Becoming Whole Sermon Week 3 - The Wounded & Sinful Heart

Intro/Welcome

One of the most famous things Jesus ever said was recorded in Mark 2:17

Mark 2:17 NIV Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

It’s profoundly simple

The question is:

Do you think you are healthy?

Or do you know that you are sick?

If you don’t think you are sick, you will never seek out a doctor.

If you don’t think you are a sinner, you will never come to the Savior.

Our world doesn’t think people are sick — are sinners

But the God’s Word shows us another story.

Series:

We are in week 3 of a series called Becoming Whole: A Life Transformed.

This week we are going to see this:

In order to become whole you have to realize what has been broken. (x2)

Week 1 - God’s Goal is your complete transformation

We are made for the open road, but many are stuck in traffic

Week 2- Shaped by your story, but ultimately by God’s Story

Transformation comes when we surrender our story to the Savior.

We are going to be in Ephesians 2:1-5 today.

Go there in your Bibles

My Name is Justin, Pastor here

Good to be with you wherever you find yourself.

Let me pray

Pray

we are so divided as a country, politically, socially, racially

We need to become whole.

it starts here

The Sinful Heart

What has been broken?

Let’s look at Eph 2:1-3

[Annotation]

Ephesians 2:1–3 CSB And you were dead in your trespasses and sins 2 in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. 3 We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also.

Observations:

spiritually dead becuase of SIN

following the ways of the world (ungodliness)

following the ways of Satan

following the ways of our sinful desires (our flesh) and thoughts (mind)

Children under wrath (because of sin)

This is man’s natural condition

People ask what is wrong with the World?

The Bible has a simple answer:

Sin is the problem

Sin is a condition and a decision

It involves the: Spiritual, Volitional, Emotional and Psychological.

It is a condition that we were all born in Sin (Psa 51:5)

Sin from Adam and all of us (Romans 5:12)

The Heart

In the Bible there is a word that captures all of these aspects of human beings.

It is the Biblical Concept of the Heart.

The heart refers to the center of who you are.

It includes the: Spiritual, Volitional, Emotional and Psychological. parts of who you are.

[video of reflection]

Proverbs 4:23 CSB Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.

Proverbs 27:19 CSB As water reflects the face, so the heart reflects the person.

[end video of reflection]

The problem is we have SINFUL HEARTS

We have sick hearts.

Jeremiah 17:9 ESV The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick (incurable); who can understand it?

Jesus says the same thing:

Matthew 12:34–35 CSB How can you speak good things when you are evil? For the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. 35 A good person produces good things from his storeroom of good, and an evil person produces evil things from his storeroom of evil.

Sin is a condition and a decision

SIN is the source for all the suffering in the world.

All the shame and all the pain

All the hurt and all the harm

It is everything that is wrong

What is Sin?

Sin is anything done outside of God’s design and plan for human flourishing

Sin is anything contrary to the nature of God.

Romans 14:23 CSB and everything that is not from faith is sin.

everything that comes not from trusting in the finished work of Christ is sin.

As a condition and a decision it means

None of us naturally come to God

we are spiritually dead.

I see this in my daughters, their natural inclinations is not to come to their father, but to go their own way.

We have bought into the lie that God cannot be trusted.

The veil has been put over our hearts

In our sinfulness we are...

self-seeking

self-centered

self-protecting

self-righteous

self-serving

It is this natural inclination of the flesh (Eph 2:3) that is the cause of all of our woes.

In our sinfulness it is both God and others that we sin against

But it’s not just that we sin against others, but

because of sinfulness we are also sinned against.

The Wounded Heart

We are sinned against in countless ways

often hurt by those whom are closest to us.

Anyone who has experienced abuse or betrayal of a loved one

Anyone who has been lied to, cheated on, stolen from

All of us have been sinned against, repeatedly, consistently,

When we are sinned against the result is a wound of the heart

Our hearts, the center of who we are, is wounded.

It goes to the center of who we are.

We experience the HURT and PAIN of an injustice done

Because all sin is unjust.

Just like a physical injury

if this wound is not tended to and healed

It can become infected

It can hinder us from the freedom God intends

It can weigh us down (Hebrews 12:2)

Some of you have experienced incredible pain in your story.

many of you (women in particular) have stories of trauma surrounding sexual experiences

many of you mean have been trying to overcome wounds that have been inflicted upon you that have made you feel weak and inadequate.

But the extent of the Fall is not just that others sin against you, the very created order has been affected.

The Natural Order

The created order has been affected by sin.

When Sin entered the world

Our relationship was broken with God

with ourselves

with each other

with the rest of creation

Romans 8:20-21 Creation itself has been subjected to corruption

[Annotation]

Romans 8:20–21 ESV For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God

This means nature itself is broken.

Romans 8:22–23 CSB

22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now. 23 Not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as the firstfruits—we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

This has all sorts of implications.

that means it you have genetic predisposition, that is becuase of the Fall

It means miscarriages are a result of the fall

Disabilities are a result of the fall

It means even our bodies don’t function as they should.

Some of you struggle with anxiety and depression

It may be that your brain chemistry is malfunctioning and that is a result of the Fall.

I don’t think we often see the Vastness of the extent of the fall.

Brokenness has literally touched every areas of our lives.

these are painful experiences

These tragedies affect us

They create deep wounds in our hearts.

Anyone who has experienced a miscarriage, a loss in the family, or any other tragedy has been wounded by the effects of the Fall.

We live in a broken world.

Our Response

We think that we can just ignore these wounds and that the pain will somehow just go away.

We think that our present is somehow disconnected from our past.

But that is foolishness

It’s like trying to tell some who just sprained their ankle to continue to walk as if nothing happened.

It doesn’t work.

We don’t know how to cope with our loss

We don’t know how to grieve

We don’t come to God in our pain and suffering for restoration and healing

our hearts have been wounded and we don’t know how to fix them

The Cycle of Sin

And so we try to escape our pain

we try to rename our shame.

Rather than coming to God the only one can heal us, because of our sinful hearts, we respond with our own sinful solutions.

remember, anything that doesn’t come from faith is sin.

And so we go to any number of coping mechanisms so we can experience some relief

some comfort.

The problem is our sinful solutions never satisfy

in fact they only increase our pain and shame.

You see, you and I were not made to sin, and so when we do God has wired us to feel guilt, to feel shame.

this is painful and uncomfortable

So again, becuase we don’t really trust God we turn again to our sinful solutions

and heap on greater shame and pain.

We enter what I call the Cycle of Sin.

[Image of Cycle of Sin]

Explain

Addicts

Every addict knows this cycle

If you have ever had an addict for a friend or family member you have seen this play out.

It is heartbreaking to watch.

But there is something for us to learn int his.

here’s news:

We are all addicts

We know it by another name: Worship

we are all addicted so someone or something.

You know how I know?

Because we don’t know how to grieve sin and go to the father for healing and restoration.

Because we don’t readily forgive

But we harbor anger, resentment and bitterness.

In saying this in now way to I diminish the pain of our experiences, only that it is our sinful hearts, not just our wounded hearts, that only makes things worse.

Let me ask you:

What are you going to to cope with the pain other than God?

How do you try to escape the shame?

Not just negative things like alcohol, sex, drugs

But good things like: success, achievement, status, perfection, performance

Jesus called out the sinners and the self-righteous

We need to be honest with ourselves here.

Becuase it is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick

Deformation

When we enter the cycle of sin rather transformation we experience deformation

We progressively become less and less of what God intended us to be.

We are utterly broken beyond repair (Jer 17:9)

But until we realize we are broken we can’t begin to be whole again.

And apart from God’s intervening grace we are all stuck in this cycle and would have continued until there is nothing left of us

What is our hope?

But God...

A Transformed Heart

Ephesians 2:4–5 CSB But God, who is rich in mercy (forgiveness of sin), because of his great love that he had for us (God loves you), 5 made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!

This is the promise of transformation

You have been made alive to God.

But God...

You were stuck in sin but God saved you from sin

You were harboring bitterness, but God provided the way of forgiveness through the Cross

You were wounded and weak but God made it possible for healing and restoration.

A New Heart

He made us alive it says.

How?

God gives us a new heart in Jesus Christ.

Ezekiel 36:26–27 CSB I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will place my Spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances.

Jesus had to change our condition, so we could make a new decision

In Christ we can now choose another way

Jeremiah 24:7 CSB I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God because they will return to me with all their heart.

We can choose God

We can choose God’s way

Forgiveness, healing, mercy and grace

His Holy Spirit is alive in us.

What we needed was not reformed hearts but transformed hearts.

what our deformed hearts needed was not mere reformation but transformation.

Application

We’ve got some work to do this week.

because you can’t become whole again until to realize what has been broken

What pain are you trying to escape?

What wounds from your past have you refused to deal with?

Are you stuck in the cycle of sin?

What sinful solutions do you go to?

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