Recovering Redemption Series
(Based up Matt Chandler’s book of the same title)
Breaking Bad (1 of 6)
September 21, 2014 CFBC, Chester, IL Dr. Mike Fogerson, Speaker
Introduction:
A When I was 9-years old I bought a used 8-track from a second hand store that changed the way I listened to music: Rubber Soul by The Beatles. (Drive My Car, Nowhere Man, Norwegian Wood, . . ., but the song that changed my world view was ‘In My Life.’)
1 To this day, it is not only my favorite Beatle song, it’s probably my favorite song period. (I remember where, when I first heard it.)
a In college I heard a band at a benefit concert perform it (wasn’t near as good as the 8-track I heard when I was 9.)
aa Last year I heard the Beatles tribute band, “Rain.” Similar, but missing something.
bb This summer, Ridge & I went to Cereal Springs to see a po’man’s Beatles tribute band, “The Wannabeatles” & they performed “In My Life.”
cc I hadn’t heard the song in a while but the words, melody, harmonies began to come into my mind again . . . what it meant to me as a 9-year old boy, as a 44-year old man.
b That old song can capture me, recapture me . . . it still sings me.
2 The song of redemption, the gospel, has been around for a very long time. (Maybe it was the soundtrack of your teens, it captured you; maybe you feel in love with it’s sound as an adult . . . and it changed your life.)
a If my guess is right, your life and the song of redemption hasn’t always synced since the first time you really got the song.
aa When you first heard it your chin trembled, Kleenexes lie in your wake as the weight of sin was lifted.
bb It’s been hard to stay excited about the song that set you free, gave you victory you heard so long ago . . . when you get away from the song it feels like the same guilt, condemnation.
b You’re pretty sure that being a Christian was supposed to change you . . . and it has. Some. (But so much more still needs to change.)
aa Our families, relationships, thinking should be different/transformed.
bb We’ve known the song for a long time now . . . we should be different . . . so we make a cover version of the song of redemption.
B Redemption Song Cover Versions
1 Uncovered Version
a You heard the song of redemption and you believe He took your sin because He loves you, not because of anything you did to earn it . . . after a minute you start doubting if that’s all there is too it?
aa Start acting like you have to do everything right, on your own to stay saved.
bb You heard the song and believed it, but some how you’ve composed a cover version that has you playing all the instruments, all the arrangements, music.
b It’s wearing you out, exhausted at trying to stay on God’s good side. . . that’s not the song of redemption (and never has been); it’s a cover version.
2 Fear of Being Discovered Version
a You heard the original version and loved it, but before long you start getting out the old music books, playing the same old songs you use to . . .you’re a mess.
aa The Song of Redemption assured you that God loves you, but that was before He really knew you.
bb If the people in your church/family knew what you were really like beneath . . . How could God love such a terrible singer?
b You fear that God runs out of rescuing you after the 400th chance (that’s not the Gospel either.)
3 The Undercover Version
a Your Christianity is a private thing, a personal conviction (maybe play Christian music in private) but never where people can see it.
b There are many cover versions of the song of redemption playing today. . . and maybe you’re singing one of them.
B A fresh treatment of the Gospel might be just what you need to hear.
1 We need to hear again . . .
a God’s love for us is bigger than anything we can imagine.
b Our inability to change ourselves (never could, never will, never have).
c Knowing that we’ve been restored in Christ, while experiencing His active work of restoration day by day.
2 Some of you us know the song, forgotten parts of it, lost context with the lyrics, passion . . . what ever reason God has for bringing you here, it’s cool.
a You may have never heard the song, skeptical . . . but you’re here.
b Your heart is going to see in plain view the tragedies of our sin, and also the beauty/glory of God’s redeeming grace.
c Some will be refreshed, have a revealing, for all redemption.
I The World is Busted up, Broken Bad.
A Ask any policeman, social worker, parole officer, ER Nurse, EMT if this world is messed up, hurting.
1 Ask a Pastor. . . inside a home where the grief is so intense/pain is hot to the touch, all you can do is hold them, sit there with them, and wait it out.
a Lost work, teens lost virginity, families lost their savings/homes.
b When it’s not falling apart in front of some of us, it’s falling apart in front of all of us.
aa School shooting, missing child, tornado, hurricane, terrorist strike.
bb You may be a glass half-full kinda guy, but truth is, there is still a limit on high you can raise the water line of expectation.
c If your not living in constant danger, then your dealing with constant disappointment. (Ourselves, others, or just in general).
2 It’s gotta get better, right? There is a better way, right? (That feeling is not desperation. Exasperation. . . . that feeling comes straight from your Creator.)
a That burning inside you is supposed to be there.
aa If you’re looking at the world/yourself and you’re convinced neither one of them is the way they’re supposed to be, then you’re being given an important piece of BAD NEWS.
bb In order for good news to be good . . . it must invade bad spaces!
b If your doctor gives you results from some lab work that says you have a clean bill of health . . . you don’t have a disease, even better if you’d been preparing yourself for possibly the worst!
c Bad news is the backdrop against which good news really shines, so let there be darkness . . . and let there be light.
B In the beginning . . .
1 Genesis 1:1-4 (KJV) “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
a The triune God of the Universe (Father, Son, Holy Spirit), were just hanging . . . being God . . .totally cool with just being God, in fact, so cool with being Himself spoke the universe/all of creation with His voice . . . and said, “It’s all good.”
aa All the planets, animals, colors, mountains, sounds . . . good.
bb Not because He needed to or because He wanted somebody new to talk too, but because He wanted to.
cc It was good. Perfect. Perfect Peace/harmony. THIS WORLD!!!
b It’s hard to imagine but the planet we live on (kick our shoes off, warm up hotdogs in a microwave & eat alone, toss & turn at night worrying)
aa This world where our kids need braces & glasses all in the same year, the same year your company stops giving out cost-of-living raises due to budget cuts.
bb This is not the way God created this world to be!
c In the beginning nothing died, leaked, broke . . . everything was perfect.
aa Mankind was created to live in the freedom & fellowship between them and God.
bb Adam/Eve needed God but not because they were fallen/sinful, but just they were human.
cc He created them (and us) to live in a loving, dependant relationship with Him. That was His plan.
2 Whenever we feel the absence of peace, joy . . . depression, anxiety, emptiness . . . it stands as testimony that God made us to be in a relationship with Him.
a Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NASB) 11 He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.
aa When we feel alone, helpless, not at ease, . . . our soul possesses a dim memory of Genesis 1 & 2 and we miss it, crave it, need it. . . to be in a relationship/fellowship with the One who made us.
bb We try to substitute good things, clean living, OR sin, sex, work, pride for what only He could and can every really fill in our lives.
b Sin broke that fellowship/communion and the only way to have it restored/redeemed begins with realization that WE NEED GOD.
aa Not just once, not just to get His name on our heavenly hall pass . . . but forever.
bb We will never get over needing Him . . . for everything!
T.S.: So behold, it was good . . . very good. Then it broke bad, very bad.
II Breaking Bad
A Gen. 1 & 2 is all awesome (no pain, sweat, shame, hiding, secrets, sneaking around), but in Gen. 3.8, the whole thing comes from together.
Genesis 3:8 (NASB) 8 They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
1 The one thing they weren’t supposed to do . . . they did. (Broke the peace, harmony, fellowship by doing what God said not to do.)
a They tried to hid by sewing leaves together and man has been sewing leaves together ever since.
aa Trying to dress up our disobedience/hoping nobody notices.
bb Doing everything we can to remember that song our collective souls heard a long, long time ago in a garden far, far away.
b Sin changed everything and the Bible boils the damage report down into two basic categories: futility & pain.
2 Futility means shoved down, confined, can’t get a break, nothing every goes right, two steps forward, three steps back . . . Rom. 8.20.
Romans 8:20-21 (NASB) 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
a Moses said the span of our life “is but labor & sorrow,”
Psalm 90:10 (NASB) 10 As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, Or if due to strength, eighty years, Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow; For soon it is gone and we fly away.
b We can’t get ahead and it’s kinda useless to try.
3 Pain, more specifically, the Bible refers to the pain of life like the pain of “childbirth.”
Romans 8:22 (NASB) 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.
a I’ve never experienced, I’ve seen it and it looks awful!
b This is serious pain! . . .it causes serious pain!
B The granddaddy pain of them all is death.
1 Genesis 3:19 (NASB) 19 By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return."
a When sin entered the picture shortly after creation, the music went off key/lost rhythm . . . and to this day, the music is till off key/out of rhythm to the original piece.
b We’re playing our lives out of key too (Rom. 3.23) and the end of the song ends the same, Rom. 6.23.
Romans 3:23 (NASB) 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans 6:23 (NASB) 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
2 Until we are introduced/put the Redemption Song of God in our hearts, we never experience peace, harmony, fellowship.
a We can’t make up our own words, rhythm, tempo . . .hid thinking we’ll not be noticed . . . it’s gotta be His song!
b He wants to make us right, bring us peace, fellowship.
Conclusion:
A IL. Envelope into a thousand pieces.
1 We can’t put it back together, it won’t go back together.
a It doesn’t happen without God.
b We must surrender our lives to God . . . only He can fix our mess and figure it out.
aa He has and He does.
bb The first step to going from good to bad to very good is surrender.
c We don’t continue to worry, fear, try to gain God’s favor/love.
2 We put our brokeness in the hands of God just like we did when first heard His song of redemption.
Notice to Sermon Central Users:
My name is Mike Fogerson, and I pastor a Southern Baptist Church in Chester, Illinois. I have been a long-time user of Sermon Central and truly appreciate its content and contributors. Some of the best sermons I’ve ever preached have been reworked material from this website. As you use the material from my sermon bank, understand that it is work that has been done from not just myself, but from hundreds of other pastors as well. If you see part of your message, or a bunch of your message with my name on it and this upsets you, please email me and I will quickly respond and cite you as the main source. My intent is not to claim someone’s work as my own. I am disclaiming up front that I use the resources from Sermon Central and appreciate the tool. I simply want all those who use my work to know that some of these messages were inspired by the Holy Spirit working through other pastors. Because I do use the messages of other pastors I waive all claims of originality or origin of creativity for the messages posted under my messages. I pray God blesses your preaching ministry for the glory of His Kingdom.
Respectfully,
Mike Fogerson
