Dysfunctional Families

Good morning. I greet you in Jesus' name. Welcome.

Welcome Pete and Helen and their family. Willie and Linda and their family. Welcome.

Cornyn and Janet, it's nice to have you. Almost feels like we have a full house today. Yeah.

I guess our complaining of not having visitors has paid off. Yeah, that's good. Well, may the Lord bless you and bless us as we worship together, as we seek something from the Lord.

I'd like us to bow to pray. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you.

Thank you, Lord, for your blessings for us. Thank you for your word, which we have heard already. Thank you, Lord, for each one that has labored.

Lord, we come to you now. Lord, we pray that you would help us to be ready to hear more of your word. Lord, I pray that you would speak through me.

Lord, I pray that your gentle hand would work in each of our hearts. Bless each one that is here. Lord, I pray that you would pour out your spirit here with us.

Draw us closer to yourself, Lord. Lord, we thank you for this time, and we want to give it to you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Well, I trust that each of you, you find yourself at a place of peace, rest. I took, or what should I say, I wrestled with the Lord on what to share this morning. And the Lord is good.

He really knows how to get a hold of you. The Lord knows how to get your attention or my attention. Someone asks you to share something, how many of you have found it to be so? As you prepare to share something, that seems to be the very thing that works in your own heart and calls you a hypocrite.

Somebody says to you, well, you should share on kindness, and that might be the week where you've convinced yourself you don't know how to be kind. That happens a lot. Yeah, that happens a lot, and it's good.

The Lord works in our lives in a good way. It doesn't always feel good, but I trust He knows what He wants in our hearts, and He works in our hearts in a good, good way. What I want to share this morning is, at least in my thoughts, unique.

I was at my third message that I wanted to prepare for this morning, where the first two seemed to just hit roadblocks. And I couldn't see. I just gave it to the Lord.

I said, Lord, I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what I'm preparing. But asking Him, Lord, what would you have me to share? So what the Lord did first is, He first had me look at myself.

So I don't know if it was a mistake. I want to trust God that it was His doing. And I wasn't careless in the matter of what I was looking for, and something just kind of hit me like a train.

And as I was meditating on it and thinking and praying, that's where I got stuck. So that's what I want to share with us a bit this morning. I trust, I hope that it can be something that's a blessing to us, something that can help us.

How many of you, I'd like to give a little example here. How many of you have something that you would be rather embarrassed about? I'm going to pick on Wesley and Marcellus. As a young man, I've seen this once.

It was not, you don't have to be embarrassed now. I don't think you are embarrassed, but I would have been at 17 and 18. The first time I see these young men wear these colorful socks, I was thinking you couldn't pay me to wear those, but it's okay.

Thanks for visiting so we can pick on you. But I'd like to highlight something here, and I want to tell a little bit of my own, share a little bit of testimony of my own with this. But name something that you feel like is strongly an embarrassment to you.

Anyone, okay? Yeah? When I was young, I was always embarrassed I was short. Okay. Yeah.

I had an experience in school, and I don't know exactly how long I want to make the story. I had an experience in school, and it had to do with singing. Some of you will know the story.

So I came from a public school. I'll back up a little. Growing up in Mexico, we had the home I grew up in.

My father was an alcoholic. We spent more time seeing him drunk and looking for him in the fields or falling over behind a barn somewhere than we did living regular life. We were always missing school, and we were very, very disconnected.

My own heart as a young boy, I would call it... Well, what can we call it? Just... I'm not sure how you explain what a child... What kind of character a child builds in this situation. And so we didn't do school. We skipped most of school, and I was used to using arguments and being mouthy, even with different authorities.

And we moved to Canada, and we got sent here by others because of the problems in our home. And if it hadn't been for my grandfather, who was a well-to-do man, bringing us food every Friday, we would not have had food. We were in a very, very difficult situation.

And so we moved to Canada, and we are extremely insecure. We don't know the language, and everything is strange. Everything is a lot more regulated.

It wasn't an environment where we could just wander the wilderness like we did in Mexico. Often there was nothing to do. We lived in a home with another family, and it was a small little house and almost no yard.

And went through some years in public school and was always picked on. I was that midnight boy, and in different ways, always made fun of. And then the same way, we had no funds, and you find yourself wearing all kinds of clothes, and here we are, insecure.

And at the same time, wearing all manner of clothes, from pink jackets to pants that looked like I was skydiving, to pants where it looked like I was wearing shrink wrap. And so a very difficult mental thing to try to work with and cope with. And here you become, as you grow older, you become very self-conscious.

And for grades 7 and 8, we moved to a different location, and I started going to a Christian school. But you can imagine the insecurity and also the rebellion. I didn't have a strong conscience over rebellion.

I was in the principal's office at least once a day. Lots of chronic disobedience, carelessness. And we switched schools, and now it's in a midnight school, and I feel bad.

I don't want to blame the principal. I feel bad for the teachers. And I was a horrible student.

Caused them a lot of grief, and I didn't listen to authority. And so I had this situation where out of all my times that I was disobedient, this situation I'm going to talk of now, it wasn't a willful disobedience. I had missed the school bus, and my mother brought us to school, and I get to school late.

And as it was in the school, they would have Monday mornings. They would have a full school devotional where not Tuesdays to Fridays it was in the classroom. Monday mornings it was in the school.

And I was late, and so instead of going into the gym for devotions, I stayed in the classroom. And I'm sitting in the classroom. There's another young man who also came late, later than I did, and he too stayed in the classroom.

But I think I gave off that vibe of rebellion. So we had, for our math class, which was our first class, our principal would teach our math class. And he comes in and realizes that me and another young man are sitting at our table.

We weren't in the gym. And he figures we just went to be disobedient and skip the devotions. And he did something there that affected my life terribly, in a very, very difficult way.

And I don't think he realized that. I don't think that was his intent. But again, maybe him feeling like he needs to get a grasp on these rebels, he tried to put his foot down, and that ended up causing a pain and a struggle in my life that I don't think he realized what happened.

And so over the younger years of growing up, being very self-conscious, singing is something I did not do. I wouldn't sing along. I didn't memorize things.

To this day, as you would know, I don't have a lot of the songs memorized that we didn't grow up with, any godly teaching. I believe I was eight years old before my dad heard the name Jesus for the first time, that he understood what and who that was. So there's none of these.

The whole spiritual, singing children's song and having softness for God's Word wasn't there. And I'm in class, principal comes in, and he decides in order to teach me and this other young man a lesson, he is going to make us sing by ourselves, me and the young man, just us two. And the other young man, it was no trouble for him.

He grew up in the setting, and he knew the songs and so on. And again, that was my first year going to the old colony. I didn't know their songs.

I didn't sing. We didn't go to church. So it was, in my situation, impossible.

I was not going to sing. And my heart, what I do, we were both supposed to sing. I kind of mumbled in embarrassment, and the other young man, he is singing, and he comes to me, so he tells the other young man that he's done, he doesn't need to continue, and he tells me that I should sing a solo.

And you can imagine, imagine the trouble you're going to face here, the embarrassment. And so I said some nasty words to him, just by words, and there was no way, there's just no way I was going to sing. He did not see what was happening, and I was at the peak of a stone-cold rebel.

But he didn't realize my heart wasn't to be rebellious. My heart was to protect myself. And so, we went through a big thing, lots of school boards got involved, and it wasn't good.

Today, you know, I'm sorry about it, I'm ashamed of it, and yet, it's something you have to, you face and you go through. Interesting enough, I started teaching school. And what came with teaching school? You need to sing.

Mind you, the battle, the battle I had to go through to discipline myself to be willing to sing, to try. I really wanted to teach. I was born again for two and a half years.

My heart was to teach. I enjoy, to this day, I enjoy teaching, but that was a struggle, a real, real struggle. This situation has affected me for probably till this day.

Someone could say to me, and I've tried it, I've said to some, one of my goals that I'd love to accomplish one day is to sing well and to sing a solo. Just because, yeah, I enjoy singing, I enjoy the, after having learned a lot about music, I enjoy music thoroughly. Interesting there too is, I know music very well in the book, but I can't use it as, not nearly to that extent, when I want to sing.

So if someone asked me today, and I should do it, and I would embarrass you, but I will not, not today, but sometime, I should make the effort and sing a solo often enough until it stops bothering me on a personal level. So if someone said to me today, I'd like you to sing a solo, I guarantee you I know what's going to happen. There's going to be a lock-up.

It's going to be, oh no. Even though there's a lot of songs I know, there's a self-conscious awareness, and then as soon as you struggle, okay, this singing isn't quite what I think it should be, maybe I'm listening to myself, the singing isn't what it should be, and your mind quickly shuts down. You're like, nope, I'm not embarrassing myself, I'm not doing this.

So you deal with this struggle, this emotional struggle with singing, and when in Comber, when I was asked to song lead, there is a situation where, yeah, Brother John, Brother John Dyke, he asked if I'd be willing to song lead, and I'd learned a lot about music already, even from teaching school, and I had a whiteboard, and I wrote all over the whiteboard, I can't sing, I can't sing, I can't sing. I was so stressed out, and so I've had to make steps to come along on that path. What is there for you today, what would do something like that to you? What is in your life where you would say, whoa, I will not cross that barrier? It is a struggle, it's a, I use the example of me in public, taking the time to just take a song and sing a solo, long enough until you're super annoyed and you couldn't care less how I sound, and maybe it would help me not to care how I sound.

But after that, I'm pretty positive, after that, I'd be a fairly strong singer. And it takes till then that you always have these mental struggles. So singing for me has always been, I enjoy it today, but it's always been a sensitive thing.

And something very small, where we're singing in a choir, and we had a youth choir, and we're singing in a choir, and somebody says, hey, you're singing that wrong. Or how are you singing that? I'm like, do not ask. I don't know, and we're not going to have this conversation.

Very sensitive. So what I want to show you with what I just said is something took place in school where I don't think the principal had this intention, and it affected me for years, while it's been 15, 17, it's been 17 years. You cannot remove it by itself.

Somebody says, well, just get over it. Myron can sing well. Myron says, oh, come on, Cornelius, really? Just sing a solo.

Jesus loves me. What's so difficult about that? Maybe Brother Pete, too. It does not go away.

It doesn't just disappear. That is one. That is one area where that is taking place in my life.

I will quickly mention another one just slightly here. As a 12-year-old boy, having so much trouble and so much insecurity, I was always, always in trouble. And so I had written, and it was convicting me a lot.

There were certain songs that I would hear, you know, Step into the Water. That song, I'm not sure why, it always spoke to me. So I had written a letter, and I had made my, not because I knew what God wanted, not because I knew I needed to be born again, but I had made up my mind I was going to fix my relationships.

I was going to fix the troubles that I had made. So I had written a letter for my teacher in school, the principal in school. This was actually in a public school setting still.

And someone in the home found that letter, and one of my parents used that letter and openly made fun of me for what I was trying to do. And I can tell you, and maybe some of you have experienced this, I can tell you the exact feeling of locking that box of the heart up, throwing out the key, and almost, in my heart, making a decision, I don't care if I go to hell. So that one there as well, it was something that this person had no idea what would happen or how it affects.

In this case, it was their child. For many years, I walked in terrible darkness, you know, great despair. And it took until I was in grade 8 and I had a school teacher.

And the school teacher had a devotions on having a seared conscience and how this seared conscience would keep me from being able to make things right with God. And that I needed to pray that God would give me a sensitive conscience. And that's what I did.

And that's where my life started to change. But when I came to the Lord, I came to the Lord outside of my family, independently. I had a mental need.

We had, due to conflict, we had changed churches. And my need was met at the church there. So on my own, independently, I went down this path and wanted to live for the Lord.

Two little stories. Difficult things. They affect our life.

What is, what's in your life that affects your life? My wife and I, we, we'll call it we were dating, 12 years old, 13 years old, 14 years old. Two hearts that were in a huge, two hearts that had a huge need. Couldn't find the answers.

And for two and a half years, we were in a dating setting which wasn't healthy. And both of us got born again. And as time went on, closer to 19, I think it was, we were 19, just 19, when we started a courtship in a much healthier, well, there it was both of us wanting to please God in a healthy setting.

We started a courtship and we got married within nine months. And so that was good. It was a gift from the Lord.

But I want to, I want to say something here with that. Her situation and her family was very, very difficult. Same way.

Young girl, constantly working, under a lot of stress and demand. And someone who, I've said this before, someone who seemed to have it on their thoughts a fair bit, of suicide. Just a big emptiness.

But we both gave our hearts to the Lord and that changed our life. That gave us meaning. And that added to our life where we could grow and we could grow stronger, mentally, physically, emotionally.

And we get married. We're blessed to be married to this day. I praise God that God gave her to be my wife.

And the first few years with young children, we had a lot of things to work with. A lot of, you know, again, two broken homes. My side and her side.

Her side being very drastic and broken. And dealing with a lot of different stresses that we didn't learn to separate ourselves from. We continue year by year.

And as our responsibilities get more and more and we had a few more children, things started to get heavier and heavier and heavier. And we find ourselves in a place where, and we find ourselves in a situation where her and I, we are at a test. We find ourselves in a situation where our hearts are at that it seems to be bringing back or at least we were entering a phase, a slight phase of having an emptiness, having a need in our marriage life that all of a sudden you feel like you're separated or you're distanced.

So for years we served the Lord and we wanted to be faithful to Him. And it seems like when I was single that seemed to be easier because there's a lot of things that I could push away. A lot of things I didn't have to really work with.

And I could serve the Lord and I could just shut out the negative things. But all of a sudden you're married and you're a few years married and you find yourself in a situation where you can no longer shut them out. You find yourself in situations where your weaknesses start coming out.

And your family, your spouse, and your children, they see them. They see those weaknesses. And the very weaknesses that come out are weaknesses that cause a tremendous struggle for your children and for your spouse.

So we find ourselves, as parents, as a couple, we find ourselves in rough waters. We have this, we have this, I'm going to call it, we have this emotional need, we have this mental struggle of just being able to know how to give it to God and how do you continue to grow, how do you overcome weaknesses and build relationship without it hindering your relationship. It's like me doing the very thing that really disappoints her.

That's the thing I do. And as time went on, we see each other, even today, we are very opposite in character. And so where I don't notice something could really bother her.

And where she doesn't notice, that's something that could really bother me. And so that's a recipe for quickly getting offended. And when you are offended, it's so challenging to work through these offenses and come out strong and healthy on the other side.

Young men and young ladies, a question for you. What struggle would you be okay with having? What battle do you want to fight when you're 30? Have you ever thought about that? I've been pondering this for some time and here's a thought I'd like you to think about. In this thought, I want you to take this question in such a way, or in a healthy way.

The question isn't because you don't know or that you're not doing something right. But I'd rather ask the question just in a way of invitation and maybe some advice. It's like driving down the 401 and somebody says, hey, at such and such an exit, there's an accident.

Oh, I gotta know, I gotta watch for that. So here's my question. Today, you can easily be independent.

You can go from day to day and not realize some of these background struggles. So a question I have for you. Two part.

One, if you could learn things today, to prevent struggles in 10 years from now, would you learn it? Or, number two, would you rather be carefree today, ignore the struggle, and deal with the struggle in 10 years from now? Each of us, we have a story. We have a painful story. Some is painful, some is not as painful.

It was eye-opening for me when I processed the thought of children with loving, godly parents will grow up and will find themselves having a need. Children will find themselves saying, my parents didn't help me. Or, you know, talking to a young man where I thought he had a wonderful relationship.

Their lifestyle and all, like the parents walking with God, to me it just seemed to be the obvious. This young man would have a good relationship with his parents. And the answer was, no.

Here's what I'm trying to say. If I could pick out all the names, Wesley, Marcellus, and I want you to personalize it, but we could go through all the names. Here's what I want you to think about.

What is your struggle today? Are you free? Are you able to look to God openly and realize, as you look at your struggle, and can you work it through? We could start from step one, your view and your desire to live for God. Often we as parents, we are the excuse to a child that they don't need to live for God. So, when you grow up with offenses, and this is where they're sad and difficult, when you are offended at your parent, it causes you to turn away from, maybe it's what they teach, it causes you to put walls around your mind and heart, so where God can't reach you, and we accept life as if it's okay, or I'm in the right, that I'm not obeying God, because, and that's where the excuse comes in, my dad didn't this, my mom didn't this, and on the story goes.

Now, my question, why I bring this up to you is this, are you aware today, outside of God's principles, outside of a surrendered heart to God, you cannot prosper in life. My heart is burdened, as I was looking over some of these things yesterday, and I have two relatives, three, that are really struggling. They're struggling with sin, they're struggling with suicidal thoughts, they're struggling with finding the next thing that will please them, because they're running and running and running from their pain.

And what hurts a lot is to realize, what if he would listen, and I would just tell him. Forgive those that have hurt you, and then surrender your life to the Lord, so that you have your sins forgiven, and you can be free, and not have all this baggage. So many of a young person will build on pain, and take in the world, rather than having Jesus.

So to the young men and young ladies, my encouragement to you today is, if you were me, in my situation with the singing, now that one is an outward one involving people elsewhere, it's not one that caused me to say no to God, but what's in your life today that causes you, or what's a pain in your life today that you avoid, and you won't visit this place, you push it off, and you try to serve God outside of that box. Do you have any? And if you do, here's my burdened encouragement to you. Find a way of working with it.

All the way from refusing to serve God, to all kinds of other issues that you have after you're born again. Here's what I'm trying to say. Today I'm 35.

I have struggles today that grieve me, and they grieve me in a very personal way. And I'm going to change this. We're going to go in a little bit of a direction to the parents after this.

Do you know the very things that I've hidden in corners and the areas I did not visit? Guess who I hurt the most with those? Areas in my life that I wanted to keep away, it's areas where I had pain, I did not want to deal with them, so I ignored them. Guess who I hurt the most? No. At least that's not where my grief is.

The ones you love the most. There's nothing like finding out the very thing you have stored away somewhere else because of pain is the very thing that's absolutely really hurting your wife, your husband, or your children. So I have to say today, as far as what I have learned, there is no way of hiding my pains and hurts and thinking they'll not affect anyone else.

Some of the things that disappoint me the most is finding out that where I am insecure, where I am struggling, are the very areas that were now an open window for Satan to use and attack my family. Would you know what it's like to speak to one that you love very dearly and to find out by your weakness you've shut them out? What's that like? By not willing to deal with something in your heart, in your mind, in your emotional mind, hiding something and finding out later, you know how it comes out? It literally comes out through others. What could I use as an example? It's like me struggling with lying.

But nobody knows. And I find out my sweet little boy is lying. Now what? How do you want to take care of that? Young men and young ladies, it is a very normal story for young people to grow up.

And it is true too. So I'm not saying it's not true. It is true.

But I would love to teach youth, young people, and if I could teach them one thing, that would be this. Well, maybe it's in two parts. One, accept your struggles and then make choices that help you to move on.

Let them go, forgive, and move on. Deal with your heart and how it relates to the struggle. And number two, just because you're hurt does not mean that you cannot be a strong soldier in God's kingdom or even in your life where these hurts are.

What would it be like instead of a young man like me sharing my testimony saying, woe is me, I've suffered and I've had to live a hard life because my parents did not teach me. My parents caused me whatever I would share. But what if being, even though those things could be true, what if, what if I could be at a position where I've faced a lot of struggles, but I've learned the wisdom to forgive, to let those things go, and to be a soldier for the cross within that, you know, being able to forgive in strength, or with strength, however we would say that.

What if I can be a young person that says, you know, my parents, and they are today, my parents today are still really struggling. What if I can be a vessel that has found healing and strength and would say, no, I will sow good seed, I will do things well for those that are in need, even though they didn't do it to me. I somewhere picked up a bit of a notion where I feel like there's too much emphasis on woe is me, not enough emphasis on you are a powerful person.

And if you take in God's principles and you abide by them, do you realize what you can do in difficult situations? It is so much better for you to be in a position where you can say, I will serve the Lord gladly, even though you're in difficult situations. Here's where I want to go next. And brothers and sisters, I hope you'll be patient with me.

I did not want to, I say this not to, as an excuse, but I wrestle with the Lord, I'm like, Lord, why and how? Why am I going through this? And I feel like it's very personal for me as well. And maybe that's why, maybe the Lord said, there's something you need to take care of. So what a better way than, what a better way than to have someone preach on it.

So as parents, or adults, I had this thing because, because I had so little upbringing in a spiritual setting. I did not know any songs. If you ever look, and it's okay if you do, but somebody says, let's sing a verse from memory.

I don't think one of you will remember if I ever gave a song. It's just, it's a weakness of mine, I need to exercise it. And I want to, and I'm willing to.

Maybe I should say, as I was pondering this, and pondering this, here is a reality. And again, this goes back to, I want to start again with the young man going to the parents. An 18, 19 year old young man, he can be convinced, you know, when I get married, I will not have troubles like that.

It's shocking though, how fast those troubles come. That confidence is short lived, and then the struggle is there, and then how do you work through it? The idea of learning to deal with struggles today, so that I'm able to, or maybe that I learn how to deal with struggles tomorrow, and my, just a thought, that I would love to have all of young people to consider is this. Do you know, do you know what percentage of marriages and families have very deep struggles? There's a saying that says, looks can be deceiving, and so it is.

In my wife's growing up years, and there's other examples we could use, everything seemed to look just right, until a certain age, certain thing, certain child, to be honest, a certain child refused to bow under that type of conformity. Conformity. Everything blew up.

Not just the family, the marriage, everything blew up. So the question is, do you know how many families, and what would you do differently to not be one of them, do you know how many families are in situations where there is a lot, it can look good and right and spiritual at church, and it's painful and hurtful at home. There's two parts to that, but there seems to be many.

I want to confess something to you today, and my heart is that it can open a door for anyone to be willing to also open up their hearts should there be a need. I have shared something with you today that if you would take a look, you would see it in my life. I share something with you today that if you were to follow some situations and different things, you would see it.

You would see my weakness. And I have today things that, I had this very strong, ideal Christian life, and I have so miserably failed it myself that it gives you a very strong disappointment of I was trying my hardest not to get here. Let's look at a few examples.

One. I was very insecure as a child. What does that make me? What's my character after that? What will I be? What's that? No.

I was a clown to cover my pain, but no. Okay. Yep.

This would fall in line with that. As an insecure child and always trying to please others, I become a very strong loyal, or maybe I use the word loyalist. I do what it takes to try to please people.

And you know, and I want to share this with you because I want, hopefully it makes sense, and I would love for you if there's anyone here that has, you find yourself in something similar that I hope you find answers. Did you know I lived a lot of my Christian life as proof that I was a good person? Do you follow what I'm saying? I was a very strict Christian, very conservative, because who's more justified than the real conservative? Right? As an insecure person, trying to find security, I made a lot of choices. I was what they call a very strong Christian.

I was 18 years old. I would go to Mexico. I would go to Bible schools, and they all thought I was a preacher.

Very spiritual. But here's what I'm saying. I was spiritual to counter my pain, even to a subconscious level.

I actually, for years, struggled to find joy in God's ways. It is easier to discipline yourself and do what needs to be done, follow the right ways to the T. I could do that, but I could not do it because my heart said, Oh, how I love the Lord, for years. Today, I suffer consequences because of it.

Now, I won't go into detail for that. Today, I suffer consequences because of it. You see, there's something interesting about your choices today kind of puff up and fly away with the wind tomorrow.

You know, it's so good to have a foundation under your feet, but how sad when you build it on nothing and it just vanishes away. So, today, I see others. I see others that live.

I remember talking to a young man. Started with baptism. He had been baptized in the old colony setting.

I think it was the old colony setting. Anyway, regardless. But the conversation had to do with whether sprinkling or immersion.

Is that the other word? Is that the right word? Immersion? Okay. I was going to call it submersion. I was like, oh, that might be wrong.

So, the discussion had to do with is sprinkling okay or immersion the right method? And the young man kind of blew up on that. Oh, it's immersion. Nothing but immersion.

The whole thing had to be immersion. And instantly, I caught why. Another insecure young person trying to find security and for all the right reasons, he had to be right because that would make him secure.

So, he had no spiritual, mature reasoning for immersion other than it was different than what everyone else was doing. It was the right thing and he did it right. You see how that works? We allow our minds or things come out in our minds and our actions and words.

So, I see others that live their Christian life because that's how they feel they're on the right track. If I do all the right things, that's proof that I'm a Christian. The reality still is, and we have not started our notes here yet, the reality still is, there's a lot of hurting families.

To the young people, what would you do today so you don't have to face it in 10 years? And to us older ones, what are we doing today to teach the younger ones on how we take care of these things? You know, it's a privilege of being a father, right? When the father does something and it's in that painful area, we say no. I'm not sure what example I would use, but it's easily done that way. Thinking of my dad, my dad doesn't talk at all about his years.

None. What I know of my dad is what I've seen of him, but thinking of his youth years and prior to that, we know nothing. Too much pain.

Lots of pain. He doesn't want to talk about it. A note that we want to touch on, on a practical side.

Moms, dads, do you and I know, do we understand how we train our children? And within that heart of love and training for our children is both the strengths and weaknesses. If you find yourself in a place with difficult pains, and maybe you don't even have the pain, maybe you just have a lot of outside symptoms of problems. Maybe we should visit what that pain is.

You know, I have to agree with another brother, and I'm not sure why this is, but I feel like the Lord makes me walk through everything he tries to teach me. Somehow I end up having to go through school first, and I want to trust him that that's a positive thing. I'd like to show you a little more of what I mean when I say we train our children around our, we'll call it emotional needs.

You ever do that? Mom? Dad? There's a question that came to my mind as I was looking and meditating on this, and that was this. I know we know, I know we know that we need to surrender our heart to the Lord. That makes sense.

And I know we confess with our mouth that we want to serve God. That's good. We need to crucify the flesh.

We understand that. Have you ever thought of surrendering and crucifying your emotions to the Lord? Have you ever made, have you ever related to your child Hmm. How can I give this out as a picture? Have you ever related to your child when the source of your response had to do with something in the heart? Does that make sense? Do you follow what I'm saying? Have you ever related to your child Let's use this example.

We as Christians, we like our children to be nice and proper, prim and proper. We want to be a good example, and that's good. What happens when your child flies off the handle in the wrong place? Maybe you go visit somewhere and you're in a setting where there's maybe it'll be next, in two weeks from now.

No, a few weeks from now. You're at a big event and lots of Christians there, lots of preachers and everyone else, and maybe they're even teaching on child training and your child just goes, Whoa. What happens, what happens in the heart for you and me? Have you ever had that experience where your pride is the main source of your response to the child? Do you follow what I'm saying? So you're so embarrassed that you quickly try to quell the problem because of how it makes you look.

That is natural and it's normal to different degrees. It doesn't mean that there's anything, any deep issue. But what I am, what I'm talking about this morning, it is when there is hurting families, when there's hurting situations, that becomes the source of almost all decisions.

It's okay, you know, you go into the store and little Johnny starts screaming for a chocolate and you say, okay, you know what, we're going to leave the card here, we're going to walk out. We are not going to have this. Yeah, nothing wrong with that.

But in hurting situations, we make most of our decisions based on the pain inside. Back to someone says to me, Cornelius, could you start a song? And I don't have a pitch pipe. Guess what? Pete, Pete, James, it's challenging.

It's one of the, it's embarrassing. To be honest, it is. But there is no way I can just override it.

When I get into, when I get nervous, we'll call it, it locks everything up. I can't. Somebody says, just relax.

No. It does not work. So the situation of what the mind and emotions goes through is strong.

And I can't just release it and say, no, I'm not going to suffer under it. Though I want to overcome it more, but that's how it is. So one thing I want to add here, brothers and sisters, there is a lot of needs in a lot of our background families.

And the topic this morning, for the message this morning, was going to be, the title would have been dysfunctional families, or dysfunctional family. Or I wanted to give it a different title and give it the title where a dysfunctional heart, my heart and your heart. Now I'm going to close here in saying this.

I've given you a lot of thoughts this morning. And I don't want to be too honest or too practical. But what I do want to lift up, I think it's safe to say, most of us here have struggles in different levels.

And I could pick some of you out and describe it to you. And I didn't choose to say this because I feel like I should say it to you. I need it for me.

So I want to close on a very positive note. I would encourage you and me, let us be aware of any areas that we lock up, that we don't want to go to. Any areas of feeling like we're not, I'm going to see if I can quickly find it here.

Any areas where we feel, and there's a whole list of things that come with this. I would really want us to take to heart God's heart for you and me. That God would like us to be free.

God would like us to be healthy. God wants what's good for you. And in part of His forgiveness comes the reality of being able to take care of some of these struggles.

You know, I forgave that principle that did that to me. You know, what I did to him was never a bother to me. The rebellion that I showed him, that never came into the question for me when I needed to repent.

I repented of the rebellion, but it never, today I'm embarrassed about it, but it never caused me a spiritual or an emotional hindrance. But what he did, that's all I remember. When I think of a pain, I remember what he did.

And so I forgave him. I've had lots of good conversations with him after. So I forgave him fully.

But what hasn't changed is my struggle with this whole situation. Here's what I want to say. I would really like for any of us, let's do a quick test.

I would like for any of us to find full freedom for two reasons. One, so that your joy may be full in Christ. And number two, so that the Lord can help you and me be a strong vessel for his kingdom surrounding others.

You know, when I am free is when I am the strongest in being able to care for my family. When you are free, that's your strongest position to be able to care for your family. So if we learn what these things are and take care of them, we close the door for Satan's tactics.

If we don't, we open them, or we keep them open. And the side effects of those things are so terrible. Not only do I have this burdened baggage, but also my family suffers, and that grieves me twice now.

First in my own life, and then because it's a burden in their life, and it's grievous. And I didn't realize that these are things we need to walk through, take care of, so that we overcome them. If I were to talk to you, if we were to talk one-on-one, would you allow me, or would you allow anyone, to poke at or to talk to you about your personal need? What would you do? So, there's two thoughts that come to my mind when I think of sharing this.

One is, well maybe this isn't all exciting. But, two, and it's not exciting for you because you have to deal with this, you have to face an issue. But two, as you come upon this situation, as you see the reality of this need, you have that most wonderful position of changing it, and being free.

So there's a huge blessing that can come from this. And that's my invitation to us. I said earlier, I know some of us, and you know now too.

You know that I have different struggles. And I'll show you some. I will here in a little bit, I'll show you some of mine.

That's why my wife said that I was the clown. There is characters that come from these struggles. And we have them.

And so, may I say, I would actually want us to be open with them. Not be embarrassed. I have to face the thing that I, I thought I was going to be a super spiritual dad.

You know I wouldn't have, I would have a lot of these struggles. And boy oh boy, that I had to second guess that. And there's nothing like having lovely, blessed children that start to being of age and they can think and process.

They can see straight through you and say, nah, nope. You know they can see what I'm trying to cover up. Then all of a sudden there's a different level of, oh what do I do now? He knows it and she knows it.

Shh, don't tell anybody. No, that's not what I tell them. But it's how you feel.

I have wondered, I have wondered if that's why there's, and this is a practical, a practical note here. I have wondered if that's why there's so much struggle in homes where the teenagers just get 13, 14, 15. Because they start seeing my flaws.

And depending what my need is, I didn't, you know, the idea that I would have thought that I didn't really have any needs, as they can see through that, there's a real clash in relationships. So another reason why we want to take care of that. Here's an oldest child.

I'm not going to bank everything on this, but a few words to describe to you. Here's how this, in a rough home, this is how the oldest child appears. Incapable of making a mistake, can do no wrong.

From others, the point of view, they look at this oldest child, and this child can do no wrong. And here's how this child actually feels while people think they can do no wrong. This is how the child feels.

Afraid of failing. A stress, emotional baggage, afraid of failing. Here's how they function.

They take over the parental role at a young age. Here is the outcome if they don't find healing. They're driven workaholics and compulsive perfectionists.

And if they find healing, this should be the result. Aim for excellence while balancing work and play. Then there's a whole bunch more, but I want to give you a few others.

Here's one, the responsible child. Oh, that's the one I just read, sorry. This is what we call the hero child.

The second is the scapegoat, the rebellious child. The black sheep. This child is unable to do anything correctly, can do no right.

How does the child feel? Angry over the injustice they receive. How do they function? Take the focus of the dysfunctional parents. What's the outcome? If they don't find healing, they're irresponsible and don't care.

And then lastly, if they find healing, they can accept responsibility gladly and willingly. If you and I want to do a test on how we're doing, we could read this and find out how we are messaging. How is our sweethearts doing? How are our dear, beloved children doing? And then we look it over and we say, oh, there's nothing like thinking you're doing a good job and finding out you failed.

You do a test, maybe however this comes about. You think you're on a good track and you find out, oh boy, did I miss that. The reveling child.

This was me. Friendly to have an abundance of friends and spend little time at home. Growing up, that was my testimony.

Look at how I feel. Little self-worth. How do I function? Become the social director for the family.

You see someone that loves the center of attention, is goofing off or telling a lot of jokes, just ask him how he's doing. But this is true. From my own experience, you can bank on it.

There's so many times we go somewhere and someone is super spiritual. Just all this, blessing that, the other thing, just going. And the next person would hear him and say, wow, what a zealous young man.

And for me, the huge red flag goes up. Empty hole. The whole thing he's trying to do is attention.

Look at me. I'm alone. Help.

Help. I don't know how many, nine times out of ten, there's few people that are super talkative and always outgoing and making it look like life is great. Just tap in a little deeper and you find out, oh, huge cavity.

There's a need, strong need. So without healing, involved in abusive relationships and save others. They're constantly trying to save other relationships.

And the healing side, experience the full range of emotions. And again, there's a lot more how we deal with problems, like how I take care of struggles and the fact that I struggle to take care of the struggles. Let's look at a few.

One of the comments here was easily manipulated. And my oldest says, yep, dad. We kind of read a little bit of this yesterday.

Anyway, nothing like facing who you are. So welcome to my world. Brothers and sisters, hopefully what I said this morning, honestly, I would like it to be simply, it's real.

We face them. And we face challenges. We face relationship issues.

And it's not a shame. The shame would only be if we can't deal with it. But if our hearts are open and willing, God is merciful.

And God, and through his word, he gives us full healing. He helps us to restore our need. And the idea, we were talking about this a bit yesterday, just the idea of being able to have that peace and rest.

We talk about rest. And when we're in these struggles, we don't really have rest. I remember in my younger years, someone once said to me, this happened here in Comber.

Someone said, I spent a lot of my energy, how can I say this? See, when you come from these different places of need, some of us become extremely protectionist. I want to protect, protect, protect. And so we're not balanced when we're overly protective.

And it's actually one of the, I could have described some of the parental characters. That's one of them. One of them is pouring out, over-purchasing your children, we sometimes say.

And one is being very, very protective. I was very protective. And I spent a lot of my energy protecting what I thought was right.

And it made me look very spiritual. Just to find out that it's actually underneath all of that, there's a lot of issues. There's a lot of pain there.

The struggle of forgiveness. Here's how it goes. And I know this gets personal, but you can answer it for yourself in your own heart.

Here's the reality. I go to church, I hear the word, and even often, you know, preaching, sharing the word myself. I thank the Lord for His word, but when everything is quiet, everything is still, and you really have to answer to yourself, where am I really at? And then the conclusion to that is, I'm just not happy.

I'm just not... I feel like a hypocrite. I'm not where I say I am. It's easy to put out the performance.

Praise God. Amen. Preach it, brother.

Not that difficult. And I've tried it. I've tried it, and to me as well.

Someone could literally say, okay, aside from all the good looks, aside from all the looks proper, looks spiritual, is your heart confident? At peace? That you're God's child? And I had, I'm not sure, a few years ago, where I had a very specific walk with God. Walking, praying, and the Lord showed me in a different new way, where He said, Cornelius, you're still trying to earn my love for you. He doesn't want me to earn His love.

He wants me to accept His love, and then He wants me to live for Him. And it was a very interesting thing. Anyhow, God is looking to have a relationship with us.

And I said the phrase, have you ever thought of crucifying your emotions? But I am convinced that a lot of Christians make a lot of their spiritual decisions with their emotions first. And that's a very difficult thing. It's a sad thing.

It's a wrong thing. Because it ends up in the wrong place. God would have us to be truly free.

So, as we go through the challenge of life, can we face it at the end, and we say, you know what? Lord, I have challenges that I'm facing, but I am able to be at peace, at rest, and content that God is with me, and I'm going to work this through with Him. But where we don't have our own, where we don't have baggage, that we have to sidestep first before we can look to God. No baggage.

Everything's transparent. Hey, listen, brothers. I struggle with anger.

We might be transparent. Brothers, I struggle with anger. My child does this, I fly off the handle.

It makes me so upset. Does your son know? Does your daughter know? Are you struggling? Next time, I'm just struggling with contentment. I'm struggling to be content.

Maybe that's why we see side effects from our children. I've wondered that myself. Well, am I able to face it? Am I able to work with it? What are some other examples? Very practical.

It's so lovely to take your 7-year-old, 8-year-old, they're nice, they're adorable, they're so friendly, they forgive you so easily. You can convince them of all kinds of things. All of a sudden, they're 12, 13 years old, 14 years old, and they say, Dad, you always say you will, but you never do.

Different challenges come up. They see it. They know it.

They don't forget as easily. I guess my lesson that I'm learning is I think I need to be more willing to admit, okay, you know what, listen, I'm struggling with this, and pray for me. Pray for me that I can overcome it and not hurt them or others by it.

One of the fruits of having hurts in your life, those very hurts, now let me see. I feel like the word hurts is not quite accurate here. Let's use an example of an alcoholic father.

And I had an alcoholic father. The cavities, the emptiness that comes from that kind of relationship, that's an emptiness that I will always sidestep. And by me sidestepping that emptiness, my child will feel that same emptiness.

Do you know that? From generation to generation. You're an abusive father, verbally abusive. You're worthless, useless.

Get out of my face. Whatever you build up and you feel inside, and when everything's silent and you realize, boy, that still hurts, your child will feel that. Why? Because the way you relate to life reveals it.

It teaches it to them. And so they learn that same pattern from you, because you didn't take care of it. May God add his blessing.