Wednesday Night Worship & Word | Dr. Anthony McCool “A Transaction for Tears”
by Anthony McCool
First Apostolic Church of Knoxville (Knoxville, TN)
Kind: Bible study
Scripture: Mark 5:35-36, Mark 5:38, Mark 5:39-40, 2 Corinthians 5:17

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/anthony-mccool--wednesday-night-worship-word
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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I say praise the Lord to each and every one of you. And as has been said, welcome to Wednesday evening worship. And all of those tuning in online, we welcome you the same. There's no higher honor and privilege uh than to minister on Wednesday evening Bible study. I take it as a a a heavy a burden but a burden uh that is heavy because it's important and because it means something uh when you convey the word of God to his people who have such a such a an experience a testimony and knowledge of this biblical truth. uh count it as a high challenge and honor and uh a very sacred time and I say that under the backdrop of being in the presence I don't say this because he's my grandfather but uh of Bishop Mcool who uh for absolute years Wednesday after Wednesday just absolutely uh delivered the word so deep and so substantive to us unwavering and uncompromising and I could never give he uh Pastor Mcool and pastor Whitley uh much honor. And then to the saints of God of FAC as well. As you have your Bibles, if you would open with me to the book of Mark, chapter 5, a well-known story to us, and I'll kind of hit around on the entire narrative, uh, throughout this evening's lesson. But to start us off, I'll start in chapter 5, uh, verse 35 and 36. The story of Jesus healing the leader of the synagogue, Jarius's daughter. Mark five states, "While he yet spake, there came from the ruler of the synagogue's house certain which said, thy daughter is dead. Why troubles thou the master any further? We'll break that down here in a moment. As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, he saith unto the ruler of the synagogue, be not afraid, only believe. The topic I would like to entitle this study is a transaction for tears when familiar voices become obstacles to faith. Let's pray over this word right now. Heavenly Father, we thank you. Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to gather, to assemble together in this midweek. Lord, we come with our minds opened and unified for what you would have for us. Lord, let your word sink deep down into our hearts. Let it be a a mirror of reflection to us. Let it be a filter that we discern our actions, our conversations through that we may be the example that you would have us to be. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. There are the things in life that do not appear particularly expensive until we begin calculating what they have cost us. A conversation may cost nothing financially yet leave us emotionally exhausted. I don't know about you, but there's some conversations I've had or I've been in the midst of that Man, if I could just give somebody $100 not to be in this situation or conversation, I would gladly pay it. Nothing about the conversation impacts my bank account. There's no withdrawal from my checkings, but I know in the midst of it, it's going to come with a follow-up conversation with someone else. It's going to sit heavy on my mind when I go to dinner. It's going to weigh on me when I try to lay my head down for rest at night. And I don't know about you, but in those moments, you can identify him pretty quick. And I'm just like, can I give you a hundred bucks and let's just call it a day. A friendship may require little monetary investment, yet gradually diminish our confidence. An evening of entertainment may seem harmless yet consume the attention of our families, responsibilities, and spiritual lives that desperately need it. Perhaps the most troubling reality is that we are not always unwilling participants in these exchanges. Sometimes we even finance them. We subscribe to what agitates us. We entertain what discourages us and we return so often to familiar voices that continually diminish our expectations. But why, and I always say, let me reiterate, I preach to myself as well. Why do intelligent, sincere, spiritually committed people continue supporting influences they recognize as unhealthy? Because human beings are creatures of attachment, creatures of memory, creatures of havoc, creatures of belonging. We do not always remain in situations because they are inherently good for us. Sometimes we remain in them because they are familiar. We do not always preserve relationships because they are flourishing. Sometimes we preserve them because we cannot imagine a life without them. They've always been there. And I cannot even imagine anything different. And we do not always resist change because we lack faith. Sometimes we resist because the discomfort of the familiar seems more safe than the uncertainty of something new. So tonight, as we begin this study of the miracle of the young damsel coming back to life, I want to examine an unusual detail in the resurrection of Jarius's daughter. It concerns a group of people who appear briefly in the narrative and that is the mourers. What makes their presence interesting is that in the ancient world some mourers were even compensated for their services. Their responsibility was to lament. That's a decent job if you can get it. But when Jesus arrived, their mourning turned in to mockery. And before he raised the little girl, the young damsel, Talithi Kumi, rise, he removed the crowd. He removed the voices of doubt and the mourers, the skeptics, those in the presence mocking the expectation and that raises a deeply personal question for all of us. What are we continuing to support emotionally, financially that is quietly teaching us to expect less from God? Uh, we live in a world that in order for us to even grab our attention onto an article or a TV show or a post on social media, online, the more negative and outrageous the title, the quicker you are to click. breaking news. If you watch any of the news stations, it's breaking news all day. Is there ever a day where there's not news that's just breaking in? And uh rarely is the story about somebody uh saving puppies before they fell off a bridge, right? They're they're not usually feelgood stories that are breaking in. But it it it we want to grab our attention and the justification of I must be informed about what's going on uh all around me. And I'm not preaching against being informed of the world that we live in. But if you notice in Mark 5:38, and I'll take my first bullet point from there, the house that had already begun mourning before Jesus even got there. Mark 5:38 says, "And he cometh to the house of the ruler of the synagogue and seeth," I like this word in the King James, "tomote." Man, that's just utter chaos. That is stuff going on everywhere. Tunnel to people crying, people uh playing, uncertainty, mockery, uh all this chaos. And them that wept and welled greatly. I mean, you can't even you can't even think. And no doubt before Jesus arrived with their there with the disciples and and the parents of the young girl and his servants, his news carriers that had uh brought the news. You could probably hear those people screaming before they even got to the house. And to appreciate this passage, we must enter the world of first century Judaism because this may seem a a lot a bit unorthodox to our culture. Death was not an ordinarily an exclusively private affair. It was a communal event accompanied by established customs and public expressions of grief. Burial commonly occurred soon after death and relatives gathered and neighbors arrived and preparations began. Among the recognized customs was professional mourning. What's that like on your LinkedIn page, right? What's your what's your job history? I'm a professional mourer. Some individuals played flutes, others specialized in audible lamentation, and some received compensation for participating. And this was an expectation that you were to have these professional mourers, these professional lmeners and flute players at the death. Such customs publicly honored the deceased. And it was not an inherently dishonest profession, but it gave expression to a family's sorrow. In the Jewish Mishna compiled around 200 AD, it preserves a statement that even the poorest husband should provide at least two flutes and one lamenting woman for his wife's funeral. Even poverty did not necessarily remove the customary expectation of mourers. Now, this is a a later ravenic teaching concerned a wife's burial and not necessarily the death of the child. But I say all that to say uh and we don't have any details that Jarius uh specifically or or those in charge of his household specifically uh hired these individuals. But with him being the leader of a synagogue and cross- referencing Mark with Matthew when he begins to talk about the tomult and the the flute players and the the lamenting, it's it's not a stretch uh to think that due to the urgency of it being a child, due to his position as being the leader of a synagogue and and more often than not probably uh participated in the burial and ceremonial rituals that these were hired guns, if you will. And there was probably more than likely a large gathering of them due to his position and due to it being a young girl. And this shows how deeply established morning customs were in Jewish society. Matthew using the term minstrels and people making noise. Those minstrels were the flute players providing the music associated with mourning. And imagine if you will the atmosphere, the mournful sound of flutes, the cries of lmenters, the gathering of neighbors, the movement of people through a house overwhelmed by tragedy, especially of a young girl trying to reconcile. easier to reconcile when it's someone on up in age or an adult that's lived a considerable life. But the tumult as translated in King James version that existed there just utter chaos surrounding. And remember, Jerus was the ruler of the synagogue, a recognized religious leader who would have been well known in the community. But by the time Jesus arrived, the household had already begun organizing itself around the assumption that death had settled the matter. The arrangements were underway. The mourers were all a present. The music was playing. Yet there was a man coming down the road. The household had begun preparing for the permanence of a condition that Christ was about to demonstrate was not beyond his authority. And I wonder how often we do something similar. one disappointment becomes the interpretive framework, the prism, the presupposition through which we view every opportunity. Well, last time this was a failure. the last time I fell short in this area. And it's a blockade and an obstacle for us to take a step forward with an opportunity that's going to lead to success. And this is not a this is not a message of being naive or happy golucky without proper preparation. The Bible tells us over and over, if you're going to build a tower, you need to have a blueprint. If you're going to go to war, you need to weigh out the cost. And there's wisdom and a multitude of counsel and uh you experience as a mighty teacher. And that's not what I'm referring to. But I'm talking about us as individuals either in our interpersonal relationships or in our uh vocational aspirations. We can use disappointment. We can use failure as a presupposition for our expectation in the present of what's going to take place. If I step out of the comfort zone that I'm in, one failure becomes the defining feature of our identity. One betrayal becomes the reason we refuse to trust again. And I'm trying to work on my language as well because oftent times if I convey something I've noticed in myself if I convey something to someone there could be a hundred positive comments a hundred reasons as to give joy a hundred reasons as to as to thank God for what's taking place and I can find myself honing in and focusing in on the one thing that I purposefully attach myself to to weigh me down to burden my mind. Even though if I begin to count my blessings, if I begin to look at all of the good things uh maybe individuals are doing or or something that's happening and I I find myself and I'm trying to catch myself, hey, before I I share this, let me tell you that the the good outweighs uh this season of a a negative infraction that's taking place when failure becomes the defining feature of our identity. We are no longer merely acknowledging what happened. We are allowing what happened to determine what we believe can ever happen. And there's a difference between recognizing reality and assuming reality cannot change. And that distinction is where faith must begin its work. Faith is not uh blind expectation walking out uh seeing which way the wind is is turning. It's David stepping on the field with Goliath having the experience of a a lion and a bear. It's having the experience of already protecting the sheep. That was not the first time he had ever slung a rock. And no doubt before he ever stepped on that battlefield, I I bet he had a bunch of hay stacks lined up uh about 9 foot seven like Goliath. And I I believe that he had practiced that shot several times, probably factoring in the the trajectory of the wind and the the slope of the terrain and the time of day that he would have been because there was a lot of scriptural evidence that talks about how good of a a shepherd he was. that even when he went to the battlefield, it says he he made sure that his sheep were taken care of. He he made sure that the the cart that he took that it was taken care of when he went to the battlefield and his brothers disrespected him, but that didn't affect his his mission either. And it says he ran to the battlefield with expectation. And there's been a lot of sermons and a lot of theological extrapolation about why did he pick up five stones? Well, my summation is that if he that was probably the maximum amount that he could carry and still be agile and if the first one didn't hit him, he was going to use a second and a third and a fourth and a fifth and probably knew where the the the brook was to go back and grab more if he needed to. Faith is being prepared. But there's a difference between recognizing reality and assuming that reality cannot change. And that distinction is where faith must begin to work. At this in our life is when facts can become false conclusions. Mark 5:35, the devastating announcement, thy daughter is dead. Man, we just read in the King James, they used a word like tuml. You know, it could have uh dressed it up a little bit. Thy daughter is dead. Why troublest thou the master any further? the situation's over. You've wasted your energy going to trying to track down Jesus. And you know, there was a chance you were going to getting him back here, but he stopped and performed a miracle for another woman. There's two propositions in this statement. The first is a fact. Thy daughter is dead. The second is an interpretation. Why troublest thou the master any further? Somebody was looking through a prism in a presupposition that finality had already taken place and that the result of this circumstance had already been concluded. The messengers were correct about the tragedy, but their conclusion exceeded their knowledge of Christ. They assumed that because the situation had moved beyond human remedy, it had also moved beyond divine intervention. And can I tell you, FAC Knoxville, yes, we're intelligent. Yes, we are scripturally literate. Yes, we are faithful. Yes, we give. Yes, we serve. But in our pragmatism and in our knowledge and in our preparedness, though all of those things are positive traits, we must not allow those to be the presupposition for which we limit the scope of the God we serve and what he is able to do in our life. >> Hallelujah. >> Because we still believe that we serve a God who can heal. We believe we serve a God who can bring dead things back to life. We believe we serve a God who can provide mercy and grace. And even though the first time resulted in failure, even though the second time resulted in confusion, we believe that we serve a God who when we put oursel under the subjection of his financial plan and are of faithfulness and service to him for his glory. We believe that he can open up the windows of heaven and make room that we do not even have enough room to receive. We confuse the limitations of our understanding with the limitations of God's authority. We assume again I'm preaching to myself here that because we cannot envision a situation. Yes, it's get it's good to get together and counsel and get wisdom. That's a that's a smart thing to do. But even in the midst of our heads together strategizing, nothing wrong with that. We can assume that because the situation has removed beyond human remedy, it has also moved beyond divine intervention. And I don't know about you, I shouldn't say that. I do know about you. I know there are situations that come up where we gathered together and we've said we've gone just as far as we can go. But in this situation where maybe there needs to be a resolution of conflict or we need uh we need somebody's heart uh to become softened or uh we need a situation, we pray and say, "God, we need the Holy Ghost to move right now." How often have you heard bishops say in counseling or in Bible study, "My goodness, if two Holy Ghost uh filled individuals can't get together and work out THEIR PROBLEM, WHAT kind of a witness would that be to our world if two Holy Ghost fil people can't walk hand in hand together and take a step forward?" Is that the absence of conflict? No. Is that the absence of misunderstandings and miscommunications happening? No. Is that the absence of our manipulative human flesh and saying things we shouldn't at times and doing things out of our own motives and out of our own desires sometimes that creates distortion and conflict? Absolutely not. But we got to have a selfch checkup through the Holy Ghost. And it is apostolic doctrine that when conflict arises, when miscommunications arises, it's, "Oh, I'm going to uh stay back from that person. I'm going to uh cut them off. They'll never hear from me again. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. That does not align with the words that we live by. The words of life. We confuse. We can make the similar mistakes. We confuse the limitations of our understanding with the limitations of God's authority. We assume that because we cannot envision a solution that no solution remains possible. But Jesus immediately interrupts that interpretation. And that's what I that's what we must pray for often is Jesus, give us the proper interpretation. Give us the right lens, if you will, to view this situation. What's this going to do to the rest of this family? What's this going to do to this individual? How's this going to affect that person? But Jesus immediately interrupts that interpretation and Jesus gives us this big saliloquy of eloquent words that we can't understand. He says, "Be not afraid, only believe." I don't know about you, but if I had gone to track down Jesus, fought through the crowd, still a chance that my daughter could be healed. I saw a miracle take place and I was happy for her. But I'm like, Jesus, would you hurry it up? We've got to get back to my daughter. And by the time they see their home off in the horizon, they can hear the lamenters. They can hear the flute players. This is the leader of the synagogue. I mean, there's all these neighbors. There's the nosy neighbors as well that don't care anything about the situation, but they're just everybody's gathered. Oh, this is the time Jesus is going to give me a mighty word, and he's going to explain how everything is going to play out. And I know we were I know you stopped and healed that woman with the issue of blood. Uh, but I need you right now. I know we were late. Can you give me a word? Be not afraid. Only believe. >> I would have personally probably wanted a little bit more than that. No offense. Jesus does not provide Jarius with a detailed explanation. He simply calls him to continually trust him. This reveals something essential about biblical faith. Faith is not certainty about the circumstances. It is in the confidence in the character of God. You look through the lids of this Old Testament before you get to the gospel and you see how God revealed himself to the nation of Israel and how God revealed himself to in individuals. Jehovah Gyra, Jehovah Shalom, Jehovah Ni, all of these descriptions, all of these characteristics, the covenant relationship, the relationship of the creator God with humanity. Then Jesus encapsulates all this God manifest in flesh. It's confidence in the character of God, not in our circumstance that we need some 300word response grammatically accurate, but trusting, having faith, trusting in the character of the God that we serve. He's a healer. He's faithful to provide. I have covenantal promises. We assume that as I mentioned because we can't envision a solution that none is possible. Faith does not require us to pretend that the Now listen to this. Faith does not require us to pretend that a tragedy is unreal. That is denying the reality in front of you. That couldn't be further from the truth of what I'm talking about. Nor is it a mechanism by which we attempt to control divine outcomes. We cannot dictate God's timing or guarantee our preferred miracle. Sometimes faith is simply continuing to walk with Jesus when the journey has become incomprehensible. Can you still walk with him when you don't understand? Can you still walk with him even when you're confused? Can you still walk with him even when you're carrying those burdens, saying, "God, I love you. God, I trust you. God, I praise you. I know your character. I know you're a provider. I know that you're a healer." Jesus did not know what would happen when they arrived. He only knew, Jarius did not know what would happen when they arrived. He only knew that Jesus was still walking beside him. And I want you to know that Jesus walks with you. And at times it seems like the only answer we get is be not afraid, only believe. Or I I come wanting to hear a a sermon that encourages me and in inspires me and gives this specific direction to take the next step. And I get only believe. But when you serve Jesus, when you have Jesus walking beside you, that is all you need. >> As we go on to Mark 5:39 and 40, he declares, "And when he was come in, he saith to them, why make ye this a do and weep? The damsel is not dead but sleep. What a paradigm shift. What an interpretive shift between death finality and sleep. Just a temporary condition. Humanity experience professional mourning says death finality. But Jesus says, "Why are you all you guys here? This damsel is just asleep." And they laughed him to scorn. Consider the contradiction. These people had been lamenting, their voices filling the household with sorrow. But when Jesus challenged their understanding, their mourning turned into mockery. It's not very professional of them, though. I mean, if you're getting paid, just go with whatever they, you know, whatever the atmosphere. You know, Jerry's parents are believing, hey, I'm getting a paycheck out of this. But their mourning turned into mockery. The Greek verb of this word conveys der derisive derisive laughter. They regarded his words as absurd and from human experience which by all accounts they had a lot of it. Their reaction is logical and understandable. They knew what death looked like. This was not their first gig, if you will. But Jesus was speaking from an authority that transcended their experience. And when he described the girl as sleeping, he was not denying the reality of death. He was altering the language and the atmosphere and the paradigm shift and the lens for which the situation was being viewed. Because now humanity had gone as far as they can go. But there was God manifest in flesh who was about to step into the situation. Luke explicitly records that the people knew she was dead. Jesus was describing death in relation to his authority to awaken her. She's dead to you, but the power of the God I serve, she's just asleep and can be awakened. They were familiar enough with death to recognize its presence, but unfamiliar with the authority of Jesus to recognize what his presence meant. They knew how to conduct a funeral, but they did not know what to do when the resurrection and the life entered the room. I would say in 2026, one of the biggest hurdles and challenges we of faith and all of our instantaneous communication and our ability to analyze every situation that takes place. Do we fail to have a paradigm shift in the situation of what could take place if we allow Jesus to enter in the midst of the perceived conflict that we are facing and what kind of shift in perspective could take place? Sometimes we become so familiar with disappointment that hope begins to feel dangerous. Don't don't get your hopes up too high. don't get the cart ahead of the horse. We've trusted people who disappointed us. We've prayed without receiving the answer we anticipated. We've experienced circumstances that left us wounded. Again, these are not conditions of denying but truthful interactions that we've had. And eventually we protect ourselves by lowering our expectations. If we expect nothing, we reason. We cannot be disappointed. But there is a difference between wisdom gained through suffering and cynicism produced by unresolved disappointment. Wisdom teaches us to trust God without presuming upon him. Cynicism teaches us to expect even nothing from him. But as we transition to point number four, this is probably the central theme of our study as we've given this context of what it looked like was taking place in the house of Jerius. And here's where the application becomes more personal. Why do we continue supporting influences we know are diminishing us? Are you being are you contradicting what you are saying? Last bullet point you were talking about. No, no, no. You need to resolve. It's 100% true. But with resolution also comes healthy boundaries and the right way to take the next step forward. Why do we continue supporting influences we know are diminishing us? Often because familiarity creates a sense of security and there is scientific back research behind this. Consider a friendship that has existed 20 or 30 years. We describe it as a friendship but is it uplifting? that person knew us before our careers, marriages, children, and responsibilities. And not all the time. Again, there I go with the negatives instead of the positive. But sometimes these relationships because of their comfortability or, you know, we can kind of take jabs at one another and all all that stuff. And we can never mature past that type of language and sarcasm. and our relationship has kept. And what this does when there's sacred moments or when your interaction is always sarcasm or or or jovial or there's too much comfortability in those sacred moments either in a service or in prayer or when there's seriousness taking about in life. There's a great difficulty to pivot from that person that's taking jabs and then you're catching them at the wrong time when not everything is going good and then to be Mr. or Mrs. Serious in that situation. It's a difficult balance to navigate. That person knew us though before our careers, marriages, children, and responsibilities. They remember an earlier version of us. And yes, there's something beautiful about that continuity. Don't get me wrong. But longevity does not automatically guarantee that a relationship continues contributing to our spiritual maturity. You've heard Pastor Whitley's beautiful testimony. There were individual when he took a continued to take steps forward in his Christian walk. There were individuals whom he had to set more and more strict boundaries with. And there were some that almost got mad at him because not just he he was busier with different things and had different aspirations. Now, but then let me go back to the positive. There were some that saw this taking place and uh even they didn't necessarily get the same conviction that he did, but they remained faithful to him and supported what he did and there was a eventual separation. And it's not an absence of love for those individuals. It's not a absence of care for those individuals but the lives went in different directions. There was a spiritual maturity. Sometimes we remain emotionally committed because of what a relationship once represented even when its present influence has become unhealthy. We confuse shared history with present compatibility, loyalty with unlimited access, and the discomfort of establishing a boundary with the guilt of abandoning someone. gentlemen, young men, when you when you get married, you can't just come over and play basketball with the guys as much as you you want to. You can't make every tea time. When you get kids, it ramps it up even more. But one person's life is not better suited than the other. We all have our own hobbies, our own interest, our own goals, our own time management. But I would encourage us with positive relationships to one another. Be respectful to a friend when they say, "Hey, I'm sorry. I can't I can't make it today." Or, "Hey, we we can't do this on this Saturday. We already had something planned." What? You're not you're you can't come. Oh, you you hate us. You don't like us. you know, you can't make it to this. Oh, you're >> you're neglecting you're neglecting us. And there'll be this passive aggressive sense of guilt that when Now, some people don't have that passive aggressive sense of guilt. I I try to get, but then I'm like, "Oh my goodness. I I'm just going to I'm a pushover. I'm just going to go." So, I don't where's that $100 bill at? Here's a hundred bucks. But in our Even in our relationships, somebody says they can't come say, "And I understand. I love you. We'll catch you on the next one." Don't put undue pressure on people. It's not healthy. We can do this in the context of our families as well. You mean you're not going to do that with us this year? Or as as families grow and uh sons and daughters get married, you're you're not spending that Christmas to tradition. I I bake that special cookie with that little elf face on it and you're going to miss that. It's not healthy. It's not not healthy. Be supportive. be encouraging, make make pathways uh to bring peace. You can set up a passive aggressive conflictual relationship between in-laws because of this uh and I want to I want to have them with me on this one. And if they get this gift, I'm going to get get one this gift with some bells on it. You know, it's just one up. And it while it may bring you a sense of joy in the moment that you got him this time all the time, you're you're creating discomfort and conflict between a sacred couple that got married and then confusion uh within their children. They're not going to be here to eat my cookies. You don't understand. A relationship can deserve your gratitude for what it once was without deserving unlimited authority over who you are becoming. Christian love is not disposable, nor is Christian love conditional. We do not discard people because they become inconvenient. But neither does faithfulness require indefinite participation in destructive patterns. We can honor history without allowing history to govern our future. Perhaps some of us have continued paying the mourers because we have mistaken familiarity for faithfulness. Bullet point number five, and I'll stop after this bullet point. The family roles we never outgrow. This becomes particularly complicated within families. Jesus dealt with this. What do they say? Is that the carpenter's son? Had Jesus been from somewhere else where they didn't know his upbringing or his history or who his father was, he may have been uh presented of this latest greatest all this this miracle workers coming in but because they were familiar with him that carpenter's son prophet's not going to have respect and place he grew up in families can develop patterns of interaction that persist long after the circumstances creating them have changed One child becomes the responsible one. You know, we watch those reels of the first child, the second, the second child, the third child, and then that second child's the middle child. Another becomes the difficult one. Somebody's texting them right now. One sibling becomes the peacemaker. Another becomes the person everyone expects to create. confident and you're saying that Pastor Anthony though you're speaking a lot of truth right now. One family member becomes the caretaker while another becomes the individual whose needs continually receive the greatest attention. These roles are not necessarily assigned deliberately. They emerge through years of interaction, expectation, and repetition. Once established, they can become remarkably resistant to change. The dinner table analogy, how we all sit in the same space forever at the kids table. A person may become a mature, responsible adult and still feel like an inadequate child whenever they return to a particular family. environment. Oh, we see this portrayed in television sitcoms and movies most likely centered around holidays when everybody gathers together and boy do the conflicts come about. You'll have a working professional that has this great reputation and has earned a tremendous living, but then when they get back home, it's the elf cookies in their lap again. Someone may spend years developing confidence only to discover that one conversation with a parent awakens insecurities they thought they had overcome. Why? Because we do not merely remember relationships intellectually. We carry learned emotional responses into them. And sometimes the people closest to us continue interacting with an earlier version of who we once were. This takes emotional intelligence. This takes self-awareness. This takes a constant atmosphere of showing those around me respect. The gospel is fundamentally concerned with transformation. Paul declares in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new." Conversion does not immediately erase every learned pattern or resolve every complicated relationship. Sanctification is a continuing work of grace, but our identity in Christ is not permanently confined to the roles assigned by your history. You can honor your family without remaining imprisoned within the version of yourself your family has been accustomed to knowing. You can change. It might create hurdles in conversations in their expectations of you, but your identity can change. The person who has always maintained peace may need to learn to speak honestly. The person who has always assumed responsibility for everyone's emotions may need to recognize the limits of that responsibility to say, "Buddy, I'm done eating my turkey. I can't fix this." Sayanara. The person who has always sought approval may need to learn that obedience to God is more important than universal acceptance. This may limit invitations. This may bring about more conversations or less. Sometimes spiritual growth requires us to stop living according to expectations before before we understood who Christ was calling us to become. Stand with me about halfway halfway through but I'll I'll end early. I'll end early. Christian service and unhealthy self- sacrifice are not synonymous. Jesus calls us to love our neighbors, love our family, but he does not call us to assume responsibility for every emotion, every decision, and every consequence of their life. Jesus, even Jesus withdrew from the crowds. Even Jesus refused to permit every demand upon his attention to determine his mission. Perhaps some of us need to recognize that our value is not measured by how indispensable we have become. You are not God. You cannot carry every hurt, every brokenness, every dumb decision, your sister, brother, cousin, mom, dad. You cannot carry that. And it is not your responsibility to fix it. Being constantly needed is not the same as being deeply loved. And if your family is unable to interpret that or have that presupposition that their love for you is conditional on manipulating and taking advantage of you, that is not love at all. And being faithful does not require becoming emotionally exhausted. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. Lord, your word teaches us. Lord, it gives us discernment, Lord. It tames that unruly member, our tongue, Father, as we grow in Christ, as we step forward in faith and spiritual maturity, as we expand on the calling that you gave us, as we use our resources to point more people to you. Lord, let us protect my spiritual walk, protect my marital uh relationship, protect my family. Lord, let us be like Noah, knowing that our our main aspiration is to build an ark of safety and save my family. Lord, we thank you for your love. We thank you for your grace. And let us walk in you tonight. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. And amen. You can be dismissed. God bless you.