Why You Fail at Christianity (The Broken Mirror 1 of 7)
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This is the video’s transcript, lightly formatted. Tap a time to jump to that moment.
Some of you have done everything the church told you to do. You've read the Bible. You've avoided the big sins. You've served in the nursery. You've shown up every Sunday. And yet, if you're honest, and let's be brutally honest here, you're quietly thinking, "If this is the abundant life Jesus promised, why do I feel so hollow?" Look, I know that feeling.
I lived it for 40 years. I lived in a fortress of conviction. I built a life on rules, on memorizing scripture, on inspecting my own behavior to make sure I was good enough. I was a defender of the faith. But one ordinary Sunday, sitting in a pew just like I had a thousand times before, a question hit me with the force of a battering ram. Wasn't a theological question. It was [clears throat] a heart question.
I looked at my life. this sturdy, well- constructed house of religion. And I thought, I'm exhausted. I'm empty. Is this it? That moment broke me. But it also saved me because it forced me to find a hidden door I didn't even know existed.
Now, before I go any further, let me say that this sermon is the first of a seven-part series based on my book, The Broken Mirror: Rediscovering Our True Nature in Christ. I go into a lot more detail in the book. So, if you like what you hear here, click the link in the video description to pick up a copy in paperback, hardback, Kindle, or audiobook format.
[snorts] You see, we have a tendency to build our spiritual lives like a house. We build walls with good behavior. We lay a foundation of correct doctrine. We keep the entryway clean. We spend decades living in the foyer, polishing the floor, making sure everything looks presentable, but we're starving on the inside. We're rattling around in the entryway of a mansion while an entire wing, vast rooms filled with sunlight and treasure sit locked just on the other side of the wall. To find the key to that door, we have to go back to the beginning.
We have to go back to dust and breath. The book of Genesis tells us about the moment God made us. The Bible says in Genesis 2:7, "Yahweh, God, formed man from the dust of the ground and breathe into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." Picture that. God bends down. He gets his hands in the dirt. He sculpts a chest, a face, hands, feet.
But for a moment, that masterpiece lies there on the ground. It has form. It has structure. It looks like a human, but it's utterly still. It's a shell. It's a house without an inhabitant. Then God does the unthinkable.
He breathes into it. The text calls it the nishama, the breath of life. It [snorts] wasn't just oxygen filling lungs. It was the very spirit and vitality of God rushing into dust.
In that instant, the chest heaved, the eyes opened. The man became a living being. He wasn't just a biological organism. He was dust filled with glory. He was a container for the divine. But here's the problem. Most of us are living like the shell.
We're obsessed with the dust. We spend our entire Christian lives managing the dirt. We try to polish the shell. We try to hold the dust together by sheer willpower. We wake up and we think, "I need to be more patient today. I need to be more loving. I need to stop being anxious."
We grit our teeth. We brace ourselves against the day rather than embracing the day itself. Now, I remember sitting in my car in the church parking lot, taking deep breaths before I went in to give a sermon that I had prepared. I was telling myself, "Be joyful. Be confident. Don't let them see you're running on empty. I was performing the Christian life while quietly dying inside.
It's exhausting because dust was never meant to hold itself together. Dust was meant to be inhabited. We've settled for a religion of sin management when we were created for a relationship of divine participation and we've just forgotten who we are and who we're supposed to be.
Scripture gives us a profound image of our identity. Genesis 1 26 says, "God said, let's make man in our image after our likeness." That word image in Hebrew, Salem, meant something like a royal statue, a declaration that the king is present. But here's a better way to think about it. You are a mirror. Think about a mirror. A mirror has one job.
One, it doesn't generate light. You've never walked into a dark room and seen a mirror glowing by itself. If you did, you wouldn't worship it. You'd run. A mirror can't produce light. It can only do one thing. Turn toward the source of the light and reflect it.
Its entire purpose is determined by its orientation. This is the secret. This is the key to that hidden door I told you about. You've been trying to be the sun. You've been trying to generate patience. You've been trying to manufacture love. You've been striving to produce joy out of your own heart.
And you're burning out because you were never designed to be the source of those things. You were designed to be the reflector. When we forget this, we start inspecting the dust. We look at the grime on our lives, our bad habits, our failures, our wandering thoughts, and we say, "I'm just a dirty mirror. I'm broken." And yeah, that mirror is dirty. We live in a fallen world.
We've turned away from the light. That's what sin is, a mirror turning toward the darkness. But the grime is what is on you. The image of God is what is you. Jesus didn't come just to give you a list of rules to help you wipe off the dirt. He came to restore the connection. He came to turn the mirror back toward the sun.
The Apostle Paul talks about a mystery that was hidden for ages. It's the secret that unlocks the mansion. He writes in Colossians 1 27 that God wanted to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles which is Christ in you the hope of glory.
Christ in you. Not Christ watching you from a distance. Not Christ waiting for you somewhere in heaven. Not Christ merely forgiving you. But Christ in you, the very breath of God, the spirit of the sun taking up residence inside your frame. It's the Garden of Eden all over again, only better. It's the God of the universe breathing his life not just into a clay shell, but into your heart, into your very being.
Now, I know what some of you might be thinking. This sounds like new age talk. find the God within yourself. But that's not what this is. The new age says you are divine by nature. The gospel says you become a dwelling place for divinity by grace. One makes you your own savior.
The other gives you one. There's a universe of difference here. This is biblical theology. This is the gospel. The creator has moved into the creation. Do you see how this changes your Tuesday morning? If you're a house that God inhabits, if you're a mirror designed to reflect his nature, then the pressure is off.
The pressure to be good enough by your own strength, it just dissolves. You realize that the Christian life isn't about you trying harder to be like Jesus. It's about Jesus living his life through you.
Usually, we wake up and the to-do list attacks us. We think about the traffic, the difficult boss, the rebellious toddler. We tighten our muscles. We say, "I have to be strong today." We're focusing on the dust. But what if you woke up and remembered the breath? What if you lay there and said, "F 1 Corinthians 6:19 says, "I am a temple of the living God.
The creator of the stars lives in me. I don't have to manufacture patience for my kids today. The prince of peace lives in me." and he has plenty of patience. I don't have to conjure up wisdom for that meeting. The spirit of truth is inside me and he knows exactly what to do.
Stop managing the dust. Trust the breath. You're not the sun. You're the mirror. So, how do we actually do this? How do we stop living in the foyer and step through that door? I want to give you one specific thing to do this week.
Just one experiment. I promise you if you try it, you'll see results. For the next seven days, before your heat feet hit the floor in the morning, I want you to put your hand on your chest, feel your heartbeat, feel your breath, and I want you to pray one simple sentence. Christ, live your life through me today. That's it. No long speeches, no bargaining, just an agreement. Christ, live your life through me today.
When you're stuck in traffic and the anger starts to rise, touch your chest. Christ, live your life through me. When you're walking into that stressful meeting, Christ, live your life through me. And watch what happens. You'll find that you aren't trying to squeeze patience out of your own exhausted soul. You're stepping back and letting his patience flow through you. You're angling the mirror toward the sun.
S O N as well as S U N. You don't have to break down the door to this deeper life. It's not barricaded. The handles on your side. It turns with a simple acknowledgment of the truth. God, you are here. You are in me.
I am yours. So stop living in the hallway. Get out of the foyer. Let's stop being satisfied with the religion that only addresses the dust and step into the reality that we are breathing living walking carriers of the divine presence. The mansion is huge. The rooms are filled with light. And the most amazing part, it's not a house you have to visit.
It's who you are. So here's the choice. Will you keep exhausting yourself trying to polish the dust? Or will you let the breath fill you? Remember that hollow feeling I described at the beginning? That ache that told you something was missing. That ache was right.
Something was missing. But it wasn't more effort. It wasn't better behavior. It was this the awareness that you were never meant to generate the light. You were made to reflect it. Let this be our prayer. Abba Father, we're tired of the hollow life.
We're tired of trying to be the son. We confess that we've lived in the foyer, managing our behavior while our souls starved. Thank you for the mystery of Christ in us. Thank you that you haven't left us empty. Live your life through us today. Turn our faces toward you. We are yours in Jesus' name.
Amen. I wanted to take a moment to tell you about my book, The Broken Mirror: Rediscovering Our True Nature in Christ. Readers call it a fantastic book where you will feel yourself discovering your identity in Christ. One reviewer praised it as five-star material for the spiritual mystic or group Bible study. It's time to escape legalism and shame. Discover you're already God's beloved child with divine nature flowing through you with what reviewers describe as excellent writing style and elegant pros like a campfire discussion with a knowledgeable and gifted recon tour journey from Genesis to Revelation uncovering your true identity. This book shows how to access God's peace, wisdom, and strength from within.
Your struggles become opportunities for divine light to shine through. Available in hard coverver, paperback, Kindle, and audiobook. The link to the book is in the video description. May God bless your journey along his path for you.
