Rev. David Holwick R The Holes of Life #6
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
June 7, 2009
John 15:1-8
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I. Anybody can be broken.
A. The experience of a professional Christian speaker.
Life was good for Carol and Gene Kent.
Carol was a popular Christian speaker and author.
She was doing so well her husband quit his job to help her.
Their only son, Jason, was an officer in the Navy and a strong
Christian.
He had recently married a woman who had two kids, so Carol and
Gene had become instant grandparents.
Things were so good that Carol had mused, "Does life get any
better than this?"
A few weeks later, the unthinkable happened.
In the middle of the night they got a phone call that their son
had been arrested for murdering his wife's first husband.
He was caught near the scene and his car contained guns with
silencers.
Jason had been consumed by the idea that the first husband was
a danger to the two girls.
He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
Carol wrestled with guilt and despair.
She looked through old family photo albums, wondering if she
had done something wrong as a mother.
Her son got his front teeth knocked out in a brawl in prison,
and she could do nothing to help him.
She compared the feeling to what Abraham must have experienced
when God told Abraham to sacrifice his only son.
Her ministry was the family's sole source of income, so five
days after the murder she had to fulfill a speaking
engagement at a women's conference.
She prayed that her brokenness would be more powerful than her
professionalism.
#35880
B. Brokenness comes in many forms.
1) Personal failure - divorce, bankruptcy.
2) Moral failure, where you not only sin but everyone finds out.
3) Tragedy and suffering that leaves you devastated.
C. Your comfortable world turns upside down.
1) You no longer feel in charge of your life.
2) You no longer see yourself as invincible and good.
3) You lose hope for the future, or any interest in it.
4) You wonder if anyone cares, even God.
D. God has a special place for brokenness.
1) Sometimes we have to be shaken down before we can be
brought up.
a) The hole of brokenness is a useful pit.
2) Brokenness shatters our complacency and self-righteousness.
a) Only then can we be molded by God.
b) It forces us to rely on him.
II. Brokenness has happened to many others.
A. The Bible is filled with examples, both heroes and rejects.
1) King Nebuchadnezzar went from being an all-powerful
monarch to eating grass like a cow.
2) David went from being the apple of God's eye to having
his own son run him out of town.
3) King Hezekiah lay on his deathbed, weeping for God to
spare him. (He got another 15 years)
4) The Apostle Paul evangelized the Roman Empire, but ended
his life alone, in prison, without even warm clothes.
5) Jesus himself had his life upended.
a) On Palm Sunday he was the head of the hit parade.
b) Five days later he was nailed to a cross.
B. Brokenness can happen to you.
1) I suspect it will happen to all of us eventually.
2) It is easy to become complacent, to think that we are in
control of our lives.
3) Don't you usually imagine yourself as strong enough to
come through anything?
a) Events may make you doubt this.
III. Brokenness is part of God's pruning process.
A. Everyone with an orchard learns how to prune.
1) I have a mini-orchard and I am not learning well.
a) I must be pruning my cherry trees incorrectly because
each tree has no more than five cherries.
b) I pruned my plum tree so severely it has more plums
than leaves.
1> I may have killed it because the bark is coming off.
2) Pruning is dangerous but necessary.
a) Without any pruning, trees become a mass of foliage
with small, lousy fruit or none at all.
b) Since God wants fruit in us, he prunes all the time.
1> It is not to torture us, but to improve us.
B. The pain has a purpose.
1) It refocuses us on God in a way that prosperity cannot.
a) Most people become Christians only after going through
an episode of brokenness.
1> Testimony at the last deacons' meeting:
A> Ed Biron had a million things in his life go
wrong - broken marriage, unemployment,
almost homeless.
B> He concluded, "God tore everything down.
I had to be in that place to find him."
2> Conversion follows crisis.
3> It did for me, and probably it did for you.
b) If you are already a Christian, brokenness forces you
to stop taking your faith for granted.
1> Maybe you are one of those who eased into the
Kingdom by being brought up in church.
2> I'll bet a later crisis shook up your childhood
faith.
2) It gives us a more accurate view of ourselves.
a) Truly broken people are humble and honest.
b) You are more useable for God.
3) Brokenness can be God's most powerful blessing.
a) It doesn't just get rid of the bad in our lives, but
makes us consider what is best.
b) Counselor Larry Crabb writes:
"Happy people rarely look for joy.
Their central concern is to keep what they have.
They haven't been freed to pursue a greater dream.
In his severe mercy, God takes away the good to create
an appetite for the better."
#22110
IV. Pruning is only part of it - abiding is its complement. 15:4
A. After the bad stuff is cut off, you must give fertilizer.
1) Jesus is our fertilizer.
2) The power of our fruitfulness can only come from a close
relationship with Jesus.
3) Jesus says, "Apart from me you can do nothing." 15:5
B. How close are you right now?
1) When is the last time you prayed as if your life depended
on it?
2) Do you have any desire to seek God, or are you in
maintenance mode only?
C. People who are broken in Christ are sensitive to others.
Mike Wilkins tells this story of a church that looked as if
it was really thriving.
They had about 500 people attending, had many outreach
ministries reaching their community, and many people were
coming to Christ and to church through their ministry.
The problem was that the church was not growing in numbers --
people were leaving as quickly as they were coming in.
The church began to do some research on the people who were
leaving.
They found that the majority who left were not attending
another church, they just stopped going to church at all.
Because of the church's inability to hold people, they were
actually de-evangelizing their neighborhood.
Those who were leaving were almost impossible to bring back
into any community of faith.
The senior pastor realized that something had to be done.
He called up the last 12 people to be baptized and invited
them to supper at his house.
These were all new Christians and very excited to be invited
to the pastor's house.
After supper he sat them down and asked if they wanted to
know the future. They all said, "Yes!"
So he said, "Statistically speaking, in the next two or three
years, two of your marriages will have broken up, and the
shame will cause you to leave the church.
Three of you will have a conflict with someone in the church,
and you will leave the church.
One will have a tragedy and lose faith and leave.
Two will have a moral failing and leave, and two will lose
interest and drift away.
In two to three years, out of this group only two of you will
be attending church, and only one of you at this church."
There was dead silence in the room.
All these wide-eyed Christians were about to say, "Surely
not I, Lord."
Then one of them spoke up and said, "What can we do to
change the statistics?"
The pastor said, "You can get together and, as a group,
decide that you are not going to let anyone go."
That is exactly what they did -- these strangers formed a
small group and supported each other through the
tragedies, divorces, conflicts and failings.
In four years, only one had left the church.
The church went from losing 10 out of every 12 converts to
losing only one.
#35866
V. Perhaps you are in a place of brokenness right now.
A. What is God saying to you?
B. What do you think you can gain from it?
C. Be sensitive to others who are broken.
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
#22110 "Sometimes Brokenness Is Better Than Being Fixed," by Ed Rowell,
Leadership Journal, Fall 2001, p. 119. Ed Rowell is a teaching
pastor at The People's Church in Franklin, Tennessee.
#35866 "How To Close The Exit Door," by Mike Wilkins, Preaching Now,
www.preaching.com, April 28, 2009.
#35880 "A Mother's Life Sentence," by Tonya Stoneman, Today's Christian,
May/June 2006. (The online version is somewhat different from
the magazine version; my illustration draws upon both.)
These and 30,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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