Helping Others Rebuild Their Brokenness

The premise for my current sermon series through Nehemiah is that we can rebuild our broken world if we walk with God as Nehemiah did. However, we can go even further in rebuilding our broken worlds by helping others rebuilt theirs. While we will deal with that in the sermon series, I want to emphasis that even further in this space. Helping people rebuild their broken worlds is after all a part of the church’s mission.

Al Sherrill, pastor of a church in Manhattan, New York, gives an example, in the current issue of Leadership of a lady in his church who did just that. Her name is Ellen. She works in the fashion industry and was placed on a team in her company with a woman whose presence she had begun to dread. Then her coworker was handed a two week notice of termination. She was a single mother of a teenage girl and was already $5,000 behind on rent and was receiving repeated eviction threats posted on her door.

The woman had long since given up any faith that she had. So Ellen sent an email with the subject “Urgent” to fellow believers. She concluded the email by writing, "Would you prayerfully consider joining me in raising $5,000 for this woman over the next 48 hours? I think that showing radical generosity in the name of Jesus will be a powerful display of God's heart towards her in this time. May God's mercy be released over her life through this."

In response to Ellen's plea for a few people to join in resolving her coworker's plight, within two days she arrived to work carrying a sealed envelope. Laying it on her coworker's desk, Ellen informed the woman that there were a few folks at church who believed in her comeback. Later that day Ellen sent an email to those who supported the cause. It read:

"So thankful to share the story of today with you. I wrote a letter to her this morning, and put the full amount in the envelope. I wrote of grace being a free gift, that she is indebted to no one, and that all who gave did so out of the belief that they've received that same but infinitely greater gift of grace from God. When she came in and read the letter, she called me to her office and embraced me weeping. She said she'd never received unconditional help before, and that it was the most profound thing she's experienced. 'Thank God, thank God,' she kept saying. She is now able to stay in her apartment. She has a promising job interview next week.

"Later in the day, another coworker came to me with tears in her eyes and hugged me. The woman had told her what transpired, and said, 'Not only have you changed her life, but you've revived my faith as well.' Just last night she had told her husband that she felt her faith in Jesus was dead. She said that in all her life she had never seen such a thing, and it reminded her of truth."

All stories may not be that dramatic, but, as Sherrill tells it, this was the first time Ellen had seen her job as a place to live out her faith. It was the first time she stepped to help someone else rebuild their brokenness.

The rebuilding of our own brokenness is a result of God pouring his grace into our lives through Jesus Christ. Our mission is to help others rebuild their lives by offering them God’s grace.

Everything Is Broken, But It Can Be Fixed

All you have to do is read or listen to the news to know that our world is broken. From the flood of immigrants on our southern border to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas to a NFL draftee receiving an award for courage because he announced publicly that he is gay — and those are just three things in the news on the day I write this — we live in a broken world.

All you have to do is listen to people’s personal stories, and you realize our lives are broken. From divorce to child and sexual abuse to alcohol and drug abuse to dealing with issues related to aging, either your own or your parents, to facing death — just to name a few — we live in our own broken worlds.

All of this brokenness is not new, though. The entire history of the world, ever since the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, has been one of brokenness. When we enter the world of Nehemiah, as we will do this week in a new sermon series, we enter a world that had been broken for centuries:

• First the nation of Israel was divided into two nations after the reign of Solomon.
• Then the Assyrians invaded the Northern Kingdom, which thereafter ceased to exist.
• Next, 130 years later, the Babylonians invaded the Southern Kingdom and took the people into captivity. The Babylonians destroyed the temple and broke down the protective walls of Jerusalem.
• Fifty years later, the first wave of Israelites returned to their homeland to find it in ruins. After some delays, they rebuilt the temple, but much of the city was still left broken and in ruins.
• After another fifty-seven years, another group of Jews returned home only to find that people had lost their spiritual edge and intermarried with pagan peoples.
• Fourteen years later, 140 years following the exile of the southern kingdom, Nehemiah heard about the condition and Jerusalem and went there to rebuild its broken walls.

That is where we will pick up the story— with Nehemiah. He shows us that the brokenness can be fixed by rebuilding the broken walls of Jerusalem, the city of his heritage. In doing so, he brings protection from the brokenness that had controlled his people’s lives for so long.

Nehemiah’s story has often been preached and written as a story of leadership, giving us lessons in leadership that can still be relied on today. It is certainly that, but his story also shows us how God can fix the brokenness in our lives. That is the viewpoint from which we will examine Nehemiah. Our brokenness can be fixed, but only as we follow God’s prompting for our lives as Nehemiah did for his. Those are lessons we need, lessons I hope you will learn with me over the coming weeks.

Rebuilding Your Broken World

Beginning on July 20, I will begin to introduce our congregation to a Biblical character who may not be as familiar to you as others. Yet he played a very significant role in one of the lesser known periods of Biblical history.

The character is Nehemiah. The period of history is that of the exile. This was the time when the nation of Israel, the nation of God’s people, had been taken captive. After Solomon’s reign as king of Israel, the nation was divided and began to decline as the kings of both kingdoms led the people away from God. We probably avoid this period of Israel’s history for two reasons:

· First, we do not have as much biblical information about this period. We only get some brief glimpses into this time through the prophets who wrote during the exile and through the three history books from the period: Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.

· Second, the nation and the people of Israel are broken during this period. The messages of the prophets during the exile are filled with messages and images of judgment. We would rather read of the great exploits of those who trusted God, not depressing stories of people God is punishing.

So Nehemiah came onto the scene about 140 years after the southern kingdom of Judah had been taken captive by Babylon. In the intervening years, the Persians had defeated Babylon and were now the world’s leading power. Israel was a broken nation. Its capital, Jerusalem, was broken. The temple had been destroyed and efforts to rebuild it had gone nowhere. Nehemiah discovered that there was no security in the city for the few Israelites who lived there. The lives of the Israelites were broken. They must have asked, how can we ever rebuild this? How can God rebuild our nation, our city, our people?

Have you ever felt that way about your life? Have you ever felt like your life, your family, everything and everyone you care about is broken? Have you ever wondered how you, how God can rebuild your broken world?

If you haven’t asked those questions, you should because we are all broken, everyone of us. Some may be broken into more pieces than others — and perhaps you do not seek to have your life rebuilt because you see others who are more broken than you — but sin has its grip on all of us. We all have broken pieces, and none of us can be used by God the way he wants to use us until we let him fix us.

Nehemiah had probably never been to Jerusalem, the city of his people, but when he discovered how broken it was, he determined to go there and fix it. His story is one of seeking the Lord’s guidance and then going about the business of repairing a broken city. While he faced hardship, difficulty, and opposition along the way, he helped to repair a broken city and a broken people.

Our brokenness is different than what Nehemiah set out to repair. We do not have walls and buildings and physical infrastructure that needs repair. We have hearts that need repair and some of us have our whole world that needs repair. Yet we can learn from Nehemiah how to repair our brokenness. Read the book of Nehemiah. Take a look at this life. Let his story help you rebuild your brokenness.

Remembering

Over this past weekend and the beginning of this week, I have been remembering. I have known these days were coming, but as I remembered, the days took on more significance than I had previously thought that they would. Let me explain.

Saturday, June 7, was six months from when I last saw my dear wife, Christine. That occurred when I said good by to her in our kitchen as she left for Marquette, MI, to represent WCMA, the church planting ministry that I lead, at Lake Superior Christian Church. The next day, Sunday, June 8, was six months from the day of the accident on her return trip from Marquette that would take her life on earth. I spent the day after her accident at the hospital in Green Bay where she had been taken and remained unconscious until her death early the next morning.

As I remembered these things, I realized that there is an interesting anomaly to these events. Each of those four days six months later were the same day of the week and the same date of the month as they were six months earlier. Her accident was on Sunday, December 8; six months later was Sunday, June 8. She died in the early morning on Tuesday, December 10; six months later was Tuesday, June 10.

Exactly six months prior to the time that I last saw Christine, she and I were with a group of seventy-six other people in the ancient city of Ephesus on June 7, 2013. It was Sunday as we walked through Ephesus. We left the ruins of the old city that day from the area in front of the theater of Ephesus where the apostle Paul narrowly averted being the object of a riot. We walked up a slight incline to the ruins of the second century Church of Mary where we held a communion service that I was privileged to lead.

This weekend I remembered the events of six months ago and my forty years with Christine, just as six months before her death she and I, along with our fellow travelers, remembered, in the city where Paul walked, the death of our Savior. On the Sunday six months after Christine’s accident and one year after our communion service in Ephesus, I preached on the Lord’s Supper from 1 Corinthians 11. That sermon and text had been planned, without any thought of the connection to the events I have described, as part of a series in 1 Corinthians.

Remembrance is a necessary and important part of our experiences in life – both the joyful and agonizing ones. In the past six months, I have rejoiced at the life Christine and I have had together and the eternal life that is now hers, while also agonizing over how much I miss her. I have agonized over the events that led to her death, while rejoicing over the things that God is doing in my life and the lives of so many others who have been touched by her life and death. It is an irony of the highest magnitude, but memory brings both joy and agony.

Yet, such memories of our lives with the ones we love should be superseded by remembering the death of our Lord. Those memories, too, bring both joy and agony to our hearts: joy because Jesus gave himself for us, and agony because of the terrible suffering he endured to bring us forgiveness. Every time, we come around the table of the Lord and eat the bread, the body of Christ given for us, and drink from the cup, the new covenant of Christ’s blood, our memories should draw us to our Savior.

Jerry Sittser in his book, A Grace Disguised, describes how he received communion after the tragedy in his life of losing his mother, wife, and one of four children in a tragic accident in 1991:

“For three years now I have cried at every communion service I have attended. I have not only brought my pain to God but also felt as never before the pain God suffered for me. I have mourned before God because I know that God has mourned, too. God understands suffering because God suffered.”

Do You Have Unused or Unclaimed Gifts?

Last year Harvard Business Review published a book titled Harvard Business Review, Stats & Curiosities. Among the statistics that it cites are these:

• 39.2 percent of shoppers will purchase a department store gift card for friends and family.
• 33.4 percent of shoppers will purchase a restaurant gift card for friends and family.
• According to estimates reported in the Journal of State Taxation, the typical American home has an average of $300 in unused or "unredeemed" gift cards. These cards are often misplaced, accidentally thrown out, or only partially redeemed.
• Between 2005 and 2011, $41 billion in gift cards went unused.

I have never had $300 in unused gift cards at home. There have been times, however, when I have forgotten I had a gift card and it took me a few months to use all of it. I do understand how people could forget to use a gift card.

Some people, however, refuse to use or even claim the gifts that God has given us. There are two primary references to those gifts in 1 Corinthians.

First, there is the gift of grace. In 1 Corinthians 1:4, Paul says, “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus.” The word grace itself refers to an “undeserved gift” or “undeserved merit” that God gives us. Receiving the gift of God’s grace results, of course, in our salvation. Yet many people decide not to receive God’s gift and thus never experience eternal life. Of all the gifts you can decide not to claim, this is one you do not want to miss out on.

Second, there are spiritual gifts that God gives to believers. These gifts are given to us as a part of God’s grace. It is important that we understand and use our gifts, because it is through our gifts that God ministers to the church and the world. Yet many Christians either do not use their gifts or seek to know what gifts God has given them.

It is important that every follower of Christ exercise their spiritual gifts, that you exercise your spiritual gifts. Paul said, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.” Our gifts come from God, and God does his work through us when we use our gifts.

Be sure you do not refuse the gift of grace or your spiritual gifts.

Temptation and Testing

 

One of the great promises of the Bible is one I have drawn on many times. Perhaps you have too. The passage, however, offers us even greater hope than many of us have drawn from it. Let me explain.

1 Corinthians 10:12-13 gives us this great promise: “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” The promise is given after Paul references a series of failures by Israel to trust God during their wanderings in the wilderness. He says that their failures were meant as examples to us.

We need to take heed so that we do not fall as the Israelites did. We can do so because God will not let us be tempted beyond our ability, but will always provide a way of escape. We have taken Paul’s description of temptation as a temptation to sin. It is that, but what we have missed in the passage is that it is much more.

The word temptation that Paul uses, has no negative connotation. It simply means to test or prove. Whether it becomes a proof of righteousness, of trusting God, or an inducement to sin and evil depends on our response;.

Satan, you see, will use inducements to sin to draw us away from God, but he will also try to draw us away from God when we face the hard things in life. These things are also tests for us, tests of whether we will be faithful to God.

Now let me be clear. I am not talking about tests that God sends us. The hard things in life come from Satan and are the result of the presence of sin in the world. So hard things do come to us just as temptations to sin come to us, and Satan tries to use them all to draw us away from God.

The promise of God, however, is that God will provide us a way of escape no matter how difficult the test is, no matter how great the temptation. The question for us is always whether we will remain faithful to God when the test comes.

Since Christine’s accident on December 8 and death on December 10, I have been experiencing the kind of test that comes to us. As I told my daughter on the phone one night about two months after Christine’s death, Satan would like nothing better than to lure us away from faith in Christ as a result of what happened. He would like us to give up on the ministries God has called us to. We have determined that we will not let him do so, but that struggle is certainly hard. How, then, does God provide a way of escape?

Let me illustrate with the experience of a minister I met at at conference last month. As we talked, he told me that his wife had died five years earlier in the midst of what would become a thirty-seven year ministry. When I shared with him about Christine’s death, we discussed our two experiences and he prayed for me. In the midst of our discussion, he told me how God had opened up an entirely new ministry to him that led him to Florida.

God provides a path to a new adventure. I do not know what God will open up to you or me when we face temptation and trials, but he does promise he will provide us a way of escape. My “way of escape” may be different than my new friend’s and yours may be different than mine, but whether it is temptation or testing, God will show us the way out.

We are engaged in a great spiritual battle — we have been ever since the sin of Adam and Eve. Satan wants us to walk away from God. God will, however, always provide us a way out if we trust him. The way out may not be easy, but the promise is still true. Trust God when life becomes hard.

Worshiping Idols and Practicing Paganism Today

Worshiping Idols and Practicing Paganism Today

The worship of idols and pagan gods were clearly issues for the church at Corinth when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians. Most of the young believers in the Corinthian church had participated in idol worship. These practices were entrenched in that entire region of the world. Friendships were built in the pagan temples and business was conducted around their religious practices.

We do not have the same kind of idols and pagan worship that they did, but we do have practices in our own culture that lead many people away from God, and our practices are just as pagan.

Consider the TV show Hoarders which aired on the A&E network from 2009 through 2013. The show depicted the real-life struggles and treatment of people who suffer from compulsive hoarding. They people’s compulsions are so strong that they cannot let go of their “stuff.” On the show, loved ones, psychologists, and organizational experts were brought in to try to help the hoarders stop hoarding.

One episode focused on a middle aged hoarder named Phyllis. Her house was so cluttered with dolls and other belongings that she had to crawl over mounds of garbage in order to reach the recliner where she ate and slept. Her compulsions were so strong that she chose to live without running water and heat and to huddle under blankets to stay warm. Another episode told the story about a man who had collected such a large stash of games, action figures, books, and novelties that it was nearly impossible to move through his home.

Most people who watched the show had the same reaction: they could not believe that people just would not let go of all the stuff that was slowly sabotaging important relationships and harming themselves. They treated these things as gods. While many people do not hoard as those on the TV show, we can treat possessions as if they are our “gods.”

In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul warns against not trusting God. He discusses how the Israelites in the wilderness received “spiritual food” and “spiritual drink” and that they drank from the “spiritual Rock,” who was Christ. Yet they put Christ to the test by not trusting him and by grumbling about God’s provision for them, so Paul tells us to learn from them. If you think you can continue in the ways of the world and not fall from Christ, you should “take heed lest you fall.” No temptation is too great, no idol or pagan practice or possession is so great but that God can provide a way of escape for us. God is faithful, so always put your faith in him.