Mother's Day 2019 - Finding Hope In A Broken World

Finding Hope in a Broken World

Please stand as we read our newest memory Scripture together …

2 Timothy 4:3-4

“The time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

“They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”

And our memory refresher verse(s) for today is(are) …

Proverbs 3:5-8

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.

“Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.”

Please open your Bibles to: Matthew 5:1-12

On Mother’s Day we always want to talk about something positive and hopeful.

Just imagine today if all of our relationships were loving and healthy.

Imagine if we all put one another’s needs ahead of our own.

Imagine if all of our marriages were bound together by the unifying love of Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

Imagine if all our children were following Jesus with all of their hearts and they would sit at our feet just absorbing all of the wisdom that the Lord had bestowed upon us.

Imagine if we would care for our elderly parents with the patient love that comes from God and an understanding that life is not easy for the aged.

Imagine a family reunion filled with laughter, where everyone spoke well of everyone else and love for one another abounded from the beginning to the end.

That would truly wonderful, wouldn’t it?

But … this world is broken by sin and humans are a part of that broken creation.

Humans are broken. We are broken and we break things, sometimes on purpose.

We see brokenness all through the Bible.

We see Cain killing Abel, his own brother, because of sinful brokenness.

We see brokenness when mother Rebekah and Jacob, her second born son, conspiring against Esau to steal his birthright and the blessing of the first-born.

What was the fruit of that act? Esau schemes to murder Jacob. (Genesis 27:41)

What was the cause? Brokenness.

We see brokenness when obedience to the Lord is discarded and the nation of Israel descends into civil war and the nation is divided into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah.

What was the result of that disobedience? Years of war and bloodshed.

A result of brokenness.

We see brokenness in the Book of Acts when the Israeli Christian widows are receiving better care than the gentile Christian widows. (Acts 6:1)

What was the fruit of that act? Division among the believers. A result of brokenness.

We see brokenness when Paul and Barnabas argue over whether they should take John Mark with them on a missionary Journey. (Acts 15:36-41)

What was the fruit of that disagreement? Division among Christian leaders.

Brokenness, brokenness, brokenness all around us.

In our society we see broken marriages, abandoned children, children abandoning their parents, sibling who won’t speak to each other, fights at family gatherings, people trampling each other when the store doors open on Black Friday, people placing phone calls under false pretenses hoping to gain access to your personal financial information, people faking injuries hoping to get a large financial settlement through shyster lawyers …

Face it, brokenness is all around us. It’s a fact …

Is there any hope at all?

There is a popular song on Christian Radio that is about a married couple that is struggling in their relationship; it’s called Broken Together, and it goes like this …

--------------------------------------------------------------

What do you think about when you look at me

I know we're not the fairytale you dreamed we’d be

You wore the veil, you walked the aisle, you took my hand

And we dove into a mystery

How I wish we could go back to simpler times

Before all our scars and all our secrets were in the light

Now on this hallowed ground, we've drawn the battle lines

Will we make it through the night?

It's gonna take much more than promises this time

Only God can change our minds (that’s a good start … will they follow it?)

Maybe you and I were never meant to be complete (sliding backward …)

Could we just be broken together?

If you can bring your shattered dreams and I'll bring mine

Could healing still be spoken and save us? (here they make one more stab at healing)

The only way we'll last forever is broken together

(final resolve – no healing – only broken together)

---------------------------------------------------------------

Really? Is that all that we can hope for?