THE BROKEN BECOME EXPERTS AT MENDING
Luke 5:27-32
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: Better Than You Thought
1. The farmer's son was returning from the market with a crate of chickens his father had entrusted to him, when all of a sudden the box fell and broke open.
2. Chickens ran in all directions, but the son chased all through the neighborhood grabbing the chickens and returning them to the repaired crate.
3. The boy reluctantly returned home, expecting the worst. "Pa, the chickens got loose," the boy confessed sadly, "but I managed to find twelve of them."
4. "Well, you did a good job, son," the farmer beamed.
"You only started with seven!"
B. NEW SERMON SERIES: “OPERATION”
1. Operation is a battery-operated game to test players' hand-eye coordination. The patient, “Cavity Sam,” needs surgery in 12 places. The players try to remove the broken bones, etc., without touching the sides of the wound and setting off an alarm.
2. The idea is for kids to try to fix a person’s problems. Isn’t that what the body of Christ is supposed to do? And Cavity Sam’s ailments often mirror what’s troubling most people: a broken heart, butterflies in the stomach, etc.
3. Jesus has a similar ministry of healing, and He’s calling us to this ministry! So today we’re going to see how “The Broken Become Experts At Mending.”
C. TEXT
27 After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, 28 and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. 29 Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. 30 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” 31 Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Lk. 5:27-32
I. GOD USES BROKEN PEOPLE
A. GOD OFTEN USES BROKEN THINGS
1. Ever since the fall of man, the world and its inhabitants have not been whole. Just as in Jeremiah 18, where Jeremiah observed the Potter fashioning the clay and the vessel was marred in his hands, so our world has been marred. But God in his wisdom is able to refashion it into a new vessel.
2. It’s the genius of God to take broken things and make them useful. Many times in Scripture God used broken things:
a. The broken pitchers of Gideon and his men allowed the torches to shine out over the Midianite’s camp -- Jdgs 7:19-20.
b. The breaking fishnets of Peter convinced him of Christ's divinity -- Luke 5:6.
c. The breaking of a little boy's fishes and loaves fed a multitude of people -- Luke 9:16.
d. A broken box of spikenard anointed Jesus for his trip to
the cross and the tomb -- Mark 14:3.
e. A broken ship brought Paul to Rome -- Acts 27:14.
B. BROKEN THINGS FIXED: STRONGER THAN EVER
1. Dennis Stepp told on a Wednesday night how he broke a porcelain family heirloom & glued it back together with superglue. The plate was stronger after being glued, than it had been before.
2. The same is true with PVC pipes glued together and with welded metal. Both are more likely to break elsewhere than where the weld is, because they are stronger after being repaired.
3. That happens to broken people when Jesus heals us; we’re more whole as Christians, than we’d ever been as lost people. “Our worst day as a Christian, is better than our best day without the Lord!”
4. And a Christian, healed from a crisis, knows how to sympathize and counsel those in the middle of that same crisis. Jesus has led you out of that valley, so now you can lead others out of that valley too!
5. POINT: Your trials don’t disqualify you from service in the kingdom, rather they’re endorsements that you’re more ready than ever to serve!
II. JESUS REACHED OUT TO THE BROKEN
A. THINK OF ZACCHAEUS
1. What if Jesus had passed Zacchaeus by without taking any notice of him – he would have remained a robber and sinner forever.
2. But because Jesus spoke a kind word to him, and recognized Zacchaeus as a valuable person, his hard heart was opened to divine grace, and he received Jesus as his guest, repented, and became His disciple.
B. WHEN JESUS MET LEVI
1. Levi would never have thought Jesus would take any notice of him; but Jesus said, “Follow Me.” That was all Jesus said, but it spoke volumes to Levi. Jesus showed acceptance. He’d looked beyond the exterior into Levi’s heart.
2. Touched that God cared about him, Levi “arose, and followed Him,” and Levi the tax-collector, became Matthew the apostle and Matthew the evangelist.
C. THE SINFUL WOMAN
1. A woman came into a Pharisee’s house and “stood at [Jesus’] feet behind Him weeping, and began to wash His feet with her tears, wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed His feet, and anointed them with the ointment” Lk. 7:38.
2. Simon, the Pharisee thought badly of Jesus for allowing this woman, who’d lived such a sinful life, to touch Him. But Jesus’ holiness was stronger than her sin; she was purified by contact with Him!
3. Don’t ever be afraid to touch Jesus! Jesus told her, “Your sins are forgiven...Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
D. THE THIEF ON THE CROSS
1. When Jesus was about to return to heaven, it wasn’t right that He should go back alone. Who should accompany the Savior into His glory?
2. Should it be some martyr, or some devout disciple, or some great person? No, but Jesus chose a dying thief on the cross next to Him to be His honor guard!
3. The thief prayed, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom” and Jesus answered, “Today you shall be with Me in paradise.” Jesus is the Friend of Sinners!
E. WHY IS JESUS SO RECEPTIVE TO PEOPLE IN SIN?
1. Don’t think it’s because Jesus doesn’t know about their sin. Jesus Christ perceives every thought, every attitude, He knows our nature and knows all about our past poor choices. He hates Sin. So why does He desire the company of faulty humans?
2. BECAUSE OF HIS DEEP LOVE FOR US! If the Ebola Virus came to our town, nurses might leave their jobs; “I’m sorry but I’m not staying around this sickness for all the money in the world; it might spread to my children at home.” But the love of a wife would cause her to stay with her husband or children, even if she got sick & died herself. That’s the kind of loves Jesus has for us; He’d rather die, than to live without us!
3. HE REMEMBERS THE PRICE HE PAID FOR US! When He looks at us, He sees people whom He purchased at great price – with tears, agony, blood and death. Since He did all that, will He let us go for anything? No!
4. “I bought him,” He says, “with My heart’s blood; do you think that I will lose him after that?” “But, Lord, he blasphemes You.” “Yes, but I have bought him with My blood.” “But, Lord, he sells himself to do evil.” “Yes,” says Jesus, “But I have loved him with an everlasting love! I WILL have him as My own!”
5. Jesus never forgets the price He paid for the redemption of even one soul. He says, “By My agony, My bloody sweat, by My cross and passion, by My death and burial, I have bought you
with a price and I won’t allow My sufferings to be in vain!”
6. HE SEES OUR SAVED, FUTURE POTENTIAL. When Jesus sees the person whose still in sin, He sees past the present to what that person would be like if they were saved and sold-out; all their good qualities. We too shouldn’t get hung up on what people look like now. One day, Saul of Tarsus was persecuting Christians, and four days later, he was preaching the Gospel he once tried to destroy!
III. BECOME A PERSON WHO MENDS OTHERS
A. LOOKING FOR THE FALLEN
1. Listen to Gal. 6:1, “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.”
2. The word “restore” is the same Greek word translated as “mend” in Matt. 4:21 and Mk. 1:19. Liddell and Scott say its meaning is similar to "setting a broken limb."
3. This means we’re supposed to look for people who have a broken relationship with God and try to mend it.
4. HUMOR. Two ladies were mending their husband’s pant. The first ladies told of nothing but her family’s troubles; the second told only of victories. The 2nd lady noticed she was mending her husband’s knees, while the 1st was mending the seat of his pants. The one with his knees wore out had victory and the one with seat worn out had troubles. Do you think there’s a correlation?
B. WHO NEEDS THIS HELP?
Even God's people can be overtaken by a fault. Examples of saints who’ve had to be restored:
1. Moses -- was a great man, yet there was a time that he 1). Ran from God, 2). Murdered, 3). Was on the backside of the desert 40 years.
2. David -- fell into a trap. Entangled in lust, murder and shame. But Nathan restored him in a spirit of meekness.
3. Woman caught in Adultery, Mary Magdalene, and the Woman at the Well.
4. Peter -- who cursed, swore, denied Jesus 3x. Probably some unbelievers said, "Old Rev. Peter ‘the Rock!’ What a joke! I had my suspicions all along." But he became the Apostle of Pentecost.
5. John Mark – 1). He became a turncoat and quit the Ministry. 2). But thank God there was a Barnabas who restored him. Now there’s a Book of Mark. 3). Paul refused to take Mark along, but later said he was "profitable" for the ministry.
C. A MINISTRY OF RESTORATION
1. A "moment" (single mistake) is not the measure of a man or woman. Just because we stumble doesn't mean God is finished with us. If God only gave us one chance, most of us would be "out."
2. Mending takes time. If every broken Christian in our community were restored, think how many would fill the churches! Someone needs your Ministry of restoration.
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION:
1. A member of a church board fell into sin. The pastor called together the other board members, and with compassion he told them the sad story.
2. Then he asked them this question: "If you had been tempted as our brother was, what would you have done?"
3. The first man, confident in his ability to withstand temptation, said, "I'm sure I would’ve never given in to that sin." Several others made the same statement.
4. Finally the last member of the board, a man deeply respected, said, "Pastor, I feel that if I had been tempted as he was, I would’ve probably fallen even lower." There was silence.
5. Then the pastor said, "You are the one I want to go with me to talk to this man and try to restore him to relationship with God." [Because he would be so forgiving.]
B. THE CALL
1. No matter how badly your life has been broken, God still wants to use you. There’s a world of people out there who are in various stages of brokenness; some a little, others a lot. Maybe for the first time in your life, you can actually relate to them! They need someone who can cry with them, who can “feel their pain.”
2. If you’re broken, then you’re qualified to be God’s representative to them and to show them how to let God put their lives back together. You’re just where God wants you!
3. Some of you need to start a support group for people who: have lost a spouse, or a child, or gone through a divorce, or aborted a child, or been sexually assaulted, or lost it all through drugs or alcohol, or been bankrupted, or had cancer, etc.
4. ALTAR CALL. How many of you need prayer because you’ve been going through a valley?
5. How many of you can think of one person is broken and needs to be mended? Could you be God’s hands extended? PRAYER.
