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Christ Community Chapel is a church in Hudson, OH, that invites people to reimagine life because of Jesus. Learn more about us at ccchapel.com.
Romans 12:16-18.
Live in harmony with one another.
Do not be haughty,
but associate with the lowly.
Never be wise in your own sight.
Repay no one evil for evil,
but give thought to do what is honorable
in the sight of all.
If possible, so far as it depends on you,
live peaceably with all.
Well, good morning and
welcome to the weekend
gathering of Christ Community Chapel.
My name is Zach.
I'm one of the pastors here, and I'm
so glad
that we get to be part of your weekend.
We are continuing our August sermon
series.
We're calling it Good News
for Every Family, and we're taking a look
at God's blueprint for what it looks like
to flourish as a family.
We believe that's what God wants.
Sometimes we think about God as a life
inhibitor or restrictor.
But if we had a relationship with God,
if we were to give control
to God, we would get less, not more.
The Bible has a very different view
of God.
Jesus himself says in the Gospel of John,
I've come so that you might have life
and life more abundant.
God wants more for us, more
for our families.
So we're taking four weeks in August to
look at what
that looks like in our day to day lives.
Two weeks ago,
we looked at parenting and God's design
for that last week
we looked at God's design for marriage.
I don't know about you,
but the red and green M&M
language has shown up in my house
a lot this week.
Thanks a lot, Pastor Joe.
And then this week, we're
going to turn our attention
in a different direction.
And here's the reason.
There's always a danger
when you talk about families,
what God wants for our families
that some of us might feel left out.
The unintentional consequence
of casting vision for what God wants
in your marriage, or what God wants in
your parenting, might be to make you feel
as though what God is really interested
in are perfect kinds of families,
the God's people,
or those who get it right.
Those who are happy and
and healthy and everything's working.
And then if you're not in that cute
little picture,
maybe God isn't that interested in you.
And so it feels right to step back
for just a second and say, we don't just
want to talk about parenting,
we don't want to talk about marriage.
We don't even
just want to talk about healthy families.
What does God
have to say about broken families?
What happens
when you don't fit the healthy picture?
When things aren't going well?
When even
the subject of family is painful?
We want to see is that God cares
about people in that situation as well.
In fact, to show you that
if you have a Bible,
would you open it up to Romans chapter 12?
We're going to look at a few verses
that were just read
so beautifully a minute ago.
Take out your phone, your tablet,
however you want to get there.
And hey, if you're new
and maybe it's been a little while
since you've been in church,
you didn't bring a Bible.
That's okay.
All the verses I talk about
are going to be on the screen behind me,
but we do have Bibles for you in the pew
in front of you in the back of East Hall.
If you want to hold something
and follow along.
Today's reading is on page
891, bottom right hand corner.
Glad that you're here.
Thanks for taking a big step.
I hope you know that
everything that happens here this morning
is as much for you
as it is for anyone else.
So thanks for being here.
But however you're getting to Romans
chapter 12,
I have four points
I want to use to guide our time together.
Very simple.
And they go like this
I want to talk about it needs to be said,
I need to hear it.
I need to experience it.
And I need this answer.
It needs to be said.
I need to hear it.
I need to experience it.
And I need this answered.
All right. Let's start with the first one.
It needs to be said.
Look at how the writer opens this passage
right off the bat.
Romans chapter
12, verse 16 says this live in harmony
with one another.
Pretty simple question.
Why does that need to be said?
Live in harmony with one another.
Why does the writer have to say that?
Well, probably for the same reason
that when I leave my kids in the basement
at my house and I'm going to go upstairs
where the adults are hanging out,
I say things like, just get along.
That's not
because they were going to do that
anyways.
Or I might say, try
not to make a huge mess.
Right.
I'm saying these things
because if I don't say
them, it might not happen.
If I don't encourage them to get along.
If I don't remind them to clean up after
themselves, it isn't going to happen.
I think when the writer says
live in harmony with one another, he's
acknowledging
the fact that if we're not careful,
our default setting are drifting
is away from peace, not towards it.
Reminds me of an old preacher joke
about a man that they find
deserted on an island,
like Tom Hanks on Castaway,
and when the boat pulls up to rescue
the man, of course he's overjoyed.
And they notice behind him he's built
two wooden structures on the beach,
and they say one of those buildings.
And he goes, oh, well,
the first one is my church.
That's where I worship.
And they said, oh man, that's really cool.
They said, what's the other one?
He goes, that's the church
I used to go to. I had to leave.
Because, you see, the truth is,
whether you're all alone
on a deserted island
or in the first century in Rome
or in northeast Ohio in 2025, Harmony
is an easy.
Let me throw some data at you.
1 in 3 Americans presently
are estranged from a family member.
1 in 3 Americans have a family member.
They no longer speak to.
1 in 5 Americans
are not speaking to a family member
because of their political beliefs or the
political beliefs of the family member.
Now that's just a number, right?
So let me put that in context.
That means if you consider that there's
probably a person sitting to your right
and a person sitting to your left,
one of you
at least
is not speaking to a family member.
That means if your pew is full
or mostly full, two people on each pew
are not speaking to a family member
because of politics.
We aren't getting better at this.
We're getting worse.
If we need it in the first century,
for the Apostle
Paul to says, live in harmony,
we need it even more.
In 2025,
it needs to be said we are getting worse
at doing family.
Now, I don't want you to feel judged
by that or accused by that.
I want you to hear this.
The reason I know
we're getting bad at doing family
is because so am I.
My second point is literally,
I need to hear this.
And here's why.
Because if you were sitting on the pew
with me,
the person to my right
and the person to my left would be safe
because I have family members.
I'm currently
estranged from
families hard.
Harmony is hard.
And it's hard when you get asked
to preach a sermon on it
and you're struggling with it yourself.
So I was reflecting this week on why
it is so hard for me
to experience harmony with my family.
As I was thinking this week about how hard
it would be to try to even preach
a sermon to myself, let alone to you.
The image that came to my mind
was one of three stones.
Because the truth is,
when I think about my family,
I live with three different stones.
I hope this makes sense to you.
The first is
I live with a stone in my shoe.
There are things that family
members have said to me
that I don't know if I'll ever Unhear.
There are things that they've done to me
that I don't know if I'll ever unfurl.
And the truth is, every time
I think about those family members,
whether they're in the room or not,
every time I'm around them
or I think about them,
I feel those things.
Those things
they said, those things they did.
It's like a stone in my shoe.
I can't I can't walk without feeling.
And it's there all the time.
And I know you might see this and think,
that's a little big for your metaphor.
That stone could never fit in your shoe.
But if you know what I'm talking about,
you know it's not big enough.
I walk with a limp.
The second stone
is a stone in my hand.
It's the pain I want it cause.
Because of the things that I've felt.
Because of the things that have been said.
It's the.
It's the word I want to let fly.
It's the thing I would have said
if I just had more time to think about it.
It's I want to go back
and have that same argument again,
and I want to unleash my fury.
Or maybe it's
not even the Stone of aggression.
It's a stone of passivity.
It's the coldness.
I want them to feel.
It's the event I don't go to.
It's the birthday I don't acknowledge.
It's the stone in my hand.
And then, of course,
because every day I wake up with a stone
in my shoe and a stone in my hand.
The third stone. You already know
is in my heart.
Because I
don't wake up with harmony,
even on the horizon.
It's not even on my radar.
It's not even an aspiration.
That relationship is dead.
I wonder if you felt any of those stones.
And I know that's my experience.
I didn't come here to teach.
For my experience.
I came to teach you from the Bible.
But you can tell just
by that atmosphere in the room.
We're in the same place.
Which is why it's not surprising when
you read what the writer of Romans says.
It's these stones he's talking about.
Look what he says.
Romans chapter 12, verse 16. Pick it up.
The second half he says this do not
be haughty, but associate with the lowly.
Never be wise in your own sight.
Repay no one evil for evil,
but give thought to do
what is honorable in the sight of all.
Repay no one evil for evil.
That's pretty simple, right?
Because of the stone in your shoe,
don't pick up a stone in your hand.
That's me.
But even when he says don't be haughty,
don't be wise.
Don't despise the lowly.
What's he saying?
Don't be so sure of your own virtues. Ask.
Don't be so morally superior
that your heart is dead to them.
It's not just that
living in harmony needs to be said, it's
that I need to hear it.
Because there are two things
that are true.
Number one,
there will never be harmony in my family
as long as there is war in my heart.
There will never be harmony in my family.
As long as these stones
are in my shoe
and in my hand and in my heart.
Now is the disharmony of my family
or yours, owed entirely to the stones
in my hand, in heart?
Absolutely not.
And in case you're wondering what I have
to say about them, that's my fourth point.
Hang in there.
But no matter
what slice of the brokenness of my family
I own,
there will never be
peace as long as it's there.
And here's the second thing
God wants me to deal with my stones.
After all, that's the only thing
in the broken family relationship
that I can actually aim at.
It's the only thing I can actually affect.
And here it is in black and white.
God is not okay with my resignation
and the brokenness of my family.
God is not okay with the stone in my shoe,
or in my hand, or in my heart.
He wants me to deal with it.
He wants
harmony.
Do I?
Do you?
Now, there's a danger here
because this is a place
where people get God wrong all the time.
And the danger?
Is that what you think I'm telling you is
that God is like the junior high football
coach of which I am one
who's yelling at the kid on the field
to tackle that 200 pound running back
the other team has,
as the one more yell is going to make
the kid a better athlete than he is.
Come on, try harder.
And that
12 year old crying out there on the field
going, coach, I can't do it.
There's a danger.
You think that's what I'm telling you?
God is like
that.
God is saying to you, come on, send
another text, make another call,
try again.
Show up, say you're
sorry again, work a little harder.
Save your family and you're just crying
on the field going, I've tried.
I can't.
That's not what I'm saying.
Which is why my third point is
I need to experience
God doesn't move us,
change us, lead us
by yelling from the sidelines.
In fact, that's the fundamental
difference of Christianity
among any other religion in the world.
God doesn't
move us by yelling from the sideline.
God moves us by coming
on to the playing field.
Here's what I mean.
This passage, of course,
comes in the book of Romans chapter 12.
You don't have to be a Bible scholar
to know this.
Some other stuff has happened before.
Chapter 12.
11 chapters.
The book of Romans, one of the greatest
books in the entire Bible.
Maybe the greatest book in the Bible.
I'm not sure if it's Orthodox to say that,
but it's pretty great.
And it's entirely about one thing.
And you know what?
That one thing is?
Your greatest broken relationship.
Because the greatest broken relationship
you have
and I have
is not with a manipulative mother.
Or an abusive father
or rebellious brother,
or a guilt trip giving sister.
The greatest broken relationship
you and I have is with God.
The God that we
have ignored, that we have sinned against,
that we have rebelled against,
that we have rejected,
that we have made a mockery of friends.
You can't understand Christianity
until you understand this.
If there is a God,
then he must, as it relates to you.
And I have a stone in his shoe.
And if he dies
and he cares about justice at all,
he must have a stone in his hand.
And if he dies, then certainly
when he thinks about us,
he must have stone
in his heart.
But in fact, he doesn't.
In fact, one of the greatest verses
and all the Bible, Romans chapter
five, verse eight says it this way,
but God shows his love for us
in that while we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.
Do you see what that verse is saying?
It's saying that God
in a broken relationship with us,
did not stand back
and wait for us to make the first move.
He didn't stand back and go,
well, we'll see what they do
or we'll see what they say, or we'll see
what they text, or we'll see if they call.
Or we'll say, if they say no, no, no.
God said, because of his love for us,
because of his mercy for us,
because of how badly
he wanted harmony with us, God bent down
and dealt with the stone in his shoe
in the coming of His Son Jesus Christ,
who lived a perfect life
and then went to the cross.
And God took the stone out of his shoe,
and he had it in his hand,
and he threw it not at us.
But at himself.
He placed himself, his own son in between
us and his anger, and us in his
and his wrath,
and us and his judgment, us in our sin.
And he eradicated it on the cross,
because as his heart towards us was soft,
God demonstrates
his own love to us in this,
that while we were the problem,
while we were the cause
of the broken family,
while we were the cause of the disharmony,
he loved us too much to wait for
us to make the first move.
God isn't on the sidelines screaming
at you to try harder as a family member.
God is on the field showing you the
transforming power of love.
But it's deeper than
that because once you come to understand
this, here's what happens.
You begin to trust God.
And when you trust God,
you begin to see God isn't using you
to put your family back together.
He wants actual harmony.
Like, consider this
the stone in my hand might be the hardest
one for me to give up.
Because if I put it down,
then the family members who have hurt me
get away with it.
There's no justice.
But that's why Romans 12 verse
19 says this, beloved, hear
that word, beloved people that I love,
beloved, never avenge yourselves,
but leave it to the wrath of God.
For it is written, vengeance is mine.
I will repay, says the Lord.
You see, God loves you so much.
He says, listen, I'm
not asking you to give up justice.
I'm asking you to try love
and try trusting me.
God says, give me the stone in your hand.
I will take care of it.
And of
course, the experience of God's
love, the experience of knowing
you can trust him, the result of
which is this Romans five five.
God's love has poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit
who has been given to us.
Don't
you see, the experience of the gospel
is meant to help us deal
with the stone in our shoe.
Drop the stone in our hand
and have the stone
in our heart melted.
Friends, God wants harmony for you.
And he can teach you how to get there.
And I know, I know, you're going.
Okay, fine, but it's not going to work
and it's not going to matter.
And they're not going to change.
But I knew you would feel that way
because so do I.
So here's my fourth point.
I need this answered.
And here's my question.
What if I do all this and nothing changes?
I want you to see, first of all,
that the Bible has a category for that.
Maybe the most poignant verse in this
passage is Romans chapter 16, verse 18.
Listen to what it says,
if possible,
so far as it depends on you.
Live peaceably with all you said.
Two qualifiers if possible, meaning
it might not be so much as it depends
on you, meaning it might not live at peace
with all people.
So you think God is unreasonable?
You think God is asking you
to throw yourself on the rocks
of your family time and time again
and just take a beating?
But here God is saying, listen,
if possible.
Might not be if it depends on you, it
might not live at peace with all people.
God isn't unreasonable,
but he wants you to pursue harmony
even if they won't change.
Do you know why?
Because the Bible has a category
for your family never being healed.
I don't know how to
read this verse any other way,
but it's
because in your pursuit of harmony,
what God will lead you to is freedom.
Now what do I mean? Three ways.
Three ways you'll experience
freedom. Here's the first one.
Freedom from wait.
Friends, you and I are the ones waking up
with the stones.
I'm tired of carrying stones in my shoe.
I'm tired of being angry.
I'm tired of being resigned.
That's not hurting anyone other than me
and my wife and my kids.
Because as much as I think
I compartmentalize, my wife says you're
leaking.
God wants to deal with the stones
in your heart
and in your hand and in your shoe
because they're hurting you.
Here's the second kind of freedom.
Freedom from guilt,
he says,
if possible, so much as it depends on you.
You see, what he's saying is he's going,
look, if you deal with the stones
and the family still is broken, at least
you'll know you're not responsible.
Listen, don't
you want to feel free of guilt? Man?
I know I do.
And then here's the third kind.
Freedom to set boundaries
if possible.
So much is. It depends on you.
Live at peace.
Is him saying it might not be.
And if it's not,
you don't pretend that it is.
If it's war time, you.
You don't live as though it's peace time.
That's what he's saying.
Listen, if you set boundaries
without dealing with the stone
in your shoe or in your hand
or in your heart, that's bitterness.
That's being overly self-protective.
That's defensiveness.
But if you deal with the stones
and you still draw boundaries,
that's wisdom.
There's a difference.
Here's what I want to do.
Out in the atrium
at the end of the service
is a gigantic tub,
and it's full of stones.
That's
because I know you're carrying them, too.
Maybe not everybody,
but a lot of us and 1
or 2 or all three of these stones
have resonated with you.
You have one in your shoe.
You have one in your hand.
You have one in your heart.
And this is my challenge to you.
Grab a stone on your way out,
one for every one you carry.
Some of you might need a wheelbarrow.
And I want you to take that stone home.
And you know what it represents.
And I don't care if it's a
day from now, a week from now,
a month from now, a year from now.
I want you to grab that stone,
and I want you to chuck it in a lake.
Throw it in the woods.
Put it in the garbage.
Because you're saying
I want freedom.
I want harmony,
I want what God wants for my broken
family.
What a different place.
This church would be
if we were all
just a little lighter.
Let me pray for us.
Father God, thank you so much
for caring about broken families.
I guess it's not too unreasonable to think
you would care about perfect families.
You. You are perfect.
And probably those of us who come in
with less than perfect families
would understand if we were left out.
We get it.
We don't fit the picture.
But God, if.
It's just not who you are.
And we're hitting pause
in this series because that's what you do.
My prayer is pretty simple.
Just that somebody this weekend
who came in with no hope
leaves it with hope because of you.
Not answers, not strategies,
maybe even still carrying stones,
but hope.
And that that hope would grow
and it would lead to healing.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen.