Broken to Whole | THE INSIDE-OUT WAY OF JESUS | Kyle Idleman

I'm over Mother's Day weekend I read an article oh it's titled your mom lied to you and it just lists all the unknowing will give him the benefit of the doubt lies that moms tend to pass on to their children who then pass them on to their children and so on as I read the article I began to make note of the different lies my mom has told me and especially when I was a child here was one of the lies you need to put some hydrogen peroxide on that how many of you were told this by your mom at one point or another you had hydrogen peroxide in the medicine cabinet at home and turns out that those healing bubbles are actually attacking your body according to the research I found latest research says that hydrogen peroxide can cause cellular damage and actually extend the healing process makes it longer so you know thanks moms really have you Mother's Day appreciate that someday when you're in a nursing home I'm just kidding so another lie that my mom liked to tell is this one cracking your knuckles will give you our thright as' how many of you were told that by your mother something along those lines yeah a lot of us bought into that London Oi so it turns out according to the latest knuckle cracking research and there's more than you would expect cracking your knuckles does not cause arthritis I've read a number of studies my favorite study was of a doctor from California named Donald Unger who for 60 years experimented on himself and he he cracked his knuckles on his left hand twice a day for 60 years so some four hundred and thirty eight thousand times he cracked the knuckles on his left hand but on his right hand he left those knuckles completely uncracked and that the intent of 60 years he like there's no difference and so there's been serious studies though on this and they found that knuckle cracking does not cause arthritis I thought that we might celebrate this good news together so what I'd like to do is on the count of three I'd like for us to crack our knuckles now look this can be hard for some of you because you've bought into it like you still think your mom is right you don't care what the research says or you're just kind of a legalistic person and even if the rules don't make sense you're going to follow them and I want to set us free from all of that like we let's just be set free so here's I'd like to do on the count of three we're all going to pop our knuckle hey we're all in on this okay some of you are looking at me like it's not gonna happen you're not too good for the rest of us so on the count of three we're all gonna crack our knuckles you ready here we go one two three yeah is that sound never gets old feels good doesn't just go crazy I did read some legitimate research on this that said that the primary negative impact on cracking your knuckles is annoying those nearby so you're welcome uh line number three my mom told me is don't swallow your gum because it takes how many years to digest seven years takes seven years to pass through your digestive system I remember as a kid really working at not swallowing my gum but it happened a lot and I lived I lived with this weight with the sphere then gum was just piling up in my stomach right because it was so hard not to swallow it reaches a point where it just wants to be swallowed and how can it be wrong when it feels so right and so your mom would tell this to you my mom told it to me and there's been shockingly enough research done on this as well colonoscopy research to find out how long it takes for gum to pass and and it turns out you're fine so next time you're chewing gum you know and you don't have anything to do with it you just you know embrace your and a rebel and swallow that thing and so there are certain things my point is there are certain things we've just accepted there are certain things we just go along with and we kind of live our lives according to these things we pass them on to our children and we find that these things are reinforced by the people around us like as you saw we're all kind of told some of the same things and so it must be true and we end up spending our lives you know pouring hydrogen peroxide on our wounds and the staining from the pleasures of knuckle cracking for no reason but what if what if we just accepted some things that have much more significant implications you know what if we have just gone along with some things we've just believed some things because we've been told them and it's been reinforced by the culture around us that have much more dire ramifications if you studied the Ministry of Jesus here's what you'll find is that he spent a significant amount of his time teaching as a rabbi he spent a significant amount of his time debunking the myths that the people had been taught of God and about faith a lot of what he did was to say you've heard it said this but I'm gonna tell you something different I know you've been taught to look at it this way I'm going to give you a new way to look at it and so he came on the scene and he he confronted some false beliefs about faith about religion about God that many people had just kind of accepted so what we'll see in the series is that many of the spiritual leaders of Jesus day made the focus the outside that that's what it meant to follow God is that you kind of 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 it's what's on the outside that's not what it's about it's what's on the inside and then once down the inside comes out it's an inside out way of following God but for many of us that's not how we understood it and so we learned to kind of keep track of how we were doing on the outside we learned to keep up appearances make sure everybody knew we had a smile on her face and everything was good and we didn't have any problems and God says look man may look on the outside but but I look at the heart but but that was hard for the people to accept Jesus comes along turned some things upside down inside out and this may be hard for us to believe but some of the people in that culture they had actually created this environment in the temple in the house of God where certain people didn't feel welcome and that's hard for us to kind of imagine but you know certain people felt like they weren't good enough to take part in that worship and it may be hard for us to wrap our minds around but they had made things like the way people dress a really big deal that that somehow was an indication of your spiritual depth and it's hard for us to kind of picture this but and it may sound a little bit crazy but they will see this in a few minutes they would get uncomfortable if someone would get too expressive in how they worship God but that the big thing for them is I might get maybe hard for us to understand today but back then when people came to worship they felt like they had to have it all together like they couldn't have problems like their families couldn't struggle like they didn't have anything hidden in their closet and so because of that I mean this is back then this isn't something we have trouble with but back then the house of God ended up being a place where it wasn't safe to talk about your struggles to deal with your hurts or your failures so the people were made to believe some things that weren't true about Jesus and Jesus is going to address some of these commonly held myths that instead of 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 broken this 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 and brokenness doesn't work very well in the boardroom we live in a culture that's been termed maybe you've heard this before it's been terms of throwaway culture the more so than any people who 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 kind of this different lens to look at broken things and here's can be the invitation for us as a church to Jesus go secular I want you to look at the world through my eyes step in here and just look at this person through the lens I'm looking at them through because when Jesus looks at broken he sees he sees beautiful he sees something that is valuable um William McDonald and his book Lord break me he begins it this way he says usually when someone is broken when something is broken its value declines that makes sense it disappears altogether so broken dishes and broken bottles and broken mirrors are generally scrapped they're thrown out even a crack in the furniture or tear in the cloth greatly reduces its resale value but then he goes on to say but this isn't the way things work in spiritual realm in the world we know if something breaks value goes down but God puts a premium on broken things especially broken people when godsey's broken he sees beautiful we're gonna see an example of that in Luke 7 I'm not gonna just share this story with you rather than read it from the text I'd love to challenge you to read it on your own when you go home but Jesus has in this story he's been invited over to the house of Simon who is a Pharisee a religious leader as a religious leader it was Simon's duty to invite the visiting rabbi Jesus over to his home to eat and so Jesus gets to this guy's house and Simon heart's not in it he's not really wanting Jesus there so Jesus comes in the house and Simon doesn't give him a greeting we would say shake his hand and those days would have been a kiss on the cheek or ELISA kissed on the hand but there's nothing like that 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 you might give them some olive oil for anointing their head with oil in expensive gesture but it was a hospitable one and Simon does none of these things he didn't do any of them Jesus comes in he sits down and Simon Simon doesn't honor him but then this woman comes on the scene in verse 37 and things start to get a little bit awkward because she is verse 37 says a sinner meaning that she is a prostitute she's a known prostitute in this community she comes on to this this scene and people start to people start to get a little uncomfortable I mean why was she there well she must have heard something that Jesus taught about maybe that day or the day prior that made her know that is broken as she was she could still be made whole that God could somehow still some do something beautiful with the pieces and so when 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 have avoided places like this at all cost but she had she had to see Jesus again and she knew how people would look at her as as broken beyond repair the Pharisee would see someone who was a throwaway but she knows that's not how Jesus sees her and so she's going to do something here that many of us would say is impulsive it's embarrassing it's an appropriate unacceptable so Jesus is reclining at the table this woman approaches and she stands at the filthy feet of Jesus everybody's quiet she feels the stares of condemnation other people have their eyes down they're just embarrassed by her presence not Jesus she looks at Jesus and he seems to know what's happened in her hearts he lets her know some way that she's welcome maybe it's a warm smile 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 and then she notices something as the tears from her eyes land on his feet they're these muddy streaks and it strikes her his feet weren't washed his feet are unwashed funny thing about tears is it often times it's only when they feel fill our eyes that we can finally see some things clearly and she knows what she needs to do she doesn't have a towel she can't ask for one so she lets down her hair now for a woman in that culture this was an especially intimate gesture in fact you weren't to do this in public it was between a wife and her husband she lets down her hair and she begins to wash the feet of Jesus with her tears and dried them with her hair she has this bottle for fume around her neck she most likely used this in her profession you know one drop at a time many times with many men but she doesn't put a drop on the feet of Jesus she just dumps the whole thing out she just pours that eye out her whole life she just empties it out she is broken her whole life poured out and it was inappropriate it was reckless it was impulsive Jesus says it's beautiful he sees the broken as beautiful and so in the story here's what Jesus does is he just turns everything upside down and inside out he condemns or he rather rebukes Simon the Pharisee so you've got this religious leader who has this whole act together he follows all the rules he does everything he's 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 his story by just givin 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 as we look at this story I've got a trick question for you yeah it's a trick question I'm telling you up front would you rather be I'm not asking who you're most like but who would you rather be in this story Simon the well-respected Pharisee who has his stuff together who's looked up to by people dresses nice lives in a nice house has Jesus over for dinner who would you rather be in the story Simon the Pharisee well respected everything's right on the outside or wedge would you rather be the prostitute in the story who is a broken mess but experiences the love and the grace of Jesus in a deep way here's why it's a trick question is because most of us in the church most of us have been Christians for a while we want both right like we want to be well respected and we have it all together and people think a certain thing 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 we want to be that person and we want to experience the love and grace of Jesus and it doesn't work that way if you want to be made whole you 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 and so here's 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 we're all broken we are all broken and those of you who don't think you are you're the most broken and 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 for just being broke it's it's Simon Simon's broke he's not broke and he doesn't acknowledge that he's broke that he is here's how broke this guy yes he spent his whole life studying the scriptures by the time he was 12 he knew the first five books of the Bible the 300 plus prophecies about the Messiah about Jesus in the Old Testament he knew them by heart and Jesus the Messiah this person he studied his old life now sits at his table with the 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 he's broke that is the thing about brokenness the less you see it in yourself the more you need it and and so the point of the sermon really isn't to be broke you're already broke the point of the sermon is brokenness where we we stop trying to hide it stop trying to pretend like all the pieces fit together instead we say God as he said the broken pieces there's a TED talk by a lady named Bernie Brown she's a sociologist and this TED talk is at about 15 million plus hits as of this last week it's called the power of vulnerability and in this talk she just talks about how we all long 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 in other words to admit that we're broken down deep we all know we're broke we long to live with a sense of brokenness of vulnerability of authenticity but it just doesn't feel save and so here's here's what she says in her talk she says we are those people we are those people that's the truth she says most of us are one paycheck one divorce one drug-addicted kid one mental health diagnosis one serious illness one sexual assault one drinking binge one night of unprotected sex or one affair from being those people the ones where you don't trust the ones that we pity the ones we don't let our children play with the ones bad things happen to the ones we don't want living next door we are those people you are them look around everyone in here is broken there's not one person in this room who was put together I don't know how impressive they look on the outside but I'm telling you we're all broken we are those people we are the people who ignore the hurts of others as long as our needs are taken care of and we are those people who yell at each other in the car on the way to church and then we get out and pretend like everything's okay smile kids we are those people we are the people who think God is somehow more impressed because we've come up with the whole list of our own rules that aren't even mentioned in the Bible and we follow those and we hold people accountable to those we are those people we are the people who go into deep debt to keep up appearances we are the people who look down on others because they're different from us in some way we are the people who work 50-plus hours a week trying to prove our worth we are the people who take the easy way out and long on log on to the porn site we are the people who have holes punched in our closet doors that's us we are the people who spend hours on social media trying to convince people our lives our lives are somehow better than they really are we are those we are those people we are broken we're all broken you want to know how broken we are here's how broken we are not long ago we had some folks come to our church from out of country not out of City not honestly out of country they're visiting our church and some members of our church come in and say to them you're sitting in our seats yeah that's how broken we are I think it's ironic that in every sir you're not alone we all gasp at that you know what's in your own heart right like you think that's that bad hmm we're all a lot worse than that y'all we are all we are all broken there's no one in here who's more deserving or more worthy of God's love and God's grace than anyone else and so what do we do with it we try to hide it it's what you do with brokenness you mean you ask a kid who breaks something they know what to do with it you you you hide it and you hope no one finds out about it and that's what we do we try to hide it and as a result we are the most medicated the most in debt the most addicted people in human history so what happens when you try to hide your brokenness it doesn't work and so we're all broken what we need is brokenness where we recognize the reality of our broken condition understanding that there is no wholeness except through the door marked brokenness and so that's the bad news but the good news is the gospel the good news is Jesus came to make things whole 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 an example or a picture of how this looks as an Isaiah 53 and it helps us see how God makes this whole 53 verse 5 says but he Jesus was wounded for the wrong we did he was crushed for the evil we did the punishment which made us well was given to him and we are healed because of his wounds a couple words in here I want you to pay attention to one is the word wounded or wounds on this word refers to bruises that come black and blue bruises that come from broken blood vessels it's what the word wounded here means bruise is caused by broken blood vessels the word hole or healed the word healed comes from the root meaning mended repaired thoroughly made whole so here's what Isaiah is saying we are made whole because he was broken we are made whole because he was broken and it's only after being broken that we're really ready to fulfill our purpose to be used by God and so we use this idea different ways we use the idea of being broken to describe what happens to a horse before it can be ridden about two years ago my oldest daughter Kenzie she saved up her money and she bought a horse that she was going to break and she was going to Train and then sell she about this one year old horse and she was going to sell it the idea is for her to sell it when she turned 16 and make it use the money to go towards a car and I don't know anything about this stuff but you might guess but my wife grew up doing these things and and so I agreed to it even though I technically wasn't consulted and and so she gets this she gets this one year old horse and and a horse comes home and ended it is it's out in the field of Bucks and it kicks bites I thought this is not going to work then she starts working with the horse she spends hours and hours in a pin round pin with a stern voice and a whip she doesn't call it a whip I don't forget what it's called but looks like a whip to me I think the horse would say it's a whip but she see she spends hours in this pin with the certain voice and a whip and she eventually breaks the horse finally the moment of truth comes where she gets on she gets on the horse to ride it it's never been ridden but that's the purpose right I mean it's why she has it is to train it to ride it to give it a purpose and so she gets on the horse to ride it and she rides around the horse on the horse and then this last Thursday I was watching her and I saw her and you know hop on the horse without a saddle there's no saddle she just got on this horse bareback and she ran it through a field and and then there was joy fulfilling its purpose I think I've got the picture of the two of them here so you want to take bets on whether or not this horse is going to get sold for a car I don't think it's going to work y'all I think this horse is stuck with us for a long time I think well we'll see but here's why once you catch right so as much as my daughter loves her 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 God's power to be on display is is through brokenness it's where God does his best work and so Jeremiah talks about this Jeremiah chapter 18 verses 1 through 5 the Prophet Jeremiah writes it 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 it became flawed in the Potters hands and so he made it into another jar as it seemed right for him to do and the word the Lord came to me God said to Jeremiah house of Israel can I not treat you as this Potter treats his clay look I know I know that your jar hasn't turned out how you thought it would turn out I know that you had in mind what the jar would look like what life would look like for it hasn't happened at some point along the way it's it's gotten broke so you can hide the pieces and you can keep pretending like everything's okay or or you can say to the Potter will you make this into another jar one that seems right to you God says that's that's what I want for my people I know I know the jar is broken I know it hasn't turned out how you wanted it to turn out let me see what I can do with this I was reading some research or it's about this ceramic restoration process it's called I'm going to mess this up but it's called kansui originated in the in Japan and 1500s and kansui is an art in which broken ceramic pieces are sealed together and instead of hiding the cracks from when it was broken the cracks are highlighted and then they're traced over with gold so here's some examples so you have a valuable ceramic piece that is somehow broken but instead of throwing it away you take the ceramic piece and you put the pieces back together but instead of trying to hide the cracks they accentuate the cracks with gold here's what happens the value goes up they are worth more in fact I think we have another picture of this and in fact like there has been collectors who've been accused of purposely taking a valuable piece like this and breaking it so that it can be put back together with gold and be even more valuable than it was before and this this is what God does for us that we are all broken people we all have cracks and we try to hide them it's our instinct I get it but God says you know what those very things that you're most overwhelmed by you're most afraid of very things you most want to keep a secret the very things you most want to be done with the very thing you wish was not true about you if you let me it can be the opportunity it can be an opportunity to turn it into something beautiful more valuable than before when you were walked in you were you were given a glow stick get your glow stick so I was thinking this week about what what has to be broken in order to work the Bible tells us that we are to let our light shine in the world to look here's what we tend to do as a church just as Christians we tend to think okay the way that I let my light shine is by having everything together by looking like you know no problems here we've got it figured out we think that's how we let our light shine that with no troubles no challenges in reality our light shines the brightest when it's broken and so I was thinking of what works when it's broken and and these glow sticks came to mind they only work they only work when you break them and as a church we're going to shine the brightest when we are a church of those people when we are a church where we understand that we are all broken all have struggles all have failures all have disappointments we are a Church of the broken people so in the next few moments we're going to listen to a song I want you to pay attention to the words it's just called sweetly broken and what I want you to do is take a few moments at the beginning of the song and just decide who in the story of Luke 7 you want to be alright do you want to be the person who has it you know together no problems everybody's impressed they're well respected or do you want to be the person who says I'm broken and you experience the love and grace of Jesus deeply because we all have a lot of cracks we're all broken but through Jesus we are made whole so during the song after a moment or two of just kind of acknowledging your brokenness I'll invite you I would invite you during that time you know to break your stick to shine your light as a representation that God shines brightest through our brokenness because he doesn't you know he doesn't work around our brokenness God works through it if you want to talk to someone during this time about your relationship with Jesus not what it means to follow him if you want to give him the broken pieces your life your marriage your family whatever it is you can come down front and I'd love to talk to you have some people who'd love to visit with you may be ready to become a part of this broken Church where were all those people you're welcome here and again you can meet me down front let me pray for us I got in these next few moments would you allow us as a family here just to stop pretending and just to be broken and to recognize that in in our brokenness you have so much power to make us whole again Ord I know right now there's some of us that really want to hold these broken pieces back like we just want to keep it a secret we don't want to talk about it we don't want to think about it the god you're just waiting as the Potter you just say you know how about you give me those and I make something different and so Lord would you do that would you would you take our broken pieces and would you make something new has seams right to you and Lord would you help us celebrate our brokenness to shine a broken light to this world because God that's where your power and your grace and your love are on full display it's in Jesus name we pray

Channel: Southeast Christian Church

Views: 64,279

Keywords: Southeast Christian Church, Kyle Idleman, Dave Stone, creative church, sermon series, worship, Jesus, God, Louisville, Kentucky

Id: 6iQ1a82rwWQ

Length: 32min 26sec (1946 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 17 2014