The Battle for Brokenness
October 7, 2004
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Best of Cerulean Sanctum, Dying to Self, Humility, Maturity Feedback : 7 comments
A few years ago, we were confronted with the twisting of our language by forces seeking to redefine everything we believe when the most powerful politician in the world said, "It depends on what your definition of 'is' is."
We continue to fight for the vitality of our language because, for Christians at least, words have real meaning. Co-opting words and finagling definitions have brought us to the "Newspeak" days of George Orwell's 1984. How else can quoting from the Bible be branded "hate speech" except that we have altered the very definition of love itself?
The Church is not immune to this. One of the current trends in many Christian circles is to confuse brokenness with, well…brokenness. The rise of inner healing ministries in the 1970s resulted in a modification of the definition of "brokenness." What has occurred is that we now consider brokenness to be a reflection of all the painful events we've incurred in life rather than the traditional, Biblical meaning of brokenness.
The Lord speaks through the prophet Isaiah:
For thus says the
One who is high and lifted up,
who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:
"I dwell in the high and holy place,
and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly,
and to revive the heart of the contrite.
For I will not contend forever,
nor will I always be angry;
for the spirit would grow faint before me,
and the breath of life that I made.
Because of the iniquity of his unjust gain I was angry,
I struck him; I hid my face and was angry,
but he went on backsliding in the way of his own heart.
I have seen his ways, but I will heal him;
I will lead him and restore comfort to him and his mourners,
creating the fruit of the lips.
Peace, peace, to the far and to the near," says the LORD,
"and I will heal him.
But the wicked are like the tossing sea;
for it cannot be quiet,
and its waters toss up mire and dirt.
There is no peace," says my God, "for the wicked."
—Isaiah 57:15-21
True spiritual brokenness is a reflection of a life given to humility, a contrite spirit, and an understanding that we are like brute beasts before God unless we allow Him to break us like the horseman breaks a stallion. Real brokenness is the man who acknowledges that he is no longer his own; he has been bought with a price. Such a man yields himself to God to be broken and formed into the image of Christ.
See how this plays out in the life of the prideful man who experiences true brokenness:
All this came upon King Nebuchadnezzar. At the end of twelve months he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, and the king answered and said, "Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?" While the words were still in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, "O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: The kingdom has departed from you, and you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. And you shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and seven periods of time shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will." Immediately the word was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles' feathers, and his nails were like birds' claws.At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever,
for his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;
all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,
and he does according to his will among the host of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth;
and none can stay his hand
or say to him, "What have you done?"
At the same time my reason returned to me, and for the glory of my kingdom, my majesty and splendor returned to me. My counselors and my lords sought me, and I was established in my kingdom, and still more greatness was added to me. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.
—Daniel 4:28-37 ESV
Here is the natural man broken by God. His pride is broken, his position is broken, his self-worship is broken. And in the place of all these comes praise to God for being broken by Him.
Contrast this with the "brokenness" we so often hear spoken of today in Christian circles. We are fragile not because they are being broken by God, but because we dwell in the pain of our circumstances. This is not to say that God does not use circumstance to break prideful people, but too often we who revel in our pain exhibit a pride in displaying just how broken we are! No one has been as hurt as badly as we have been. No one has endured the tragedies we have endured. In short, we become immune to the very brokenness God desires to instill in us so long as we make an idol of our pain.
Acolytes of this "new" brokenness must always talk about it, wear it as a badge of honor, and retreat into it whenever anyone questions the need to dwell in the pain. Worse yet, we can use our pain as a way to assuage our guilt before the Lord. We make ourselves appear downtrodden when we are anything but, refusing true brokenness and holding instead to the mire of our own making.
Such is not God's brokenness, but a counterfeit that leads us away from real healing and growth in Christ. Dying to self means abandoning even our pain, no matter how great, to take on the image of the Savior. Only then can the scales drop from our eyes and we be raised up to stand in true brokenness before God.
“You Can Have Your Way”
October 5, 2004
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Uncategorized Feedback : 1 comment so far
I’m not an enormous fan of much of the contemporary worship music that seems to be overwhelming the hymns of yesteryear in most churches today, but from time to time there are some that I really enjoy.
One of the ones I find enthralling is “Dwell”:
Dwell in the midst of us
Come and dwell in this place
Dwell in the midst of us
Come and have Your wayDwell in the midst of us
Wipe all the tears from our faces
Dwell in the midst of us
You can have Your wayNot our will, but Yours be done
Come and change us
Not our will, but Yours be done
Come sustain us
The words alone don’t do justice to the powerful tune that goes along with them, but even as I was singing this to myself I began to wonder.
“You can have Your way.” Do we really mean that when we sing those words? “Not our will, but Yours be done/Come and change us.” Do we see this played out in our everyday existence? Or do we merely leave those thoughts in the lobby of the church as we exit?
Is God really having His way with us? I have got to believe that our churches and the world around them would be profoundly different if this were truly the case.
I think it is true in most Christians lives, mine included, that a day spent wholly surrendered to Christ would be the exception rather than the rule. Most of us Americans spend our days blissfully—yet blatantly—imposing our will on God and everyone around us. And the last thing we’d ever want done is for someone to step in from outside and change our little world.
I think my thought for the day centers on this: Lord have Your way with me.
Wouldn’t that be wonderful? How different our lives would be if we got up in the morning and let the Spirit guide us in everything, large and small, we do in a day. I’ve got to believe people would see this, be totally astounded, and start banging on the doors of our churches clamoring to get in.
Lord, have Your way with us. We ask nothing more than to be submitted to you, as loyal subjects to the King of Kings. In You, nothing is impossible. Because we see only our will, we miss the greater glory only You can bring to every situation in every day. Yet not our will, but Yours be done. For the King and the Kingdom, Amen.
No tag for this post.
The Frankengospel
October 2, 2004
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Apologetics, Best of Cerulean Sanctum, Bible, Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Evangelism, Jesus Christ, Relevance Feedback : 7 comments
The bag of corn chips on the grocery store shelves trumpeted in bold print, "No GMOs! We use only 100% organic corn."
To many consumers, the rush to add the genetic material of jellyfish, mice, and whatever is the hot DNA of the day to our crops cruised in right under their radar. Here in the United States, most people took for granted that when they reached for a tomato at the grocery store they weren't buying a mutant loaded with the genes of something that had four legs and a complete lack of chlorophyll. But Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are now the talk the world over as scientists play God with the very seeds that sprout into what we eat. Those who claim we are going down a slippery path with our tinkerings have labeled foods that no longer contain the DNA the Creator intended "Frankenfood" in honor of Mary Shelley's manmade monstrosity. But those folks in the white lab coats do not like having their ox gored. They will just as quickly note the innocent truth that they are merely striving for better disease resistance, hardiness, and yields.
There is another kind of food that we are turning into a similar crime against the Creator. We in the Church are taking the seed of the Lord's Good News and transmogrifying it into something utterly devoid of life.
Jesus told a parable:
Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.
—Mark 4:3-8 ESV
We in the American Church need to come to grips with one startling fact: The sower's success rate was only 25%. Three-quarters of all the seed that was sown was ultimately lost or proven unfruitful.
But as Americans, we figure we can always improve a process. As Christians, we like to only think positively, too. So in our effort to do better than Jesus' example in His parable, we've formed a few committees and come up with the perfect solution to that atrocious 75% lack of productivity on the part of the seed; we'll modify the kernel altogether. A little genetic tweaking here or there can only help the cause, right?
The reasoning seems innocent at first. If we can add something to the seed so that it overcomes being eaten by birds, scorched by the sun, and choked by weeds, we will solve the problem of that awful 75% loss. And if that doesn't work, we can always subtract something else if we believe it will accomplish our ultimate purpose.
The problem is that we have tried modifying the truth of Jesus Christ in order to boost its perceived retention rate, succeeding only in creating a "Frankengospel."
We've all seen and heard the Frankengospel. It is characterized by its lack of Jesus, His missing cross, no mention of repentance, and the absence of the Holy Spirit. By these omissions, churches have successfully excised the troublesome parts from the sower's seed. Other churches have tried to overcome the perceived lacks in the seed by adding miraculous marketing techniques, appropriated business seminar know-how, heaps and heaps of weepy-eyed love, and laser lightshows that leave the lost slackjawed at the sheer entertainment value of it all.
If only those slick modifications to the simple seed produced the desired fruit. But it doesn't take a ThD for us to see that the Church in this country has lost its way. The results of our tinkering? Barrenness. Our land is empty, but we refuse to stop sowing our monstrosity.
The simple truth is that we lost faith in the seed itself. We foolishly thought there was something wrong with the whole Gospel. The reality is that Jesus Himself two thousand years ago sowed His seed straight from His own lips and yet it was largely scorned; the birds, sun, and thorns did their evil work. Who are we to think we can improve on our Master? (And let us not forget to give thanks to the Lord for the remaining seed that fell on good soil!)
The only way to counteract the empty, fruitless land that confronts us in America is to sow only the good seed, every part of it, and to sow it with renewed abandon and commitment. We cannot hope to raise the percentage yield beyond what the Lord Himself did, but if each of us shared the whole Gospel of Jesus with enough people, we would each probably need just three of those people coming to salvation in our lifetimes in order to miraculously change the entire world for Christ.
We don't need a Frankengospel. All we need is the true Gospel, the life-giving whole of it, told with joy and enthusiasm, and empowered by the Spirit, to meet the Great Commission.
Posts
Comments
