You Are Reading Your Life From a Place of Fight or Flight

Sermon outline

Unresolved trauma keeps believers reading their lives, their churches and even their Bibles from a place of fight or flight, but the cross breaks the chain and the Holy Spirit brings the peace, rest and restoration that let them thrive instead of merely survive.

1. Thriving starts with inward transformation

   We can put on a face and speak Christianese while broken inside, so everyone sees the niceness but there is no inward change. Counselling and professional help are good and he recommends them, but only the Holy Spirit can finally bring the peace and comfort needed to thrive. Daily washing in the Word renews the mind, and then marriages, children and the way we see others change, through grace rather than suspicion.

   Illustration: His father's books on the new man, One New Man, The Life of the New Man and The Language of the New Man, taught identity in Christ but required soaking in the Word to walk in it.

   “God's ultimate desire is not for us to survive. God's desire for us is to thrive.”

   • Proverbs 23:7

2. The gap between God's promise and our daily reality

   The thief comes to steal identity and the Word sown in us, to kill destiny and vision, and to destroy a godly legacy. God's thoughts toward us are of peace, a future and a hope. Between that abundant life and our daily reality lies a constant battle, and trauma faced over the years shapes the decisions we make in it.

   Illustration: Lord of the Flies and the Viking shows as pictures of what humanity becomes without God: put a man with God and he becomes a man.

   “Between the promise of our abundant life and our daily reality, we have this disparity.”

   • John 10:10
   • Jeremiah 29:11

3. The carnal man and the spiritual man: block-by-block decisions

   The carnal man, saved or unsaved, lives through his five senses; if he cannot see or feel it, it does not exist. The spiritual man sees through the eyes of faith. A walk with God is built block by block through decisions: today I give my life to Jesus, tomorrow I walk away from my old life, and God's grace and mercy carry you through.

   Illustration: He gave his life to the Lord at the altar many times because he was waiting for Gabriel to come down and slap him with his wings so he could feel God through his senses.

   “Whenever God does something with you, it always happens on the inside first before it is an expression on the outside.”

4. Trust drives good decisions; trauma drives bad ones

   Absolute trust in God drives good decisions. Bad decisions are motivated by fleshly desires, unresolved pain and a desperate need for validation or control, and indecisiveness is a state of spiritual instability. God gives wisdom to anyone who asks in faith, but the double-minded man is unstable in all his ways, and double-mindedness comes from trauma: a person can be fifty in body and stuck at five emotionally, returning to that point at every trigger.

   “Bad decisions, they are motivated by fleshly desires, unresolved pain, and a desperate need for validation or control.”

   • Proverbs 3:5-6
   • James 1:5-8

5. Fight or flight, hypersensitivity and the church

   Fight or flight is a natural defence, but unresolved trauma leaves people stuck in it and hypersensitive, making decisions at the perceived point of danger. In church this looks like people hopping from church to church, reading a sermon as a personal attack, avoiding the pastor's calls, fighting over parking bays, or finding only confusion and doom in the Bible. The person in confusion is reading from a place of fight or flight. The first rule in a crisis is not to panic, because strategy only comes when you are calm enough to hear the Lord.

   Illustration: His father, a policeman strict on safety, made his sons drive their boat on Hazelmere Dam only anti-clockwise and never mix alcohol with the water. One day a drunk man took his family out, drove straight, stopped suddenly and flooded the boat. With no life jackets, people began to drown, and the two brothers jumped in and pulled out twelve people while being kicked, pulled by the hair and pushed under by people in panic.

   “The person in confusion is reading from a place of fight or flight.”

   • Matthew 6:23

6. Elijah under the broom tree: how God restores a traumatised leader

   Straight after his victory over the prophets of Baal, Elijah heard that Jezebel wanted his head, ran into the wilderness and prayed to die. God did not condemn him or quote clichés. He gave him sleep, baked bread and water, again and again until he was ready, met his physical and emotional needs, and then gently restored his assignment. When the worst happens, remove yourself from the everyday, eat something you enjoy, sleep, stop talking to everyone, and get right with the Lord.

   Illustration: If Elijah had been in Durban, God would have given him sleep, a mutton bunny and plenty of Coke. His father's advice for the worst days was: disappear and go home, eat your favourite food, then shut your mouth and sleep. And if you phone Uncle Bobby for advice, you will get Bobby's drama, not the peace of God.

   “I need the peace of God. I don't need the peace of Bobby.”

   • 1 Kings 19:1-8
   • Philippians 4:7
   • Psalm 68:19

7. The cross breaks the chain

   The blood of Christ cleanses the conscience and makes Him mediator of a new covenant, moving us from carnality to the spiritual. You do not have to carry the burden of trauma or pay penance for it; there is no condemnation in Christ, and we have received the Spirit of adoption, not of slavery and fear. The Holy Spirit is necessary for every believer, so join the prayer meetings and a cell before the coming encounter weekend.

   Illustration: After the dam rescue he refused to go back to the water for about six months; he could still smell the petrol and the dam and hear the screams. His father asked whether he would live without joy because of someone else's mistake, and whether he would live in fear, reminding him of what he had faced as a policeman under apartheid. Over time the brothers went back, and it became a memory rather than a trigger.

   “The cross of Christ breaks the chain.”

   • Hebrews 9:14-15
   • Romans 8:1
   • Romans 8:15
   • Romans 10:13

In this message