The Title for this morning’s message is - Broken to Be Whole (glow sticks)
• I had done a series a few years back and one of the other topics was emptied to be filled.
• Another was humbled to be exalted. Each actually a teaching of Jesus to his followers.
My point is there are things we’ve just accepted. And we kind of live our lives according to these things. We saw ourselves through that prism, or we saw others threw a flawed view.
We pass them onto our children, generation after generation, and that carries over into our spiritual life. Traditions has often replaced what God really is asking of us.
If you studied the ministry of Jesus, here’s what you’ll find: He spent a significant amount of His time teaching. He spent a fair amount of His time debunking the myths or man-made concepts that Pharisees had taught the people. And he prayed a whole lot.
A lot of what He did was to say, “You’ve heard it said but, I’m going to tell you something different. And so He came on the scene, and He confronted some false beliefs about faith, about religion, about God that many people had just kind of accepted.
An example of that is found in Luke 18:10-14 Pharisee and the Publican.
10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortionist, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ 13 And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be [a]humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Among the Phariscitial religious – there was a pecking order of who was great, and what made them great, and who was lowly and unimportant to God.
The spiritual leaders of Jesus’ day made the focus the outside of a man.
That on the outside you look like you have your act together and that you keep up your appearances; and you follow all the right rules, and you keep the rituals.
And Jesus came along, and He says, “Look, I know you’ve been taught that.
But that’s not what it’s about. It’s what’s on the inside, and then what’s on the inside comes out. It’s an inside-out way of following God.”
We see that also in I Samuel 16:7 regarding David - "But the Lord said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."
But for many maybe that’s how you were raised. So we’re taught to keep a facade on how we look on the outside.
• We had a smile on our face and looked as if everything was good and we didn’t have any problems. Or we responded well when asked how things were going.
• But God says, “Look, man may look on the outside, but I’m looking at your heart.”
That was hard for the people in Jesus day to accept. The Pharisees put all the emphasis on the outside. AND that might be hard for you to accept this morning if you were raised to give an appearance of success, or feeling or being well. Woman with the issue of blood. Woman at the well.
A few years back Casting Crowns wrote these lyrics - It’s Crowded in Worship Today
As She Slips In Trying To Fade Into The Faces The Girl’s Teasing Laughter Is Carrying Farther Than They Know Farther Than They Know The second vs continues A Traveler Is Far Away From Home He Sheds His Coat And Quietly Sinks Into The Back Row The Weight Of Their Judgmental Glances Tells Him That His Chances Are Better Out On The Road
Maybe you were the victim like this or the one doing the damage. Maybe things happened in your life that made you feel dirty, or unlovable, unacceptable.
But Jesus comes along and turns some things upside-down, inside-out. Some of the people in that culture had actually created this environment in the temple, in the house of God, where certain people didn’t feel welcome. And others felt superior.
Certain people felt like they weren’t good enough to take part in that worship. It still happens. People who will look down their nose at someone who doesn’t match up to what they think on the outside.
That that somehow was an indication of your spiritual depth. And so because of that… I mean, this is back then. This isn’t something we have trouble with today right? Wrong.
So Jesus is going to address some of these commonly held myths. That instead of looking like you have it all together, He wants authentic worship. Instead of carefully observing all these religious rituals, He wants an intimate relationship. That instead of acting more righteous than you really are, what He wants is brokenness.
In John 4:24 Jesus says this - God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” How many have ever come broken and faked their way through worship?
Broken is a word that we don’t use much these days. It is not something we aspire to. You don’t want to write “broken” on your resume. Brokenness doesn’t work very well in the boardroom. We live in a culture that’s been termed… “A throwaway culture.”
More so than any people who’ve ever lived, when things break we throw them away. We don’t value repairing and fixing, making things new. We live in a throwaway culture. We throw things away.
• And so Jesus gives us this different lens to look at broken things, and that’s my challenge to you today.
Because when Jesus looks at broken, He sees…He sees beautiful. He sees something that is valuable.
William McDonald in his book, Lord, Break Me—begins it this way. He says, “Usually when someone is broken, when something is broken, its value declines.” That makes sense. “So broken dishes and broken bottles and broken mirrors are generally scrapped. They’re thrown out. Even a crack in the furniture or a tear in the cloth greatly reduces its resale value.”
But then he goes onto say, “But this isn’t the way things work in the spiritual realm. In the world we know, if something breaks, the value goes down. But God puts a premium on broken things, especially broken people.”
When God sees broken, He sees beautiful- We’re going to see an example of that in Luke 7.
36 Then one of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to eat. 37 And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, 38 and stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil. 39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he spoke to himself, saying, “This Man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner.”
40 And Jesus answered and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.”
So he said, “Teacher, say it.” 41 “There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?”
43 Simon answered and said, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.”
And He said to him, “You have rightly judged.” 44 Then He turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has washed my feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. 45 You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. 46 You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil. 47 Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”
And so Jesus gets to this guy’s Simon’s house and … comes in the house, and Simon doesn’t give him a greeting. We would say “shake his hand”; in those days it would’ve been a kiss on the cheek. And when it’s time to eat, Simon doesn’t make sure the feet of Jesus were washed, which was just kind of a minimal thing you would do if you had a guest to your house. At least you would give them water to wash their own feet, but that doesn’t happen.
If you’re wanting to especially honor a guest. It’s an inexpensive gesture, but it was a hospitable one. And Simon does none of these things. He didn’t do any of them. Jesus comes in and He sits down, and Simon acts as if superior.
But then this woman comes on the scene in verse 37, and things start to get a little bit awkward because she is, it says, “a sinner,” meaning that she is a prostitute. She’s a known prostitute in this community.
• She comes onto this scene, and people start to get a little bit uncomfortable.
• I mean, why was she there?
But something she had seen in Jesus somewhere along the way told her that as broken as she was she could still be made whole, that God could somehow still do something beautiful with the pieces.
Perhaps she knew of the woman who had been taken in Adultery and brought to Jesus, or perhaps she was that woman herself and now returns to give thanks.
And so in her brokenness she shows up at this dinner party. Now get this: She would never have been invited to this party in a thousand years. This was not a safe place for her. She would’ve avoided places like this at all cost, but she had to see Jesus. And she knew how people would look at her: as broken beyond repair. A Pharisee would see someone who was a throwaway, but she knows that’s not how Jesus sees her.
Sometimes we have to know we are broken before we know we need to be fixed.
Jesus is reclining at the table, this woman approaches and she stands at the filthy feet of Jesus.
Everybody is quiet. She feels the stares of condemnation. Other people have their eyes down. They’re just embarrassed by her presence.
But Not Jesus. She looks at Jesus, and He seems to know what’s happened in her heart. He lets her know (in) some way that she’s welcome. Maybe it’s a warm smile. But He’s delighted that she’s come.
She is undone by this, and the tears just begin to flow. Just a few at first and then more. And she falls on the ground, and she begins to kiss His feet. Her tears begin to fall on his unwashed feet.
She doesn’t have a towel and she can’t ask for one, so she lets down her hair. And she begins to wash the feet of Jesus with her tears and dry them with her hair.
She has this bottle of perfume around her neck. The one thing of value that she has in her life. And just pours the whole thing out. She just empties it out. And she is broken.
And Simone sees it as inappropriate; it was reckless; it was impulsive. But Jesus says, “It’s beautiful.” He sees the broken as beautiful.
And so in the story here is what Jesus does. He just turns everything upside-down and inside-out. He rebukes—Simon the Pharisee. For his wrong perspective of what has just happened.
So you’ve got this religious leader who it would appear on the outside that he has his whole act together. He follows all the rules. He does everything he is supposed to, and Jesus rebukes him. And He turns around and He commends this prostitute who was a broken mess. Everything—He just turns it upside-down.
And He ends the story by just giving this lady incredible value and purpose. He says in verse 48 to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” And then in verse 50 Jesus says, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.” And she is made whole.
SO I HAVE A QUESTION FOR YOU - Who would you rather be most like?
Simon the well-respected Pharisee who appears to have his stuff together, who’s looked up to by people, dresses nice, lives in a nice house, has Jesus over for dinner? Everything is right on the outside. Or would you rather be the prostitute in the story who is a broken mess but experiences the love and the grace and forgiveness of Jesus in a deep way?
Most of us in the church, who have been Christians for a while—we want both, right? Like, we want to be well-respected and have it all together and (for) people to think a certain way about us (whether it’s true or not), and we keep our problems kind of behind closed doors. And when we’re in public, we have a smile on our face and there are no issues. And it doesn’t work that way.
But if you want to be made whole, you’ve got to be broken. There is no way to wholeness except through the door marked “Broken.” If you want to know the love and the grace of Jesus deeply, if you want that kind of value and that kind of purpose for your life, I’m telling you, it only comes through brokenness.
Psalm 51:17 says the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart— These, O God, you will not despise.
And so here’s the good news. And maybe you already know this, but in case you don’t, I thought it would be important to be super clear. (Whispering) We’re all broken.
We are all broken. And those of you who don’t think you are, you are the most broken.
We see that in this story, right? Because the Pharisee…he’s sitting there thinking, “Oh, she’s the one who should be embarrassed.” No, he should be embarrassed. Who’s the one who gets rebuked for brokenness? It’s Simon.
Simon needs breaking. He’s not broken. He doesn’t acknowledge that he’s broke, but he is.
Here’s how broke this Simone is. He spent his whole life studying the Scriptures. And Jesus, the Messiah, this person he has studied his whole life, now sits at his table with a cheek that hasn’t been kissed and feet that haven’t been washed and a head that hasn’t been anointed with oil.
• That’s how broke he is. He’s so broke he doesn’t even know it. That is the thing about brokenness. The less you see it in yourself, the more you need it.
Brokenness, where we stop trying to hide it. We stop trying to pretend like all the pieces fit together; instead we say, “God, this is it. These are the broken pieces.”
We all need to be at a place and with people with whom we can be vulnerable, but most of us don’t have that. We don’t know those kinds of relationships. We long to admit that we’re broken. The person who can fill that is. JESUS.
Down deep we all know we’re broke. We long to live with a sense of authenticity, but it just doesn’t feel safe. “We are those people in need. Most of us are one paycheck, one divorce, one drug addicted kid, one mental health diagnosis, one serious illness, one violent assault, sexually immoral relationship, one drinking binge, from being those people.
Look around. Everyone in here is broken. There is not one person in this room who is perfectly together. No matter how impressive they look on the outside, we’re all broken.
Sometimes we are the Simon’s – Living day today as if we haven’t a care in the world.
We are the people who go into debt to keep up appearances. We are the people who work fifty plus hours a week trying to prove our worth. We are the people who spend hours on social media trying to convince people our lives are somehow better than they really are. The broken. We’re all broken.
The good news is Jesus came to make things whole. The good news is that God makes the broken whole through Jesus Christ. And it’s only after being made broken that we’re ready to fulfill our purpose and to be used by God.
We use the idea of being broken to describe what happens to a horse before it can be ridden.
But here’s what I want you to catch, as much as a trainer loves his horse, God loves you a million times more. But the only way that we really fulfill our purpose, the only way for God’s beauty (and) God’s power to be on display is through brokenness. It’s where God does His best work.
I’ll close with this passage from Jeremiah 18:1-5…the prophet Jeremiah writes and says, “This is the word that came to me (to Jeremiah) from the Lord: ‘Go down at once to the potter’s house, and there I will reveal my words to you.’ So,” Jeremiah says, “I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working away at the wheel. But the jar that he was making from the clay became flawed in the potter’s hands, so he made it into another jar, as seemed right for him to do. Then the word of the Lord came to me.” God said to Jeremiah, “House of Israel, can I not treat you as this potter treats his clay?”
Closing Remarks: Encourage those who have had a rough life, one with failures to know God wants to give them a fresh start.
Admonish those who are living in a pretend world that this would be the perfect time to let God remake them.
Pray
