Elephant-free Family Life, part 1: How to Identify Elephants

Has the elephant in your home become the family pet? Every family has its difficult issue(s), and while the elephant might seem docile and domesticated for now, a 12,000 pound behemoth still lingers and lumbers from room to room, generation to generation, threatening to maim and crush its roommates. For this first installment of the Elephant-free Family Life series, Pastor Greg Byman shares some principles about identifying elephants that prevent effective family communication.

Alternatively: Find this sermon on your favorite podcast platform.

Notes

Click here to download Pastor's notes in MS Word format.

Transcript

Click here to download a transcript in MS Word format.

Seated Well I have with me a prop Now this is nothing to do with the fact that Tuesday is voting day I didn't honestly I totally didn't even think about that and I mean that completely. Because we do equal representation it's not about that but we are starting a series called family life and how and about the elephant in the room there was a. There was a it's said that possibly back in 1900 say was a man that went to a museum and hope let me put that on and. I get signals from people and I got to make sure I got only all my microphones on and the the man went there and they asked him what he saw and they said he solved all these tiny little things in the in the in the museum and they said but did you see the elephant at the museum is like what elephant he didn't he could he saw all the things and he saw everything except the elephant and then it became a motif a little bit later the government New York City or some big metropolitan said that this is the elephant in the room that we have to solve a problem their fiscal problem or some kind of an issue that was going on that was so big that are by saw but nobody wanted to talk about it and so this this this motif has become a continual thing so it's something that you know let's just say I'm just going to I'm going to just throw this out here 2nd hold on a 2nd so let's start after catch it all right so my dad got it all right now Tad has the elephant All right Ted has the elephant in his hand. And. Tad knows he has the elephant his hand he may not want the elephant although it's really soft and cushy I'm don't rub your face up on it that's nasty. Now I don't want to do oh OK this we Yeah yeah it's in the sweat box over here I want to make sure yes but everybody around how many knows that Ted has the elephant in this hand yeah all right yeah we all know he's got the elephant and Sam but but your own quiet your own not talking about it now and I know you're in church not supposed to talk but but that's how an elephant is we all know it's there but nobody acknowledges it now and I want to name the elephant what's what would you like to name the elephant Fran Fred Fred OK so it's Fred the elephant I like that let's go bring it back here already Yeah all right in for a touchdown so I'm going to get up here so that I know. I'm with Greg this morning big time with the sound sorry about that I'm going to walk over there next so so see if we can set that up this thing is it's some of you already ready to bolt out of the room when I brought that in here I know that it brings up an extent brings up but then some people might be in the room saying finally I'm going to know how to deal with the elephant in the room that's kind of what this is all about this is what we're trying to accomplish. We're trying to figure out how to handle this family pet that's making a mess in our house now before we get started I want to say this motif is something that's obviously a universal motif but that the graphics and the idea behind it I need to kind of the disclaimer this morning is that another church use this motif about 3 or 4 years ago and I found it online I was like hey that's a great way to talk about family stuff. Some of you have heard my story that my call into ministry my call to do what I do which is is to my goal was to help families be better and I was going into psychology I actually got a psychology degree at Ball State and my goal was to go into counseling or some kind of a helping industry where I could help people move forward and bring spiritual and emotional mental health to their lives they were principles that James Dobson Focus on the family was that I learned early on and I'm talking about like late middle school early high school I just got captured by some of the stuff it was a video series although it wasn't a video I don't think that was invented yet it was on a reel to reel tape or reel to reel films film it was a film and I'm like watching this going this is cool stuff and you know and I'm not boasting about that to say how much just a god got a hold of my heart said that's something that I want to be a part of had no idea that I'd end up being a pastor I just knew that I wanted to bring change to people's lives and so when I thought about doing a family series I'm thinking oh there's all kinds of stuff and I've got all kinds of notebooks and I've done this series several times we try to do it annually. On the calendar as the church family but where do you start and so when I saw this motif I thought that's it because many times our problem in our family isn't that we know the principles is that we don't know how to identify and deal with the elephant in the room appropriately. So my prayer is that we'll be able to do that and it's a 4 part series next week we'll talk about our marriages and how in personal relationships husbands and wives even in courtship before you're married you can start talking about dealing with those elephants that you bring into both marriages both people come from 2 different cultures that have their own set of pet elephants and then they come in the room that you have heard and it stampedes you about 3 days after you're married maybe after the honeymoon maybe a week later I don't know but you about it can knock you over if you don't know how to deal with it appropriately and they're going to talk about how elephants actually get in the way of us being good parents and being the parents that God wants us to be by the way your kids already know what your elephants are they get to be about 678 years old they they may not be able to verbalize in an adult way what your elephant is but they know what it is in the room and they feel it they sense it and they don't know what to do with it because they're too small to know what to do and so it's our job as parents to work with and work through and to be authentic and to be open and honest about what really is going on in our families so that we can teach our kids how to move forward in their lives even better than maybe we did when we were a kid when we were their age and then finally will wrap it up and say how do we how do we help future generations deal with this stuff and when will wrap it up in our last series mess in 3 more weeks so what's an elephant what is an elephant an elephant is an obvious problem or a difficult situation that people do not want to talk about it's also something that causes embarrassment sadness or arguments so I we don't bring it up I'm embarrassed about it makes me sad I don't want to talk about it I get angry we have differences of opinion about how to fix it. So many times our arguments become personal attacks instead of attacking the issue of the situation if you have somebody in your family who is destroying the family it's and then you're related by blood in the other person is related by it in law or sometimes what we might call an outlaw. And blood stick and we start defending the elephant when we know in our heart what our spouse or our friend or or somebody outside of us is what they're saying is true and we need to deal with it but we don't want to so then we just ignore it so that we don't cause any more arguments by the way that's my that's my default as a person is peace maker peace maker sometimes at a cost of not identifying in confronting elephants in the room that's mine I own that. Well I try to own it I'm working OK pray for me but but this elephant looks so cute and cuddly but you know very well that they are they're not going to stand there get in the way they're messing our house up it could be a social issue that's being avoided like race issues religion lifestyle mental illness suicide cultural taboos you know as you've been here long enough that we are trying to confront the racism taboo conversation and that our intentional partnerships with African-American churches are intentional interaction and joint worship services with other churches of other color and you know where we are sort of multicultural but not really in our church and they're sort of multicultural not really in their church and our goal is that you know heaven's going to be multicultural whether we like it or not hope we like it. Feel it great out all the Spanish people so many that we need to learn Spanish because that's the only language and that's what I've been told Rolando you guys put it and they're so so so I got some learning to do if that's the case but but we all we all know that that's an issue and America and my purse band that we would model what it means to not in some sort of M.L.K. day have a race relations day but we have a lifestyle of not being colorblind but color appreciative appreciative of the fact that we live in a diverse culture diverse society and God made everyone in his image and we treat everyone the same as we would treat anybody that even looks exactly like us especially those that don't look like us we work hard to make sure that we model what it means to deal with racism and not just talk about it is a good idea. We also have I could just name several things but that these are elephants in the room these are problems that people are dealing with and right now you're thinking about the elephant in your room the one that you put that on the parking lot and by the way that's not rated for semi trucks so so don't bring too many elephants to church because we'll have to get a new parking lots in there too heavy to be on the parking lot and by the way elephants are too heavy for you to keep carrying they're too expensive for you to keep feeding they don't belong in your home one disclaimer on this other disclaimer is by the way some elephants you're not we're not here to kill elephants OK so let's let PETA know that we're not trying to take tests OK it's not the goal some of those elephants you can think about you can't unravel a divorce you can't you can't on Ravel. A violation of trust by someone who should have been trustworthy abuse violence you can't on Ravel a an incredibly difficult circumstance where violence occurred we're facing some precedent in moments in the history of our city as we're nearing record numbers of homicides and you say well that's happening in the and you name the place where you think it's always happening and yet And yet in some of these sleepy little areas we have people that are rising up and strangulating a mother and you need to pray for that guy and to pray for the system in which that whole home life circumstance happened because it's not just one person it's not just the deceased mother it's an entire system a family system that's affected by that I'm tired of doing funerals for people who we love on them but we know they should have died because of something they did that they could their couldn't get over or they did something that caused their death in a very violent way these are elephants that we can't undo we can't say well we lost won't talk about the divorce anymore now it happened we won't talk about no it happened but how do you carefully and effectively move forward from this reference point forward so that the elephant stays where it belongs and you're able to move forward in a healthy and a holy way that's the key here. And I want to use the story we're going to go to Psalm $139.00 in our Bible Psalm $139.00 and we're going to end with 2 verses but I want to do a little history lesson some of you about ready to snore when I said that but I want to give you a story of a man who was a man who is described in the Bible as a man who it was after it was a man after God's own heart he was the apple of God's eye he was well beloved there is a prayer that I pray over my family so that I grabbed not in terms of assuming it but just asking God would you do this for me God said that he would never light his light go out on the House of David that he would let David have an eternal spiritual family and that eternal kingdom through the line of David the lineage of David the blood relation of David went all the ways it flowed all the way through to Jesus Christ and so the Kingdom of David is forever because he is he is the great Gregory grandfather of Jesus somewhere along the line this all came through it and God kept this promise my prayer because physical families don't go to heaven spiritual families to my prayer is that my family will always honor and love Jesus Christ and that my children and my children's children and my children's children's children and the ISA's and nephews and everybody that branches off from this home at $18110.00 fail or drive that it will be said from that reference point on that God's light will not depart from the bottom and family or whatever names that becomes when they get married the girls. And it will continue on until Jesus comes now gyve no promise from God that that's going to come true but I'm claiming that promise asking him to do a work that I can't do beyond my life but I can only do my part during my life to be part of what God's doing to make that happen David was a tremendous King he was the most famous the most well beloved king in the King error in this time period where kings ruled Israel he was the 2nd king the 1st king flamed out and stop following God really early on and God said you're done not even your family's going to inherit that and while he was still king Sendhil the prophet the judge the the last spiritual leader before the kings actually went to David his home while David was still a shepherd boy and anointed him as king and it was many years later that he would become the king even after the current King realized that he was the anointed king that would succeed him tried to kill him so for many years David's on the run a marked man he had a mark on his head and he had to run for his life or for handful of years while King Saul tried to put him to death so that he wouldn't assume the throne these are these these these are these are stories that you know you could make films of but you know what sometimes those films have a rated R. Or at least P.G. 13 because David's life was not perfect but I get ahead of myself as a young boy he was a shepherd he was. Anointed king like I said early on he was early called by God He is a man after God's own heart. This song we sang I will be more undignified than this I think it comes from it does thank you from the conversation from the story of when the ark is coming in to the city and David is dancing before the Ark He was dancing before the Lord and he happened to take strip off they said he was naked but I think he probably just has underwear on eyes whatever kind of weird OK his his wife Michael was upset she's a what are you doing that says I'm doing this before the Lord this wasn't too she thought he was grandstanding in front of all the young ladies and that he was trying to make a show for himself because he was a pretty handsome guy and he was a he was a warrior he was like you're both buff military guys and suddenly he's dancing in shorts in front of everybody but he was dancing before the Lord he was undignified in front of God and by the way. There was some bad things that happened her and you can read that story because he had a wrong spirit about what he was trying to do before the Lord he had a heart that wanted to do the right thing and had a great love for God We read Psalm 23 that's a Psalm of David and it's his prayer go back and read it he has a shepherd boy his heart is in the fields with the shepherd with the sheep even as a king he had a shepherd's heart I thought that was interesting that so many of you actually know that some of you are actually reading it saying it out loud from memory I thought that was really cool and some of you maybe have been reading it but but we're so used to that very famous prayer in Psalms in the Psalms he was a most beloved king he was highly successful he united the kingdom and it was United even through his 2nd son this kingdom of ragtag bunch of 12 tribes of Israel there was great peace in the land. It was a tremendous time period it was the glory days of Israel even more so than even today in Israel but he was still a man with many flaws and I want to kind of highlight those not to say that that is the total legacy of his life but in spite of all the things I just said to you this man had some elephants and I want to just highlight a few of them and you might actually identify this say wow there's people in the Bible just like me and David might have one of the things that you deal with in your life I don't know but maybe you do but here's a couple that we can know based on the story of his life I always say I'm so glad that I don't live in the day where the Bible is being written the Bibles them being written by their enemies and somebody says they got a new word from God If it doesn't line up with the Bible they can be rejected immediately they should never be trusted they're a liar as people say their profits in this land today those guys on T.V. that say their profits there's people in the city say they get a special word from God It might be they might have a special word for you but it better line up with the Word of God or they're a false prophet and they need to not be believed and in the Old Testament if they had done that they would have been stoned to death but I don't suggest you do that so here's some of David's elephants Here's some of David's elephants 1st of all polygamy Yeah he was married to at least 8 named wives plus some others that we don't know their names he was named he was he was kind of he went along the lines of the earthly kings that did this and they and it was seem to see it's like just a natural part of the story and then he married this person they married that person but the reality is he was marring the design that God had for one man one woman for alive till death do us part for as long as we both shall live as what we said because that seems so morbid to say but not maybe you did that's fine but I at our wedding that's a till death do us part now he said until for as long as we both shall live that sounded better but the same thing. You know practice polygamy today what do you mean well you may not be still married to that person but but you may have been through 2 or 3 and that does have an effect and it's not God's design it's not God's intention God intended for that and that's an elephant We're not here to knock down we're just saying that those things exist and we have to identify them so that we know how to deal with them appropriately he had he dealt with pride there was one moment in his history that pride he thank you. He counted all of his military men so we could see how strong he was as a king and God told him Don't do that and he did it anyway he went against God's plan he says stead of trusting God for his military strength he trusted in him self for his military strength and and at a great cost and that turned out to be devastating I mean there were people lives were lost because of that decision national disgrace national calamity because he chose as a king to live in pride as he got older in his life he would noise go out to battle with his men and one day he stayed home and while he's looking out upon above his palace who looked down on the rooftop below him there was a lady that was taking a bath and he lusted after her and he called for her to come into his chambers and he slept with her and she became pregnant he was an adulterer and then he tried to get the husband from the battlefield to come back and sleep with her to cover up the fact that she was pregnant hoping that the end he would think it was his. But he was too honorable for his men that he would even spend one night with his wife even got liquored up David even tried to get them liquored up so that he would go in drunkenness to go live with just sleep with his wife and he still wouldn't sleep with his wife he was too honorable to do that he said of my men can't be with their wives out in the field as they're battling I can't do it while I'm here talking to the King I mean I'm not going to do that he goes back out to battle and he and David hands him a note a sealed note for his captain that he handed to him not knowing what that note says but that no basically said put him in the front of the battle and then withdraw from the battle and let him and see what happens and Bessie because husband is killed in battle what looked like just a normal occurrence in the battlefield somebody lost their life it was actually sanctioned by the king again mourned for his death let the wife mourn for the death and then an appropriate time when it looked socially acceptable he said you know that Bessie but needs a husband and he married her brought her into his chambers as his wife and this child that was out of wedlock this child that was the result of adultery grew up and well actually that child died but you still have Bathsheba being the wife of the king after all of that now he's chastised by the CAN'T by the prophet he repents he asked forgiveness Psalm 51 you can read that it's a gut wrenching prayer asking forgiveness against you and you only have I sinned he prayed out to God and he's asking for cleansing he's asking for healing but the fact remains that that elephant was there and his kids knew it so now let's let's go let's let's go backwards here he's got. More than 8 wives and their children living in the palace one of those 8 wives is actually a result of adultery and murder were all you know I think what that nursery language was all about think about grade school all these kids are in grade school together who's mom is yours who's mom is yours same dad we're all talking about all this together elephants in the room how many else has how many other dad has nobody else in the room has that many wives it's an elephant we're not knocking down it's just a reality and you have to deal with it and then let's just go backwards now he's also playing favoritism Now that's a very kind word to describe what I'm about to say which is a very ugly part of the history of this family anybody there's how many ever ever even OK How many know about his I won't make you know how many know about the car bastions you know we all OK and the Oz Bourne's and here OK. We don't do video here that would have been cool for the video anyway. Anyway I mean why do we watch those things why do people why do our friends watch those things I know you don't because there's stuff in there there's elephants all over the room and they talk about it on T.V. I told my kids I said I said I'm just giving you fodder for your book that you're going to write about us when we do something stupid in the house this favoritism thing actually it was a horrible situation one of his sons the oldest the firstborn started having affection for a half sister a daughter of another wife and he wants her to the point that he actually tries to force himself on her she refuses. And in the ME TOO movement of that day he takes her virginity he raped her and David didn't do a thing about it David who has had his own experience of sexual promiscuity David who has got more than one wife David who is older and and he loves a son and I'm sure he'll outgrow I don't know what he was thinking and Absalom says you need to do something about this another son the actual full blood son brother to the daughter that was violated and David doesn't do anything about it but absent takes matters in his own hands and he kills and then he kills the son who committed the crime now by the way that was actually punishable by death so in Israel's Old Testament law and deal with you had deal with these things so this guy so we have all these problems Absalom leaves the house and then later on there's reconciliation to a point at some point Absalom is really allowed back in and he actually we now we have David who is permissive which encapsulates what happened before and now it's happening after Absalom isn't touched with discipline and that permissiveness leads to Absalom raising up an army of his own and creating a civil war and at one point in David's life he actually had to flee the palace and Jerusalem and run out into the countryside so that his own son would not put him to death this is crazy stuff crazy stuff nobody wakes up and says At 21 I'm going to ruin people's lives I'm going to have a marriage that I'm going to destroy. And I'm going to act like a fool and cause my kids to hate one another and do stupid things and bad things and maybe illegal things to one another and when I'm an old man I'm just going to have to sit back and watch because I won't be able to do a thing about it nobody says that I've done a lot of weddings and not one of them while we were doing the vows said oh by the way we're going to really screw this up nobody when I've gone to see the brand new baby in the incubator has said to me I'm going to destroy that child's life I'm going to do everything I can to make that child hate me nobody says that nobody says that but how do we get there well I want to pray that we put a line in the sand and that we say today I'm going to name the elephant today I'm going to identify what it is that is ruined families in the past I'm going to do what I can in my moment and my time in history to say no elephants in my house I'm not going to let it happen and I'll do my part oh here comes another disclaimer you're not here to solve somebody else's elephant no you're not here to take care of somebody else's problem you're here to deal with the problem that's in your lap you say oh but I didn't cause it you're right you did but you have to deal with it it's yours to deal with not yours to fix them I can't help that I've had generational racism in my family up until the last generation or 2 I can't help that I think it bugs me it embarrasses me. It bothers me Ike jokes I heard as a kid from grandparents a particular grandparent I never realized how offensive they were until I got into middle school and high school. And I got appalled the more I got into multicultural lifestyle life living in college and how I would never have said any of those jokes and yet it was just a natural part of my history as a family growing up and my sisters and I we all just were appalled by that and we just we shudder to think that that was something that was natural and normal and OK and I could identify several But but I can't change what that was but I can change where I am and I can change my distance vision in my response and I can decide what I'm going to do as for me in my house we will serve the Lord but how do you do that we've got to identify him you've got a name you've got to deal with them you've got to get honest about it and in some 139 versus 23 to 24 is kind of our stepping stones for how to do that let me read aloud this passage search me God and know my heart tests me and know my concerns see if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the everlasting way and let me read that again this is King David crying out to God trying to deal with his elephants search me God and know my heart this guy that we just described that was a great king and yet had great flaws search me God and know my heart test me and know my concerns see if there's any offensive way in me what he's actually asking he's giving God permission see if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the everlasting way I want to go the right way God I've gone the wrong way I want to go your way now I don't want to go the temporal way if self-help manuals were fixing elephants we would be solved 10 years ago because there have been more trees sacrificed in the name of books on self-help to get rid of elephants then any time in history. And more electronic space is now being spent on Kindle and Amazon Prime and all those different ways that you can download all of these different books on how to get right and get these elephants out of our lives and yet we're no better off than we were before all of those books came on the marketplace I learned a long time ago in my psychology degree pursuit that psychology itself does not solve this it is an ant to shame it collapse in front of God to say I can't do this I need you help me humanism doesn't solve it the A Lightman period if you're historic all of these time periods are we thought we're getting smarter and better and good or don't work and we're a mess so let's do it God's way and God's way is simply to start by saying how does God see it search me God and know my heart how do you see my life what is the name of my elephant god I've been to camp with kids in the cabin and kids are just kids and they start talking about what's going on at home nothing I'm allowed to repeat in this room that was said in that cabin I'm thinking of and how one kid after another talked about a violent circumstance that took the life of their parents I shook my head and you know we had all these nice little devotional set up that became the God moment where we just collapsed in front of God and said I don't know how to deal with this and as a camp counselor I wasn't equipped for this but God said I got this I got this you just let me handle it and I'll work on THEIR LIVES AND YOU JUST BE JESUS to them use love on a mutant courage and you help them because there's only God that can help us through those circumstances how does God see it. We've got to name what it is that's dealing that we're dealing with what the wrong is that happened there are some things that we've had a funeral for but we have not buried people that represent those elephants that keep walking into our lives there is a safe way to handle that and there's an unsafe way to handle that but we've got to ask God to identify that so that we can handle it the right way and be responsible in front of God and in front of others and set the example for future generations and then it says test me and know my concerns you know I'm sorry search me got and know my heart what are my true motives if you have it in for the past generation because of what they did to you that bitterness will in fact everybody around you you cannot let bitterness rule the day you can either get better or better and I suggest better that poison bitterness and unforgiveness of passion are ations for what they did to you is like poison that you intended for them to take so that they would die and yet you're killing yourself because you're drinking it yourself because you're not forgiving them he said with the GET OFF No they won't get off justice as much vengeance is mine says the Lord I will repay God will take care of that in his time in his way there's a safe way to live while that's not being dealt with but it's not for you to take matters in your own hands and hold over their heads something that God asked you to forgive them for and you are destroying your children if you're unforgiving past generation what your true motive for dealing with the elephant is so that they can get their sources that you can get better my true motive I hope is that I am going to get better and stronger not throw rocks at people that are not and be alive today and then it says test me and know my concerns whether my anxious or nervous. One of my most anxious or nervous that's usually when the elephant is in the room when am I most wrecked emotionally it's when that elephants in the room and that's when we collapse in front of God and say God I don't know how to deal with this the Lord help me I want to do this the right way I don't want to fall into the family pattern of dealing with the way everybody else dealt with it and that's not deal with it Lord help me try Dennis I know what it is now I just realized God thank you for showing me that and then he says see if there's any offensive way in me where my a fault what have I done to feed the elephant and keep it in the house what have I done to take this cuddly an animal and turn it into this herd of elephants that's destroying my kids and my family what am I doing that's not allowing the next generation to be free from the herd of elephants but I inherited from my family generations ago or from the circumstances that I did I mean David could not on Ravel the consequences of what happened and he still had to live in those consequences and sometimes we still have to live in the consequences you know the real obvious one is that it's when somebody does something so illegal that that they're not safe in front of people anymore they have to go to jail and that doesn't mean that their life is worthless and has no purpose or meaning anymore in fact there are stories that are stories of their stories of people who have a greater impact for Jesus Christ in prison than they ever would have had if they'd stayed out of prison and I would wish prison on anybody but the fact that God can even redeem a person in the middle of a jail cell and use them for his honor and glory is a testimony that God can work with anybody and any circumstance and if God can work with somebody in jail he can work with you that's not in jail. And you can make a difference in someone's life through you in spite of whatever you have to deal with even in the consequences that you live in and live through today but I have to ask God how have I contributed to this problem and made it worse God forgive me and then he says lead me in the everlasting way what does God want me to do right now god what do you want me to do for some of you it is you cannot answer this you know there may be an elephant that you're not allowed to touch because somebody else it's somebody else's elephant and you just need to pray for timing you need to pray for wisdom and you do pray for your mouth that you only say what's appropriate and you'll not say anything that's not appropriate and sometimes just walking alongside somebody even while you know you know some to isn't sometimes the worst hurt is that we want more for someone than they want for themselves we want for them to be free from this but they can't be free from it they're not identifying it they're not dealing with it I'm not here today listen to this you're not here to fix them remember you're here to deal with where you are and how you can respond to the situation that you're dealt with not how to tell somebody else how to deal with a situation and the best way to handle helping that person move through in their elephants is you deal with yours and you pray this prayer and you do that this week just maybe even every day this week just let that be your prayer search me God and know my heart test me you know my concerns see if there's any offensive way in me and then before you get up lead me in the everlasting way leave me in the way that's right in every generation for all time OK Human Problems have remained the same they've sped up because we have cars that drive faster but the reality is. Society really hasn't progressed past the same problems that they've always had and so there's nothing new under the sun but how your family can deal with it and where your family can go next today's the critical moment for you to decide so what's the elephant's name because the small. We don't want all of France to be rulers in our home you notice here the story the picture has a husband and wife and kids we want the husband and wife to be the influencers under the authority of Jesus Christ not the elephant that's bigger than they are and nobody's going to see God work out in that family unless you fight den if I and he say we're going to start dealing with a Godly way in a way that we own our part of this problem I want to ask for God's help to move forward so maybe the next step for you this morning is to not say. I can't fix you to give me all this while we're going to talk about some specific things but I want to give you principles that you can apply in any circumstance not just in a particular situation because we have many situations in this room one thing I really appreciate about St Joe is that our testimonies are so diverse the grace of God is so evident in the families in this town in this room and I don't have the privilege and I haven't asked permission to name families in this room but at that list I gave you some of this list is true by the grace of God People are not living out those lists the way the world was sucking him in to live but there were people in this room that they they wanted to physically but they were mentally nodding to say yeah I was there and by the grace of God I've moved forward dirt in the backyard to fill in where the footprints were and these elephants that stampeded through our house in our family we have joy in our heart. And we have a peace from God and we have a purpose and a plan to move forward and so if you're here today and you don't have that purpose that planned that piece my pray that Per this morning is that you'll 1st step up and then the elephant and then just just start answering this in an honest and real way what is that obvious problem or difficult situation that you don't want to talk about what causes embarrassment sadness or arguments in your home when you name your elephant today Ted called this Fred Well I pray that you'll get a real name describes a real issue and that your name your elephant addiction and your name your elephant relationship destruction past violence violation of trust mismanagement of finances racism that you know just name it because the best thing you can do with a secret is to get it in the open you can't do something with something that you're hiding and you can't do anything with something that you're not at least getting honest in front of God about and as long as you can get come for me if you get comfortable in front of God about this he's going to give you the courage to start talking about it in front of people but you need to talk about it with a standard feet maybe this morning the courage that you need right now from God is to write down your elephants name and here's what I want to do I want to ask your permission and if you put this on a card I will never say your name out loud that you put it on your card but I would be very very. I think it would be encouraging to this family to everybody here and to next Sunday morning if I can bring to us the names of elephants that are in this room and I will do it anonymously. I will not say anybody's name out loud but would you give me permission to comfort not to say that we're going to glorify a whole fronts but to say that you're not you're in the same company of everybody else we're all in this together I'm going to put a few in the in the in the pile that you're not going to know that I put in there and you put a couple in the pile too and I will print confidentially without saying who it is I'm going to start naming elephants because we're saying elephant this your name get out in Jesus' name cast out demons cast them out since I pray that God will bring spiritual mental emotional and real release from those of you that are chained to an elephant that keeps dragging you around where you don't want to go and messing up what you never intended to be messed up.