[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for February 13 - Part 2

[Joe Parrish]

The Effects of Insults

Obviously, murder is not the only outcome of anger. Other harm can be done as well. Angry words can wound with insult. Have you ever been hurt...REALLY hurt...by what someone said to you? It has happened to most of us.

Let me tell you about an elderly lady, a shy and sensitive lady who lived to be just three weeks shy of her 100th birthday. When she was a young girl, about ten years old or so, somebody told her that she had a terrible singing voice. Now, most of us, I guess, would not let that remark bother us particularly, but it DID bother this lady. Ten years old is a tender age. It bothered her so much that, for the remaining 90 years of her life, she never sang another note. No one had any idea whether she had a good voice or a bad voice; she would never take the chance of letting anyone find out, and all because of one person's careless and unfeeling insult.

David E. Leininger, Make it Right!
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As Forgiving As Children 
 
Many people today struggle with forgiveness, and yet we cannot become the people Jesus intends us to become until we are able to forgive the wrongs of others and seek reconciliation. 

The goal, then, is for us to love other people in the same way that God loves us. Leo Buscalgia writes of observing two children having an argument. The children were quarreling over some insignificant things. "You're stupid!" one said to the other. "Well, so are you!" the other replied. "Not as stupid as you!" the first one said. "Oh, yeah?" the other one said. "That's what you think." 

When Buscalgia passed by the playground not more than ten minutes later, these two children were playing together again, having forgotten the whole thing. "No brooding, no wounded egos, no blame, no dredging up the past, no recriminations," Buscalgia writes. There it was, a brief and honest exchange of angry feelings, an even briefer cooling off period, and all was forgiven. "Children are certainly much more forgiving than adults," Buscalgia concludes. "Somewhere in the process of growing up we seem to have become experts at holding grudges, cradling fragile egos and unforgiving natures."
 
Leo F. Buscalgia, Born for Love (New York: Slack, Inc., 1992), p. 202.
 
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Get Rid of Your Anger
 
Don't let your anger fester and grow. Act quickly. Get rid of it. It will do you no good. 
 
Author Kent Crockett tells about Sam and Jacqueline Pritchard, a British couple, who started receiving mysterious phone calls to their home in the middle of the night. The person on the other end never said anything. After a long pause, he would hang up. 
 
The Pritchards changed their phone number to stop the harassing night calls. The stalker changed his tactic. He started sending them obscene and threatening anonymous letters in the mail. Then the problems escalated. The couple discovered their house had been daubed with paint, and their tires were slashed. The Pritchards became prisoners in their own home and spent a small fortune on a security system. Here's what was puzzling they had no idea what they had done to deserve such cruel treatment.
 
After four months of unexplained terrorism, they finally met the perpetrator. Mr. Pritchard caught James McGhee, a 53-year-old man, while he was damaging their car. As they looked at each other, Pritchard asked McGhee, "Why are you doing this to us?"
 
McGhee responded, "Oh, no I've got the wrong man!" 
 
McGhee thought he was terrorizing a different man named Pritchard, who had been spreading rumors about him. He found the Pritchards in the telephone directory and assumed the husband was the person responsible for slandering him. He got the wrong Pritchard. 
 
What an absurd turn of events, but anger has a tendency to do funny things to us. It blinds us to reality. It blinds us to consequences. It blinds us to the irrational harm that may come from our rage. For your own best interest, if you are angry with someone, let it go. Act quickly before you cause yourself and them any harm.
 
King Duncan, quoting Kent Crockett, I Once Was Blind, But Now I Squint (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2004), p.  71.
 
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A Mended Relationship 
 
There is something beautiful about the mending of a relationship once broken. It happens from time to time. Brothers who had vowed eternal enmity. Sisters who had long ago ceased to converse. Then something happens and that which was broken is restored. Perhaps it is beautiful because it reminds us of our relationship with God. Once that was broken, but because of God's great love for us, He took the initiative and reached across the great divide to bring us back to Himself. And that is what He wishes for each of us to do. 

On their first day of college back in 1968, Marsha Lockwood and Michael Cramer met. They were both freshmen at the University of Massachusetts. They liked each other immediately. They learned that they came from neighboring towns, and they were only weeks apart in age. They had much in common, both played instruments in their high school marching bands. Their families had friends in common. 

As they began to date they discovered that they both had grandfathers who worked in the same office building. One was an accountant; the other was an insurance man. The two grandfathers were both in their seventies. 

When the two grandfathers were young boys they had gone to school together. They had been good friends all during their childhoods. In the 1920s, though, they had a feud. It was over a business matter. Hyman Brodsky and Louis Cramer were furious with each other. They stopped speaking to each other entirely. 

They did not speak a word for over fifty years...
 
The conclusion to this illustration and for many additional illustrations and sermons for the Epiphany 6 can be accessed at www.Sermons.com.



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