Discovering the Real Me Part 5
The Fine Me verse the Broken Me
The spiritual life is a journey of becoming more and more a unique expression of
the life of Jesus.
The person God had in mind when He created you.
In the current series of messages we have been encouraged to seek
God so that we can become the person He intends for us to be.
We’ve called that unique expression the Real Me.
So far in our series we’ve considered
the Languishing Me verse the Flourishing Me
the Current Me verse the Intended Me
the Doing Me verse the Being Me
the Loner Me verse the Connected Me
Have you found where you are on this spiritual journey yet?
Each one of those messages points to where we have been and where we are
headed.
Its like a spiritual road map.
Today I want to draw your attention to the Fine Me verse the Broken Me.
I want you to leave here today knowing
that its better to be Broken than to be Fine;
that its in brokenness we find love,
that its in brokenness that we discover the real me.
Psalms 51:16-17 (MSG)
Going through the motions doesn't please you, a flawless performance is nothing to you. I learned God-worship when my pride was shattered. Heart-shattered lives ready for love don't for a moment escape God's notice.
Its in brokenness that we find the Real Me.
THE FINE ME
Let’s consider the Fine Me.
We all do it.
Someone asks—How are you?
The automatic response is Fine. “I’m fine.”
I know it’s a cultural response,
But if we dig a little behind it,
I think what motivates such an answer are two things:
Pride and Fear. (Blanchard, Lead Like Jesus, p 49)
Pride gets a lot of bad press and rightly so.
But pride can also be the result of knowing whose you are, who you are,
And what you have been empowered to do,
and the grace God gives to do it.
This type of pride grows out of a sense of confidence that God is the
giver of all things and that He’s given you the ability to do
certain things well, to manage certain things well.
I think healthy pride results in our feeling good about ourselves.
Pride commends us for doing well,
For being all that we can be at this particular time.
It’s the kind of pride that knows that in Christ you can do all things,
But apart from Him, no thing.
Pride quickly goes bad when we fail to recognize that all that we have and
all that we are, is a gift from God.
When pride results from an overly high opinion of ourselves,
It creates arrogance, self-centeredness and in extreme cases
Narcissism.
The apostle Paul warns us of the dark side of pride
Romans 12:3 (MSG)
I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.
Paul reminds us that we live in pure grace,
Grace the unmerited desire to be and power to do.
Grace is the fuel of our lives.
Pride centers on the promotion of the old me,
On the self still enthralled by egoism.
It causes a person to misinterpret themselves.
This type of pride is interested in image,
About looking good,
About saving face.
About promoting self.
This type of pride is interested in worldly success.
The ends justify the means.
To get on top you have to climb over people.
Take the spot light and all the credit.
This type of pride is interested in looking better than others.
Having better than others,
And being better than others.
It knows no satisfaction.
This type of pride is interested in being invulnerable,
Being recognized, admired, and desired.
Being the center of attention.
So with such a soul everything is fine.
They want you to think that they have no needs,
no problems, no worries, no concerns.
They have it all under control.
Right now you may be thinking. That’s not behind my Fine when asked how I am.
Let’s turn our attention to having Fear behind our fine.
Fear can be a good thing when it keeps us
“focused on doing the right thing for the right reasons.”
(Blanchard, Lead Like Jesus, p. 54)
A healthy fear keeps us safe, warns us of danger,
steers us clear of trouble.
Proverbs 9:10 (MSG)
Skilled living gets its start in the Fear-of-God, insight into life from knowing a Holy God.
The fear of the Lord—a “wholesome dread” of falling out of the grace of God
creates a “heartfelt desire not to grieve the One who has extended His
compassion, mercy, and grace to us.” (Blanchard, Lead Like Jesus, p. 54)
But when fear goes bad it keeps you from becoming the person God has intended
for you to be,
it prevents you from living your life to the full,
it’s a hindrance in becoming a unique expression of the life of
Jesus.
Proverbs 29:25 (MSG)
The fear of human opinion disables; trusting in God protects you from that.
We’re fine because we want other people to think well of us.
We’re afraid that if we are found out they won’t like us anymore.
Anxiety creeps into our soul when we think we might be rejected.
This fear rises out of our past failures,
Our inabilities,
Our sins,
both those that we are a victim of and those that we perpetrated.
We believe we don’t have what it takes,
That we are somehow incapable and incompetent,
Not really fit.
We doubt ourselves.
We’re afraid that our weakness and our bad behavior will be uncovered;
(Blanchard, Lead Like Jesus, p. 54)
And once again feel the shame and disgrace of being broken.
We are drawing our sense of self worth,
Of value, of importance, of significance from the opinion of others,
So we need for them to see the “Fine Me.”
But “hiddenness and pretense are always the enemy of”
becoming the Real You. (Ortberg, 197)
You know that everything rises and falls on relationships.
Pride or Fear foster three things— (Blanchard, Lead Like Jesus, p. 49)
Pride or Fear always separates.
Either one can cause alienation in our relationship to God,
To others, and our self.
Pride and Fear always compares.
Either one can cause a continual ranking game,
In which you judge others to determine if you’re better
than they are or not as bad as they are.
Pride and fear always distorts
One shuns reality, birthing self-deceptive.
It effectively cuts us off from the intimacy we need,
Because we lack insight and understanding into the
nature of how things really are.
The Fine Me plays to the crowd.
The Fine Me keeps God and Others at arms length, averting intimacy.
Fine People don’t think they need Jesus.
They trust in their finances,
Their possessions and the things they have accumulated,
They trust in their ability and the stability of the times.
They don’t hurt,
They don’t suffer,
They don’t ache,
They don’t cry.
They live the good life,
They have more than enough,
They are successful and well established,
They don’t need a doctor.
“Often the people who need help the most receive it the least,
because that would mean leaving the pedestal” of appearing fine. (Ortberg, p. 200)
Isaiah peeks behind the Fine Me and sees that things are far from fine
Isaiah 1:5-6 (MSG)
You keep beating your heads against brick walls. Everything within you protests against you. From the bottom of your feet to the top of your head, nothing's working right. Wounds and bruises and running sores— untended, unwashed, unbandaged.
So—how are you?
Before you answer that lets turn our attention to the Broken Me.
There’s an old song, a hymn of the church, that you don’t hear very often anymore.
We used to sing it at the end of the pastor’s sermon,
when he gave what was termed to be an invitation to become a
believer.
The song is “Just As I Am”
And for you old rock and rollers out there its not the one done by Air
Supply.
VERSE #1
Just as I am, without one plea,
But that thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!
VERSE #3
Just as I am, tho' tossed about,
With many a conflict, many a doubt,
Fightings within and fears without,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!
VERSE #4
Just as I am, Thou wilt recieve,
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve,
Because Thy promise I believe,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!
The words are old, written in 1834, but the message is as fresh as ever.
Jesus is for losers.
Mark 2:16-17 (NIV)
When the teachers of the law who were
Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his
disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"
17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy
who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but
sinners."
Who does Jesus associate with?
He hangs out with the rejects, the traitors, the tax collectors and the
Prostitutes; the abandoned, the outcast, and those who never made it.
He’s spending His time with the sinners.
Jesus comes for the broken.
And who are the broken?
The broken are those who realize that they keep beating their heads against
brick walls.
The broken are those who realize their world is in a shambles.
The broken are those who realize that nothing is working right.
The broken are those who realize that they are wounded, battered, beaten,
Untended, unwashed, and unbandaged.
The broken come just as they are—
Undeserving, desperate, unable, inadequate, unworthy, disadvantaged,
Shortchanged, and discover the Jesus doesn’t banish the
broken, He heals them.
All the issues, actions, situations and circumstances that created the pride and the
fear hidden behind our Fine, Jesus has taken care of.
Not only has Jesus atoned for everything wrong in our lives,
everything evil,
He brings mending and healing and empowers us to
righteousness.
That’s the greateness of God’s love for you.
Love that knows everything about you and still reaches out to you.
When we know how broken we are,
We seek God that much more urgently for the healing we need.
When we know how broken we are,
We seek God that much more urgently for the grace to stand.
When we know how broken we are,
We can see the brokenness in others and extend to them the
love that God has extended to us.
Yet there is a problem in the Church today.
Somehow we have come to believe that once we have
Accepted the fact that we are broken,
Believed that only Jesus can mend our brokenness
Committed ourselves to following Jesus
That everything is supposed to be instantly fixed
in our lives.
No don’t get me wrong,
When God does accept your faith in Christ,
The change is so incredible Jesus called it being born again.
The Apostle Paul called it becoming a new creation.
But that’s the start of the journey into becoming the Real You,
Not the end, not the arrival, the beginning.
You jumped in the Water of Life River because you knew you were broken and
that only God could repair you.
The brokenness is healed as you progress towards the end of the
River, where you find yourself totally, perfectly, a unique
expression of Jesus.
Listen closely, I want to tell you of the great paradox of the Christian journey.
The further the Holy Spirit sweeps you down the water of life river
towards becoming the Real You
the more broken you realize that you are.
The better you get the worse you realize that you are.
The more progress you make the further you realize you need to go.
The more light that shines the clearer you see what has been hiding in the
shadows.
What we mistakenly do in the Church today is hide our struggles,
We cover our tensions and anxiety and our doubts.
We don’t talk about our temptations and definitely not our sins.
We don’t even want to ask questions least someone discover
that we don’t have all the answers.
We keep our negative habits and attachments
secret.
We need to understand that
Brokenness leads to repentance.
Repentance leads to abandonment.
Abandonment leads to confidence.
Confidence leads to release. (Crabb, The Pressure is Off, pp. 180-181)
Define brokenness in light of Psalm 51:17
Psalms 51:17 (NCV)
The sacrifice God wants is a broken spirit. God, you will not reject a heart that is broken and sorry for sin.
Brokenness involves bringing out what needs to be healed and restored so that God
can take His rightful place in the center of our life.
Define repentance in light of 1 John 1:8-9
1 John 1:8-9 (NCV)
If we say we have no sin, we are fooling ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he will forgive our sins, because we can trust God to do what is right. He will cleanse us from all the wrongs we have done.
Repentance involves sorrow over the state of our affairs and prayers of confession,
asking for forgiveness and the power to turn from our wicked ways.
Define abandonment in light of Romans 8:28
Romans 8:28 (NIV)
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Abandonment involves forsaking all our expectations and demands
All our strategies for securing a blessing from God to make life better
and simply trusting that God is writing a good story
We discover its our brokenness that God is using to make us
Real.
Define confidence in light of Hebrews 4:16
Hebrews 4:16 (NIV)
Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Confidence is knowing that God won’t reject, or abandon you but rather will never
stop helping the person who is seeking to do His will. (Ortberg, p. 201)
Finally define release in light 2 Corinthians 3:17-18
2 Corinthians 3:17-18 (NIV)
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Release is becoming more like Jesus.
“You find yourself released to be the person you’ve longed to be---
loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, gentle,” (Crabb, p. 181)
capable, competent and confident.
Never picture perfect but authentic, the real you.
Brokenness leads to repentance.
Repentance leads to abandonment.
Abandonment leads to confidence.
Confidence leads to release.
Release leads to being Real.
We don’t need to shout our brokenness from the roof tops.
But we do need to let that spiritual community of like minded believers
know us.
The folks with us in the raft.
When others know our brokenness it kills false pride.
When others know our brokenness it kills our fear,
Because we discover they love us all the more
That’s why the Apostle James tells us
James 5:16 (NIV)
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.
Do you have a friend that you can confess to,
Confess your brokenness?
Its because we want to appear fine that so many of us remain broken.
But its in our brokenness that that we find love, acceptance, belonging.
Its in our brokenness being healed that we discover the Real Me.
So – How are you?