccupation, to be excessively self focused.

Naturally, we all focus mostly on ourselves and our lives, and we view the world mostly from our own perspective. But we must be careful as we do that we don’t become excessively self-focused. And so we want to discuss and look at that some tonight. People are generally more preoccupied with themselves. This isn’t a preacher saying it. This is a professor of psychology and neuroscience who says people are generally more preoccupied with themselves than they need to be. And their excessive self-centeredness, egocentrism, and selfishness underlie many, perhaps most of our problems. It’s interesting that someone comes at this problem not from a biblical perspective, though the Bible clearly says do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit in Romans chapter 12. And we’ll come to that text in a minute.

Many of the conflicts in our personal lives, he suggests, arise from our egocentric conviction that other people should do what we want them to, or from their egocentric conviction that we should do what they want.

And he says that’s causing many of our conflicts and our arguments. He says many of our arguments with other people reach an impasse because everybody is certain that they are right. We even get into heated arguments with each other about things that don’t matter very much, like football. Simply because other people don’t agree with the way we see things. And so I find that to be true. As he talks about the paradox of human nature, he says, this is the way in which the normal human tendency to be self-centered, egocentric, and selfish creates problems. And then he says, that undermines the quality of our lives. That we could enhance our lives by lowering our self-preoccupation a bit, and improve society by promoting a less egoic world.

1. The Need for Transformation

Well, that’s a summary of a very lengthy article, as I want to talk to you tonight about problem with people, and perhaps the problem with us. The problem with you, the problem with me. So I was looking for a graphic that had something to do with people, and so I found these graphic, and then my first thought was Ain’t nobody this happy all the time. That is about the happiest group of people you’ll ever find, but nobody’s that happy 100% of the problem with people is the reason why Jesus had to come and die. We all understand that. And he’s not going to leave us where we have been. By nature, children of wrath, dead in our trespasses and sins, according to Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 1.

And so the New Testament talks about, and we talk about a lot, the need for transformation. And all of that says, as we read passages like Romans 12 and verse 2, and do not be conformed to this world. That means don’t fashion yourself after the world, the way the world behaves, the way the world thinks the way the world would influence you to be and to have values that the world has. We talk about that all the time because it is so influential in our lives. But Romans 12 is not negotiable. It is a part of discipleship to Jesus. Do not be conformed to this world, but modification. Change. But be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Jesus not only wants to save you from your sins, he wants to change the way you think about things, the way you value things.

Your focus on things. And that’s often the problem, our focus on things. Instead of our focus on God’s things that can affect this not only desired change that God has in mind for us, but a very much needed change for our betterment as people. And our creator should know. This morning we talked about the wisdom that comes from above versus the wisdom that is below that issues from the earth. The wisdom that comes from above is pure and gentle and peaceable, as we find in James chapter 3. We need to be convinced that our Creator, that this is our message from our Creator, that He knows how best for us to live. What it’s not only in our best interest, but also the interest of others as we live our lives.

And so then we are willing to be molded and to undergo this transformation not only to the betterment of ourselves, but also the betterment of others. And so he talks about being conformed to the image of his son. Or as we said recently in his sermon, until Christ is formed in you, Galatians chapter 4 and verse 19. Sadly, many people approach religion because they want what God is offering to an extent. They want forgiveness for what they perceive to be flaws and things that are lacking in their lives, and certainly sin is a huge and serious flaw, but they become convinced, whatever by some association with the Bible or things that they were taught as they were growing up, that there are some flaws that need to be corrected, and so they want forgiveness.

And if there is this whole business of heaven and salvation, well, I want to order a piece of that. And church. Well, that provides some social interaction and gives me something to do other than watch boring television programming, ad nauseum. Even football gets old after a while, but we’re not there yet. And ultimately, of course, we want an answer for life beyond. But for some people, that’s all they want. And there are many that peddle that kind of religion that you can have that whole enchilada, but you don’t have to buy into this. And I would say again, Romans 12 is not negotiable. Not just verses one and two that talk about being a living sacrifice and proving what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

That is that we demonstrate the value and validity of this message when we live it. Not just be transformed, and then he says in verse 3, to not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. Philippians 2 is the text that says, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but regard one another as more important than ourselves. So I would not be your friend if I did not talk to you about transform transformation, because you really don’t want to have a judgment day surprise. That there was, and those are the worst kind, by the way, judgment day surprises. You want to be in the know as to what your creator expects from you. So we talk a lot about transformation. So is that who we are?

We are transformed people. That should solve all the people problems in the local church. Shouldn’t have any problems. We’re all transformed. And then some of you are sitting there as I say that, going, that’s not been my experience. Not even in a good church. Not even in a great church. There’s still some people issues that have to be encountered and navigated. Even among those who have given their life to the Lord.

2. Distinguish Between Character and Personality

Who said we need to distinguish between two things because they’re not the same. We need to distinguish as we talk about the Lord’s people being transformed between character and personality. And what he said was just because we are transformed and molding ourselves into the image of Christ, that doesn’t mean that we will all be exactly the same.

The sermon was called The Rift.

Use it. Because who was better in Acts 15? Was Paul better or Barnabas? Because you know there was a sharp disagreement between the two. Well, Paul, you know, he was greatly transformed by the message of the gospel, so it must have been Paul the apostle. He was greater than Barnabas. But I think as we read that story, we sort of look and say, well, I don’t know. I think Barnabas had the right idea. And I suggested in the sermon that perhaps both of them were right. And that it multiplied the workforce for Barnabas, the encourager, to take his cousin and to give him another chance. And ultimately he would be useful to Paul. And then there’s Paul taking along Silas, who’s a big part of his epistles that he would write, Paul and Sylvanus, Paul and Silas, as they would travel together.

So now you don’t have one traveling group, you have two. Perhaps they were both right. But even though they both might have been right on this occasion, there was a sharp disagreement that unfolded between the two. And so as I make that illustration, what is our transformation all about? It is about a new spiritual orientation. We’re going to see the world from God’s worldview. We are going to look at life. We’re going to look at ourselves. We’re going to look at other people from the standpoint of how the scriptures inform us that we should look at these things. That will change also the values that we have about what is good and bad. Sometimes in society, in our culture, we agree with the world’s mindset about what is bad.

But I would suggest, as we talked some this morning, that our moral values, as we use the scripture, go even further than the world’s values. And we probably have some restrictions on conduct where it comes to good and bad behavior that the world does not have. And so this is what changes in someone when they become a Christian. However, personality is different. Personality is rooted in genetic tendencies. While all of us have been transformed, I hope, and are striving to mold ourselves after the image of Christ, we use terms like, yeah, but she’s an extrovert. And he’s an introvert. Which one are you? Maybe you’re somewhat in the middle. Those are personality terms. Those are differences that we still may have. We talk about people who are a little bit more on the emotional side of things.

Showing emotions, and we would talk about that typically, not exclusively, being more of a female tendency. Of course, men have emotions too, believe it or not. But they tend to keep those contained. There’s some societal pressure in that regard more in the past than in the present. But even still, even if that were not the case, there are some people that are more prone to showing emotions than others. Everybody who’s a Christian doesn’t show emotion in the same way. There are some people among us that we might say are neat freaks.

They love order. And there are some people, believe it or not, who are devoted to Christ whose lives tend toward chaos. They are not neat. They are messy. It doesn’t mean necessarily that they are less spiritual because they’re messy and you prefer to be neat. There are people that we can like a lot. You meet people in the world all the time that are really likable people and fun to be around. They are great personalities, but bad in some areas of character, not molded after Christ. And then there’s some other people who are not as much fun to be around. In fact, they may not like to be around all the time. They may be more to themselves and somewhat aloof, but they are people of exquisite character when it comes to the goodness of their lives.

And so this comes from an article written by David McClister, a press professor at Florida College, who talks about becoming a different you. And he says, problems develop when we fail to distinguish between character and personality. First, sometimes a person may be either condemned or praised for having a certain personality trait, as if that personality trait were a moral quality. For example, the neat freak may condemn people who are not as organized as himself. But personality is not moral, and it is not something to be condemned. So, first thought about that. There are different kinds of personalities in this group, which might suggest that though we are committed to Christ, there could be some clashes and differences in regard to those personalities. He further observes sometimes we dismiss our character flaws by calling them personality traits, so we might ignore the sins of malice or gossip by saying, well, that’s just who I am.

That’s just my personality. He says, No, it’s not. That is behavior that relates to morality. And you can not engage in that if you devote yourself to Christ. He says, third, another problem develops when we fail to distinguish between character and personality at all. We group them all together. We treat every trait as if it were a personality trait. And so moral traits become just as trivial as one’s preference for a certain flavor of ice cream. Bluebell homemade vanilla. Or we treat every trait about a person as if it were a character trait and thus judge or condemn people unnecessarily.

3. God Wants Us to Be Alike in Our Characters

That’s a problem. God wants us to be alike in our characters. We should have the same moral values which are taught by Jesus, the same goal of pleasing God, and the same spirit of love for others, the same moral and spiritual purity. Let’s spell it all out. The same freedom from selfishness. This is what Paul meant when he said, be of the same mind toward one another. There are differing levels or degrees of Christ-likeness determined by spiritual maturity as we pursue such things as humility, love, service, faithfulness, refined speech. And then he goes on to say, originally this was all within the parameters. I don’t know what happened as to why it’s not now, but we can still read it. It is okay to be shy.

It is okay to be talkative. It is okay to like organization. It is okay to enjoy the thrill of competition. It is okay to enjoy football over reading, or vice versa. None of these things make you a better or worse person before God. However, such things as gossip and wrath, selfishness, deception, these are not personality traits, but character traits, and God will certainly hold us accountable. So here’s some thoughts. First from a professor who talks about selfishness and the preoccupation with self being such a huge problem in our society and our world. And we would all admit some struggles in that area. And then here’s a brother who talks about the fact that we need to distinguish between character and personality. So let’s talk about the personality side of things as it relates to the local church.

4. People That We Don't Like

And I’m going to say something here that was my original title and I scratched it. I just didn’t want to put it out there, but like this. But what are we going to do with people that we don’t like? Wait a minute. We’re talking about people we work with, right? We’re talking about people in our neighborhood. I woke up at 2 30 last night to this. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Now, listen, I sleep to a fan. I have a fan running in the bedroom. And still I heard boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. So I get up and I go, what’s going on? Is somebody taking a jackhammer to my front porch or something? And so I go, nope, nothing on the back porch. And I started walking all over.

Where’s that sound coming from? It’s a little too late at night to be walking the neighborhood and figuring all this out. But I determined somebody has moved into our neighborhood that is really annoying. Because this afternoon, same thing, 2 p.m. Boom. Boom. Boom. Young people, if you play your music that loud, it annoys older people. Why is my house shaking with somebody else’s music? Boom. Boom. Do we really need that much base? And so I’m going to turn my fan on high tonight and hope I can sleep through it. People do things that you don’t like who are not considered of others. And so we are we talking about somebody in the neighborhood? Are we talking about somebody at work? Think about it right now. Is there somebody that comes to mind that you work with?

I don’t have that problem because I work at home by myself. But you’re at work and you’re working with the other. I don’t like them very much. Sure there is, probably. And you may have some really good reasons for not liking them. But no, let’s talk. Well, let’s talk about the local church. Have you ever said somebody said in your mind or, you know, discussion you might have in your home, but you would never verbalize it to others. I don’t like that. Okay. There’s got to be someone here tonight that said it about me. Who are you? See a lot of grins, unfortunately. One thing when you’ve been a Christian for a long period of time, especially if you’ve been in a number of churches and I have, or know about a lot of different churches.

I have met all kinds of characters. I really think that’s a benefit for me. Versus if you’ve always been in the same congregation your whole life or just a couple of congregations. I have met and I have worshiped with, and I’ve been a member in a local church with a lot of different people and different personalities. So when I meet a new one who’s a little bit different, I don’t say, well, I’m not going to be able to get along with them because it’s just another one in a long list of different personalities. And we have some people in this group that are a lot alike, but I’ve got to tell you, I’ve come to know a lot of you, and you’re all very different. People.

I mean, there’s no cookie cutter here when it comes to personality. So what I want to say about the gospel as it changes us, and it does, we sing the song, I’ll never, I’ll never be the same because I’ve seen the Lord face to face. And that’s true. You’ve been changed because of your knowledge of the Lord. You’re not the same person that you were. You make strides in all of those areas that I talked about. You even fight against selfishness. But that doesn’t mean that everybody’s personality is going to be exactly like yours. So I want to make a few recommendations. Number one, I’m not talking about the people that you really like. The people that you’re closest to in the local church. And let me just say something about that.

5. No Way to Sustain Equal Relationships With Everyone

There is no way to sustain equal relationships with every single person of the congregation. So many issues happen because we think that a person needs to be equal friends to everybody.

Jesus wasn’t equally close to all the people in his ministry. Now he wasn’t exclusive. He didn’t have a click per se that he could not interact with other people, but he was closer to some than he was to others. But we tend to be drawn to people whose personalities sort of mesh with ours. They’re not exactly like us, but we like them. There’s something about them that draws us to them. And we can be their friends. And there are other people, it’s like, man, we just we just don’t jive. We just, we just can’t connect. It’s just, I don’t know what the issue is. And there is a limit to how many people we can be close to. Sometimes it’s not about personalities at all. It’s just I’m maxed out.

6. Just as You Want People to Treat You

You know, I can’t, I can’t be equally friends with everybody. So let’s think about someone. Is there someone in the local church that you would say, I don’t like them as much as I like someone else? Always remind yourself of this when you have those thoughts. That person, there’s something about them that is redeemable. Because the Lord paid the price for all of us to be saved. They are all objects of God’s love, even people that are lost. And we should treat them accordingly as objects of God’s love because he died for all men. Understand that, though their personality is different than yours. And then this in Luke 6 and verse 31. And just as you want people to treat you treat them in the same way.

We know that as what? The golden rule.

And this is why I said this about me at the beginning. Could there be somebody in this group who doesn’t like you? Perish the thought. Everybody likes me, right? What if there’s somebody in the group who doesn’t like you? How would you want them to treat you? Like you had a plague? Like you had some communicable disease all the time? And they avoid you at all costs? They don’t ever take the time to speak to you. Is that how you would want them to treat you? Most people like you, but this person doesn’t. And this person who doesn’t like you is it. How would you want to be treated? That’s why this passage is so important. That’s why so many people talk about this passage because it is so important in relationships.

Conclusion

As you would want people to treat you, so treat them. This is the whole tenor of the Old Testament. Upon this hangs all the law and the prophets, a consideration of the other person. And then I would say this as my concluding thought. Let me tell you about this person you don’t like. Shame on us if we’ve never tried to serve them in some way. Shame on us if we’ve not specifically mentioned them in prayer to our Heavenly Father. And maybe that would help us to change our perspective about them as if we spent just five minutes in prayer talking to our Father and our Savior about this person that we struggle to like we do other people. So now, at least some of you should be spending five minutes in prayer this week about me.

So that you can deal with the fact that you don’t like me. Well, if that’s not the case, pray for me anyway. And as I was thinking about this lesson, I also thought about the fact that we probably should pray about every member in the congregation this way. More than just be with the Decor Prairie Church. I need to pray for Robert. He needs to pray for me. I need to pray for Brad. And he needs to pray for me. I think if we’d spend more time serving and praying for one another, we wouldn’t have issues so readily about the differences in personality. Well, where do I want to leave this tonight? And that is that all people are redeemable, and we ought to serve them and love them the best way that we can to try to get them to see their need before God.

And I would tell you this. When you go out in the world, remember that you were called to be like Christ and to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Live differently than the world around you. Let the world see that you have a different set of values than they do. Be a light. If you need to respond to the gospel of Christ tonight, come now as we stand and sing.