Sunday Message- the elephant in the room

Jimmy Swaggert was a fiery, effective preacher- until the day he confessed his "elephant in the room"- a sexual problem that derailed his ministry for years.  He still preaches, but now he "isn't talked about in polite society", anymore.  Which is a shame, because his confession gives him an insight into problems that we struggle with and mostly don't want to admit.  I heard it said on one of the many programs I listened to that as many as 20% of American pastors have a struggle with porn.


"Uh-oh,", you say, "this is going to be a lecture on porn."  Not so,  follow along.  What I am heading towards is a question- do you have a repeated sin in your life, one that takes on such a life that it corrupts any ministry you might have, and makes you think you cannot possibly go farther in your faith because of it?  Whether anyone else knows about it or not, for you it becomes the "elephant in the room"- the thing other such matters have a hard time working around.

Another pastor this week made me think on this.  He had one line in the midst of a sermon that threw me into debate- and a second that made it hit close to home.  In basic terms, he was saying it was NOT about the sin- even the repeated one- but the EFFECT it had on your obedience, on your purity, on your holiness, because these are the things that effect your relationship with God.  Let's imagine an actual elephant, in your living room.  You start out trying to push it out.  But you can shove on that elephant's butt all you want, or tug on his rope.  If he don't want to move, YOU aren't going to move him without help.  So you start walking around him.  Maybe you try staying in a different room, trying not to mind the smell coming from the elephant, er, droppings he's collecting in the living room.  Maybe you just accept him, hanging pictures or your TV on his side.  Eventually, you start bring home bags of peanuts and feed him.


BUT HE DOES NOT BELONG IN YOUR LIVING ROOM.

2 things are certain.  One, you need to get him out, and two, you need help to do it.

Okay, now let's look at this from another angle.  If you go through the book of Judges, you see that the judges were men and women who heard God and listened to Him.  Oh, some of them had to be really really sure, like Barak and Gideon.  But they obeyed, and God blessed them by saving people alive through them, and in most cases bringing the people back to God.

And then you have Samson.   Samson was so distracted by the elephant in his room- lust for foreign women- that despite a strength advantage that no one before or since had, he did very little in the way of using it for the good of God's people.  How do I know that?  Read his story.  Feat after feat of strength, NO prayers giving God the glory, No people being turned back to God, and it wasn't until he had admitted that he had made a total mess of his ministry that he even SPOKE to God in the story.  God still used him, once he did- but think of what he COULD have been, if he'd have ever got the elephant out of his room.

After Samson comes Samuel.  And for Samuel, God WAS the elephant in the room.  Because of that, he did what God wanted, even to the point of defying the king HE helped establish, when it became apparent that Saul's elephant was his ego.

God wants to be the elephant in our rooms, so to speak.  If we are focused on God, that sin finds it harder and harder to fit into our lives.  But while this analogy works to an extent, we cannot treat God like we treat the elephant of sin.  We can't hang the TVs and photographs of our old life on Him and turn Him into a wall-unit or room island- He won't stay for that.  He won't stay for a handful of peanuts when we get home from work, and He won't stay if we go into another room and try to ignore Him.  Because, He is not an elephant, He is a loving Father who expects to be First in our lives.

Sin IS an elephant.  It doesn't mind if you "decorate" him with pictures of holiness, he doesn't mind if you ignore his presence, he'll take whatever you give him, AND he'll make a mess on your floor.  The only thing that God and an elephant have in common is that the presence of one will crowd out the other.  And if you want God to crowd out your elephant, you'd better treat Him differently than you treat the elephant.