Fixer Upper: Personality

MESSAGE TRANSCRIPTION: 

Well, good morning, Eastside. It is so good to see each and every one of you. I don’t know about you, but I’m excited about what God is doing in and through the life of our church. I’m most excited about what God is doing in my own heart. I’ve been a Christian for almost 50 years now, and here’s what I’ve realized, that God is not through with Virgil. God is still working and doing miracles and providing insights, and I’m just super excited about this sermon series that we’re in the middle of called:

“Fixer Upper.”

And just like we have in renovating homes from time to time, we need renovations in our relationships. And when it comes to home renovations, you know that one of the last things that you have to do is that you have to pick out a paint color for the home, right? And when you look at those paint colors and paint swatches, I mean it can be overwhelming, correct?

But we understand when you put on that coat of paint in the house, it can literally transform that home. And I don’t know how many of you have ever stood in front of something like this, but it can be overwhelming. We just renovated my office a couple months ago and we had to pick out the color and it was gray. Now, you would think that when it came to gray that you could just do light gray, medium gray or dark gray. Do you know how many colors of gray that there are? There’s over a hundred. There’s dolphin gray, there’s marina gray, there’s foggy gray, there’s even whisper gray. And they pay people to come up with these color schemes, right? And when I looked at this color chart, I got thinking about just at the difference that exists in the world today. I think about my own children; Rachel and Jacob, and how different they are.

I think about Rose and I and how different the two of us are from each other. And then I stand up here every week in and teach, and I look out over the congregation and I see tall people. I see short people, I see old people, I see young people. I see skinny; well, but not go there. But I see people who likes coffee. I see people that likes tea. There’s people that are morning people, there are evening people, there are introverts, there’s extroverts, there are cat lovers. Then there’s normal people. I mean, we have everyone here at Eastside. And the reality is true in our families. And just think about this; for your family unit, just for a moment. Just think about it; there’s Rose and I; two imperfect people that comes together in a marriage. And we believe that somehow or another that we can be happy and we can have a healthy marriage.

But you have to understand it takes a lot of work to do that, because why? Because we have different personalities. We have different temperaments, we have different interests in the things that we like. We have different goals and expectations when it comes to life. We have different goals and expectations when it comes to actually to what a healthy marriage would look like. And you put all of that together and then add in a kid or two that are imperfect and that can be little hellions along the way. I mean, and they have their own interests. They have their own personalities, they have their own talents, they have their own gifts, they have their own perspective on life. And you put all of that together. And we are left with the question: Why can’t you be normal just like me? I mean, and our differences literally cause you and I to say: “I just don’t get you.”

And for starters, let’s just start with men and women. I dunno if you know this or not, but we are different. And it goes all the way back to the very beginning in Genesis chapter one, verse 27, and notice what it says:

“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God, he created them…” And how did he create them? “…male and female he created them.”

Genesis 1:27

And folks, God created mankind as male and females. Now we have a lot in common. We have a lot of similarities. I mean, just think about this. We’re made in the image of God. We’re equally loved by God. We are equally valued by God. But we not only have similarities, but we have a lot of differences. I dunno if you know this or not, but we have different body parts. Do we have different levels of estrogen and testosterone racing through our bodies?

Men and women are just different. I mean, when it comes to movies, think about the movies that men and women like. Men like those action-oriented; blow you up, blow your head off, cut your throat, the Jason born type of movies. And what do the women like? They like those weepy, sappy, “Someone’s got a fatal disease,” love story, right? I mean, it’s just completely different. Have you ever been to a restaurant and seen a group of guys speaking or talking to each other and then see a group of women who’s talking with each other? Men, they’re over there and they’re going: “Huh? Yeah, yeah, LeBron. Yeah.” Women are going: “talking.” And they understand each other. And every conversation that’s going on, I mean, it’s just unbelievable altogether. And their kids, they are different. Because look what it says in Proverbs chapter 22, verse six:

“Start children off on the way that they should go…” Going back to what Amy was saying, we have to understand how unique our children are; how God created them. And a perceptive parent is a parent who understands that their children are not going to be exactly like each other. They’re going to have different gifts, different talents, different abilities. There’s going to have different things that’s going to make them unique. But a perceptive parent is someone who helps their children chase after the destiny that God has for him or her. Look what it says in Job chapter 10 verse eight:

“Your hands shaped me and your hands made me.”

Job 10:8

They made you. Now folks, can I tell you something? One of the big sins in our world today; and there’s a lot of big sins and we don’t have time to put a litany of lists out, but I just want to tell you, one of the big sins that we have today is that we believe, we believe and value in diversity. But at the same time, we want everyone to be like me.

We want everybody to think like me. We want everybody to look like me. We want everyone to smell like me. We want everyone to have the same political view that I have. We want everyone to have the same belief system. We want everybody to have the same values that we have. Excuse me. And if we don’t have the same value, belief system, political view that I have, then what do we do to the other person? We discount them all together and we ignore them. And what I want you to see is that God, in his creativity, has created a diverse group of human beings. He’s given us different talents. He’s given us different passions. He’s given us different temperaments. He’s given us different abilities, and he’s given us different talents because he shaped you and he made you.

And what we have to learn to do in this world is to celebrate the differences that we have because it’s the differences that when we come together in the unity of peace and we cooperate, then in that diversity, we find tremendous power in our personalities. And I don’t expect everyone to be like me, and I don’t want to be like you. I want to be whom God has created me to be. And what we have to understand is that God has created and given us different personalities. And what I want to do this morning; I want to walk you through the four basic personality types. Now, God is the one that gave us these personalities. Over the years, through studies and through psychology and everything else, is that we have been able to codify these different personality types. And what I want to do is I want to go quickly over those personality types and what I want to do; I want to share an animal for each personality type so that you can better understand the personality types.

And if you have your program, those are already listed out. But I would just encourage you, if you would, take some notes, it might be helpful. The first one is the sanguine. Would you say that with me? Sanguine. The sanguine is an outgoing extrovert, life of the party, full of joy, full of laughter, loves to tell stories and will not let the truth stand in their way of telling a good story. People just loves to be around the sanguine. And the animal that I picked for the sanguine is this loving, friendly, carefree otter Now, but you have to understand that every personality; not only do they have strengths, they also have a dark side. And it’s kind of like, maybe the otter gone bad Dateline version or something like that, I don’t know.

But the otter has a dark side and he can be easily disorganized. He can easily forget appointments, can lose their car keys days upon days on end, they can forget to pay their bills and their electric bill, their electric will be cut off. Otters, they love to have applause. They love to be praised, they love to be affirmed. They love to be the center of attention. They can be so much the center of attention that they will often be tremendous people pleasers and compromise their own values. And I’m just curious, is anybody in the room maybe a self-identified otter in the room? Raise your hand. Anybody? Yeah, we have some of you in there. Great. The second personality is what we would call the melancholy. The melancholy is the personality that tends to be deep and logical thinker. These are people that are orderly, thoughtful, introspective, highly organized. They have a high predictability and a high dependability.

They have a strong work ethic. They are very talented. They are very creative. They do things always in the right way because the right way is the way that they see it. And they are the animal that we would probably consider the bee; and they’re just busy as a bee mentality. Now I’m just curious, how many of you would maybe identify with the bee? Raise your hand, right? Some of you there is that, but we have to know that the bee, they have a dark side as well. And their dark side or the shadow side is that they have a propensity for being a perfectionist. They want everything the right way. It has to be done the right way. Nobody else can do it the right way except them. They’re the only ones that can do it. But because they carry the weight of the world, sometimes around on their shoulders, they can be moody, they can be cynical, they can be sarcastic, critical, and they can nitpick over the details and occasionally the bee can sting. Now, anybody in here, self-identifies the bee.

The third personality is called the cleric. The cleric is the take charge. The born leader who loves to cast vision and climb the mountaintop and to conquer the vision, they love problems. They love conflict. I mean, the bigger the problem, the better it is. Their favorite verse in the entire Bible is from the prophet Nike. “Just Do It.” Okay? That’s their favorite verse. And if there’s one animal that would describe who the cleric is, it would be what? It would be the lion, correct? And the lion is the good resemblance or metaphor for the cleric. How many of you are self-identified as a cleric? Raise your hand that you’re the born leader. Come on, raise those hands high now. Just don’t charge the stage and try to take over. Okay? But we also have a dark sight. The cleric can be very controlling. They can put task above people. They can steamroll over people. They worry about the bottom line more than they do people. They can operate in isolation because they are so focused on the details.

The last personality type that I want to talk about is phlegmatic. Phlegmatic is just this kind of chilled, hang loose. “Everything’s going to be all right,” mentality. I mean, they like to listen a lot to Bob Marley without all the extras, if you know what I’m saying. It’s amazing how many of you know what I’m talking about. I’m getting concerned here about this congregation. But they love to go to parties. They love to be with a lot of people. They love to be a part of the group. They don’t have to be the center of the party. They love to be around people. They’re incredibly loyal. And the animal that I came up with for that is the golden retriever.

And everybody loves the golden retriever; especially after they’re about two years old, then you love them. But the golden retriever, even as playful and as loyal as the golden Retriever is, there’s a dark side to the golden retriever: They don’t like risk. They don’t like change. They are adverse to change. They’re not big on surprises. They can be indecisive. They can be un-motivational, they can procrastinate, they can be lazy, if you will. They can also carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. And as a result, they can be difficult to live with. They can be extreme people pleasers and they can have a hard time saying: “No.” So how many of you would self-identify as phlegmatic or the golden retriever? Raise your hand; and rest of, you’re still trying to figure it out and it’s okay.

Now here’s what I want you to do. I want you to stay with me. Because what happens is these different personalities; they get married to each other or they’re in a relationship together. So let’s take the otter and the bee. They decide to get married. The Otter is telling a carefree story. “Last week on Saturday, a bunch of us went out for a good time.” The bee goes: “It wasn’t last Saturday. It was last Friday; and it wasn’t a bunch of you. There’s only five of you.” And the otter goes: “Oh, well, whatever. Well, there’s a bunch of us that went out.” “A bunch would be 12. There’s only five of you.” And so this happens all the time. You begin to see the differences. And then the bee and the lion; they get married. And when they get married, it’s an interesting story because here’s what happens.

The bee comes home from a long week of work. The bee comes home and says: “Hey honey, tomorrow it’s going to be a beautiful day. Things are going to be lovely. Why don’t we go down to the state park…” And they name the state park. “…We can go and ride bicycles, take the kids, it’s going to be a beautiful day.” And they go: “Yeah, it sounds great.” But they don’t communicate about anything. The bee, in their mind, I just say, her mind is, even though nothing has been kind of planned out in her mind, is that we’ll get up at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. We will get together. We’ll get dressed. We’ll have a casual brunch at 10. After the brunch, we’ll leave. We’ll drive to the state park, we’ll go there along the way. We may stop at a flea market. We may stop at a fruit stand and we’ll go and we’ll get to the state park.

We’ll rent bicycles. We will go and ride bicycles. And on the way back home, we will stop and have a nice dinner. Now again, the bee, she’s never articulated any of this to the lion. The lion goes to bed and thinks, what? We’re leaving at daybreak; we’re going to make a record time to the park. We are going to get there and we’re going to ride the bicycles for exactly two hours and 20 minutes. We’re going to turn ’em back in and then we’re going to make record time to get back home. And again, none of that happens. And they get up the next morning before daybreak. And you can imagine what happens then.

And then there are, for example, the golden retriever who marries the lion. This is often very, very popular of a relationship. And the lion is attracted to the golden retriever. The golden retriever is attracted to the lion for obvious reasons because the lion likes to make all the decisions. They like to be out in front and the golden retriever likes to follow behind. And then one particular day, somewhere in the future, the golden retriever gets tired of looking at the rear end of the lion. And what happens? The dog begins to bite the lion all of a sudden; and there’s chaos in the relationship. And so what I want to ask you is that when you think about your own personality style, which one is you? Are you the otter? Are you the bee? Are you the lion? Are you the golden retriever? When you think about your spouse, who is your spouse? Which personality would they be with? What about your children? What about the people that you work with? What is their personality? And friends, God has given us these different personalities to make the world go around. Now, in a moment, I’m going to talk to you as parents; but just before I do that, I want to just say something. We are to never, never…. And these are some disclaimers…

We’re never to use someone’s personality style against them.

We’re never to put them in a box. We’re never to use it as a club to beat them up with. We’re never to use it as ammunition. We’re never to use it as labels or stereotypes. We just can’t go: “You’re just a neat freak, melancholy bee. That’s all you’ll ever be.” “You’re such a roaring lion.” “You’re just such a lazy golden retriever.” Folks, we should never ever do that. All of that is off limits. But what we are supposed to do is to discover our style. And once we understand our personality, then we begin to work on the weaknesses and also work on the strengths and celebrate the fact that I’m different than you and that you’re different than me in talents, gifts, perspectives, all of that stuff. And celebrate the differences that we have.

Now, parents, I wish that I knew all of this stuff when my kids were small; and we have a lot of young parents in our congregation. We’ve got a lot of parents that are parents to be. And I just want to take a few moments and I want to talk to every parent that is in the room. And even though maybe your kids are grown, as Amy was talking about, or even my children are grown, I still want you to listen because you can learn some things that will help you in your parenting. And the first thing I want to do, I want to just turn to the Bible and I want to turn to Galatians chapter six. And I want us to look at verse four and five. And Paul says this, and I just love it from the message:

“Make a careful exploration of who you are…”

Galatians 6:4-5

In other words, discover who you are. And if you apply this to parenting, then it’s important for you to try to understand the DNA of your children. Sure, they have a common DNA, but they also have a DNA that’s a little different than their siblings. I have two brothers and a sister. There’s four of us. Tim, he got all the; he’s the athlete of the family, right? Alan got all of the muscles in the family. Becky, she got all of the grid and the tenacity; I got all the looks in the family, and people will look at us and they will go “Are y’all brothers and sisters?” And we go: “Yeah.” And they go: “I can see the physical resemblance, but all four of you are completely different. You have different personalities, different abilities, different gifts, different talents.” And we go: “Yeah.” And I believe one of the reasons why we are so unique is because one of the things that my mom and dad always did for us: they always highlighted the uniqueness.

They never conformed us to being like somebody else in the family. They celebrate our uniqueness. They allowed us to pursue our own dreams and our own goals in life. And because of that, they were able to bring out the best in each and every one of us. Look with me at Romans chapter 12 verse six. It says this:

“In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well.”

Romans 12:6

And folks, the gifts that you’ve received, the gifts that I have received is a gift from God. And we just have to take what God has given to us and somehow or another use it for his glory and for his honor. And parents, we need to help our children to embrace the gifts that God has given to them. Because here’s the reality: There’s not another boy like your son. There’s not another girl like your daughter.

He and she has been created wonderfully in the image of God. I don’t know if you know this or not, but if you have kids in preschool or higher, the kids; they have a tough journey. I mean, it’s tough being a kid out there because they’re hearing messages all the time. “You’re fat, you’re too skinny, is that you’re too smart for your own pants.” They hear things like this: “You’re stupid. You look dumb in those clothes.” They hear all of these verbal assaults from their peers; and I don’t know if you know this or not, but it can take a toll upon their lives. Their self image can take a hit. And what we have to do as parents, we have to help them to see that the most important thing in your life, son, the most important thing in your life, daughter, is what God thinks of you.

What’s the most important thing is what God thinks about you and what your mom and dad thinks about you; because we believe that you’re pretty special. And here’s the deal: the more that we can reinforce what God thinks about them and what we think about them as parents, the less they’ll look for it out in the world. And we have an opportunity to help to cultivate the uniqueness of our children. And I don’t know if you know this not, but kids, they’re curious. They’re explorers. I mean, if you’ve got a 2-year-old, you know how smart they are. I mean, you’re digging out of the commode, the orange that they tried to flush down the commode. They have figured out how to use the cell phone. They figured out how to unlock the kitchen cabinets. They know how to bow their backs to keep you from putting them in their car seat.

And here’s the reality: kids were designed to be explorers. Kids were designed to be seekers. And here’s the thing; we have to foster that. Stop buying them toys. Give ’em more appliance boxes. Give ’em the freedom to build a fort or a castle out of the appliance box. Give ’em the freedom to take the cushions out of the couch and gather the blankets together and build forts in the living room. Help them to color outside of the lines. Help them to draw outside of the lines. If you’ve got a little cleric who is a born leader, then foster that leadership within that individual. If you have this melancholy engineer, foster that in him or her. And one other piece of advice I would give to you as parents, and I cringe whenever I hear this, is when parents in a negative way makes negative comments about their children. And you’ve heard this. You’ve seen this. “Yeah, I have two children. One’s a missionary. The other is a mission field.” “Yeah, we have Jason. He’s a problem child.” “Danny has just never been good in school like his two other brothers.” “Sarah, sometimes we just wonder if she’s even ours.”

You understand? And we think when we make these comments that it’s funny; we’re being lighthearted. But parents, can I tell you something? Somebody who wounded his children, those things cuts deep. Those things destroys the soul of your children. One cut at a time. And here’s the reality. We have to help them to know what is right about them. And here’s what Paul says in Philippians four, eight. He says:

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praise worthy- think about such things.”

Philippians 4:8

And in my notes, you know what I put? “And verbalize those things to your children.” Tell your children these things are true about them. Tell these things that these are lovely things about you. These are great things about you. These are noble characteristics that I see in your life. You think about balloons, helium balloons. What happens when you put the right ingredients in a helium balloon? What happens is that they will do, what? They will soar and rise if you let go of them. And when we put the right ingredients in our children, guess what will happen? They will soar as well. I just want to close this morning with this verse from Psalm 127 verse one:

“Unless the LORD builds the house…” Unless the Lord is the center of your home, unless the Lord is the center of your marriage, unless the Lord is the center of your own individual life, we as laborers, what do we do? “…We just labor in vain.”

Psalm 127:1

And I heard it said like this:

Brick and mortar; you put that together, you get a house. Put love in the brick and mortar, you get a home. Put God in it, and you have a temple.

And that is my prayer for you and I; and for the fixer uppers that we need.Their homes would be a temple where God is first and foremost in all of our relationships.