Harbor of Hope

Summary:

Colossians 3:13 says… “Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you.  Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.” 
 

Welcome:

So here we are…in week three of a series that we’re calling 30 Days Left to Live which all about acknowledging and embracing the brevity of life…and asking questions like, ‘If I had 30 days left to live, what would I do, who would I spend it with, where would I go, what would my priorities look like?’  And that in asking those questions, we would begin to embrace every moment of life that God gives us as a gift from him.  


My experience – over the last couple of weeks, as I’ve put some of this into practice, I have enjoyed time spent with my children in a new way…why?  It’s not because they changed…it’s not that I had more time on my hands…didn’t read a good book suggesting ‘ten ways to enjoy your kids’…I simply began to embrace the moment…I’ve put my phone down, tried to take myself less seriously, put work aside, prayed, asking God to help me to live in the moment…30 days left to live…I want to have a snowball fight with my kids…I want to be laughing so hard that we can’t stand up, I want to read with them at night without always looking at the clock, I don’t want to use my fatigue as an excuse to check out…I want to capture the moments that God gives…that’s life).  I want to be fully present for my family.     

The foundational verse for this series comes from Psalm 39:4-5.  Please read it with me.

“Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be.  Remind me that my days are numbered – how fleeting my life is.  You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand.  My entire lifetime is just a moment to you at best, each of us is but a breath.”    39:4-5

So…here’s where we’re going today.  We’re going to talk honestly about relationships as we explore what God’s Word has to say about them. 

(T) My guess today, is that many of us have relationships in our lives that are not what we want them to be, maybe not what they should be.  Many of the times, it comes down to the simple fact that we are unsure of how to speak life into other people.  Or, we don’t take the time to consistently encourage or affirm, to listen to someone’s words, to hear their heart, to truly care about them. 

Then, there are some of us here today (each of us have experienced this) who have relationships that are broken and fractured.  And the reasons why are all across the spectrum.  For some of us, it’s like the Hatfields and McCoys three generations later who are still shooting each other, but don’t really know why.  It’s like, things were fine, then something happened, and the relationship took a left turn.  Well what happened?  I don’t know…something...   

But for most of us, we do know why…it was an argument with a friend that led to anger, and a grudge before bitterness finally set in. 

Maybe it’s a family relationship that is splintered…

It could be that you had expectations of what marriage would be like, but somehow, your spouse hasn’t met those expectations, so you’re hurt, you’re angry at him or her. 

Is anyone in here with me?  Do you have a relationship like this?  My hope is that you come away today encouraged and challenged by God’s Word, and that you discover His dream for your relationships.  That if necessary, some of us would be convicted today, in order that we would begin to trust God and move with Him in those relationships. 

Read with me from Ephesians 4:3 … “Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, bonding yourselves together with peace.”  Ephesians 4:3

When Paul says to ‘make every effort’ he is saying to strive eagerly and earnestly for peace with others. 

So, if you have a relationship that is fractured, on the edge, less than what God designed you for…The Scriptures say, ‘rather than retreating in defeat, surrendering to relational brokenness (our tendency), fight for peace in that relationship.’ 
So what does this look like?  What do we do? 

Let me show you some specific ways in which God leads and instructs us to do this…

Confront Humbly

Matthew 5:23-24 says… “…if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar.  Go and be reconciled to that person.  Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.” 

Here’s what Jesus is saying…If there is disunity in any way, reconciliation takes precedence over corporate worship…

(Here’s the problem – Jesus says this, but we don’t take this verse seriously…we don’t…we read this verse, say to ourselves, Jesus, you’re just kidding, right, leave worship to make a relationship right?) 

Here’s how it plays out, and I’m just going to take the body of Christ, as an example…If you’ve been around the church for very long, you are aware, perhaps painfully aware, that the church is made up of less than perfect people.  And yet it still surprises us when a believer…a Christ-follower peeves us. 

Like, you’re driving up and someone takes a parking place that you were gunning for; or you’re a volunteer and someone on your team doesn’t show up, or you’ve been coming for several months and that person, that couple, they sit in front of you and they’ve never said ‘hello’ to you.  Sometimes we just need to get over that stuff because it’s petty. 

Let’s get a little closer to home.  Someone in your small group says something that is insensitive…it hurt. Or someone’s personality rubs you the wrong way; or someone broke trust, they broke confidentiality, or I said something that irritated you six months ago…I mean, this thing plays out in a hundred different ways.  
Jesus knows that our natural tendency is to take those instances, the petty irritations, the wrongs, the hurts, and we stuff them.  No big deal, I’m just going to avoid them…I’m going to walk down the kid’s wing and not look at them…circle of trust, boom…you’re out.  Secretly I’ll start wishing that they go to another church.  I’ll huddle up with a friend and talk about them…

Christians have a way of cloaking their interaction in superficial niceness.  I’ve been in churches where people don’t truly love each other, they just muscle up and act like they do.  When this happens, it destroys unity, and it hinders worship, and it cripples our message to the world that God is love…God is love…

Which is why Jesus, who is divinely intuitive, says…you walk in here on a Sunday morning, you’re worshipping, and God presses you…and let me tell you this.  God’s pressing isn’t always, ‘Jed, you should fight for peace with that person.’  God pressing is oftentimes Him allowing the feelings that I have for someone come to mind…He allows my emotions to get amped toward a person…and He’s pressing, the most worshipful thing we can do in that moment is to stop singing, connect with that person, and engage them in a loving and honest conversation about what has gone wrong with the relationship.  To be honest…to confront a wrong…confess a grudge…pursue peace.   

Because loving someone, forgiving, confessing to someone, restoring a relationship is one of the most worshipful, God-honoring things that you and I can do. 

In my experience, deep relational peace requires a healthy amount of honest, humble confrontation and confession. 

My question for you is whom do you need to confront?  What is their name, what is the situation?  Prayerfully surrender that to God and move forward to fight for peace.

Here’s a 2^nd way to fight for peace …

Love Deeply
1 Peter 4:8 says… “Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.” 

What does Peter mean by this? 

Peter is saying that deep, God-honoring love offers the opportunity for a relationship that has been broken to be restored.  To love deeply is not to stand by while our broken relationships remain unresolved; deep love pursues reconciliation. 

Peter isn’t saying that love ignores sin…He’s not saying that love ignores the hurt that’s someone else causes you, that you allow someone to perpetually wrong you.  That’s not what he’s saying.  He’s not even saying that you should ‘forgive and forget.’  That’s more of a trite saying that a biblical one. 

It’s like, when your spouse hurts or disappoints you, and if you’re married, that’s inevitable.  You can hold a grudge…you can resent them for it.  Or you can pursue reconciliation in love.  Doesn’t mean you ignore it…doesn’t mean you justify their sin, or their wrong behavior…but you confront humbly, and you love deeply.

Does anyone in here have a family member who does or says ridiculous, mean, hurtful things?  Anyone?  You can get annoyed, and cut off the relationship; or, you can act like nothing is wrong but stop letting them into your life.  Or, in obedience to Christ, you can confront the reality of the situation and pursue relational wholeness.     
  
Love that covers a multitude of sins is the kind of love that is unmerited, simply meaning that people don’t have to earn your love, they don’t have to deserve your love, they don’t have to behave in a certain way for you to love them.  You simply love them. 

And do you know what I think is the most difficult thing about this?  You can’t control how they respond, can you?
Your relationship might get better, but it might not, maybe it gets worse.

You know what else is difficult?  No one in here has the capacity, in and of themselves, to love like this…I don’t, you don’t.  Outside of the knowledge of God’s love for me in Christ Jesus that changes me and motivates me to love deeply, I just can’t love this way on my own.  Only by the grace and the power of God…that’s it.  And when I recognize that, and I understand how patient, and how long-suffering God is in his love for me, and how many times he has stood at the end of the road waiting for me to come home, I begin to understand the transformational nature of God’s love. 

Did you know that in every letter that Paul writes, he deals with some form of relational issue…every letter. 

            Romans 12:9-10 – “

            2 Cor. 13:11 – “

            Galatians 5:13-15 – “

            Ephesians 2:4 – “

            Philippians 2:2-4 – “

Why such an emphasis on unity? 

If God is love, and if we’re made in God’s image, meaning that God designed you with the capacity to love like Him…If that is true, then being able to love…learning to forgive…pursuing unity, forgiving irrationally, is part of what it means for us to be truly human…to our becoming who God designed us to be…emotionally, relationally, spiritually.

I’m convinced that every relationship, to be a healthy relationship, requires this kind of love…the Bible calls it grace.
My question to you is, ‘who is the person that you need to extend love to?’  Who is it that needs your love if the relationship is ever going to become what God designed it to be?  This week, will you make the phone call, write the letter, start fighting for peace? 


Colossians 3:13 says… “Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you.  Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.” 

The NIV actually says, ‘forgive as the Lord forgave you.’ 

Let’s do a replay of our lives.  What has Christ forgiven you and I for?  He’s forgiven us for anger…Forgiven us for slander, back-biting, gossip, defaming someone’s character…He’s forgiven us for lust…walking away from our committed relationships…forgiven us for hating others…forgiven us for turning insignificant things like money and houses and cars and careers into gods and worshipping them with our time and energy and affection.  He’s forgiven us for ignoring him, rejecting him, walking away from him.  He’s forgiven us of addictive, self-destructive behaviors.  He’s forgiven us of our obsessive desire to control, lies, manipulation…and on and on. 

He has forgiven, He has covered our sin with His love…He has given His Son on our behalf…Jesus Christ who knew no sin, became your sin, my sin, he took your place, so that you might be forgiven, healed, your relationship with God restored, your heart transformed, so that you may live as God designed you to live, become who He has designed you to be.  Why?  Because God loves you deeply. 

And so, in loving us, He asks us to love.  In forgiving us…he asks us to forgive…Why?  Because when we forgive, we’re loving like God. 

Sin destroys, but love covers a multitude of sins.  Sin divides, love restores.  Sin tears down, love builds up.  Sin hurts, love heals.  Sin destroys…love redeems and perfects.    
Who is God calling you to forgive?  Who do you need to ask for forgiveness? 

I want to encourage you to start today…don’t put it off any longer.  Our life is like a mist…no wider that the breadth of our hand…

Will you fight for peace in our relationships? 

You know…when all is said and done…when we’re looking at our last days, our last moments; I’m going to guess that most of us in here would desire for our relationships to be filled with peace.  When our lives are over, whether that’s today, tomorrow, or years from now, in that moment, one of the greatest offerings of worship that we can give to God is to be able to say with all that we are… In the moments and days that you gave me, I have honored you by esteeming the people you’ve placed in my life.  I have learned to love…to forgive…  

And as a result, my relationships were rich…love I experienced with others, deep…Thank you…thank you…

Watch this video…

Pray with me…

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