Over the last few years I have really enjoyed The Learning Channel (TLC). Every one of their programs has a different theme or twist. "In a Fix", "While You Were Out", "What Not to Wear","A Wedding Story", and "A Baby Story" are some of their programs.
As I have watched these programs, it's dawned on me how each one of these programs is like a parable. Whenever Jesus wanted to teach about something really important, he would often tell parables, or point to real life illustrations everyone could relate to. On the surface, Jesus’ parables were about everyday life. Things like a farmer sowing seeds, a woman searching for a lost coin, or a fishermen casting his net. But just beneath the surface of his stories there was always a deeper underlying spiritual principle to be understood and applied to life.
The Learning Church
That’s what this next series of messages is going to be like. We are going tostudy a few of television’s most popular shows and their stories about everyday life. We'll look at subjects like fixing your house, planning for a wedding, having a baby, choosing your clothing, or restoring a car, but we'll dig just a little bit deeper to uncover a spiritual principle or truth.
The interesting thing about The Learning Channel is how they have embraced the slogan,"Life Unscripted." More recently the slogan has become, "Live and Learn." The idea is that life can happen rather quickly and unpredictably. And when life happens, there isn’t any preset plan or script to fall back on or to guide our choices. When life happens, we have no choice but to live and learn anew.
Life is often unscripted and unpredictable.
On the surface, the live and learn philosophy of life sounds rather sensible. A lot of times we have no choice but to live and learn. But imagine having to live and learn all of life’s lessons. Imagine not having God’s word as a script or guide to help you navigate life’s darkest challenges. Life can be a rather harsh and cruel teacher!
If you are a Christian, life isn’t unscripted. God has a script for us. He has a purpose and plan in everything that happens. He offers his eternal wisdom to guide our choices. As life happens, he doesn’t leave us in a fix or without guidance. And so this morning we become the learning church.
(Note to reader- the congregation was shown a video clip from TLC's show "In a Fix".)
In a terrible fix.
Have you ever found yourself in a fix? This past week I was remembering back to Mother’s Day 2002. That morning I awoke to the gentle sound of a waterfall. For a split second everything felt sopeaceful,until I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and realized that the waterfall was in the lower, completely finished level of our house! Racing down the stairs, I discovered that a sump pump had failed and water was rapidly pouring in. Our furniture was swamped. A number of valuables were completely ruined.
It took all day long to get rid of the water. But it wasn’t until later in the week that I discovered the magnitude of our problem. I started gutting a small section of one wall in our basement, but it was obvious that I would have to gut it all. We discovered mold. We discovered drywall crumbling. We had termites. The wooden baseplates of our walls had disintegrated. We began moving everything out of the lower level into our front room. I ordered a full sized dumpster.
Have you ever seen the movie "The Money Pit" with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long? That was us. A week later the entire basement was stripped down to studs. As I stood there surveying the mess, it hit me like a freight train. "Boy, am I in a fix." I was deeply depressed.
I think all of us have been in a fix from time to time, especially if you’re a homeowner. There was a point when Lara looked at me and said, “Do you know what you're doing?” There was a definite answer to that question and she would not have wanted to hear it! "Ah, yeah Lara, sure I do. It can’t be that hard to put this all back together." The deeper truth is that in life, every single one of us is in a fix. And we know very little about putting things back together.
Commonreal life predicaments- self assessment.
(Note to reader- the church bulletin listed the following predicaments as a self-assessment. Deadened or seared conscience, deepening character flaws, distressing circumstances, looming consequences, relational chaos, and restless souls.)
In your outline, you will find that I started jotting down a list of predicaments we can find ourselves in. Take, for example, having a deadened or seared conscience. In Titus 1:15-16 (NIV) Paul describes people who are, "corruptedand do not believe" and for whom, "nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and their consciences are corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for doing anything good.”
In 1 Timothy 4:2 (NIV) Paul speaks of, "hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron."Those words overwhelm me every time I read them. On the one hand, we want to pass them off as being someone else's problem. But what if it's your conscience that has been seared? What if it’s your conscience that is no longer sensitive to the things of God? What if things like lying, stealing, swearing, coveting, lusting after others, coarse joking, doing drugs, abusing alcohol and being selfish or greedy no longer stir your conscience? Can you revitalize deadened nerve endings? Can you repair a dead, seared conscience? Can you make yourself sensitive to the quiet whispers of God’s Holy Spirit?
What about the problem of ever deepening character flaws? There was a time in my life when I was on this slow slide into darkness. I felt myself getting angrier and angrier every day. About what, I did not know. I would get into arguments and fights with other people. I would cuss, just to cuss. I would tell little lies to cover myself. I would tell dirty jokes and fill my mind with impure things. And things kept escalating until I had these huge gaps in my character. I would turn up my music really loud and look at my angry, miserable self in the mirror and just ask, “What’s wrong with you?” I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t get off the path I was on.
Sometimes we find ourselves in impossible circumstances.
Have you been in a fix like that before? Are you in that kind of fix now? Sometimes we find ourselves in distressing circumstances, circumstances that are beyond our control, or impossible circumstances that we just cannot fix.
Sometimes there are these looming consequences just hanging over our heads. Consequences for our choices and for our lifestyle. Not long ago I was over at Steak-N-Shake, about midnight, talking to my brother who is going through some difficult times. From the time he was sixteen years old, he has been making some really bad choices; actually some really horrible choices.As we sat there together he just sobbed. A grown man, sobbing! For him, there is just no escaping the consequences of his choices. He doesn’t know Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is not an answer for him. Yet he is into things so deeply thatyou would wonder how one person could mess up his life any more. Even how to do that, he’ll figure out by tomorrow.
Think about the relational chaos we experience. The broken chains of relationships. Marriages devastated by selfishness, pride, irreconcilable differences, small and large betrayals, adultery, sexual immorality, lust, hurt, anger, and unforgiveness. Children rebelling against their parents' authority. Siblings no longer talking. Extended family members quarreling and backbiting. Workplaces filled with gossip, infighting, and spite. Church families divided. Friends harboring resentment. What do you do when the finest counselors cannot even begin to unravel your troubles?
A couple of other quick items. What about an anxious, restless soul? Ever had that gnawing, dreadful, discontent stirring in the belly of your soul? There is just something missing in your life, some purpose for which you were created.I was talking to a former Marine in my office one day. He kept describing this void in his life."I just know there is something more to life, like I was destined for something more." I told him about Christ, but no, no, that wasn’t what he needed. That restlessness was driving him insane. He was making all sorts of irrational choices. He was on a self-destructive warpath. He was trying to fill his void with immorality.
One last item is confusion. Confusion about God. Confusion about ultimate spiritual realities. Confusion about the truth, about God’s will, andabout what you should do.I'd bet if you sat down, you could write out a half dozen impossible predicaments that you are facing right now. What are you going to do about those things? You’re in a fix!
Our situation apart from God- God's assessment.
In your outline there is a list of passages that detail God’s assessment of our situation. That is, our situation apart from God. In Galatians 5:19-21(NIV) Paul describes the sinful nature chasing desires. "The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God."
Read it later. In Romans 1:18-32 (NIV) Paul describes how a godless life goes spiraling out of control. No longer centered around God, a person whirls deeper into darkness. And God has to keep letting a person drift, releasinghim tohis sin.
In Ephesians 2:1-3 (NIV) Paul describes the living dead. "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath."
Colossians 1:21 (NIV) describes how we once alienated ourselves from God. Can there be any denying that apart from Jesus Christ, every single one of us is in a fix?
Some of you are just too busy trying to fix things you cannot fix alone! I mean, good luck trying to restore sensitivity to your conscience, patch up your character, work through your circumstances, be delivered from the consequences of your choices, bring peace to your relationships and soul, andfigure out God’s identity, purpose, plan and will for your life.
Taking responsibility- "It's all my fault."
There is an inspirational turning point that occurs at the beginning of every episode of "In a Fix." Do you know what that turning point is? It is the point where some poor soul stops trying to fix everything that is wrong about his home and admits he is way over his head and unable to salvage his situation! He dons the bright red tee-shirt with the words, "It’s all my fault" printed on it.
Listen friends, if we could do it ourselves we wouldn’t need a savior! Instead of sending his only Son to die on a cross for our sins, God would have just told us to try harder. We cannot solve our sin problem! We cannot fix things alone! God wants us to come to a point where we realize we have no choice but to trust in him. That is faith!
In faith, God wants us to reach out to him freely confessing, "I can’t do it!" He wants us to repent, turning away from all the sin that has messed up our lives. He wants us to be baptized, fully pledging ourselves to him, dying to self in the waters of baptism, and being raised to new life. We wants us to obey, walking a new path that is different than the path we have traveled.
On the show "In a Fix", the guy with the red tee-shirt doesn’t sit on the sidelines while the cast does all the work. The guy with the red tee-shirt has to take responsibility! God could certainly do it all for us, but he chooses to come alongside us in our fix. And there are hundreds of passages in the Bible describing how God comes alongside us.
God's tools to help us fix ourselves withreceiving God's gifts.
God's first gift to us is his word, the Bible.
First, God gives us the finest tool in his toolbox, his living word. Hebrews 4:12 (NIV) says, "For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of theheart." Stop trying to fix yourself! It can get really messy when we try to sort out our problems ourselves. Let God do the heart surgery, brain surgery, and soul surgery you need through his living word. Few things are as important as using the right tools!
You think that the Bible is just a dusty old book, but when you read it, it changes your life from the inside-out. Want to know what happened to me? I just started reading my Bible. I started reading the gospel of Matthew. That’s what got me out of my fix.
God's second gift to us is his Son, Jesus Christ.
Second, God gives us his master carpenter, his only Son, Jesus Christ. Did you know Jesus was a carpenter by trade? No challenge is too great for him. Ephesians 2:4-10 (NIV) says, "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions- it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
Kind of sends shivers up your spine, doesn’t it? To think that through the work of Jesus Christ, we are becoming God’s workmanship? God, fix me! I’m in a fix! Put your master carpenter to work in my life, your only Son, Jesus Christ!
God's final gift to us is his Holy Spirit.
Last, God sent us his greatest helper, his Holy Spirit. Have you ever read Galatians 5:19-25 (NIV)? "The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit." God’s Holy Spirit helps us crucify the sinful nature so that we might live for God. You probably thought you had to do that all alone, didn’t you?
God can help you get out of a fix.
Listen, if you find yourself in a fix this morning, you need to don the red tee-shirt. Why not utilize the finest tool ever given by God to man? In your bulletin you will notice that our nextten week cycle of Life Groups are starting up. Why not get into one of those groups, where you will can dig into God’s word and find healing?
Why not trust in the master carpenter, God’s only Son, Jesus Christ? You're not going to fix things apart from his finished work on the cross. Jesus was nailed to that cross for your sins so that you might believe and have eternal life.
Why not also welcome the great helper to work in your life? God’s Holy Spirit sanctifies us. He transforms us from the inside out. He produces deep, lasting change in us that we could never produce in ourselves. He helps us become more like Christ.
Put on your red tee-shirt. Confess your need, repent of sin, pledge yourself in baptism and begin living a life of obedience. God wants to come alongside you this day.