Stuck with a Control Freak? |10.08.23| Relational Vampires p.1
“Stuck with a Control Freak? Here’s How to Set Boundaries with Love!” – 1 Samuel 13-20
Relational Vampires | Message #1 | Fall 2023
New Life Lutheran Church, 10-08-23
Pastor Drew Williams
Well, if you don’t know me, my name is Drew, and I’m one of the pastors here, and I want to give you a special welcome to all of you for worshiping with us today, and a special welcome to those of you who are joining us online. And today, we are talking about an experience that I think many of us have had in our life. That’s why I want to know, when was the last time that you had to deal with a control freak?(…) Maybe you don’t, you know, raise your hands because the person next to you might be the one you’re talking about.(…) But, yeah, I mean, you know what I’m talking about. It’s a friend that corrects the way you pronounce words, you know, or it’s the family member or spouse who has to take down your jacket and hang it back up properly, because you might not have done it the right way the first time.
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It reminds me of one of my favorite jokes about control freaks, and it’s actually, it’s a knock-knock joke, and, you know, the first person says, “Knock, knock,” and the next person says, “Who’s there?” And the first person says, “Control freak.” Now, you say, “Control freak who?”
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Do you get it?(…) Okay, that was a slow delay.
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People online are going, “Man, his jokes have been falling flat for a couple weeks here.” Yeah. Now, maybe your experience with a control freak has been kind of light and funny, like the ones I just described, but maybe your experiences with controlling people have also been a little bit more tense or maybe a little bit more traumatic. I found a story of someone’s experience with their controlling father, and I want to read it for you now.(…) This person writes, “The general rule of thumb when I was growing up was that you didn’t do anything, you didn’t absolutely have to when my father was around. If you carried an object from one room to another, he’d yell at you because you were carrying it in a way he thought likely to result in banging into the wall or furniture. If you cooked food, he’d complain about the temperature at which you were cooking it. Too hot, uses too much electricity,(…) the utensils you use, oh, you’ll scratch the pan with that, use a rubber spatula instead, what you put in it, you don’t need all that garlic and 15 other things. If I read a book, I risked being accused of laziness and assigned a task. If I made a phone call, I’d probably get yelled at for tying up the line. If I took a shower, I could catch his anger for about six different bathroom centric offenses. I mean everything was cause for a tantrum.(…) One of the major traumas of my childhood was trying to eat chicken or pork or any bone-in meat at the dinner table. He’d insist that everyone, including my mother, get every single last bit of meat off the bone. If we threw the bone away with anything on it, we were wasting the meat. I swear, I really tried to get it all, but it was pretty much impossible to meet his standard. None of us could do it. We started begging my mother not to cook and serve meat with bones in it. Every evening around 5.30 or 6, we’d ask what was for dinner and if it was chicken or pork chops, we’d start trying to come up with some excuse why we had to eat earlier or later than my father.(…) There were a thousand other things, battles over the temperature at which the thermostat was set, the care and use of automobiles, even if it wasn’t one of his, the drain cover on the bathtub, the methods used to mow the lawn, there are just far too many for me to remember or list.(…) The justification for just about every single one of these insane demands was money. If he paid for something or owned it or spent money on it in any way, then he had absolute right to control it and berate you if you didn’t do exactly as he wished with it.
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I wonder if the story this person shared with us has made you feel your experience with a control freak. Have you ever felt stuck with control freak?(…) It feels awful.(…) It feels like you’re constantly walking on eggshells, like the other shoe could drop at any moment, like you’re constantly under the extra weight of stress and anxiety and maybe even just hearing the story that that person shared with us brought up those feelings for you. And we just finished a message series talking about how to handle stress and anxiety and worry and we talked about how those are signals in your body that you need to listen to so that you can turn to God in prayer so that we don’t have to carry them alone.(…) And that’s still a good way to express ourselves and process our own feelings and reactions, but how do we handle the person who is causing us those feelings?(…) Because prayer might not fix them and we don’t want to be the type of person that just lets others walk all over us.(…) So do we fight back?(…) Do we set up boundaries or cut them out of our life?(…) Do we try and reason with them?(…) The better question for us is(…) how is Jesus inviting us to respond to them? Because as followers of Jesus who are becoming his apprentices,(…) trying to learn his way of life, we’re constantly learning from him so that we can experience his life and join him in the work that he’s doing around us. And we all know the basic answer for how does Jesus want you to treat others, right? Love, right? We’re supposed to love them. And here’s a few rapid-fire Bible verses that I’m going to show you on the screen. Luke 6, 27-28 says, “But I say to you that, listen, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you.” Romans 12-14 says this, “Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them.” And later on it finishes by saying, “Do not repay evil for evil.”(…) Romans 5-8 says, “But God proves his love for us in this, that while we were yet sinners,(…) Christ died for us.”(…) So, okay, right? You get it. Okay, okay. We’re supposed to love people.(…) But how?
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Just quoting these Bible verses doesn’t change how we feel when we’re being micromanaged by a controlling person, right? We can’t just say these nice phrases to each other and have that be the thing that gets us out of an unhealthy situation.(…) But the good news is that there are things that we can do not only to help us process these interactions, but there’s also things that we can do that can help us limit the power that the controlling person is trying to exert over us. So, I want to encourage you to open up your Bibles to the book of 1 Samuel. And if you’re using the black seatback Bible in front of you, last service I found out is on page 204 of the Old Testament, page 204, or you can use the table of contents in the front. But we’re going to be in the book of 1 Samuel, and we’re going to jump into the middle of a story about a control freak,(…) King Saul.
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And we’re going to talk about how he got there and what we can learn about how to respond to controlling people from his story. So, 1 Samuel chapter 18, and as context for this chapter, this is right after David has defeated Goliath, right? The giant who was threatening the people of Israel,(…) and no one else was brave enough to fight him or even to, you know, challenge him at all. But David is the young kid who not only volunteers to fight the big warrior giant, he actually beats him and kills him, making Israel victorious over their enemies, the Philistines. And so everyone is excited, and some people even start to sing songs. They say, “Wow, King Saul is awesome. He’s led us to victory over our enemies.(…) Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands.”(…) And so, as you can imagine, that doesn’t make King Saul very happy that everyone is giving more honor to the young kid.(…) And verse 9 in chapter 18 tells us that Saul eyed David from that day on. And we keep going in verse 10, “David then joins Saul’s army and he keeps winning, plus David was a good musician and he’s called in to play soothing music whenever Saul is having a manic episode. And at one point Saul freaks out on David and he tries to kill him while David is playing the soothing music.(…) But David eludes him twice.(…) Twice.(…) Like what part of the first time of almost being killed by your boss makes you think, “Oh, he’s probably just having an off day.” Like that should tell us something about living under the influence of someone who’s a controlling manipulative person. You don’t always know what’s normal behavior and what’s not normal behavior anymore.(…) But this is why we’re talking about this today because we can often find ourselves in unhealthy relationships with people. And unless we know how to protect ourselves and respond to them well, we’re going to stay in bad situations longer than we should. And so, we might start seeing how Saul is seemingly completely unhinged at this point, right? He doesn’t trust David at all, he doesn’t like him at all, and he doesn’t want to let him out of his sight or his influence. And so, he even tries to get David to marry his eldest daughter, but it doesn’t work out. And now we get to a particularly juicy part of the story. And so, we’re going to read together starting in verse 20 of chapter 18.(…) Let’s hear the word of the Lord. “Now Saul’s other daughter, Macau,(…) loved David. Saul was told, and the thing pleased him. Saul thought, let me give her to him, that she may be a snare for him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him.(…) Therefore Saul said to David a second time, you shall now be my son-in-law.(…) Saul commanded his servants speak to David in private and say, see, the king is delighted with you, and all his servants love you. Now then become the king’s son-in-law. So Saul’s servants reported these words to David in private. And David said, does it seem to you a little thing to become the king’s son-in-law, seeing that I am a poor man and of no repute? The servants of Saul told him, well, this is what David said. And then Saul said, thus shall you say to David, the king desires no marriage present except a hundred foreskins of the Philistines.(…) And now I’m realizing I should have given a warning to the parents in the room. So sorry about that. We’re going to have some fun conversations later, but we keep reading about this request from the king. This is the only marriage present I want, that he may be avenged on the king’s enemies. Now Saul planned to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines. When his servants told David these words, David was well pleased to be the king’s son-in-law. Before the time had expired, David rose and went along with his men and killed 100 of the Philistines. And David brought their foreskins, which were given a full number to the king, that he might become the king’s son-in-law.(…) Saul gave him his daughter Macau as a wife. But when Saul realized that the Lord was with David and that Saul’s daughter Macau loved him, Saul was still more afraid of David. So Saul was David’s enemy from that time forward. This is the word of the Lord.(…) Thanks be to God.(…) Well, well, well. The boy wonder who is winning all the battles and gaining all the love and affection of the people has a new admirer, Saul’s younger daughter Macau. And so Saul sees an opportunity because if David and Macau get married,(…) Saul will be able to keep David in his pocket.(…) But why deal with all that if we can just solve the problem of David before we get started? So let’s send David on a crazy mission to prove himself as a worthy suitor for the king’s daughter, because maybe he’ll die in the process. And then Saul won’t have to worry about any threats to his power. And I find this part of the story hilarious,(…) not just the crazy request that Saul came up with, because, you know, Saul couches it as like this normal thing to ask, Oh, you don’t have to come up with a really expensive dowry for the king’s daughter. I get it. You’re poor. You’re just a soldier. How about this other totally normal thing for a person to ask another person to do, you know, just go kill 100 guys and bring me something from them. But David actually responds like he thinks, Oh, good. I thought you’re going to ask for something difficult piece of cake. And so he goes with his men and accomplishes this thing gets everything that Saul’s asked for. And so then Saul’s daughter marries David. And our text tells us that Saul was David’s enemy from that time forward.(…) And we’re like, Whoa, this guy is a major control freak.(…) Violently so. See, if any of us were in a situation like this, we would be looking for any way out, right? If our friends were giving us advice, they would say, no, no, no, you got to get out of there. He’s a monster. He’s not worth it. Don’t stick around.(…) And when you are, maybe in your life, dealing with issues of abuse or violence or, or an endanger in any way, you definitely need to be seeking help and finding a way to get safe and stay safe. Absolutely.(…) But the way that we deal with controlling people in our life isn’t to just always write them off.(…) We aren’t supposed to react to their tendencies in the same way, or to fight back to try and put them in their place. Scripture teaches us that we are to love our enemies and to love those who mistreat us. And that’s why the first thing that I want you to understand today is God loves control freaks. And I don’t mean to say that He loves the way they act or that He approves of their behavior. I mean that controlling people are loved by God. They are made in His image and they have inherent worth as children of God, just like you and me.(…) And one of the ways that we can grow as followers of Jesus is to develop empathy and compassion for people based on the fact that they are created in the likeness of God, just like you and me. Not based on how they act, but if we can grow in empathy and compassion just based on the fact that they are made in the image of God too. And so I want us to rewind Saul’s story a little bit to see how did he get to this point of trying to manipulate and using his daughter and like weird, you know,(…) violent missions to try and get his way. What got him here so that we can develop a healthy love and honor for the image of God in Saul. So you’re going to flip with me if you want. I’m going to go back to chapter nine or you can just follow along on the screens above. But we’re going to go back to first Samuel chapter nine. I’m in verse 15 here. And Samuel, the one that the book is titled for, was a prophet of God. He was actually the last great prophet in Israel and he was the last judge, the last ruler over all of Israel before they switched to having kings. So Samuel hears from God that God has picked Saul to be king because he’s going to be the one who will lead Israel to victory over their enemies, the Philistines. And then let’s skip down to verse 21.(…) Samuel then goes and talks to Saul, but Saul doesn’t think that he’s cut out for the job. And we see the beginnings of the core issues in Saul’s character, right? It’s insecurity. That’s the core issue in his character. Because sure, he’s like Paul. He’s head and shoulders above everyone else. But then he talks about how he’s from the smallest tribe in Israel. So what gives him a right to be ruler over all of Israel. And so we’ve got Saul the small. And he’s unsure of himself.(…) And he’s unsure if he believes God’s choice for him to be king. And then if you keep moving forward in chapter 10, Samuel anoints Saul saying, “The Lord chose you. He’s going to be with you and work in you and transform you.” And then a little bit after that, Saul actually gets caught up in a worship service that’s happening nearby. And he starts prophesying and worshiping and praying. And the people see it. They go, “Oh my gosh, I didn’t realize that he was one of the prophets.” And he gets a bit of a reputation and people notice how God is working in him because of that. So there’s like a second time in a row that has been confirmed that God’s working in him. And then chapter 10, verse 20, Samuel calls all the tribal leaders together and then goes through this ritual to show them God’s choice for the king.(…) And so they pretty much do the equivalent of like flicking a coin or casting lots to pick, “Okay, which tribe does God choose?” And they get the tribe and they go, “Okay, which one of the families from this tribe?” And they, “Okay, it’s this family.” And then they cast lots again, “Okay, which one of the men from this family?” And it lands on Saul to show that, “Wow, hey, everyone’s there witnessing. God is using this thing to pick Saul as the next king.”(…) And then they look around and they go, “Where’s Saul? Because he’s not there. He’s nowhere to be found.” And then they find him hiding in the luggage,(…) hiding out so that he can’t be chosen.
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Tall Saul the small has just been confirmed for a third time that he is God’s choice for king,
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but he is freaking out.(…) Well, the people go along with it. They say, “Long live the king.” And then he gets sent off with some soldiers to start up his conquests as king of Israel. And one of the first things that he’s got to do is stop this awful neighboring king who’s killing Israelites and taking prisoners. And so he goes to battle, he whoops that other guy, and he proves himself as the right choice for king. And so they go through another ritual to confirm his kingship. And now all the people rejoice because they’ve got the right guy. They know it. And it seems maybe like Saul is beginning to believe in himself a little bit, or at least he’s beginning to believe his own press. Because then if we flip forward to chapter 13,(…) he’s got to go up and attack an enemy group. But he’s supposed to wait for Samuel because Samuel is going to show up and give an offering to God and pray for a blessing over the battle to protect the people and for their success. But Saul gets impatient.(…) He’s waiting and he doesn’t want to wait for Samuel anymore. And so he decides to just do the offering himself. I mean, he’s the king, right? So why can’t he just take some extra authority and be the priest too? Because this is going to be a big battle and his people were kind of freaked out. And the longer that they waited for Samuel, the more they got scared. And so, I mean, he had to take matters into his own hands to ensure that the army didn’t desert him.(…) And that doesn’t go over very well with Samuel when Samuel finally shows up. Why did you take matters into your own hands? Like you’re supposed to be the king that points the people to God, not the one that takes power and authority for yourself.(…) And that is the first step that we’re going to learn today. The first step to showing love to a controlling person is to stay confident in who you are called to be.(…) Because Samuel could have responded by saying like, “Oh, oh no, I’m so sorry that it came later than you thought. Well, yeah, that’s totally okay taking my position. Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about it.” But instead, Samuel knew who he was. He was God’s prophet.(…) He knew his calling and his role. So he didn’t get sucked into trying to please Saul in his anger.(…) Because that’s one of the big problems for any of us that deal with other people, right? We’re people pleasers.(…) How many of you are people pleasers?(…) Please raise your hands so I’m not the only one. Okay, yeah, and those of you online, like put a hand up or something, because(…) there’s more of us than we like to admit.(…) Because the problem though with being a people pleaser is that people pleasing is actually a form of idolatry. It’s actually saying that the other person’s opinions of you are higher in priority than God’s opinions of you and what God has called you to do in that moment. And so you let go of that to keep this person happy.(…) But when we aren’t firm or confident in our identity as God’s children,(…) we aren’t firm and confident in our identity as apprentices of Jesus, as people who are learning to follow Jesus each and every day, it’s too easy for someone else to sway us with their behavior.(…) Because the only way that controlling people can act that way is when someone else is allowing it. So we definitely know that the controlling person has a problem that needs to be dealt with, but so do we if we’re the ones who consistently allow it to happen.(…) So Samuel shuts down Saul’s excuses and stands firm.(…) And he says, “No, that’s not okay.” But they’ve got a battle to fight and so Saul doesn’t dwell too much on that. He’s off to war. And we keep reading and there’s a different time that Israel is at war and this time it’s not going super well. And so Saul makes a proclamation that no one can eat or drink anything until they win. And if anyone breaks his command,(…) well, they’re going to be put to death.(…) And so now we’re starting to see how Saul’s threats and violence has been growing over time, right? The major problem that he didn’t realize though was that his son, Jonathan,(…) wasn’t around when he made that proclamation and Jonathan didn’t hear his dad. And so if we pick up in chapter 14, sorry, verse 27, Jonathan actually eats some honey because he’s hungry.(…) And he finds out about his dad’s rash command after that.(…) And later on when the battle isn’t going well,(…) Saul decides to pause everything and try and figure out why isn’t the battle going well. And they’re trying to figure out who’s to blame, who’s at fault, and it boils down to the fact, well, someone has disobeyed.(…) And then when he finds out that it’s his son,(…) Jonathan,
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I mean, Saul just freaks out on him. He just goes off. He says, “Well, now you’re going to have to die because you disobeyed my command.” And Jonathan, I mean, he owns it. He’s ready to meet his end. And that boggles my mind. I don’t know if that boggles your mind, but, you know,(…) I guess it makes sense. If you’ve lived your whole life with a control freak, your willpower to stand up to them is diminished. You don’t always know what’s normal and what’s not, but you just know, I better not cross them.(…) But thankfully, the rest of the soldiers won’t stand for it. And they actually stand with Jonathan against the command of the King. And so Saul relents and Jonathan is spared.(…) And that shows us the next step to showing love to a controlling person.(…) The second step is don’t enable their abusive behavior.(…) See, we have to stay confident in our own identity and calling so that we’re not swayed by their manipulation and controlling tendencies, but we also, we can’t let them act in a way that hurts us or someone else. See, allowing that behavior to continue doesn’t show them any love because it’s allowing them to continue in the destructive way that they’re going. So if you’re around when a controlling person is acting in abusive ways,(…) choosing to stay silent is not the way to show them love.(…) We need to stay confident in our own identity so that we don’t get pulled in to the control freak’s manipulation.(…) And we don’t want to enable their behavior either.(…) And the third way to show love to a controlling person is to know when to draw a line in the sand.(…) If we keep going in chapter 15 of 1 Samuel,(…) we see Saul, he’s on another outing to defeat Israel’s enemies.(…) And they had been given explicit instructions by the prophet Samuel that they were not to treat this one like any other trip to go and get stuff, right? They weren’t to take any slaves. They weren’t supposed to take any bounty. They weren’t supposed to keep any prisoners. They were supposed to defeat this enemy once and for all. And so they go off and they win. And when Samuel, the prophet, goes to congratulate Saul on his victory, he gets there and he finds something that he didn’t expect because Saul had set up a monument in his own honor.(…) And when Samuel greets him, Saul is like super happy and proud. He goes, “Hey Samuel, I did it. I’ve carried out the command of the Lord. It was a good day.”(…) And if we pick up in verse 14,(…) Samuel just shuts him down and he says, “Um, excuse me? What part of completely destroy did you not understand? Because I can literally hear the animals you’ve kept as bounty.”(…) And Saul replies in verse 15, he goes, “Uh, uh, no, no, no, the men did that. It wasn’t me.(…) Besides, they used some of the animals as an offering to the Lord.” So that makes it okay, right?(…) But Samuel wasn’t having it. He reminds Saul who he is. He says, “I know that you still think that you are tall, Saul, from the smallest tribe, but God made you king.(…) The Lord gave you a mission,(…) but you decided that it was a good opportunity to take for yourself.”
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What’s wrong? Do you not have enough?(…) Do you think that God isn’t going to provide for you?(…) Why did you decide that your plans were smarter than the plans of God? That your way was better?(…) That you get to win the battle and keep the bunch of stuff to feed your ego? But Saul, he doubled down. He’s like, “But I did follow God’s command. It was the men who took the plunder.”(…) And Samuel stops him. If you’re still reading, this is in verse 22 in chapter 15. He says, “No.(…) Going through the motions of obedience, like making it seem like you’re obeying God, that’s not what God wants.(…) Your arrogance and your stubbornness is like idolatry. It’s taking you away from God.(…) And so God is taking away the throne from you before you do any damage.
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And Saul, he loses it because he knows he’s messed up. He’s like, “Please, please, please, please pray to God to forgive me.(…) Please. It was the men’s fault. I swear that they didn’t like the idea of not getting the bounty. And so I was afraid that they wouldn’t be happy with me. So I gave in to them to keep the… and let them keep the bounty.(…) And we can see how even a control freak can deal with people pleasing just as much as any of the rest of us. But he’s also trying to pull out all the stops to try and manipulate Samuel by playing the victim and trying to get him to feel sorry for him. And any of us who’ve ever dealt with a controlling person, we know this type of behavior all too well.(…) Anger that turns to sadness, that turns to begging and pleading, that turns back to anger when they’re not getting their way.(…) This is why Samuel has to draw a line in the sand. He says, and this is in verse 26,(…) “Saul has been asking, “Please come back with me. Please show your approval of me in front of the men.” And he says, this is verse 26, he says, “No, I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.”(…) And the next major part of this story is when David shows up.(…) And so now maybe we can see the journey that Saul took from being this unlikely little-known person chosen by God, going all the way to where we started where he’s such a manipulative,(…) controlling, paranoid person that he tries to even kill his best soldier or at least marry him off to his daughter.(…) Tall Saul the small, he got it all and then he lost it all. And along the way, his insecurity spurred on his choices of responding by trying to get and take that led to him needing to be in control in order to hold together the slipping grip that he had on everything around him.(…) See, if you have a control freak in your life, you need to stay confident in who you are called to be.(…) Don’t let them manipulate you, but turn to Jesus who reminds you that you are worth so much just because of who you are, that he created you the way he wanted you to be, that he came and died in your place so that you could experience life now and for eternity.
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Nothing can change your worth because you are beloved by God. Stay confident in that.
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We hold the height to our identity in Jesus, but we also don’t enable their abusive behavior.(…) That’s what we step in if we need to. We get help if we need to because you are worth it stopping that behavior and they are worth having that behavior stopped as well.(…) And third,(…) know when to draw a line in the sand because sometimes the best way to deal with a controlling person is to just not deal with them. Sometimes you need to remove yourself from their influence and manipulation.(…) See, we’re spending these next few weeks talking about the people who suck the life out of you because all of us deal with them and Jesus can teach us how we can show them love while still staying rooted in our connection to him because controlling people are loved by God too.(…) And because of Jesus’s love for us, because he had the power and compassion to pursue us and reach out to us even while we were still sinners, even while we are so broken and in process of being healed and transformed because of that. Now we are able to follow in his footsteps.(…) But hear me, we don’t show love to others in order to earn anything with God, in order for God to see that, oh, we’re one of the good ones. No, no, no, no. On our own, we can’t even love other people that well.(…) It’s the fact that God loves us, that he reaches out to us every single day. That’s what enables us to even have anything to share with others.(…) God is the one who redeems us, claims us,(…) tells us that he loves us no matter what we do, teaches us to live more like Jesus, gives us the energy and the love to reach out to others.(…) That’s how we can show love to the people who are hard to love. That’s how we can have compassion for people who are manipulative and controlling. We point them to Jesus so that he can heal them, just the same as we point ourselves to Jesus each and every day, so that we can keep learning to live like him and join him in the work that he’s doing around us.(…) And isn’t that good news?