Forgiveness in the Family (Hosea 3.1-5 and Ephesians 4.17-32)

Introduction

We are coming towards to the end of our little series about family life, marriage, singleness, teenagers, aging relatives, young children, grandchildren, Uncle Tom Cobley and all. I hope you’ve found it helpful, even when the subject matter does not directly apply to you and your current circumstances.

I think there is so much confusion and chaos in our society caused by the steady drift away from biblical values - and so often the world’s ideas get into the church - that I think it’s essential to try and set out a Christian vision for living. If we adopt the common sense approach that we find in God’s word we will save ourselves and others an awful lot of grief.

What I want to talk about this morning is forgiveness in the family.

Actually, this applies to all relationships, but it is in family life where the fallout, when things go wrong, is greatest. In in my experience (over 20 years of church leadership) I would have to say to you that the overwhelming number one cause of pastoral problems and relationship breakdowns and family unhappiness is unforgiveness.

Why Forgiveness is Important

Whoever you are, and whatever kind of family relationships you have, and I include the wider family here, you have to make a fundamental daily choice. It’s a choice that will determine more than any other how healthy your relationships will be.

Even in the most loving families there will be times when siblings, or spouses or parents or children or even uncles, aunts, nieces and nephews upset and offend each other. It’s barely avoidable and often quite accidental. It’s not a matter of “if”, it’s a matter of “when” we get hurt by others in our family.

Here is a little selection of the kind of thing I mean:

• Have you ever forgotten a birthday or anniversary?
• Have you ever promised a treat to the children, then forgotten all about it or got too tired?
• Have you ever failed to notice all the trouble someone else in the family took to treat you, only to have to have it pointed out?
• Or have you refrained from a hug from a family member because you were in the middle of doing something?
• Did you ever miss your child’s sports day or school play because of an emergency at work?
• Or were you that child eagerly waiting for mum or dad to come and watch you only to feel rejected because they didn’t turn up?
• Have you ever found yourself fighting and arguing in front of the children?
• Or, as a child, blocking your ears as your mum and dad quarrelled.

I can relate to most of the above.

When you do get upset and hurt by things like that, and you will, you’ll need to decide if:

a) you are going to allow the pain fester away and slowly poison your relationships, or
b) if you are going to deal with it.

This is so critical. Personal hurt and personal forgiveness is one of the key areas where we have to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ.

Let me try and illustrate why dealing with stored up hurt is so important.

One of the worst household problems you can have is a blocked drain. Have you ever had a blocked drain in your home? We once had one when I was a boy. The toilets took ages to flush and whenever it rained there was a foul smell all around the house.

We got the plunger out and tried it on the sinks and toilets. Nothing happened.

So we poured an acid-based product down to try and dissolve whatever was blocking the drainage pipes. That didn’t work either.

So my dad took the drain cover off and tried to fish out anything obvious that shouldn’t be there; a dead cat or something - to no avail.

So finally, we called in a professional firm who turned up in a day-glow van. They spent quite some time… drinking tea if truth be told… but eventually they sent some long rods down into the main sewer and poked around until, all of a sudden, there was a satisfying slurp and glug, glug, glug – and all the raw sewage quickly drained away.

Unresolved emotional pain in your family is like that drain. If you don’t deal with daily hurt through forgiveness it’s like you’re pouring wax, cement, lard and such like down the wastepipe over many months.

Dealing with the Issues

In Ephesians 4.26-27 it says “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.”

In other words, whatever you do, don’t let a single day pass without dealing with whatever caused you hurt and resolving it before it becomes unmanageable.

The devil hates families. 1Peter 5.8 describes him as “a roaring lion, prowling about, looking to devour.” He wants to split families up and cause as much unhappiness as he can. Don’t let the devil get his foot in the door by lying awake all night with unresolved anger and festering grievances. Sort it out.

When it comes to dealing with anger in relationships, people sometimes talk about rhinos and hedgehogs. Have you heard that before? When they feel under threat, rhinos and hedgehogs do things differently. Rhinos charge and hedgehogs curl up into a ball.

Some people are like rhinos. When they are hurt by someone they want to talk about it immediately. They confront the issues.

Rhinos say things like, “I just need to say that I felt really humiliated when you were joking about me at the party.”

Some people are like hedgehogs, though. When they get hurt by someone, they tend to become withdrawn and a bit, well… prickly. Instead of dealing with the problem head on they go into a sulk. And when the person who has offended us asks “Is something wrong?” we say, “No, no everything’s fine.”

Let’s have a little show of hands. How many of you would say you tend to behave like rhinos? When someone upsets you, you let them know about it and clear the air...

And how many of you would say you tend to behave like hedgehogs? When someone upsets you, you prefer not to complain so you go quiet and stew...

They say that the population is divided roughly 50:50 on this one.

But I think there are more hedgehogs per head of population in Britain than anywhere else on earth. We don’t like to make a fuss. “Keep calm and carry on.” We love that don’t we?

Other countries have noticed this national trait as well. The Italians (who are 99% rhinos!) have a proverb that says “Step on an Englishman’s toes and he’ll apologise to you.” A German friend of mine once told me that German cafés serve their worst beer to the English because they know that they will never complain!

If you are a rhino, you’ll need to learn to express your frustrations graciously.

“I felt wound up when you turned up 20 minutes late after I specifically asked you to try to be on time.” That’s good.

“You’re always late, you never take me seriously do you?” That’s not so good.

If you’re a hedgehog, I’ll remind you of what you probably know already - suppressing your hurt emotions is not healthy because it usually leads to explosions later.

This is why Ephesians 4 goes on to say in v31 “Get rid of all bitterness… and every form of malice.” Get rid of it. Sort it out. Don’t let it fester.

And v32 says “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

In order to keep the family relationship drains unblocked there are three simple steps:

1. Talk about what has caused hurt
2. Be prepared to say sorry
3. Choose to forgive each other and forget about it

Forgiveness Keeps Trust Alive

That is God’s plan for good, healthy families and it builds the kind of trust the Lord intended for family life.

Nicky and Sila Lee in their excellent The Marriage Book (from whom I borrowed and adapted a lot of material for this) talk about trust in family relationships being like the glass in a window. What’s the glass for in these windows? The purpose of the glass is to let light in and keep the weather and noise out.

Window panes can be surprisingly tough; 4mm glass resists driving rain and howling winds and even footballs - but one hammer blow will shatter it instantly.

Trust between a husband and wife, or between a parent and a child, is equally fragile.

The trust that God designed for family life can be shattered in moments through devastating events like unfaithfulness, and angry outbursts or violence. Children are almost always scarred by marriage breakdown.

I’ve spoken to many couples who have no intention of ever getting married because of the heartache they suffered when their own parents’ marriage broke down. But it’s not marriage that is the problem. The Office of National Statistics reports that the problem is actually worse for cohabiting couples. They found that 8% of married couples split up within 5 years of the birth of their first child. The equivalent for cohabiting couples is over 40%.

The problem is a breakdown of trust due to a failure to resolve differences.

It’s challenging to forgive big traumas like emotional abuse, divorce and infidelity – as Hosea found out. God asked him to take his wife back after she had run off as a prostitute. I wonder how he felt. Well, he felt like God feels about us when we go after our idols, that’s the point of the book of Hosea.

Like a brick through a window pane, trust can be shattered through trauma. But most of the time that window just becomes gradually dimmed by a build-up of relationship dust and dirt.

We get our vicarage windows cleaned once a month. It’s amazing how quickly the dust and rain make them look filthy again. They usually need cleaning after a fortnight.

Family relationships also get messy through the accumulation of thoughtlessness.

Just as we need to regularly clean the windows, we need to make sure that little lies and small acts of unkindness and criticism and nagging don’t build up resentment.

If you never give your children an outlet to talk about what they resent, it can tick away like a time bomb and then explode in the teenage years. Children need to learn to give vent to what upsets them, learn to say sorry and to forgive.

Resentment build up in marriage can be lethal as well. The author John Taylor in his book “Falling” wrote this: “Our marriage wasn’t hellish, it was simply dispiriting. My wife and I didn’t hate each other; we simply got on each other's nerves. Over the years we each had accumulated a store of minor unresolved grievances. Our marriage was a mechanism so encrusted with small disappointments and petty grudges that its parts no longer closed.”

Once again,

1. Talk about what has caused hurt
2. Be prepared to say sorry
3. Choose to forgive each other and forget about it

If this three step process had been applied the grievances would have got resolved and the mechanism wouldn’t have rusted over.

Ending

So as I close, one more thought from Ephesians 4.17-18.

I started off by talking about the growing muddle in our society caused by the steady drift away from biblical values.

The Bible says this: “You must no longer live as the Gentiles do,” (he’s talking about people who don’t do God). You must no longer live as they do “in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.

Darkened understanding that separates you from the life of God, the Bible says, comes from a hardening of the heart; unforgiveness.

Are you letting the Holy Spirit soften your heart so that forgiveness and healing is flowing in your family?

Are you keeping the drains free from the blockages of unresolved hurt?

Are you regularly cleaning the windows of all that petty criticism and nagging and thoughtlessness?

If you want to ask God to give you grace to do this, ask someone on the prayer ministry to pray with you at the end of the service. Maybe you want to take a step and release forgiveness to someone who hurt you. The Holy Spirit wants to bring deliverance today.

Chains be broken! Lives be healed! Eyes be opened! Christ is revealed!

Let’s stand to pray…


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 15th July 2012

The Church Family (James 2.14-26 and Matthew 12.46-50)

A little girl asked her mother, “How did the human race appear?”

The mother answered, “Well, God made Adam and Eve and then they had children, and then they had their own children and so on.”

Two days later the girl asked her father the same question. “How did the human race appear?” He answered, “Well, many years ago there were monkeys from which the human race evolved.”

The little girl was very confused and returned to her mother and said, “Mum, you told me we were created by God, and dad said we evolved from monkeys.”

So the mother answered, “Well, dear, it is very simple. I told you about my side of the family and your father told you about his!”

We are coming towards to the end of our little series about family life, marriage, singleness, teenagers, aging relatives, children and grandchildren.

What about the church as a family? Is the church like a dysfunctional family unit?

Actually, someone might ask, is “family” even the right word to describe relationships in the local church? Some people don’t like the term “family services” because, either they live alone and feel excluded, or their experience of family is so bad they would just rather we find another word altogether.

The word “family” is used 17 times in the New Testament and perhaps only once is it used to describe the local church; it’s in Galatians 6.10 and it says this -

“Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”

That means the church. But it’s just one verse and some people might argue that the church isn’t really like a family at all. There are other metaphors in the Bible that are used much more often to express what church is like.

For example, the church is compared to a healthy body, a holy temple, a beautiful bride, a fertile field, a trained army, a royal priesthood and even a busy building site. (I have to admit I’ve met a few cowboy builders in my time in the church)!

But the Bible often uses family language to describe what happens to us when we come into a relationship with God through Jesus.

When you came to faith, God was no longer a remote and unfriendly being outside your experience. No, you experienced him as your heavenly Father. Christians are called children of God.

And relationships between Christians are given family-like words too. Paul called Timothy his true son in the faith. And in Romans 16, when he is saying “hello” to a list of acquaintances before signing off, Paul says “Greet Rufus… and his mother, who has been a mother to me, too.”

All through the epistles believers are addressed as “brother and sisters.”

God does not want us to be on formal terms, addressing one another as Rev. Lambert or Doctor Littlehailes or Mr. Wake, but on first name terms and with the genuine familiarity and affection that siblings have.

You remember Winston Churchill’s speech to Parliament on 4th June 1940: “Whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.” Well, that sounds exactly like the back of the car on the way to my family holidays when I was about 8.

Most of my childhood was spent being tormented by, my sister (who was bossy because she was the oldest) and tormenting my brother (who got away with murder because he was the youngest).

Siblings do argue from time to time and Christians have disagreements too.

Christians fall out because they are brothers and sisters. God understands that and this is why the Bible says that we need to work hard at maintaining the unity of the Spirit.

And so, in 1 John 4.19, we are given the vision of church being family.

This is how John puts it in that verse: “We love because God first loved us. If we say we love God yet hate a brother or sister (he is talking about fellow Christians), we are liars. For any of us who do not love a brother or sister whom we have seen, cannot love God whom we have not seen. And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love one another.”

It is a wonderful thing that, when we come to Christ, we are born into a family with brothers and sisters. The church throughout the world is family. It’s an amazing thing, you know, you can travel to any part of the world and there you will find believers in Jesus Christ and you have this filial relationship with them as soon as you meet them.

Two weeks ago, I was in Edinburgh for our daughter’s wedding in the Free Reformed Church where she and Iain met. The church was very different in feel to both All Saints’ and Saint Mary’s – but Kathie and I immediately felt completely at ease. We sing the same worship songs, we read and treasure the same scriptures, we love the same God. We share the same vocabulary and values. I found myself thinking “I hardly know a soul in Edinburgh but this is just like home.”

They say you choose your friends but can’t change your family. Take a look around you this morning. These are your brothers and your sisters!

If you’re not a Christian yet, they are your potential brothers and sisters! I don’t know whether that would make you want to be a Christian or not! I hope it would… But we are one family and our common language is love.

In the world, we talk of big families, small families, dysfunctional families, happy families, single-parent families, extended families, weird families, extended families, broken families, famous families, tragic families and so on. What should the family of God be like?

Our reading from James suggests that it should be a community that believes certain things and that behaves a certain way. James paints a vivid picture of what that should look like. Let’s look at James 2.14-18 again:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if people claim to have faith but have no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or sister [note the family language] is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?

So in the church family, there is no favouritism. Love must be genuine and words must be matched by deeds.

Holy Trinity Brompton’s annual Leadership Conference took place in May. Our own Kathryn Belmont was one of 4,000 people representing over 900 churches from over 50 countries who gathered at the Royal Albert Hall, which was full to bursting.

Such was the pressure for space, the Queen had even granted permission for the Royal Box to be used, which is quite something. Who do you think the organisers arranged to be seated in the Royal Box?

Well, Tony Blair was at the conference as a speaker but it wasn’t him. Rick Warren was there too (this is the man who led in prayer at Barak Obama’s investiture as US President and whose book, The Purpose Driven Life, has sold 30 million copies) but it wasn’t him either. Several prominent bishops and politicians and ambassadors were there but none was seated in the Royal Box.

Who then? The organisers used it to seat homeless people and ex-offenders. Isn’t that just genius? I cannot imagine any other organisation on earth who would even think of doing that. But, you see, everyone is a VIP in the family of God - including you.

They say there’s no place like home. Home is where the heart is. But one of the most painful things in Jesus’ life was that members of his family misunderstood him and even opposed him. So he said “The Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

John’s gospel reveals that, up until the resurrection, his brothers did not believe in him. Mark’s gospel says that they thought he was mad.

The incident in our Gospel reading tellingly finds Jesus’ family ‘outside’ while Jesus is ‘inside’. They weren’t interested in Jesus’ ministry. They wanted him to follow them – and if you’ve got family who aren’t believers you’ll probably know how that feels.

Jesus used this awkward situation to talk about who he thinks his real family is.

“Pointing to his disciples, [Mary Magdalene, Peter, James, John, Joanna, Susanna, Matthew…] he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother’” (Matthew 12.49-50). What did his family make of that, I wonder?

They say that blood is thicker than water (meaning that family bonds are closer than any other and that allegiance should always be to family first).

But Jesus says otherwise here. When the family you are born into comes between you and the will God, as it did for Jesus, it has to be challenged.

I hope you have acknowledged who Jesus is and made a settled decision to follow him as Lord and Saviour. That alone is what brings someone into a relationship with Christ - and a friendship that, the Bible says, is closer than that of a brother. That alone is what makes you a member of the best family on earth - God’s family.


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 15th July 2012

Bride's Father Speech

On the Occasion of the Marriage of Anna Lambert and Iain Hamill - 30th June 2012

Well, I’d like to thank you all for coming from various parts of the country (and indeed from abroad, even from as far as New Zealand) to be with us here in Edinburgh on Anna and Iain’s wedding day.

It shows how much you love and appreciate the bride and groom. Either that or you just can’t resist a free meal! But even that comes at a price, because now you have to listen to me.

Thank you too for all those who have helped plan and prepare this magnificent occasion.

Anna was born on Good Friday in 1985.

I remember vividly the trip to the hospital, the feeling of terror when the monitor showed that Anna had a slow heartbeat as Kathie went into labour, the birth itself around 10:00pm and the trip home in a taxi across London just feeling dazed and elated. I didn’t sleep a wink that night.

As soon as the sun rose the next day I dashed over to the hospital to see my wife and baby girl and this is what I saw.

Our eyes met and she looked at me as if to say… who’s this idiot?

But ever since that day, I have loved her and prayed for her, dreamed dreams for her and enjoyed watching her grow into the beautiful woman and radiant bride you behold and admire today.

Some say that fathers can be a little one sided about their daughters but I have objective photographic evidence here that Anna was destined to be so talented it would be a major headache deciding which glittering career path she would choose and which she would spurn.

Would she be the ribbon-twirling gymnast effortlessly bringing home Olympic gold?

Or, as she giggled excitedly taking her first steps at an improbably young age, would she be the intrepid explorer boldly going where no man had gone before?

Would she transport with emotion the entire Royal Albert Hall as she interpreted the great works of classical piano with a finesse never heard before…

…and win, by several furlongs, every Grand National, Epsom Derby and Cheltenham Gold Cup for three decades?

Or would she perhaps singlehandedly transform a half-witted Sunday driver with a glass eye and wooden leg into a Formula One champion…

…while singing Verdi’s La Traviata?

Or would she become a Structural Engineer to make Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Gustave Eiffel seem like complete morons...

…whilst appearing on the cover of every fashion magazine?

Would she perhaps singlehandedly save every child on the planet…

…and still cross the Tour de France finish line on the Champs Elysees while the peloton was still sweating away somewhere in the Alps?

She would surely be all of the above, as well as an internationally acclaimed artist…

…able to effortlessly find the perfect balance between work and leisure...

...not forgetting family, for whom she would be the perfect mother.

Kathie and I want to say today that we are hugely proud of our daughter and that she has surpassed all our expectations and wildest dreams.

At the risk of this becoming a short sermon, it says in Psalm 145 “One generation will commend your works to another” and I think that goes two ways; not just from elder to younger but from younger to older too.

One damp, misty morning when Anna was about 3 she was strapped into the back of our 2CV (this picture was taken one evening on the way home). I tried turning the engine but it was hopeless. For about quarter of an hour it just wouldn’t start. I was getting more and more annoyed when from the back seat Anna cheerfully shouted “Come on Jesus, start the car!” I put the key back in the ignition, turned it again and it started like a dream. It’s one of our most precious memories of Anna’s childhood and still inspires us today when we pray about wretched situations.

They say that a father’s relationship with his daughter is special and that is true.

A baby, before you know it, is a toddler, is at school, is playing musical instruments and taking exams.

But, in my experience it doesn’t happen gradually. The journey through childhood into adulthood seems to come in sudden leaps.

I remember several occasions when I looked at Anna and my heart seemed to skip a beat. There in front of me was no longer an infant, with all the spontaneity and simplicity that children have.

There before me was a young woman with an emerging elegance, grace and charm.

The thing is that, for a parent, the days pass slowly but the years pass quickly.

When we learned that Anna was courting Iain we immediately went on a scouting mission on Facebook to find out more about him. Was he ever going to be good enough for our daughter?

We discovered he was a Christian. That ticked the most important box.

He was intelligent and studying economics. That ticked the box entitled “I hope he won’t come scrounging the rent having blown it on the horses.”

He was into rugby and mountaineering and was a handsome, strapping lad. That ticked the “good bet for future grandchildren” box.

What was not to like about this young man? And even though we only ever really understood one word in three that he spoke, we unreservedly approved.

So when Iain formally asked me for Anna’s hand last year, I don’t know what came over me when I found myself saying “What would you do if I said no?”

The poor young man looked genuinely distressed! Needless to say, I reassured him that we have prayed all Anna’s life that the Lord would show her the kindness of providing her with a godly man who would love her deeply – and that we believe he is a wonderful answer to all our prayers.

Iain, we are so thrilled to be welcoming you into our family. We so loved staying with your delightful family last year in Northern Ireland and I want to pay tribute to Andrew and Anne for raising such a fine son.

Watching Anna, by the grace of God, getting from (A) to (B) has been one of my life’s greatest privileges.

And when I walked Anna down the aisle and placed her hand in Iain’s today, it was one of the most significant and emotional moments of my life. It was also one of the happiest.

Iain, you have won my daughter’s heart and you can make her happier now than I, or anyone else, ever can - and, for that, Kathie and I are overjoyed.

We wish you both every blessing and happiness together in married life.

Ladies and gentlemen can I ask you to stand, raise your glasses and join me in a toast for the health and happiness of the new Mr. and Mrs. Hamill.

To Iain and Anna!