©1998 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
Once upon a time
there was a town called Happyville.
If you were to just drive through Happyville
it would look to you
like many other little towns.
It had rows of neat little houses,
with white wicket fences,
and nicely trimmed lawns,
and flower boxes under the windows.
Sometimes the sun would shine in Happyville,
and sometimes it would rain,
or snow,
but if you were just driving through
and had never been there before
and didn’t spend hardly any time there at all,
you would probably think
that "Happyville" was a good name
for such a neat,
clean little town.
But the people who lived in Happyville knew different,
because Happyville was NOT a happy little town.
In fact, most everybody in the whole town
was very unhappy
and sad
and lonely.
There was a very strange house in Happyville,
different than all the others.
It didn’t look so different,
except that maybe it was a little larger,
and it had an awful lot of children in it,
but in some ways
it was very different.
If you were to see the children in the house,
(and there really were quite a few of them running around),
you would never guess they all belonged
to the same family.
But they did.
There was a time
a few years back
when that house caused quite a commotion in Happyville.
The people of the town could still remember
when, just after the house was built,
all the children came outside
and hung a large
and very pretty sign
across the top of the door.
In big block letters
carved into a long piece of wood
the sign read:
THIS IS THE HOUSE OF GOD.
The people of Happyville
thought that was a strange thing
to put above a person’s door,
and in the months that followed
the people of the town
would drive by and see the sign,
and many of them would stop,
and get out of their cars,
and go up to the door
just to find out what it was like
in the big house
with all the children
that God owned.
Those were very busy
and exciting days for the big house
with all the children.
People were visiting almost every day,
and the children were kept very busy
giving tours of the house,
and making introductions,
and keeping the house neat and tidy.
And the visits were always different, too,
which made it all the more exciting.
When the doorbell would ring
the Father would always send
one of the children to answer the door.
They would go obediently to the door
and open it
and say "Hello"
and ask what the visitor wanted.
Often the visitor would say something like this:
"Well, I was just driving by
and I saw this beautiful house
with all the children
and the sign outside
said that this was God’s house.
I’ve always wondered what kind of house
God lived in,
and I was wondering if you would mind
if I just looked around a bit?"
And the child would always say,
"Why, that would be no problem at all.
I’m very glad you stopped in.
I’d be glad to show you around if you would like."
And then he would give the visitor
a tour of the house.
The visitor would see
all the lovely furniture
and the beautiful woodwork,
and the pretty lamps,
and the children running around,
laughing, and playing, and slamming the door as they ran in and out.
Then, when the tour was over
the visitor would say,
"Oh yes,
this is just the sort of house
I thought God would live in."
At the end of the tour
the child would say,
"Is there anything else I can do for you?"
Sometimes the people would say,
"No, I just wanted to see the house,
and I have to be going now. Goodby."
Then they would leave.
Most of those people
never came back to visit again.
But every once in a while
after the tour of the house was completed,
and the child had asked
if there was anything else they could do for the visitor,
the visitor would say,
"Well, yes,
I was wondering especially,
if by any chance
I might be able to meet your Father."
This was always
an especially happy time for the family,
because the Father was very anxious
to meet any visitor
who made this request.
The visitor would be shown to the Father’s room,
and would be instructed to knock on the door.
The Father Himself
would always come to answer,
and when the visitor
and the Father met
they always liked each other very much right away,
and sometimes there would even be
a big party to celebrate
the visitor’s meeting the Father.
Soon after the introductions were made
and all the excitement
and rejoicing
and laughing
and shouting had calmed down,
and the visitor began to feel more at home,
the Father would tell him
that there were a number of empty rooms in the house,
and the newcomer was more than welcome
to just sort of settle in
and become part of the family
if He wanted to.
This happened many times
during those first months
after the house was built in Happyville,
and for a while
the population of the house grew and grew
until almost all the rooms were filled
and the children began talking to the Father
about the need for adding onto the house.
But then, slowly, things began to change.
Looking back on it
no one could really say for sure
where
or when
or how,
but it wasn’t long before it became very clear
that something strange was happening.
It was the new-comers who noticed it first.
The newer they were
the sooner they noticed it.
Things began to happen in the house
that just didn’t make any sense.
Of course right from the very beginning of the house
the children had always talked about the Father.
In fact,
in the early months of the house,
if the children weren’t talking TO the Father,
they were talking ABOUT Him
among themselves.
He was all they ever seemed to want to discuss.
After the change began to take place
the children still talked much about the Father -
the things He had said,
and the things He use to do in the past -
but even though they still talked much about Him,
increasingly the children started to act
as if the Father was no longer with them.
This change in attitude
lead to some of the most ridiculous scenes
that a person could ever imagine.
For example,
one new-comer,
who left the house for good
soon after the change began to take place,
told of an incident
that he had witnessed one morning
in the living room of the house.
He,
and the Father,
and two of the other children
were all sitting in big leather easy chairs after breakfast,
discussing the activities for the day.
The Father had said nothing all morning long,
and none of the children had bothered
to ask Him for His counsel or advice,
so He just sat silently
and patiently
and listened.
The children, on the other hand,
had been talking almost constantly
ever since breakfast,
and, though nothing of any real significance had been said,
still two of them were intensely involved in the conversation.
Finally a little lull came in the flow of words.
Then, all of the sudden,
one of the children said to the other
in a forceful, authoritative voice,
"Father told me to tell you
that you’re suppose to clean the garage today!"
This just infuriated the other boy,
and he jumped to his feet and shouted back,
"OH YA?! Well, Father told me
that you’re suppose to cut the grass today!"
It wasn’t long
before there was a huge argument going
which finally ended
with one boy screaming at the top of his voice,
"OH YOU HYPOCRITE!!"
And then he went stomping out of the room.
All during the argument
the Father had sat quietly between the two boys and listened.
The boys never stopped arguing long enough to ask Him what He had said,
or if He had said anything at all,
and, because they did not ask,
He did not interfere.
Incidents like this
became more and more frequent
often centering around things
the Father had said
or was suppose to have said.
The children spent less and less time
talking WITH the Father,
and more and more time
talking about Him among themselves.
Then came the day
when two of the younger children
were sitting in the front room
discussing, of all things,
whether the Father liked the children to take baths or showers better.
One of the boys said,
"Father told me it was better to take baths
because it soaks the dirt off."
The other little fellow said,
"Well, Father told me it was better
to take a shower
because then you don’t have to sit in your own dirt."
Just as the discussion
was really getting going
the doorbell rang."
But the boys
were so involved in their discussion
they didn’t even hear it.
The stranger rang a few more times,
and then opened the door and came in.
For a few minutes he stood there
just inside the door
and tried to catch the attention
of one of the boys.
But they were so involved in their talk
that they never even noticed him standing there.
After a few minutes
the stranger just gave up
and turned around and left.
It wasn’t long
before visitors stopped coming altogether.
Not only that,
but for all sorts of different reasons
many of the new-comers began moving out of the house.
The grass grew up,
and the garage became piled high with junk,
and the children who were still living in the house
couldn’t decide who was suppose to do what,
so nothing was done at all.
And all the unhappy people in Happyville
who were so excited for a while
with the hope that maybe the big house
with all the children
might have some answers for them,
decided that it was really
just another big,
unhappy,
lonely house like all the others.
The End.
We are involved in a mini-series
concerning how to deal
with the difficult relationships in our lives.
Last week we looked at the first step in that process:
accepting as our highest goal
that of working towards the health
of that relationship
in whatever way we are able.
At this point in our study
I need to qualify that statement
with two statements:
1. So far we have not defined
what a healthy relationship looks like.
2. I need to warn you that
in some areas it will not look
at all like what we think it will.
Next week we’ll talk about why.
But I wanted to share this story with you today
mostly just to provide
an exclamation mark to that first principle.
You see,
our relationship with our fellow Christians
is the most fragile
and the most crucial single ingredient
in our life together as God’s people.
The Christian life
is not nearly as complicated
or as intricate
or as confusing
as we often think it is.
Paul had two infallible tools
with which he measured
the maturity level of every believer.
If we took the time
we would see that
in nearly every one of his letters
he took the individuals in that church he was writing to
and, very much like a school nurse
would stand a boy next to a measuring stick to see how much he had grown,
Paul stood each church next to
these two measuring sticks
to see how much they had grown.
The first was to see how much they had grown in their practical ability
to trust the Lord with the daily details of their life.
He called it faith.
The second was to see how much they had grown
in their practical ability
to build and maintain healthy love relationships with their fellow Christians.
Love.
Faith and love.
Its not complicated.
It’s not confusing.
It’s not very hard to understand.
It’s just very hard to do sometimes
because it goes so strongly against
our natural tendencies.
Years ago
when I was doing the research
for what eventually became
first a teaching series on God’s moral framework,
and then finally the second half of the book, The Grace Exchange,
the greatest surprise for me
in that study
was discovering
the degree to which the health
of every one of our relationships
depends not on what we do,
or how we act,
but rather on HOW WE TALK
BOTH TO AND ABOUT ONE ANOTHER.
Both James and Paul
warn us about how easily
the fragile health of our relationships
can be destroyed
through what we say to one another.
James wrote to his fellow Christians:
James 3:5 ...the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. ¶ See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire!
James 3:6 And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell.
James 3:7 For every species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by the human race.
James 3:8 But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison.
James 3:9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God;
James 3:10 from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.
Now doesn’t that sound
like a man who has been right there
in the front lines of Christians gathered together?
And Paul,
when he revealed to us
the protective moral framework
in which all Christians are called to live,
warned us of 6 specific forms of communication
that are always destructive:
Gossip, slander, grumbling, boasting, abusive speech, and lying.
Clearly he wanted us to understand
the fragile nature of our union with our fellow Christians,
and to recognize how quickly
and how easily that union
can be damaged through what we say to and about one another.
I was reminded of this whole area again
this past week
because I found it necessary
to attempt to try to track down
a little bit of verbal poison
injected into the body of Christ
concerning something I was suppose to have said.
What it involved doesn’t matter.
I don’t even think
it involved anyone in our fellowship.
But for those of us who want to build
strong, healthy relationships in our life,
I would like to plant two questions in our minds,
questions that can be of tremendous value
in helping us to evaluate
everything we say
both to and about other people.
The questions aren’t complicated,
but if we long for healthy relationships in our lives
they are crucial.
The first question is this:
#1. How will what I’m saying
affect my relationship with you?
And #2. How will what I’m saying
affect your relationship
with the person I’m talking about?
I’d like to conclude
by sharing with you two verses
from Prov. chapter 18:
Prov. 18:19 A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city, And contentions are like the bars of a citadel.
Prov. 18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit.
You see,
a big part of dealing with the difficult relationships in our life
is to eliminate the difficult relationships
we have created for ourselves
through what we have said about others.