How To Live As A Scratch And Dent
11-18-12 Sermon
“The enemy comes to kill, to steal, and to destroy. But I have come to give life to the fullest.”
John 10:10.
A_____________________
it.
“For all have sinned; all fall short of God's glorious
standard.” Romans 3:23 (NLT)
“There is no one righteous, not even one.” Romans
3:10 (NIV)
“We are all infected and impure with sin. When we proudly display our righteous deeds,
we find they are but filthy rags. Like
autumn leaves, we wither and fall. And our
sins, like the wind, sweep us away.” Isaiah 64:6 (NLT)
L___________ G__________
H_____________________ it.
“Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about
what happens to you.”
1 Peter 5:7 (NLT)
D W
it.
“But this precious treasure – this light and power that now
shine within us – is held in perishable containers, that is, in our weak
bodies. So everyone can see that our
glorious power is from God and is not our own.”
2 Corinthians 4:7 (MSG)
“He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort
others. When others are troubled, we
will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.”
2 Corinthians 1:4 (NLT)
“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for
us.” Romans 5:8 (NIV)
C
it.
“Therefore I will
boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest
on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I
delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in
difficulties. For when I am weak then I
am strong.”
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (NIV)
C it in others.
“Hatred stirs up
dissension, but love covers over all wrongs.” Proverbs 10:12 (NIV)
How To Live As A
Scratch And Dent
11-18-12 Sermon
You all know what a scratch and dent appliance
is. Somewhere between the warehouse and
the store or maybe one that’s been on the shelf for a little while, something
happens to these appliances. Somebody
knocks up against them, they fall over, they get scratched, they get
dented. They get marred, they get
scarred. And suddenly it becomes very
obvious to everybody even if they work perfectly fine they’re just perceived as
less valuable. The store owner can’t get
as much for them. They mark them
down. They reduce them.
I think that you and I are not a lot different than
appliances. We get scratched and dented
in our journey. Life is a crazy journey
and along the way things happen to us.
Hurts, habits, hang-ups. Stuff we
bring on ourselves, other things that people put on us that we never saw
coming. Some of it is sinful stuff that
we knowingly do that we shouldn’t. But
as we journey through life, you and I – every single one of us – we get marred
and scarred, scratched and dented until we begin to feel and perceive ourselves
as marked down, less valuable – maybe we should be banished and pushed off in
the corner. At least the appliances have
a fighting chance. They’ve got somebody
who’s paid in the warehouse to wrap it up nice put the bubble wrap around it,
put the cardboard box around it, make sure it says “Fragile”, to handle it
carefully. But still it manages to get
scratched and dented. You and I go
through life totally vulnerable and exposed.
As a result we get scratched and dented.
Yet when you look at scripture there’s a great verse
in the Bible – John 10:10. Jesus says
this, “The enemy comes to kill, to steal,
and to destroy. But I have come to give
life to the fullest.” Jesus promises this full life, this abundant
life. I hear that and I believe it. But as I look at my own life I think, Jesus
promises fullness and abundance. I’m
scratched and dented. And I feel marked
down. How do those two go hand in
hand? How do I live and experience this
full life that Christ offers in spite of all my scratches and my dents, my
mistakes, my mars, my scars? How do I
reconcile that?
Today we’re going to spend time just talking about how we live and experience
the fullness of what Christ promises in spite of the fact that every single one
of us is scratched and dented.
The first
thing we do is we just need to admit it. We just need to admit that we’re scratched
and dented.
Romans 3:23 “For
all have sinned. All fall short of God’s
glorious standard.” Romans 3:10
says, “There is no one righteous, not
even one.” Isaiah 64:6 “We are all
infected and impure with sin. When we
proudly display our righteous deeds, we find they are but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall. And our sins, like the wind, sweep us away.”
When you read those verses they paint a
pretty bleak picture of our human condition.
But I’m not so sure that that’s telling us anything we don’t already know. Most of us if we’re honest we can pretty much
admit, yeah, I’ve got my scratches, I’ve
got my dents. We admit it. But what happens is we don’t want other
people to know about it. I admit I’m
scratched and dented but I’m going to do what I can to keep you from knowing
what those scratches and dents are. It’s
our human nature to begin to look for ways to cover up our scratches and our
dents and hold them down and protect the real us from being seen. Our scratches and dents reveal who we really
are. My true-life story is in the
scratches and the dents I’ve experienced as I’ve walked through life.
Your true-life story is the same way. But because we feel less valued and marked
down, as a result we often begin to do whatever we can to keep everybody else
from seeing the scratches and the dents.
We often do things to protect ourselves and create this different
perception of what the true us really is.
We gossip to keep attention on other people. We avoid deep conversation in order to keep
people from getting to know the real us.
We live vicariously through the achievements of our children. We hide ourselves in busyness. We only talk about our successes and our
promotions. We may become more image
driven to try to create a more desirable version of ourselves.
We know that we’re scratched and
dented. These Bible verses probably
didn’t point something out to you today that you weren’t aware of. Let’s be willing to admit that we’re scratched
and dented. Let’s choose not to bury it
and hide it. Let’s just admit it. We’re all in this thing together.
I think lots of people may have a misunderstanding of
what the journey of the Christian life is really supposed to look like. I think many people feel like if I can avoid
doing the wrong things and do enough of the right things and get to know the
right people and get the right education – if I can just do it right, then life
will look like a straight line going up and up.
If I just do it right life will be this perfect, straight line.
Others of us say, That’s
not very realistic. I have a more
realistic picture of life. I think life
really looks a little more like a line that goes up and down – peaks and
valleys, highs and lows. Over the course
of twenty years, kind of like the stock market despite the good days and the
bad days, over twenty years I’ll be a little bit better off than when I
started.
I’m not sure that life is a straight line. I don’t even think life is an up and down
line. I think this may be a more honest
picture of what life really looks like…
Life is this crazy, twisting, turning, forwards, backwards, two steps
forward, one step back, wonderful, broken, tough, confusing journey that God’s
allowed us to travel on. Let’s admit
it. Let’s just admit that’s the journey
that we’re on.
What’s interesting to me is we have all these hurts
and habits and hang ups, our scratches and our dents, and yet in scripture, in
John 10:10 Jesus says, “I came to give
life to the fullest. The thief comes
only to steal and kill and destroy. I have
come that they may have life and have it to the full.” In Jesus’ way of thinking a full life and a
scratch and dent life can still go hand in hand. One of the ways we experience the fullness of
life that Jesus’ promises is to be willing to admit our scratches and our
dents. We’ve just got to admit it.
What’s funny to me about our admission stage is
this. It’s not news to God. God already knows all our junk. It’s usually not news to the people around
us. But usually this admitting it stage
is for us. It’s for us to recognize and
say, People already know most of
this. God knows it. I just need to be willing to admit and
recognize and maybe even embrace the fact that my journey is a crazy, wiggly
line. That’s the first thing you do
in order to live life effectively as a scratch and dent.
The next
thing we can do is to let God have it. Let God have our scratches and our dents.
There’s a difference between God knowing about it and
us letting Him have it. This is a step that we have to take. He knows about it. We need to give it to Him. 1 Peter 5:7 “Give all your worries and cares to God for He cares about what happens
to you.” What we’re talking bout
this morning is pretty simple stuff.
Pretty simple to understand. It’s
simple, but it’s not easy. It’s not easy
to say, God I’m going to give this to
You.
What I mean by giving something to God is really this
– surrender. It’s surrendering to
God. It’s saying God I’m saying no to my way of thinking and my
way of feeling and my way of handling situations and I’m going to say yes to
Your way. It’s a picture of getting
away from driving the car and moving over and riding shotgun and letting God
take control of the wheel.
Whatever image works for you, I say give it to God. It’s really this act of surrender and saying,
God I’m not strong enough or smart enough
to carry this and figure this stuff our all on my own. I need Your help.
If you’re like me, it’s the little stuff that’s pretty
easy. I have no problems giving God my
little stuff. I’ve got a lot of little
stuff. I have no problems giving the
little stuff to God.
The deeper wounds, the deeper dents, the nastier
scrapes and scratches, the stuff that I’ve been holding on to. The longer I’ve held on to it the tougher it
is. Isn’t that true? The tougher it is to say, “Ok God, I’m trusting You with this.” You might be saying today, “Pastor
Frank, you don’t know me. You
don’t know the life I’ve lived. You
don’t know the choices I’ve made. You
don’t know what’s happened to me. I
don’t feel like just a scratch and dent and marked down. I feel like I’ve been completely
totaled. I’m not a mark down. I’m on my way to the dump. I’m on my way to the land fill.”
You’re right. I
don’t know. But I do know that this
verse says that God cares about you. And
God’s asking us to give it to Him. He
says Give this to Me. He’s in the business of carrying our burdens
and our loads for us. He knows we can’t
do it alone.
You need to know this.
A big part of giving it to God involves other people. Most of the time it’s not just you and God
but a big part of the process when we give stuff to God is allowing other
people who’ve journeyed through some of the same stuff to come alongside and
help us as we continually give this stuff over to God. It’s not a one-time process. It’s something you’re going to do over and
over again. It’s like a lifestyle of
giving this to God and allowing other people to journey through this with us.
We just received some new members this morning, and I
know they will fit right in with us. Do
you know how I know that? They are all
scratch and dents like every one of us!
The truth is Forest Grove church is a whole lot more
like an auto body repair shop than we are like a Mercedes-Benz show room. That’s the way it’s supposed to work. Church isn’t for people who have their stuff
together. If it was I couldn’t be here
and you probably couldn’t either. Church
is for the scratch and dents. That’s
what church is for. If that has ever
described you, you’re in good company.
But you’ve got to be willing to give it to God. Not just the little stuff. Not just the easy stuff. But give Him the heavier burdens.
I’d encourage you in the next couple days to write
down one or two things that are the heavier scratches and dents in your life. What’s one of the deeper wounds that you just
have never really given over to God. Jot
it down. In a moment of prayer, a moment
of silence say “God, I want You to have
this. ”
So once we admit it and once we let God have it what
do we do? I think the third thing to
think about is actually the most exciting.
The first two are super important but kind of preparation for the last
step of living this full life that’s God’s promised in spite of the fact that
we’re scratched and dented.
And then, Don’t
waste it. Don’t waste your scratch and your dent.
1 Corinthians 4:7 says, “This precious treasure, this light and power that now shines in us is
held in perishable containers. That is
our weak bodies [Other translations say it’s held in jars of clay. Our weak bodies – jars of clay] so that everyone can see that our glorious
power is from God and is not our own.”
God never wastes a hurt. I believe that to be true. God is in the business of using frail, weak,
cracked containers – cracked pots – He’s in the business of using us to shine
His light, His power.
Let’s look back at that verse in 1 Corinthians. There’s some bad news, and good news in this
verse. The bad news is this “We are weak, perishable containers.” We’re weak and perishable. We’re fragile. We chip easily. That’s kind of bad news. I don’t like to hear that about myself. I’m not the world’s strongest guy but I like
to think I’m not totally weak and fragile.
But I am. The good news is this:
that God has put in us His incredible treasure.
In us He’s put His light, His power.
He does that so that others can see who He is through us. Think about this. In your weak, fragile, twisty, turny,
forward, backward life-- it’s in that that God has entrusted His truth, His
power. You’re His vessel as weak and
fragile as you are.
You might be thinking, “No way. It just doesn’t make
sense.” Right. It doesn’t make sense. But if you look historically at who God uses
it seems like when you read the Bible the bigger looser you are, the more
messed up you are, the more mistakes you’ve made, the more likely it is that
God’s going to step in and say, “You’re
My man! You’re My woman!” In fact I want to take you through a little
history, a reminder of some of the people that God used in the Bible to do some
awesome things.
Moses
stuttered. David’s armor didn’t
fit. John Mark was rejected by
Paul. Timothy had ulcers. Hosea’s wife was a prostitute. Jacob was a liar. David had an affair and set someone up to be
killed. Abraham was too old. Ehud was left-handed. Peter was afraid of death. Lazarus was
dead. Paul was a murderer. Moses was too. Jonah ran from God. Thomas doubted. Jeremiah was depressed and suicidal. Elijah was burned out. Martha was a worrywart. Noah got drunk. And Samson had long hair!
When God looks at us He sees the scratches and the
dents, He sees our shortcomings. He sees
the windy, twisty, crazy journey that we’ve been on He doesn’t look away in
disgust. He says you’re in good
company. Welcome to the club. Let’s do something special together. He wants to use you. Don’t waste the experience that God allows
you to have in life.
2 Corinthians 1:4 says this “He comforts us in all our trouble so that we can comfort others. When others are troubled we will be able to
give them the same comfort God has given us.”
God wants to use the hurts, the scratches, the dents
that you have experienced to develop compassion in you toward other
people. He wants you to remember when
you hurt so you can more effectively care for others who are hurting.
I’ve never really been a big collector. The idea of buying something new and keeping
it in the box for the future doesn’t make sense to me. In my way of thinking, when you get
something, the first thing you do is tear that box open and play with whatever
it is. In my way of thinking you don’t
hold on to something that’s supposed to be out of the box and played with.
I think sometimes we feel like we’re more valuable when
we stay in our vacuum-sealed protective box.
If we can just avoid being exposed to the hurts of life. Because when we get out there we get handled,
we get dropped, we get abused. We get a
little bit messed up. You and I were
never intended to live life vacuum-sealed in a protective box as a display
item. God promises a full life through
His Son Jesus Christ. But to experience
it we’ve got to live it. When we live
it, it takes risks. It involves
chance. It involves trial. It involves error. It involves us sinning and doing stuff we
know we shouldn’t do. It involves people
sinning against us. It’s part of the
crazy, twisty, turny life and journey that we’re on.
A perfect God loves a scratched and dent little
fragile weak vessel. It seems to me that
He and I instead of being friends, he and I should be on some type of crazy
collision course. The truth is that’s
exactly the case. Let’s make no mistake
about this. When God looks at us He sees
our scratches and our dents. He sees
that. But when He sees our scratches and
our dents He doesn’t view us marked down or worthy of being pushed aside. In fact He sees our scratches and our dents
and in spite of that He paid full price for every single one of us through His
Son Jesus Christ. I can’t understand
it. I don’t get it. But I’m so glad He did.
“God demonstrates his own love for us in
this: While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:8 (NIV) Even though we were
scratched and dented, Christ died for us.
Scratch and dents are the only kind of people he died for. God recognized that even though we were
scratched and dented we were still of great value, we were still of infinite
worth, so he sent Jesus to die for us, scratches and dents and all. Jesus didn’t die for junk!
My value isn’t in the good life I’ve lived. And I’m not less valuable because of the
crazy twists and turns I’ve taken. I’m
completely, one hundred percent valuable because God sees me as that. And He gave the gift of His Son so that I can
have this full, abundant filled life that He promises every single one of
us.
Next we need to CELEBRATE it.
“Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my
weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in
weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak then I am strong.” 2
Corinthians 12:9-10 (NIV)
Paul said he would boast in
his scratches and dents. He celebrated
them. Why? Because the more he recognized how scratched
and dented he was, the more he knew he needed to depend on the power of God in
his life, and the more the power of God showed through his life. The more he recognized his weaknesses, the
stronger he was in the power of God. He
celebrated the fact that the more he weathered all the scratches and dents of
life by the power of God, the more that could provide hope and encouragement
for others going through hard times.
The book of Acts tells us
that part of Paul’s past was that he held the coats of those who stoned Stephen
to death, and he was a persecutor of Christians, hunting them down and putting
them in prison. If God could take a
scratched and dented guy like that and through his power turn him into an apostle
of the faith he formerly persecuted, what can he do with your life, scratches
and dents and all?
And finally, COVER it in others.
Several years ago the
refrigerator at the parsonage died and we needed to get a new one. The new one was ordered and it arrived in
perfect condition. The delivery guys
took it out of the box and began bringing it through the front door and
scratched the front on the bracket to the storm door closer.
They immediately called the
store and told them what happened and I think they took $100 off the price of
the refrigerator. We bought some
appliance touch up paint, put it on the scratch and you wouldn’t be able to
tell where that scratch was today unless I showed you.
Proverbs 28:13 says He who conceals his sins does not
prosper. So if you try to cover up
your own scratches and dents you are going to have a problem, because other
people will recognize that they are there and certainly God knows they are
there.
But what are you supposed to
do when you see scratches and dents in other people? You should apply touch up paint to them!
“Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all
wrongs.” Proverbs 10:12 (NIV)
You don’t draw attention to it. You don’t get a bunch of other people to
recognize it. Love covers over all wrongs. You
cover it in others.
We are a body here at Forest Grove church. There are different parts of the body. Some parts of the body are good at some
things and not at others. Some are
strong in some things and definitely weak in others. That’s true of everyone in here, including the
pastor. God made the body that way. He wants the body to be that way. Pointing out where the weaknesses are helps
no one. The body is not strengthened by
that.
If you see weaknesses in the church, scratches and
dents, in the people of the church, or in the pastor of the church what should
you do? You should recognize that God
may have made you aware of that weakness so YOU could do something about
it! If you see a weakness in the church
that you could help with, consider the fact that this may be God’s new calling
on your life.
We’re scratched and dented. Let’s admit it. Let’s let God have it. Let’s determine not to waste it. Let’s celebrate God’s power working in
us. Let’s cover it in others. Let’s start living the full life that Jesus Christ
promises us in spite of our scratches and dents.
Prayer:
Father, I thank You for the journey of
life. I thank You that we don’t have to
travel it alone. And God I thank You
that when we allow You to walk through it with us that life really is the
fullest life possible. Thank You that
You love us not because, but just
because. Not because of what we’ve done or
because of what we haven’t done but just
because. Father, would You remind us of that simple
truth over and over and over again. In Your
name we pray. Amen.
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