3 Circles - Brokenness

Last week we saw how God has left us with a mission make disciples of all nations.

We are to tell them the good news that God made a way for them to live the way they were designed to live.

We are learning a relational, conversational way to bring them the help they need through the gospel of Jesus.

This week we are going to look at a place we all know all too well—a place we’re calling brokenness.

Genesis 3:1–19 KJV 1900

1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? 2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: 3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. 4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. 6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. 7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. 8 And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. 9 And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? 10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. 11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? 12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. 13 And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. 14 And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: 15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. 16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. 17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; 18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; 19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

We live in a broken world. You don’t have to look far to realize it.

In the United States today: » Forty percent of children live in single-parent homes.

» One half of 1 million children have been removed from their homes due to abuse and neglect and placed in foster care.

» An estimated 20 million people are ensnared in some kind of addiction.

» Police report over 3,000 violent crimes a day.

We’re a Humpty Dumpty nation. We’ve fallen, we’re broken and we can’t figure out how to put all the pieces back together again.

And it’s not for a lack of trying.

We all recognize what’s wrong in our world today.

We all have a sense of the brokenness, and we try our best to fix it.

There are all kinds of people trying all kinds of things to put our nation back together again.

Fortunately for us, God has given us the solution. We know that God has a design for each of our lives

but the Bible tells us that we choose to depart from that design.

So we face crime, hate, greed, lusts and so much more.

Simply because...

We Choose to Depart from God’s Design.

We as people have a way of thinking that we know how to handle ourselves.

We know how to live righteous and upright.

So we try to do it on our own.

You know, I am not sure how many of you feel this way, but I feel similar to some verses that Paul wrote ....

Romans 7:19 KJV 1900

19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

Even in my good intentions I often seek evil.

That is not because I want to be evil, it is because it is human nature.

You see, as we are reminded that God designed us to live a Holy and upright life for him we are also reminded that we often fail miserably in this.

This has been true from the very beginning.

Mankind, since our sin separated us from god has had this awful desire.

To do it on our own, apart from any help.

That is why today we see so many facing brokenness through their emotions.

Finding themselves in a state in which depression has taken over the deepest and darkest corners of the mind.

Apart from God’s presence in one’s life how is it that we could not be depressed.

Without his sovereign grace to forgive us.

Without his Spirit to guide us.

Without any of his presence in our life.

You see once we lose every remnant of God in our life, we lose every hope of ever being anything but alone.

The beginning of the issue is found all the way back at the fall of man.....

Adam and Eve thought they knew better than God (Gen. 3:1-7)

And you know what, so do we.

We act and think as though we know better than God himself.

So in our actions we depart from God.

In our thoughts, we depart from God.

In all that we desire we desire the evil of this world.

It is our, natural instinct.

and the Bible has a word for this departure from God...

The Bible word for departing from God’s design and going our own way is sin

And sin isn’t something that only finds root in a person’s life here and there

Sin is something that we frankly, all do

We all sin and fall short of God’s glory.

in fact the Bible tell us in Romans 3 23

Romans 3:23 KJV 1900

23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

So we know that we all have sinned, we know that we all have went against God’s Design for our life.

So now the question for us becomes, What’s next?

You see.....

When we Depart from God’s Design, it Always Leads to Brokenness.

Because of our desire to live outside of the will of God we live broken lives.

Broken lives are lives that have no purpose.

Broken lives are those that find stress, loneliness, frustration, anger as constant emotions

Broken lives are lives that seek pleasure in the temporary.

» When our communion with God is broken. It feels like fear, shame, guilt, loneliness... (Gen. 3:8-10).

We have lost our connection to the one who created us, the one who loved us, the one who wanted nothing more than a relationship with us.

And we have turned against that.

We have forsaken our God and because of that this immense feeling of pain and regret is constantly around us.

Often we do not feel good enough.

We do not feel as though we are anything.

We find regret and guilt as a consistent occurrence in our lives.

In this separation we must determine where to turn next.

What does creation do that has no connection to it’s creator.

Well for us as mankind....

We try to hide from God (Gen. 3:8).

Isn’t it funny how when we do something wrong the first thing we do is take off and run.

in fact genesis 3 8 says this about Adam and Eve when they departed from God’s will....

Genesis 3:8 KJV 1900

And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.

They felt guilt and shame for the first time.

SO they ran from God.

Perhaps he can’t see me over here.

Perhaps if I stay hidden long enough he will forget?

who knows what was going through their minds.

Im reminded of this thought.

Many of you can recall a time in your life when perhaps you were doing something that you knew you shouldn’t be doing.

Perhaps your parents were nearby and you kept looking over your shoulder.

Maybe they wont see.

Maybe if I am careful they won’t catch me.

I would ask you this.

Why is it that you would keep looking over your shoulder?

I would say it is because you knew that what you were doing was wrong.

See here is the thing though.

As much as our paren’t may have desired to make our decisions for us they cannot.

And our God has given us the same free will.

He allows us to make our choices.

The difference between an earthly parent and Godly parent is this.

We cannot hide form God.

All that we say, all that we do he knows it.

and the reality is when we live in a broken state their are consequences....

Brokenness disrupts God’s design.

in fact brokenness disrupts every aspect of God’s design.

No matter what we do once we depart from God’s Design it will affect us!

Even the small aspects of God’s Design will be affected...

Disrupts our spiritual life (Gen. 3:14-15 - We have an enemy–the serpent, Satan.).

Disrupts our family life (Gen. 3:16 - pain in childbearing–from birth on). Sermon 2 1 »

Disrupts our married life (Gen. 3:16 - desire husband and he will rule over). »

Disrupts our work life (Gen. 3:17-19a - toil to work the earth). »

Disrupts our physical life (Gen. 3:19b - death)

In all of these aspects of our life our brokenness, our sin will affect us.

You see here is the reality about our sin.

Our sin isn’t something that we can ever rid ourself of on our own.

We will certainly try.

We may try any number of things to rid us of our sin and brokenness.

For some we may try relationships.

We may live a life in which we build someone else up to be our superhero.

We may think that person can cure us from our brokenness, but they cannot.

We may decide that partaking in lust and/or adultery will make us fill better.

But the sexual excitement only numbs the pain.

Many may participate in drugs and alcohol, hoping to forget about the issues in their life.

Some may begin to out all of their energy into ungodly agendas, hoping that if they convince themselves enough they will need no God.

You see their is hundreds, if not thousands of ways to try to numb the brokenness, to try to hide the sin.

In all of this we learn that no matter how much.......

We try to cover our own sin, it doesn’t work (Genesis 3:7).

So how is that we can ever overcome our sin.

How can we get out of this broken state.

Can we ever get to the point that our brokenness may be cured.

You see that is the most amazing part.

Even though we can never do anything on our own

He can.

Our God, the designer of us has made a way.

You see in our brokenness if we choose to repent and believe in his son, that he went to the cross of Calvary and died for our sins, only to raise on the third day.

If we seek true repentance in him we can be saved.

The Way Out of Our Brokenness: The gospel.

This truth that Jesus died for us is the only way we can ever receive salvation.

I want to challenge us with a very specific challenge

But before i do that I want to ask this are we going to choose to take God’s way out of brokenness?

Will we choose to help others find their way out of brokenness?

Let’s look at the 3 circles again

You see we have calling today.

If we don’t know Him, perhaps he is calling us out of our brokeness so that we may know him.

But if we do know him, how are we sharing his most wonderful truth.

(explain prayer card challenge)

Specific prayer: Lord, give me opportunities to share the Gospel with the names I have written down, show me how I can tell them of your route out of sin.