Play

All the Broken People

Mark Dunagan
06/03/18 - Sunday Morning

All the Broken People

Years ago the Beatles released a song entitled Eleanor Rigby and the lyrics included the repeated phrase, “All the lonely people where do they all come from? All the lonely people where do they all belong?” I still hear people talking about lonely people but what I hear a lot more of these days is people talking about “all the broken people”. This is not new terminology for some six centuries before Jesus was born, through the prophet Jeremiah, God spoke of His people as being “broken”:

• “They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, Saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ but there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14; 8:11).

Sin and Brokenness

When it comes to not listening to God or ignoring His instruction, most people throughout the centuries have failed to realize that such a course of action will lead to brokenness in our lives and in the lives of others. Living a life contrary to the directions of our Creator will lead to our lives breaking down. Such “brokenness” is seen in passages such as:

• “For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our time in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another” (Titus 3:3).
• “Being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful” (Romans 1:29-31).
• “Everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin” (John 8:34).

It Won’t Happen to Me

I believe that many people today feel that they can ignore God and His instruction and still remain whole people, good people, put together people and continue to function very well in this life. Yet here is an interesting verse on that point for one to consider: “And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds” (Colossians 1:21). Observe how being hostile in reference to God naturally resulted in “evil deeds”, which obviously affected other people. Their wrong attitude against God could not be confined or isolated, or only directed against Him. Jesus noted that the commands to love God with all our heart and the ability to truly love our neighbor as we should are inseparable (Matthew 22:37-39). So if I am thinking that I can remove God from my life and yet continue to love other people as I should I am really deceiving myself. 

Application

Sometimes when people depart from God or ignore His will and end up in trouble they attempt to get loved ones and family members to cover for them. They might ask someone to lie for them, to help them avoid arrest or help them get out of the state. If family members say “no” then this person often attempts to make such a person feel guilty. Yet the reality is that when I attempt to involve someone else in my sin that demonstrates that I only care about myself. 

Another application would be that at times when people end up in trouble they will tell a story of their life that shifts the blame to parents, loved ones, relatives, current or former spouses or members of the church. When I am attempting to put my spiritual and moral failures at the doorstep of someone else, this equally demonstrates that at the moment I am only concerned about me and I am more than willing to throw everyone else underneath the bus. 

The Total Break Down

Sin is a harsh environment, and in such passages we find that sin will take a toll on:

• Our compassion and love.
• Our conscience: Jeremiah 6:15
• Our relationships.
• Our honesty: John 3:19-21
• Our self control.
• Our view of reality: 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12

This is a brokenness in which I place “me first”. Where I hurt people, have become callous, insensitive to the needs of others, short-sighted, opting for instant pleasure over long-term reward. It will create situations in which my children might be hungry and there is no food at home and I make 300.00 doing something, and instead of buying groceries for the family, I opt to buy some marijuana, booze and clothes for myself.

Solutions that Do Not Solve the Problem

There are thousands of alternatives that people rush for when they are broken. Nothing has really changed, the solutions are typically the same that have existed for centuries. Material goods, status, fame, money, sex, power, and various forms of drugs and alcohol. The same was true in the time of Jeremiah:

• “For My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13).

Observe that when people forsake God they do seek to find a replacement. God is the source of all true refreshment and living waters, and these people when they forsook God, immediately attempted to dig and create their own source of refreshment. The problem was that all such humanly devised sources cannot hold any water. They are inherently cracked. They cannot quench the human thirst for real and lasting peace, happiness and meaning. They only work for awhile.

Broken But Not Broken

• “Where they ashamed because of the abomination they have done?” (Jeremiah 6:15).
• “But they have not become contrite even to this day” (Jeremiah 44:10). There are people who had lost everything, had been driven from their land and experienced much hardship, but remained unrepentant.
• When the rulers of the Jews argued that Jesus was casting out demons by the power of Satan (Luke 11:15) that is dishonest and messed up thinking. How could anyone ever hear what Jesus taught, watch His example and see His power and think such a terrible thing? 
• The Bible equally speaks of a broken spirit without any hope (Proverbs 17:22; 18:14).
• It is amazing at times how miserable a person can be or claim to be and yet still be unwilling to come to God for help. There are people who simply remain miserable right to the end (2 Chronicles 16:12). Determine in your own life, not to be “that guy”. 

Broken and Willing to Change

There are people who are broken and who know they are broken and who realize that God is the only real answer for our brokenness. That only God can help us put our lives back together. God is always willing to help this type of person:

• “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken an contrite heart, O God, You will not despise” (Psalm 51:17).
• “He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted” (Isaiah 61:1).
• “But to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word” (Isaiah 66:2).
• “I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit” (Isaiah 57:15).

Mark Dunagan | mdunagan@frontier.com
Beaverton Church of Christ | 503-644-9017
www.beavertonchurchofchrist.net