The St. Francis Dam, a 205-foot-high curved concrete gravity dam, failed on March 12, 1928, just two years after completion. The dam’s central section disintegrated, releasing 12.4 billion gallons of water killing over 430 people and causing damages worth over $130 million in today’s dollars.

This is not the Freedom History hour, but this is an incredible representation of something that has been stirring in me since last week.
Last week, I mentioned Psalm 51. Psalm 51 was written in response to David's own sin with Bathsheba.

Psalm 51:10
Create in me a clean heart of God and renew a right spirit within me.

If you remember, I asked the question, "What is making your heart dirty?”
What is the thing that is creating the filth inside of you that even leads you to ask the question, “Create in me a clean heart oh God?”`

And by the way, no shade here. Every single one of us has things that create filth in us. Every single one of us has something in our lives right now that is working against God, working hard to turn our lives into a sloppy pigpen.

Those things are the cracks in the dam that if not addressed will cause catastrophic failure in us.

In Killing the Orphan Spirit, I make the statement that sin is not our biggest issue. “Our biggest issue isn’t sin, it is orphanhood.” And what interesting is that sin itself is rarely the root problem. Sin is almost always the symptom. So when there is sin in your life, you need to ascertain why that sin is existing there in the first place.

It's just like cracks in a dam. You can spend your whole life patching the cracks, but if you never deal with the root causes, you'll be fighting cracks in the dam your entire life.

“Cracks developed in the St. Francis Dam’s structure due to instability in the foundation’s sedimentary rock. These cracks, exacerbated by water pressure as the reservoir neared capacity, propagated rapidly through the concrete causing its ultimate and deadly failure.”

For the Saint Francis Dam, it was an unstable foundation.
What's causing the cracks in your life?

1. Root Causes
The Bible is very clear about the destructive nature of the flesh and God’s desire that we are led by the Spirit. We see in Galatians 5 the display of the different fruits from each of those. The fruits of the flesh are all of the things you might imagine, those traits, deeds, thought processes that lead us straight into the pit of Hell, and all of those things in our flesh are driven by this force that Paul talks about in Romans 7.

Romans 7:18-25
18 … I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature (flesh). I want to do what is right, but I can’t. 19 I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. 20 But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. 21 I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. 22 I love God’s law with all my heart. 23 But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. 24 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? 25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.

That "power" that Paul is talking about is the very thing that drives us into sin. So let me give you a real life example of this theological principal.

Let's say the sin symptom that you are struggling with right now is angry outbursts. Every little thing makes you frustrated, from the television remote not working to somebody cutting you off in traffic to politics. Politics makes everybody mad…

So while you try to fix the cracks by learning new methods to control your anger, you never really deal with the root cause. This is behavior modification versus changing how you think. Behavior modifications only work if your thinking modifies.

So what could those root causes be?
- Maybe you think everybody in your life has taken advantage of you.
- Maybe you have the expectation of how your life was going to be and you are not living that life and the overflow of that disappointment comes out through anger.
- Maybe you grew up in a home where anger was the way you communicated.
- Maybe there were no external factors that have created this anger, but rather, you just refuse to discipline your emotions.

The foundation of a building is where the strength of the building begins. If the foundation of your life is driven by your fleshly, sinful nature, at some point the dam will break.

So then what can you do about this? Deconstruction is how. Deconstruction is the reduction of something to its individual parts in order to analyze, correct, and rebuild.

How do we do that?
When I met with a professor at East Baptist University in 2005, my goal was to take a few administration classes. I'd already gotten a degree in theology, but I really need help with admin. Who better better but a Baptist? Right?

But here's what Dr. Jeph Holloway told me:
“We are going to take everything you've ever learned about God and the church and dash it against the rocks of the Word and what survives is what you will take with you.”

This is how you deconstruct. You take everything you've ever learned about how to live life and you compare it to the Word of God, and what lines up with it you keep, but what doesn't, you eliminate.

Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

2 Timothy 3:16-17
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. 17 God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.

That thought process: what does the Word say about it?
That behavior: what does the Word say about it?
That response: what does the Word say about it?
How you've always done it: what does the Word say about it?
What you were taught: what does the Word say about it?

Hopefully, you see a pattern here, and there is a reason why the Word is what does this:
There is no ambiguity in the Word. It's truth is truth. We don't get to make it say what we want to say. That's a fancy word in theology called eisegesis, when you make the text say what you want it to say. You need to exegete, which is when you let the text say what it says.

- If your relationships are in shambles, you have clearly not been loving God and loving people like he commands.
- If your marriage is in shambles, you have definitely not been treating each other the way Christ treats the church.
- If your finances are in shambles, you are clearly not in financial covenant with God through tithing your first fruits, or else you are spending the other 90% like it belongs to you as well. It all belongs to God!

The cracks in your life that are going to lead to catastrophic failure are the symptoms of root causes that can only be dealt with by the Word of God. If you actually do what the Bible tells you to do and not just read it, you will find the symptoms start to go away because the Word is dealing with the root.

2. Little Compromises
1 Corinthians 5:6
Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough?

The St. Francis Dam
“The disaster exposed flaws in site selection and rushed construction, prompting major reforms in U.S. dam engineering standards.”

We know that the house built on the bedrock will stand, but look at what Jesus says about the house built on the sand.

Matthew 7:26-27
26 But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. 27 When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.

Why would anyone build a house on sand? Do you know what kind of effort it takes to get to the bedrock? Getting to the bedrock is difficult, expensive, and requires specialized equipment. But building on sand is quick and you can get started immediately.

My goodness, doesn't this describe so many Christians?
They want the results of the fruit of the Spirit, so rather than doing the work it takes to develop the relationship with God they long for, they take shortcuts and these shortcuts lead to compromises. The house might look great, but they didn't do the work to get to the bedrock and as a result, just one storm comes into their lives and they fold.

Does that describe you? If it does, I don't want you to hear judgment today. I want you to accept the challenge to stop compromising.

So what does this look like practically?
Luke 16:10
If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones.
We typically use this verse when we talk about giving, but it is a principle that applies to every area of your life.

There are little battles that you fight as you grow in your relationship with Jesus. These are moments of insecurity or times when you feel inadequate to what God called you to do, or you feel the pain and brokenness of mistakes that you make. In these moments, God is teaching you about himself, his character, his nature, and when you read the Word, the Word reinforces that while God is hard on sin, he is kind and loving and gracious towards you.

It's in these moments where we grow to learn and trust who God is through these little things, so when the big thing happens, the massive storm comes through, we are ready to believe and trust God because we've had all these experiences with these little things where we've gotten to learn exactly who he is, that he is faithful no matter what, that he can be trusted.

This is why James was so quick to say at the beginning of James 1 to consider it pure joy, brothers, and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds.

We never pray until something bad happens and then we don't understand why God won't answer. We never read our Word until the sky starts falling and we don't understand why we aren't deeper in our faith. We only worship on Sunday mornings and wonder why we have such a hard feeling God.

Listen, I'm not trying to be mean here. I'm trying to tell us all that compromises cause cracks that destroy our lives.

Where are you compromising, and what results are those compromises netting you?

3. Comfortable Complacency
On Tuesday morning, my eyes popped open at 4:30, and I heard that little voice in my head say, "Get up and come spend some time with me." I replied, "can I have 15 more minutes?” I slept for 15 more minutes and then got up.

The voice directed me to Zephaniah. I literally heard the word "Zephaniah" in my head. This is how I knew was God speaking to me. Of all places, Zephaniah? I have a hard time even spelling that, much less at 4:30 am. Well, 4:45.

Here’s the verse I read: Zephaniah 1:12
I will search with lanterns in Jerusalem’s darkest corners to punish those who sit complacent in their sins. They think the Lord will do nothing to them, either good or bad.

St. Francis Dam
“Eyewitnesses reported leaks from visible cracks hours before the collapse.” You’re telling me that only two years after completion the entire thing collapses and there were no signs until the few hours before collapse? There were.

“Water began to fill the reservoir March 12, 1926, during which a series of cracks appeared in the dam, including two cracks that ran over 58 feet from the top of the dam all the way to the bottom. In the following months, multiple cracks formed which were stuffed with oakum (old ropes and tar mixed and used as caulk) and then grouted, including a 150 foot crack that spewed 4.5 gallons per second. On March 7, 1928, the keeper discovered a new leak that contained mud, indicating the foundation was being eroded. On March 12, 1928, exactly two years to the day after it went into service, the dam catastrophically failed.”

One of the most prevalent causes of a dirty heart is the phrase, “It’s no big deal.” The cracks in the St. Francis Dam were deemed acceptable, no big deal. And I bet there are things in your life right now that you know are not good, but you’ve considered them acceptable, no big deal.

What better an example of the comfort part of this than Samson. In Judges 13 we read the the circumstances of the birth of Samson, including the directive that he be a Nazarite, meaning abstinence from grape products, no haircuts, and to remain ritually pure, including no contact with a dead body (human or animal), as well as sexual purity. In Judges 14, he violated his vow within the first 5 verses.

His entire life was filled with compromise due to his comfortability with sin.

A great example of the complacency part of this is with Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a Pharisee and John 3 describes him as a leader of the Jews. Being afraid to be seen with Jesus in public, he met secretly with him at night where Jesus confronts him with the truth that he must be born again. Nicodemus was incredulous, and Jesus goes on to further explain what the new birth is, and it is in this context that we get John 3:16.

We see him again in John 7 where the Sanhedrin is arguing about what to do about Jesus and Nicodemus, and while not publicly supporting Jesus, he simply asks that they listen to him before they render judgment. The other members had already made up their mind about Jesus.

The last time we hear of Nicodemus is in John 19 after Jesus’ crucifixion.
Nicodemus helps Joseph of Arimathea with Jesus burial. He buys 75 pounds of spices to prepare Jesus body for burial and then assists Joseph in wrapping the body and placing it in the tomb. The amount of spices would indicate that Nicodemus was not only rich, but he had great respect for Jesus.

Rich, incredible influence, respect for Jesus, yet he never took a stand for him. He was comfortable and complacent in his position, and while his heart surely burned for Jesus and his message, his own comfort and complacency kept him on the sidelines when he should've been in the game.

Would the story of Jesus and the religious leaders be different had somebody with the authority and respect of Nicodemus stood up for him?

It makes me wonder about our own comfort and complacency. This point is a little more difficult to unpack simply because when you are comfortable and complacent, it is easy to overlook the cracks that are going to eventually destroy you. The engineers refused to deal with the cracks in the dam, and it caused its failure.

If you are in a place right now where you are comfortable and you are complacent, it will cause you to look at the cracks in your life, the issues, the brokenness, and label them no big deal, not because they aren't,
but because it's easier and more comfortable not to deal with them.

Is this really the life God called us to when he called us out of darkness and into his light? Is a complacent, flavorless, action-less existence really what God had in mind for you?

So what do we do about this? What adjustment can we make? It's simple:
Take that one thing God has been asking you to do, that thing that isn't comfortable, that thing that is going to require you take a step, get up and do something, and do it.

Dams don’t fail because of the pressure of the water. They fail because of the causes, compromises, and complacency that aren’t dealt with.

The longer I live the more I realize that the pressures against me really just test my integrity. The pressures identify the issues that need to be dealt with.

In your own life, I’d bet you can trace the majority of the cracks in your life to root causes, little compromises, and comfortable complacency as well.

The real question is what are you going to do about em?

In the last several weeks we’ve had people being saved, baptized, they’ve grown in Bible studies and meetups, they’ve forgiven hurts and reconciled friendships. They’ve stepped into Serve Teams and embraced the truth of his Word.

It can be so easy today to get overwhelmed by what needs to be fixed in your life. All of us have multiple cracks in our lives that need addressing.

I am asking you today to focus on just one.

What is a step you can take today to address that one crack in your life that has the potential to devastate?

Give your life to Jesus. Go all in. Stop rebelling against his Word. Take a step by being obedient. Join a Serve Team. Let go of the past.

The best thing you can do in this moment is not stress about the issue,
but allow God to correct it.

The opportunity to do that is now.

Let’s pray.

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you through this message?

How does he want you to respond?