10-4-04

·        We are God’s glorious ruins.

 

 

VI. Inviting Him into our Brokenness and Breaking Free

 

1. Living as relational beings

·         God is a relational God

 

1.1 The fall and its affect on relationships

 

1.2 What we do to cope with our brokenness

 

       Relational Style                         Key Word

Moving towards - to take                  demanding

Moving towards - to please               approval seeking

Moving towards - to control              manipulating

Moving away - to protect                  withdrawing

Moving towards - to give                   open, but vulnerable

 

·         We will  get hurt as we become more relational open.  How we respond is very important. Must takes these hurts to God to help us respond.  Must face our brokenness. Time will not heal the brokenness.

 

2. Facing our brokenness

·         Like Jesus we need to be able to face our pain - have our Gethsemane experience. As we face our pain in this way it is to find healing and release for our needy hearts.

 

1Co 13:11-13  When I was an infant, I spoke as an infant, I thought as an infant, I reasoned as an infant. But when I became a man, I did away with the things of an infant.  (12)  For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall fully know even as I also am fully known.  (13)  And now faith, hope, charity, these three remain; but the greatest of these is charity.

 

·         Never kill the boy in the man. Or you will kill the man.

 

3. Family Brokenness and Our Healing

Exo 20:5-6  You shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them. For I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons to the third and fourth generation of those that hate me,  (6)  and showing mercy to thousands of those that love Me and keep My commandments.

 

3.1 Can sin be inherited?

·         We are not guilty for our parents' sins. However, because they sinned it can make us more vulnerable to their areas of weakness. It can also mean that we experience the consequences of generational sin.

 

Jer 31:27-30  Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of animal.  (28)  And it shall be, as I have watched over them to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so I will watch over them to build, and to plant, says the Lord.  (29)  In those days they shall not say any more, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the sons are dull.  (30)  But every man shall die in his iniquity. Every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth will be dull.

·         Jeremiah is writing to the children of Israel in captivity.  They can't blame their parents for the way they are.

 

Eze 18:2  What is it to you that you use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the teeth of the sons are dull?

 

Eze 18:4  Behold, all souls are Mine. As the soul of the father, also the soul of the son, they are Mine. The soul that sins, it shall die.

 

Eze 18:20  The soul that sins, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, nor shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be on him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be on him.

 

Eze 18:32  For I have no delight in the death of him who dies, says the Lord. Therefore turn and live.

 

·         Yes, we can be deeply affected by the sins of our families of origin and our ancestors.  However, we cannot blame them, as we now have to take personal responsibility for our own actions and our own choices.

 

·         As new creations in Christ we can be proactive by choosing to confess and renounce the sins of our ancestors and stop the cycle of abuse.  We cannot know all their sins but we can confess and renounce them because God knows them.

 

·         Can't look at something to blame.  Must take personal responsibility for self.

 

·         What is important is to know that you can be free from inherited or acquired bondages linked to generational sins.  We have new lives in Christ because of what he accomplished for us on the cross and through his resurrection.

 

4. Past events wall us off from God

 

4.1 Being willing to confront our pain

·         We pour out our pain to the one who knows and cares -Father.

 

Psa 77:1   I cried to God with my voice, to God is my voice; and He gave ear to me.

 

Psa 142:2  I poured out my prayer before Him; I declared my trouble before Him.

 

Psa 34:18  The Lord is near to the broken-hearted; and saves those who are of a contrite spirit.

 

·         Guys can be islands.  Must interact with guys to destroy islands.

 

4.2 What if I'm not ready to confront my pain?

·         The heart must know that it is safe before it will open and reveal its secrets.

 

5. The Complexity of our Brokenness

 

5.1 "Born"" broken or "Become" broken?

·        
We are born in sin but we become broken?

·        
While biological influences do not make us broken they can strongly influence the way in which we relate to the influences around us.

 

·         We are who we are as the result of many factors including: our biological heritage (genetics and hormones), family-of -orgin, the surrounding culture, and our own reaction to all these influences.

 

6. Becoming whole Image-bearers

 

2Co 5:17  So that if any one is in Christ, that one is a new creature; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

 

Rom 8:2  A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.

 

6.1 The need to know and to be known

·         What we are taught of who we are at a young age has a great impact on who we become.

·         Unbelievers will impact us even when we are trying to impact them.

 

6.2 Breaking free

·         To become whole image-bearers requires the development of a healthy personal and sexual identity.  This occurs as we navigate the developmental stages of life.

 

·         We become all too aware that we have not come through this process unaffected by a broken world and its inhabitants.

 

·         "We are all bound until we cry out in our brokenness to Jesus. We choose Him in our "stuckness". His faithfulness inspires the freedom to become whole image-bearers and to be restored in relationship to Father."

 

·         When interpreting scripture, look at 3 scriptures before and after.

·         God will not undo the consequences of sin.

 

VII. Healing for the Father Wound

 

Joh 17:3  And this is life eternal, that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

 

Gal 4:4-7  But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, coming into being out of a woman, having come under Law,  (5)  that He might redeem those under Law, so that we might receive the adoption of sons.  (6)  And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.  (7)  So that you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, also an heir of God through Christ.

 

Eph 6:4  And fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

 

Mal 4:6  And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the sons, and the heart of the sons to their fathers, that I not come and strike the earth with utter destruction.

 

Three things a father should give and three things every child needs:

1.       Affirmation

2.      Approval

3.      Affection

 

1. Fathers in Functional Families

(see Appendix 3 - "Ten Points of a Functional Family" by Norman Wright)

 

2. The Primary Role of the Father

 

2.1 To inititate life

2.2 To provide - protection, shelter etc.

2.3 To instruct.

 

Pro 22:6  Point your kids in the right direction-- when they're old they won't be lost.

 

2.4 To call out and to affirm

·         We cannot affirm ourselves affirmation must come from others.

·         Unfortunately our concept of father God is moulded and formed by our experiences of our "less than perfect" fathers.

 

3. Development of the "father wound"

 

3.1 Other ways of father "woundedness"

 

·         Dad abdicated the responsibility of the family to mother.

 

·         Living with anger, domination and control fear very easily enters a child's heart.

 

·         Discipline without love.

 

·         Daddies favourite.

 

·         Overly religious.

 

·         Verbal negativity and abuse.

 

·         Uninvolved.

 

·         No physical affection.

 

·         Unreal expectations.

 

Isa 40:4-5  Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked places shall be made level, and the rough places smooth;  (5)  and the glory of Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of Lord has spoken.

·         Jesus wants to do this.

 

4. Three outcomes of the father wound

 

4.1 We come out fighting.

 

4.2 We internalize our pain.

 

·         Guilt says, "I have sinned but there is a way out."  "I have made a mistake."

 

·         Shame says, "I am no good. I can't change."  "I am a mistake."

 

4.3 We detach from people.

 

2Co 6:18  and I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.