Broken pt 1

Recently, I have heard many well-meaning Christians bemoaning the current state of our society and more specifically the culture we’ve come to live in; most are shocked at our current state of affairs, and some wish for the good ole’ days. The fact is society and culture will continue to ignore God and spiral further from His truth more than we can imagine, but what about us? What is our place in this world, what should we do, how should we respond? Before we look outwardly, let’s first look inside.

Key verse:

Proverbs 25:28- “Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.”

We are broken, but praise God He is in the brokenness business!

Key quote:

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so." - Douglas Adams-British author- most famous for the series: Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

Take that quote a step farther, human beings are unique in their ability to learn
from their own experiences and mistakes, yet are sadly unremarkable for the
disinclination to do so! In simplest terms, we lack self-control and are
broken. We as teachers & preachers have been guilty of pointing out
problems but not offering the solution.

Have you ever tried to fix something that is hopelessly broken? Say your cell phone. You drop it the screen cracks and you don’t want to pay the $100+ to get it fixed so you order the replacement screen off eBay and try and install it yourself. What happens? You mess it up worse and end up having to buy a new phone. What about a plate, have you ever dropped one and then glued it back together? Although you may have all the major pieces there are still small miniscule pieces of ceramic missing and you can always see the cracks. What happens…you end up throwing it away or donating it to our next yard sale?

Have you ever tried to fix something that is hopelessly broken?
What’s the normal outcome? we mess it up worse than before

We aren’t in the fixing business, we are in the messing things up business. In fact, when something is broken we usually just throw it away and buy a new one.

We aren’t in the fixing business; we are in the “messing things up” business. It takes a Sovereign God to undo the damage done to our lives and wash us clean with the blood of the Lamb and once again make us whole. Thank God He doesn’t throw us away, sell us to the highest bidder, or simply replace us once our newness is gone. In fact, you could accurately say that God likes broken things best! From the very beginning God was the master mechanic; Adam & Eve, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, etc. all examples of people who were hopelessly broken and in their weakness and sin God’s mercy, grace, and strength was apparent.

In our student ministry we’ve been going thru a series based on the book of Judges and we’ve studied the strengths and weaknesses of each individual Judge. A curious thing, the previous book, Joshua, ends with the nation of Israel inheriting the promised land but also inheriting a much bigger problem; for the first time in a couple of generations there in NO central spiritual leader (ie. Moses, Aaron, Joshua).

What is our example? From whom should we learn? the Israelites                                              Read the end of Joshua and then Judges, and then read 1 Corinthians 10:1-13.

Joshua dies and for the first time in a couple generations there is no spiritual leader

Israel falls into a rut of spiritual prostitution. We see a repetitive phrase over and over again in Judges; “Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord”

The nation of Israel falls into a rut of spiritual prostitution (God’s words) where they run back and forth between their first love, God, and the various gods of the surrounding nations. The repetitive phrase is startling; “again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord…”. Over and over again Israel forgot God and sold themselves to other gods, so God in His justice and righteous anger sells them to other nations by servitude, tribute, or outright enslavement. However, because God cannot lie and always keeps His promise, He would also always send a ‘savior’ in the form of a Judge (leader). Herein lies the problem, the nation of Israel becomes dependent on the succession of new spiritual leaders for their own spiritual condition and makes no effort to foster their own spiritual growth. This is the spiritual condition of the nation of Israel all the way thru the time of Christ and is why they missed who He really was.

Can we sit in judgment over them? What do we look like to this world, in this culture?

We as modern day Christians can look back at the Israelites and judge them, how stupid, how blind, how pathetic they were, they should have come to their senses and run whole-heartedly back to God. They were barely removed from the Exodus generation who literally witnessed the presence of God leading them daily, food falling from the sky, plagues in Egypt, all the vast miracles performed by God on their behalf yet they chose this world, it’s idols carved by men, and its vices over the ineffable, eternal God. How foolish? How ignorant? How stupid?

But then the chilling reality sets in on us; we are no different than they were! We too saw God move in miraculous ways; delivering us from death into life, making us joint-heirs with Christ Jesus, stamping our names into the Lamb’s book of life, forgiving the mountains of sin in our lives, freeing us from its chains, and giving us a purpose for life itself. Yet, after all that, we chose pleasure, we chose wealth, we chose career, we chose popularity, we chose sexual fulfillment, we chose whatever else (you fill in the blank) over God and sell ourselves cheap after we have already been redeemed and somehow we think God is ok with it? We too have become dependent on church; its programs, music, books, and spiritual leaders to prop up our spiritual walk without investing any personal time and reflection in prayer and God’s Word and we wonder why we don’t have joy, why we don’t feel Him anymore, and why we struggle with sin so mightily? We bemoan the current society we find ourselves living in but we do nothing to change it and we stay quiet because we wish to give no offense or because we fear persecution. When actually the greatest need we have is not that society turns to God, it is that WE, as God’s people, return to God wholeheartedly, with an undivided heart, and without distraction.

The world sees hypocrites when they look at us. Why, because we are always judging others as if we know the truth but never living by that truth ourselves? Here is the TRUTH; we are called to a different life, a different standard, a different journey. Stop for a moment and think to yourself. Ask yourself this question; what sets you apart from the world? Maybe you wanna make a list; “I go to church”, “I give money to the church”, “I volunteer at the food pantry or feed the homeless”, “I go on short term mission trips”, etc. Do those things really make us SO different? The world does ALL those things too; they regularly attend and are members of organizations, they give money to charitable causes, they volunteer at different community activities, they even go and help others in various parts of the world. Now, to be clear, they go and do these things with different reasons and a different agenda, but those things on your list don’t make you a Christian.

Now stop and make a list of the things you do that everyone else is doing. Make a list; “I spend a lot of time at work, I’m so busy my head spins, I spend my free time at the river, hunting/fishing, the beach (etc), I’m obsessed with things, I’m trying to climb the corporate ladder, I want to increase my standard of living, I spend hours of my day on social media/entertainment, sporting events, I spend most of my time on myself, etc. These ARE the things that disguise us to the world. Now, to be clear I am in no way advocating legalism, but attempting to draw a clear distinction. It is these things that camouflage us in our surroundings. What is the purpose of camouflage? To blend in, and we are blending well and these are just our outward actions. What about our hearts?

What’s the purpose of camouflage? To blend in! Are you just blending in?

Psalm 73:7- “From their callous hearts comes iniquity, the evil conceits of their minds know no limits.”

Genesis 6:5- “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.”

This of course is nothing new. Genesis 6:5 tells us; God saw the corruption; the sexual sin and violence of man and decided to flood the world and continue His promise thru Noah and his family. From the very beginning our hearts have desired sin. This begs a question; how can a holy God use dirty vessels? The answer is simple; He has to break them and remold them in His image. This is a painful process, perhaps the most painful spiritually, but also of the greatest benefit in the end. Remember, God is in the brokenness business, He takes what we have hopelessly destroyed and restores and rebuilds it into something new.

Don’t just stop it, instead replace it!

With each successive week we’ll be discussing topics that will hopefully uncover areas we need “breaking” in. This is just scratching the surface; over the next week ask God to bring to mind the things that make you like the world and begin to pray for the strength (empowered by the Holy Spirit) to change these things in your our lives. Then don’t just STOP IT , instead REPLACE IT with an action that makes you more like Christ!

God bless, Drew