Remembering Back to 1999

We are starting a Harvest series in church tomorrow where we are being asked to remember events that have spiritually shaped us over the years. I know in fact, that the single most significant event for me occurred at the beginning of 1999.

To begin with, I looked at my stack of sermon cassette tapes and I found two sermons on brokenness for May of that year. But if I remembered correctly it was a sermon on sin that had challenged my thinking. So I pulled out my journals and began piecing together 1999.  

I didn't remember at all that this sermon was a part of the Revelation series our church did in first half of 1999. In fact it was a sermon on Revelation 3:14-22.

To the Church in Laodicea (NIV)   

"To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:  These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.  I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. 

To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

I found a date and notes written in my old NIV Bible showing the sermon to be on Revelation 3:14-22. I wrote in the margin: We use circumstances as excuses not to look at our sin / DISCONNECTED FROM GOD. That fit!

I knew that there were circumstances in my life that I was using as an excuse to protect myself from further pain. These circumstances were keeping me at a distance from God and from others. I was so torn up internally after this sermon and although in the weeks following I would confess this to a couple of friends, it would take most of the year to walk through the incredible internal pain I felt to some sense of freedom.

When you have a life changing experience like this, it is easy to claim it as an completed event. In fact, those circumstances no longer haunt or control me, but I wonder what circumstances I am using today as an excuse for my sinful relational choices. What is keeping me disconnected from God & disconnected from others? I think these are questions worth pondering again.

I did listen to the sermons on Brokenness as well. We don't talk as much about brokenness and sin any more. We talk more about God's goodness flowing out of us despite our sinfulness.

It was good for me at least to revisit this topic. To hear again that brokenness is the letting go of things we cling to for life. What am I clinging to for life? How am I denying, justifying and blaming others? How am I using self-hatred to keep from looking at my sin?

In the 1999 sermon, Kent said, "It is at the point of where God backs us into a corner, and shame in inevitable, that finally God creates a space in our soul so that His life can flow out of us…"

I still don't go there very quietly. I tend to kick and scream the whole way. Perhaps that is the only way that I can see my anger and demand for God to make life work for me the way I think it should work. There is so little peace in the process of brokenness. Perhaps that is why we are actually willing to be broken, because in  finally giving in we find the peace, joy and endurance we so desperately need to survive.

Deep down I really do long for God to create a space in my soul so that His life can flow out of me.