This is The Way of Healthy Correction -Doug Hunt.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Doug Hunt, and I'll be doing the teaching today.

It's good to see you all. Let me know if I'm too loud or too soft, I'll try to manage the mic here. My wife Marianne is here too. Marianne.

We've been attending here almost a year. Last summer we started coming to New Culture, and I work at the Department of Human Services here in town. That's my day job, so I don't claim to be a preacher, but I'm going to trust the Lord has something for us today. My wife and I just got back, we've been gone for two Sundays. We were gone for ten days celebrating our 35th anniversary.

We had a wonderful time. We went to Hawaii. Two weeks ago we were in church, and the church we attended was literally on the beach, with waves crashing. There were so many people in this small church that they overflowed into rooms and outdoors under a tent.

So, a little bit of a detour, but we so appreciate your culture and the opportunity we have here, fellowship with all of you. I was thinking about this morning, or rather this afternoon, that I so appreciate our leadership, pastors, Abbie, and her beliefs. I was thinking about all the ways they are intentional about helping us grow in Christ, and thinking back on what we've done so far this year. In January we had a time of fasting and prayer, we used the vision guide to help us think about vision for our personal lives and for our church, we had a series of teachings on practices we would hold in common, which we call the rule of life, that helps us make space in our lives for Jesus around common values, and more recently the forty days of reading through the Gospel of Luke, which is where we're pulling our sermon series from, and the reading guide to help us prepare for Easter and get to know Jesus better. I appreciate that so much.

So today, the sermon series we're on is called The Ways of Jesus, and we're looking at scripture passages in the Gospel of Luke as a model of what Jesus did and things we can do in the steps and ways of Jesus. Let's pause for a moment and pray. Jesus, thank you that you are here, that you go before us today, before me and before each of us. I pray you prepare our hearts, both for the speaking I'll do and for the listening we'll all do together. May your spirit move and speak and show us what you want to reveal about the ways you model for us healthy correction.

Jesus, I pray that in my weakness you'll empower the words to transform hearts and minds today, and even as you do that for me, I give this time to you, in Jesus's name, amen. I'll start with a confession. A couple of months ago Abbie asked if I wanted to do some teaching in April. She gave me a list of topics and dates, and I said, maybe. My voice always goes up when I'm stressed, you'll find out. This is my second time teaching.

I'm not going to go back to what happened the first time, I misspoke a word and it was rather embarrassing. [inaudible] The list of topics included this one, on healthy correction. Jesus was intentional about correcting, about doing things that would bring right alignment with him.

Correction, I thought, that's such a tough topic. I would never want to teach on that. I'm not very good at it. I don't like receiving correction, and I don't feel like I'm very good at giving it, so no way.

I'm taking that week off for sure, no way. And then the Holy Spirit gave me a nudge, saying, have some faith. It's really not about you, but in fact, I think it will be about me today, because I have as much to learn as anyone about this topic. So I'm really preaching to myself, and you're all welcome to listen in.

But I think we have some things we can learn. What I hope more than anything is that you take away this: Jesus, what a wonderful Savior. He models for us a method of correction that is wrapped in love. I hope I can convey a bit of that today. I want to start by contrasting what might be in your mind when we say we're going to talk about healthy correction.

What's unhealthy correction? I want to get this out of the way up front. When I think about unhealthy correction, and I've done some reading on it, I think of it as toxic shame. If you've ever been shamed or humiliated by a situation, the message behind toxic shaming is that you are bad. Not that you did something bad while still being whole and reflective of God's image.

Shaming happens when the message is that you are fundamentally deficient, fundamentally flawed. That is the exact opposite of healthy correction, which is what we'll be talking about today. If you've had that experience, and I think many of us have, I know I had it as a child, and there were things I've had to work through because I carried those wounds of being shamed and humiliated, that's not what we're about today, and it's not what Jesus is about in terms of correction. His heart is for our flourishing and our good, and he wants us to learn, as a community, to walk in alignment with him and to help one another do that.

Luke 14

So let's read the scripture for today, Luke 14, verses 1 to 15. Read along, I'll read it and please follow.

One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. There in front of him was a man suffering from abnormal swelling of his body, and Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not? But they remained silent. So he took hold of the man, healed him, and sent him on his way. Then he asked them, if one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out? And they had nothing to say. But when he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable. When someone invites you to a wedding feast, don't take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, give this person your seat. Then, humiliated, you'll have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes he'll say to you, friend, move up to a better place. Then you'll be honored in the presence of all the other guests. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. Then Jesus said to his host, when you give a luncheon or dinner, don't invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives or your rich neighbors. If you do, they may invite you back, and you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you'll be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous. When one of those at the table heard this, he said to Jesus, blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.

Luke 14:1-15

Thank you, Lord, for your word today, from the Gospel of Luke. To get ready for today, I've been reading through the Gospel of Luke, and I decided to keep an eye out for where I could see Jesus giving healthy correction. It's helpful to read a passage or several passages looking for guidance on a particular issue. And what I saw through the Gospels is that there are many examples of Jesus giving healthy correction, often through parables. What I take from that, the main point, is that Jesus is always concerned about correct alignment.

He was, and still is, committed to helping human beings get it right and to connect with the heart of God, so that we can have hearts aligned with and living within the purposes of God. His heart is that we understand the essence of scripture and spiritual principles. This idea of alignment, what do you think of when you think about alignment? My thought goes to tires and cars, staying on the road straight, or maybe getting your spine aligned at a chiropractor.

In that prayer and fasting time back in January, we were encouraged to ask the Lord for an image, or a verse, one that might guide us for the year, and what God gave me was an image of a plumb line, and a verse from Amos chapter 7, verse 8. It says, then the Lord said, look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel. This relates to the concept of alignment. Do we have any builders here? Anybody who's ever used a plumb line?

No? I'm not alone, because I haven't either. What's a plumb line? I looked up the definition. The weight on the end is called a plumb.

A plumb is a weight suspended from a string that uses gravity to help align and center walls, fences, and telephone poles to vertical. It was used before we had levels, or the level app on your phone. Two things about a plumb line: it aligns with gravity.

And it always will. If you line up the string with the pole or the fence, it will always be straight. That image, I think, is used in Amos, because God gives us his word, and Jesus, as our plumb line. When we line up ourselves with Jesus and his word, our lives too will be aligned with God. John 1:14 says, the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

We've seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. So God sets the plumb line, Jesus and his word, and he embedded that plumb line in our hearts, giving us access to him and the Holy Spirit. When you use a plumb line, and I saw some telephone workers using one this summer, holding it and directing a correction, that correction isn't a "wag your finger" kind of correction. It's saying, you're a little off here, let's move it this way. In the same way, the correction Jesus wants to give us isn't a shaming wag of his finger. It's, you're a little off here, let's spend some time in the Word and in prayer, understanding that this is where you need to move yourself, to be more in line with me. That's the kind of correction he's going for.

Jesus delivers truth wrapped in love

Let's jump into the passage. I think the first principle is that Jesus delivers truth wrapped in love. If we look at this passage, Jesus was invited to eat at the home of a prominent Pharisee. This tells me a couple of things. It's very likely Jesus was received by the Pharisee in a welcoming manner, because Jesus had shown respect to the dignity of the Pharisee.

We see this over and over in the Gospels: Jesus shows respect for each person he met, regardless of whether they opposed him or what their lifestyle was, whether others perceived them as sinful. He didn't care about their past mistakes, their status, their political party, their gender. Jesus received people with welcome and with dignity. And I think that's probably why he was invited into the Pharisee's home, because as we read in the passage, many of the Pharisees and others were watching for ways to trip him up, to get him in trouble. But Jesus was in the home, and with that relational respect, he was given the opportunity to speak truth and convey spiritual revelation.

He does it in a very gracious manner. Let me say something about Pharisees. Perhaps you've heard of them.

I looked this up in a New Bible dictionary. Pharisees were leaders of the synagogues who, in the Hebrew faith, set themselves apart and devoted themselves to dictating their views about the commandments as they applied in everyday life. They were rule makers and rule keepers. For the ten commandments listed in Deuteronomy, they came up with 613 rules. 248 were positive things you could do, and 365 were negative.

They had rules for everything. More than 60 rules per commandment, including the Sabbath. We see this over and over in the Gospels, that Jesus does things on the Sabbath that anger the Pharisees, because he violates the written rule of the law. In this case, he heals the man at the door who has excessive swelling, what we call edema.

Some in the old days called it dropsy. We don't know what caused the swelling, but no doubt it was painful, and he was probably ostracized for it. So Jesus heals on the Sabbath. The Sabbath commandment is, observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord commanded you. Six days you shall labor, the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord, on it you shall not do any work.

That's the basic commandment. It was put in place because God modeled it in the seven days of creation. He took the seventh day off. And Deuteronomy talks about remembering the Sabbath, because there was a time the Hebrew people couldn't celebrate it during their enslavement in Egypt.

So there's a point of disagreement here. What does Jesus do in this situation? He heals on the Sabbath. He likely knows the Pharisee won't agree, because they had devised 39 prohibited acts one could not do on the Sabbath, regardless of impact on others. So there's a moment of tension, and Jesus asks a question.

Verse 5: if one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out? And they had nothing to say. Jesus used the moment to highlight a hypocrisy, an inconsistency, in how they viewed and implemented the law, and how it impacted others. In the Pharisees' view, they could pull out an ox, or an animal, or their own child, presumably because it was in their interest. But healing a stranger was forbidden.

Jesus understood this as a violation of the law of love. We heard Chris Griffith talk about it a couple of weeks ago, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Where's the love for neighbor if you will only act on the Sabbath when it's in your self-interest? He confronts the Pharisee, but in a gracious way. He highlights the truth without shaming the Pharisee.

He communicates the truth in a way that can be received. I think that's a good example of Jesus's way of healthy correction. Jesus is always, through his word, looking for ways to speak the truth in love, and we see that echoed in Ephesians, speaking the truth in love in order to grow in maturity. I think that's the principle we want to take away today.

Teachable moments

The second principle, and this highlights the second half of the passage, is that Jesus also uses teachable moments to deliver truth to teachable hearts. I've been marveling at his ability, in verses 7 through 15 of our passage today, to use the banquet as a metaphor to teach a truth to the guests and the hosts. He grasped the teachable moment and delivered truth to all the hearts present.

I'm sure there were teachable hearts there. But he didn't preach or teach in a standard way. He used the moment to convey his point. In the first banquet description, his point is: don't act out of selfish pride.

Don't go into the banquet hall at the wedding assuming you'll be at the host table. Take the humble stance, assume it's not the seat of honor. If the host moves you up, that's fine, but don't go in with a heart full of selfish pride.

He delivers that message compassionately, one you could receive if you have the ears to hear and eyes to see. The principle: humility over pride. The second banquet, directed at the host, is in verses 12 through 15.

His point there: when you give a lunch or dinner, if you only invite people who will return the favor, that's self-serving. It's not practicing the law of love. Instead, invite people who can't repay you, those who are crippled, blind, lame, and your repayment will come at the resurrection of the righteous. That's laying up treasure in heaven, doing things from a selfless point of view rather than a self-serving one. So those are two examples of teachable moments Jesus used at the Pharisee's house to relay important truths, without shaming or wagging his finger. There's something to be learned from that, for us and how we do this together as a community. That's the scripture and the principles I see in it.

Three examples of correction

I want to finish by describing three examples of what it means to use Jesus's model of healthy correction in a body like ours. I hope you'll find it helpful. As I thought about my own life, I've walked with the Lord for a long time, I became a Christian in college, and I looked back at where I needed healthy correction and what that looked like. We've heard from Nermalis and Abbie, and other speakers, about the importance of community, which brings accountability. It also brings support.

We need to get some comfort with correction. I'll admit, this is a growth point for me. But I saw three things that we often address through correction, and I'll share the three that occurred in my life. The first was misaligned identity.

Not understanding who God says I am. That's a place I sometimes need correction. The second is misaligned faith, what I believe about God. Sometimes I need to hear, Doug, you're missing this.

The third is acting in ways out of alignment with God's word. We call that sin. Sometimes that's where I need to be aligned. This best happens in relationships of trust, where respect is given, and often when the person you're relating to has invited you into that kind of role in their life, to speak into it.

So, three examples. First, misaligned identity. This happened when I was in college.

Back in college, I started at a school in Missouri, a small men's college of about 450 students. My junior year, I transferred to Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. I got in, and I was living my dream. I wasn't a Christian yet, but within the first two or three weeks at Georgetown, I met someone who led me to Christ, and to a Christian fellowship group, and I became a Christian, then joined a small group Bible study with other guys. Maybe some of you are in groups like that. It wasn't long before I became overwhelmed academically. It was like going from zero to sixty at a high-powered East Coast school with demanding academics.

I was struggling. The temptation was to do what I'd always done, equate my self-worth and self-esteem with what I could achieve. I wasn't achieving what I normally could. The point of correction came from brothers who were more mature in Christ than me, who took scripture like Psalm 139:14 and said, you are fearfully and wonderfully made, apart from what you do and produce.

God made you in his image, and your achievements don't define who you are. That was realignment. They took that plumb line of scripture and moved me back to the truth I needed to understand. They didn't say stop studying and give up, but they advised: do your work, trust God for the results, and stop comparing yourself to everyone else.

They were speaking into my life, and that was a realignment I needed regarding my identity. That's an example of how this healthy correction works. The second area relates to faith. About twenty years later, still walking with the Lord, married by this time, my teenage daughter was struggling with a very serious eating disorder.

We were desperate. We didn't know what to do. The healthy correction related to my faith, to understanding who God is, came when Christians more mature and seasoned in prayer, healing, and spiritual warfare came into our lives and said, we want to invite you to engage in spiritual battle for your daughter. That comes through prayer and understanding verses like Romans 8:37-39, that nothing can separate her from the Lord: neither angels nor demons, the future, the past, no powers, nothing, no height, no depth. We weren't operating in that realm of understanding about who God is.

We had put God in a smaller box. Their instruction was, Doug and Marianne, we want to realign you with who scripture says God is, and that you have authority to pray against the enemy trying to take down your daughter. That was a realignment we needed in that moment. That was a faith we didn't have that they were able to speak into, and we experienced the power of it.

We didn't give up on the professional help our daughter needed, or the strategies rightly advised by medical professionals. But we added this prophetic, authoritative prayer. I believe it broke the stronghold, because we overcame that disorder over time. I'm thankful for that.

That only happened because we were in Christian community. If we hadn't been in a community that could speak into our lives, we wouldn't have had it. I'm almost done. The last one is healthy correction related to a weakness. These three examples get progressively more difficult to speak about.

The first two are about identity and faith. But when it comes to correcting an action that may be inconsistent with God's word, that's tricky, that's tough, it requires a lot of trust. For me, there was a point about twelve to fifteen years into our marriage when my career interests and pursuits had overwhelmed and overtaken my marriage. I had made myself a hero of our marriage. Marianne and I lost time together, intimacy, and the ability to collaborate around parenting, which led to a lot of despair and a marriage crisis.

If this is vertical in a marriage, I was way over here, on the edge of collapse. Fortunately, a Christian woman in the Midwest called me up, took me aside, sat me down, and asked if she could level with me honestly. In essence, she said, you're not holding up the role you have as described in Ephesians 5:25, where husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loved the church. I needed to hear that correction, and she had a lot of courage, not knowing what my reaction would be. She pointed out that I was neglecting the vows I made to Marianne on our wedding day, and that it was causing real damage. That conversation was timely and difficult, but it led me to wake up to how misaligned my priorities were.

It led me to take the first steps of forgiveness, asking Marianne for forgiveness, and years of subsequent work to repair some of that damage. It wasn't easy, but I'm glad someone had the courage to pull me aside. That's not an easy thing to do, and I'm really not good at it. But in the body of Christ, that's the kind of healthy correction we want to implement and model for each other.

Start with respect. Ask the other person if this kind of conversation and input can be given, whether about identity, faith, or a sin you see causing a struggle. Then pray for humility and courage to bring up the issue. Remember the model Jesus had of healthy correction, and how he wants us to step into that same model. So, why don't you all stand up, and as a response I want to share a couple of things.

Palm Sunday

Today is Palm Sunday, next week is Easter. I don't want to neglect mentioning that we remember this day as the day Jesus made his entrance into Jerusalem. He did it in a humble fashion, seated on a donkey, in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. He could have come in with soldiers and a throne, but he didn't. People lined the streets, shouting Hosanna, waving palm branches, laying down their cloaks as a carpet.

No one expected what would follow on Friday. No one, except Jesus. He knew what lay ahead of him. Even in the face of the unspeakable pain and torture of the cross, Jesus entered the city, prepared to pay the ultimate price for our sins, so that we might have relationship, not rule-driven religion, relationship with our Creator God. We're powerless to live a righteous life on our own.

We don't have the strength to do it. Even the Pharisees, with 613 rules, couldn't. We might live holy on the outside, but it won't change our heart. That is the bar of holy living we're called to. Jesus is our plumb line. He wants to make that possible as we receive him.

So this week, up on the screen, I want to ask you to consider: what is it about this Easter that you are ready to step into? Perhaps that first step is acknowledging that we can't make ourselves right by rules of religion, only by relationship and the sacrifice of Jesus. Or perhaps you're at the point of understanding enough to be ready to receive Jesus as your Savior, ready to understand and apply that sacrifice to your life, so that you might be made whole, and have that relationship we speak about here at New Culture. Or maybe the third: you've been walking with Jesus, but you're sensing you're ready to engage at a deeper level with the Holy Spirit and the community of believers, embracing this life Jesus has called you to, and maybe beginning to practice the giving and receiving of healthy correction, so you can continue to walk and grow in wholeness and faith. I'm going to pray, and encourage you to think about those three things, what it is you'll do and undertake this Easter in response. Jesus, thank you that you give an amazing model of love. You give examples of healthy correction, because your motivation was to see that we would be able to live and flourish in the life you intended for us before sin got in the way. Lord, help us as a community to walk in your power and strength. May this Easter be a milestone, a marker of a time when we recommitted, or committed for the first time, to you. May you be glorified, and may you lift up in our hearts today our thanks for your goodness and the richness of your work. In Jesus's name, amen.