Beautiful Brokenness - Defiant Hope

So Su Takamoto, a Japanese sister in Christ was walking through the wreckage of the tsunami and the earthquake in Shinami, Japan.

It had once been this beautiful picturesque seaside village.

Not anymore.

It was all gone.

All in the sea There were beautiful tea houses there, restaurants, homes.

All that was left, and kind of crunched as she walked. are all these broken shards that were once teacups and various kinds of dinnerware and so on.

And something occurred to her Because that community is loaded now with single women who've lost their husbands, who are single moms, there's nowhere to work anymore, all the places to work are gone And so Tsutakamoto formed a society and named it after the Japanese word for hope.

I think it's Nakoma or something like that.

And she took, began to gather up those shards and helped these ladies begin to make jewelry out of it.

And they made bracelets and they made necklaces and they uh they each were given their own web address.

They were able to name their product line.

And they named their product line often after somebody that they had lost, a loved one that they had lost in the tsunami.

And today there's a tremendous, apparently ministry built around that.

And Tsutakamoto said, and let me see if I can find her quote about the work that she was doing.

Yeah, she said, many of these women lost their community, their neighbors are all gone, their homes are washed away, and they're all living in scattered places across Ishinamaki.

But God can take broken pottery and broken women who think that life is over for them and do anything he wants.

We are in the midst of seeing God do amazing things things.

I thought, isn't it amazing how you can make something beautiful out of broken pieces?

You know who's the best at that of course.

Jesus said, I've come to bind up the brokenhearted, and I've come to turn ashes to beauty It's impossible for you to have lived in this sinful world and not have something broken inside of you, I think.

You have broken pieces in all of us.

And yet God is able to take those broken pieces.

And if we make hope choices, based on the hope purchased by Christ on the cross and guaranteed by his resurrection , It is possible for the broken things to become something beautiful.

God does this ashes to beauty thing You see that in your notes.

I kind of already alluded to it with Isaiah 61, 3, and that's what I call beautiful brokenness.

And that's what he talks about, giving them a crown of beauty instead of ashes.

And mourning somehow becoming the oil of joy.

And where there's been a spirit of despair, I see this in some of our warriors, where there's been a spirit of despair, there's now a garment of praise, and they will be called oaks of righteousness.

And they will display his splendor because he made something broken into something beautiful.

Now, we're going to look tonight at three what I would call hope crossroads.

They all have to do with something that gets broken in people's lives We're not going to spend very long on each of them.

Rachel is going to join us for part of this.

But I would say that this what I call hurt-to-hope crossroads is embodied in how each of these three broken treasures can by choice, instead of robbing you of your hope, Give you hope for the rest of your life.

Jeremiah was the weeping prophet, they called him.

I guess so.

He happened to be the one who was assigned to be God's spokesman when the temple was destroyed and leveled, the great temple of God.

When the city of Jerusalem, the city of God, became a pile of rubble, when the people of God, being judged for their disobedience, were carried out of the land That God had so wonderfully over centuries given to his chosen people away to a strange land.

And Jeremiah in Lamentations, at figures, he would write Lamentations.

Wrote these words.

I remember my affliction.

So that's that's some painful stuff that he suffered.

My wandering.

Apparently there were some personal failures.

My wandering.

The bitterness.

Apparently that had something to do with how he reacted and responded emotionally to both of those And the Gaul.

Oh, I well remember them.

His memories of the darkest parts of his life are vivid.

So are yours.

So are mine.

And my soul is downcast within me.

Here we go.

Justifiably depressed prophet But there's a turning point here.

Yet, this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope I have found a light in this darkness of my failure and how other people have hurt me and how I have responded.

I have found light because of the Lord's great love.

Against that darkness, he says, we are not consumed.

I will not let despair have me.

I will not let bitterness have me.

I will not let my failures define me.

His compassions never fail.

Every morning I get up.

Just like there was fresh manna every morning, I got fresh mercies.

Great is your faithfulness.

Boy, that'd be a good hymn, wouldn't it?

Crossroads number one When it's broken, it's a hope robber.

A broken dream.

A broken dream.

Proverbs 13, 12.

You may not know the reference, but you know the verse.

Hope deferred.

I thought this was going to happen.

By expectation, I was expecting this to happen.

And hope deferred makes the heart sick.

Doesn't it?

But a longing fulfilled.

The tree of life.

So what I mean by a broken dream, you see in your notes, it's when something or someone we had placed our hopes in fails us.

Or we fail ourselves.

Think about Joseph, who had a God-given dream About the greatness that he would be given by God, the leadership he would be given as the runt of the litter.

He'd be over everybody Oh, but what a road it was!

Gets thrown in a pit?

I mean, if if Joseph's life was a good news, bad news story.

It would go something like this, Joseph, I have some good news and some bad news for you.

The good news is you're going to be father's favorite, and he is going to treat you better than all your brothers.

All right.

I have some bad news for you.

They're going to hate you and throw you in a pit and leave you to die.

But, but, Joseph, I have some good news for you.

The good news is some slave traders are going to take you to Egypt and you're going to be set up in the home of one of the most powerful men in Egypt, and you're going to be given, you'll be running his house, and you're going to have a great life in his mansion Oh, that's better.

That's cool.

Yeah, but I have some bad news for you.

The bad news is his wife is going to accuse you of something you didn't do, and you're going to be thrown into prison because of it.

Oh rats.

But Joseph, I have some good news for you.

The good news is that while you're in that prison, two former servants of the king are gonna be there, and you know your dream thing you have?

Well they're gonna have dreams and you're gonna be able to interpret them And you're going to tell one of them that his dream is he's going to be restored to power, and the other guy not so good.

He's like, I have some good news and some bad news for you.

And the good news is you're going back, and the other one is you're never leaving here alive.

Oh really?

But the one you helped is gonna promise to talk to the king and get you out.

All right.

Yeah, well the bad news is he's gonna forget all about you.

What is this one of the great roller coaster rides of all history?

Joseph, this is Joseph's life.

But the amazing thing is he just never seems to lose hope.

Starts out in the pits, he ends up on the pyramids.

But how many times would he see these guys who had promised to get him out?

This guy promised to get him out.

Did you ever feel like your last hope walked out the door?

His last hope walked out the door and forgot him until the Pharaoh has a dream eventually.

And he goes, wait, I know this dream guy So Joseph is a is an example of where the I mean he had he had his hopes in his dad's promise and he had his hopes well you know what I'm in a I'm in a powerful guy's house maybe he'll be my hope and then well maybe these guys will get me out of prison When someone or something fails you, hope goes out the door.

How about Peter?

He failed himself.

Peter just vanishes.

The man who had promised, who had been told he would be the rock, he would be the main man, he'd be the leader of the disciples, and he vanishes.

He he pe wilts like a a little girl in front of a little girl.

It doesn't take a soldier to get him denied Jesus.

It takes a 12-year-old girl to get him to curse and swear and deny Jesus.

He has failed.

He is down, man.

And isn't it interesting?

There's one little footnote in the resurrection story.

Have you ever noticed it?

The angel says, go tell the disciples and Peter.

Why is he single out Peter?

First of all, I think it tells me Peter wasn't hanging out with the disciples.

He was too ashamed.

He was off somewhere by himself.

He needed some hope.

So the angel says, Peter, you got to go look for Peter specifically.

Because he's going to think it's over.

You got to tell him Jesus is alive.

So he had dreamed of something that he thought died on the cross.

Now I don't know what dream of yours.

May have failed you.

May have to do with your business, which you thought would happen, you hoped would happen.

It hasn't happened.

Maybe it has to do with your parenting.

Every one of us holds those little babies and has great dreams for them and what we hope they'll be and think they'll be and pray they'll be and doesn't always work out.

It's a broken dream What we thought marriage would be.

Sometimes a dream becomes a nightmare.

It may have to do with ministry.

That there was a ministry and you you were sure that God had given you a dream.

That hasn't happened.

Maybe you've you said some real you made some really great commitments to Jesus and you're living in the wreckage of those commitments.

It didn't happen.

You had some goals and it's probably too late for those to happen.

Those kind of failures. . . tend to pull you toward despair and despondency, toward retreat, toward giving up, to aiming low, to settling, to resigning.

But as always, hope must be a what?

A ch chice in those situations.

Because there are some hope choices you have to make when a dream dies.

Basically you have to one of two choices.

Number one is to resign yourself. to this valley.

Okay?

It's over.

I failed or it failed or they failed me and you just kind of say I will live on the level of this failure.

That's it.

I'm not going to hope again.

I'm not going to try anymore.

You can live in that valley.

That's resigning.

Or the other choice is to resolve To build on this future, a future on this, and to build on the lessons of the broken dream.

Let me tell you how you choose hope when your dream dies.

Number one, you have to resist the lie that failure makes you worthless.

Guys are defined by their work.

A man if something happens at work that hurts them And they are, they don't get the promotion or they don't keep the job or there seems to be some kind of failure at work, their fault, somebody else's fault.

They tend to feel like I'm not worth very much anymore.

If you feel like you're failing in your marriage, you're failing as a parent.

Satan comes in and he says, You ain't worth what you were what you thought you were.

You are a loser.

Look at you.

He is the father of lies.

And what he wants to attack is your real identity.

Success. does not increase your value.

Failure does not decrease your value.

Your value was given to you at conception by you creator And no one on earth gave you your worst and no one on earth can take it away.

No one on earth gave you your worst and no one on earth can take it away from you.

No failure can reduce what you're worth.

Your worth is recorded in the first words I've spoken to each of my grandchildren when they were born.

Ephesians 2.

10.

My first words to my grandkids, starting with Jordan, you are God's workmanship.

Created in Christ Jesus for good works, he prepared in advance for you to do.

Excuse me, no one, no failure can take that away from you.

You will always be A son or daughter of the King of all kings.

You will always be the blood purchase of the Son of God.

You will always be the ambassador for Christ, the face of Jesus.

You will always be the temple of the Holy Spirit.

You've got to resist the lie.

That's choosing hope.

Because you'll be hopeless if you believe the lie that you're worthless because you failed Then you have to allow God to reveal to you where he wants you to grow through this failure.

Whether someone failed you or you failed.

God, oh, if you're gonna get the pain, remember get the get the point.

There's a point to this pain, or God would not have either sent it or allowed it.

Here are some things you might want you to learn.

He's developing humility.

God is the ultimate pride buster.

He's done it for me a number of times.

You realize you have two choices about humility?

You will be humble.

You will be humble.

The two choices are humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, or you could be humbled.

Which do you want?

Which would you like?

I don't like that be humble thing.

Doesn't sound too fun.

But often God says, I need to strip you of some pride, and if this, if that dream all happens, you're just going to go on depending on you instead of me.

Moses, a great example.

Moses, round one, round two.

Moses, round one.

Sees that Egyptian, kill a Jew.

He says, you know what?

I am uh mistreat his people.

And he goes out and he kills that Egyptian.

And and in in the New Testament in Acts it says he thought that he would be, he knew he was supposed to deliver his people.

He already had that dream.

God had given him.

That was God's dream.

But he didn't wait for God's time.

He didn't do it God's way.

He kills this Egyptian and says, I'll be their hero.

I'll be Super Moses, and they'll follow me out.

Instead, they turn on him, the Egyptians turn on him.

He flees to the wilderness.

He says, I thought I was God's guy.

I thought I was supposed to be the deliverer.

My dream is gone.

He ends up settling for being a shepherd, and instead of leading a nation out of bondage, he gets to lead sheep around the mountain.

Forty years later a guy comes to him.

Do you notice his reaction?

Forty years before he said, I'm the guy.

Forty years later he goes, who me?

Guess what happened through failure?

He became qualified to be God's good man and great man, great leader.

But there had to be failure for it to happen.

So you see, you choose hope when you choose to grow and let God develop humility in you through it.

See, a broken heart, when a heart is broken, it's open.

When you break something, it's all opened up.

And when it's all opened up, a broken heart exposes what you might not have seen before, which might be there's some humbling to take place here.

I'm not the controller I thought I was.

I'm not the boss I thought I was.

Secondly, exposing an idol.

That might be what God wants to reveal.

That something in your life, it might even be a good thing. could be ministry, has become more important to you and has taken the throne in your heart.

And you know there's only one throne in the human heart and Jesus is supposed to sit on it.

And if anything else is on that throne It is your idol.

And you are violating the first commandment in Exodus 23.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

A child might be an idol.

That's a noble idol.

But it might be if your world is revolving more around a child or your husband or a ministry or an organization or your job, think about where where your heart and your mind are most of the time.

Sometimes God will allow some failure to expose an idol.

There's an old hymn that says, The dearest idol I have known, help me tear it from thy throne.

And worship only thee.

Consider if where things have fallen short of your dream, it's because God says there's an idol in there And he doesn't let that happen.

The other thing he might be trying to teach you through this, and you could choose hope if you'd get it, is surrendering control.

Surrendering control We're um we're pretty much um well I'll speak for myself.

We tend to be control freaks, don't we?

I have to tell you a great uh conversation I read in a column in a Christian magazine.

This lady uh who's the columnist had her granddaughter over who was nine years old, and the granddaugh uh it just happened that her three-year-old boy cousin was there And she overheard this conversation, which she recorded in her column.

He.

Why did Jesus have boo-boos on his knees?

She.

People hated him.

He said, why?

His cousin said, because they all wanted to be boss of themselves.

But God is king.

And the boy said, we could take turns.

As us negotiating.

We could take turns.

I love this.

And she gets the final word.

But he's the big king.

And he made boys out of dirt and girls out of ribs.

He 's a darn pretty darn good nine-year-old theologian, nigga.

But you know what?

We do want to be our own bosses, don't we?

And Jesus said, why do you call me Lord, Lord?

You got all the right words.

Your theology is just fine.

Your myology is messed up.

Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do?

What I say?

You're not doing what I've told you to do with your temper, what I've told you to do with your your uh uh possessions, with your money, with your marriage, with your kids, with your bitterness, with your anger, with your lust.

With your internet?

You're not doing what I told you to do.

So it's a fight over the wheel.

And God insists on driving.

And if he has to allow some failure to come in to be his tool, so be it.

It would be right to have the right driver because you're going to crash.

So the first the first broken thing that you gotta you gotta actually decide intentionally you're gonna make the hope choices and I've tried to help spell those out So if you make redemptive choices, it says in your notes, if you make redemptive choices In the rubble of a broken dream, you can emerge stronger than ever, and the ashes will turn to beauty We had a wonderful thing happen in our house in New Jersey.

Over the years, it was an older house and it needed some repairs and number one, I was way too busy to do it.

Number two, remember me and a hammer?

If I had a hammer, it'd be a disaster.

So what happened was people from my home church in Chicago, Dave, people from my home church in Chicago brought a work crew down.

We're not like this is not like you know going to the mission field.

It's well New Jersey's a mission field, but they came just to bless us missionaries.

We've been supported from that church And they came down and they spent several days just shaping up that house in various ways.

Well, it was interesting to come home when they went to work.

There was furniture that was moved all over the house.

No matter where you went, you were going to trip over something.

There were cans and there were there was equipment and tools everywhere and they had taken all the drapes and the curtains and laid them on stuff and I mean it was a teetotal mess.

But I didn't complain.

Because I knew that there had to be a mess for a house to be better And God knows sometimes in order for you to be better, you've got to have a mess.

But that mess is part of the reconstruction of you.

So you choose hope.

Let's go to a second crossroads in the the broken area.

And I call it a broken love.

A broken love.

I was thinking back to our wedding, and uh Jay Kessler was the president of Youth for Christ at the time, and he performed our wedding.

And uh Karen and I were pretty young when we got married and and well obviously to be married as many years as we were we had to be six years old.

And so Jay said that he told me later, he said, you know that Janie and I laughed half the way home from your wedding.

I said, what'd you laugh at?

He said, you guys.

Well that's nice.

Was my comebund upside down?

Or I mean, what were you laughing at?

He said, we just got to laughing about, you know, young couple just getting married.

They think they know everything there is to know about love.

So you guys have been married for a while.

You know.

Apparently we were good for a laugh.

I didn't know we looked like experts in love, nor do I think we thought we were, but apparently we put off that vibe But you know, marriages break.

And if there is an area where we put a lot of hopes and a lot of expectation It's marriage.

Look at your notes.

A breaking marriage or a broken marriage can crush hope as few other hurts in life.

And there may be some pain and some fracture even in some relationships here.

It will not be the hurt that determines whether you go to a dark place or a hopeful place.

It'll be your choices.

And you know where you gotta start?

The bows.

The bows.

Um this is my wedding ring.

It's put on my uh finger by Karen a long time ago.

Never came off.

Karen had some reaction to the metal and she had to take hers off, but and that ring went on my finger, it was never coming off.

And um after her home going it became all the more important to me that it'd still be there.

And then the dumb shoulder thing.

And the doctor comes in and tells me all the bad things will happen if I have jewelry during the surgery And I put up a fight.

Should have never been off.

Since the love of my life put it there But I didn't like the possibilities he talked about.

And my knuckle has grown considerably since our wedding day.

Four sizes larger apparently.

Wow.

So um they were gonna have to cut it off.

Not the finger, but the the the ring I was pretty broken out.

I was bad enough I was gonna have surgery, but this was as bad as the surgery gonna be, I thought.

Inside that ring, both our rings, it says, until Jesus comes.

I was part of our wedding vows.

Well uh when I came out of the mist, my kids were there, and they said, Dad, this is just amazing.

I said, What They showed me the ring, and it had been cut.

But when you looked inside, the inscription that takes up most of the inside was untouched.

Of course the doctor couldn't see where he was cutting.

But it still said, until Jesus comes.

I've had it resized now.

And it's back on again.

But I thought, God really was listening When we made that promise.

He has reaffirmed that So I remembered Malachi chapter 2, or from my New Jersey buddies Malachi.

Malachi chapter 2.

Another thing you do, you flood the Lord's altar with tears, you weep and wail because he no longer looks with favor on your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands.

Well that's disturbing I mean I'm weeping, I'm wailing, I'm at the altar, I keep going forward every week.

It just seems like God's not I'm not getting through.

What is the problem?

You ask why?

He says, and the answer is very surprising.

It seems to have nothing to do with their relationship with God.

It is because the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth.

Well, anyway, between you and the wife of your youth.

Lisa's our senior editor, she will freak out.

You have been unfaithful.

Amazing.

Nice nice recovery, guys.

Oh, it was my mistake.

I misread it, uh turned my back.

I know whose mistake it was.

It is because the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth.

You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.

You didn't keep your promises, buddy.

Has not the one God made you?

You belong to him in body and spirit.

And what does the one God seek?

Godly offspring.

How do you get those?

Be on your guard.

Do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth.

And that isn't just about adultery.

You're unfaithful if you don't keep your promises.

And it occurred to me, according to Malachi chapter two, now people signed as witnesses on our marriage license.

But the ultimate witness didn't have a signature there.

God was witness.

And God said, Ryan, you thought you were just promising Karen?

Oh no.

No, you were promising me.

That's why this is a problem between you and me.

Because some of what you promised, and this would go for a wife as well, some of what you promised.

Ain't happening.

Listen to what you promised.

Listen to those verbs of protect and cherish and all that stuff.

And is that all happening?

And it really does affect our relationship with God.

So this is serious business if your love is breaking or broken.

Look, we can't do a whole thing about marriage here and doesn't apply to everybody here, but let me just quickly give you what I consider hope choices when a lifetime love is in danger of dying.

And you may need this for somebody you know, if not for you.

Number one, you claim God's promise of a heart transplant.

God invented heart transplants Let me tell you the verse I have prayed on for couples in distress so many times.

Ezekiel 36, 26.

Get this verse down.

You can pray it for any hard heart you know, because as marriage starts to disappoint you, you layers of resentment start to build up and you start to get a hard heart.

I will give you a new heart.

I will put a new spirit in you.

I will remove from you Your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

Pray that for your husband if you need to.

Pray that for your wife.

Pray that for your son or daughter.

Pray that for your grandson, your granddaughter.

If you know someone where hearts might be turning hard.

Claim this promise.

Plant your feet on that promise.

That God does heart transplants.

Don't try to change their behavior.

Their behavior will not change if their heart doesn't change.

And that is what I , that's the essence of my prayer when there is a broken or breaking relationship.

Pray for the heart transplant.

By the way, If you're in a situation where you're finding harder and harder to love somebody, it's just not happening.

You don't feel it anymore.

And that can happen.

Love can die.

Like a fire.

Flame can start to flicker.

You know what you do?

You say, God, I don't have the love for her or for him right now that I ought to, but you do.

You love her a lot, unconditionally, you love him a lot.

Would you send your love for her through me and I will deliver your love to her?

Mine's a little shaky right now, but I am willing to be the channel for your love As his love passes through your heart to that one you're having a hard time loving, or maybe you don't even necessarily want to pray that prayer, some healing will start to take place.

Here's another thing.

Forget winning.

Ha ha!

Guys, no, that's just not for guys.

Forget winning.

There is amazing healing power in three of the hardest words in the English language to say.

Just ask Fonzi.

I was Wrong!

I was wrong.

When when you're when your relationship becomes about winning You're losing that relationship.

You will lose his heart.

You will lose her heart in the process of trying to win James 5. 16 says, confess your faults to one another or your sins to each other and pray for each other so you may be healed.

There is healing in saying I was wrong.

Confessing, I was wrong.

You see, a healthy person is not concerned about who is right, they're concerned about what is right.

I've had to apologize to a five-year-old child of mine.

And say, listen, some of the things you heard me say, I'm sorry for that.

I've apologized to mom.

I'm sorry you heard that.

Would you forgive me too?

I was wrong.

There's healing power in those words.

Forget being right.

Forget winning.

And then repair what you may one day regret.

Repair what you may one day regret.

Matthew 5. 9 says Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Can I ask, just now move past marriage shortly here?

Some of your single and go, well, I'd love to be having to deal with this.

But let me let me just say this Um if I want you to uh I'll just put in the form of a question.

If this were your husband or wife's last day on earth , I even hate to say that, but I know how suddenly that can happen.

If this were your husband or wife's last day on earth, what would your greatest regrets be?

I wish I had.

I wish I did.

I wish I didn't.

I wish I'd done more.

I wish I'd done less.

I have dealt with that when I couldn't do anything about it.

What would you regret?

Guess what?

You got time to fix it now.

Thank God you still got time.

Make the hope choices.

And by the way, one thing if you have any kind of a broken relationship, it might be another love relationship.

Could be parent, child, whatever Can I suggest the writing of a letter?

I've suggested this to so many people.

You know why I believe in writing letters?

Because when you're talking to somebody, you're always, they're thinking about what they're going to say back.

Right?

You do that, you're like, well, what am I gonna say here?

And they don't really get everything you're saying.

Number two, you end up getting diverted by what they say.

So you want to say you want to go from here to here and say this, and you start going here and they say something, you go whamp.

You're offering a detroit, you never get it all said.

So you don't really understand how they're feeling.

The letter doesn't talk back.

The letter allows you to think through how you want to say it, and I'm going to give you the outline of the letter.

You ready?

Here you go.

I'm going to give you the headings It's gonna go fast.

Number first part, part one, I love you.

Explain why you do.

Go all the way back to the beginning of that love.

I love you.

Number two Thank you for.

Now the the more fractured things are, the harder it is going to be for you to think about the things you love you like about them.

But what did you do?

Marry somebody you didn't like?

There were some things about that person.

They have some strong points.

One of the questions I've been evaluating since Karen's homegoing is how, what are the things in my life that I am because of her influence in my life?

It's unbelievable the list of things that I am and wasn't because of the woman who loved me Make sure you you write that in the letter.

Thank you for.

They've got strong points.

Affirm those.

Thirdly, I'm sorry for.

And don't, you know, don't you know what's uh ver really doesn't work?

I'm sorry if I hurt you.

No, don't say I'm sorry if, but you just took the I'm sorry away.

Well I'm sorry if there was that's your it makes like it's your problem real that's what you're saying that's your problem honey because you were so sensitive.

Now I'm sorry for last part.

I wish we could.

I wish we could.

How would you like it to be different from this thing on?

I wish we could.

I love you.

Thank you for.

I'm sorry for.

I wish we could.

You might not be able to get it all said face to face.

Put it in the letter.

And then maybe you can talk about the letter.

I have a great source of hope for any marriage in the room.

Jesus' first miracle was at a wedding.

And Jesus still does marriage miracles.

So I don't think there's any such thing as hopeless.

I don't think it's in God's dictionary.

Last broken that we need to deal with that is a hope robber is a broken trust.

A broken trust.

I'm guessing there are, oh I know, there's got to be people in this room who carry the wounds of being betrayed sometime in your life.

Of injustice.

Of abuse.

Neglect.

Might have been you got burned by the church.

You got burned by Christians.

No doubt there are people in this room who experience verbal abuse, sexual abuse.

Physical abuse, trust betrayed.

Um How do you make a hope choice?

Because I'll tell you this.

You know, you know how you you um you see um On the uh when you when you go to the baggage carousel at the airport, there's always this one mystery suitcase.

Have you ever noticed that?

There's always one that's nobody's luggage.

It's like there's a bomb in there.

I mean what is this?

It's always there.

It just there's they're never all picked up.

There's never a clean carousel And it just goes around and around, and you keep, and you're standing and just keep watching the same baggage go around and around.

Some of us have lived our life like that.

And we have watched the same baggage go around and around, and we have replayed some of the darkest moments of our life.

We're never free from it.

And it is a cloud of despair that always haunts us and is a great joy robber and hope robber.

You've got to get rid of this somehow.

You can't keep having the baggage go around again for another round.

You know, it's a very exciting thing when a baby uh gets to be twenty pounds, an infant gets to pattern or whatever they are at that point, because you know why what's twenty pounds exciting?

What milestone is there at twenty pounds?

Your car seat.

You get to turn the car seat around.

For all the first days of your life, all you can look at is where you've already been But finally I'm 20 pounds and I can look where I'm going now.

You're no longer an infant, but some of us need to turn our seat around.

Because we spend a lot of time looking at where we've been.

Especially the darkest parts of where we've been.

And it robs us of the ability to look where we're going.

In fact, I don't know if this is even in the notes here, but Isaiah 43, 18 and 19 addresses that.

I'm probably running ahead of myself or it's not even here.

No, I don't think it is.

Isaiah 43, 18 to 19 says this.

Forget the former things.

Well, what?

Do not dwell on the past.

You're living in the past.

Do not dwell on the past.

See, I am doing a new thing.

Look, did you look down the highway here?

I am trying to do something new.

Do you not perceive it?

It is springing up in front of you, but you can't see it because you're looking back.

And we are what a horrible thing to have this bondage to the worst things that ever happened to us.

What's the hope choice?

You know and you're going to hate the answer through forgiveness.

It can only be released through forgiving.

You ever done the three-legged race?

Dumb thing they do at Sunday school picnics?

That's where I saw it.

Where they tie your leg to somebody else's leg, you're supposed to run.

I mean, an Olympic runner looks like a klutz I actually have an equal advantage.

It's an equal handing.

You just can't get up to speed when you are tied to somebody else.

Well look at what your notes say.

Until you forgive, you are tied to the person who hurt you.

Until you forgive, they live in your memories.

The person you don't want to be thinking about, you think about all the time.

And unless you forgive, you will get cancer in your soul.

It's called bitterness, and here's the warning from God's word.

God knows what happens with bitterness.

It doesn't stay.

If you don't let it go, it's going to grow.

Hebrews chapter 12.

See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God.

That terrifies me.

That I would be minus God's grace, that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

Your bitterness and God's grace cannot coexist in the same heart Either bitterness pushes out grace or grace pushes out bitterness.

They don't exist well together.

And that bitter root, some of us.

The people around us wonder, why is this dark cloud over you so often?

Why are you negative?

Why are you depressed so much?

Why are you down so much?

And one of the reasons is that the bitter root has become a full-grown plant.

And it causes trouble.

And it hurts other people.

They're like, why did you dump on me?

You're not dumping on them.

You're dumping on that person, but they're not there.

But you're still unloading, which you haven't fixed.

As we come down in the home stretch here, I want Rachel to come up.

Because Rachel. has had something horrendous to forgive.

And her story is a hope story, truly.

For someone who has a broken trust in their past that needs to be healed.

Rage, come on up here and I think we've got a, is this working, guys?

We good?

Oh, she's already got one.

Hello?

Overachieving.

Giving you a mic.

Go ahead.

Um I grew up my name's Rachel.

I'm Navajo.

I grew up on the Navajo Reservation.

Um I grew up uh as a young girl just rememb just remembering my own mother um Grabbing a full fist of my hair and uh dragging me across the room and telling me you'll never be nothing, you're a mistake.

And I wish you were you were dead.

And so I live with that.

I live with that um growing up.

And um I experienced a lot of uh physical abuse from my mo my own mother.

And um I uh got into drugs and alcohol and it increased into a lot of gang violence and um Ultimately, you know, there was a huge hole in my heart where I needed something or someone to protect me.

And I didn't have that in my in my life at all.

And um I grew up just not knowing who I was, what I'm here for.

And by the age of twelve I wanted to commit suicide.

And um by the time I reached high school, I was a freshman and um My mom met her boyfriend and you know for the first time I felt like maybe I I had a father in my life.

Maybe I could trust him, maybe he could protect me and keep me safe But one day I was betrayed by him and um I was sexually abused at the age of sixteen And um , And at the age of sixteen, I remember always hearing about Jesus.

And I didn't wanted nothing to do with him because that was what I was told for my people to never believe in Jesus and do nothing with him.

And so by the age of 16, I went into the, you know, I went into my room and I held a loaded gun to my head.

And by this time, you know, I had mentioned a little bit about um the abuse that I was going through and And just everything just built up in my life.

And so I held a loaded gun to my head and I said, this is it.

And um I've tried everything and nothing worked for me.

At that moment I had a loaded gun to my head and I said, Jesus, I don't know who you are, but I know I need something.

And at that moment, for the first time in my life, I felt peace And I felt safe.

And later on, you know, God was really dealing with with my heart and um I didn't know w which direction I was gonna go.

And um I had actually told my mom about what happened.

And um my mom came up to me and um just told me it's your fault.

You're the one who you're the one who um you know basically deserved it.

And so I uh so you know from then on I was like I need I need something I need you more Jesus and so you know I was And I met Ron and Karen and, you know, God was really speaking to me about forgiveness.

And this is by this time I wanted nothing, you know, I wanted to be angry and I wanted to be You know, I wanted to live in bitterness and it was easy.

And until I remember God was just just dealing with me at this moment.

For the first time I remember feeling the power of God.

I remember everything that was happening, you know, my mom left and she said, I don't want anything to do with you And I haven't seen her for over a year.

And so I remember we were at a gas station and A youth pastor um that was there with me.

Um, you know, I wanted to go into the gas station, but he was in there.

And my mom was outside uh pumping the gas.

And I remember thinking, you know, I was so afraid and I was so scared and I was so hurt.

And I didn't want to go into that gas station, but God was like Can you trust me?

I was like, No, I can't trust you.

And so then, you know, I I went back and forth just really like, God, you know, why do you want me to go into the gas station?

And so Eventually I was like, okay, I'm gonna do this.

So when I went into the gas station and he came out of the restroom and I looked right at him.

And he turned around and went back into the restroom and stayed in there as long as I was there.

That was when I knew the first step.

To trusting God was the most powerful thing that I've ever chosen in my life.

And so from then on You know, my my mom, you know, we were always arguing, we're always fighting, and there is just violence in our home and um um God had you know sent me to IBC and God was doing some healing, some deep healing in my life.

And I had to make this choice where I had to forgive.

And even though it was so hard But I knew God was calling me into obedience.

And so I remember because um Actually he just recently passed away and my mom you know, my mom was devastated And God was like, I dealt with this thing and God was, you know, so confused.

I didn't know if I should, if I should be angry, if I should be mad, if I I should be sad.

And God was dealing with my heart, and that's what I called her on and Karen, and they were, you know, just really telling me, you know, it's it's one of those things where you have to be obedient to God.

And I knew that.

And you know, there were other people that were telling me, you're crazy.

Why were you crazy?

What are you thinking?

Because actually God put it on my heart And my mom, to my mom, it it was her friend, it was somebody who to her was different.

But my mom was hopeless, and that broke my heart.

And God just gave me this image where it was like, you know, Jesus was at you know, Jesus died on the cross and I was his abuser.

So God gave me this image and you know I just couldn't let it go.

I just couldn't be like, it's easier to just stay away.

But when I made that choice and my siblings were like, why are you going to his funeral?

Don't go to his funeral.

Why are you going to talk to mom?

Why are you going to do all these things?

And I said because of God, God wants me to do that, and I don't know what he's doing.

And so I went to the funeral and um my mom was crying.

And nobody was there because the man was so abusive that nobody liked him.

And so my mom was crying and she had her head down and I just put my arm around her.

And she screamed and she was yelling and she was crying.

And she looked up and she said , I knew that it was Jesus that sent you, and I felt his presence And you know, when I made that choice to forgive him, it was like almost that simple choice unlocked a lot of victories in my life.

And if I didn't do that, it it it's hard.

It's I don't understand it.

I didn't understand it at the time, but when I made that choice, every one of my siblings actually showed up after.

And we just all hugged our mom and and embraced her.

And from that day, God is continually to be working, is continually working in my siblings' life, in my mom's life.

And things have been way so much, you know, way better than it was before.

And that's the power of forgiveness.

I will remember, Rachel, what you said.

Did you get this?

This is for s for somebody in this room, this is the most important thing you'll hear all weekend.

Forgiving unlocks so many victories.

Did you hear that?

Forgiving unlocks so many victories.

Just look with me at Colossians 3.

13.

This is the basis on which you forgive someone who doesn't deserve it Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone.

And here is this has no exit in it.

Forgive.

As the Lord forgave you.

I think that would be undeserving.

So you make a choice, and it is the hope choice, because it'll set you free.

And the hope choice is that I'm going to treat this person not as they treated me.

But as Jesus treated me, I will forgive as the Lord has forgiven me.

And the beautiful result of forgiving is freedom.

Let me just say, with all the broken things we've talked about tonight , Just in the last three days, I won I read something that is just a couple sentences and I thought it was so profound.

Listen to this.

This is why it's worth dealing with what's broken inside of us By embracing our brokenness.

Have you embraced your brokenness?

I've been trying to do that with mine.

By embracing our brokenness, we don't come to Christ's feet occasionally, but we stay at his feet continuously.

When you face your brokenness, you don't just check in with Jesus every once in a while.

You never check out.

You're there always I'll close and tell you about this fishing village on the Scottish Seaside.

Um There were some fishermen who were bragging about the fish they caught.

It's a true story, I'm told.

And one of them was showing how big the fish was he caught.

And in the process, he he s he swept this whole teapot , was airborne, and it crashed against this whitewashed wall, which left a pretty ugly stain.

And the innkeeper comes over and he looks at this ugly brown splotch, you know, and he says, well, that's nice.

I mean this stain's never coming out.

The whole wall's gonna have to be repaired or replaced now.

And this stranger got up from a corner table and said, uh maybe not, sir.

He said, um , would you let me work on it?

And and if my work meets your approval, I'm pretty sure you won't have to repaint the wall or replace it.

Well, all right.

So he went over and he began to pull out artist supplies.

And um he started to sketch some lines around the stain, filled it in here with a dab of color, and did some shading and so on.

And these look like random splashes of tea on there, but for him it was a medium of artistic expression.

And it became slowly the image of a deer with a massive rack of antlers It turns out this guy was a well-known wildlife painter named E.

H.

Lanseer.

That is who happened to be there that day And the artist that day demonstrated that an ugly stain doesn't have to simply be erased or covered over.

But by the right artist, it can be transformed into something beautiful.

Jesus said, I will turn your ashes to beauty.

But you have to choose that.

An ugly stain in your past, failure Broken love, maybe in your present, broken trust.

It's time you traded the dark cloud that goes with that for hope.

And he'll make that dark stain into something beautiful.

Let's pray together.

You know where the broken pieces are inside of you.

Maybe you'd like to take a minute and talk to Jesus about some of those.

You'll just start a conversation here.

You won't finish it.

And face what you may not have wanted to face before.

But you've it's it's it's cost you too much not to Not to recover from it.

So why don't you let Jesus take you into his recovery room beginning right now?

Lord, you know that uh all of us are Humpty Dumpty people.

All the king's horses and all the king's men can't put us together again.

But the king can.

Thank you, Jesus, for being Dr.

Jesus. who heals broken marriages, broken parent-child relationships, broken dreams, broken trust, broken pasts, broken future.

For when you came here, you became a broken savior.

So we could be whole.

You told us when we remember what you did that this was your body broken for us.

So a broken savior. who makes us whole.

I pray we would allow you into the most intimate, darkest, deepest, most wounded corners of our heart before we leave this ground.

And I pray where there has been hurt and pain and unforgiveness and discouragement and beating yourself up, it would be replaced with With hope, defiant hope from the heart of God.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.