MK040 Sermons
Healthy Relationships (Audio)
As you can see, we made an amazing amount of progress in one week, didn't we? From empty rooms to walls framed in and insulated and dry walling on them. Great progress by our team that's working up there and really excited about all the things that God is doing there. Continue to keep that date in your framework, June 7th. That's when we're moving in. That's what we're looking forward to. A lot of things happening in the next couple of weeks. Continue to do some cleaning and that's one of the next big steps in the project is trying to get the place cleaned up and then looking ready for getting ready for our first service there. Okay, my computer's not cooperating this morning. Good thing I have a backup. As we're preparing for these changes, we're continuing to talk about things that are going to be different there. That's one of the things we've been talking about each week and one of the things that we've enjoyed for a long period of time and made good use of is our mail center back in the back, but that's something that we're going to be phasing out. So if you can check that, make sure there's anything there that you need that was left there for you. Please grab hold of those things as we'll be phasing that out over the next few weeks as well. You know, in every family, there's a written set of commandments. Nobody tells you about these commandments. You just grow up knowing these commandments and you don't realize what these commandments are until you go to someone else's house and they don't do things that way or you start dating someone and you spend a little bit more time at their house other than just occasional visit and you realize they don't do things that way either and you discover, "Oh, that's the way my family does it," and in my family growing up, there was a couple of things that I thought of that were family commandments. We had this one family roll and you weren't allowed to drink anything at dinner until you finished your meal. I don't know where that thing came from, but you weren't allowed to drink anything until you finished the meal. And one of the other rules was you had to eat everything on your plate. And it didn't matter if you didn't like it and each one of us kids, there was something each one of us did not like that my mom would consistently serve. And of course, the others made sure you had to eat that. I gagged down more liver than I can even imagine, you know, it was just awful, awful, but I had to eat it, you know, and I could go down each one of my siblings and tell you the thing that I made sure they gagged down, you know, because of that. But I was just kind of a family rule, you know, that we had in our house when we were growing up, you know, and I think about that when I got married and my wife and I merged our lives, we both brought into our marriage a set of family rules that neither one knew existed until you actually are there and you're living together under the same roof. And one of the things that you don't do when you were at her house, when I met my in-law's house is you don't go into the refrigerator and eat something. You say, what do you mean you don't go into the refrigerator and eat something? Because every scrap of food in that whole refrigerator is designated for some meal at some time over the next two weeks. It literally is and you think I'm making this up, but it is, you know, and periodically my wife will say, what happened to so-and-so in the fridge? I ate it. Why did you eat it? Well, it was in the fridge and I paid for it and put it in the fridge and then you know I was for this. There's no sign on it, no sticky, no notice on the door, do not eat this because it's for acts. And so that, you know, those are just kind of the family rules that we have in our house and we all have them. We all have them. And there's sometimes they're funny and we joke about them and laugh and we have a good time and one of the things that's a lot of fun when we do premarital counseling with couples is we have them write down the family rules and they're like, really? And it's amazing. They didn't know these things about each other and then they realize them even more once they get married. But we all have family rules that we've grown up with, about all different kinds of things. On the screen, they're going to come some additional family commandments and sometimes these family commandments are funny, but sometimes these family commandments are really not what God says, the way we should live life and the way we should relate to one another. So look at some of the family commandments. One, how about this one? There's a family commandment about money. Some families teach that money is the best source of security. Look at the second one, in conflict. How many of you, you don't have to raise your hand, grew up being taught directly or indirectly to avoid conflict at all costs? Here's another one, about sex. Don't talk about it. Don't talk about it. Here's another one about grief and loss. Get over it quickly and just move on. Here's another one about expressing anger. Anger is dangerous and bad. Here's another one. Number six, about your family. Duty to family comes before everything, everything. Number seven, relationships. Don't show vulnerability. Don't let people see the weak side or the soft side of you. Success is getting married and having kids. It's your mark of success. Here's one more. Feelings and emotions, feelings are not important. They can be the caboose. They can never be the engine in your life. You know, when you take a look at those and some of you're like, "Oh, yeah, that one. I can connect with that. I can see that one." And when you start to peel the layers back, you realize, "Wow, some of those." That's really not what God says about how we're supposed to live life and how we're supposed to relate to one another. And this morning we want to take some time and we want to talk about relationships. Because that's the next value that we want to look at. We've been in this series entitled "Moving Day" in which we're preparing for our transition to move to Reinholds. And a couple of weeks ago we talked about our core purpose and our core purpose is going to come up on the screen is to love God fully with everything that I have. The Bible says, "Heart, soul, mind, and strength." And then love others deeply the way God loves me. Love God fully and love others deeply. And that's what we believe God has called us to do and what we want to be all about here at CCC. And a few weeks ago we talked about, "How do we love God? How do we love God?" And one of the ways Greg talked about it this morning, we try not to drive off the road when we see an amazing sunrise or an amazing sunset, you know? One of the ways we show our love for God is our sense of "Wow!" about His creation. I don't know about you, but every once in a while you just kind of walk outside or you come over a crest of a hill or you see something you're like, "Wow!" The sense of all is the way that we show our love for God, it's the way that we show our love. We do that for one another, don't we? When someone looks beautiful or someone does something encouraging or remarkable, like, "Wow, that was amazing!" And that's one of the ways we show our love for one another. Another way we show our love is we talked about is by sacrificing. And that's how God showed His love as Greg led us in this morning that God's sacrifice of His Son on the cross was the purest example of love that we could have ever experienced and ever known. And what we believe God calls us to do is as our desire to love God grows and our sense of all at His creation and wonder and our willingness to sacrifice increases, then we find ways to do this with our family and we find ways to do this with our friends and our co-workers and even total strangers, people that we don't even know. And what we've learned and what we continue to challenge ourselves is that this needs to be done first of all in the places that are closest to home. As much as you might feel a little aches and pains this morning about serving at Muddy Creek Village or on a missions trip, it's actually easy to sacrifice in those settings. It's hard to sacrifice for someone who's maybe sitting next to you or in the same row as you who didn't treat you very kindly earlier today. That's really, really hard to sacrifice for them. But that's what Jesus calls us to do and that's the example that He set for all of us. And so last week we talked about the first value which is gracious acceptance, gracious acceptance. Regardless of someone's race, religion, sex, size, background, life story, we believe that God calls us just like Jesus did and is modeled for us with the woman on the well to have a curiosity to care about someone driven by the Holy Spirit to show a gracious kind of acceptance for their lives so that we are given the opportunity and privilege to introduce them to Jesus, not necessarily to CCC, yet, but to Jesus. And I have this strong belief that if we do this that one day they'll want to know so where do you go to church and I'd like to come there. This morning we want to talk about the subject of relationships and we've titled this healthy relationships because what we believe is that God does not just want us to have authentic relationships and meaningful relationships, but healthy relationships, relationships full of grace and truth that give us joy and give us a little taste of heaven. And these are hard, these kinds of relationships are hard work. It's hard work to confront one another sin, to experience the ups and downs of life together, to wrestle together with what does it look like to follow Jesus with my life. If you have your Bibles this morning, I'd like to invite you to turn to Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4, if you don't have a Bible or a guy's have some and they'll pass them out to you, Ephesians 4. And Ephesians 4 is the place that we're going to be this morning and Paul's most repeated language in the New Testament for talking about being in Christ's file or becoming a Christian is the language of adoption, adoption in the family of God. You see adoption in the family of God is a radical new beginning that takes place in our lives when we place our faith in Jesus and the pictures being born again and moving from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. Paul uses this language to picture a new and permanent relationship with God and he says God is now your father. He says our deaths and since our cancel we've been given a new name as Christians, little Christ, a new inheritance of freedom, hope, glory and heaven and new brothers and sisters as described in Ephesians chapter 1. Jesus talked about this new relationship in Mark chapter 3 verses 33 to 35, it's going to come up on the screen behind me. And look what Jesus had to say, Jesus was asked who were your mother, he said who are my mother and brothers? He was asking this question rhetorically to the people that were listening and look what he said. He said he looked around at those seed in a circle and he said here are my mother and brothers, whoever does God's will is my brother, sister and mother. And what Jesus was demonstrating, he's demonstrating a new kind of relationship that was about to begin. A relationship that just was not biological, the birth family that you were given, but a relationship that was spiritual. Jesus demonstrated on the cross the importance of caring for those that we love and he designed the care of his mother to his close disciple John. Yet Jesus was very clear in calling people to make their first loyalty to him over their biological family. You see we all have this habits and patterns from our family of origin and the God wants to transform and that's what the life of a Christ follower is all about. Too often we've categorized in church communities that mature followers of Jesus, mature Christians, mature believers are the people that know the most. But the scripture says it's mature people are those whose lives have been transformed and they're deeply committed to do the will of God above all else. Jesus is very clear about the call to honor our parents, our culture and history, but he calls us first and foremost to follow him and to obey him. And so this morning what we're going to do is this morning we're going to look in the book of Ephesians at a series of verses in which Jesus gives Paul some instruction about how to live in this new family of God, how to relate to one another differently. And I want to look at that with you this morning. If you have your Bibles let's start by reading in verse 25 Ephesians chapter 4 verse 25. It says this, "Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body." The first thing that Paul says that should be part of healthy relationships of people who are the part of the family of God is they stop lying. They stop lying. And lying is such a part of our world, our way of life, our communication pattern that it's no surprise that it's part of the lives of people of faith as well. How often are you asked how are you and you are not doing good and you say good and you lie. How often are you asked how are you and your spouse doing and you say we're doing fine but the relationship is icy and cold. You lose your job and someone says how are you doing and you say well it's over and done, I'm looking forward to a new opportunity but you're filled with anxiety and fear about the unknown. You tell someone I think you did a great job but their performance was not what you know they're capable of doing, it was etiquette at best. You say I can't come, I'm too busy but the reality is is you just want to stay home and don't want to go anywhere and so you make something up. You know each family has their own unique way of spinning half-truths, withholding facts and avoiding awkward moments, we lie with our words, with our smiles, with our bodies and with our silence. We lie about the miserable parts of our lives, about the pace of life, about the things we don't know how people will respond to us. And if you think about what Jesus said, Jesus said this, He said I am the way, the what, the truth and the life. He said this, He says if you will know the truth, the truth will set you what, free. And later Jesus says this, He says He describes as the Father of lies who Satan. When He talks about for a follower of Jesus every morning when they begin their day to put on this suit of armor to go out into this battlefield called life, the first piece of equipment that He tells you to put on is what the belt of truth. There's something very significant about this, about being honest with one another and yet it creeps in so easily, so easily. I think one of the first things we have to learn to do is be honest with ourselves, be honest with ourselves, be honest about what's going on inside of me and that can be a very difficult thing to do. My wife would often say to me, I can tell when you're nervous. I'm like, what do you mean? She's like, well, your voice kind of cracks and you have these nervous mannerisms and I would say, I'm not nervous and I was lying. But she could see something in me that I couldn't recognize in myself. And one of the first things I had to learn to do is I had to learn to be aware of my own emotions and be able to be honest about myself. Research tells us that lying is closely connected to our sense of self-esteem and worth and when our sense of self-esteem and worth is being threatened, we drift towards lying. We move into image management which drifts us into lying and not being honest with one another. It's easier to say nothing to a co-worker that was insensitive to you than to confront them. It's easier to say yes to a dinner meeting with the boss and to say no because you have a family commitment that you need to take care of. It's easy to spin a few facts to a client and to lose a contract. It's easy to give an impression that you are growing that you are a growing mature Christfower than that you are struggling. You haven't cracked open your Bible in a month. And this is a big subject to tackle and there's a lot within this. Each of these that we're going to talk about just real briefly this morning may end up being a messenger we spend more time sitting with. Because we think we read that verse and it says put away false and I don't lie, I tell the truth. When we start to peel away the layers and say what is true of me and what is being part of the family of God look like it means that we learn to speak to one another with truth. That doesn't mean we brutalize one another with the truth because we've all been recipients of that before. I'm just telling the truth and you're just like reeling, you know. But how do we do that? How do we do that? I want to give you four words that I came across in a book called Don't Quit by Jerry Scazero that I thought really were helpful to help me understand and wrap my mind around what this looks like. So here's four words for you to think about as it relates to telling the truth. The first is being respectful, respectful and that's just being polite, not insulting and taking the other people's feelings in mind. So someone presents an idea and they say what do you think and you're like, you know, you can say that idea of socks, you know, you can certainly say that or you could say that's an interesting idea. I'd like to know a little bit more and tell me how you came to that conclusion. There's a way to be honest with the other person without brutalizing them. Here's a second word. How about honesty? So respectful, being honest. Say what you truly think and feel, don't lie or fudge the truth. You could say I can't go out to lunch, I have other plans or you could be honest and say I prefer not to go to lunch today because I just need some time alone and maybe we can do it another time. So respectful, honest, how about being direct, direct, not beating around the bush or dropping hints to avoid the truth, by the way, hint-dropping is a horrible, horrible, horrible thing. But I've recently come to discover why people even beat around the bush. One of my own personal struggles is not being direct. It's been a struggle of mine for a very, very long time in my life and I never really understood why. But as I began to face the reality that I was someone who always wanted to avoid conflict because I wanted relationships that was so desperately important to me that I realized I went around because if you're direct, you run the risk that someone might be upset at you. And so if you struggle with being direct, you probably need to look at some other issues that are going on in your life. Indirect is there's a good movie playing at the theatre, but it's raining outside. It's called a hint, a hint, or you could say would you be willing to go out to the movies with me tonight, even though it is raining, spend some time together. Last thing, so respectful, honest, direct, last one is being clear. And this is think before you speak and include the details that are important. Include the details that are important. I've interacted with people where one individual will accuse the other person of lying and they simply didn't include the important details. That's all they left out with the details. So I'd like you to cook dinner sometime and you're thinking, "Okay, let me know when sometime happens." Or you could say, "Does Thursday night work for you to take responsibility for preparing that meal for us?" You see, what you realize really quickly is this takes thought and energy. And for most of us, if we do what comes natural, if we do what we've done all of our lives in our family of origin, we will likely fall into the trap of lying on a more regular basis than most of us are willing to admit. But being part of the family of God, having a healthy relationship means I think carefully and intentionally about what I say, that I'm honest and I'm gracious and I'm truthful and I'm direct and I'm clear about my words. Let's look at the next one that Paul has to say, look at verse 26 and 27, he says, "In your anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry and do not give the devil a foothold." And this one is just simply to express righteous anger, express righteous anger. The truth is, and if you've been here a while, you've heard us say this over and over again, anger is not wrong. Anger is an emotion. There's righteous and unrighteous anger. Anger is either as a result of an injustice, something wrong happens and we need to do something about that and I need to act on it, or it's a result of a blocked goal. I want something and I cannot get it and I get angry. Being part of the family of God, living according to a new set of rules, does not mean that you do not get angry. God is not what being a Christ follower is all about. Jesus was angry in the temple. God was angry over the sin of the Israelites. The Father and the Son expressed anger and if you do not express anger, you are living according to your family of origin and not according to the family of God. Now that being said, it doesn't give you a license to blow your top at everybody. That's not what God is saying here. He's saying, "In your anger, don't sin." That means it's possible to sin when you're angry, it's possible to be angry and not sin. When you face an injustice, when you see something that is wrong, someone being taken advantage of, someone being mistreated, someone harmed and you step into that because of something that rises up within you, there's something righteous about that and that's a part of being a part of God's family is all about. You don't ignore it, you face it, you wrestle with it, you say, "Why am I angry?" And you enter it because if you don't, we're going to see in just a few minutes where this will lead if you ignore it. If you don't deal with it, you're going to avoid the person, avoid the situation, leave a job, leave a church, leave a marriage and have a string of shattered things behind you and in the family of God, the way we do anger is righteously. Look at the next one, verse 28, verse 28, Paul says this, "Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer but must work during something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need." And when you first read this, you think, "Stealing, I haven't stolen anything recently. You know, I haven't lifted anything from Turkey Hill, I didn't walk out of the grocery store or not pay my bill, you know, I haven't stolen anything, so I'm good. Good, but I want to take you to think about this in terms of relationships. This is what Paul's talking about, about being part of the new family of God. What I think Paul's talking about, he's talking about taking, which is what you do when you steal, you take something that doesn't belong to you versus what's the opposite. You have something to give to people who are in need, taking versus giving, taking versus giving. And so as you think about that, ask yourself, "How am I taking things from people instead of giving to them?" In my relationships, how am I taking instead of giving? If you're someone who's always late, you're taking people's time. If you're someone who's always talking, you're stealing from people in relationships. If you're someone when I sit with others and I, when I sit with this issue and I begin to wonder, "Have I been taking from others and not giving to them?" There's an issue that comes to mind for me. As many of you know, Christine and I were involved in starting CCC 23 years ago and in the early startup process of a church of anything, the individuals responsible, they have to be involved in a lot of things and make sure things happen. But as the church grew and as God brought more individuals to the church and leaders developed and more staff came on, the need for me to have my hands and everything slowly started to diminish, but I didn't change real easily with that process. One of the things I struggled with, I struggled with was having my hands in and micromanaging too many details and being involved in a lot of things. Through the input of others and the staff and our elders in my life, they've helped me see that John, there's very capable people and very godly people stepping into serving the lead. When I am involved in things that others are capable of doing, I am literally stealing from them because I don't trust them and I don't let them use their gifts and abilities the way God has designed them to do those things. And so part of what I had to recognize is for me, when I get myself deep entrenched into the details and I micromanage other people instead of letting them lead, I'm operating according to my family of origin and not according to the family of God, where I give people responsibility and I give people authority and then I cheer them on and let them lead and let them serve. So I don't know what that looks like for you. When you look at the relationships and you're like, where are you taking instead of giving? Where are you taking instead of giving? Because being part of the family of God means that we look for opportunities to give, to meet a need instead of take, instead of take. Look at the next one, verse 29, verse 29, do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen, those who listen. Paul basically says here that we are given the gift of speech to encourage one another's to give them what they need. So if I don't use my words for the benefit of other people, then I use my words to benefit me. How do I use my words to benefit me? Well I can be little someone and then I kind of am looked at in a more of an elevated way. I can talk about myself and people can think good of me. There's a lot of different ways that it happens other than just cruel kinds of words. Watch in a conversation the next time you're in one, how hard it is for people to listen to one another. It is incredibly difficult in our culture to listen to one another. Let's watch a conversation with people because what you'll observe as you do this is you'll have one person talking and another person, they kind of talk over top of that person and they talk over that person, this person doesn't say anything and this person talks over this person, this person's got a story to outdo this person, this person has a story to outdo this person's story. When you take a step back and watch this happen, you're like, hmm, if we can go back to that verse length, if you can put that verse up on the screen it says don't let any unwholesome talk and we think that's kind of negative and critical but it says but only what is helpful for building others up according to their need that it may benefit those who will listen. What does it look like for us to use our words to be building people up and that's the way we use our words? The truth is some of you listening this morning, you need to talk less, no nudging a lab, okay? Some of you need to talk less and some of you have incredibly valuable things and you need to talk more. Because there are people that need your words and you hold on to those words but you need to speak more. It's remarkable to me when I'm in a setting and there's usually someone who's a little quieter in a room and when they speak everyone's like wow that was really good. Why don't they speak a little more, we need a little more of that and a less of all the other stuff, you know, the chatter. There's something about our words, our speech that I just don't think in an age of constant instant at times overwhelming communication, it's just everywhere. We've lost the sense in Solomon talks about the power of our words, the power of words to give life, the power of words to take life away. We all remember people have spoken words into our lives at critical moments in juncture. People that we respected that we looked up to and they just gave us that ability to take another step forward. Whether it was a parent or a grandparent or a coach or a professor or a teacher or a boss or and that's what Paul says are words is people who are part of the family of God should be like. So think about your words. Do my words benefit me or do my words benefit those who are listening and some of you it needs to be less and some of you it needs to be more because we need it. Look at the next verse, we're going to skip down to verse 31, we're going to skip down to verse 31. He says this, he says, "Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, brawling and slander along with every form of malice." And then what I have entitled this is deal with the Barry junk in your life. Now when you read that phrase, bitterness, anger, malice, rage, and slander, most of us probably think, you know, that kind of sounds like a drunken brawl and I don't think I've been in one of those in the last week or two. But I think what Paul is talking about, he starts off with bitterness. This is unresolved conflict in our lives, that's where bitterness, it gets buried and it starts to seep out. And he follows it with all of these words. And I think what Paul is pointing to is he's pointing to stuff that gets buried deep in our hearts and soul and this anger that doesn't get resolved and it just keeps coming out and coming out and coming out. It's kind of like if you see mold chop in your house somewhere, you know, you scrub it and you clean it and then guess what happens a week or two later, what happens? It's back, right? It comes back and you clean it. It's back, right? What do you have to do to get rid of the mold? You got to go to the source, you got to find out, isn't it trapped moisture, you got to find out whether it's some trapped moisture and you got to find a way to deal with that. And these words that Paul uses, I believe, is what he's talking about, this stuff that gets trapped deep in our soul and it just seeps out into all parts of our relationship and you see someone blowing up at something and you're like, "We're at you," and you're like, "I just kind of walked in the room and said hello," and I got the dump truck loaded on me, you know, and that's someone who's got stuff buried or someone who's heavily sarcastic with their words and it just kind of seeps out everywhere, everywhere. That stuff buried and it's going to come out. And notice the language, can we go back to verse 31 there again, look at how he begins this, he says, "Get rid of it, get rid of it. This stuff will not disappear in your life." Anger never just disappears. You have to do something to get rid of this anger. You have to do something to move this out of your life. It just gets buried and it's like toxic waste, it just gets worse and worse and worse and it messes everything up in our lives. The good news is, it's possible to get rid of it. The bad news is, you're going to spend the rest of your life doing that. But what Paul says is he says, "People who are part of the family of God, people that want healthy relationships, they're committed to engage in figuring out and working to do that." And saying, "I don't want this stuff seeping out. I don't want this stuff spilling out. I don't want this stuff wrecking my life. I've got to find out, what do I have to do to get rid of this stuff and find a mechanism to do that?" I can just be honest with you and tell you that I'm just stunned and staggered often at the anger and rage it just builds up in me that I don't always even realize. And I see it leaking out somewhere and my wife will say something to me and she'll say, "I think you're angry about something else." No, I'm not. Yes, you are. All right. And I just, "All right, God, I got to go back and work through this and kind of learn some ways to engage in that and deal with that one. My emotions don't match the situation when it should be a happy moment and I'm angry or tears and vice versa and, "Oh, there's something going on inside. I got to sit with it and wrestle with it and just think, "God, isn't this going to be over?" And it just was a reminder recently, "Oh, no. You live in a sinful, broken world. Your person that is not perfect yet, I won't experience that glorious gift until like we sang in those songs. We leave this earth and we enter heaven's presence." And so that makes me look forward to it and long for that. But I don't want to live with that in this life where I'm at today. You know, another part of this in healthy relationships is that when we see this in people we know and love, we speak to it, we don't ignore it, we don't ignore it. I don't know if that's happening in your home, if it's safe enough for you to do that with your spouse, with your kids. I hope we can get to a place that it's not only safe enough to do that in our own homes, but in our group environments where we see things in others, because we all have blinders, right? We all do. We all have things over here that I can't see, but you guys can all see. We all have them. I've just had conversations in the last two weeks with two individuals who've spoken to me about something in my life and I've said to them, I've given them permission, and I said, "When you see this, will you come and talk to me about it, because I can't see it, but I don't want it there, I don't want it there." That's part of these kinds of relationships that we're talking about. One more to close here, and that's in verse 32. Paul closes with this. He says, "Being kind and compassionate to one another, and he ends with this phrase, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you." The last mark of someone who's a part of God's family is they forgive like Jesus. They forgive like Jesus, or like God forgave us through Jesus. As long as we live in this world, as long as we live in this life, people are going to sin against us, people are going to wrong us, people are going to mistreat us. But people who are part of God's family, they don't hold grudges, they don't gossip, they don't bring it back up over and over and over again. Not suggesting that it gets ignored either, and it gets buried because then it goes to where we just talked about. Forgiveness means that you're honest about how you've been wronged and you've been sinned against. You don't minimize it. This means you grieve about the loss and the heartache that it resulted in your life, and the anger that's related to the injustice that might have surfaced. Forgiveness doesn't always mean that you have an opportunity to have a conversation with this person. Remember what Jesus said on the cross? He said this. He said, "Father, forgive them because they want. They don't even know what they're doing." Forgiveness also doesn't mean that you reconcile with that person, that you re-enter the exact same kind of relationship that you long for or you used to have. What forgiveness means is that you let go of the opportunity to bring about pain and suffering in their lives in the way that they have brought in your life. This is a letting go of the rope of the way you've been wronged. Forgiveness will feel like death to let it go. Forgiveness will feel like death to not be at death to not be able to confront them. Forgiveness will feel like death to have to face them and confront them. Whatever the cost, whatever the challenge will you forgive others in the way that God through Christ has forgiven you. I don't know how your family did forgiveness. My experience and in many of my conversations, most families didn't at all. If it was, it was something quick and easy and forced. Say you're sorry. Move on. I'm not sorry. You better say it. Okay, no, I don't think that's what God's talking about here. He's not talking about apologizing for everything. I had to unlearn being apologetic for even stuff I didn't even do wrong or doing it too quickly. We've talked about a lot of things this morning. Look at the list that's on the screen there. Stop lying, express righteous anger, talking versus giving, words that give life, dealing with the buried junk in my life and forgiving like Jesus. I like nice people, but I don't think God wants our church to just be full of nice people. I think He wants us to be loving people who want to be part of God's family and we live like that. How else will the world know that we're the disciples, we're disciples of Jesus? What did Jesus say? Because they love one another because they live in relationship in a radically different way than they knew growing up, than they experienced in this culture, but as part of God's family that they say, I want to keep going, growing to become part of that and live like that. I want to challenge you to look through that list and pick one of those things. Can't tackle them all. Pick one of them and maybe one of them, as soon as I said it, you knew you were like, "Oh, that one's the top of the list for me." I want to challenge you to take another step. I want to challenge you to ask one or two people that are close. You say, "How do I do this in my relationship with you?" What are some ways I'm not honest? What is some way anger seeps out? What is some way I take? What is some way my words do not build you up? What are ways that you see stuff buried in my life? What are ways that I'm not kind and compassionate and forgiving? I want to challenge you to do this. It's not easy, but with God's help and his members, of his family, he invites us into these kinds of relationships and when the world sees, they'll recognize there's something different. Would you bow your heads with me as we pray? As we do, I want to just give you a moment to talk to God about whatever he's made clear to you to give attention to in your life and developing healthy relationships. [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] God, we've talked about some challenging subjects this morning. The ones that I think nearly all of us in this room can relate to in some way. As part of your family, you've invited us to learn to relate to one another differently in a way that isn't what we see and isn't what we know around here in our wives. It often isn't what we grew up with. Lord, for some of us, it will feel like starting over, learning to relate differently. But God, we're not alone in this journey because the Bible says you've made us a new creature which means your creation, which means your spirit is alive within us, and it's possible, Lord. And you've given us people in our lives that will walk this journey of life with us to navigate these things and to wrestle with these issues and to struggle with them, Lord. So, fathers, we seek to do that this week. I pray that you would help bring clarity about the things you long to change in us, conviction about what this has looked like in the past, direction from friends and brothers and sisters, trusted counselors in our lives that can guide us, or that we would continue to be transformed as part of your family, the family of God. And you're name we pray. Amen. So, imagine a church where people told the truth to one another. They rose up in anger and injustice. They gave to people exactly what they need. They spoke words that gave life. They dealt with the junk in their lives and they forgave one another no matter what the offense was. I think just maybe other people might want to be a part of that family. Jeremy. [BLANK_AUDIO]