From Broken to Restored

Jesus Restored What Was Broken

Romans 6:23, 5:8

Sermon Introduction:

A famous comedian was asked one time how he came up with such great material. He replied by saying I don’t have to come up with material, he said people are hilarious, you just have to take notes when you see comedy happening. Preachers often experience the same thing when working to find stories and illustrations for their sermons. Last year, I was working in the coffee shop that my previous church owned and I dropped an espresso shot glass. Just by show of hands who has ever dropped and broken a glass object? Even if you haven’t, raise your hand to make my illustration work this morning. Good. So I don’t have to explain to you how breaking glass turns into a scavenger hunt for the next 3 days trying to find every little shard of glass, hopefully not in the middle of the night with the bottom of your foot. As I am trying to find every sliver of glass on the floor of the coffee shop, the thought comes to my mind that maybe this story of broken glass on the floor would fit in well as an preaching illustration. In the next moment I thought, “that’s kind of a weak illustration, I have to have something a little better than that.”

Clean up the glass, fast forward to that evening. I am at Grove City Naz meeting with a few other pastors and an F1 tornado came through Grove City, and I can give you a first-person account. Electricity goes out, tornado sirens, glass on front of the church breaks, security alarm, kids crying, a worship leader hiding under a pool table, but as the tornado reaches the church, the cloud lifts and God protects us, it was really a pretty awesome experience. After we find out it’s safe to go outside, we walk out in the parking lot and there is one car that has a window busted out, who does the car belong to? That’s right, this guy. In that moment I sensed God speaking to me saying, still feel like that broken glass illustration is a weak one?” As I stood there and peered inside the interior of my car, I thought sin does not just break us, sin shatters us. I’ve worked around some incredible auto repair technicians in my life, and I’ve known a lot of great handymen. I have to know them, because I certainly am not one. But I’ve never met one that looked at a shattered car window and said I have just the tool for that. Why? Because it was broken beyond repair. And in the same way, I am here to tell you today that the effects of sin will leave us broken beyond repair.

SIN LEAVES US BROKEN BEYOND REPAIR

I wonder what your story might be today? Many of us can relate to the idea of feeling broken. In fact, I would dare say that all of us today have either realized brokenness in our life, or we are suppressing it because it is too much for us to deal with. The brokenness of sin produces a sense of hopelessness that grows stronger and stronger as the sin remains in our life. While we are sharing a message today that most certainly communicates that you can find a new relationship in Jesus Christ when you ask Him to restore you from your brokenness, I’m not a stranger to the fact that there are far too many Christians sitting in services just like this today that are struggling with brokenness and sin.

38% of regular church attenders have been through a divorce

41% of practicing Christians believe in having sex before marriage, and over 90% do it even though they believe it’s wrong

70% of women who get an abortion identify as Christians

50% men, 20% women in the church view pornography on a regular basis. The scarier part about stats like these are that it would be highly unlikely that everyone answering in these polls are being fully honest about the struggle, meaning the stats are perhaps even worse than what we have stated this morning. Beyond these stats we could talk about neglect, physical abuse, verbal abuse, gossip, backbiting, and estranged relationships that result from an unwillingness to forgive. As a pastor in today’s world my heart is broken because I feel that it is easy to get lost in these statistics and forget that there is a hurting individual attached to every single one of them, and just because more people are struggling with these painful circumstances it does not mean that the hurt that is caused is any less real for each one going through it, which brings us to our next thought this morning...

THE COST IS GREATER THAN WE CAN AFFORD (BEAR) Romans 6:23

-Read Romans 6:23 - For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

-We are born into sin

In Psalm 51 King David said, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. David did not know this because of the seminary class he took on the theology of original sin. It takes little more than telling a child no for the first time to experience the rebellion that exist within us as a result of original sin that accompanies our birth into this world. But for those that would argue against the existence of an eternal hell, and a God who would send a person there must understand, that the cross of Jesus was God’s answer to our sin nature, and that it is only by our continued insistence in our rebellion that would cause us to experience the consequence of hell. God has not rejected us, but rather we have rejected Him… AND..

-Sin’s penalty is not just experienced in the afterlife, but it is progressively destructive.

Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.

Not only does sin have consequences, but also each time we sin, we reinforce a pattern that becomes harder and harder to break. If we persist in sin with the thought that one day we will get right with God, we should remind ourselves that God may still be there to forgive and restore but we may not be.

-We cannot save ourselves

The work of the devil takes our natural limitation and transforms it into an unnatural inclination. We can understand from the teachings of scripture that sin occurs in three steps which are very straightforward. The first step begins with a spark of misplaced desire that in turn is inflamed by enticement and finally consumed by the will. Desire, enticement, and the will. REPEAT Our God-given desires have nothing to do with why temptation seems to be so strong or how God has made us. Every man, woman and child wants to do what’s right on his or her terms. These are the steps to imprisoning the heart. First the desire, then the deception, and finally, the decision. And once we have entered into the decision of sin, we have began the process of disqualifying ourselves from being capable of getting ourselves back on track. And now the only proper reference point comes from the Holy Spirit of God speaking into our lives, which leads us to our third thought this morning.

LOVE REFUSED TO LET US GO

-The gift of God is not just salvation for the sinner, but healing and deliverance for the hurting. So as we keep Romans 6:23 we consider Romans 5:6-8.

-Read Romans 5:6-8 - For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

-Paul speaks as a former bounty hunter of Christians

As Paul speaks to the fact of what men and women are willing to die for in Romans 5 he speaks from an experience of being a bounty hunter and watching groveling Christians stay faithful to Jesus in spite of it costing them their life. He was ready to take their life yet they would not denounce this man called Jesus, and as he is pondering this and trying to reconcile that he is meeting poor and rich, old and young alike that will not denounce Him, RANSACKED BY LOVE Jesus appears to Him, and says Saul what on earth are you doing? You claim to know about the prophets and law that I gave to my people, and you are killing those who worship me. NO MORE. I have a plan for your life! Paul would go on to live AND give his life for Jesus.

-So in Romans 5:8 he would write when I was a sinner (his enemy, hated him), He loved me… This is why I changed, this is why I’m giving my life for the message now.

-Love refused to let us go, not just in our eternal destiny but in our present suffering

Christ’s Nearness in our Suffering - Elie Wiesel relates in one of his essays an experience he had when he was a prisoner in Auschwitz. A Jewish prisoner was being executed while the rest of the camp was forced to watch. As the prisoner hung on the gallows kicking and struggling in the throes of death, refusing to die an onlooker was heard to mutter under his breath with increasing desperation, “Where is God? Where is He? From out of nowhere, Wiesel says, a voice within him spoke to his own heart, saying, “Right there on the gallows; where else?

-Fixing what is broken (Personal Illustration) – Fix it Daddy

So many times, in his first 4 years of life Ben has run up to me with toy in hand, devastated. In that simple 5 letter word “broke”. He is saying dad this isn’t working the way it should be… He doesn’t know how I’m going to fix it, doesn’t care, He wants it to work again. Too many times we do not come to God in our brokenness because we can’t figure out how He’s going to fix it, not perhaps considering that trying to figure things out our way is what caused the idea to quit working. Though I’m not good at fixing things, when my little guy wants things to be better, I do everything I can to try to fix it? How much more does Jesus desire to fix those things in our life that seem beyond repair? Listen to the words of Isaiah 43 here this morning.

Isaiah 43:15-19 paraphrase - "I am the LORD, your Holy One, The Creator of Israel, your King." I am the LORD, Who makes a way through the sea And a path through the mighty waters, "Do not call to mind the former things, Or ponder things of the past. 19"Behold, I will do something new…

Your old history ends with the cross, and your new history begins with the resurrection.

Conclusion

Sin can cause us to believe that we are broken beyond repair, and without the cross of Jesus that is absolutely the case. When we fall into areas of sin in our life we try to find a way out on our own only to find that the cost of sin can never be satisfied in all of our striving and belief that we are good enough to pull ourselves out on our own. The Bible even speaks of the fact that the demons that have haunted our life will find ways to come back stronger when we are not living Spirit-filled lives that are doing the works of Jesus. But the Bible also speaks of the fact that we have this hope as an anchor for our soul that is sure and steadfast, and that Jesus has went before us and is ever interceding on our behalf.

So why did God lead me in the direction of broken glass today? I’m quite sure it was so we could consider how greatly we need Him to repair the brokenness that we experience in our lives. The auto repair shop couldn’t piece the glass back together, but instead they had to replace it with a new window. In the same fashion Jesus doesn't fix brokenness, he replaces it with something new, new life. It's amazing what God can do with a broken life if He gets all the pieces.

He did not come to repair what was broken, He came to replace what was shattered.

When we believe we are beyond repair, Jesus restores beyond expectation.

Micah 7:7-8b

7 I will watch expectantly for the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me. 8 Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy. Though I fall I will rise;

Invitation/Challenge. I will rise as Christ has raised to life and now in Him I live

(MAYBE) PROTECT THE FIRE NOT PRESERVE THE ASHES

Parking Lot

Jesus walked up to Simon, who was known for being flimsy, and called him Peter. Which means rock. Jesus doesn’t call you by the name that defines who you’ve been. He calls you by the name of your future.