Full Recovery Series

Recovering Redemption Series (2 of 6)

September 28, 2014 CFBC Chester, IL Dr. Mike Fogerson, Speaker

Introduction:

A The Good News may not be appealing to everyone, but the Bad News of the Gospel still applies to everyone.

1 Explain: There are people who want nothing to do with God, Jesus, Bible, Church, Change . . . they’ve got ways of trying to deal with their life and God isn’t one of them.

a Irregardless of what a person thinks of the Gospel, none of us can deny there are times we are disappointed, experience displeasure with life.

b Maybe not everyday, but often enough we feel the need to do something to about our feelings of helplessness, hopelessness.

aa Whether a person has knows/trust/believes in the Good News, God . . . there is a sense in all of us that we gotta do something about the bad news.

bb To do something about it, cope with it, make it go away.

2 That’s what I mean when I say the Good News may not appeal to everyone, but the bad news applies to everyone.

a The Good News: Jesus restores, saves, redeems.

b The Bad News: Our world our is broken, suffering happens, disease/divorce/disappointment exists.

aa People try to fix what’s broken; we’re fixers.

bb We try to make our own happiness, draw from our own buckets of redemption . . . they never really do the trick.

cc They eventually dry up/quit working.

I Our Go-To Buckets

A Bucket #1: Ourselves

1 In spite of our sketchy track record, we somehow have convinced ourselves that the cure to what’s wrong with us is a better version of ourselves.

a If we can just get ourselves more disciplined, defined . . . our lives are going to turn around and all of our problems will be solved.

b Diagnostic Question: Ten years ago, you thought that well-oiled, better balanced person would have arrived by now, right?

aa Thinner, gentler, more loving, compassionate, forgiving, healthier. . . at least that’s what we’ve told ourselves.

bb The truth is you and I would be hard-pressed to find AN-Y-ONE who has lied to us more than ourselves.

2 Have you ever really been happy with yourself for any real length of time? (Doesn’t matter how thin, ripped your abs are, well you manage your time, well you perform your job you don’t stay satisfied with yourself.)

a And we’re depending on the person who uses our toothbrush/drinks out of our coffee cup to fix everything broken in our lives?

aa I’m not too impressed that guy if I got real honest.

bb It was my best thinking that has caused me the biggest heartaches in my life.

cc While we’re making plans at being better, fixing our lives we are at the same time being our own worst enemies.

b It get’s worse, the Bible says,

Jeremiah 17:5-6 (NASB) 5 Thus says the LORD, "Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind And makes flesh his strength, And whose heart turns away from the LORD. 6 "For he will be like a bush in the desert And will not see when prosperity comes, But will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, A land of salt without inhabitant.

aa Harsh, but true. We’ve all crashed & burned.

bb As long as we keep looking to ourselves as the best solution you’ll never stop vacuuming the mess you leave behind.

cc You’ll never be good enough to suit yourself, much less be good enough for God . . . because we cannot redeem ourselves.

c T.S. We can’t redeem ourselves nor can we do it through other people.

B Bucket #2: Others

1 There is not a girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife/mom/dad/child/friend; no relationship with another human being that can “fix you.”

a I think nearly EVERY divorce, at the heart of it, stems from an expectation on another person that he/she can never humanly achieve.

b Marriages will always struggle/often fail whenever we make the person who wears our wedding ring into a god who’s supposed to make us complete.

aa “She doesn’t make me happy.” That’s not her job!

bb You can’t make yourself happy, don’t have your spouse responsible for doing something you can’t pull off what you can’t do for yourself with any consistency.

2 This applies to every relationship we enter for these very simple reasons:

a Men make terrible gods. Women make terrible gods. Children make unholy terrible gods.

b Friends, co-workers, parents, boy/girlfriends, fiances, you name it . . . start looking to other people to satisfy your thirst/fill in the gaping hole in your heart your sailing into the headwinds of conflict, chaos.

aa When we put the oneness of our happiness, answer to our problems, we’re putting an impossible weight on them.