Sermon for January 29, 2006

The Faith Full Family: The Idol of Unforgiveness
Matthew 6:14-15

Introduction: Sometimes idols can be quite large as we see in this picture. But the idols Israel carried through the wilderness were small, private, and possibly hidden. Hidden, forgotten things can be deadly.

Some years ago an environmental tragedy began to rise in the public awareness. Years earlier a canal was dug but never completed and it became a dumpsite for toxic waste. The dump was not properly maintained but was covered with soil and then sold to the city of Niagara Falls, NY for $1. It was then developed into a working class housing community. Some years later the toxic waste leached through the soil and began to enter homes, backyards and school playgrounds. There were birth defects and cancer discovered way to frequently in the small population. This place was called Love Canal and is infamous as an environmental tragedy. Sometimes what you don’t see can be quite deadly.

I. Toxic Unforgiveness
I don’t think any of us would choose to live in a toxic environment like the Love Canal. Yet sometimes things get buried in our lives that years later begin to deform our spirits and poison our lives. One of the most toxic things buried in people’s lives is unforgiveness. Unforgiveness comes from things that shouldn’t happen. I know we love our families and yet things happen in families, terrible things sometimes, things that lead to anger, resentment, jealousy and envy. The actions and words that arise out of this lead to things that are difficult to forgive.
We don’t have to look far in scripture to see these things happening. The problems that developed between brothers, Esau and Jacob, was a matter of one brother cheating the other out of what was rightfully his. Even though an uneasy peace came to exist between them the rivalry led to continued conflict between their descendants. Or look at the conflict and abuse that arose out of the rivalry between Joseph and his eleven brothers that led them to fake his death and sell him into slavery. Almost every family in scripture exhibited actions that caused hard feelings between family members.

As toxic as these sinful actions and attitudes are it is often unforgiveness that is the carrier virus that infects the next generation. The Hebrew writer describes it, “See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many,” (Hebrews 12:15). Unforgiveness seems to be such a little thing, a human thing but as with all sin it leads to death both spiritually and in relationships with others.

These events become little idols to those who hold them, precious and deadly. We see it frequently in marriages because, after all, who has the power to wound us more than those we love the most? Husbands wound wives and wives wound husbands. Parents wound their children and children parents. Brothers, sisters, in-laws and outlaws they all can do things, say things that are difficult to forgive. All of this is only on a personal level. Unforgiveness and revenge drive so many of the conflicts in our world whether it is Ireland, the Middle East or Africa. We look at these things and wonder where it will all end.

II. The Possibility of Forgiveness
It was William Blake who said, “It is easier to forgive an enemy than it is a friend,” or we might add family member. One parable Jesus told helps us see this. It is the parable of the Prodigal Son. The story is familiar so we don’t need to look at the details except at the end. The father forgives the wayward son, almost too easily. It is the older brother who struggles with his father’s decision and actions. How could he just accept this son back with no cost or demands? How could he forgive? The anger and bitterness of the older brother keeps him from welcoming his brother, from enjoying the blessing of his father.

We have all heard the little proverb, “To err is human, forgive divine.” That may be what is at work in this parable. Forgiveness takes strength; possibly divine strength, for a person to forgive. The father forgives out of the depth of love for the younger son. The older brother wants justice. He wants to see the younger son cursed, not blessed.

This is the problem we face when we are confronted with those who wrong us or wrong those we love. How can we allow a person who violated us, violated the laws of God to profit from their actions and not pay any price? When we lay aside the command to forgive we enter into the land of vendetta and vengeance, a land where people must pay for their sins. Of course we must pay for our sins in such a land.

It is amazing how much Jesus and the New Testament discuss forgiveness and in such uncompromising language.

“But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
Matt 6:15

"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." Matt 18:35

“Because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!” James 2:13

I don’t know about you but verses like this scare me. In many ways forgiveness is the bottom line for Christian behavior. There doesn’t seem to be much wiggle room here. Forgive if you want to be forgiven. “Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Col 3:13) is what Paul commands Christians.

The words of Joshua seem appropriate here, “Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD,” Josh 24:14. If we see those grudges, those unforgiven offenses, those terrible wrongs we have suffered as idols big and small then we may realize they need to be thrown out in order to serve God. This is tough. Some of those idols we have held for a long time. Sometimes we define our lives and ourselves by those sins done against us. We hold our violators in the prison of our thoughts and minds. Forgiveness calls on us to open the doors and let them go. If we do we will discover that the person in prison was us.

We have not talked about the process of forgiveness and the steps that need to be taken to make forgiveness a reality. But the process begins with a decision to throw out the idol. The place to begin the process is right where we live, at home. Husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters, these are all people where we live and the people who most often need our forgiveness. The great thing for us as Christians is that we have access to God’s love, a love that helps us to forgive. It may be in this area where we can become more like God’s character than any other. As John wrote, “We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother,” 1 John 4:19-21.

If we love we will forgive.


Livonia Church of Christ: January 29, 2006

Sermon January 22, 2006

The Faith Full Family:
The Idol of Control
Romans 14:10

Introduction: There are many popular video and computer games on the market but one type of game is very popular. These are called ‘god games’. This is where the gamer has control over the characters on the screen. Many games have different levels of control. One of these is called “The Sims” a family you create and make decisions for. What is it about this kind of control that is so addictive and popular? It is that sense of power and control, of being ‘god’.

Of course the temptation is not just in video games but also in real life. To be “like God” is at the root of all kinds of sinful behavior.

I. The Struggle for Control
It is interesting that as the desire to control others grows there seems to be less and less emphasis on self-control. The reason may be that we learn how difficult it is to control ourselves. Yet this is where the emphasis of scripture is. Paul, Peter, and others encourage the Christian to learn self-control. It is a gift, a fruit of the Spirit that is born in the life surrendered to God. Being self-controlled allows us to choose what is right, what pleases God.

Something or someone else controls a person who is not self-controlled. As parents we are called to control our children and yet this is not a permanent thing. Parental control must give way to the child learning to control and decide for herself. Self-control is one of the prime goals of parenting.

Our society is one where so many are addicted to something, in other words controlled by something. Addiction is a thief of freedom. It is ironic that in a nation that values freedom so much, that so few are free.

II. Judging
It is much easier to focus on controlling someone else. There are many books about getting our way, controlling others. Yet scripture is about freedom, about self-control. One area in scripture where this battle for control of others is seen is in judging others by a standard we set. It is accepting and rejecting others on the basis of how they live up to our expectations.
This is one of those battles that often occur early in a marriage-who is in control? That control is often based on our expectations. Romantic love often blinds people to the reality of another person. When reality sets in then the battle begins. Who will control the finances? What is the division of labor in the home? Every couple has gone through these or similar battles. Couples that stay together eventually come to some kind of accommodation, sometimes healthy and sometimes not. But too often a person is rejected because of some unfulfilled expectation and judged inadequate as a wife or husband. This is a type of idolatry that keeps marriages from becoming what God intended.

This occurs in parenting also. All parents have expectations for their children, some realistic and some not. The real question is how do we deal with them when they fail to meet what we expect.

Jesus speaks of this in Matt. 7:1-5. The religious context of Jesus’ day was filled with censoring and condemnation. The religious authorities were adept at making rules and regulations and then excluding anyone who would not honor those rules. See Matthew 15:1-3. Jesus’ harshest words were for those religious leaders who had made an idol of their rules, their expectations, and condemned those who would not follow them, Matthew 23:4, 13. The religious authorities wanted to control their people and used fear, intimidation and power to do so. They set themselves in the place of God.

Paul follows Jesus’ lead when he writes to the Roman church. Christians were falling into the same trap that had ensnared religious leaders in Jesus’ day, Rom. 14:10-13. The drive to exclude others who were different, who believed differently, is one that has inflicted the church from the beginning. How easy it is to slip into God’s judgment seat.

Jesus had expectations of those who followed him. We often focus on Jesus’ words about discipleship, Matthew 16:24. Those expectations were high and I believe many people started to follow but turned back at some point. The interesting thing about this is that Jesus never sent someone away. Disciples failed often and sometimes spectacularly. Yet there is no hint that Jesus ever lowered his expectations. However, he always gave people who wanted it another chance to follow. Do you think that Jesus would have turned Judas away if he had not killed himself? Peter, the man who denied Jesus, was given another chance to follow, even another chance to lead. Jesus never shamed, did not embarrass or humiliate those who came to him no matter how much or how badly they had failed.

III. Throwing Out the Idol
The idol that we need to cast out today is not expectations, though they sometimes can become an idol. Like the Pharisees we can sometimes make rules that are not of God. The idol we are looking at is really acting like God, excluding and rejecting people because they are not good enough, because they don’t meet our expectations. The only problem is that this is not how God acts. God acts like Jesus. Like Jesus we need to maintain high expectations of others and ourselves. There should be no lowering of the standards that Jesus set for us. But when we fail, when others fail, we also need to act like Jesus.

The idol we need to cast out is the desire to be God; we become the idol. This may be the hardest idol of all to get rid of because it is so difficult for us to see. I want to close with the words of Jesus as translated in the Message because I think the translator has the sense of what Jesus was saying,

"Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults — unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt? It's this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.”

The call for us is to throw out the idol of wanting to be God, and follow Jesus.

Livonia Church of Christ: January 22, 2006

Sermon January 15, 2006

The Faith Full Family:
Choosing the Lord
Joshua 24:14-24

Introduction: Families can be wonderful things. If you survive the holidays you can look back and see the good family time you had. Families can also drive you crazy and sometimes we don’t even know why. Families give gifts to their descendents. We sometimes marvel at the ways family members resemble one another. Matt is the tallest person in my immediate family going back a couple of generations at least and that is a gift, probably, from a great-great grandfather who was exceptionally tall.
But families also give gifts that are not so good; we might even refer to them as curses. What do we do with such ‘gifts’?

I. A Journey’s End
Our text in Joshua comes at the end of a journey that had lasted over forty years. Only a few people remained who remembered Egypt and the harsh slavery they had lived under. Most could only remember the harsh life of the desert and the fulfillment of God’s promise to give them a land and a home.

Joshua is an old man at the end of the book that bears his name. All the tribes have come to Shechem to renew the covenant that had first been established at Sinai. Like Moses before him, Joshua was concerned about the future of his people. Would they be faithful to the covenant promises they had made to Yahweh, the maker of heaven and earth? Joshua issues a challenge to the families of Israel, “Choose!” Choose whom you will serve.

It would seem that the choice would be a ‘no-brainer’. God had delivered them from slavery, saved them from the Egyptian army, sustained them for forty years in the wilderness, and given them victory over their enemies. Of course they would serve Yahweh. I mean what were the other choices? The people of Israel made the right choices, at least with their mouths. But other choices still pulled at them.
II. Family gods
Joshua makes a surprising and amazing statement when he commands them, “Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt. For forty years the Israelites had been wandering in the desert, under the Lord’s leadership and discipline and yet they continued to carry ‘gods’ that had been in their families for generations.

I don’t know how many times you have moved in your married life. We moved four times in Kenya before we returned to Livonia. Right after we first arrived in Kenya we bought an old cassette stereo. By the time we moved to Nairobi we had replaced it but we carried it with us every time we moved. Finally in 2000 when we moved back to the States we sold it in a garage sale. Why did we move that four times? I don’t know. We could probably ask the same question of other things we carry with us from our families.

The Israelites had carried ‘gods’ with them for many generations. ‘Beyond the river’ refers to where Abraham had come from or possibly the ‘gods’ that Rachel had stolen from her father when Jacob returned to Canaan. They had been in Egypt for 400 years and collected other ‘gods’ and now forty years after Sinai they are still carrying those ‘gods’. Joshua calls for a house cleaning, a choosing between those worthless ‘gods’ and God the savior.

III. Cleaning House
You don’t have any ‘gods’ hidden in your closet do you? We have moved beyond graven images for the most part but the principle is still quite true, to allow Yahweh to be our God we must remove some things, some of the baggage that we carry with us.

This is not easy to do. I would imagine that some of those ‘gods’ that Israel had carried had been forgotten about for the most part. They carried them, were burdened by them but were unaware of the impact. Not only were these things a burden they were also a curse. Their continued presence disrupted their relationship with God. It’s like keeping an old picture of a girlfriend of long ago in your wallet.

So much of this comes back to one of the basic laws of the universe, you reap what you sow. Paul writes of this to the Galatian Christians, Gal. 6:7-8. But there is a corollary to this concept; you often sow what you reap. Think about a person who has been abused as a child. Too often that person becomes an abuser. A father cheats on his wife, years later his son cheats on his wife. This is part of the curse of sin; the family idols that are hidden and forgotten but still bear fruit in the life of a family. It is true also of righteousness but the harvest of sin in our world is something we have all seen and experienced. We don’t have to be slaves to the past. Paul understood that we don’t have to keep sowing death and destruction in our lives and in the lives of our children and grandchildren, Rom 8:1-2. The curse of sin has been broken because Jesus became cursed for us, Gal. 3:13. But for the curse to be broken the idol has to be cast out.
Joshua presented the challenge to his people, “Choose whom you will serve.” To us the choice seems obvious but I doubt it was so easy or obvious to them. The cycle of failure that continued to follow them is proof of how difficult it can be. It is probably obvious to us also, but not easy. The question we need to ask is what do we need to put away from our lives. Peter reminded the church, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” 1 Peter 1:18-19. All of us have received both good and worthless gifts from our ancestors. What will we keep? What needs to be put away? I pray that we can learn to bless our children and grandchildren with good seed to plant.



Livonia Church of Christ: January 15, 2006

A Wonderful Holiday

We are well past the Christmas holiday but it was a wonderful time for Diane and me. Our daughter, Julie Marcum and her husband Josh along with Michaela were with us for about five weeks. Josh and Julie are now in Cochabamba, Bolivia beginning their church planting effort in that city. The Livonia Church of Christ is providing half their personal support and that is the reason for their long stay with us. Long stays like that can be difficult but we weathered it all just fine, including my backing into Josh's car and putting it in the shop. It was a special Christmas with Michaela and we enjoyed it all. Matt came home from ACU the middle of December and we enjoyed having him with us for the long holiday.

Things are now back to normal, or for what passes as normal. Josh, Julie, and Michaela left for Bolivia January 9th. Matt has returned to ACU and Diane and I are busy with our work and ministry here. I hope to start posting my sermons again in a few day. Please pray for the Marcums and especially for our other daughter Laura who is expecting her first child (a boy) in early March. We will be going to Japan around the time of the birth for two weeks. God's blessings on you and yours in the New Year.