©2001 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

12/16/01

Masters, Slaves, and Security

12/16/01 Masters, Slaves, and Security

When I first began writing up my notes for this morning

I thought I was heading in a very different direction

than the one I ultimately ended up going.

I had planned to take the passage

from Luke 1:26-35,

that passage that records for us

the Angel Gabriel’s conversation with Mary about the conception and birth of Jesus,

and use it as a basis for sharing with us

some principles to help us better cope with the holiday season.

But my preliminary comments about the passage sort of ran away with themselves,

and I never did get to the passage.

In a way, though,

I did still find what I was looking for.

I just didn’t find it where I was expecting to find it.

You see, during the past few years

I have become increasingly aware

of how difficult this time of year is for many people.

If that comment sounds a little Scroogeish to some of you, I apologize.

But the truth is,

contrary to what Hallmark

and the TV sitcoms would have you believe,

the holiday season in our culture

does not make people happy.

What it does

is to serve as a sort of emotional amplifier

that intensifies whatever feelings may be going on inside us.

The good feelings are more intense

against the backdrop of Christmas trees,

and holiday lights,

and silver bells,

and the painful feelings are more painful

against that same backdrop.

The loneliness,

and the anxiety,

and the feelings of rejection,

and the stress all seem far worse

against that cultural backdrop of CHRISTMAS.

And there are some reasons why this year

may be even more difficult than usual.

Even in a normal year

effectively coping with the holiday season

takes a tremendous amount of emotional energy.

There are all sorts of feelings,

both good feelings and bad feelings,

that flood into our lives during the Holiday season.

It is the most emotion-filled time of the entire year for most of us.

There are the good emotions that accompany reunions with family members during the holidays.

There are also the bad emotions

that can often accompany

reunions with family members during the holidays.

There is also the emotional stress

that comes with the added financial pressures of this time of year.

We think of things like holiday travel

and the exchanging of gifts as being happy things,

but the truth is,

they are also extremely expensive things,

and with the expense comes the emotional pressure that often accompanies it.

And then, too, there are the added emotional pressures

that grow out of our basic personality type.

I have noticed over the years

that we human beings tend to fall into

one or the other

of two distinctly different groups - the Masters and the Slaves.

When I first wrote up my notes

and tried to come up with labels for these two groups

I called them the Takers and the Givers.

Then I rejected that

because those labels make it sound

as if one group is more inherently “Christian” than the other,

and that’s not true.

I mean, really,

would you rather call yourself a “Taker” or a “Giver”?

“Master” and “Slave” works a lot better.

Now, this is no big, documented, scientific thing.

It is just an interesting observation to me.

Both of these orientations

are a direct result of the separation from God

that we all bring with us into this world at birth.

When we severed our union with God,

refusing to submit to His authority and leadership in our lives,

we did gain a measure of what we believed to be “freedom” from God’s intrusion into our lives,

but at the same time we lost

the only certain reference point in life

that could tell us who we are,

and why we have value,

and why our one individual life has any real significance in this sea of humanity surrounding us.

Only our Creator can confirm to us our value

and our eternal significance

in a way that allows us to begin to find peace with ourselves.

But if we are not hearing His voice,

we end up being plunged into a desperate search

for alternative sources of validation.

And, of course, at the top of that list

are the people around us -

how we relate to them,

and especially how they relate to us.

Funny how it is...

we know we cannot tell ourselves

about our own true eternal value and significance,

so we automatically turn to the people around us,

who also don’t know the truth about themselves,

and certainly don’t know the truth about us,

and ask them to tell us who we are.

Talk about the blind leading the blind...

But my point in all of this

is that one of the ways in which we all seem to attempt to achieve

some measure of personal validation of our significance

is by adopting either a Master

or a Slave stance in our relationships with those around us.

The Masters bring into each of their relationships

a desire to control those around them,

to get others to do

whatever the Master thinks should be done.

There are lots of different Master styles.

Some Masters try to control by blasting,

by ruling their little kingdoms with an iron will,

by making sure everyone knows what they want done

and when and how they want it done.

Other Masters develop more subtle control styles.

They cultivate and refine highly effective manipulation techniques for each individual within their kingdom.

Some will control through flattery.

Some will control through money.

Some will control through giving or withholding “love” and acceptance.

Some will control with a thick blanket of silence,

withholding communication until the slaves within their kingdom

comply with their wishes.

But the underlying purpose is always the same.

The Masters attempt to validate their existence, their value as a human being

by controlling those around them.

If they can get others to submit to their will,

then it makes them feel more important,

more significant,

more of value.

And then there are the Slaves.

The slaves attempt to validate themselves

not by controlling others,

but rather through being needed by those around them.

The more needed they are,

the more value they see themselves having.

A really good day for a slave

is to end the day utterly exhausted,

knowing that the people in their world

could simply not have survived

had they not been there to meet their needs.

To be used by others

is to be needed by others,

and to be needed by others

is to prove we have value, significance.

And let me just say that I don’t believe either one of these

are inherently male or female.

Masters and Slaves very likely exist in equal numbers in both sexes.

And since I got into all of this,

I’ll add just one other observation

before getting (sort of) back on track.

This Master/Slave orientation within us

does not instantly resolve itself

when we come to Christ.

When we come to Christ,

it is true that, for the first time in our lives,

we gain access to the only Voice

that can correctly tell us who we are

and why we have value.

But that Voice,

the voice of our Lord Jesus Christ,

begins speaking to us

against the chorus of a whole bunch of other voices in our lives, voices we have been listening to intently for years -

the voices of our parents,

the voices of our brothers and sisters,

the voice of our marriage partner,

the voices of our friends,

and our boss, and our work colleagues,

and the overwhelming voice of the culture in which we live

that tells us the basis upon which

each member of society has value.

And unless a Christian aggressively cultivates his or her ability

to hear the voice of our God,

and also actively cultivates

our willingness and ability to trust that voice when we hear it,

we will continue to live out our same basic Master/Slave patterns for the rest of our lives.

My point in all of this, of course,

is that the holiday season also amplifies

all of those feelings associated with either our Master or our Slave orientation in life.

There are so many more things

that the Masters

need to get the people in their kingdoms to do

if the holidays are going to go the way they should.

And there are so many more obligations

the Slaves need to fulfill

in order for them to validate themselves

during this crucial time of year.

And all of this

takes a tremendous amount of emotional energy.

And this year, more than any other for a very long time in our nation,

we are less equipped to handle

all of those amplified holiday emotions

because this year

we are going into the holiday season

already emotionally exhausted.

Our emotions are a lot like our physical muscles in some ways.

If we work our muscles hard for an extended period of time

they get exhausted

and they need to rest.

Our emotions are the same way.

If we have been going through an intense emotional time in our lives,

we will become emotionally exhausted.

During the past three and a half months

our nation has been going through an intense emotional time.

Apart from the obvious sense of horror,

and shock,

and grief that accompanied the September 11^th tragedy,

the real drain has come from the fact that

every single day since then

we have had to continue to invest emotional energy into coping with the aftermath.

Every time we get on an airplane,

or have someone we love get on an airplane,

we face the added stress of terrorism.

Every time we turn on the news

and see the latest batch of war clips

we must invest more emotional energy

into processing what’s going on in our world.

For more than three months

our nation has been investing massive amounts of emotional energy

into coping with a nation in turmoil.

And then we come up to the holiday season

and discover that,

before the first gift is purchased,

before we step onto the plane,

or greet the first guest,

we’re already emotionally warn out.

Which brings me to my suggestions for emotional survival in the 2001 holiday season.

And at the top of my list,

and the basis upon which all the others depend,

is for us to remember once again

who we really are.

During our discussion time last week,

following the comments I shared

about the amazing grace of our God,

I realized I had left that discussion unfinished.

It is absolutely true

that our God does love us,

and call us to Himself,

and bathe us in His grace,

and kindness,

and compassion when we are still moral wretches,

when we were “...dead in (our) trespasses and sins, in which (we) formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience...”.

But it is also true that He does not leave us there.

The thing that troubles me the most

about nearly everything we continue to receive

through the new media in our nation

is that it continues to force us to think

and to process information

from an utterly pagan perspective.

Every news broadcast I’ve ever heard

denies the most significant single truth of our lives as a Christians.

Let me remind us of that truth

through the words of Christ Himself:

JOH 10:27 "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me;

JOH 10:28 and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand.

JOH 10:29 "My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

“...NO ONE is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.”

When our God brought us to Himself through Christ

He established a relationship between us and Him

that He describes as a Father/child relationship.

And don’t ever confuse this

with that cultural idiocy

in which we talk about all of us being children of God.

We are not.

We are all His creations,

eternal beings formed in His image.

But we are not all His children.

The Father/child relationship

is reserved exclusively

for those who come to God through Christ.

And once we enter into that relationship

our God literally, eternally holds us in the palm of His hand.

Terrorism may escalate to unheard of proportions in our land.

Hijacked planes may fall from the sky on a daily basis.

Anthrax may drip from half the mail in our nation.

But no one

and nothing will touch the child of God

except by His permission

and in perfect harmony with His purposes for our lives.

The news tells us

that the only resource we have,

the only hope we have of protecting ourselves

against the forces of evil that rage in this nation

is the federal government

and its campaign against terrorism.

It’s no wonder our country lives under

a think blanket of stress, and fear, and anxiety.

But those are not the rules that govern the life of the child of God.

Am I suggesting, then, that God Himself

personally intervenes

in the individual Christian’s life

divinely protecting and preserving him or her for His purposes

in ways that He does not do for non-Christians?

That is just exactly what I’m saying.

We are His holy ones.

We are the personal property of God Himself.

And our security in this world

has nothing whatsoever to do with world events.

It has everything to do

with who our God is.

And if we find our emotional energy

being consumed by stress and anxiety,

we have once again forgotten the truth.

And now, here I am, pretty much out of time,

and I still haven’t shared with you

the other stuff I wanted to share

about surviving the holidays.

So let me just tack on

a couple of quick observations

about the Master/Slave thing I mentioned earlier.

I’ll do it

by offering a few words of truth to each group.

For those of you whose flesh gravitates toward the Master approach to relationships,

let me just say

what I think you have already discovered on your own.

No matter how successful you may be

in controlling and manipulating others

into doing what you want done,

it can never ever bring you true peace with yourself,

and in the process

you will deeply damage the most valuable relationships in your life.

What you really seek,

what your spirit hungers for

are not people who submit to your will.

What you hunger for

are people who know you honestly

and who love and accept you

on the basis of that knowledge.

If you want a starting place,

begin first by sharing yourself honestly with your God,

and in that process

listen to Him accept you and love you just as you are.

And then, risk sharing yourself honestly

with those around you,

and in the process you will discover

that their love and acceptance of you

has far more power to validate your significance

than their grudging submission to your will could ever do.

And then, to the Slaves,

let me recommend exactly the same starting place.

Begin with your God.

Begin by listening closely to what He has to say about your significance to Him.

1PE 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;

Your true significance,

your true value in this world

is found not in the fact that others need you,

but rather in the truth that your God highly values you

and your unique ability to express Himself

and His love in ways that you alone can do.

We are not ready to serve others as God intended

until we know that we do not need to serve

in order to prove to ourselves that we have value.

All of which is to say

that both our security

and our eternal significance

are rooted in exactly the same thing -

through our Lord Jesus Christ

God Himself has called us to Himself

and claimed us for Himself,

and we are now

and shall forevermore be His personal property.

And God takes real good care

of everyone who belongs to Him.