INTRO: Mother Teresa:
One night a man came to our house and told me, "There is a family with eight children. They have not eaten for days." I took some food with me and went. When I finally came to that family, I saw the faces of those little children disfigured by hunger. There was no sorrow or sadness in their faces, just the deep pain of hunger.
I gave the rice to the mother. She divided the rice in two, and went out carrying half the rice. When she came back, I asked her, "Where did you go?" She gave me this simple answer, "To my neighbors—they are hungry also!"
I was not surprised that she gave, because poor people are really very generous. But I was surprised that she knew they were hungry. As a rule, when we are suffering, we are so focused on ourselves we have no time for others.
-Isn’t that true. When we’re hurt or in pain we get so focused on ourselves we have no time for others!
Truth: When you’re following God the opposite should be true. -When you read the Bible it seems to have paradoxes. For example:
: It teaches if I want to save my life, I have to lose it. : If I want to be lifted up, I have to humble myself. : If I want to be the greatest, I have to be a servant. : If I want to be first, I have to be last.
1. When I speak to you about tears, heartache, pain, brokenness I’m talking about being broken the right way, broken in the right places.
2. As we are on this journey of faith we will encounter things we wished we never encountered. But when we’ve done it the Lord’s way we come out better, stronger, kinder, and gentler.
-We’re able to go through the flames and come out without the smell of smoke.
3. There’s a difference about being broken the wrong places and being broken in the right places.
Illustrate. When I’m broken in the right places I care about people, if I’m broken in the wrong places I don’t care about anybody.
-When I’m broken in the right places there is not pride and arrogance but when I’m broken in the wrong places I take on the victim mentality where everyone owes me.
Summarize: Being broken in the right places is trusting God with what he’s doing or not doing., going in with the right attitude—the Lord is going to work this out through me. This morning I am not talking about beat up, I’m talking about being broken up.
TITLE: Being Broken in the Right Places ’TEXT: Psalm 126:5
I. Background. The Jewish nation had returned from their exile in Babylon. But once the exiles were back in their land, their joy began to subside.
A. The remnant experienced some bad seasons (Haggai 1:9-11) but the promise came that God would send the rains and the harvest if the people remained faithful (Haggai 2:15-19).
1. We get this picture, "He who goes out weeping carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him."
2. Farming back then—a certain portion of the crop was to be held in reserve so you would have something to plant next year or the grain that the farmer sowed might have been used to make bread for his family to eat.
-Did they trust God enough? Lord brings this truth, he who goes out weeping carrying seed to sow will return with songs of joy.
Thought: To those who are being faithful to what God has told you and it’s been difficult, hang in there for in due season you will be singing songs of joy.
3. I wonder why we are not broken in the right places, God’s way. f S: Look at some things that can cause you not to be broken right.
II. Things that will cause you to be broken wrong (not having a heart for God).
A. 1st is a very fast-paced life. This can contribute to being broken wrong. You’re so stressed out, with so little time to do anything.
Example. In Princeton seminary there was a professor who had decided he would do an experiment. He decided that he would take 15 students, divide them up into 3 groups. The first one he said to them, "I want you to go from this building to another well known building across campus and I am going to give you 5 minutes to get there. You will have to hurry because if you are late it will not go well on your grade, so you have got to hurry." The second group he gave 45 minutes to make the trip, the third group he gave 3 hours to make the trip.
What they didn’t know is that he had placed hurting people along the way. He placed one man there who had an epileptic seizure, he had another one who was poor, another was injured, another was begging. The first group headed out that had 5 minutes, they didn’t stop for one person. The group that had 45 minutes made the trip, and they stopped to help 2. The group that had 3 hours stopped for everyone to help along the way.
1. Think about how many opportunities for God we missed last week because we were too busy doing our daily routine.
-Maybe the Lord was trying to speak to you through some of these interruptions to show you some miracle and you missed it because you were too busy with your routine.
Interesting: A number of miracles happened in the Bible and they came as an interruption. -The salvation of Saul of Tarsus.
-How many times was the Lord teaching and there was an interruption and a miracle happened, someone was healed or raised from the dead.
Point: The Lord was open for divine intervention to break up his routine.
Thought: Some of us are so set in our routines that we are missing what God wants for our lives.
B. 2nd reason I’m not being broken in the right places—an unwillingness to be vulnerable or to get hurt.
1. You need to understand you open yourself up to being hurt when you help people.
-I’ve mentioned to the other pastors the thing I hate the most about the ministry is doing good to someone or for someone and then to have them do evil in return.
2. It hurts as a Christian to help, care, love someone and then to have them stab you in the back. -If you’re not careful you can become cynical and hard, not trusting anyone.
a. C.S. Lewis said, "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be re-wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping intact your heart you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it up carefully around your hobbies and luxuries and all the entanglements. Lock it in a safe place, in a casket or a coffin of your selfishness. In that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless it will change. Your heart won’t be broken, it will become unbreakable, irrepentable irredeemable. The only place outside of heaven," he said, "where you can be safe from all the dangers of love is hell."
b. I’ve known individuals who have given their heart in love, their first love, only to have her run away with another man and some 30 years later still stays away from women because he was wounded so badly.
Thought: I know marriages where one person hurts the other person so bad, they are afraid to open their heart up again and there is a wall there, years later. Oh yes, their still married but it’s like two singles living under the same roof.
Sadly: Many are existing in a living hell, afraid that if they are vulnerable they will get hurt. That is being broken the wrong way.
3. When I allow God to break me, trusting him, I become like a child, tender, trusting, kind, full of faith, caring for others.
-When I resist being broken I miss all these wonderful things.
4. When I avoid those painful situations and isolate myself and my feelings, I’m telling God no more and I pass up opportunities for God to mold and shape me as he wishes.
C. 3rd reason I’m not being broken in the right places—I have misplaced priorities.
1. John Wesley’s advice to preachers: "You may be eloquent, you may have wisdom, you may be a good financier. Yes, you may have a great demand upon your ministry, but if you do not win souls you are a failure."
2. When asked why he had been so successful, Tom Landry responded to a crowd of more than two thousand students at Baylor University, "In 1958, I did something everyone who has been successful must do, I determined my priorities for my life—God, family, and then football."
3. If you give your child a quarter for the Sunday offering and later give him three dollars to go to the movies, you may be teaching him a set of values he will keep the rest of his life.
4. Among the classified ads in the Quay County Sun was this ad: "Farmer with 160 irrigated acres wants marriage-minded woman with tractor. When replying, please show picture of tractor."
-We may laugh at the farmer who ran this ad (he was concerned about his farm). a. If we’re not careful we’re just like that with God. It goes like this: -I want a life of comfort and ease and, God, if you come that’s fine.
-I want to make heaven where there is no more pain and suffering, no more tears and, God, if you’re there that’ll be fine.
-I want a loving spouse and happy healthy kids and a good-paying job with no stress and, God, if you’re there that’s great.
Question: Is our priority on what God can do for us or is it just to be with him in his presence. Do I love him or do I love what he can do for me.
Simply put: Is my priority about me and my ways or is it about him and his ways?
Conclusion: I talked about a couple of things that will hinder us in our breaking process.
Question before us today: How are we responding to this process? Am I turning more inward, sheltering myself from the pain or am I reaching out to others who have been hurt? Is it about me or about others? Am I getting more mean and cynical or kinder and more positive?
-One is being broken in the right place while the other is being broken in the wrong place.
