The Safest Place on Earth – Part 1
February 10, 2002
Big Idea: When I admit I am broken, I am ready for community.
INTRODUCTION
Since the start of the year we’ve been learning about how to become a church where no one stands alone. During the course of casting this vision, I received some feedback from someone here at CCCH. I read it with permission. This person said:
“I think some of the drawback to community is the feeling or belief that if we are truly relying on God and being obedient to him, would we really have physical, emotional, financial problems, etc.? Once that perception is addressed people might feel free to share with each other the struggles and difficulties in their lives. And until all don’t judge a person during their difficulties, all will not truly be in community.”
“I’m trying to be more open but it’s hard… I’ve just had the hardest year of my life emotionally and financially. I don’t know why but I feel that I can share with my co-workers a lot easier than my church family…. I think people at church might shun me… And honestly, sometimes I think if I am so burdened…why would I deliberately (by sharing) inflict my burden on anyone else?”
My guess is that this note echoes sentiments in the hearts of many of us. If not currently, perhaps it has in the past.
What this person suggests is yet another area of growth for a church that desires to be an authentic biblical community where no one stands alone.
Bill Hybels recalls a time when Dr. Gilbert Bilezikian was speaking for a leadership conference at Willow Creek Community Church. He writes about it like this… “Dr. Bilezikian said there’s life-changing fellowship in biblically functioning community. That was a far cry from the childhood experience of a lot of his audience! The only kind of fellowship that many of his listeners had witnessed revolved around the fifteen or twenty minutes after the service when the men would stand around the church patio and ask each other superficial questions.
‘So how’s it going at work Jake,’ one of them would ask.
‘Fine, Phil. Say, you driving a new pickup?’
‘Used,’ Phil would reply. ‘What do you have going this week?’
‘Not much.’
‘Well, great fellowshipping with you, Jake.’
‘Same here.’
That was about it. They’d (find their wives who) were having similar conversations, and go home until next week.
But the Bible says true fellowship has the power to revolutionize lives. Masks come off, conversations get deep, hearts get vulnerable, lives are shared, accountability is invited, and tenderness flows. People really do become like brothers and sisters. They shoulder each other’s burdens - and unfortunately, that’s something that few of the people in that audience had experienced while growing up in church.
In many churches it just didn’t seem legal to tell anyone you were having a problem. Families that sat in the same pew for years would suddenly disappear, because the husband and wife were in turmoil over marriage problems. Instead of coming to the church for help and prayer and support, they fled the other way, because they didn’t feel the freedom to say, ‘We love Jesus, but we’re not doing very well. Our lives feel like they’re unraveling. We need some help!’
The implicit understanding was that you shouldn’t have a problem, and if you did you’d better not talk about it around the church.
I learned that lesson well. When I got old enough to stand on the church patio after services, someone would say, ‘So, Bill, how are things in high school?’
And I’d give the response that I thought was expected. ‘Fine, Ben,’ I’d say. ‘They’re just great.’
I didn’t feel I could tell him that my heart was being ripped to shreds because my girlfriend and I had broken up. Or that I was flat-lined spiritually. Or that I had and older brother who was drinking too much and driving too fast, and I was scared about where his life was heading.
I didn’t say anything, because I felt that a good Christian just didn’t admit to having those kinds of real-life difficulties. And in many churches, that’s called fellowship.
It shouldn’t be.” (Rediscovering Church, p. 159-160)
I think all of us would agree. That shouldn’t be called fellowship. Yet many of us here today might be silently say, “I am standing more alone than I would like to when it comes to this burden in my life. I would share, but I don’t feel safe.”
Why is authentic biblical community so rare? Perhaps it is because most of us would rather appear impressively intact than broken. But it is only when I admit that I am broken that I am ready for community.
TRANSITION: The Bible points out the truth about this issue of brokenness. In the Bible we learn:
I. BROKENNESS IS THE NORMAL HUMAN CONDITION
Paul exposes 4 community destroying lies in Romans 7:14-25:
READ TEXT
What are the 4 community destroying lies Paul exposes? Lie #1 would be…
1. The soul’s struggle is essentially against specific sins or habits (v. 14, 17, 20).
A lot of us think like that. “If I could just conquer this sin, or overcome that bad habit, then I’d be more on top of my game.” But Paul says what plagues us is not individual sins, but SIN. That is, the presence of evil in our lives.
v. 14 – I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to SIN.
v. 17 – As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is SIN living in me.
v. 20 - It is no longer I who do it, but it is SIN living in me that does it.
The presence of SIN itself in our lives suggests a severe level of brokenness or imperfection.
Look at the second lie Paul exposes:
2. Human nature is essentially good (v. 18).
Paul says that simply isn’t true. Verse 18 – I know that nothing good lives in me, that is in my sinful nature.
That’s a pretty broken condition to say that nothing good lives inside him. But he understood that since the Garden of Eden, all people have inherited a sinful nature. Can it be overcome?
Lie #3:
3. If we just determine to do right, we will (v. 15, 18b-19).
Listen to what Paul says in v. 15:
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. Ever feel like that?
Second half of v. 18 – For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing.
By using himself as an example, Paul says we are so broken that we do not have the power within ourselves to consistently do right just make the determination to do so.
Ever say to yourself or to God, “Never again!” and then discover a short while later that you were in fact doing it again? That’s what Paul is talking about.
Which leads us to lie #4:
4. Becoming a Christian stamps out all sin and temptation from a person’s life. (v. 21)
Verse 21 – So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
The brokenness runs so deep, that even when a Christian desires to please God, the temptation to do wrong is still dangled in front of us.
Some scholars think Paul is describing his life before becoming a Christian. Others believe he is describing his life as a mature Christians. In either case the main point is still plain from this scenario he paints for us: Brokenness is indeed the normal human condition. Left to our own devises, at our core we match the description in Romans 7. We are desperately imperfect – leading many of us to cry out, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” Paul says, “Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
We’re all broken at the core. Yet Jesus, the one whose body was broken our own behalf - reaches out to us, and says, “I love you. To me, though broken, you are lovely.” Sin is never beautiful, yet to Jesus sinful people still are.
I did a search on the Internet simply using the word brokenness, and I came across a page that said only this:
“God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume... it is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever.” (Quote found on the Internet)
TRANSITION: It is true, brokenness is the normal human condition. But a second we learn from the Bible about this issue is that…
II. ONLY BROKEN PEOPLE WILL SHARE AUTHENTIC BIBLICAL COMMUNITY
An interesting thing about Romans chapter 7 is when and where we find the Holy Spirit. He shows up in verse 6. (Read this).
Then we hear nothing about him in the rest of chapter 7. Verse 7, Paul talks about that old way of the written code. And then what it is like to struggle in trying to keep those rules. The struggle is intensified because of the absence of the Holy Spirit.
But then, in Romans 8, the Holy Spirit returns. Read v. 1.
Romans 7 seems to say – This is what life is like – we are all broken and will live out the worst aspects of brokenness – unless we let the Holy Spirit have total control. And interestingly, the Holy Spirit is what all believers in Jesus have in common.
Read Romans 8:1-4
v. 4 – “in us…who live according to the Spirit.”
Out of brokenness comes community – a group of people who have cried out to Jesus and now share the same helper, the same indwelling, the same Spirit – the Spirit of Jesus Christ known as the Holy Spirit.
Only broken people will experience authentic biblical community – because only broken people truly cry out to Jesus and receive His Spirit.
Now, even though we know it is true, for some reason in church we don’t like to admit brokenness. It seems weak.
Worse yet it implies a poor relationship with God. It is almost like we want others to believe we know God by demonstrating how unbroken we are.
But we’re all wounded. We’ve all failed. We’ve all been hurt.
Romans 3:23 reminds us we’ve all sinned and fallen short of God’s glorious perfection
Yet,the passion to protect ourselves – to keep our wounds out of sight is the strongest passion in our hearts.
We believe there is a lot to lose if we did share our brokenness with others. We fear we might lose acceptance in someone’s eyes, we fear we might lose a ministry position if someone really knew what was going on inside us, we fear we might lose favor, love, image, popularity, status, influence or even trust. We are scared to be too broken at church.
But here is what brokenness is. Brokenness is the realization that life is too much for us. It is realizing Jesus is all we have. And it seems that if Christians could admit anything it would be something as simple as that.
Larry Crabb writes, “A central task of community is to create a place that is safe enough for the walls to be torn down, safe enough for each of us to reveal our brokenness” (Larry Crabb, The Safest Place on Earth, p. 11).
Rarely do we see this demonstrated.
Like the person who shared that note I read earlier, many of us have difficulty sharing brokenness with others in their church family. We think people who aren’t Christians might better understand our struggles.
We should call this what it is: the influence of Satan in our lives. He gains victory when he can keep us afraid of each other.
Satan gets us in this trap – Somehow he communincates to us, “What you’ve done, what you’re going through is too embarrassing, too burdensome – if you come clean you’ll lose friendships, maybe you’ll even lose respect.” So he convinces us to stand alone and then tempts us with the same things again and again, making us feel like absolute trash when we give in. And then because we didn’t share the struggle in a safe place – the problem may intensify to where it becomes destructive to us or to someone else.
This morning a person sitting near you may carry the guilt of an abortion. But they stand alone. While you…you are dealing with the ugliness of temper and rage. Maybe sitting in your row is someone who’s binging and purging on pornography – too ashamed to mention it. Maybe we’ll all go home with our deepest hurts and struggles unresolved and unmentioned. And because of that we will be totally vulnerable to falling into the same pattern again.
And we call this church. We might as well call it a private prayer chapel where other people happen to show up too.
Brokenness has to be modeled or church will never become the safest place on earth. Paul modeled his brokenness in Romans 7. We have to also.
ILLUS – Our Staff and Elders are a group of very imperfect people. (Amen?) That is also why I love them so much. I have no problem telling any of them that I have messed up, or that I have sinned because I know I will still be accepted. Based on their own healthy awareness of fallibility, fallenness, and vulnerability to sin, I will find grace filled help in my areas of weakness.
I don’t know if all of you realize how blessed we are to have the Elders we do at CCCH. They are gracious, forgiving, patient, understanding. Perfect? NO! Thank God! Perfect people typically don’t have any need for grace or forgiveness, so they tend not to show it.
One of the things our Elders model is brokenness.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been a part of a church with “perfect” Elders, but it’s not much fun. Better hope you never struggle with habitual sin, because in a place like that your struggle will not be understood. Better hope you never display a weakness or an imperfection, because in a place like that you find yourself standing alone. Churches with “perfect” Elders don’t tolerate brokenness, because there it is a sign of a spiritual deficiency that needs to be fixed.
But here, our Elders model grace. I have witnessed them give second, third and fourth chances to a person in our church who had messed up and totally didn’t deserve more chances. And in case you’re wondering who that person is – it’s me.
Because our Elders embrace broken people, we are in line to be a Holy Spirit led difference making church that so many other congregations could only dream about b/c their leadership doesn’t understand this and consequently doesn’t display God’s heart. Those churches will never be safe until their leadership models brokenness and accepts it as the normal human condition.
But here, we have an opportunity to see something radically different. Because Emmanuel, Joe, Mark, Keith, Steve, Vince and Ed are broken. Their lives are not perfect. Their families aren’t perfect. Good, but not perfect. Each of them struggle with sin. Each of them has experienced pain.
Each of them live dependent lives on God because they freely admit nothing good lives in them – nothing good that is except what God has place there through his Spirit. And each of them participates in a regularly meeting circle of other believers where they can know and be known.
They set the tone. They model brokenness. And I am so thankful they do.
Winston, Marilyn, Kim, Greg, Robert? All broken. I’m broken.
You are too. It’s OK to be broken here. In fact, it is a requirement if you want to be a Christian. We begin our journey with Christ through an admission that we are not wholly in tact.
Only recently have I fully begun to realize that sharing my struggles is the path to victory. Keeping up a façade is a certain recipe for spiritual failure with chronic and habitual sin.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done for both of us.”
Christ has died for both you and me because we are broken.
TRANSITION: Brokenness is normal. Its admission is necessary.
CONCLUSION
How can I help to make CCCH a safer place by embracing brokenness?
Action points:
Resist the temptation to make a cutting or judgmental remark about someone else’s failures. (If someone else hears you say it, they are pushed away from ever sharing anything with you. Satan just used you to keep an obstacle to community in tact)
Memorize Matthew 5:3 and 2 Corinthians 12:9.
Matthew 5:3 says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven
The poor in spirit are those who realize they have nothing on which to stand in and of themselves that makes them righteous.
2 Corinthians 12:9 is a little longer, but still memorizable. It says: (Jesus) said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
Meet regularly with a circle of other believers.
Remember in a place where no one stands alone, no one struggles alone. If we are not making the effort to stand with a group of believers by meeting in a smaller circle regularly, we are still standing alone. And by not creating a smaller circle for others, we keep them in a place where they are forced to stand alone – and church remains an unsafe place.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Don’t just love the idea of community – love your brothers and sisters.” (Bonhoeffer).
When that happens, church will be the safest place on earth.
Where we are headed: next week – handling conflict
It is inevitable that conflict will arise among imperfect people. How we handle it either creates deeper dependence on the Holy Spirit, or pushes us away.
Week after that – sharing struggles openly. When we come clean get specific about our struggles with one or two people, miraculous things can happen in this area of community.
(User note: Part 2 of this series is called, "Handling Conflict Appropriately")
