Extreme Makeover: A Broken Heart
Sunday, March 5th, 2006
Beartown Road Alliance Church
Have you seen the Extreme Makeover shows? I like the one, the Home Edition. The makeover crew comes into the home of a very well-deserving family and in 7 days they gut the place and turn it into a highly functional dream home. They’ve made over a home for a family with a son who is paralyzed, they made over a home for a youth pastor that gave him the room he needed for his teens. The stories are compelling, the crew is fun to watch, and the end results are amazing. Then there’s the other Extreme Makeover show. This is the one that is a beautiful picture of the shallow society that we live in. This is the one that has us all wondering if our knees are too chubby or our nose is too big, or our forehead is too saggy. This is the show that preys on our insecurities and our lack of contentment with who we are. People subject themselves to months of surgeries and treatments to become who they’ve always wanted to be. I remember the only episode I saw, they took a young lady who was a wife and mother of 3. She had great kids, a loving husband, and a supportive family. None of them could understand why she wanted a makeover. I looked at her and she looked fine. But in her mind, the outer package was far from acceptable and it affected every aspect of her life. She was miserable! In her mind, a makeover, changing the outer would lead to inner happiness and contentment. You know what? I guarantee you it didn’t work. I guarantee you that she will just find new things to feel insecure about, and different areas to focus on. Even an extreme makeover, hours of surgery and healing can’t change the person that you are.
But the show manages to sell the message loud and clear: What you look like determines who you are. The package, the outer picture is what’s going to lead to inner peace and happiness. And for many, it’s a message that we’ve fallen for. We put a lot of stock into the outward appearances. We focus on the things man looks at instead of what God looks at.
The theme verse for this series is found in the second half of 1 Samuel 16:7.
The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
Man looks at the outward appearance, I think we fall into this trap even in Christianity. Maybe in slightly different ways but many of us spend so much time focused on the “outer Christianity,” the things that people see, that we neglect what God really wants to do in our lives. We go to church, we dress nicely, I wear a suit and tie on a Sunday morning, it doesn’t make me a better preacher or a better pastor. If I took this jacket off, or I took this tie off, it doesn’t make me any less God’s man for this ministry. Just like if you put on a suit and tie and stood up here on the stage, it wouldn’t necessarily make you a pastor. My passion to preach and to serve, my calling in life, comes from here, on the inside. It comes from the internal work of the Spirit of God in my life and it flows into the outer parts of my life that men can see. What I wear, how I comb my hair, whether or not I raise my hand when I worship, those things don’t change that.
There are others who try and look good on the outside and give of their time and they give of their money, and those are great things, but they don’t matter if we’re dead on the inside. We can play the game, we can look the part, we can makeover the outer parts so that men think we’re a super Christian, but just like a nose job doesn’t change who you are, superficial changes and shallow religion, those don’t change us and they don’t impress the only one that matters, God.
When we first got married, there were a lot of areas that Erin had to train me in. I grew up in a home with a mother that did everything for me. She cooked, she did my laundry, She cleared the table and did the dishes, so there were a lot of things that I didn’t know how to do well and really wasn’t all that enthusiastic about learning. I can’t tell you how many times in the early months of our marriage that she would call into the kitchen and hold up a dish or a cup that I had washed and point out the stuff that I had left behind. I had a big problem with our glasses. My hand was too big to fit inside so I would wash the outside well and then just kind of rinse the inside which often left stuff stuck in the bottom of the cup. I would point out how clean the outside was but it didn’t matter, if the inside was dirty, the glass couldn’t be used. Thank goodness for dishwashers!
For many of our lives, the outside looks good, but we’ve neglected some of the things that have built up on the inside. This is not a new problem and it’s one that Jesus addressed with the Pharisees in Matthew
Matthew 23:25-26 “How terrible it will be for you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! You are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and self-indulgence! 26 Blind Pharisees! First wash the inside of the cup, and then the outside will become clean, too.
There are a lot of Christians walking around with cups that are clean outside and filty inside. For us to be what God has called us to be, For us to live the kind of lives that are pleasing to Him and that are a beacon of light to the world around us, we’ve got to clean the inside of the cup! We’ve got to get into the very bottom and along the sides and wash away everything that would keep that cup from being clean and being used.
So, if God was going to give us a makeover, if He were to wash the inside for us, if He were to come in and build up the good, tear down and cut away the bad, what would we look like in the end. These next few weeks we’re going to look at this Extreme Makeover: Life Edition. We’re going to look at things that the world views as weakness or that the world sees as undesirable and we’re going to see where God wants each one to fit into our life to change the inner. Because when we change what God wants, when we grow inside, it will spill over into the outer part, the part that men see and they will know, there will be no doubt, that God has done a work in you. We’re going to see that God wants us to have a Broken Heart, Calloused Knees, Crossed Eyes, a pierced Tongue, and Thick Skin. When he accomplishes those things in our life, when those changes are made, we’re going to be a reflection of Christ like He calls us to be.
I. A Broken Heart
So, we begin this makeover today, with the heart. The process of change in our lives begins with a broken heart. Scripture makes reference to our hearts almost 750 times. It recognizes the heart as the center of who we are, the seat of our emotions and the platform upon which God moves and works in our lives. We are told to love with all of our heart, work with all of our heart, have sincere hearts and glad hearts, Paul talks about God opening the eyes of our heart and says that those who are in Christ an his heart, the closest possible relationship you can have. When we enter into a relationship with Christ, we say that He’s in our heart, that’s his home. Again, the heart is pointed to in Scripture as the representation of our entire being, everything that we are, everything that we feel, the core of our being is represented by our hearts.
PR 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.
Any change that God wants to bring about in us begins with our heart. There are so many things that go through our minds when we think about having a broken heart. My first thought is always country music, I’m sorry if you’re a country music fan, but I get so depressed when I hear country songs. My wife left, the dog died, the pick-up won’t start and I’m a broken hearted cowboy. We have a lot of songs written about broken hearts. It’s something to avoid. It’s something so painful that it causes everything else in our life to come to a screeching halt around us.
My heart was broken when my parents divorced. There were nights that I could not sleep, times I felt that I couldn’t breathe, feelings that things were never going to be OK again. I had been hurt. I had been hurt deeply. For me, a broken heart wasn’t a little crack, like we draw in pictures, my heart was ripped from me and trampled to the point of almost being destroyed. Many of you have had your heart broken like this before and you can understand what I’m saying.
This is the way the world defines and looks at a broken heart; it’s your reaction to something that happens to you. A love lost, a relationship ended, a wrong done to you by someone you trusted, it’s a painful and tough thing to go through. When we look at the idea of a heart that is broken before God, there is a slight difference. The emotion is the same, the brokenness is the same, the hurt is the same but it is not a reaction to something that has been done to you, it’s a reaction to what you have done and to whom you have done it. The heart that is broken before God is broken over our sin.
JOEL 2:12 "Even now," declares the LORD,"return to me with all your heart,
with fasting and weeping and mourning." JOEL 2:13 Rend your heart
and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.
The custom of that day was to show your broken heart outwardly, with weeping and tearing apart your clothes so that everyone knew that you were suffering. What God is looking for is not the public display of brokenness, but an internal display directed at him alone. Rend your hearts, not your garments. He wants a broken heart, one that is workable and moldable and understands the true nature and reality of sin.
We need to understand what God wants from us, it’s not our money (he owns the cattle on a thousand hills) it’s not our time, it’s our life!
PS 51:17 The sacrifices (what he wants from us) of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart,
The Hebrew word for broken means a heart that is collapsed and broken into pieces and crushed. It doesn’t quite translate as well into English. This kind of brokenness can only come from the right view of sin in our lives.
I think that all of us have an awareness of sin. We are all aware of the reality of sin in our lives and the role that it plays but for so many of us our hearts have become calloused and hard to its presence. Sin can be defined as anything that falls short of God’s ways and His will for us. It is a part of our lives and has been a part of our lives from the beginning of time. We are selfish and Paul tells us that there will always be a struggle between desiring God’s ways and desiring our ways. When we follow our way and when we allow sin to rein in our lives Scripture tells us that there will be consequences and it’s important to grasp the implications of that according to God’s Word. Scripture tells us that when we sin:
1) We are Enslaved.
It’s absurd to think that any of us would willingly subject ourselves to slavery. We think of slavery and we think of the horrors that people endured and we have a desire inside of us for freedom that bristles at the mere mention of slavery. Christ has come to set us free from the sin that we were bound up in.
GAL 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
When there is sin in our lives we are willingly walking back into bondage, back into the very slavery that Christ gave His life up for to free us from. The Israelites complained and even longed to return to their bondage in Egypt because God’s way wasn’t always easy and we’re no different, we keep sin close enough to fall back on every once in a while because its easier than setting our feet and looking ahead to what God is calling us to. Many of us are slaves to sin.
When sin is in our lives,
2) We are Separated from God.
Christ endured much on the cross. He endured ridicule, intense pain, abandonment from his disciples and friends and yet we’re told that he endured these in silence. What was it that made Christ cry out on the cross? It was when God turned away. It was separation from the Father that caused Him to cry out, a pain far worse than anything else that He endured. Christ had taken upon Himself, our sins and those sins separated Him from the Father just as they do to us today. UNDERSTAND THIS: If you have given your life God, your sins do not change your standing before him. You are a sinner saved by grace and your eternity is secure because of the wonderful gift of salvation found in the resurrection of Christ. But scripture is clear that our unconfessed sin breaks our fellowship with God and keeps him from working in and through us.
And finally, a proper understanding of sin knows that when we sin,
3) God is Grieved.
God has chosen to relate to us as a Father. Parents in here can understand the feeling of watching a child make mistakes, of seeing them make choices that you know are wrong and are going to have lasting consequences. It grieves you, it hurts. In the same way, God is grieved when His children turn away and follow after their own way.
Eph 4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Our sin displeases God and it breaks his heart. This ought to have a profound influence on the choices we make and the way we view sin. I can remember the look of disappointment and hurt on my father’s face when I had been caught doing something I wasn’t supposed to. I will never forget that look and I will never forget that feeling of hurting my dad of grieving my father. When we sin, God is grieved. He loves us, He forgives us, but He has so much more planned for us and it grieves him when we turn away.
When we understand these three things, that sin keeps us in bondage and separates us from fellowship with God, and grieves Him, breaks his heart, we begin to glimpse the true nature of sin in all of its ugliness and we begin to get a picture of our true nature and the filth that’s in our lives as we stand before a Holy God and it needs to drive us to our knees before the throne and break our heart over our spiritual condition and pray that God will take us and restore us and fill us and use us for His glory. But it begins with rending our heart, coming to that place where we recognize who we are and who he is and what we have allowed sin to do. Every revival, every outpouring of God’s spirit that has led to confession and restoration begins with brokenness and heart break over sin.
There is no better example of a broken heart, there is no better example of a contrite spirit than what we find in the writings of King David in Psalm 51. David has just come face to face with his sin. He slept with Bathsheba and had her husband sent to the front lines of war to be murdered. He thought all was well until the Lord sent Nathan the prophet to point out David’s sin to him. David had the same choice all of us have when we are confronted with our sin, turn a deaf ear and a hard heart, or allow your heart to be broken and ask God for forgiveness and restoration.
Read Psalm 51
David is not just sorry or apologizing because he got caught, this is the writing of a man whose heart has been broken before God. This is what a broken heart looks like.
Look at these three things:
1) Recognized his Sin
PS 51:3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. There was no downplaying of what he had done; there was no sweeping it under the rug. David began by recognizing that he had made a huge mistake, by admitting there was a problem. In recovery programs like AA, there is a big emphasis on admitting that you have a problem. David is doing that here. He’s standing before God and saying, Hello, my name is David, and I’m a sinner.
We cannot be broken if we are not willing to see the problem.
Next, David
2) Recognized who he Sinned Against
PS 51:4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight,
Our sins affect other people. Our sins have consequences for ourselves and for others, but the reality is that when we sin, it is an issue between us and God. We may hurt others, but we’ve sinned against God and against Him alone. We need to remember who He is. There is such an emphasis today on God as a big Buddy in the sky, a grandfatherly figure with a huge grin willing to look the other way when we mess up. Scripture does not teach that. Yes, he is loving, yes He delights in us, yes He wants a relationship with us, but we can’t forget that He is God. He is the Creator of all, He is the one true judge, in Him is found righteousness and justice, He sustains the all things with His hand. He is perfect and He is Holy. And when we hold our sin up to that perfection and to that Holiness, it is a humbling experience. And its all we can do to fall flat on our face before His throne and to ask that He extend us the grace and forgiveness that is so undeserved but that He promises to us nonetheless.
When we understand who it is that we have sinned against, the only right response is a heart that is broken before Him.
Finally, David
3) Recognized a need for Change
PS 51:10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
Repentance is turning away from the direction you were heading. David sees the sin, knows who He sinned against and asks for Gods help in turning things around. He was willing to admit the need for a change. Sin can be comfortable, change can be hard, but a heart that is broken before God, a heart that weeps and grieves over sin, is willing to stop and change the way things are and follow the path that God has laid before them no matter what the cost.
When this happens in our life, when we reach the point where we are willing to be broken before God, He makes us a wonderful promise. When our hearts are broken, really broken like the sense that the Hebrew language gives us in David’s Psalm, collapsed, broken into pieces and crushed. The hard calloused hearts of stone see and acknowledge our sin and who it is that we’ve sinned against, then God says He will build us back up and he will give us a new heart, one that is alive and beats for Him.
Ez 11:19 I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. 20 Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God.
When is the last time your heart was broken over the sin in your life. Has your heart become hard and calloused? As we get into the rest of this series, my prayer is that God is going to speak to each of your hearts and that we will see wonderful and exciting changes taking place but this is where it begins, with a heart that is broken before God.
