Escaping The Victim Mentality
Reading John 5.1-15
I want to begin by reading this piece from Max Lucado.
It is the heroin of the emotions, the angel dust of the spirit, the cocaine of the soul.
Injected into our system with the intentions of recovery, it has the capacity to kill.
It's available and alluring and its dealers and users are often Christians.
The name of the drug is pity.
No one dependent upon pity ever intended to get that way.
The first experiment with the drug is usually a legitimate problem; a
sickness maybe, cancer, a cold, a broken leg.
Perhaps it was taken to weather a crisis, death, bankruptcy, a divorce.
Whatever the cause, the treatment is the same, well-meaning friends treat us
with pity, kind words, sympathetic jesters, empathic tears.
Most of the time the treatment has its intended results.
Healing occurs and we pick ourselves up and we continue with our lives.
There are times, however, when a habit is formed.
The attention and compassion feel good.
The sudden flood of love and warmth gives us a type of high.
Well-intentioned friends inject our veins with kindness, fill our room with
the smoke of understanding.
My, it feels nice.
In fact its been a while since we felt such warmth and symphony.
So, instead of fighting to get back on our feet, we allow ourselves to ease
into this addiction.
Motivation wains.
Creativity disappears.
Initiative exits.
Paralyses enters.
We love the process of healing so much that we don't want to get healed.
Instead of getting better, we convince ourselves that we're worse.
In time, we become pity junkies.
We thrive on the compassion of others.
We become masters of reciting our woes and will gladly retell the tale to
anyone who will listen.
We bear our wounds to all who pass, begging for a sympathetic touch.
As is true with drugs, each dose of pity is less effective.
Soon the pity from others is not stout enough, so we manufacture our own.
We convince ourselves that we are a victim of everything.
Our parents didn't raise us correctly.
My boss doesn't respect me.
I was potty trained too early.
Society expects too much of me.
Nobody loves me, everybody hates me.
I think I'll eat some worms.
For those who follow this cycle to its end there's a predictable final
step, anger.
We've become so efficient at convincing ourselves that we are victimized by
the world, that the only logical reaction is anger.
Anger at the world, anger at family, anger at the church, anger at society.
Self pity has pearlized us to the point that we become useless to the family,
to the church and community.
Church, the truth is, few people ever overcome self pity, this angel dust of
the soul.
It's so very easy, because we are all susceptible aren't we?
We all have the potential for self pity.
We all have problems in life, we all have situations in that are unfair.
We all have reasons to feel sorry for ourselves at some time or another.
Tragedy strikes:
Often times loving, caring friends,
The church, come to support us
As well they should.
We all need that kind of comfort and help in times of need.
And yet there are times that we don't get over our problem and move on.
We begin to enjoy that comfort....this pity.
We begin to enjoy those listening ears.
We search out only those friends who will pity us.
It becomes an ugly scene people needing people to further their victim
mentality.
What Lucado calls pity junkies.
In this relationship, we learn to blame anyone, every one and everything for
who we are, and what we are doing.
Our conversations change to the point that they are only focused on self.
No matter what someone else may say or bring up, we always have a way to
bring the conversation back around to us and our problems.
We begin to be bitter toward life.
You see, addiction to self pitty has tel-tale signs in our speech.
¥ I am not treated right.
¥ My boss doesn't respect me.
¥ I am not paid enough to do that.
¥ My coworkers expect too much of me.
¥ My children and spouse don't appreciate me, even though I work and slave
for them.
¥ My parents never did like me.
¥ I was abused as a child.
¥ Even when I go to church, no one speaks to me.
It so easy to get addicted...... Isn't it?
Let me ask you a question Is this where you live?
Perhaps we know someone who is addicted to this victim mentality.
How do we change...if it's us.
Or how do we help someone else who is suffering from this heroin of the soul?
That's what the lesson is about tonight.
I want to do two thing with this lesson.
¥ Number one, I want to insist that we become people persons...Because Jesus
was.
We'll see this in the narrative.
¥ Number two, I want us to note how to overcome the victim mentality.
In our text, I believe we see Jesus at a Pity Party.
What can we learn from the master teacher?
What does Jesus do in this situation?
How does Jesus act and react to a man absorbed in himself.....One who is
caught up in the victim mentality trap?
First, We Note That Jesus Is A People Person
Jesus actually seeks out this individual.
Isn't it just like Jesus to come to a place of:
¥ Broken people,
¥ÊBroken bodies,
¥ Broken souls,
¥ Broken emotions,
¥ Broken lives?
It's interesting in our text, verse 6, it says that Jesus learned about him.
Now, I wonder how long that took?
Jesus took time to learn about his condition and that he had been like this
for 38 years.
We must know tonight that Jesus was into people....so should we be....He is
our example.
Elders, Deacons, Preachers, Bible teachers, Christians; who are not in the
people business have no right to such titles.
Let me challenge you to search your Bibles and see what these Kingdom duties,
church titles are about, and you'll find that each and every one is about
PEOPLE.
For instance:
¥ New Testament Elders are in the people watching business.
Acts 20.28 contains the New Testament commission for Elders,
Listen closely, Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the
Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God,
which he bought with his own blood. So be on your guard.
¥ New Testament Deacons are in the people serving business.
This is what their title means.
Dee ak' on os in the Greek.
It means a servant, a waiter, a minister, an attendant.
In Acts 6, the seven were appointed to wait tables, to see that the widows
were properly fed and cared for.
¥ New Testament Preachers and Teachers must love people.
Preachers are evangelists, or should be.
Evangelism is a people centered, a people intensive business.
I know preachers who think they are:
¥ Church executives,
¥ Church building contractors,
¥ Financial consultants,
¥ Philosophers,
¥ Brotherhood policemen,
But few see themselves as people healers, soul savers.
How can we claim to be preachers or Bible teachers and not love and care
about people?
¥ New Testament Christians are interested into one anotherness.
Turn to Acts 2.
Beginning with verse 42, we see the church of Christ in the mind of God.
The church as God would have it be before Satan had an opportunity to
disrupt it.
Are you there....verse 42....Lets read together.
They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to
the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many
wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers
were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and
goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet
together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate
together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of
all the people.
If we are serious about restoring New Testament Christianity, let us restore
it in the sequence of Acts 2.42:
¥ First , the Apostle's doctrine.
¥ Second, fellowship.
¥ Third, the communion service, the breaking of bread.
¥ Fourthly, prayer.
We have restored the Apostles' doctrine, the communion service and prayer.
How about restoring the one anotherness of this first church?
Look at these verses again and you tell me which one of these four things
gets the most attention... Why of course it is one anotherness, fellowship.
All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their
possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they
continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their
homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and
enjoying the favor of all the people.
Is there any doubt that if we are going to wear the name Christian, that we
must be into loving, caring and fellowshiping people?
Have you ever noticed in the gospel narratives of Matthew, Mark, Luke and
John that Jesus always focused on people.
Be it the woman taken in adultery,
The woman at the well.
Zacchaeus,
Nicodemus,
Peter.
Folk, the Kingdom of heaven is about people.
C.S. Lewis wrote, we have become a nation that love things and use people,
instead of being a nation who love people and uses things.
We have allowed the world to force us, in the Kingdom of God, into its mold
of focusing on things instead of people.
Does this narrative tell us anything about how to become more like Jesus in
serving others? YES!
¥ Go where they are.
¥ Take time to learn about their situation.
¥ Be sensitive to their needs.
¥ Then serve them by giving them what they need.
May God help us, in this church, to begin 1997:
By becoming more like Jesus.
By focusing our attention on the needs of people....Both spiritually and
physically.
OK How to overcome the victim mentality From the lips of Jesus
The first thing Jesus says is, Do you want to get well?
What kind of question is this?
Of course he wants to get well!
It sounds silly, but it wasn't.
This man had been there for years and still was not healed.
I believe he was a pity junky.
I believe he is like some of us.....hooked on being a victim.....hooked on
this angel dust of the soul.
Or else why would Jesus have asked him this question, do you want to get
well.
This is a legitimate question for such folk.
Listen to what this fellow says.
¥ I have no one to help me.
¥ While I am trying to get into the water, someone else cuts in line.
It's not my fault, sound familiar?
Today, we have become good at playing the BLAME GAME, blaming someone else
for our problems.
Regardless what the situation, we are ready to maintain it's not my fault...it
can't possibly be me.
I think this is evident in our society by the lawsuits filed.
¥ I read the other day about a man in New York City who, in an attempt to
commit suicide by throwing himself in front of a speeding subway. Well, he
did it, but it didn't kill him. He was just injured. Guess what he does? He
files a lawsuit against the subway lines and gets $650,000.
¥ Another man trying to break into a school building falls through a skylight
and is seriously injured. What's he do? Sues the school board. Gets $1,500 a
month for life.
¥ Did you hear about the man and his neighbor who decide to trim the hedge
between their houses, but they have no hedge trimming equipment, so they
start a lawn mower and each pick up one side and hold it to the hedge. You
got it! Can you see this? His grip slips and two fingers are severed. So, he
sues Sears.
IT'S NOT MY FAULT!
Now we can laugh at this, but we are all guilty.
If there is something wrong in my life, I can normally find someone to blame
it on.
After all, I am a victim.
You see, our psychology today says that, who and what we are can be blamed on
one of two things:
¥ Our environment
¥ And genetics
A few years ago, Ralph Glacier wrote a book entitled, Reality Therapy.
He says this psychology is false to the core.
And the reason is because those who did the research used only animals....not
people.
He says there is another step.
Our own human will was left out of the research....animals don't have a will
that can make choices based upon what is right and wrong.
¥ Yes, our parents have a lot to do with who and what we are
¥ Yes, our environment exerts a huge influence upon who and what we are.
But, the final decision is our own human will.
Glaicier says the greatest determining factor in who and what we are is not
environment or heredity, but what?........CHOICE.
Folk, we are who and what we choose to be.
One of the most amazing stories of our century is of Victor Franko.
He was a Jewish Psychiatrist who was locked in a concentration camp during
WW-2.
His parents and all of his family, except one sister, died in that same camp.
Yet Franko comes out with the most amazing attitude.
Listen to what he said, There was one thing they could not take away from me,
that was the freedom to choose my attitude.
Franko writes that, he was not really the prisoner, they were the prisoners,
because he had a choice of how he felt.
Church, we must know tonight that the biggest determining factor as to who
and what we are is our own desire.
So, Jesus asked, do you want to get well...or...do you want to stay in this
condition.
I think Jesus may need to ask that question of some of us tonight.
It's just too easy for us to get locked into who and what we are.
We get to where we like this pity party comfort zone, so we don't make a
choice to change anything.
¥ I can never be happy in this marriage...it's because of my spouse.
¥ I can never shake this sin, because I have inherited this weakness.
¥ I can never be promoted in this company, because the boss has it in for
me.
¥ I can never get fired up for the Lord, because that church is clannish,
the Elders don't care and the preacher is boring.
¥ I can never stop worrying, because I was born to worry.
¥ I can never stop feeling sorry for myself, because the world is against
me.
¥ I could serve as a Bible teacher, because I don't know enough scripture.
¥ I could never visit the sick, shut-ins, the terminally ill or those who
have lost loved ones, because I wouldn't know what to say.
¥ I can't have friends, because I am too outspoken.
¥ I can't because that's just the way I am.
All the while, Jesus is saying, do you want to get well or do you like
living this way?
Paul tells us how, We can ....We can do all things through Jesus who gives me
my strength.
You see, the choice is ours.
The second thing Jesus says to this man is, Pick up your bed and walk.
¥ Take some decisive action
¥ Do something
¥ Don't just wallow in your self pity.
¥ Stop playing the blame game.
¥ Take responsibility for your life.
Know this tonight, God is not displeased with us when we have feelings of self
pity.
All of us go through:
¥ Tough times:
¥ Periods of grief,
¥ Times of sorrow,
¥ Days of pain,
¥ Anxious moments
There are times when life is hard to handle.
Here is when God is dissatisfied with us!
¥ When we make feeling sorry for ourselves a life-style.
¥ When we wallow in self pity to the point that we choose to stay in this
addicted state because we like it,
Because we're comfortable in it.
I believe God's advice today is the same as it was for this man...Do
Something!
¥ Consult a friend.
¥ Talk to the Elders.
¥ Find a qualified Christian counselor.
¥ Seek proper medical attention.
¥ Go back to church.
¥ Take the necessary steps to heal that ruptured relationship.
¥ Say something before the church, confess your faults, ask for some prayer
help.
You see, the good-news tonight is that God has made it possible for us to
find help.
He has placed us in family units and in church families.
He has blessed us with all kinds of resources for help and assistance.
Help is all around us, IF we will just take action....DO SOMETHING.
Is Jesus saying to you tonight, take up your bed and walk?
Is He saying do something?
Do we understand tonight that Jesus is present in our lives and ready to
assist us in our time of need?
Then the next move is ours.....Do Something!
The third thing that Jesus says is, Stop sinning lest something worse happen
to you
This man had not left his self pity yet.
He was still not taking responsibility for his own actions.
Look at verse 11, when the Jews confronted him with carrying his bed on the
Sabbath, he shrugs his shoulders and says, it's not my fault, the man who
healed me made me to do it.......Does that sound familiar?
We live in a day when we don't call many things sin.
But catch this church, Jesus called living in self pity SIN.
Why do you suppose that self pity is sin?
¥ First, I believe it is a sin because it is just the opposite of the Gospel.
You see, the Gospel is self denial, If anyone would come after me, he must
deny
himself and take up his cross and follow me.
We will never become the people and person that God wants us to be until we
are willing
to take the focus from off ourselves and place it on Jesus and Others.
¥ Secondly, SELF PITY is a sin because it paralyzes us from doing what we
know
is right.
James tells us why paralyzing self pity is a sin, He that knows to do good,
do right and does it not, to him it is sin.
This man had laid there for 38 years, doing nothing because of his self pity.
Question!
How many years have we wasted in this same way?
Resolve tonight to rise above this SIN and do what we know to be right.
¥ Thirdly, Self Pity is a sin because it keeps us from seeing the needs of
others.
The sin of this man was that, in not helping himself, he failed to help
others.
Just think about how many he could have helped be healed, at this pool, if he
had acted
38 years ago and done something about his condition rather than blaming
others in self
pity.
Truth was, he didn't see the need of those about him because his focus was on
himself.
Remember what Jesus said in John 4.35?
I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe, they are
white for harvest.
Notice now, in the last verse, what this man does when he is confronted with
his sin, when he finally admits his condition.
Do you see it?
¥ He becomes evangelistic.
¥ He sees the need of others.
¥ He begins to tell others about the healing power of Jesus.
Self pity is a sin because it keeps us from seeing the need of others.
Perhaps we have dealt with self pity too softly.
Maybe it is worse than we thought.
God calls it sin.
We must not overlook this fact.
Well, we must stop here.
Two challenges as we close:
¥ As Elders, Deacons, Preachers, Teachers, Christian men and women...let's
resolve ` tonight to get into the people business?
¥ And let's rid ourselves of this victim mentality?
Can we assist you in becoming a child of God by faith, repentance and
baptism.
Can we pray for your people skills or to help you overcome a victim mentality.
--Randall Caselman
