At a recent Bible study, we were asked, “Why does God use broken people?” This question included a list of flawed people whom God used to accomplish his goals.
Moses, a poor speaker.
David, a murderer and adulterer.
Jacob, a liar.
Paul, one of the greatest persecutors of Christians.
Peter, who denied Christ three times.
The list goes on.
Finally I realized…….that the problem here lies in how we define “broken people”. Generally speaking, we define “broken people” as people who are more broken than we are…….people who are broken in ways that we find more offensive than the ways we are broken.
It occurred to me……..that God must use broken people to do his work……… because he has no choice. We are all broken. Intellectually, we have no problem with this idea.
But, in concrete terms…….how are we broken?
How am I broken?
I’d like to focus for a minute on our greatest individual failure…….the most glaring example of our individual brokenness. I’m challenging you to search out your own personal failure…… I’m challenging you to forget about the other guy’s brokenness and to take a good hard look at the biggest impediment standing between you and God.
This may not be much fun.
If you are a secular humanist……..an atheist…….then your greatest failure is your denial of God.
If you identify as a Christian……..but you keep your faith locked up in a box except for an hour every Sunday…….the rest of the week, you ignore God’s commands and pursue your appetites…….then your greatest failure is that you put your appetites ahead of God. This category may very well include the majority of Christians. Please don’t misunderstand me. The people in this category are Christians……..they are just broken……..just like the rest of us.
If you are a sincere, committed follower of God……of Christ, then it is very likely that your greatest failure is self righteousness. This category includes many if not most of the remaining Christians. How does this work?
We live our lives on a spectrum of “goodness”.
Satan…..really bad people……bad people……me…….good people……really good people…… God.
When we assess goodness, we almost always look at the people downhill from us on the spectrum. We focus on the flawed politician from the “other party”. We dissect his or her failures. We rarely look uphill…….at the “Mother Teresas” of the world. We do this, because this allows us to pontificate on how the “bad” people need to change. Looking uphill forces us to consider how we need to change.
And that is the lesson……..the challenge.
We need to spend our time working on our own brokenness. Because our only chance to grow as a person in general………and as a Christian in particular……..comes from whittling away at our own failures. Raging against the failures of others is great fun……but it is completely futile.
“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Jesus, NIV
Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”
Paul, NIV