A Kitchen Filled with Self-Control

Pastor Burcham's Sermon

  Sunday, October 2, 2005

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

The most popular room, at least in our home, is the kitchen. The kitchen, they say, gets more traffic than any other room in the house. The kitchen is the place where people just seem to naturally congregate, whether it's family or when it's friends that come over. Haven't you noticed that? You have company come over. Where do you spend most of your time? You spend most of your time in the kitchen. They're either gathered around the counter or maybe they're sitting at the table but, 90% of the time, when company come over, you stay in the kitchen. Now this has led me to think, since we spend most of the time in the kitchen when company comes over, do we really need to clean the rest of the house? My wife doesn't buy it either, but I'm still thinking on it.

The kitchen is the place where a lot of communication happens between family members. Therefore, it's pretty central, it's integral to the family that this kitchen has the right atmosphere around it, that the right things are going on. So in God's design of His house, the one fruit of the spirit that seems to fit best into the kitchen is the fruit of the spirit called “self control.” You see, God knows, in the kitchen among family members, many things are shared. Everything from laughter to outbursts of anger. Everything from a joyous celebration to tears shed in sorrow. And the most important element that can happen between family members as they interact with one another is that of self control.

Now it's interesting that self control, although we don't think of it this way, is something that has to happen all the time and it applies to everyone. It was interesting in Paul's letter to Titus, he lists out all these things Titus is supposed to give instruction to various people and he has specific things for what the young woman are supposed to do and the older woman, what the young men are supposed to do and the older men are supposed to do. Each one of them, there is something specific, but did you notice there was a thread that went through all of that? There was something that was mentioned for each person, young and old, male and female. Self control. It was repeated each time. God was saying through Paul to Titus and to us one of the most important characteristics of being a Christian is that of self control. That is, those of us who've come to faith in Christ, those of us who have experienced His grace, one of the characteristics, one of the ways in which we respond back to God or, as he put it in the letter to the Galatians, one of the fruits of the spirit, is self control. He said that much in Galatians 2 when he said this: “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passion and to live self-controlled, upright, godly lives in this present age.” Because of God's grace, because of God's undeserved love, because our lives have been changed by the gospel, because we live as people who have been forgiven by Christ and bought with His blood, that brings about a change in us and that gives us certain characteristics which are different, which are not coming to us naturally but given to us by God and the one St. Paul talks about here the most is self control, self control for everyone and self control in every place.

How often do we act differently when we're outside of the home? Do we put a face on at work or at school or here at church? We act a certain way but yet, when we go home, somehow when we cross the threshold to the house, everything changes. Do we exercise all kinds of self control at work but, once we get home, somehow that gives us an excuse we can drop all self control. The way we treat people at school is one way but, when we get home, how we treat our family is a totally different way. How many times have you said things across the kitchen counter to a family member that you would never dream of saying to a coworker? How often have you controlled your anger from 9:00 to 5:00 but, when you sit down for dinner and a glass of milk is spilled, an eruption comes to place, a poor report card is discovered and, all of a sudden, the words are coming out of your mouth. Self control for the Christian is both out in the world and also in the home. Somehow, we need to get past the idea, when we come home, the rules don't apply anymore, that being courteous and kind and respectful like we are to other people, when we come home, well, because it's family, we don't have to do any of those things. We have to get past the idea, when we come home, part of relaxing is throwing out all of the social rules. Part of relaxing is relinquishing all self control, saying anything you want, acting any way you want. That's not what it is to be a Christian. Self control has to be exercised maybe even more in the home than outside of the home. Self control needs to be exercised with those people we love and we care about. We should show them respect and honor, courtesy, kindness. Self control. It's to be exercised 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And it's to be exercised by all of us.

The one key element in self control has to do with our tongue, knowing when to listen and when to speak. Self control really is about listening. Now listening is different than hearing. All of us can hear family members when they talk to us, but are we really listening to the family members? Parents, how often have you been in the kitchen, maybe you're preparing dinner, you're putting the dishes away from the dishwasher and your child comes in and they start telling you about their day. Do you really listen to them or do you just hear them? So they're talking about their little friends and what happened at recess or maybe it's a teenager talking about a tough test or a breakup with a boyfriend or a girlfriend and you're going, “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.” And, all the while, you're thinking in your head, “Do they have homework tonight? Do I have to take them to practice? How in the world am I going to make that 7:30 meeting?” We hear them, but we don't listen. We don't really listen to what they're saying. Listening means we pay attention to the other person completely. Listening is hard work. It doesn't come easy. It's different from hearing. Listening means you're going to focus in on your wife, you're going to focus in on your husband, you're going to focus in on Mom and Dad, you're going to focus in on the kids, and you're going to truly listen to them. It means you're going to suspend judgment about what they're saying. You're not going to jump to conclusions about what they're saying. You're not going to interrupt them and give them the answer to the question before they've asked it. I only mention that because that's my chief sin. Ask my family. I just assume I know what they're going to say and so I interrupt and I give them an answer because I'm so impatient. And half the time I'm wrong. Listening means you don't do that. You suspend judgment. You don't make assumptions. You don't draw conclusions. You watch the person. You see the body language. You hear what the words are saying and you try to truly understand what is it they're trying to communicate and how it is they're feeling.

There's no greater affirmation to another person than to listen to them. Every human being wants somebody to listen to them, to know they've truly been heard. Chief complaint among teenagers, they say, “Nobody cares about me. Nobody listens to me. Nobody understands me.” Because someone's not listening. The number one problem between husbands and wives is communication. They don't listen to one another. They're not heard by one another, so they stop talking to one another. Listening. Listening is hard work. Listening means putting ourselves into the conversation and blocking everything else out.

I'm going to take a small tangent here for a minute. I'm going to talk about the difference between men and women, because it takes a lot of self control on our part as men or as women when it comes to listening and communicating with one another because men and women are so different. I know, no big surprise. But men and women are very different in how they communicate. Now, Ladies, I don't mean any offense by this. I'm protecting myself before I say it. But science has shown that women use about twice as many words as men. Women are verbal for the most part. They like to talk. That's how they express themself. That's how women work through problems or situations. They like to talk about it. And, through many words, that's how they do it. So I'm not saying it's good or bad or in between, women just use more words than men. The problem is men don't like to talk. And men also have this false notion they can fix everything. So what happens is the two clash. So, Men, the women in your life come home and they want to tell you about something. So maybe your wife comes home and wants to tell you about maybe a conflict she had with a coworker, something that's going on with her boss. Well, we being men, thinking we need to fix this situation, we think about what she has to say and even though she keeps talking away, we interrupt and say, “Well, Honey, that's simple. Just tomorrow go in and tell your boss this, this, and this. It's taken care of.” And see, we men think, “See, I just solved the problem for you.” Guys, sometimes do we kind of sit back in the family and say, “Bring your problems to the wise one. I'll take care of them for you.” Problems? She didn't want you to solve the problem. She didn't ask you to solve the problem. If she wanted your advice, she'd have asked for it. What she really wanted was to be heard. Let her talk it out. Let her just say what's on her mind.

James puts it this way in Chapter 1, Verse 19, “My dear brothers, take note of this. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.” Quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. Men, just listen. Trust me on this one. I have four daughters and a wife. Just listen. From the youngest of ages, when my young daughters come up to me and they have a problem, as Dad, I want to fix it. Guess what? They just want Dad to listen. Quick to listen, slow to speak.

Ladies, men don't talk. It's just how it is. We are not verbal creatures. We don't talk a lot by and large. And men solve problems, work through situations differently than women. We don't talk them through. Men climb inside themselves and then they think about it. And when they've come to a rational, logical conclusion in their mind, they take that, they put it into a little compartment, they lock it in us, and now they're fine. Everything is great. The problem is, and I've heard women say this, “You know, Honey, it would help if you just talked about it.” Maybe not. That's maybe not what they need. Quick to listen, slow to speak. So, Ladies, let the men in your life, the males from youngest to oldest, have a little bit of time. Say to them, “Now you can't stay there forever because you've been ignoring the rest of the family all night. At some time, you need to come and tell us what's going on. But you go ahead and take some time and think it through.” That takes self control, Ladies and Gentlemen, because it doesn't come naturally to us as men to be quiet and to listen and it doesn't come that naturally for you, Ladies, to be quiet and just let the men go off and think. But self control and respect for one another in the family says that we're going to understand the differences between male and female and how God has created us and we're going to respect that and we're going to exercise self control. So, in the kitchen, we're not trying to drag things out of somebody nor are we cutting somebody short in the conversation. But we're going to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and also slow to anger. Self control is about listening.

But self control is also about speaking. As much as it's important that we listen and are quiet, it's also important that we talk. Family members need to converse with one another. Family members need to know what's going on in each other's lives. Family members, male or female, cannot stuff everything down inside, whether you're a teen or whether you're a grandparent, it is not healthy to take everything you're thinking and all of your emotions and just push them down inside because, sooner or later, just like a can of pop that's shook up, it's going to open up sometime and it's not going to be pretty. You've been there at times. All of a sudden, you're just sitting at the dinner table and one family member, out of the blue, just erupts and there are all kinds of anger. There are all kinds of emotion. And the rest of the family is saying, “Where did that come from?” You can't bottle it all up inside. Self control says, even if it doesn't come naturally to me, talk about things. Sooner or later, I need to share with the rest of the family what's going on. If I'm under a lot of stress and pressure at work, I may need to take some time to work that through but, sooner or later, I need to tell the family, “I don't mean to ignore you, I don't mean to be grumpy, but I've got a lot going on.” You need to share with one another and speak with one another and that takes self control to do that. And when we speak with one another, we speak in love and we speak with respect. Maybe what it means is, every Sunday night at 7:00, you all grab a bowl of ice cream and you sit down at the kitchen table and you just share what's going on for the next week. And you talk to one another respectfully and you listen to one another. And there's love and kindness around that table, that foundation God has laid. That's what God's kitchen is about.

God's kitchen is about us using self control. It doesn't come easy. It's only by the grace of God. Us experiencing God's grace. Us sharing God's grace with one another, forgiving each other when we don't exercise self control, seeking forgiveness from God when we don't have self control but, by God's grace, the motivation, the desire in our heart is to lead godly lives, self-controlled lives. And in the family, that means we're quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. Amen.

Copyright 2005 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church