Built To Last Day 2 Family Life Conference by Rev. Christie Bature: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Elasticity and the Elastic Limit

Elasticity in physics is defined as the capacity of a substance to return to its original shape after it has been stretched, pulled, pummelled, and pressured. Every elastic material has what engineers call an elastic limit. When pressure exceeds that limit, the material permanently deforms or breaks.

This is the picture of resilience. Some of us grew up poor and owned one pair of trousers. Every night you washed it so it would dry before morning. After a while, what once fit you turned into something far too large — because the elastic had been stretched beyond its limit.

You push people until you exceed their elastic limit, and then you begin to call them a bad name.

The Englishman has a proverb: "You give a dog a bad name in order to hang it."

Narcissism — Named in Scripture

2 Timothy 3:1-5 gives us nine characteristics of the narcissist:

• Self-absorbed — money-hungry, self-promoting, arrogant and proud.

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• Stuck-up, profane, contemptuous of authority — if a pastor dares call out their wrongdoing, they leave. Any person around whom no one can speak correction is on the way to destruction.
• Slander campaigns — they go around poisoning your reputation before everyone; by the time you realise it, you look like the devil to the people around you.
• Impulsively wild, savage, cynical, treacherous, ruthless — they will make a show of religion but behind the scenes are something else entirely.

2 Timothy 3:5 — "Having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof — from such turn away."

Narcissists manipulate narratives until you question your own reality. Counsellors need to be aware of this dynamic. The victim must not end up apologising to the oppressor.

We Reserve the Worst of Ourselves for Home

Most of us exercise temperance daily in the office. Someone is annoying. They talk and you feel like shutting them down. But you have worked there for years and you have never once lashed out. Why? Because something is at stake. The salary matters.

But we reserve the worst of ourselves — the venom, the dregs — for where we should be the sweetest: at home. Because we do not consider that anything is at stake.

If Jesus reserved the remnants for us, would we be sitting here? There would have been no salvation.

He reserved the best for family. The highest point of the prodigal son's crisis is found in Luke 15:16 — "And no man gave to him." Not being favoured, not being helped, not being assisted — that is not a virtue. It is a pain.

The Fasting God Actually Wants

Isaiah 58:3-7 (Message Translation) — God says: "They are busy at worship" — a sad statement. We are doing busybody and calling it worship. Many of us in church switch our brains to neutral because of the assignments we carry. Plenty of movement. No power.

• "To all appearances they are a nation of right-living people" — but when God's candle searches the inward parts, we find pretenders.
• They ask, "Why do we fast and you don't look our way?" God answers: on your fast day, your bottom line is still profit. You are fasting to bribe God, not for deep spiritual growth.
• The fasting God is after: break chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation, free the oppressed, cancel debts, share food with the hungry, be available to your own family.

Availability is not a function of physical presence alone. It is financial availability, emotional availability, psychological availability, spiritual availability, sexual availability.

Some people are Father Christmas outside with their kindness and then withhold everything from the spouse inside. That is called sexual anorexia.

The Bitterness Trap

Michal had every reason to be angry and bitter. Her father exploited her love and used her as bait. She helped David escape when Saul came to kill him. David did not come back for her — he went and married Abigail, Ahinoam, Bathsheba. Then for political reasons, he pulled her out of the home of the man she had eventually married.

She was justified. But when David returned with the ark, dancing before the Lord, she met him with a curse. 2 Samuel 6:20-23 — God shut Michal's womb. She is the only woman in the Bible we know God never allowed to have children again.

Bad things happen to good people. God said: I still hold you responsible for your response.

• Jesus was beaten, reviled, spat upon, and He said, Luke 23:34 — "Father, forgive them."
• Stephen, only a deacon, while being stoned said, Acts 7:60 — "Father, do not hold this sin against them."
• The word forgive is two words: for and give. For means ahead. So ahead of the offence — give mercy. That is the meaning of forgiveness.

Bitterness shuts you down. It does not shut down your enemies — it shuts down your finances, your relationships, your capacity to think, your healing, your connections, your opportunities.

David Returned to Bless His Household

2 Samuel 6:19-20 — After distributing meat and food to all the people, the Bible says: "And David returned to bless his household." David did not only bless the people outside. He was coming back with a blessing for the house.

Who are you in your family? Are you the source of pain or the source of joy? Are you the supplier of life and laughter, or the supplier of disappointment, frustration, and betrayal?

David said: Psalm 101:2 — "I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. I will walk within my house with a perfect heart." What David was saying: who I am inside is who I will be outside. The same God who made elastic to stretch put a limit on it.

Oh Jesus, help us. Let's do your perfect will. Don't be the cheat in your family. Supply what you are supposed to supply. Every joint supplying — that is the standard. God, help us.