Nick's message--Broken Houses, Broken Hearts

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From Nick's blog.

This is the message I gave in church on Sunday. I don't have the energy to actually flush out the details. So these are just glorified notes.

• I'm so happy to be here this morning
• My heart is in 2 hands
  • Happy to be worshipping God
  • When I open my eyes I'm reminded why we're on the street
  • And all these questions come back into my mind:
    • Why God?
    • Why now?
    • Why here?
    • Why us?
    • I can't handle this, didn't you promise not to give us more than we can handle?
    • Didn't He?
  • 1 Corinthians 10:13
    • No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
  • This is about temptation. Not suffering
    • Suffering is something outside of you that causes you pain
    • Temptation is something in your heart that, if acted upon, will cause others pain
  • God promises to not give us too much temptation, but he doesn't make the same promise about suffering.
  • In Fact he says this in 1 Peter 4:12-13:
    • Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.
  • God does not promise to not give us too much suffering. He asks us to rejoice in it.
• Now I'm not going to the direction you may be thinking of.
  • I'm not going to give you the "all things work out for good" speech.
  • I'm not going to tell you about all the good things that have come from this earthquake
  • Because, I'll be honest, I don't see it
• What I see, is Jesus… here's what I mean
  • The Passion of the Christ is a movie that depicts the last hours of Jesus and his march toward death.
  • In this movie, they paint a fascinating picture of Satan. Satan is show as an observer of this process. But as he watches, he cheers the process on:
    • Yes! Arrest Him.
    • Yes! Convict Him.
    • Yes! Whip Him.
    • Yes! Mock Him.
    • Yes! March Him up that hill.
    • Yes! Nail Him to the cross.
    • Yes! Stand Him up!
  • But then Jesus breaks
  • And in what should have been his moment of greatest triumph, Satan's face drops because he realizes what has happened:
  • What Satan meant for evil. God had twisted to good.
• Let me tell you what God desires. This is Psalm 51:16-17
  • You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering. The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.
• See, there's no way that we can pretend that the sin humans brought into this world is good thing. But through the brokenness of one man—Jesus Christ—God redeemed our sin.
  • In the same way, no one can pretend that the death and destruction this earthquake caused was good.
  • But, through our brokenness, it can be redeemed
  • Satan meant to break our houses. God wants to break our hearts.
• In the moments and days after the earthquake, I, Pastor Danny, the rest of our organization, and many of you, went in to action.
  • We say a problem, and we wanted to fix it.
  • At first we went to the airport.
  • We saw that people needed supplies and supplies started to come in
  • But let me tell you, after a week, I couldn't talk, I couldn't hear, and I could barely walk.
  • And I left that airport, for the last time, feeling like I had failed my family, my friends, and my community.
  • Why did I feel like a failure? Because that's not brokenness
  • Satan meant to break our houses. God wants to break our hearts.
• Now we can rebuild this city.
  • And that's a good thing
  • We can replace what has been destroyed, but we will never be able to redeem it.
  • We can never "buy back" what has been destroyed.
  • Satan meant to break our houses. God wants to break our hearts.
• After we left the airport, we took on a new task. Supplies had come into the city, but had not yet gotten into the hands of the people who needed it.
  • So we started to distribute.
  • We filled our depot, and people came and took the food away
  • And within a couple of days, the depot was empty
  • And I stood there, in an empty depot, looking at all the people that still needed food, and I felt as if I had failed again.
  • Why? Because that's not brokenness.
  • Satan meant to break our houses. God wants to break our hearts.
• See, we can help a lot of people.
  • We can lessen the death that this earth quake ends up causing
    • With food
    • With medicine
    • With water
  • And that's a good thing
  • But we cannot redeem the deaths it has already caused
  • We cannot restore honor to the people that have died.
  • Satan meant to break our houses. God wants to break our hearts.
• See, I've come full circle on this
  • I want to do good things, yes
  • But five years from now, I don't want to look back and remember the work that I did
  • I want to look back at the moment of the earthquake
    • Standing on the stairs, with my child in my arms
    • As earth rolled beneath me
    • I want to remember that as the moment my heart began to break.
  • Satan meant to break our houses. God wants to break our hearts.
  • If I want to be a part of the redemption that God has planned
    • I can't do it through my work
    • I have to break my heart before God
  • Satan meant to break our houses. God wants to break our hearts.