UPRIVER (III)

UPRIVER REALITY The Blessing of Brokenness What is brokenness and when does it happen? Brokenness is when you are standing in the raging river waiting for your blessing/miracle to come down the river. It’s your 3 hours and 45 minutes of the ‘in-between.’ It’s when circumstance bring you to the end of who you are, and what you have. It’s when you want to run as far and as fast as you can, but you stay and wait on God. Do you find it as hard as I do to imagine how brokenness, can be a blessing? It’s like saying he was seriously funny! Or she is awful pretty! Or I have original copies of the speech! We ate jumbo shrimp! Just as those are examples of oxymorons, so is the blessing of brokenness. By our way of understanding ‘blessing’ and ‘brokenness’ these two words with there contrasting meanings should not be used in the same sermon, much less in the same sentence. Seldom if ever does immediate brokenness have any resemblance of blessing. As surprising as it may sound, every blessing that comes from God is the result of someone’s, somebody’s brokenness. God The Father’s blessings have their origin in The Son Jesus’s brokenness. It is hard to articulate the blessing of God’s salvation provided through Jesus’ cross. We are blessed with forgiveness, blessed with a new nature, blessed with an eternal home in heaven, blessed with peace with God, blessed with the fellowship of the redeemed. In fact the Bible says, “we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus.” While it is hard to articulate the blessings of God’s salvation, it is even harder to communicated the enormity of the Savior’s brokenness, His suffering. Here is Isaiah’s words! “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by Him, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed. ... And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.” Here is another expression of Jesus’ brokenness. This one is His own words. MATT. 26:36-39 “Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, Sit here while I go over there and pray. He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me. Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” We call this place the Garden of Gethsemane, the place where Jesus prayed and agonized about His suffering, and where He was arrested after Judas betrayed him. Gethsemane sits outside of Jerusalem across a small valley. Walking through the garden was a common route for Jesus—He often stayed with his good friends, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus in Bethany, which is just a short distance beyond the Mount of Olives. There is an interesting connection between Gethsemane and Jesus’ experience here. In Hebrew, the word Gethsemane is comprised of the words for “press” and “oil”—it was a place where olive oil was produced. In the ancient process, olives were gathered into tightly woven baskets and pressed three times—the husks of the olives remained in the basket and the oil seeped out. In the story of Jesus’ agony in the garden, He also prays three times, and his anxiety caused him to sweat blood, He was crushed, and blood seeped out of Him. HE WAS BROKEN! “He was pierced for our sins, crushed for our iniquity. He bore the punishment that makes us whole, by his wounds we were healed”. Without the brokenness of Jesus, there would have been no blessing for us. With that in mind what do you think Christ’s intent was when He more than once says? “If any man come after me he must deny himself, pick up his cross and follow Me.” Jesus told Peter you will be broken, Jesus told Paul you will be broken. Jesus tells every follower there will be brokenness, for out of brokenness comes blessings. Waiting for God in the dirty, cold, raging river, walking with God in the intense fire, has a way of ‘squeezing the self stuff’ out of us. It’s called brokenness, and following it comes the blessing of infilling. God empty’s us of ourself so He can fill us with Himself. How can we talk about brokenness and not talk about Job. Everything that Job held dear was taken from him, his family, his health, his wealth, his livelihood. But here is what is interesting about Job’s brokenness. He didn’t just survive it, He blessed and praise God in it. ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord give and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” You and I can praise God in our brokenness, because after every season of brokenness comes times of blessing. Yes, we know what is here, but we know what is coming. Do you think that Job knew that born out of every trail of brokenness comes the triumph of blessing? While Job was grieving in the midst of enormous loss, did he believe that God was working upriver to restore him? Did Job live with a ‘upriver reality?’ Did he know that you can’t have a comeback unless you first have a setback? You can count on a comeback, if you have had a setback. Therefore we will have prolific blessings from God, because we’ve had personal brokenness while following God. One of my favorite authors Mark Patterson writes, ‘If you try to shortcut sorrows, it will short-circuit your soul.’ Therefore brokenness is not to be avoided, it’s to be experienced.’ Quit trying to escape from everything that hurts, cease avoiding every challenge you can. Don’t run from every ragging river. Jesus says to His Father in Gethsemane if it is possible let this cup of suffering pass, nevertheless not My will, but Yours be done.’ This brief season of brokenness will bring a long-time of blessings. God sees our life from the beginning to the end. This crossing is preparing us for the next challenge. Max Lucado writes, ‘God may lead us through a storm now, so we can endure a hurricane later.’ For 41 chapters Job’s life reflects tragedy, heartache, hurt disappointments, and brokenness. For 41 chapters Job stands stranded, destitute from circumstance, and deserted by friends and foe. Yet while every chapter reflects the resemblance of broken humanity, upriver God is working, and in chapter 42 God’s miracle flows Job’s way. After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring. The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part.” How deep are you in your Jordan? It was knee deep, but it is rising fast. The current was swift, yet it is getting swifter, the temperature was already cold, but now it’s colder. The waters are getting dirtier, and your getting tireder. Would it help to tell you that while your neck deep in brokenness, God is upriver and is sending blessings your way. How does your book read so far? Failures, set backs, loss of family member, divorce, income loss, estranged relationships, terminal diagnosis? Is that pretty much the titles of your previous 40 chapters, including this one, chapter 41. You’ve had a proliferation of set backs and adversity. Would it do any good for me to say don’t put down your pen just yet! While you feel like your about done in, God isn’t done! You watch, your legacy of brokenness is building into a story of blessing. There is more to our story than setbacks, in Christ we each have a chapter of comebacks. There is more to your story than the paralyzing current of the mighty Jordan working against you. You have an ‘Upriver Reality’ and your 3 hours and 45 minutes is about up. You nor I, can rush the Sovereignty of God’s plan. But by doing what Job did we might expedite the time. It is God’s plan to take us through times of brokenness, that sets up seasons of blessings! But as we have learned from Israel sometimes our waywardness, our stubbornness, our disobedience in the wilderness can make a 40 day journey last 40 years. I wonder do we have some responsibility for the delayed arrival in the blessing of God? Has our brokenness resulted in bitterness, forming blockage of our blessing? You need to know, frequently the circumstance that breaks us evolves into bitterness, that blocks our blessing. So what did Job do? JOB. 42:10 “And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends. And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.” I get it, Job’s friends should have been sold for buzzard bait; but he prayed for them. If Job had not prayed for his friends would there have been a continuation of chapter 41 for Job? If Job would have not prayed for his friends would chapter 42 been similar to the previous 41 chapters? Is there someone you need to pray for? Like Job maybe a friend who offended you. Maybe an ‘X’ that betrayed you. Maybe a boss that lied to you. Maybe a church member who hurt you. Maybe an adult who abused you. God wants to write His story through you, and He wants to write a chapter 42 for you. I’m wondering is there room in your heart to forgive, to release, to extend grace, to pray for those people who have poured into your previous 41 chapters of adversity? If there is, your chapter 42 must have these words. AND GARY _____ (Your name) PRAYED FOR _________ (their name). And then we will read these words, ‘AND THE LORD RESTORED Gary _________ AND GAVE HIM/ HER TWICE AS MUCH AS THEY HAD BEFORE.’