Fixing What Almost Sank You

Monday, November 11, 2013

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A friend told me an amazing true story about his father, Joe, who was a submariner in WWII on the torpedo crew. Now unfortunately, a lot of torpedoes apparently malfunctioned during the war, including some that almost cost Joe and his shipmates their lives. The battleship that those torpedoes missed went after Joe's submarine with depth charges. And they suddenly dived to the bottom; shut off everything that sonar could detect, and they had to sit there for a whole day. Their oxygen was almost gone, and they barely survived.

Well, Joe vowed that if he ever got out of that predicament he was going to help build a torpedo that would not fail. And that's exactly what he did. Later Joe learned that one out of three torpedoes was defective. So he went to night school, he studied to be an electrician and a machinist. He eventually ended up with a major role and a highly respected reputation with the Defense Department. Yes, he helped develop the better weapon that he promised he would.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Fixing What Almost Sank You."

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 1 Peter 1:18-19. God says, "You know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ; a Lamb without blemish or defect." See, what Christ did on the cross has the power to rescue us from what the Bible calls "the empty ways of life handed down to us by our forefathers."

We all got handed down some empty ways of doing things from our parents, because all of us were raised by sinners; there are no perfect parents. Our parents passed on to us some good things, but part of our heritage is what I call "family germs" or "family sins." We've all got some destructive or selfish ways that probably wounded us as we were growing up around those ways. You say, "I'll never talk like that." "I'll never treat people like that." "I'll never act that way." Guess what? We do. "Oh, no! I sound like my Father; I'm acting like my Mother."

See, chances are your parents grew up around parents with the same weakness they had. And if we could go back in a Time Machine we might be amazed to find out how many generations have been marked by that family sin, which brings us to torpedo Joe. He saw what had almost sunk him, and he determined he was going to fix it so it wouldn't sink anyone else.

In the same way, we can see the traits in our growing up family that almost sank us. And we can decide it does not have to touch another generation. It doesn't have to mark the people we love. We can decide that only because there's a Savior who redeems us from those empty ways of life. Think about the family sins in your background. What is it? Is it a negative, critical mouth, untruthfulness, unfaithfulness? Maybe there's an addiction in the family tree, or a perfectionism that almost drove you crazy, maybe some manipulative ways of getting your way. Is there some selfishness there, impatience, workaholism? Whatever it is, it can stop in your generation.

That begins when you come to Jesus Christ and say, "Lord, it's going to stop here. I give this dark part of me, this dark part of my family to You. Believing there is power in Your blood, the blood of Christ shed on a cross for those sins to break the power of this sin."

It may be that you've never opened up your life to this awesome sin-forgiving, sin-changing, death-reversing Savior, Jesus Christ. Boy, this would be the time to do that and begin to be able to have the power to say, "The dark stuff stops here." If you want to begin a relationship with Him, I hope you'll meet me at our website and let me show you how to do that. Go to ANewStory.com.

This is such great news! You don't have to settle for the failures in your past that almost sank you. You can face it. You can fight it. You can beat it in Jesus' name. And you can begin to win the battle, not only for yourself but for all those who will follow.