"Its not you its me" Desire Series

“Its not you its me” the cop out breakup phrase when a person wants to end a relationship and does not want to hurt the other person they often say “its not you its me” or they use this line because they don’t want the other person to beg and plead and promise to change. “its not you its me”. But most of the time the person that says that phrase really means “It is you and I just think it is easier to say its me”

Relationships no matter what type dating, marriage, sibling, parent, child, co-worker, boss, student, teacher and friend all have issues that need to be worked through.
Unfortunately most of the time we look at the actions and words of the other person or people and react to what they have done to us, how they have wronged us.
These things bother us and often times we don’t know how to handle them. We desire to have solid meaningful relationships and the older we get realize many relationships can be a series of let downs. We continue to be reactive instead of being proactive. We do unto others what they have done to us.

Lets look back to where this all started and then look at what God has to say about how we need to be proactive and change ourselves.

Genesis 2:18 “It is not good for man to be alone” God created us with the intention of us having relationship with Him and relationships with other people. He is a relational God and we talked about how our relationship to Him gives us purpose and how the more we follow and obey Him He will bless us with riches in eternity.

If He says that “it is not good for people to be alone”
Why is it so hard to deal with other people?

A defense mechanism when we can’t get along with others we isolate ourselves. Check this clip out about a man who was isolated from people and society for 4 years

Cast Away Video Clip Chuck from the movie had no choice but to be isolated from others but the clip shows what can happen to person that spends almost 4 years isolated from other people.

Proverbs 18:1 isolation is not good because we are being selfish and not working out the problems we have with others.

I would be pretty discouraged if my son came home from school and I asked him who he played with at recess and he showed me a ball. People don’t like me, I can’t get along with them, I would rather play by myself, this is my friend. There has been countless studies on the mental state of people when they are isolated from others.

Dean Ornish, in Love and Survival said
“Anything that promotes a sense of isolation often leads to illness and suffering. Anything that promotes a sense of love and intimacy, connection and community, is healing."

This sounds like a God’s intention for the Church… love, connection and community. Spiritual healing
Isolation and cut off relationships because you can’t work out problems leads to a sick heart with selfish desires and no hope.

The last part of the clip, after sobbing over the loss of a volley-ball named Wilson the main character lets the paddle float away. A loss of hope

If a main desire of our lives is to have meaningful relationships, how do we deal with all the relationships in this life? We have to become the person that God wants us to be, we don’t work on the “you”, other people, we work on the “me” ourselves.
Turn to the person next to you and say “Its not you its me”

God’s Word is a handbook about who you should be and if we follow it our success rate in relationships will increase. It will not be perfect.. Why
1. You will still mess up. 2. You are dealing with other people who will mess up as well, or may not be working on what they need to work on.
Romans 12:18 You are responsible for yourself

Philippians 2:1-4 Gives us a short outline not a comprehensive list of how we need to act to be the right “me” in all of our relationships.

A little background on this passage: Paul wrote this from jail, he was jailed for preaching about Jesus. And he was writing this letter to the Philippians and basically saying thanks for being who you are in Jesus. Thanks for being the “me” you are supposed to be. They were upset that he was in jail and Paul was encouraging them.

Vrs 1 If the truths of the Bible are real, That Jesus is love, if He binds believers together through the Holy Spirit living in our lives, and if He cares so deeply for us that He is willing to lay down His life for us, then this is how we should respond….

Vrs 2 Be committed to seeing your problems through, your focus needs to be on reconciling differences.

Vrs 3a becoming selfless, the main idea here is in any relationship we have in life there needs to be a sense of compromise. If everything has to be your way, you have some issues and you will not be able to have healthy relationships. Selfish people also want all the attention on themselves and they are not willing to go unnoticed.


Vrs 3b-4
Humility
Samuel Clemens better known by his pen name Mark Twain said, "When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I was twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years."

Humility is coming to the point in which we realize I am not always right, I don’t always have the best ideas, other people are just as important as I am, I am not the center of the universe. No offense to Jr. High kids but that is what they are known for, being narcissistic. And that is to be expected when you are 13 or 14 not if you are 18, 30 or 45

Another step in selflessness and humility is putting the needs and interests of others before our own. When you are working on the “me” putting your desires second will help in working out difficult issues in relationships. Imagine a disagreement between you and another person and both of you are putting the other person before yourself. Instead of claiming to be right admitting wrong.



This is a radical change in perspective,

Looking at how I can work on the “me” is what Jesus modeled Phil 2:5-8
In order for us to have a relationship with Him He was willing to be crucified for our sins to make us right with Him. He said to us you are the ones who sin and I am going to put them on “Me”. It is you but I but I am making it Me”

We have to see people the way Jesus sees them, as people who need love, belonging, hope and a purpose and we have received all of that from God so we are called to communicate that to others. How can we do that if you are mad at them, holding a grudge, worrying about what they did wrong to us and isolating ourselves from them.

Phil 2:9-11 The result is the Father lifted Christ up in all authority.

The reward in this life is.. God will work those difficult relationships out if you work on the “me”

The first step to working on the “me” is getting your relationship with Jesus Christ right. First you have to trust Him

If you already do trust Him communion is a good time for a believer to remember what He did for you and get anything right with Him that is wrong.

The Bible says that Communion is a time to examine our own lives and the sin that we are holding onto, if we have a broken relationship with a person we need to take this time to give it to the Lord.