Has magic ever been ruined in your journey?

Matt Heard:
Has the magic ever been ruined in your journey? Let’s talk about it, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
If you suffer too long under a do more, try harder religion, Key Life is here to proclaim that Jesus sets the captives free. Steve invited Matt Heard to teach us this week. Find more from Matt at ThriveFullyAlive.com he’s a speaker, teacher, writer, pastor, coach, and author.

Matt Heard:
Thank you Matthew. And hello Key Lifers, as we’re coming into the final lap of our journey together this week. I’ve loved thinking out loud with you about what does it look like as our theme has been to dance with broken bones, Psalm 51:8 in the New English version says.

Let the bones dance, which you’ve broken.

We all have broken bone experiences, whether it’s a stuffed shrapnel from a fallen world that does damage to us. Maybe it’s our own sin and rebelliousness. Maybe it’s the sin of the people around us. But bottom line, we have those broken bones, but will we learn to dance with them, and I’ve enjoyed having my little prop on the desk with me all week, a little broken bowl, a little broken pottery dish that I broke out on the sidewalk before with a hammer and an identical dish to that that also was broken, but has now been repaired by an artist friend with some glue and gold paint to be patterned after the ancient art of Kintsugi, which means golden repair and a Kintsugi master takes those broken pieces and with a gold laced lacquer glues and adheres the broken pieces back together so that the dish is more beautiful and more valuable than it was to begin with. And that’s the gospel, that’s what happens in our journey. There’s, it’s not just we’re forgiven for our brokenness, we’re restored into being a new creation. So, as those broken experiences come along in our lives, financially, vocationally, relationally, from addictions, to betrayals and everything in between, the key is understanding that if we’re going to mature and grow in our walk with God in our experience of the life of the gospel, we’ve got to go from pasture of maturity, to maturity pasture, to maturity pasture. And as we’re maturing, we go through gates. Those gates are broken experiences and we’d like for there to be another way into the next realm of maturity, but it’s not going to happen. We can try to escape it, you know, we opt for medication, we opt for illusion, we opt for being wounded, or we can engage as we talked about a little yesterday, where we submit and we give our broken pieces and let God love us in the midst. We respond to his authority and his instruction. And we seize the opportunity. Psalm 66: verse 8 says.

Praise our God, O peoples; let the sound of his praise be heard, who has preserved our lives and kept our feet from slipping.

Love that.

For you, O God, you tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison; and laid burdens on our backs; you let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water; but you brought us to a place of abundance. And as a result, we’ll be called the oaks of righteousness

as the prophet says

a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.

You know, I love being in New York. And there are several things that I love to do there. One is jazz. I’m a big jazz fan. There are several jazz clubs like Blue Note, but there’s one called the Village Vanguard that’s historic on Seventh Avenue down in Greenwich Village. And you will. It really, the Village Vanguard is the staple. It’s really the king maker in the jazz world. And you go to these jazz clubs any night of the week and I’ve been on a board that meets in New York and we will have the evening off, I’ll slip down, slip in the back to those jazz club. And I always think whenever I go into the Village Vanguard, I think of a story that I read long ago in the Atlantic, a gentleman named David Hajdu, he was a music critic and slipped in the back of the Village Vanguard one night. Now, one of the things that happens in these jazz clubs, you get whoever the musician is that’s billed, but sometimes other musicians, if they’re in town, they’ll drop by. Well, Hajdu slipped in the back, he was a little late, and he was listening to this set, he was a professor at Columbia University at the time and music critic for the New Republic. And he sat back and he was listening to the music that was coming and he was okay with it, but he noticed a guy in the back that was playing trumpet, the light wasn’t really on him. The band that had been billed was with a totally different band, saxophonists and all that and they were up front, but there was this guy playing the trumpet in the back and he looked at him and he actually leaned to the guy next to him that he didn’t know and said, is that Wynton Marsalis? You know, the amazing jazz trumpeter. And the guy said, I doubt it. Seriously. Really? Are you kidding me? But Hajdu kept looking at him and thinking, I think it is Marsalis. And on the third song of the set, the saxophonist whose band was invited the trumpeter up center stage. And sure enough, it was Wynton Marsalis and the entire, I think it was a third or fourth song he played this ballad from the 1930s called, I Don’t Stand a Ghost of a Chance With You. And creative genius came on display big time audience was mesmerized. I mean, it was powerful and he’s going through this and almost at times it sounds like he’s mouthing the words through his trumpet and he gets to that climactic piece at the end of the song. I don’t stand a ghost of a chance. And again, he’s not singing it, but it’s coming out through his trumpet. And right when he gets to the end of that, somebody’s cell phone went off. And it was one of these little ridiculous, we were just joking a minute ago in the studio about people’s cell tones, the ringer tones. It was one of these little da da da da da da type things. I know you guys appreciated me singing there but it was something that everybody snickered, everybody was aghast, the guy was trying to turn his cell phone off and get out of there, but it kept going, kept repeating, and Marsalis just raised his eyebrows and stopped playing. And Hajdu, the ever the music critic, wrote in his notebook, magic ruined. And a lot of times we feel like that’s happened in our lives. But something happened after that, you know, people started laughing, they started picking up their dishes and talking a little bit, but Marsalis didn’t move. He was there, had the trumpet still to his lips and just had some pregnant silence for a bit. And once the guy was out the door with his cell phone melody. But that melody was still ringing in everyone’s ears. Marsalis actually played the melody from the cell phone. And he played it again. And about the third time, and he did it a little different each time, the conversation stopped again, the clinking of dishes stopped again, and everyone was paying with rapt attention to what artistry was being displayed right in front of them. And Marsalis played that tune over and over and began to modify it to where it gradually then morphed back into the original song. And he finished even more climactically than he would have at the beginning with, I don’t stand a ghost of a chance with you and the place erupted and applause and people, they’re seeing brilliance on display. And you know, I don’t know what kind of ringtone has gone off in your journey, what kind of a broken experience has happened, but the beauty and the power of the gospel is God comes in to those broken experiences and says, I’m going to take your brokenness and I’m going to do a new thing. Isaiah 43.

Forget the former things, don’t dwell on the past. See, I’m doing a new thing; now it springs up, do you not perceive it? I’m making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

And he comes along and says, I want to take you and I love you and refine you and discipline you and shape you. And I want to bring you into a place of abundance that you’ve not been in before. I’m going to take that ringtone that you thought it was just a disruption.

And I’m going to bring beauty from ashes.

As Isaiah says.

I’m going to bring some oils of gladness instead of mourning. And I’m going to bring a garment of praise into your life instead of a spirit of despair.

So, trust me, instead of trying to escape the broken experience and kill the pain, engage with it. Under my love, under my authority, under my guidance, yes, you’re going to live with the limp Jacob did the rest of his life. Yes, that broken bone is still going to be there, but let me repair it just like this Kintsugi dish. Where it was broken, but now has been repaired. And the beauty of the gospel is these broken experiences that we have, instead of derailing us, they can actually usher us into an intimacy with God and an abundance that we never knew existed. As Brennan Manning says in The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus, he said.

The Lion of Judah in his present risen as pursues tracks and stalks us here and now. And he says, I’m going to tear you to pieces, rip you to shreds and break every bone in your body, and then I’ll mend you, cradle you in my arm, and kiss you tenderly.

So, in the midst of the pain, let him love you, taste his grace, taste his enoughness. And as a result, in your brokenness, I hope you thrive today.

Matthew Porter:
And thank you Matt. That was Matt Heard wrapping up an amazing series he’s been leading us through this week. It’s called Dancing with Broken Bones. If you missed any of it, or maybe you just like to share its encouragement with a friend, just pay us a visit at keylife.org and join us again tomorrow for Friday Q&A, that’s when Steve and Pete will answer this question. Does religion enslave us? Tune in for that answer. Well, if you’ll recall, in John 11, Mary and Martha send word to Jesus that Lazarus is dying. And by the time Jesus finally arrives, Lazarus is dead, and the sisters accuse Jesus. But there is so much more happening in this moment than they can see. Well, Steve spoke about this in a moving sermon called When Tears Are All That’s Left. And we’ll send it to you on CD today for free. Just call us right now at 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also e-mail [email protected] to ask for that CD. Or to mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the U.S. and Canada. Just ask for the free CD called When Tears Are All That’s Left. And hey, before you go. If you value the work of Key Life, you can join us in that work through your financial support. Just charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope, or just pick up your phone and text Key Life to 28950 that’s Key Life, one word or two. It doesn’t matter. Text that to 28950 then follow the instructions. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.