Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor Sermon Podcast
Twelve Steps: Making Amends (Step 9)
First weekend of every month we are taking a look at one of the 12 steps made famous by Alcoholics Anonymous and the reason that we are interested in the 12 steps is because the measure of Jesus' brand spirituality is personal transformation. In other words, it doesn't matter how much information about Christianity you've packed into your head or the Bible or any of that sort of thing, how up you are on all the controversies and whether you're right thinking about all the right positions. What really is the measure of faith in Jesus is the transformative effect it has in your life. The 12 steps can be thought of as a kind of spiritual discipline for personal transformation. Sooner or later, if you want to get serious with God through Jesus, then something of the principles of the actual steps of the 12 steps are the path that He's going to lead you down to make it real. So we've been looking at them the first weekend of every month here in 2004. We're up to step nine. I think the first seven steps for your review are just up there on the screen. Next weekend, by the way, we're going to start a new series entitled Being a Church that brings Jesus brand spirituality into the heart of Ann Arbor, that'll be a six week series. But this week, we're on to the 12 steps. And my wife Nancy Wilson is going to be sharing on step nine, and she'll tell you what that's all about. Nancy is the director of our single mom's ministry. The founder actually, and the director of the single mom's ministry has been serving this past year as a pastoral intern in the single mom's ministry, and she's just a really neat lady. So give it up for Nancy, you know. Is this the way you can get it? I'm just going to put the mute up. Thanks, everyone. I'm really excited to share about this because I have a real passion for it. We're going to be talking about step nine, but we just need to review very briefly step eight for step nine to make any sense. Step eight says we made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. So today, we look at step nine. We made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. What's the biblical basis for this step? It comes from Matthew five, 23 and 24. It's Jesus speaking to us, and he says, "Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother or brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift." So as we dig into this, let's pray together. Sweet Father, as we consider your word and what you want to reveal to us, please give us hearts to understand and willing us to obey you. Jesus, may you become greater in us, and may we become less. And Lord, as I speak, may what is from you remain, and anything less than that, Lord, would you just let it fall away? In Jesus' name, amen. Last month, Ken spoke about step eight about making a list of those we had harmed. If you really got up your courage and did it, I'm sure it was no picnic. I know when I made my first list, I had many tears as I contemplated and recognized those that I had harmed, both those that I loved and hated. If we stop with step eight, we never gain the powerful freedom and gift this step nine offers. It takes courage and humility to proceed, and today I'd like to share with you what God has been doing in my life through the gift of being able to make amends, and I also want to tell you that this step comes with a wee bit of a warning. If you came to church this morning just looking for something light, why don't you go work with the children today? Because what we're digging into, though God is gracing us all with great love and mercy and courage to talk about this is not light and fluffy. I'll be talking about stuff that's pretty serious, but it's all part of being a disciple of Jesus and really coming close to the master and sitting at his feet and learning from him. If that's what you want to be, a disciple of Jesus, I just encourage you to open your hearts this morning and listen for his voice. My prayer is that I would step out of the way, and if God has anything to say to you, you would hear it. So, alcoholism, addictions to drugs, gambling, sex, pornography, food, see dot, dot, dot, you fill in the blank, sin sickness, like uncontrolled anger, perfectionism, needing to always be right, needing to always be in control, habitual lying, I could go on. You can too, dot, dot, dot, fill in the blank. All of these lead to a break in our relationships with God and with those that we interact with. We become fragmented when we're participating in our particular blank. Emotionally, socially and spiritually. And the beautiful thing is that step nine begins the process of restoring us to healing and wholeness, restoring us to communion, to community with others. This beautiful thing of the 12 steps, the steps one through eight, are really all about you and God. You're pretty much contained in a circle of dealing with God and dealing with your reality, but step nine offers us the possibility of stepping out of our isolation and back into community. And that's what I want to speak about today and share with you what God's been showing me about that. Because when we're indulging in our particular shortcoming, don't you love that word, shortcoming, there's always some level of self-deception, coloring how we interact with God or ourselves. The first eight steps are providing the framework for us getting honest with ourselves and with God. And work diligently. They make it possible for us to now see our true condition, which is the key for restoration and reconciliation with others. We're going to look at Matthew 5 again. Therefore, if you're offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. One of the things I just love about Jesus is that if we're going to be his disciple, if we want to get close to him, he expects us to move out of what I call La La Land. What is La La Land? It's the world you've created that tells you everything that you would like it to be, but doesn't necessarily reflect what God says about it. So as we come closer to him, laying down our lives, our gifts at his feet, part of the deal is that he also begins to show us what's really true about ourselves. As we offer our gifts to him, he whispers in our ear, he brings to our mind someone that we have harmed, someone that has something against us. To be in communion with him, according to this passage, he offers us the gift of action. He says, "Go, go and be reconciled," and then come back. "Go, make amends, make things right, make peace, and then come back." It's a beautiful thing he's saying to us. He gives us a gift of action. There is something we can do when he whispers in our ear that there's someone we have harmed. The Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in himself is in perfect communion and perfect harmony and perfect community at all times, and he offers that we can enter into that. So if you have been in isolation from someone that you have harmed for one hour, for one day, for one year, for a whole lifetime, the same gift is waiting for us. Go, go and make amends, and come back, and your gift will be accepted. Your gift of your life will be pleasing to God. And the beautiful thing is to us, I've been speaking about that. When you do that, then you are also brought back into community. You are no longer by yourself, your isolation has ended. I'd like to share with you two ways that God's been working in my life through the making of amends. And to do that, I have to give you a brief history, please indulge me. I've been married to Ken for 34 years. We have five children, ranging in age from 33 to 11, and from 1975 to 1990, we've had about 60 single people live with us, anywhere from one person per year to at one point eight people per year, but usually we would say one to three years. It was a wild and woolly time, it was wonderful, it brought us a lot of joy. We learned a lot, it brought a lot of challenges, and it brought to me something that I began to see as I got closer to God that wasn't working so well in my life. As you can imagine, with four children and all these single people around, the potential for chaos breaking out was enormous, it could happen at any moment. And for me, what happened is that there rose in me a growing and continual need to feel like I was in control. And as I felt that need, I would just clamp down harder and harder, not just on myself, but on those that were around me, my loved ones, the people that I really cared about. And in his mercy, God began to show me the harm that I was doing through what was going on inside of me, and he allowed me again through his grace and mercy to make a list of those that I had harmed. And one by one, to go to them starting with Ken and with my older kids and say to them, "I'm really sorry for what I see that I have been doing, and would you forgive me, and I really want to change?" And in the process of doing that, I felt like my relationships got restored, that I got brought back into right working, into community and communion with them, and for that I am eternally grateful. Eleven years ago, I began a tailspin in my health. I would gain weight, I'd lose a little, I'd gain a little more weight, I'd lose a little, I'd gain a little more weight, and I'd lose a little. And it got to the point where it was seriously affecting my relationships and my family in that way, in that I was increasingly unable to do stuff with Ken and my kids, increasingly having to say no to opportunities for the family to function together. And I was doing some living in Lala Land, really telling myself, "You know, this is no big deal. I'd be getting better soon," wasn't happening. And about a year ago, I think God in his kindness began to say, "You need to take a real look at this with my eyes and look at what you're doing, what's going on in your life." It was very painful, there were a lot of tears involved in looking at that. But again, by his grace, I was able to look at my life with his eyes and say, "Okay, Lord, then what am I going to do about this? How can we make this better? How can I make amends for the choices that I've been making that have led me to this?" And through talking with Ken, through talking with my doctor, this was the right choice for me, which was I chose to have bariatric surgery and I had that five weeks ago. And that is changing my relationship to food, and it's changing my relationship to my family in that regard. I mean, not to say that everything went wrong, but there were aspects of my relationship to food that was affecting how I related to my family. And I feel like this has been a small way, and maybe it's a big way, but this is what I experience that God is leading me in making amends and making things right so that I have a future with my family. I have a future with my 11-year-old daughter that isn't all about Mom struggling along in life. And so I am so very, very grateful that God let me see through his eyes what was going on and the people that I had harmed by my choices, and he's allowing me to make some different choices and work out my salvation with fear and trembling. So thank you for letting me share that part of what's going on. Thank you. One of the small gifts that God's given me, and I'd like to share it with you, is that I am able to usually look at an issue and be able to figure it out, break it down into the little parts so that I can tackle something practically. So I'd just like to share that with you about this whole issue of making amends. Because you know, if you just say, "Oh, go make amends," I imagine, like you, I would just be going, "What the heck is she talking about? What does this look like?" So I want to share with you what I think it looks like. First of all, have you got a written list? You might have one in your head, but it'll go a lot farther if you start putting it down on paper. So have you got a written list for some of you, it'll be quite lengthy? There might be a few people that just say, "I just don't have anyone that I could possibly think of and make amends to." Well, I'd be happy to talk with you because we could meet over there later. Because if you are trying to live so perfectly, I thought there's someone that you've harmed by your need for perfectionism, just the thought. Anyway, most lists will include both those that you can make amends to and those that you can't. What do amends look like? Here's the easy part. Making something right by identifying solid, concrete tangibles, such as repaying, stolen goods, or money, making up working hours you skipped out of, paying child support fully and generously. Being gained that you may have made by cheating and accepting the consequences of your deeds. Here's the not so easy part. Repairing the harm that you've caused in relationships by breaking trust promises you've not lived up to, letting down those that depended on you, abusing those close to you with your emotions or with your body, ruining the reputation of others. Sometimes we don't realize how powerful gossip is, that it fits right in here, ruining the reputation of others. Using your power or position unethically, creating a climate of fear in your close relationships, those are not so easy to repair. Maybe you've never done any of these things, but maybe you've caused harm by neglect or omission or indifference has God to show you and he will be faithful to show you. The cool thing is, is Jesus sends us to make amends with that powerful word go, but he also goes with us and he leads us back to himself to come back. It's a package deal. God knows that making amends is really quite beyond us. He offers himself as our resource as we go to do this. In other words, you are not alone when you go to make amends. You've got a friend with you, a friend who has so much more to offer you in that situation than you could ever come up with on your own. My recommendation to you is if you are going to go make some amends, take them with you. You'll be glad you did. So with him, for those that you can make amends to, you begin by praying over your list. You pray for the people that are on your list. You pray over, you pray for, and you talk with a support person. It could be your AA sponsor, a pursuing wholeness facilitator, a Stephen minister, a trusted friend or a small group leader. Then to counsel from them about when making amends might do more harm than good, because you'll be looking at your list together with that person. And then a wonderful thing to do is ask that support person to pray for you as you go to make amends. Give them a call, let them know I'm on my way, and ask them please be praying for me. Ask God to clothe you with humility, a defensive posture is not a listening humble position to be in. Be sure that you're sincere in wanting to make amends. You will cause more harm in the relationship. People can smell in sincerity quite quickly. Be sure you're ready, be sure you're sincere that you're saying, "I want to make amends." Start with the easiest person, really, that's okay. Go with your very easiest person who might even say, "Hey, I don't even remember that." That's okay. Start with the easiest person on your list and go make amends to them. And then you'll be getting more confidence to go tackle some harder ones. And when you go, own your stuff, the things you've done to harm that person and the relationship, repay or restore tangibles, apologize. Ask for forgiveness for the harm that you know that you've caused. If appropriate, let them know what you're doing to make your life different. Say, if you're in AA or if there's some other way that you are working towards wholeness. If it's about intangibles, ask if there's more that you don't know that you did or caused. Be willing to consider what the other person says. Own it, take responsibility for it, or if you need to go and think about it, let the person know and say that you'll get back with them. Ask a humble question, listen up now. You can write this one down if you need to. What is there about me that gets in the way of our relationship? I'll say it one more time. What is there about me that gets in the way of our relationship? Humbly listen if they're willing to respond and thank them for their willingness to share their thoughts. I can guarantee you that that will go so far towards healing your relationship for a person to be able to be honestly asked. If there's something about me that's getting in the way of our relationship. And then lastly, get support afterwards. Go back to that person that's your support person and talk over what you heard. You may need help to sort out what got feedback to you. You need help from God to process what you just heard. So pray for that, pray and ask God to help you to sort. But overall of it, be grateful for the opportunity no matter how that encounter went for God to be at work in your life and your relationships. Because this is really God bringing you back into community, restoring you to communion with others. Now we want to tackle those people that you can't make amends to. Who might those be? People that have already died. People that are unavailable. Those who are not willing to let you make amends at this point. And those who would not be helped by your making amends at this point. So I have found it's really helpful to express my sorrow over those people that I have hurt to yourself, to God, and if helpful to another human being. It's okay to let somebody else know what that hurting place is in your heart as you realize that you can't make amends to someone. Pray for those that you have harmed. If they are no longer alive, release and commend them into the hands of God for his care. His love covers the multitude of sins. His love will cover your sins. Ask Jesus for a chance someday to make things right. This is the really cool thing about Jesus, you know. It doesn't all end here. Pray and ask for God's forgiveness and receive it from him. When I was in my 30s, it took me a while, but when I was in my 30s, I finally understood what some of my actions as a teenager had done hurt my parents. And you know, I kind of got around to kind of figuring that out and it caused me deep sorrow that I had hurt them the way that I had. And my mom had died several years before, so I knew I couldn't go back and ask her to forgive me. So I got together with my dad, who was still alive at the time. I said, "Dad, I am so sorry for the way that I hurt you and my mom." Would you forgive me? And in that forgiveness, I felt like it was also my mom reaching out to me and making things right. And that was God restoring me to community, to community with my parents. Now I didn't have a terrible relationship with them. I had a good relationship, but when God brings to mind something that you need to say, "I'm sorry for it," jump all over it, it is so good for your soul. It is so good for your life. It is so good for your connection with community. And serve others to express your new connection to community. When we harm individuals, the whole community suffers. Did you know that? We are just not little bubble wrapped people, only bouncing into one person and having it stop there. What we do to harm one person ripples out and it harms the community. So God in His mercy also gives us a way back to come back, which is when we can't make amends to an individual, we can make amends to the community. We can do something to make amends. Ask God for direction over this one. Come out of your isolation and get involved in serving the poor and the needy. That's always a great place to start and to stop, serve the poor and the needy as an act of love to that magnificent one, that gracious one, that lovely one who has saved you. This is from Ephesians 4, 28, "He who has been stealing must steal no longer but must work. Do something useful with his hands so that he may have something to share with those in need." God knew a long time ago that we would need to know how to do this. So He gave us that scripture to tell us, "You know what? It's okay. If you can't make amends to the people that you've hurt, you can make amends to the wider community and help someone that's in need." So as you sit there, you may be plumb out of ideas, "Well, how can I help? Wow! I've got an idea for you." We hold this monthly dinner for single moms and their kids. We need many hands to bless the children, to bless the moms, to care for those in that situation. I invite you to come and get involved. It only would take three hours of your month and the benefit to you will be enormous. The benefit to the moms will be far more than your three hours that you can give. But all together, together in community, we are blessing the single moms. I have another idea. If you can't do that three-hour deal, the stove that was donated to the single moms to help cook the dinner for 60 people each month, it just broke down and it can't be repaired. We'd like to get a new stove. If you have the resources and you'd like to write us a check to help us go get a new stove, bring it on. Make a check out to vineyard and put on the bottom line, the memo line, new stove or single moms or something like that, we would gladly take that and we'll have a concrete, tangible expression of your love for Jesus as we serve the single moms. Yeah, you are welcome and you are needed in the ministry of the single moms, so let me know if you want to participate. I just have to say that's all she wrote. Thank you. This is the first weekend I've ever preached in Ann Arbor and I am just so glad. Thank you for your kind reception. Okay. I'm a very hands on concrete kind of person and for the ministry time, I'd like to offer you all an opportunity to participate in this. At the aisle, under the aisle seats are some three by five cards. Before you come up for communion, this is an opportunity for you to write the name, it can be a first name, it can be initials, whatever you want to put on that, of someone that you are not able to contact because they've died or they're not available or it would hurt them or harm them to make amends of someone that you would like God to know that you would like to make amends to. It's a way of commending them into the care of God and when you come up for communion, we're going to have a basket right in the middle here for you to put it into. Now, another category that you might want to use the card for, there may be someone that you know that you need to make amends to but you don't have the courage right now to make amends to them. Go ahead and put their name on the card and we will use it to pray for you for courage or you may have to be having trouble forgiving yourself. That might be one of the hardest things that you have to do considering the wrongs that you have done, the harm you have done. Please, go ahead, put your initials, put whatever you want on that card because what we're going to do is at the end of the service, at the end of communion, we're going to take all those cards and we're going to pray over them and ask God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We're going to ask Him to bless every name that's on those cards, every person behind the cards and that He would restore us to communion with Him, with community with one another and this will be a concrete tangible act of releasing, of commending into the care of God. We also want to invite you if you would like to stay out after communion and get prayer. We just feel the Holy Spirit is in this place and that He wants to bless and enable and comfort all of us wherever we're at. This is a pretty important topic. It's a pretty important role that a man's place in our lives is disciples of Jesus. So why wouldn't he also want to give us the Holy Spirit to help us to do what he has us to do? So anyway, when you come up for communion, you can drop it in the basket and that when we're all done, you're going to recognize that you are not alone in this whole thing that basket's going to be pretty full of cards and that will represent to all of us our need for one another. I'd ask Him if He would come up and finish off communion, I'm still a little bit weak physically from what I've been going through and I would love to stand up here but I think I've just about reached here. So God bless you in place. All right, well Nancy was talking and I was thinking about a movie I saw about 10 years ago, places in the heart with Sally Field and Ed Harris. I think it was an early movie for John Malkovich, who was a blind guy in the movie. I think it was like around the Dust Bowl era and the movie begins with Sally Field's husband being murdered by somebody and goes through the movie and all the trials and the tribulations and the family tensions and all the stuff we go through in life and then the movie ends with this beautiful scene. It's kind of a surreal scene of a country church and they're having communion together. Only everyone's all together having communion that was a character in the movie, including Ed Harris' back who was the husband of Sally Field and the guy who killed Sally Field's husband is there and all the people who had all these relationship problems are there and they're gathered around this communion table and they're sharing communion. It was just like knocked down, drag out, powerful and that is a very powerful symbol throughout the Bible. This idea of God and man at table are sat down. You know, you've got Moses with the elders of Israel and Mount Sinai sitting down for a meal with God, actually sit down with God and have a meal. You have the Psalm 23, you have set before me a table in the presence of my enemies. You have Jesus, the friend of sinners having these banquet feasts with sinners. You have the Last Supper, the communion meal and then you have at the very end of the book the great banquet feast of heaven which is a powerful sign that God through his son is going to reconcile all things and right every wrong. Everything which is willing to come under his authority will be brought together and reconciliation will be complete and God's job of fixing the world will have been done and all that gets expressed in this beautiful party scene, this banquet feast, this celebration at the end of the age. So this communion meal is part of that long line of meals in the Bible that's leading up to that's anticipating the end of all things and it's a good reminder to us that this business of making amends is not just something in our we hands that depends on our we efforts but it really is ultimately in God's strong hands and God has set his hand to the plow of repairing the world and he's invited us through his son to come join him in that effort and when we go about the smaller task of making amends in our lives we're stepping into a river you know who's who streams make glad the city of God a river that's got a current that's moving in a in an inexorable direction and we're buoyed up by that stream in this process so as you come down for communion you lay if you have a card with a name or a business with God thought on it that you want to lay in there just remember that you're part of that that river you're stepping into that stream and when we come to the Lord's Supper this table it's a reminder that we're coming to the we're anticipating that great banquet feast when all the wrongs are righted and everyone gets pulled together under under the authority of Christ and who better than Jesus to exercise that authority so friend of sinners that he is okay let's stand up and I just offer a prayer of thanks father we thank you for this time together we thank you for this meal that has laid before us in the presence of everything in life that is set against us we thank you for providing his father with spiritual food and spiritual drink the body of your son broken for us the blood of your son shed for us to nourish us with mercy and with grace to cover a multitude of our sins we thank you that you lay this before us as not as this this real somber thing where you're shaking your outstretched finger at us but this is part of a banquet feast this is part of a party that you're throwing for us that you're welcoming us in to the joy at the center of the universe which is the love between the father the son and the holy spirit and so we come with joy and we come with humility and we come with hope and anticipation of that better day that awaits us all through your son we ask that the same holy spirit that raised Jesus from the dead would hover over us as we gather around this table and would knit our hearts together as one and would make us amenders in this world Pray that in Jesus precious name.