Being a good listener...

Raul Garcia III

August 12, 2018

Let us Pray:

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing to you my Lord my rock and redeemer.

Amen.

We are going to talk about Ephesians this morning because there are a few verses that I like and I think we need to dig into.

We are going to start this morning with a game. I love this game and if you have a chance please download it and play it with your family. It’s called Heads Up! It is an Ellen game she helped develop so let’s play. We are going to divide the congregation this side against that side. So let’s get our creative juices going. The category is The Bible. A word is going to pop up on the screen and you are going to give me clues so I can say that word on the screen. We’ll tally which group does better.

Here we go….

We can play this game the rest of worship time but I have another 45 minutes for my sermon. Just kidding.

We all have this common goal in y’all are trying to have me say the word on the screen by yelling at me or giving me clues. These clues are coming from everywhere so I am trying to find the answer. But unless I figure this out and focus on one person I can get the right answer but I also hope I focus on the right person.

In Ephesians, Paul is working so hard to bring unity between the Gentiles and Jews. He wants the Gentiles and Jews to be unified and to live a God honoring lifestyle.

Our church is a beautiful church. I’m not talking about the building, I’m talk about the people. We have people from all walks of life. Young and Wise. We need to embrace this beauty.

The world is sometimes not like this where we need to embrace each others beauty. We need to be able to tolerate others. We sometimes are fast to talk about someone or hurt someone to make ourselves feel better.

I am so guilty of this. To be honest and open with y’all. Some of y’all may know this but I hated my father. I hated my father for he did to my mom, sister, little brother and myself. He was an alcoholic abusive husband and father. I remember spending weekends at the women’s battered shelter to protect ourselves from my dad’s rampages. I remember getting in between him and my mom or sister when he was hitting them so he can hit me instead. So I can protect them. I had every right to hate this man. But it consumed me. Hate consumes a person. That is what the devil wants. The devil wants us to hold grudges, hold hate inside us. Point to others and say I don’t like you because you don’t look like me. Sometimes we can be sinned against and it hurts both emotionally and physically. It is in our human nature that we want revenge, we want to hurt that other person that made us hurt. It’s hard for us to say we forgive. Even me who has worked in a church for a long time and know that we should forgive didn’t want to forgive.

It wasn’t till about ten ago when I buried my brother that I saw my father at his funeral. It filled my whole being with rage when I saw him there. As I was there I opened a bible and this verse in Ephesians came up.

“Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. So, therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.”

I saw my dad after the funeral and talk with him and gave him a hug and told him I forgive you dad. For everything you did to us. I forgive you.

As hard as it was, it was the right thing to do for me.

I couldn’t live with this anger and hatred inside me anymore.

I need a clear conscience because if I am going to preach and teach about forgiveness I need to practice this myself.

We are not perfect. We are a house full of sinners and hypocrites and that is okay. This is the place we can come to confess to God.

In a few minutes when we come up for communion we start over again. We get a big do over. We are forgiven because Jesus already took that burden from us.

So,
Let us speak the truth,
Let no evil come out of our mouths, so that we can build each other up     

Let us put away our bitterness, wrath, anger, slander Let us: be kind to one another, be tenderhearted, forgive one another and live in LOVE!!

Because no matter what is happening in our lives we can show love, Christ Love.

Love conquers all!!

AMEN!!!