Steve Woods Blessing in Brokenness 9:2:25 1

thank you good morning

everyone I

um I don't do this very often but I want

to give a trigger warning to a sermon

today um and know I'm not joking I'm

serious that um we're g to we've been

talking this month about um in this

world you'll have trouble and we're

going to talk a bit about Brokenness

today and I know that when we talk about

Brokenness it can actually do some stuff

to us so

I really want you to look after yourself

today okay I don't I'm not going to

intentionally try and say stuff but if I

say stuff that triggers you in a way

feel free to go and sit outside for a

minute or throw something at me or

whatever you want to do but um I said to

my church once years ago I was preaching

through a really difficult theological

concept to understand I gave them Nerf

balls and I said if I say something

today that you don't understand just

ditch Nerf po at me and I'll stop and

we'll explain that a bit more uh I'm

never going to do that again but someone

suggested afterwards I should have given

them eggs and I'm not sure what they

meant by that but I really mean it like

let's um just make sure you have some

space to look after yourself today but

let's

pray Jesus we thank you that you love

us and that your word promises us that

as we gather together you you are in our

midst you walk amongst us you are here

present with us now whether we feel it

or not whether we owledge it or not you

are

here and so Lord this time is yours Holy

Spirit would you speak to us would you

would you minister to us would

you would you get past the surface stuff

and speak deeply to our to our heart and

to our soul today

we ask it in your name Jesus our

King Our Savior our

Lord

amen in this world you will have

trouble has anyone here

anyone to this point in your life never

experience

trouble one yeah well see me afterwards

we can sort that that's

fine pain is unavoidable right this is

this is the life we live it's

unavoidable it's part of our human

experience pain and difficulty and

struggle emotional pain physical pain

spiritual pain struggle and and these

feelings that sometimes we don't know

what to do

with some of you know that I had a

really busy busy year last year um I I

took stock of it at the end of the year

actually I went and saw my counselor

because I really needed to it just to

unpack it all let me give you a brief

rundown of my year last year um uh just

before Christmas

2023 both my boss and my boss's boss

quit which C created some instability at

work early last year um I got a I got a

promotion I got a new role and I um uh

those of you don't know I work for

Baptist World Aid and U my job now is

that I manage the national team that

does Church engagement for over a

thousand Baptist churches in Australia

with the work that we do overseas so

it's a big job I I flew 30,000

kilometers last

year so quantis tells me in my

app you you know the end of year wrap-up

congratulations 29,800 something oh

really no wonder I feel tired

new job I was supposed to do a new job

and lose my old job but um they didn't

replace someone in my old job either so

I did my new job and my old

job flew 30,000

K we had a family

wedding we had a um uh baby grandchild

born which is not not terrible but it's

also just changed right between June and

about August or September I've sort of

lost track of it 13 people that we know

died

13 Vicki's mom has dementia Vicki's her

primary career and uh near in September

and October she got sick she had covid

and it became very clear she wasn't able

to go home and look after herself so she

went into care and we spent time

cleaning out her house and putting her

house on the market and all those all at

the same time when I was unpacking that

with my oh and I studied halftime I did

a halftime uni course last year as

well and it was just

pressure always something going on never

quite

settled and what that time did for me

was it made all the stuff that I had

kept buried for a long time the pressure

sort of just squeezed that stuff

out um when I was

seven seven or eight back in the 1920s

or whatever that was I um I was

diagnosed with

ADHD and um my parents were the sort of

parents with oh okay that explains a lot

and then forget about it right so I was

like this is who you are this is what

you've got but just get on and do it and

so that's what I did I just went on with

life and for a long time I had some

coping mechanisms but I realized um like

I didn't even talk about it in fact last

year in about August was the first time

I told Vicki I was diagnosed with ADHD

married 33 years she say you've never

told me that before because I just

didn't think about it I just thought I

was

strange but the pressure got to me and

the all the things started happening and

one of the things that um ADHD does is

it I I don't process emotion

well there's this

disconnect between thinking and feeling

and I live a lot in my head and not a

lot

here so I don't like quiet I don't like

I go on silent Retreats once a year but

I me the first silent Retreat I went on

it was horrendous because I stopped for

a second and all this stuff that was

going on sort of bubbled to the surface

I didn't like it one little bit because

the other part of my personality is I

have a personality type that wants to at

all costs avoid

pain most of us are like that but my my

personality type is is heavy into that

space so um what I do is I just move on

I just don't process it so you put the

ADHD and this personality type thing

together I don't process pain I want to

ignore it and move on and make out it

never happened and just tell a joke and

be happy and everything's

good don't make me think about that but

when 13 people die in 10 weeks or

so and like family

friends people that we love and

know you can't contain it

anymore and all this stuff started to

pop

out we

all none of us like pain I don't think

we mask it and we we push it away I had

a year last year where I had to actually

try and confront it I want to talk about

that in a minute

but I want to look at today with all of

that as the background look at um the

Beatitudes Sermon on the Mount St of The

Sermon on the Mount it's and we just

really quickly some context this is this

is Earth shattering um the Theologian NT

W in his introduction to his commentary

um talking about the beatitude says

tells this story of um uh the movie is

it the right stuff is that the movie

where they they're trying to break the

sound barrier is that that movie I think

you one of those you know and there's

some sort of there's some conjecture

about how true the movie is but in the

movie you have uh the all these American

Air Force and Military Pilots trying to

to break the sound barrier to go faster

than sound and um they can get up to the

sound barrier they get there and when

they cross over that threshold the

planes were just exploding and the

planes were crashing and lots of people

either ejected just in time or lost

their lives it was one of the riskiest

things and then there was this guy

called Chuck Jager you may have heard of

him he in the movie now whether whether

this is really true or not is is

conjecture but in the movie what he's

watching in this and suddenly

realizes

that when the planes go through the

sound

barrier the controls all work

differently and so you in a normal plane

you'd pull back to make the plane go up

once you crush the sound barrier you

have to push the joystick forward to do

the same thing the controls work in

Reverse there's this

boom and then everything switches and

this is a great picture of what Jesus is

doing when he starts to um talk this the

whole sermon on the out but in

particular the Beatitudes there's this

sonic boom that would have been

felt and he's turning

everything immediately upside down the

controls work the other way now and and

The Sermon on the Mount is really

interesting because Matthew in his

gospel you you may know this but Matthew

in his gospel mirrors the Old Testament

experience of the Jews so when Jesus

stands up on the mount in Matthew

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

Chapter 5 and gives this sermon there's

a couple of things that have happened in

deliberately the Matthew the way he

tells the story the first thing is that

Jesus and his family when when Jesus was

a baby you remember there was a

persecution and they fled to

Egypt and so Jesus comes out of

Egypt and then the next thing that

happens is he meets John the Baptist and

is's baptized and then he's on the

mountain teaching which is an exact

mirror of the Old Testament story of

Israel where they were captive in Egypt

where they come out of Egypt where they

cross the Jordan across the river

through Red Sea through the waters and

then Moses stands up on the mountain and

gives them the law can you see the

parallel and so Jesus is doing Matthew

is telling the story in exactly this way

want you to understand what's going on

is Jesus is redefin in

everything the and the the Beatitudes

are a really interesting thing The

Sermon on the Mount was thou shout thou

shout Thou shalt not you know all that

sort of stuff it was the rules by which

you live

by if you do these things then

everything will be okay what Jesus does

in the Beatitudes is he flips that as

well the Beatitudes are not meant to be

a picture of this is how you live if you

live like this then you're close to God

if you live like this and everything's

okay the Beatitudes and The Sermon on

the Mount are actually an announcement

that this is how it is

now this is not a list of things to

ascribe to this is what is

happening let's see if this

works turned it on that

works this is from uh the message

version

when Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge

crowds he climbed a hillside those who

were apprenticed to him the committed

climbed with him arriving at a quiet

place he sat down and taught his

climbing Companions and this is what he

said you're blessed when you're at the

end of your

rope with less of you there is more of

God and his

rule let's just hold off for just a

second let's just talk about that word

blessed because is perhaps one of the

most misused misunderstood words in our

modern culture and in our church

World blessed does not

mean that everything is great and we all

we all have our you know house and two

cars and enough money in the bank to

save a retirement and the 3 to six month

emergency fund and all those other

things right that's not what blessed

means blessed does not mean happy it

gets translated sometimes as happy happy

but it's not happy the the Old Testament

idea of blessed plenty of examples of it

think of um you know the story of Jacob

where Jacob has a night wrestling with

God and in that process God touches his

hip and dislocates his hip or does

something to his hip so he walked with a

limp for the rest of his time but also

in that moment God renames

him he renames him and he sets him on a

different path and that is the idea of

being blessed about being called by God

acknowledged by God brought into God's

family often

renamed often giving a new purpose and a

new Destiny that's the idea behind this

Old Testament idea of blessed right

that's different to like I'll bless

you I'm so blessed today because like my

wife's away on a weekend of retreat

she may watch this afterwards so maybe

not that that's not what I meant but you

know what I mean we we see blessed is

something that makes us feel good and

happy but it's not

that it's a whole lot deeper than

that you're blessed when you're at the

end of your rope you're blessed when you

feel like you've lost what is most dear

to you only then can you be embraced by

the one most dear to

you you're blessed when you're content

with just who you are no more no less

that's the moment you find yourselves

proud owners of everything that can't be

bought it's great phrasing isn't it

you're blessed when you've worked up a

good appetite for God he food and drink

in the best meal you'll ever

eat you're blessed when you care at the

moment of being careful you find

yourselves cared

for you're blessed when you get your

inside World your mind and your heart

put

right then you can see God in the

outside

world this is a pronouncement of

Jesus that if you are like this if you

are hurting if you are broken if you are

grieving if you are feeling like you're

at the end of your rope and there's

nothing else to

give you're actually blessed already

not because of your circumstances it's

not like oh you know I heard someone

preach this once what I should do is I

should try and become more poor so I

could be more blessed like it's not a

list of it's not a to-do list this is a

pronouncement this is the reverberation

the sonic boom of the Kingdom everything

is flipped from

here everything is

flipped and God is with you imagine the

crowds that heard this right when Jesus

is delivering The Sermon on the Mount

imagine the crowds the the poor the

broken the rejected the the people who

live in an occupied country the people

who are paying crazy taxes to the Romans

all these other things and what they

hear

is I'm blessed by God God hasn't

forgotten

me God is here with me in the midst of

this and T WR says this is a call to

live in the present in a way that will

make sense in God's

future to live in the present in a way

that will make sense just after this

Jesus goes on and we have the Lord's

Prayer you know your kingdom come your

will be done on Earth as it is in heaven

that this is God's intention for us to

live this way even if it doesn't feel

like it's making sense

now see the problem with

pain is that if we avoid

it and we

do the avoidance of

pain is now really commonly accepted in

Psychology and

therapy as the path to

addiction that

addiction and I'm you know like drug

addiction alcohol addiction porn

addiction eating addiction shopping

addiction whatever the addiction is like

you know we find all sorts of things but

the the outworking of undal with

pain and undal with trauma often leads

us to seek comfort in other things we

don't want to deal with the pain so we

just find something to soothe the pain

does that make

sense that can be work that can be

binging Netflix it can be seriously it

can be

Ministry it can be serving God or

thinking we're serving

God but what we're really trying to do

is get that

hit to make ourselves feel better and

not actually deal with us it can be in

relationships it's a temporary Escape

but the problem is that temporary

escapes often become permanent

escapes just stop and think for a

minute when you

are at your worst you know the bits that

you don't talk to other people about

right but when you are stressed or when

you are feeling abandoned or lonely or

rejected or hurt or traumatized or

whatever what's the thing you do to make

you make yourself feel better

you know what it is I'm not I'm not

asking you to write it down on your

survey form and hand it into B any none

of that stuff this is you and God's

stuff right but what's that

thing you see what we do is we develop

attachments because we might do

something once oh that feels better our

brain gets a dopamine hit and we all

feel good and we do it again and we do

it again and we do it again and we do it

again and soon it becomes a thing the

Bible has a word for those things the

Bible has a word for places we go to be

self soothed to feel

better when we don't want to deal with

our pain and we don't want to confront

god with it you know what the Bible

calls those things

Idols that's what an idol is it's

somewhere where you go when your life is

out of control and you need to get some

sort of sense of what's going on this is

what you know in the Bible it's really

clear we create this poll and we'll go

and pray there and that that'll fix our

rain issues or what you know what the

things that are stressing us but we all

have Idols we all have these

attachments anything we go to to support

our pain that is not God is an

idol now I am discounting therapy and

those things because you have to do that

like seriously I have a relationship I

pay a lot of money to go and see a

therapist who tells me I'm being stupid

and uh rolls his eyes at me and says

we've talked about this before Steve I

go yes I know we have just tell me

again Dallas Willard who's a he died a

few years ago now but was a writer in

spiritual theology he

says that even wanting to know God's

will for our Liv lives is

idolatry I'll just let that sit I'll

explain it in a second no one's got up

and walked out

but he says it's because of this because

most of us want to know God's will for

our lives for the next 5 years or 10

years not because we're so desperate to

serve God in the way that he wants to

call us to but we just want to feel sure

that it's okay

our life's going to be okay I tell you

if God told me 10 years ago where my

life would be today I don't think I

would have wanted gone on that journey

to get there right who's like that so

let's be honest if we're saying God I

just need to know what's going to happen

in the next five

years most of the time that is because

we want to feel better about ourselves

and that's

idolatry that even God can become an

idol in place of God

that's scary isn't

it instead of finding healing we become

ins slaved to what once seemed like

relief in Romans uh chapter 6 it says

you are a slave to the one you

obey you're a slave to the one you owe

so if you are obeying something else if

you are focusing on something else there

something else even in the deepest

darkest places where you just feel you

need to be seen and need love and and

need

comfort if you're finding that anywhere

other than in God then you're a slave to

something else and you're not

free yeah let me say this again this is

not about judgment right this is a

pronouncement that if that is you then

Jesus says then you are blessed because

the father is with you in this and so

often in churches so often in

religion we focus on the externals

ah they're like that they're doing that

again they should just stop

that you know if you want God to love

you just stop that thing if you want if

you don't want to feel the shame of

doing that thing again well just stop it

and what we don't do is deal with what's

actually at the root of that which is

the the trauma and the pain and the

difficulty that we carry that we're

actually not willing to talk

about but the Beatitudes are an

invitation to bring our pain to

God and to

sit with

him with

it because true comfort and true true

healing and true transformation is

possible but often it's

not magic and instant it actually means

confronting some stuff that's going on

for

us Psalm

Psalms 34:8

34:8 the Lord is close to the

Brokenhearted and saves those who are

crushed in

spirit the Lord is close to the broken

heart often when we feel that the place

we go is anywhere but God because so

often the behavior that sits over the

the trauma and the pain and the

emotion leads us to shame all the time

I've done it again I've blown the credit

card again I had a bad day day and I

shopped or had a bad day and I went and

ate all the things I shouldn't eat or

drank the things I should whatever

whatever the thing is spent too much

time playing online games or spent too

much time B binging Netflix or spent too

much time at work and neglected my

family because it's easier to just keep

that at work than actually deal with the

stuff that's going on at home that's

causing me pain whatever those things

are right you know what yours is we'll

do a survey afterwards and you can we'll

get everyone to we'll name them and get

you

toway there's no shame all right I

really want you to hear there's no shame

and no judgment I'm I'm talking to you

today as someone who is exploring this

harder in this part of my life than I

ever have

before it's been really really tricky to

do so I want to give you four steps

of what this is what I'm

doing what I'm

learning but hopefully it's it's helpful

for you as well first one is this to

actually honestly acknowledge your

pain actually naming

it that may be childhood trauma that may

be broken relationships who knows knows

what the thing is you know what your

thing is and some of you right now are

going I don't want to talk about

that there's resistance already if you

feel that resistance that's okay that's

actually a God

thing what I've had to do in the last

six months working with my my counselor

and my spiritual

director is I've done a lot of

journaling and a lot of actually not

avoiding pain but sitting with it

in small small doses CU you know I don't

like it um but actually finding Qui time

to sit down and think about those things

that have been traumatic in my life and

bring them before God and just Journal

how I'm feeling something happens just

in the actually naming

it there's this biblical idea of lament

right lament is biblical of of actually

sitting in the pain and the grief and

actually allowing it to to Bubble Up

there's all sort different ways of doing

it you can use the Psalms there plenty

of Psalms that are just crying out to

God God I can't do this

anymore I often if I really need to feel

the feels I'll tell you what I do um I I

go into a room I turn all the lights off

and light a candle and I play Leonard

Cohen music

especially his last album the one that

was released just after he died just

before he died around the time of his

death like it's there's there's a song

called you want it darker like it's

depressing music but it is so cathartic

for me that's what I

do and then I just

write and it's good that I write because

my handwriting is terrible so I can

never go back and read what I was

actually trying to say it's just gets it

out so first acknowledging your pain

secondly

turn to Jesus in The Suffering in the

pain turn to him take it to him we've

already talked about that this morning

we've sung about it we've experienced it

in communion that Jesus understands

suffering he suffered more than any of

us think about what Jesus went through

on the cross that he took all the

Brokenness all the pain all the sin of

every human being that has lived did

live and will ever

live just think about that you know when

your pain feels unbearable to

Bear when it's like I can't do this

Jesus took it for billions of people and

the broken systemic structures of the

world took all of that pain on himself

and he bore that and he suffered with

that so if anyone knows what suffering

is it's

him he's the place we should be running

to not not

avoiding and yet we do I'll just deal

with this myself because then once I get

myself sorted then I'll feel like I can

go and talk to Jesus about it that's the

shame talking and it's a lie it's a lie

of the enemy Ben talked about last week

and one of the reasons that we have this

Brokenness is because we're in a war

we're in a

battle those of you who have kids think

about how much you hate your children

being in pain right moms especially dads

yeah you know bit of Pain's good for

them every now and then but you know

what I mean

right the way that you can hurt parents

is to hurt their

kids and I honestly believe this is one

of the key tools that Satan uses to try

and to try and needle

God is to hurt his kids

Satan loves hurting you because he

thinks it's hurting

God and creating distance between you

and

God the cross is the ultimate example of

pain leading to

Redemption thirdly seek community and

support the the the solution I believe

this with all my heart the solution to

addiction solution to those unhealthy

attachments

is

community it's actually doing life

together the way we're meant to

be authentically being with you know I

had a pastor who used to say dirty

washing should be washed not aired

right and so you know this is we're not

talking about let's all get up and share

our deepest darkest stuff without find

some people who you

trust that can go on the journey with

you I've got I've got a friend who works

in um lives in Vancouver in Canada in

the downtown east side it's one of the

roughest uh roughest places in all of

North America there are um about eight

or 10 city blocks with about 10,000

addicts in that

space um open open drug dealing I

visited him spent a week with him it was

amazing open drug dealing going on you

just walk in people just handing cash

over um open prostitution on the street

some of the women even have clothes

on there are women who just disappear

from the neighborhood the police don't

hardly ever go into the neighborhood

it's too scary for them the but there

are there are stories over and over

again of women who

are off their faces on drugs selling

themselves into prostitution and a car

will come up they'll get in the car

they'll go off with a guy and they're

never seen

again that's a regular story

he wrote a book about this about

addiction and and um and attachments um

it's a challenging book because the F

whole first half of the book is okay

before we talk about how to deal with it

in other people we need to deal with it

in you first so I first time I read it I

read the first seven or eight pages and

put it away for a few months because I

didn't want to face it right one of

those sort of books

but he says the way that we deal with

this is in community with other people

that's through small groups through

church find a spiritual director if you

don't know what it is come and talk to

me or tell you about that find a

counselor find someone that you can

start to do this with with no judgment

and no

shame James 5 says confess your sins to

one another pray for each other so that

you may be

healed there's something that loses its

power when we speak it out and when we

know someone else

knows and loves us

anyway and then

fourthly embrace the blessing in

Brokenness our suffering is not

wasted our Brokenness isn't

wasted God uses us uses it to shape us

God uses

it to change

us when we surrender surrender our pain

to God he transforms it into his

purpose because that's who he

is because that's what he

does God gives good

gifts you know there's that in part of

The Sermon on the Mount if I ask God for

bread will he give me a give me a stone

or whatever it is and if I ask for a

fish will he give me a snake to you know

like God doesn't do that what God gives

us actually when we ask for that what

God gives us is

himself what we find is that in the pain

and in the Brokenness and in the trauma

God is actually

there transforming

it and I think one of the

most uh one of the things that holds us

most captive especially if you've been

in church for a long time especially if

you've been a Believer for a long time

and experienced pain and difficulty in

that space whether the church has hurt

you whether people who are supposed to

know better uh hurt you whether whether

um uh whether there's been broken

relationships with friends or family or

anything in church is that we ask God

for stuff and it doesn't seem like

anything changes and we become

disappointed with

God I've tried this

God you didn't come through for me

I cried out for you for years to save my

marriage and it didn't happen I cried

out for you for years to help my kid and

it didn't happen whatever the thing is I

don't know if I can trust you anymore

God the world is broken and it happens

inside the church I pulled literally I

pulled up in the car this morning in the

carp Park and I got a text message from

a friend in another state who uh is a

pastor being a great pastor Pastor for a

lot of times saying I'm just sorry to

dump this on you on a Sunday morning I'm

just letting you know that I'm

separating from my

wife being in the church being a

Christian does not exclude us from the

suffering of the

world but so often we take that on as

disappointment

and so I want encourage you maybe to

start to take a step to trust God with

it

again just it's really hard I know how

hard it is you know I'm preaching to

myself as much as I am to you

today but maybe one more

go I've trying to maybe put that

disappointment aside putting that stuff

aside I've I've tried this 100 times

maybe it's just the next

time here's what I want to do to finish

off just want to would you just close

your

eyes just sit for a

minute and just think

about what

what's going on for

you I don't want you to think about the

idols I don't want you to think about

the attachments oh just if I could just

stop doing this if I could just none of

that stuff

today where's the seat of

it and that if you are

game would you just invite Jesus to

sit with

you in that pain in that trauma in that

rejection anger bitterness grief

whatever the whatever the thing

is you

just sit with

it holy spirit would you come and just

begin

to minister to your

people to bring your healing

today thank you that we can trust you

God we can trust

you would you begin to bring freedom to

your people today

Lord just ask God what he wants you to

do with that pain maybe maybe there's a

prompt to go and see a counselor I know

this counselors

here talk to Ben about

that maybe it's somewhere else maybe you

need to talk to them maybe you need to

pray with someone maybe you need to tell

someone for the first time actually all

this stuff is happening because this

happened that's what I mean by

triggering right so please I want it to

be safe don't want you to walk out of

here and feel like it's got

worse I actually want you

to move towards healing

today we're just going to play a song

the song is Beautiful it's called lean

back just going to lean back in the

loving arms of a father we just hold on

to that stuff and just during this song

just do that he lean

back and allow God to start to speak to

you comfort you