Emptied Out To Be Filled

How to be emptied and then refilled

Stand and lift up your bible and repeat after me.

This is my Bible.

I am what it says I am.

I can do what it says I can do.

I am going to learn how to be what it says I can be.

Today I will learn more of the word of God.

The indestructible, never ending, living word Of God.

I will never be the same.

I will never be the same.

In Jesus Name.

Not long ago I read about a poor community in Paraguay that is known for two things. First, it’s known for a landfill. That’s not surprising for a poverty-stricken area for there to be a landfill, but this landfill is huge. There is more than 1500 tons of garbage that is dumped in this landfill every day. In fact, there are more than a thousand residents living in this landfill that make a living by finding trash and things that can be recycled and then selling them.

There’s a whole community that lives in this landfill. So, it’s known for a landfill.

The second thing it’s known for is an amazing orchestra. Not what you would expect to find in a landfill. Now I will say it’s not an ordinary orchestra filled with ordinary musicians and ordinary instruments; instead you have children who make up this orchestra, children who come from the dump, and you have instruments that have been made out trash.

Some years ago, Favio Chavez, a young professional musician, saw the horrible poverty, saw the impossible living conditions and decided he wanted to do something to make a difference in that community; and he started a small music school. And it didn’t take long until he had some students—in fact, a lot of students—but he only had a handful of instruments.

He hired one of the trash pickers, one of the people who combed through the dump looking for things of value.

His name is Nicolas Gomez. He hired Nicolas Gomez to try to find some materials in the landfill that could be used as instruments…that the kids could play as instruments.

A cello is made of an oilcan and old cooking tools, and a flute is made from old tin cans; and a drum set uses old X-rays as the skins, and a violin is made of a beat-up aluminum salad bowl. And the orchestra plays beautiful, classical music with kids from the dump playing instruments made from trash.

This just might really be a reminder of what we are in our lives in most cases.

Our focus tends to be on the outside, and we want to look impressive like we’ve got it all together. And we have this habit of putting the best versions of ourselves out there for everyone to see on social media or when we gather in places like this.

But reality is, we’re broken—all of us. With reality we humble ourselves. And it’s in those moments where we acknowledge our brokenness and we humble ourselves that God can finally do something beautiful.

In this message we’re talking about the fact that we want God to do something through us, and that’s good and right and that’s appropriate: That we want to use our lives to make a difference in this world. But what we’ve come to understand is God needs to do some things in us so He can do some things through us.

In order for God to do His work in us, we need to acknowledge our brokenness. The Bible says in Psalm 51 that the sacrifice God wants is a broken spirit.

Do you remember the glow sticks that were popular several years ago?

Someone once said, “Some things are better broken, and that our light shines brightest when it’s broke. That we are all broken people.”

Just like a glow stick. It’s true of all of us. And it’s in acknowledging our brokenness that we create space for God’s power to be demonstrated. We give Him the pieces, and then He says, “Watch what I can do with this,” and He turns it into a mosaic.

We need to humble ourselves. Luke 18 Jesus says, “If you exalt yourself, if you make much of yourself, you’re going to be humbled. But if you humble yourself, you’re going to be exalted. You’ll be lifted up.” Now we tend to think of humility (or being humbled) as something that happens to us.

We are not just humbled; we are to humble ourselves, and that makes all of the difference.

Let us see what God wants to do in us. In order for Him to do His work in us so that He can do His work through us, we need to empty ourselves.

He wants to fill us up, but in order for Him to fill us up, we need to come to Him empty.