LAUGH 'N LEARN

An Encouragement Ministry of Verde Valley Christian Church
Of Cottonwood Arizona
http://www.vvchristianchurch.net/

Issue # 271,    December 23,  2007

LAUGH

THE POLITICALLY CORRECT TWELVE DAYS OF C*****MAS

 On the 12th day of the Eurocentrically-imposed midwinter festival, my potential acquaintance gave to me,

TWELVE males reclaiming their inner warrior through ritual drumming.

and a Spotted Owl activist chained to an old-growth pear tree.

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<  Jim’s  >
< Message Notes  >

>       December 23, 2007          <

<   “Christmas Cheer:    >
<When Your Dream Just Died” >

>       Series Conclusion “Christmas Cheer:          <
Good News For Real People with Real Problems”

Text:  Matthew 1:18-25

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Based on a Sermon by Daniel Meyer entitled, “For Better, but Worse:
When it looks like you've married badly

 

In his book It Came from Within, Andy Stanley writes:

I met Joe at Starbucks. He was sitting in one of those overstuffed chairs with headphones on and a scowl that said, "Don't anybody come near me." Everything about his countenance and posture communicated anger. So when I saw him, I avoided eye contact and went on about my business.

As I was waiting for my soy latte, Joe approached me and said, "Aren't you Andy?" At that particular moment, I wasn't sure if I should be Andy or not…. "Somebody gave me one of your CDs," he said. "I've been listening to it. But I've got to tell you, I have a real problem with God, and the church, too, for that matter."

Joe had been through two difficult divorces. His first wife had been sexually abused as a child and was never able to face the issues involved. After 30 years of marriage, the memories of abuse surfaced and eroded their marriage, which ended in divorce. His ex-wife passed away suddenly two years later. Joe then remarried, but after three years, this too ended in a heartbreaking divorce. Joe was lonely, a recovering alcoholic. There was no evidence of the existence of God as far as he could see…. (JOE HAD EXPERIENCED THE DEATH OF HIS DREAMS)

Andy Stanley, It Came from Within (Multnomah, 2006), p. 58-60; submitted by John Beukema, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania

Contrast Joe who is angry at life and God, with Ryne Sandberg,

When the great Chicago Cubs second baseman Ryne Sandberg was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2005, he began a speech as smooth and fluid as one of his signature homeruns. There came a memorable moment, however, when Sandberg lost his usual poise. Eyes welling and lip trembling, Sandberg called his Hall of Fame induction the "second-best" thing that had ever happened to him. "My wife, Margaret, is the best thing that has ever happened to me," he said. "[Margaret] is my best friend. She is the love of my life. She is my salvation. She is my past, my present, my future. She is my sun, my moon, my stars. She is everything that's good about life, and I thank her for entering my life at a time when I needed her most." Wow. 

RYNE SANDBERG WAS BASKING IN THE GLOW OF FULFILLED DREAMS.

Every couple wants a Hall of Fame Marriage.  Can you think of a single couple that when they decided to get married did not have in their eyes the dream of building a Hall of Fame Marriage?   

They believe they will have it.  They want the kind of friendship that brings out the best in each other, that helps each other rise above adversity, the kind of marriage that produces something even larger than the sum of its parts. The kind of bond that the grandchildren and neighbors and friends will look at and say, "Oh, God, give me a relationship like that!"

Maybe you're blessed with a marriage like this. Perhaps you find yourself longing at times for that quality of connection. Maybe you haven't given much thought to how your relationship is trending, or maybe you're not married at all. Perhaps you're not interested in marriage. Whatever the case, married or unmarried, I think we can learn something from the couple we meet in the Christmas story today.

Focus:  Sometimes when we come to the end of our dreams, God gives us his dream. 

We learn particularly from Joseph today, that when your dream dies, God can resurrect a better dream. 

I.        When Your Dream Dies Admit It

We can't say for sure with what vision Mary and Joseph began their relationship together, but this much we do know: By the time we meet them in Matthew's Gospel, things appeared to be going wrong.  Joseph’s dream died!  Maybe that's the first thing they have to teach us. As hard as it can be to face, it is really important to admit it when things are looking bad.

Matthew 1:18 (NIV) This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, [--that is, before they had sexual relations--] she [Mary] was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.

When a couple get married… the vows state, “For Better or Worse.”   Well from Joseph’s perspective, it doesn't get any "worser" than that.   The vows say, “in the good times and the bad.”  It doesn’t get any “badder” than that.  It doesn't get badder in a relationship than the appearance or reality of infidelity. But, if truth be told, most affairs are really only the end-game of a character or a relationship that has been going bad for a whole lot of innings, with rare exception.

It's scary, isn't it, by what little steps things move from better to worse?

Humorist Dave Barry gives us a light-hearted example:

"At this point in the Christmas season, your standard man has purchased zero gifts. He has not yet gotten around to purchasing an acceptable gift for his wife for last Christmas. He did give her something last year, but he could tell by her reaction to it that she had not been dreaming of getting an auto-emergency kit, even though it was the deluxe model with booster cables and an air compressor. Clearly, this gift violated an important rule, but the man had no idea what this rule was, and his wife was too upset to tell him."

·        Do you understand how stories like that could figure into the collapse of something as marvelous as a marriage?  

·        Just how does a couple that starts out gazing at one another with such adoration at the altar get from there to the place where they can’t stand to look at each other?

·        If you’d ask them what went wrong, they might say things like, "Whenever we were out with friends, and I'd offer my opinion on something, she'd roll her eyes." Or, "He left me waiting on dinner so many times."

·        Maybe you wonder out loud, “You're giving up on your marriage because of rolled eyes and cold potatoes?" And they'd say: "Well, yeah. That and a million things like it."

Here’s their point. 

Romance grows by leaps and bounds at the start, but it dies by little degrees.

Sometimes this great thing called marriage gets nibbled at the edges, little steps of injury and disrespect, each so small that it hardly seems worth talking about, but each significant enough to create one more tiny layer of dangerous scar tissue over the human heart.

·        We start by complaining a little bit about certain behaviors,

o       and then we move on to regularly criticizing someone else's basic orientation,

§         and then we finally move to a mode of condemning almost altogether the other's heart and worth.

We flood each other with our anger and disappointment. It comes sweeping at them with such intensity that it knocks them off their feet so that they can barely breathe, much less know how to respond. We grow defensive, then distant, and then we just shut down. We may still keep up the chores and the public image. We may still raise the kids and get out the Christmas cards. We may still be coupling in bed. But we are no longer each other's moon and stars, no longer best friends. We're no longer the best thing that ever happened to one another.

It's always tempting to just go on and try to ignore the reality. But how can you when like in Mary, it is there, like a pregnant lump in the belly, growing bigger and bigger with time. "It's your fault," Joseph may have said to Mary, if not, surely he thought it!

"No, this whole thing's bigger than me, Joe," Mary might have answered. But sooner or later, they had to admit that something about the original contract, the original vision, had certainly changed.

Have you faced the reality of what's going on with your dream?  

II.       Consider the Common Options

You see, it is at that point that we learn the second valuable thing about marriage from the story of Christmas. First, we've got to admit when it looks like things are going badly. But, second, when it's gone from better to worse, we still have options. Like Joseph, we may be considering our options.

A.      Divorce Loudly

Law firm advertisement Billboard:  “Life’s Short—Get a Divorce”, with sexually charged images.  Some people like the advertisement’s honesty.  How honest is it though?  Perhaps rather than sexually charged images going with it, they ought to have a picture of a 8 year old boy and 5 year old girl crying and trying to hold on to Daddy’s sleeve to keep him from leaving them.

The most obvious option is to divorce loudly, as many do. Certainly, no one would blame Joseph for leaving a betrothed spouse who'd apparently been unfaithful. Matthew 5 says that even God allows for divorce under those conditions. Joseph could easily have said: "I give up. You've made your choices. You win, I lose; but you'll pay, Mary. You are going to feel this disgrace. You're going to feel this pain like I have."

Even Mary could have done likewise. She could have easily said: "Joe, you never could handle the truth. You never did listen. You always thought it was about you. You never could look at the bigger picture. So I give up! You go if you want to. I'm gonna tell people how you really were." Sound familiar? We can always just divorce loudly.

B.      Divorce Quietly

Or, I suppose another option is to divorce quietly. It takes better character to do that, of course.

Matthew 1:19 (NIV) Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

In other words, Joseph was a person of character, aligned in some measure with the character of God, perhaps a bit more than most. Because Joseph was a righteous man "and did not want to expose Mary to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly."

Some couples choose that path. "Look, it didn't work out. We tried, but it just didn't go. Let's not shred each other, our kids, and friends. Let's just part ways quietly. You take the house in Nazareth; I'll take the donkey. You can have little Jesus at Christmas; I get him at Passover."

And then some aren’t considering these two options, DIVORCE LOUDLY, OR DIVORCE QUIETLY, they are considering a third option.  

C.      Divorce Secretly

You can’t tell about the health of a marriage by looking at it from the outside. Some couples hold hands because they're madly in love with each other and joined at the hip. Some couples hold hands, however, because if they let go, they'd kill each other!

The story is told of a man who visited a cemetery to leave flowers at the grave of his dearly departed mother. He couldn't help but notice that, a few yards away, a man was sobbing uncontrollably. He could hear the loud lament of this poor man as he said, over and over, "Why did you have to die? Why did you have to die?"

The man visiting his mother's grave decided he would try to be of some comfort to this distraught fellow. He walked over to him and said, "Excuse me, sir. I'm so sorry for your loss. This is obviously very difficult for you." After a few clumsy moments of silence, he asked, "Are you mourning the loss of your wife?" The man, teary-eyed, looked up and said, "No, I'm mourning the loss of my wife's first husband!"

Chris Bennett, "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?" SermonNotes.com

Mary and Joseph could have just shut down emotionally and kept up appearances. You know, they had family and friends watching. How many people in marriage simply give up on the dream and stay right where they are but it is nowhere they want to be?

There is another Common Option.  Not a good one, but common.  Instead of doing something about a problem, or a warning just hit SNOOZE.

SHOW ALARM WARNING VIDEO

Joseph, and Mary show us a better way, and it is not COMMON.  I say Joseph and Mary show us, but it is God leading as they respond. 

III.      Respond To God’s Dream With Faith And Obedience

I don't say all this to beat up on anyone. If you know anything about Christianity as defined in the New Testament rather than by the media, and you know anything about our Church’s effort to be true to Christ, then you know that we believe in showing grace to those who've come to the end of their resources. If you know anything about the heartbeat of Christ, then you know that we believe in the God of second chances and new beginnings.

And if you are here today and you are at the end of your resources or you already feel like you have just lost out—you just couldn't find it, you lost the marriage—know that I'm not saying these things to break your heart further.

This same God is also the God of restored relationships and fresh starts. And so I want to say to you that it is sometimes only when we come to the end of our dreams that God gives us his dream in a way that we can finally see it.

Matthew 1:20 (NIV) But after he had considered this,[this what?  His options] an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid [ How much of the breakdown of our lives is because of fear? ] to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

In other words, what the angel is saying here is that the very circumstances that you fear spell the death of your relationship may actually be the beginning of your salvation.

Wow! Is that possible? That we could find ourselves in a place that seems to be so riddled with the death of things as we wanted them to be that we wouldn't understand that this was where we had to get for God to create the new beginning—to save us? What looks to you like an impenetrable barrier today will become, if you lean into it, a bridge to a whole new season of blessing. What is needed right now from you—the angel is saying—is fresh faith and courageous obedience.

What does that look like in practice for you and me? Well, sometimes it means that we go before God in prayer about our relationships. How long has it been since you asked God to show you his dream for your marriage?   How long has it been since you prayed: "Lord, give me the reason again why you brought us two together. I know there was a purpose. I knew it once. Help me to see it again." Ask your spouse to pray with you today for God's blessing to be poured out on your union afresh. Pray for God to give you, supernaturally, the love and respect that your partner craves—that person who, once upon a time, was the best thing that had ever happened to you.

Maybe the death of your dream is some other dream besides marriage?  Have you asked God, “What is his dream for your problem?” 

Proverbs says: "Trust in the Lord with all you heart and lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge God"—with faith and obedience—"and he will direct your paths." Ask God to do something supernatural to save the two of you—both of you—from your sins.

Maybe faith and obedience means that you go get help. You go get counseling.  Maybe you go together. We think nothing of sitting down with an architect when we want to build a good house, or a financial planner when we want to get our fiscal household in order. Why is it so hard, then, to make the leap and seek that third-party counsel when we're doing the far more important work of constructing or reconstructing a home?

Maybe faith and obedience means that you do some work like read a marriage-building book together, or check out a DVD series that will help.  By the way, If you want a good DVD series, I have one called “Love and Respect” that has helped many couples.

Proverbs says: "Let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance." Are you open to guidance? Even if you have a great marriage, are you open to further learning?  Add to your learning.

Slats Grobnik caught a glimpse of it one December. Every December, Slats Grobnik sells Christmas trees in Chicago. He tells the story of one year when he met a couple on the hunt for just the right tree. The guy was skinny with a big Adam's apple and a receding, small chin; the girl was sort of pretty, but the two of them were wearing these ragged clothes that looked like they might have come from the bottom of the bin at the Salvation Army store. They didn't have much, it was clear. Finding most trees too expensive, the couple settled on a Scotch pine that was okay on one side, but quite bare on the other. Then, a little further along, they picked up another tree that was hardly any better—full on one side, Charlie Brown scraggly on the other.

A few days later, Slats was out walking on the street when he happened to look up into this picture window of this ground-floor apartment, and he spied this absolutely spectacular Christmas tree. And then he was shocked to see come into the window view the couple to whom he had sold the two lousy trees. Curiosity got the best of him, and so he went up and knocked on the door. He just had to know where and how they'd managed to pick up this much finer tree.

And then they told him how they'd come home with all they had. And how they'd worked the two trees he'd sold them close together where the branches were thin. They told him how hard it was to get the branches interlaced, and how they had had to use wire to bind the two trunks together until the branches overlapped and formed a tree so thick you could no longer see the wire.

"So that's the secret," said Slats. "So that's the secret. You take two trees that aren't perfect—that might even be homely, that maybe nobody else would want. But if you put them together just right, you can come up with something really beautiful."

There’s one problem with this story.  It is usually our deficiencies that drive the other one away rather than bind their sufficiency to our deficiency!  What do two deficient people do?  They don’t look to each other.  They look to the all sufficient savior to help them.  Then the Savior is the one who works in them. 

Don’t forget that Mary and Joseph were real people.   The gospels speak of a time when God took two people,  Mary who said, 'let it be unto me according to thy Word.'" And, Joseph who woke up and responded to a new dream after his dreams were broken.  

Jesus is the name of the Savior who still takes imperfect people and, with grace and truth, binds them together to make something truly beautiful, fully and finally one. 

Do you remember the angry man, Joe in Starbucks, that Andy met at the beginning of today’s message.  Here is the rest of his story. 

I got Joe's phone number and connected him with one of our pastors, John Woodall. John called Joe, met him for coffee, and struck up a friendship. That was the last I saw of Joe, for a while.

Three months later, I was sitting in that same Starbucks, talking to a student pastor from another church, when in walked Joe. When he saw me, he headed straight for my table. The first thing I noticed was that he was smiling. The second thing I noticed was that he was carrying a Bible, a notebook, and a book on marriage.

"I'm getting remarried next week!" he announced. I wasn't sure what to think. "To who?" I asked. "To Susan!" he exclaimed. Susan was his ex-wife. "Susan and I are getting remarried. John is doing the wedding."

I could see in Joe's eyes that something remarkable had happened. And it had. Over the course of several meetings with John, Joe found the courage to quit blaming and, instead, take a look at what was rattling around in his heart. He had been an angry man, with reason to be angry. But like so many people, Joe had no idea what to do about his anger. And his unresolved anger had eroded his faith to the point where it was almost nonexistent.

John had helped…Joe's faith come to life. With his renewed faith came the motivation he needed to address other issues in his life. The transformation was so remarkable that Susan noticed and began asking questions. Soon after, she put her faith in Christ. The week before Susan and Joe were remarried, John baptized her in one of our morning services.

Andy Stanley, It Came from Within (Multnomah, 2006), p. 58-60; submitted by John Beukema, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania

Could it be that you are here this morning and you have bare spots, gaping holes in your life?  Could it be that there is a deep anger in you?  A hurt?  A hang-up?  Some bad habits that are messing you up?  That’s what Christmas is all about.  God gave us a savior, Jesus, that’s what his name means.  He came to take upon himself the penalty of your sin, your hurt, your hang-up, your habit.  He can heal you.  He can help you?  If you want help, you can ask today.  And he is here to respond.  He can take your broken dreams, and give you a new dream.