Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Our dear heavenly Father, we want to be your partners in solving problems in the world.
[00:00:21] We don't want to be among the problem makers. We want to be among the problem solvers.
[00:00:28] And so we ask for your spirit to teach us problem solving skills.
[00:00:33] In Jesus name, amen.
[00:00:38] In the 1930s, very few people were able to see clearly what Hitler was up to.
[00:00:53] One of the people who saw very clearly was Winston Churchill, and he warned Britain all he could.
[00:01:04] But another one who saw clearly wasn't even a politician.
[00:01:09] His name was Jacques Girard, and he was the director of the Louvre museum in, in Paris, France.
[00:01:24] And Girard tried to warn the French that Hitler was coming, but they had this false security because they had built these forts between France and Germany, and it was called the Maginot line. And the French thought, the Germans can never get through here.
[00:01:49] What they didn't calculate on was the Nazis went around.
[00:01:54] They didn't go through the line of forts. They went north and went around them. And those forts that they had spent all that money on never fired a shot.
[00:02:04] And, of course, they raced straight to Paris.
[00:02:13] But Girard was a problem solver, and because he saw this coming, he recruited the people at the Louvre who really loved the place, and he recruited the volunteers who really loved the place, and he recruited some patrons that really loved the place.
[00:02:34] And what they did was they took all the paintings off the walls, rolled them up, crated them up, and hid them all over France.
[00:02:49] They took all the statues that could be moved, and they hid them all over France so that when the Nazis got to the Louvre, that's what it looked like.
[00:03:01] In fact, they only ended up stealing two pieces.
[00:03:09] One, ironically, was a wooden carving of Mary Magdalene, and the other was a painting. But the monument men got it back.
[00:03:22] It's hard for me to explain what an impossible challenge it was to empty the Louvre out before the Nazis got there.
[00:03:34] It was considered impossible.
[00:03:37] But Girard drew on more than he drew on more than a political motivation. He drew on the love of the people who really loved the Louvre and really cared about its future.
[00:03:54] And based on that love, they were willing to do things that other people weren't willing to do.
[00:04:01] In fact, some of them risk their lives. Some of them were arrested and put in nazi jails.
[00:04:13] But he used the power of affection to solve an unsolvable problem.
[00:04:21] And it turns out that Paul taught us that same thing in his letter to the Corinthians.
[00:04:28] First Corinthians 13 is about love, but the whole book is about problem solving. First Corinthians is a book about how Paul solved problems in the church at Corinth. And right in the heart of this book, Paul says love turns out to be a problem solving miracle.
[00:04:53] Let's look at it together.
[00:04:56] He starts by saying, if I speak with the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal when I apply this to problem solving. You know, I've known people in my life who talked a good talk.
[00:05:21] When you talk to them, they talk to good talk. But when it was time to do something, they were rarely there.
[00:05:31] They had a good spiel.
[00:05:35] They knew what to say. But when push came to shove, you couldn't ever count on them.
[00:05:43] Talk is not a problem solving skill by itself.
[00:05:49] Talk becomes a problem solving skill when we add love to it, when we add genuine friendship to it. Now, I'm not just talking about a problem. I'm sharing my heart about the problem.
[00:06:08] And it turns out when we share our hearts about problems, they're easier to solve.
[00:06:15] When we keep secret agendas about problems, that's when they get almost impossible to solve.
[00:06:22] Then Paul says, and if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but I have not love, I am nothing.
[00:06:47] Knowledge is necessary for solving problems. But knowledge without love doesn't get us very far.
[00:06:56] We've all been in situations where somebody knew a whole lot more than we knew.
[00:07:02] The problem is we didn't want to cooperate with them because they were arrogant jerks and they use their knowledge as a whipping stick to make us feel bad.
[00:07:14] Look, when you're solving problems, people don't know. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.
[00:07:25] Knowledge by itself is not a problem solving skill. It becomes a problem solving skill when we add genuine love to it and people feel like we're sharing knowledge with them for their good and not to make them feel bad.
[00:07:45] And then Paul said, if I give away all that I have and I deliver my body so that I can boast.
[00:07:58] There's a textual variant about boast or burn in the Greek New Testament. They're very, very. The words are very close to each other.
[00:08:07] But when I did the research on this finding an example of somebody who volunteered to be burned, you can't find it.
[00:08:20] So it fits better to say, it fits the text better to say, if I give away all that I have and I deliver up my body so that I can boast, but I have not love, I've gained nothing.
[00:08:37] Generosity by itself is not a problem solving skill.
[00:08:44] Nobody wants something that the other person didn't want to give.
[00:08:50] Nobody wants a gift to be something that manipulates them. I gave you this. You owe me this.
[00:09:01] Generosity becomes a problem solving skill when people sense you're being generous because you genuinely care.
[00:09:10] So Paul gets us started, and he says, okay, let's start with the big picture.
[00:09:17] Let's start. It's easy to talk, but love turns talk into good action.
[00:09:25] Paul says, don't be arrogant with what you know, it'll make problem solving twice as hard.
[00:09:35] Add to your knowledge genuine concern for the people you're talking to.
[00:09:42] And then he says, and by the way, don't use generosity to be manipulative. It won't help you solve your problems.
[00:09:52] And then he starts getting more specific. He goes from these generalizations, and he says, now, this is what problem solving love looks like. And then he says, problem solving love is patient and kind, the first word is one of the biggest challenges in my life.
[00:10:19] I think I've told you before, I was born with a very small patient's tank, and I used it up a long, long time ago.
[00:10:31] But don't you know from just living life that better things happen when you're patient than when you're impatient?
[00:10:44] Don't we all have enough life experience to know that we were trying to solve a problem, and we became impatient, and we made the problem worse, not better?
[00:10:56] Or am I the last sinner left in this church?
[00:11:01] I can't ever remember a time when I lost my patience and everything got better.
[00:11:08] So Paul says, as you're engaging in day to day living, bring a friendship, love to what you're doing, and try to be more patient in the moment. It is a problem solving skill that will pay off big.
[00:11:30] And then Paul uses the word for kind, which is, I've tried to explain before, kind is a word that's hard to define.
[00:11:46] We associate it with gentleness.
[00:11:50] We associate it with friendliness. But really, at the core of the word is, this is right out of the lexicon, well disposed to serve others.
[00:12:04] Listen to what he says. Love is well disposed to serve others.
[00:12:11] Love has an inclination to serve others.
[00:12:15] Now, what if I bring that to problem solving? I come to solve a problem, and I have the front at the front of my mind. I want to solve this problem in the kind of way that everybody gets better, as opposed to, I just want this problem off my plate, as opposed to, okay, let's just get this done.
[00:12:43] Paul says, if we bring a different spirit to the problem, and we bring a spirit that says, we're going to solve this problem in the kind of way that everybody gets better, good things happen.
[00:12:59] And then Paul said, love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude.
[00:13:08] Let's look at all of these as problem solving skills.
[00:13:14] Love does not envy.
[00:13:17] Do you know, a lot of times we can't solve problems because if the problem is solved, somebody we don't like will have an advantage and we envy them and we sabotage solving the problem.
[00:13:32] Have you ever seen that happen? People could have helped in a way they didn't help because they didn't want someone they didn't like to get the credit for it. Does this sound like someplace in the east coast that has a bunch of beautiful buildings in it?
[00:13:52] We could solve this problem, but we're not going to because I don't want you to get the credit for it.
[00:13:59] On the other hand, I remember a president saying, I don't care who gets the credit as long as we succeed.
[00:14:08] That's this idea right here in problem solving. Love says, this isn't about my ego.
[00:14:17] This isn't about me competing with this other person.
[00:14:22] This isn't about me keeping up with the Joneses. This is about, God has placed me in this problem and he wants me to bring my christian self to it. And so I'm going to set aside envying others for the good of solving this problem.
[00:14:43] And then he said, love does not boast.
[00:14:46] Ah, ah.
[00:14:50] How easy it is in the midst of a problem for someone to say something like this. Look, I know what I'm doing. I've done this before. Don't you know? I did this and this and this and this. So shut up and listen to me. Has anybody ever been in.
[00:15:09] I guess I'm the only one asked to solve problems here.
[00:15:13] It gets hard to solve a problem when someone is reminding us of every success they ever had and using it as a way to say, you just shut up and listen to me. It's not a problem solving skill.
[00:15:32] Love is not arrogant. I've been in meetings where people were too arrogant to say anything.
[00:15:39] They were just acting like they were above it all. This is not my problem.
[00:15:45] You peons can take care of this. You minions get out there and run around and take care of this. All right?
[00:15:55] Not a problem solving skill.
[00:15:59] And then Paul says, love is not rude.
[00:16:08] When I was studying this, all four of these things can be put into a simple sentence.
[00:16:15] Problem solving love is tactful.
[00:16:19] Problem solving love has tacked in the moment problem solving. Love has the ability to recognize to what's happening in the moment, to read the room, and to bring a useful spirit to the problem solving agenda.
[00:16:41] Tact brings something of the grace of God into the stressful moments of problem solving. And God uses us to solve problems that otherwise wouldn't be solved.
[00:16:56] And then Paul says, love does not insist on its own way.
[00:17:03] It is not irritable or resentful.
[00:17:10] Love does not insist on its own way. It's not stubborn.
[00:17:15] How many problems would be solved twice as quick if somebody wasn't stubborn?
[00:17:23] If somebody didn't bring to the room, it's my way or the highway.
[00:17:31] If someone didn't unreasonably insist that things could only be one way?
[00:17:41] In our leadership teams, we believe in options. We don't have a good solution if we only have one option.
[00:17:50] We believe that in problem solving, if you have at least two or three options, you're way ahead. Okay? You never get two or three options. If someone is stubborn, if someone says, I've got this figured out, we only have to do this. You never get the multiple options. On the other hand, if we're not stubborn and we'll listen and these good ideas get shared, then one idea triggers another idea and people start. Everybody starts seeing it a little bit differently. You get multiple options and the odds of solving the problem go way up.
[00:18:33] Love does not insist on its own way.
[00:18:36] Love is not irritable.
[00:18:39] I suppose Shay and I would have one third of the problems we've had in our marriage if one of us wasn't so irritable.
[00:18:53] Isn't it true when we're trying to solve family problems, irritability is not an advantage?
[00:19:01] Huh?
[00:19:06] That's all I'm going to say about that.
[00:19:10] I don't have any. I don't have any more credibility to say anything other than try not to be irritable. I'll tell you, it doesn't work.
[00:19:20] And then Paul says, don't bring resentment into the problem solving moment.
[00:19:29] Don't let resentment affect how you're thinking about a problem.
[00:19:35] Don't let resentment affect how you're thinking about people.
[00:19:40] Don't let resentment be at the top of the issue because it kills problem solving skills.
[00:19:48] So listen, what he's saying. He's saying there are going to be moments when you have a hard problem in front of you.
[00:19:58] And in those moments, some of you are going to feel like you know what's right and other people don't know what's right.
[00:20:09] When you feel that immediately. Say, I'm not going to insist on it being my way. I'm going to be open to other ideas.
[00:20:20] He said, there's going to be times when you're solving problems that you're going to feel irritability rising up within you.
[00:20:28] That irritability is really an expression of selfishness.
[00:20:34] When I'm irritable, it's a big red flashing light that says, dude, you're being selfish right now. Get over yourself.
[00:20:45] And then he said, you've solved more than one problem. You've been in more than one solving meeting, problem solving meeting. Don't let yourself get resentful. Don't give in to that impulse.
[00:21:02] Then Paul wrote, love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
[00:21:13] I've actually been in problem solving meetings where people propose doing something that everybody in the room knew was wrong.
[00:21:24] This happens all the time, church.
[00:21:28] And oftentimes these are the things that make the news and ruin companies.
[00:21:34] When they were solving a problem, they knew the option they were picking was wrong and they picked it anyway.
[00:21:44] Can I remind you of Enron? They knew their accounting system was wrong, they knew it was wrong and they picked it anyway. And people are in jail right now because in the moment when they had to solve a problem, they chose to do what they knew was wrong.
[00:22:05] Now, some of you said, oh, doc, I would never do that.
[00:22:13] I'll bet everybody in this room has tried to make a shortcut that you wish you wouldn't have tried to make a shortcut on.
[00:22:21] Paul is not just telling this to a certain group, he's saying to all of us, if you are suspicious that it's wrong, don't do it.
[00:22:36] You will regret it. It will come back to bother you.
[00:22:42] On the other hand, Paul says, when you get in that problem solving moment, rejoice in the truth, which is sometimes hard to do. Because the truth is, ah, we got a hard problem here and we're gonna have to kill ourself to fix it. We have a hard problem here and it's not gonna be easily solved. This is, we can't wave our magic wand over this and it go away. Nobody wants to hear the hard truth.
[00:23:13] I shouldn't say nobody. Often it's hard for us to hear the hard truth. This is a real problem.
[00:23:21] We have a real issue.
[00:23:24] I read a book once and this company started making dog food. And they made the biggest dog food campaign that you could ever imagine. They had commercials everywhere, happy dogs jumping around.
[00:23:42] But the dog food didn't sell.
[00:23:45] So they had a hard problem. They had spent a fortune on marketing this dog food and it wouldn't sell.
[00:23:51] So finally they got desperate and they started interviewing people who had bought the dog food and they said, what's happening? And they got this honest feedback. The dogs don't like the food, they don't watch your commercials, and they don't see all the happy dogs jumping around and they don't like it.
[00:24:16] There is a hard truth. You spent millions of dollars campaigning and the dog food tastes bad.
[00:24:25] Paul says, in problem solving, we have to love the truth. We can't get anywhere if we won't be brutally honest with ourselves about what is the truth.
[00:24:51] Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
[00:25:00] So I'm gonna put these four together and say, problem solving love is optimistic.
[00:25:08] Problem solving love is optimistic. Listen, it says, this is hard, but we can bear it.
[00:25:16] This is difficult, but we can do it.
[00:25:19] Ah, problem solving love doesn't go, oh, no, we're ruined. Nothing's ever going to turn out right. Problem solving love says, God is with us. We've got this, we can handle it.
[00:25:34] Problem solving love says, I believe that there is a good answer. I believe that God wants to do something beautiful in this problem. I believe that if I trust God, he's going to show me things that I don't know right now and he's going to be at the heart and making this better.
[00:25:53] Problem solving love hopes all things. What are your expectations when you have to solve a hard problem? Do you go into that with wrong expectations? Oh, brother, this is going to be miserable.
[00:26:07] We're going to have to. We'll be working overtime for the next ten years?
[00:26:13] Or do you go in saying, I expect good things to happen, I look forward to meeting with my team and I look forward to saying, okay, here's what the truth is. Here's are the facts. What else do you know? How can we drill into this?
[00:26:34] What are our options? Do you go in with a spirit of expectation for good things, or do you go in with, oh, brother, this would be a 30 hours meeting.
[00:26:48] Have you been in meetings that were an hour that felt like 30 hours, and then the word endures is the greek word for patiently perseveres.
[00:27:03] I wish I could tell you that every problem can be solved relatively easy. It can't. That wouldn't be true. There are very, very hard problems and some problems can't be solved in one week. Some problems can't be solved in one year. Some problems take decades. And Paul says, if you bring a christian spirit of patient perseverance, you're probably gonna be there when the problem gets solved.
[00:27:36] You're probably gonna get to be there when to see what was the outcome of everything that went into this and why solving the problem was such a beautiful thing.
[00:27:48] Now, I want to talk to some of you who say, you know, doc, you work at the church, and it's really different where I work.
[00:27:58] You don't know the people I work with, and you don't know my boss, doc, you don't know my husband. You don't know my wife. Okay?
[00:28:11] Paul was ready for you.
[00:28:14] For you who think this is a naive, Paul ends all of this by saying, love never fails.
[00:28:27] Did you hear that?
[00:28:29] Paul says, you feeling a little cynical about this? Let me tell you the truth. Love never fails.
[00:28:39] When you bring problem solving love to any situation, you have a guarantee from God you're going to have better outcomes than if you engage in that. Without christian love, I can help you make your home 100% better in a relatively short time. Do everything you can to make your spouse feel loved, especially under the stress of problems.
[00:29:12] Your home will be 100% better in every problem, you say. My main objective is to make my spouse feel loved.
[00:29:24] As we tackle this problem together, my main objective is to make my spouse know that I have their back in this problem.
[00:29:36] When people feel that way, it changes the climate of everything and the problem looks altogether different.
[00:29:45] When your spouse feels like you are their enemy in this problem, then the chances of solving that problem collapse because there's no loving trust.
[00:30:01] And then I'm skipping part of the chapter, and I'm going to the last sentence of the chapter, and in the last sentence, Paul says, so now, faith, hope, and love abide these three, but the greatest of these is love.
[00:30:22] Listen to what Paul said.
[00:30:25] I'm going to summarize this for you.
[00:30:28] In every problem, the Christian brings three christian virtues, faith, hope, and love.
[00:30:40] To every problem, I bring my faith in Jesus Christ.
[00:30:47] If I'm living out my christian life in every problem, I begin by saying something like this.
[00:30:55] Lord Jesus, I believe in you.
[00:31:01] I believe in your goodness. I believe in your grace.
[00:31:06] I believe in your favor.
[00:31:08] I believe that my life matters to you.
[00:31:12] And as I approach this problem, I'm not approaching it as something I'm all alone in. I'm approaching this problem as your partner in problem solving this.
[00:31:26] And my faith is not in my wisdom. My faith is not in my skill. My faith is not in my genius. My faith is in your ability to use what you've already done in my life in this moment to make the world a better place.
[00:31:47] I bring faith in Jesus Christ to every single problem. All right? Or you don't. You just leave them out and you say, hey, take the day off today, Christ, I'll do this one by myself.
[00:32:03] Trust me, it's not a good option.
[00:32:07] If somebody can tell you that doesn't work, I'll raise my hand. All right.
[00:32:12] Paul says, you're going to have problems, and they got to be solved. And here's where you start. You start not with the problem itself, but you start with the greatest problem solver of all, Jesus Christ. And you say to him, if you could solve the problem of sin, you can certainly solve this problem in my life right now. And my trust and my confidence is in you.
[00:32:39] Then the second thing Paul says is, you gotta bring hope.
[00:32:45] Your expectations matter.
[00:32:48] You gotta bring an optimistic sense that God is good and he's gonna work in you, and that he's going to bring the right people into your life, and he's going to guide you to the right ideas.
[00:33:03] We serve God in hope.
[00:33:06] I'm not giving in to the negative things of my past and problem solving because I have a new hope in the promises of God.
[00:33:18] People will abandon you when you have bad problems.
[00:33:22] Trust me.
[00:33:24] I visited a longtime friend of mine in the church. He's very, very sick, doesn't have a lot of people visiting him.
[00:33:35] It's sad.
[00:33:37] But listen, listen.
[00:33:40] You have a promise from Jesus Christ. When you are in the thick of the worst problem you'll ever have in your life, listen to what he says. I will never leave you or forsake you.
[00:33:53] When you are in the middle of the hardest problem you ever have to solve. You can hope because you have a promise from Jesus Christ. If other people won't help you in your hardest moment, I will. I will be there.
[00:34:09] And then Paul said, faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.
[00:34:17] You see, the love I bring to problem sharing is a love greater than my own love. It is a love that I've already received from Jesus Christ.
[00:34:28] Will you open your heart to this herein is love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us.
[00:34:37] Do you get that? You're not trumping up this love all by yourself. You're not gritting your teeth. You're not having to fast and pray for 41 days.
[00:34:50] It's not manufactured by yourself.
[00:34:54] Problem solving love is another one of the great gifts that our Lord Jesus Christ shares with us. So I look up to Christ in the problem and I say, you taught me that I could solve this problem, but I needed to bring the love of Christ to it. Now I'm counting on you for your love to flow through me as we deal with this problem. I'm counting on your spirit to suppress the ugly things in my heart and to release the richest things that Christ has done for me.
[00:35:31] Church, I guarantee you, if you would take this to heart and the love of Christ would flow through you in every problem you face, it would be a game changer for you. And Jesus Christ would be glorified in a way that would surprise every single one of us.
[00:35:51] Love is a problem solving miracle. Our dear heavenly Father, thank you for the scriptures.
[00:36:01] Thank you for the wisdom that you share with us.
[00:36:05] I pray for myself and everyone who's here this morning and everyone who's watching online.
[00:36:11] I pray that this word would not simply pass through our minds and we would forget it. I pray that we would take your scriptures seriously and we would bring a better self to every problem that we have to face.
[00:36:28] I pray that we'd bring a better self to the problems we have as families.
[00:36:34] I pray that we'd bring a better self to the problems that we have at work. I pray that we'd bring a better self to the problems that we have in our friendships, a better self to solving problems at church.
[00:36:48] And then I pray that as your love flows through us in a day to day way, Jesus Christ would be glorified in Christ's name. Amen.
