Kerry Shook - Perfectly Restored
The moments in this life that are just so beautiful and glorious like a sunrise over the Grand Canyon, or the feeling of falling head over heels in love, or the first cry of a newborn baby, those moments, they shout with certainty we have a God who loves us. But then there are those moments in this life that are just so ugly and devastating like flood waters that wash away a family's possessions and lifelong memories, or the gut-wrenching of finding out that someone you love has betrayed you, or the death of a child. Those moments call into question God's very existence. And then life can be so beautiful, and yet so broken.
Well, today we're concluding this miniseries that we're in, that we're calling "Perfectly Broken," because since the Fall, the human race has been a broken race and we've lived in a broken place. And in our shame, we try to hide our brokenness and our sins, our scars, our wounds, our loss from God and from others, when it's in those broken places in our lives that we can experience God the most. It's in those broken places in our lives, if we bring them to God and reveal them to others, that we can experience God's mercy and grace, and God's healing and God's comfort in such a powerful supernatural way.
Now, really there are three types of restoration, because I wanna talk about how even though we're perfectly broken, we're going to be perfectly restored. And that's what God is about. That is God's purpose, in that He wants to take our brokenness and he wants to restore us completely. But there are three stages to this restoration process. The first stage, you might wanna write this down, is that I call salvation restoration. That's when we admit our brokenness to God and we come to Him and receive his free forgiveness of all of our sins, and we're born again. Salvation restoration. Now that's salvation, and He gives us that new heart, that heart for him, that heart that longs for God, that heart that longs for his kingdom, but we still live in broken flesh in this broken world.
And so, the second type of restoration is the restoration process. Once you become a Christ follower, you experience salvation restoration. He starts taking you through this restoration process where you start growing in Christ. He starts restoring your mind. The scripture says we're transformed by the renewing of our minds, and science is now seeing that that is so true, that as we put God's word into our minds, it starts changing our brains and we stop believing the lies that have been the basis for the way we've made decisions and lived and made wrong choices, and we start filling our minds with God's word and it actually changes the physiology of our brains. Because what you think changes the way you live.
And so brain science has now found that the synapses and the physiology of your brain begins to change as you change what you focus on and what you think about. And that restoration process comes about when we get connected to a local church, when we get into a life group, when we start getting into God's word. God's truth starts changing our lives. And then the third type of restoration is the Great Restoration, because we still live in a sin-sick and broken world. We still experience hurt and pain and loss and brokenness, but one day God is going to restore everything. One day, God will restore heaven and earth, and He will restore all the things that are broken and lost.
And so, I want us to open our Bibles to Revelation chapter 21, because this Great Restoration is talked about in the last book of the Bible, as God gives John this vision for what the Great Restoration is going to be like. And it's amazing, and I know as I read this, those of you who are Christ followers, there's gonna be something that just sings in your heart. You know, you're not gonna understand everything about it, but it's just so beautiful and just so profound, it will resonate because you know in your heart a Great Restoration is coming. What you've been longing for is on its way. And if you're not a Christ follower, as I read this, there'll be something, too, that grabs you. Because God created every one of us with this desire for restoration. We were made for the Great Restoration.
So I want us to stand in honor of God's Word, and I wanna welcome all you worshipping with us from our satellite campuses. Woodlands Church Atascocita, praise God for our church in Atascocita. You're amazing and it's just bursting at the seams, and I'm so proud of Pastor Daniel. You guys are awesome. Would you give them a huge cheer? The Woodlands campus? Yeah. And all you guys worshipping with us through our online or broadcast ministry, wherever you are, we are one church from the Woodlands to the world, and we're built on the Word of God. And I am so excited about our key passage today. I want you to follow along with me.
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Look! God's dwelling is now among the people, and He will dwell with them. They will be His people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning of crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new"! And then He said, "Write this down for these words are trustworthy and true". He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End".'"
You can be seated. This passage on the Great Restoration is just so beautiful. It's so grand, it's so powerful, that I can barely take it in. And so your homework assignment is read this passage in Revelation 21 several times this week, and just pray and ask God to keep opening it up to you. As you read it and you think about it, you read it slowly and you think what this Great Restoration is all about. And I want us to look at it this morning, and I want you to underline the phrase where the one on the throne who is Jesus Christ himself says, "I am making everything new". I am making everything new. And some translations say, "I am making all things new". "Behold, I make all things new".
I am making everything new; I'm making all things new. Now, notice he didn't say I'm making all new things. He said I'm making all things new. You see, I'm taking the current things and I'm going to restore them. I'm taking the broken things and I'm going to heal them and make them all new. I'm gonna restore broken thing. You see, he's going to create a new heaven and a new earth. It's not just heaven, but every broken thing on this earth He's going to make new. Now, underline the next thing Jesus says, because right after he says I am making everything new, a new heaven and a new earth, I'm gonna restore everything that's broken, he says, "Write this down for these words are trustworthy and true".
I find that so amazing because I guess He knew what I was thinking. I'm thinking can it be that all this brokenness, all the wrong will be made right, all the brokenness will be restored, all the hurt will be healed in this broken world. Can it be? And he said you can write it down because it's trustworthy. It's from me. It's done as far as I'm concerned. It's coming in the future but it's done, because once I say it, it's done. It's done. You can trust it. You can count on it. You can put it in the bank. It's done. The Great Restoration is coming, and that changes everything. There's so much pain and loss and sorrow and heartache in this broken world, but we have a hope that's even greater.
I mean, just think about it. Everything in your life that has been broken or will be broken, everything, all your broken dreams, your broken heart, your broken emotions, your broken relationships, everything that's not right in your body, all those things will be totally restored. Think about it for a moment. Everything in your life that you have lost or will lose will be restored. Your lost innocence, lost purpose, the times you've lost your way, loved ones that have gone to be with the Lord. Everything lost, restored. If you're a Christ follower, Jesus says I know it hurts now, I know it's hard to believe right now, but the Great Restoration is coming and nothing is really lost.
In Hebrews 6:18 and 19, says this, "We who have run for our very lives to God have every reason to grab the promised hope with both hands and never let go. It's an unbreakable spiritual lifeline" Underline that word "hope" and then underline the phrase "unbreakable spiritual lifeline" and draw a line connecting the two, because our hope in the Great Restoration that's coming is our lifeline. And it fills us with hope. It's our lifeline that gets us from this painful broken world to that Great Restoration, so that we hold on and we trust God and we keep going knowing there's a Great Restoration that's coming.
You see, in the middle of this great pain in this world, we have to have a greater hope. And the good news is we do. We have a greater hope. No matter what you're going through today, no matter how much pain you're experiencing today, no matter how much brokenness and loss you've experienced in this life, I want you to know there's a hope that's greater than all your pain. There's a hope that's greater than all your loss, and that hope is Jesus Christ. And the Great Restoration is coming where he will make everything new. And I mean, what a lifeline that is. I don't know how people make it who don't have faith in Christ. I don't know how they make it. I don't think they make it very well, because we all go through pain and hurt and heartache, but if you're a Christ follower, you have a lifeline of hope.
And by the way, hope makes all the difference, doesn't it? I mean, you know, the science has now shown that when someone's going through a terrible disease and they have hope, and that hope helps them so much physically, you know, that hope helps them carry on. That hope helps them in the healing process. Well, when you have hope when you've gone through difficulty, you have hope, it makes all the difference. It even changes you physically. You see, there are three values the Bible says that will last forever: faith, hope, and love. Those are eternal values. But faith that we need so desperately has more to do with the past, because faith comes from knowing hey, God came through for me in the past; I know He's gonna do it again.
I know, God, you're gonna do it again. And then, love has to do with the present, because love is in the now. Love is always an action, not a feeling. An action, and you do it in the now, in the present. But hope is different. Hope has to do with the future. Hope is not about the past or the present, it's about the future, that you know in your heart that something better is on its way; that you know in your heart, evening he darkest night, that the sunrise is coming. That's what hope is. It's that sunlight at the break of dawn that breaks the dark night wide open, and you know it's coming. And hope changes us in the present. And that's why God tells us about the Great Restoration. It's because He does amazing things in our lives.
We experience so much fulfillment, so much beauty down here when we have a relationship with Christ. He does so much restoration in our lives down here, and we're praying after this service with our pastors and ministry leaders and prayer teams, we're gonna pray for healing, for God to bring healing physically, and for God to bring healing emotionally and relationally. If you need healing of any kind, we wanna pray for you. We've seen amazing healing take place. And we did this last weekend and we're doing it again after the service this weekend. But I'm telling you that even with all the amazing things God does in our life, with all the beauty that we experience in this life, there's just so much brokenness, so much pain, so much heartache.
And that's why God wants us to know there's a Great Restoration that's coming. That's why He wants us to know that He's gonna one day restore heaven and earth, all those things that are broken. So how can I be filled with that hope that is a lifeline? Well first, lose yourself to the restorer or everything. Lose yourself to the restorer of everything. You were made for restoration. You were made for the restoration of all things. You were created for sheer joy and total fulfillment. But ever since we lost Eden, we've experienced loss and brokenness. We're sort of like cut flowers. We've been severed from the source of life.
We look good on the outside, but we're severed from the source of fulfillment, and when you're severed from the source of life, you start lusting for life in counterfeits that just leave you even more empty. And we're so broken trying to fill the emptiness in our lives that we'll break everyone around us to experience instant gratification to try to get our needs met, and it just leaves us even more empty and more broken. Jesus put it this way in Matthew 10:39: "Whoever finds their life will lose it and whoever loses their life for My sake will find it". Let me read you the same verse in the message paraphrase. It says, "If your first concern is to look after yourself, you'll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to Me, you'll find both yourself and Me".
So that when you're empty and you're looking to get your needs met, and we get so desperate to get our needs met and someone stands in our way of getting our needs met, we take it out on them. We're broken and we break others, and that's what's going on in our culture today. It's so broken and it's falling apart more and more, day after day because people have been severed from the source of life. And there's only one thing that can fill the emptiness, and that's the source of life. And so instead of trying to get our needs met, God says if you'll just focus on me and my kingdom, you were made a heart for the kingdom of God. If you'll focus on me first and forget about yourself, then you'll find yourself and Me. Isn't that amazing?
You'll get your needs met. It's so amazing to me, this paradox that if I focus on my needs, my wants, my hurts, my losses, my pain, then I just feel even more pain and emptiness. But when I focus on God and his kingdom, and he points me to others and I forget about myself, then I truly find myself and why I was made, and why God put me on this earth, and I'm filled with sheer joy and total fulfillment. In 2 Corinthians 4:16, it says: "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day".
That's that restoration process. Maybe you can't see it on the outside because as we get older, it says we're wasting away. That doesn't seem real encouraging, but that's not what we focus on. We focus on what God's doing on the inside. He's restoring us. We're being totally restored. The beauty, the strength, all those things that we lost in the fall, we're getting back to the Garden of Eden in our lives. It's just we still live in a broken world. So don't lose hope, because God's doing his restoration, and something inside us tells us there's gonna be a Great Restoration that's coming. Well, there's a second thing I need you to do, not only to lose myself to the great restorer of everything, but let go of your losses to the restorer of everything. Let go of your losses.
You do realize, don't you? I know you do, but you just don't like to think about it. You do realize that you will say goodbye to everything and everyone you hold dear in this life. Someday you'll say goodbye. It may be in a long series of goodbyes. It may be that everyone is saying goodbye to you as you're saying goodbye. But you do realize that you will eventually, that all of us will eventually say goodbye to everything we hold dear, everyone we hold dear, that life can just be a long series of goodbyes. And I know that's heart-wrenching. We all know, we just don't like to think about it. But here's the great news: if you're a Christ follower, really nothing is lost.
In 1 Peter 1:3 it says, "Now we live in the hope of eternal life because Christ rose from the dead. And God has reserved for His children the priceless gift of eternal life; it is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay". Because Christ defeated death on that first Easter. If you're a Christ follower, nothing is really lost. After our grandson went to be with the Lord, there were several well-meaning folks who would tell us, "We're so sorry for your loss". And we knew what they meant, but we'd always say, "Well he's not lost, we know right where he is. He's in heaven, and we're gonna see him one day".
We know right where he is, kept safe. We know right where he is. We have five grandchildren, just one in heaven. Four down here on earth. We know right where he is. That's the lifeline of hope. I mean, without that, what do we have, folks? That's the lifeline of hope. We have heaven, and one day the whole earth will be restored. Heaven and earth restored. Heaven forever, and the restoration of everything. And by the way, folks, heaven's a real place. It's just as real as this auditorium that we're in. And it's the most beautiful place you'd ever imagine. The Bible uses human words to describe what is humanly impossible to describe. It says there're streets of gold, which represents the great worth and significance that we'll feel in heaven.
It's gonna be so beautiful, the most beautiful place you'd ever imagine on earth. Imagine waking up with the sunrise in a place that's so much more beautiful that you can barely take it in. And we'll be running free, you know, in the meadows and the fields, and we'll have jobs that bring total fulfillment. We can't even imagine, you know, what heaven will be like. Beyond our wildest dreams, but it's a real place. And there'll be the restoration of heaven and earth. That's what a lot of believers forget about, that when Christ returns, he's gonna restore both heaven and earth.
Everything broken is going to be completely restored and it says in scripture the lion will lay down with the lamb, and there'll be no more war. There'll be no more sin, no more hurt, no more pain, no more loss. But I have to say we can't ignore our losses here on this earth. We grieve so often. And a lot of times, we try to hide our grief. We're not good with grief. We don't like it when someone's sad. We're always trying to make the people in our lives happy. But husbands, let me tell you, if you're trying to make your wife happy, that's not your job. That's God's job. Your job, when you're going through pain, is to with with her.
To be with her and to feel the pain, and to be in it with her. But we wanna fix everything, and we don't want anyone to be unhappy because we don't know how to deal with grief. But when you stuff that grief down and you pretend it's not there, it comes out in crazy ways, like midlife crisis if you don't deal with it. And God says I want you to bring it to me. Bring all your brokenness to me. Don't hide it. Bring your anger, your hurt. Pour it out to me. Bring your heart to me. Pour it out to me. Bring your tears to me. Pour it out to me.
And that's why in Matthew 5:4, our key verse for this miniseries, Jesus said: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted". He's saying those who mourn are gonna be fulfilled. Those who mourn are gonna be comforted. The only people who ever experience supernatural healing and comfort are those who bring their grief to God. Those who bring their grief to God and, man, don't run from their grief, but stay in the pain and bring it to God. And they'll start experiencing the supernatural healing that only God can bring.