April 8
Ruth 4:13-22; 1 Chronicles 2:9-55; 1 Chronicles 4:1-23; 1 Samuel 1:1-8
There is often so much guilt surrounding families. Awkward situations, strained relationships seem to be part of the norm of most families. Though everyone wants that perfect looking family that can be presented on social media, often this is not the true situation. When it comes to choices, we must realize that each person only really makes two choices. We make a choice to enter into a relationship with God, we are not raised into it or born into it. We also make a choice as to our spouse. But we don't choose our parents, or our children. Our children don't choose each other. We don't get to choose our other relatives either, such as grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. As such there generally are a wide variety of personality types represented in every extended family. Though there are no coincidences in this world and everyone is in your life for a reason, this doesn't mean that everyone is necessarily going to get along. As I see my patients I hear so much anger and guilt surrounding one's family. There are those who angrily give a list of all that they have done which seems to have been unrecognized and under-appreciated. Then there are often those who express guilt, believing that if they had done everything "right" then their family would all be getting along. We must never forget that guilt and the condemnation that goes along with it is never from God for the child of God. We read in Romans 8:1, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit."
Many will approach a portion like the beginning of 1 Chronicles and ask, "why all the names and genealogies". Most believe that it was compiled by Ezra for those who returned from Babylonian captivity. David was a man referred to as "a man after God's own heart", yet in these genealogies nothing is hidden. This was one very fractured family. David's brothers were mentioned in 1 Chronicles 2:13-15. We go on to hear of David's sisters in 2:16-17, "Now their sisters were Zeruiah and Abigail. And the sons of Zeruiah were Abishai, Joab, and Asahel - three. Abigail bore Amasa; and the father of Amasa was Jether the Ishmaelite." These were main characters in the life of David. His nephews, Joab and Abishai, were prominent in his military but very difficult to control, such that after his death David had his son, Solomon kill his nephew Joab. His nephew, Amasa, joined forces with David's son, Absalom, in the rebellion against David. When the rebellion failed, David was going to elevate his nephew Amasa, who was then killed by his cousin Joab. We read of David's immediate family in 3:1-9. He had multiple children through multiple marriages. The first was Amnon (3:1) who raped his own sister Tamar (3:9). As a result the full brother of Tamar, Absalom, responded by killing Amnon. Later on when Solomon ascends to the throne, he has his brother Adonijah killed. All of these stories are given in much greater detail in the books of 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 Kings. Does this mean that David and his siblings did a bad job raising their children? Due to David's sin with Bathsheeba and Uriah, it is prophesied in 2 Samuel 12:11 by the prophet Nathan, "Thus says the Lord: 'Behold, I will raise up adversity against you from your own house;". We do get a view from the subsequent pages that David often failed to discipline his children in certain circumstances. But this is one big tale of espionage, murder, revenge, etc, which extends beyond David's immediate family.
The point is that we are all part of a human family. This unit might be everything you had always hoped for with everyone living harmoniously like one big happy family. But, often this is not the case. There is a tendency to feel guilt over decisions which you can look back in retrospect and think how you could have done something different. If there is something egregious that you realize then you can try to right fractured relationships. But we must never forget that family fractures are often not someone's fault. Guilt has no place for the Christian, as mentioned in the verse above, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus,". We are commanded to look forward if we are going to serve God. Consider Paul, do you not think that he regretted persecuting the early Christians before his own conversion experience in Acts 9? But Paul writes in Philippians 3:13-14, "Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." We can not move forward in God's calling in our lives if we are continuously looking backwards at our past. So, fellow Christians, in addition to the bondage of sin and death which Jesus paid for when He went to the cross, is also the guilt and the condemnation that tends to hang like a shadow over many lives. God has offered us freedom, accept it.
Messages from Pastor Lloyd Pulley: