Hope: Healing For The Home

Hope & Healing For The Home

Morning Star Family Day 11/22/98 Genesis 50:15-21 Ephesians 4:17-32

Today as you celebrate Family Day, I want you to know that no family is complete without the presence of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ in the home. God has many ways of entering into our families in order to get our attention that in Him there is hope and healing for every home.

The story is told of a man and his three boys who lived in the woods. There was old man Jed, Sam, Clyde, and Bobby. They had some of the foulest mouths with absolutely no need for God. God’s name was not mentioned without a curse word behind it. One day Bobby was out hunting and a rattlesnake bit him. They took him to the doctor. Things didn’t look good for Bobby. The doctor told them "there’s not much hope for a healing" My advice to you is to do some serious praying.

Afraid of losing his son, old man Jed told Clyde, "Go get that new preacher that’s been bugging us for a six months to come to come to church, to come and pray for your brother, Bobby. Clyde went and got the preacher. Rev. Jones was an honest and direct preacher . He had been frustrated with the whole family, but seeing them in need he came to offer prayer. He said Lord, "I thank you for sending this rattlesnake to bite Bobby. Before he got bit, he never thought about you and what you could do for his life. Lord, in your mercy, please touch and heal his body. Now Lord would you please send two more rattlesnakes to bite Sam and Clyde, and a great big ole rattlesnake for their dad old man Jed so that you might get their attention as well."

Knowing God, is not simply about trying to get a hold of God when there is an emergency in the home. It’s not about hoping that when we get into a jam, the God we’ve ignored day after day is going to come to our aid like the hero in the movies.

God is not interested in being our hero. Jesus rose that He might be the ruler of our lives in everyday situations, so that He could fill us with power to live differently. Knowing God is knowing that there is always hope and healing for our lives and for our families. We all look so nice here on Family Day and there will be even more great looking people at the next service, but a relationship with God goes deeper than looking nice. Behind our good looks are families in pain. The bible is real down to earth book that deals with real life situations. It tells it like it is.

It tells of the heartache that we experience in families. There were two brothers, Cain and Able. One was so envious of another, he killed him. There’s a father, David, and a son, Amon, who stops speaking to each other for years. There’s a brother, Amnon who rapes his sister, Tamar. There’s a mother, Rebekah who plays favorites with her sons, Jacob and Esau. . There’s a son who is stealing from his mother. There’s a daughter who connives to have sex with her father. There’s a father who abuses his wife. There’s a wife who cheats on her husband.

There’s a son who demands his inheritance even before his father dies, as if the world owed him a living. There’s a father who destroys his family because he will not control his lust. There’s a man who leaves his wife for a younger woman. There are good parents whose children completely reject their religious teachings and live immoral lives. The pain caused by all these things go on and on and on. Little has changed. Today in our homes, we have children stealing from their parents, we have spouses unfaithful to each other, we have family members not speaking to each other, we have hatred and jealousy between brothers and sisters, we have sexual abuse of children going on.

We have promises that are made and broken, we have ungrateful parents that no matter how much we do, its never enough. We have ungrateful family members that live off of us, never contributing a dime, yet they seek to make us feel as though they are doing us a favor by letting us take care of them. We have circumstances that we did not ask for and situations that simply dropped into our lives. My friends merely hoping these things will get better is not enough.

It is a great fallacy to think that time alone will heal each of these situations. No the person may grow older, but not necessarily wiser, or kinder, or more loving, or more responsible. We need a power from above to deal with some of these situations in order to begin to have hope and to see healing come into our situations.