Brokenness
Psalm 51:16-17
Message #2
Last week we started a short series called Give Up. Last week’s message was an overview of the “Give Up” series. I love this title, “Give Up.” Here’s the overview. It was called “Giving Up, Giving In, And Giving Over.” We looked at the critical centrality of giving in the Bible in every sense. We talked about Jack Hayford’s statement that the key to everything in the Christian life involves – giving.
Things such as: giving up your pride. Giving up your “self” focus. Giving “in” to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And giving over all that stuff that you can’t handle. Giving over the control to all the stuff you think you have control of. That was last week’s message.
Today, I want to talk about giving up. Giving up pride. Giving up our pride. Giving up our “self” focus. It comes primarily and most significantly in a single word. That word is “brokenness.” The absolute way that we survive the road to destruction, called pride, is the narrow pathway called brokenness.
There was a season in my life when people thought I only taught two messages, brokenness and forgiveness. And it seemed no matter what scripture I was teaching, I always came back to those two subjects. It seemed like that was all I taught, no matter where I turned in the Bible because God was doing so much in my life in brokenness and forgiveness. He was saving my life. And so, today, we return to brokenness.
Before I start, I need to say that, to a large extent, I’m simply re-teaching a message that is not mine. One of my favorite all-time messages is called “Brokenness” by Damian Kyle of Calvary Chapel Modesto. Not only is he one of my favorite Pastors, but his message on Brokenness is one of my all-time favorites. So, huge credit to Damian Kyle for teaching me and for this message.
I’d like to open up the idea of brokenness today and then finish in the next message. So this is part one.
We’ll go through Psalm 51 in our next message, verse-by-verse. I just couldn’t put it all in here, and it’s just so powerful. Every verse has great insight. So, we’ll do that next message. But for today, I want us to turn to Psalm 51.
We’re just going to look at key verses, kind of the “after brokenness” verses. King David committed two sins for which there was no atonement for in the law. He was not only hopeless; he was double hopeless. He had lived for a year with this crushing burden of committing not just one but two sins for which there was no atonement in the law, no way to cover over these sins. And finally, the Holy Spirit rushed face to face with him. His name was Nathan, and he is a picture of the Holy Spirit. And he gave David the opportunity to experience the greatest blessing of his life called brokenness.
Finally, David understood what God is really after.
Psalm 51:16–17 (NLT)
16 You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.
“But I’ve cleaned up my life. I look so religious; I’m following all the rules, and even some I’ve added myself. And I condemn everyone else who doesn’t follow the rules I follow. And God says it’s worthless?” Yeah. Because the sacrifice God wants is a broken spirit. The sacrifice God wants is a broken and repentant heart on your part. Any prideful Pharisee can be religious. God wants your heart, and he wants it broken. The only chance David had to return to God was through brokenness, which we will really look at next week.
If you really look at the heroes of the Bible (not the all “cleaned up, saintly” version), but at the real nitty-gritty reality of the Bible heroes, you’ll see very clearly God uses broken people. In fact, it seems God requires brokenness before he will truly use a person for his glory. God has always made brokenness the beginning of his plan for every Bible hero and every follower of Christ.
God cannot and will not truly use a man or woman
in their own STRENGTH
in their own CONFIDENCE
in their own ABILITIES.
And every “would be” hero in the Bible that has refused to be broken has had a dire end to their life.
Maybe two of the most famous non-broken characters in the Bible are Saul and Samson. Both of them are perfect examples of what not to be. At the root of both of those tragic lives in the Bible was a refusal to let God break their self-confidence, self-will, and self-ways.
How about Saul? That good lookin’, all together, successful, know it all, got it together, knows how to lead, first king of Israel. How about him? Not broken. Removed. Dire end to his life.
How about Samson? That guy that they put on the cover of romance novels. Look at his life. Yikes! These are two would-be heroes of the Bible that refused to be broken. Did God give them a chance? Yes. God anointed them both with his Spirit, Saul included. They rejected God’s plan of brokenness, they held on to their own plan of pride and self-focus, and they were perfect examples of what not to do. Perfect examples. Because they refused to allow God to break their self-confidence and their self-will and their self-ways, and if we refuse to let God break those things in our lives, we’ll go down in eternal history just like Saul and just like Samson.
We had a shot, but we wouldn’t allow God to break us. God cannot use a man or woman in their own strength. He will not. Why should he? So you can be glorified? So all of creation can say, “Look at that person’s confidence, their strength, and their abilities.” You’re not going to be on the throne. Listen, God is the only one who will be glorified for eternity. He is glorified in broken things, in broken people, in broken lives. In fact, he breaks you so that he can be glorified. In fact, he cannot be glorified until you are broken.
The truth is we can’t even begin the Christian life without brokenness. Note this verse in your Bible; Luke 20, verse 18. Jesus is speaking of himself as the chief cornerstone of salvation that was rejected, and he says of himself:
Luke 20:18 (NKJV)
18 Whoever falls on that stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.”
What are you saying, Jesus? What are you getting at? Can you elaborate on that whole grind me to powder thing? Either I fall on Jesus as the chief cornerstone in brokenness for salvation, or one day that stone falls on me and grinds me to powder (an obvious reference to judgment). God loves you enough to let you choose. Fall on the stone and be broken, or someday have the stone fall on you and be crushed to powder.
I wonder if you’ve done that yet? Fallen on Jesus in brokenness. How can we move on until I ask, have you done that? Have you fallen on the chief cornerstone and been broken enough to be saved? Please hear me when I say (and it’s not an easy thing to differentiate), but I’m not asking if you’ve repeated a prayer, if you own a Bible or if you’ve been in church. I’m asking you, have you recognized that without Christ, you have no hope? I’m asking you, have you recognized that in your pride, there is “no good thing” in you? That you have nothing to offer God, that there’s nothing that you can bring to God that he needs or can use? That your pride, and your self-confidence and your self-assurance and your self-focus must be absolutely crushed on the Rock of Jesus Christ? Until you just say, “Jesus, I just need to be forgiven. That’s all. I just need to be forgiven of my sins, Lord.”
If you haven’t done that, your eternity hangs in the balance because it’s the only way. The Bible says it’s the only way. Fall on the Rock in brokenness and receive salvation as the gift it is. Nothing you can earn, nothing you can deserve. You only freely receive it, or you freely reject it. Salvation starts in brokenness. Salvation starts in brokenness. And if you can never think of a time when you were broken before the Lord, get there.
At some point, after we’ve been broken enough to be saved, at some point we realize, what? It’s not a “one-time” deal. That’s bad news (if you’re thinking of it from the wrong perspective). At some point, we realize that brokenness is a continual, critical, crucial ongoing requirement for us to grow at all in the Christian life. And if we return to our pride and self-sufficiency, we will remain exactly where we were on the day we were saved.
We don’t naturally fall towards brokenness – we naturally fall towards pride. We have to continually allow God to use those instruments of breaking in our lives. Again, and again and again, until we want to quit. And right at that point, God says, “Now you’re ready. There’s none of ‘you’ left. You have nothing else of your ‘self’ left. Perfect. Now let me show you what I can do in you.” That’s the blessing!
Damian Kyle calls it “The blessing of brokenness.” Can I tell you right now, if a Christian is broken enough to get saved, but then you stop that broken “thing,” there will be zero permanent spiritual growth in your life until you learn to be broken? Zero spiritual growth. Zero transformation. Zero fruit. Zero evidence of Jesus Christ in your life. Until you really understand brokenness. So, what is it?
So, what is it? What does it mean to be broken? How do you define brokenness? Because we see it as a negative, don’t we? But it’s not a negative. It’s such a blessing! It’s a secret to the Christian life. There are a lot of ways you can define brokenness. Why? Because it’s intangible. What it means to one person maybe means something else to another. How it occurs in one person is different than how it occurs in another person. So, let me use Damian Kyle’s definition (a nod to him as my mentor in this subject). Here’s what Damian Kyle says; here’s how he defines brokenness. “My will is broken to God’s will. And my ways are broken to God’s ways.” That’s a good definition of brokenness, right?
Do you know what I’ve found? I’ve found very seldom, initially, does my will match God’s will. Like, when I just first come up with a will, like my first thought on something, very seldom is it in alignment with God’s will. In fact, most of the time, it’s 180 degrees out. In fact, here’s a great thing you can bet on. If you’re a betting person, here’s what you can bet on. Your will is the opposite of God’s. Almost every time. Until your will is broken, and when your will is broken, you have this opportunity to get in alignment with God’s will. Once you get in alignment with God’s will, there’s no stopping you. There is no stopping you!
Do you want to know how I know it’s the will of God that I’m standing here? Because a whole bunch of people have tried to stop me from standing here. And as soon as they succeed, then I’ll know it’s not God’s will anymore. But as long as it’s God’s will, here I am. Hey, listen; it’s the same in your life. As long as it’s God’s will for you to be doing what you’re doing, you’re going to keep doing it. But the point is to get into alignment with his will. The only way you can do that is to break your will. My ways are not initially aligned with God’s ways. The way I would handle stuff, most often, is the opposite of God.
Another good bet, your ways are opposite of God’s. So, allow your ways to be broken to God’s ways, and get into alignment with his ways, and then he can begin to use you. He can use you in any situation to bring himself glory and bring you to be part of an eternal, radical work. Kingdom work. Stuff that’s going to last. That’s good news.
Think about a toddler in the terrible two’s stage. This toddler in their terrible two’s stage has their own will, and they have their own ways. And if they are blessed to be born into Godly parents (and I say if), that baby’s hope is in having their self-will and their self-ways broken to their Godly parents. The way that baby has hope for a future is for their Godly parents, in a Godly way, in a loving Godly way to break that terrible two’s self-will and self-ways.
Think about the military. Do you know that the primary purpose of boot camp is to break the independent will and ways of each recruit so they can become part of the unit – the bigger team? And boot camp weeds out the recruits who refuse to have their will and their way broken. That person becomes a hazard to the unit, and so the military removes them.
There are a ton of horse people here. How valuable is a stubborn, self-willed, unbroken horse? Not, right? The only hope is to bring that power under the will of the owner. And yet we are all that with God. All that with the frosting of a child in their terrible two’s. A self-willed two-year-old, an unbroken military recruit, and a headstrong unbroken horse. They all have one thing in common. Their self-will and their self-ways must be broken for them to have a future with any hope. And we all say, “Yeah, that’s right.” But then God says it’s the same thing for you. And we say, “No! No! That’s not right.”
But here is the great news; in God’s economy, broken people greatly increase in value to the Kingdom. Do you want to know how to be valuable to God? Do you want to know how God can really use you? Seek after God’s ways to break your will to his, to break your ways to his, for you to be totally surrendered to him. Now your value in God’s economy goes through the roof because God sees you. He is seeking such that he can use for the Kingdom’s cause. When God wants to really use a person, when God wants to bring himself glory through a person, he begins by breaking their will to his will and by breaking their ways to his ways. And that is always how God begins his masterpiece (poiēma) in a person’s life.
Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)
10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
Here’s the truth about brokenness we need to hear: Brokenness is God planning for our future. If you desire to be God’s masterpiece to be created anew in Christ Jesus, to do the good things God has prepared for you, then look for God to begin that plan by bringing brokenness into your life because that is how his plan for your future begins.
The problem is, God allows us to get off the wheel, at least for a time. Imagine a lump of clay, and the potter begins putting pressure on it, and it jumps off the wheel. Imagine the potter says, “Oh clay, I’m just gonna let you lay there in the dirt on the floor for a while, and then I’ll be back.” Then God comes back, puts us back on the wheel, touches us with the first bit of pressure, and we jump off the wheel. And God says, “Oh clay, I’m just gonna let you lay there in the dirt on the floor for a while, and then I’ll be back.” And then God comes back, put us back on the wheel… and well, you get the picture, right? God is patient, but the clay is still prepared the same way, through brokenness.
Please look at these scriptures.
James 4:6 (NLT)
6 . . . “God opposes the proud but favors the humble.”
Pride slams the door on God from our side. Pride is a wall that we build that separates us from God.
But in Isaiah 66, God says,
Isaiah 66:1–2 (ESV)
1 Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool . . . 2 All these things my hand has made . . . But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.
God opposes the proud but looks to use those who are humble and contrite in spirit and tremble. Heaven is his throne, and earth is his footstool. And here’s the one he’s looking for. The one who is humble and contrite or broken in his spirit and trembles at his Word. One God opposes, one God looks for, you choose. You either be behind the opposed door of pride or be in the room where God is choosing some.
Psalm 34:18 (NLT)
18 The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.
Maybe right now you’re saying, “Hey, wait a minute, this is becoming a real downer message. You’re talking about a person we should feel sorry for. You’re talking about a person who’s really down and out.” And that just proves how opposite our thinking is to God’s.
We think that a person who’s all puffed up with pride and all full of their own accomplishment and their own will, all master of their own destiny, Captain of their own ship… we think that person is riding on top. But God says, “Hmmm, that reminds me of that angel I threw out of heaven, what was his name? He was all full of his own agenda and his own will.” Our sin nature and our pride see things exactly opposite of how God sees them, and when are we going to figure out that God is never going to conform to our way of seeing things?
Instead, God says over and over again, the man or woman he uses most, he blesses most he is most glorified through is the person whose will and whose ways have been broken to his.
And often, when we are experiencing the blessings of God, God will purposefully couple with those blessing a measure of brokenness to keep us from getting puffed up. We see this in so many heroes of the Bible.
Take, for instance, Paul. In 2 Corinthians 12, he was reluctantly sharing about one of the most incredible blessings God had given him (caught up to Paradise). But at the same time, Paul shared the balance to the incredible blessing from God…
2 Corinthians 12:7–10 (NLT)
7 . . . So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud.
8 Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away.
9 Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.
10 That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Paul realized God was using a tool to keep him broken and dependent on God. Paul came to realize the great benefit of allowing God to keep him in this place of brokenness and dependence on God. God’s economy is probably the opposite of yours. What you think is the opposite of what God thinks. What your will is for your life is probably the opposite of what God’s will is for your life, and definitely, how he gets you where he wants you is different than how you would go there.
God often brings tools of brokenness into our lives in order to keep us usable and to purify our lives, and to show more clearly WHO the strength in our life really is. It seems clear Paul thought initially this tool of brokenness was a hindrance to his successful ministry. But it was actually through this tool of brokenness that God was able to use Paul to the extent he did.
Is there a tool of brokenness God is trying to use in your life for your good right now? It may be a circumstance, a situation, a physical condition, or God’s tool of brokenness might even have a name.
God has many different ways (or tools) to break us, and often (for me, at least), God uses our own failure to break us. And I don’t mean failure as deep as King David’s was in Psalm 51 (we’ll look at that next message). I mean regular day in and day out failure after failure. After a while, failure creates a true dependence on God. And God says, “Oh, I see it’s beginning to work, good for you…” The more I fail in my own will and my own ways, the more I realize apart from my brokenness, I can do nothing for God.
In fact, apart from brokenness, I am a danger to God’s people and to God’s purpose.
Damian Kyle says, As leaders, apart from brokenness, we are a DANGER to God’s people. It is ONLY through brokenness that we can become a BLESSING to God’s people.
We will look at more of that specifically next message.
Continuing with God’s tools for brokenness…
Sometimes our brokenness comes through a physical challenge or problem, like Paul’s thorn in the flesh. Sometimes our brokenness comes through Spiritual Warfare, which was also what Paul’s thorn in the flesh was. Sometimes it comes through some crushing circumstance.
As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians Chapter 1, talking about his difficult circumstances…
2 Corinthians 1:8–9 (NLT)
8 . . . We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it.
9 In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God . . .
If your crushing circumstances cause you to stop relying on yourself and start relying on God, then that is one of the greatest blessings God can bring into your life.
It can be an economic tool that God uses. It can be a failed relationship tool God uses. And often, our brokenness comes through difficult people. And I know all of us think we’re not that difficult person, that other person is the difficult person. What I’ve found in difficult people’s circumstances, including ones that involve me personally, most always both people think the other person is the difficult person. And God says, “That’s fine because I’m using you both in each other’s lives to offer brokenness to everybody.”
Guys, we must never refuse God’s tool of brokenness. It’s not the tool that God uses; it’s our response that determines whether we benefit from it or not. Stay on the wheel! Listen, stay on the wheel. When God picks you up, puts you on the wheel, and puts pressure on you, don’t jump off and lay in the dirt somewhere. Stay on the wheel.
Oswald Chambers wrote,
God can never make us into wine if we object to the fingers He chooses to use to crush us . . . we must never try to choose the place of our own martyrdom. If we are ever going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed . . .
If we are ever going to be made into wine for God’s use, we are going to have to be crushed.
The truth is, we cannot be conformed into the image of Jesus Christ apart from being broken. Jesus himself experienced true brokenness here on earth. When Jesus cried out in the garden in Luke 22…
Luke 22:42 (NLT)
42 “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”
That was brokenness in our Lord, and the theme of brokenness in our Lord is carried out regularly in the communion service. When Jesus initiated communion at the Last Supper, he took the bread, and he did what with it?
He said: this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.
And then the cup, which represents his blood, poured out for us… what more intense picture of true brokenness can there be? And yet, as we say, “Thank you, Jesus, for being broken for us,” we at the same time often refuse to be broken for him.
Brokenness is the breaking of our will to God’s will and the breaking of our ways to God’s ways. It is only through the process of brokenness we can experience the life that God has for us.
When God sends his means of brokenness into your life, stay on the wheel. Stay in the fire. Allow God’s tool to bring the blessing of brokenness into your life.
Here’s a poem that I find so often applies to my life.
When God wants to drill a man,
And thrill a man,
And skill a man
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part;
When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways!
How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects!
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him
Into trial shapes of clay which
Only God understands;
While his tortured heart is crying
And he lifts beseeching hands!
How He bends but never breaks
When his good He undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses,
And which every purpose fuses him;
By every act induces him
To try His splendor out-
God knows what He’s about.
Stay on the wheel. Embrace the blessing of brokenness.
Things such as: giving up your pride. Giving up your “self” focus. Giving “in” to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And giving over all that stuff that you can’t handle. Giving over the control to all the stuff you think you have control of. That was last week’s message.
Today, I want to talk about giving up. Giving up pride. Giving up our pride. Giving up our “self” focus. It comes primarily and most significantly in a single word. That word is “brokenness.” The absolute way that we survive the road to destruction, called pride, is the narrow pathway called brokenness.
There was a season in my life when people thought I only taught two messages, brokenness and forgiveness. And it seemed no matter what scripture I was teaching, I always came back to those two subjects. It seemed like that was all I taught, no matter where I turned in the Bible because God was doing so much in my life in brokenness and forgiveness. He was saving my life. And so, today, we return to brokenness.
Before I start, I need to say that, to a large extent, I’m simply re-teaching a message that is not mine. One of my favorite all-time messages is called “Brokenness” by Damian Kyle of Calvary Chapel Modesto. Not only is he one of my favorite Pastors, but his message on Brokenness is one of my all-time favorites. So, huge credit to Damian Kyle for teaching me and for this message.
I’d like to open up the idea of brokenness today and then finish in the next message. So this is part one.
We’ll go through Psalm 51 in our next message, verse-by-verse. I just couldn’t put it all in here, and it’s just so powerful. Every verse has great insight. So, we’ll do that next message. But for today, I want us to turn to Psalm 51.
We’re just going to look at key verses, kind of the “after brokenness” verses. King David committed two sins for which there was no atonement for in the law. He was not only hopeless; he was double hopeless. He had lived for a year with this crushing burden of committing not just one but two sins for which there was no atonement in the law, no way to cover over these sins. And finally, the Holy Spirit rushed face to face with him. His name was Nathan, and he is a picture of the Holy Spirit. And he gave David the opportunity to experience the greatest blessing of his life called brokenness.
Finally, David understood what God is really after.
Psalm 51:16–17 (NLT)
16 You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.
“But I’ve cleaned up my life. I look so religious; I’m following all the rules, and even some I’ve added myself. And I condemn everyone else who doesn’t follow the rules I follow. And God says it’s worthless?” Yeah. Because the sacrifice God wants is a broken spirit. The sacrifice God wants is a broken and repentant heart on your part. Any prideful Pharisee can be religious. God wants your heart, and he wants it broken. The only chance David had to return to God was through brokenness, which we will really look at next week.
If you really look at the heroes of the Bible (not the all “cleaned up, saintly” version), but at the real nitty-gritty reality of the Bible heroes, you’ll see very clearly God uses broken people. In fact, it seems God requires brokenness before he will truly use a person for his glory. God has always made brokenness the beginning of his plan for every Bible hero and every follower of Christ.
God cannot and will not truly use a man or woman
in their own STRENGTH
in their own CONFIDENCE
in their own ABILITIES.
And every “would be” hero in the Bible that has refused to be broken has had a dire end to their life.
Maybe two of the most famous non-broken characters in the Bible are Saul and Samson. Both of them are perfect examples of what not to be. At the root of both of those tragic lives in the Bible was a refusal to let God break their self-confidence, self-will, and self-ways.
How about Saul? That good lookin’, all together, successful, know it all, got it together, knows how to lead, first king of Israel. How about him? Not broken. Removed. Dire end to his life.
How about Samson? That guy that they put on the cover of romance novels. Look at his life. Yikes! These are two would-be heroes of the Bible that refused to be broken. Did God give them a chance? Yes. God anointed them both with his Spirit, Saul included. They rejected God’s plan of brokenness, they held on to their own plan of pride and self-focus, and they were perfect examples of what not to do. Perfect examples. Because they refused to allow God to break their self-confidence and their self-will and their self-ways, and if we refuse to let God break those things in our lives, we’ll go down in eternal history just like Saul and just like Samson.
We had a shot, but we wouldn’t allow God to break us. God cannot use a man or woman in their own strength. He will not. Why should he? So you can be glorified? So all of creation can say, “Look at that person’s confidence, their strength, and their abilities.” You’re not going to be on the throne. Listen, God is the only one who will be glorified for eternity. He is glorified in broken things, in broken people, in broken lives. In fact, he breaks you so that he can be glorified. In fact, he cannot be glorified until you are broken.
The truth is we can’t even begin the Christian life without brokenness. Note this verse in your Bible; Luke 20, verse 18. Jesus is speaking of himself as the chief cornerstone of salvation that was rejected, and he says of himself:
Luke 20:18 (NKJV)
18 Whoever falls on that stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.”
What are you saying, Jesus? What are you getting at? Can you elaborate on that whole grind me to powder thing? Either I fall on Jesus as the chief cornerstone in brokenness for salvation, or one day that stone falls on me and grinds me to powder (an obvious reference to judgment). God loves you enough to let you choose. Fall on the stone and be broken, or someday have the stone fall on you and be crushed to powder.
I wonder if you’ve done that yet? Fallen on Jesus in brokenness. How can we move on until I ask, have you done that? Have you fallen on the chief cornerstone and been broken enough to be saved? Please hear me when I say (and it’s not an easy thing to differentiate), but I’m not asking if you’ve repeated a prayer, if you own a Bible or if you’ve been in church. I’m asking you, have you recognized that without Christ, you have no hope? I’m asking you, have you recognized that in your pride, there is “no good thing” in you? That you have nothing to offer God, that there’s nothing that you can bring to God that he needs or can use? That your pride, and your self-confidence and your self-assurance and your self-focus must be absolutely crushed on the Rock of Jesus Christ? Until you just say, “Jesus, I just need to be forgiven. That’s all. I just need to be forgiven of my sins, Lord.”
If you haven’t done that, your eternity hangs in the balance because it’s the only way. The Bible says it’s the only way. Fall on the Rock in brokenness and receive salvation as the gift it is. Nothing you can earn, nothing you can deserve. You only freely receive it, or you freely reject it. Salvation starts in brokenness. Salvation starts in brokenness. And if you can never think of a time when you were broken before the Lord, get there.
At some point, after we’ve been broken enough to be saved, at some point we realize, what? It’s not a “one-time” deal. That’s bad news (if you’re thinking of it from the wrong perspective). At some point, we realize that brokenness is a continual, critical, crucial ongoing requirement for us to grow at all in the Christian life. And if we return to our pride and self-sufficiency, we will remain exactly where we were on the day we were saved.
We don’t naturally fall towards brokenness – we naturally fall towards pride. We have to continually allow God to use those instruments of breaking in our lives. Again, and again and again, until we want to quit. And right at that point, God says, “Now you’re ready. There’s none of ‘you’ left. You have nothing else of your ‘self’ left. Perfect. Now let me show you what I can do in you.” That’s the blessing!
Damian Kyle calls it “The blessing of brokenness.” Can I tell you right now, if a Christian is broken enough to get saved, but then you stop that broken “thing,” there will be zero permanent spiritual growth in your life until you learn to be broken? Zero spiritual growth. Zero transformation. Zero fruit. Zero evidence of Jesus Christ in your life. Until you really understand brokenness. So, what is it?
So, what is it? What does it mean to be broken? How do you define brokenness? Because we see it as a negative, don’t we? But it’s not a negative. It’s such a blessing! It’s a secret to the Christian life. There are a lot of ways you can define brokenness. Why? Because it’s intangible. What it means to one person maybe means something else to another. How it occurs in one person is different than how it occurs in another person. So, let me use Damian Kyle’s definition (a nod to him as my mentor in this subject). Here’s what Damian Kyle says; here’s how he defines brokenness. “My will is broken to God’s will. And my ways are broken to God’s ways.” That’s a good definition of brokenness, right?
Do you know what I’ve found? I’ve found very seldom, initially, does my will match God’s will. Like, when I just first come up with a will, like my first thought on something, very seldom is it in alignment with God’s will. In fact, most of the time, it’s 180 degrees out. In fact, here’s a great thing you can bet on. If you’re a betting person, here’s what you can bet on. Your will is the opposite of God’s. Almost every time. Until your will is broken, and when your will is broken, you have this opportunity to get in alignment with God’s will. Once you get in alignment with God’s will, there’s no stopping you. There is no stopping you!
Do you want to know how I know it’s the will of God that I’m standing here? Because a whole bunch of people have tried to stop me from standing here. And as soon as they succeed, then I’ll know it’s not God’s will anymore. But as long as it’s God’s will, here I am. Hey, listen; it’s the same in your life. As long as it’s God’s will for you to be doing what you’re doing, you’re going to keep doing it. But the point is to get into alignment with his will. The only way you can do that is to break your will. My ways are not initially aligned with God’s ways. The way I would handle stuff, most often, is the opposite of God.
Another good bet, your ways are opposite of God’s. So, allow your ways to be broken to God’s ways, and get into alignment with his ways, and then he can begin to use you. He can use you in any situation to bring himself glory and bring you to be part of an eternal, radical work. Kingdom work. Stuff that’s going to last. That’s good news.
Think about a toddler in the terrible two’s stage. This toddler in their terrible two’s stage has their own will, and they have their own ways. And if they are blessed to be born into Godly parents (and I say if), that baby’s hope is in having their self-will and their self-ways broken to their Godly parents. The way that baby has hope for a future is for their Godly parents, in a Godly way, in a loving Godly way to break that terrible two’s self-will and self-ways.
Think about the military. Do you know that the primary purpose of boot camp is to break the independent will and ways of each recruit so they can become part of the unit – the bigger team? And boot camp weeds out the recruits who refuse to have their will and their way broken. That person becomes a hazard to the unit, and so the military removes them.
There are a ton of horse people here. How valuable is a stubborn, self-willed, unbroken horse? Not, right? The only hope is to bring that power under the will of the owner. And yet we are all that with God. All that with the frosting of a child in their terrible two’s. A self-willed two-year-old, an unbroken military recruit, and a headstrong unbroken horse. They all have one thing in common. Their self-will and their self-ways must be broken for them to have a future with any hope. And we all say, “Yeah, that’s right.” But then God says it’s the same thing for you. And we say, “No! No! That’s not right.”
But here is the great news; in God’s economy, broken people greatly increase in value to the Kingdom. Do you want to know how to be valuable to God? Do you want to know how God can really use you? Seek after God’s ways to break your will to his, to break your ways to his, for you to be totally surrendered to him. Now your value in God’s economy goes through the roof because God sees you. He is seeking such that he can use for the Kingdom’s cause. When God wants to really use a person, when God wants to bring himself glory through a person, he begins by breaking their will to his will and by breaking their ways to his ways. And that is always how God begins his masterpiece (poiēma) in a person’s life.
Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)
10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
Here’s the truth about brokenness we need to hear: Brokenness is God planning for our future. If you desire to be God’s masterpiece to be created anew in Christ Jesus, to do the good things God has prepared for you, then look for God to begin that plan by bringing brokenness into your life because that is how his plan for your future begins.
The problem is, God allows us to get off the wheel, at least for a time. Imagine a lump of clay, and the potter begins putting pressure on it, and it jumps off the wheel. Imagine the potter says, “Oh clay, I’m just gonna let you lay there in the dirt on the floor for a while, and then I’ll be back.” Then God comes back, puts us back on the wheel, touches us with the first bit of pressure, and we jump off the wheel. And God says, “Oh clay, I’m just gonna let you lay there in the dirt on the floor for a while, and then I’ll be back.” And then God comes back, put us back on the wheel… and well, you get the picture, right? God is patient, but the clay is still prepared the same way, through brokenness.
Please look at these scriptures.
James 4:6 (NLT)
6 . . . “God opposes the proud but favors the humble.”
Pride slams the door on God from our side. Pride is a wall that we build that separates us from God.
But in Isaiah 66, God says,
Isaiah 66:1–2 (ESV)
1 Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool . . . 2 All these things my hand has made . . . But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.
God opposes the proud but looks to use those who are humble and contrite in spirit and tremble. Heaven is his throne, and earth is his footstool. And here’s the one he’s looking for. The one who is humble and contrite or broken in his spirit and trembles at his Word. One God opposes, one God looks for, you choose. You either be behind the opposed door of pride or be in the room where God is choosing some.
Psalm 34:18 (NLT)
18 The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.
Maybe right now you’re saying, “Hey, wait a minute, this is becoming a real downer message. You’re talking about a person we should feel sorry for. You’re talking about a person who’s really down and out.” And that just proves how opposite our thinking is to God’s.
We think that a person who’s all puffed up with pride and all full of their own accomplishment and their own will, all master of their own destiny, Captain of their own ship… we think that person is riding on top. But God says, “Hmmm, that reminds me of that angel I threw out of heaven, what was his name? He was all full of his own agenda and his own will.” Our sin nature and our pride see things exactly opposite of how God sees them, and when are we going to figure out that God is never going to conform to our way of seeing things?
Instead, God says over and over again, the man or woman he uses most, he blesses most he is most glorified through is the person whose will and whose ways have been broken to his.
And often, when we are experiencing the blessings of God, God will purposefully couple with those blessing a measure of brokenness to keep us from getting puffed up. We see this in so many heroes of the Bible.
Take, for instance, Paul. In 2 Corinthians 12, he was reluctantly sharing about one of the most incredible blessings God had given him (caught up to Paradise). But at the same time, Paul shared the balance to the incredible blessing from God…
2 Corinthians 12:7–10 (NLT)
7 . . . So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud.
8 Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away.
9 Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.
10 That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Paul realized God was using a tool to keep him broken and dependent on God. Paul came to realize the great benefit of allowing God to keep him in this place of brokenness and dependence on God. God’s economy is probably the opposite of yours. What you think is the opposite of what God thinks. What your will is for your life is probably the opposite of what God’s will is for your life, and definitely, how he gets you where he wants you is different than how you would go there.
God often brings tools of brokenness into our lives in order to keep us usable and to purify our lives, and to show more clearly WHO the strength in our life really is. It seems clear Paul thought initially this tool of brokenness was a hindrance to his successful ministry. But it was actually through this tool of brokenness that God was able to use Paul to the extent he did.
Is there a tool of brokenness God is trying to use in your life for your good right now? It may be a circumstance, a situation, a physical condition, or God’s tool of brokenness might even have a name.
God has many different ways (or tools) to break us, and often (for me, at least), God uses our own failure to break us. And I don’t mean failure as deep as King David’s was in Psalm 51 (we’ll look at that next message). I mean regular day in and day out failure after failure. After a while, failure creates a true dependence on God. And God says, “Oh, I see it’s beginning to work, good for you…” The more I fail in my own will and my own ways, the more I realize apart from my brokenness, I can do nothing for God.
In fact, apart from brokenness, I am a danger to God’s people and to God’s purpose.
Damian Kyle says, As leaders, apart from brokenness, we are a DANGER to God’s people. It is ONLY through brokenness that we can become a BLESSING to God’s people.
We will look at more of that specifically next message.
Continuing with God’s tools for brokenness…
Sometimes our brokenness comes through a physical challenge or problem, like Paul’s thorn in the flesh. Sometimes our brokenness comes through Spiritual Warfare, which was also what Paul’s thorn in the flesh was. Sometimes it comes through some crushing circumstance.
As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians Chapter 1, talking about his difficult circumstances…
2 Corinthians 1:8–9 (NLT)
8 . . . We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it.
9 In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God . . .
If your crushing circumstances cause you to stop relying on yourself and start relying on God, then that is one of the greatest blessings God can bring into your life.
It can be an economic tool that God uses. It can be a failed relationship tool God uses. And often, our brokenness comes through difficult people. And I know all of us think we’re not that difficult person, that other person is the difficult person. What I’ve found in difficult people’s circumstances, including ones that involve me personally, most always both people think the other person is the difficult person. And God says, “That’s fine because I’m using you both in each other’s lives to offer brokenness to everybody.”
Guys, we must never refuse God’s tool of brokenness. It’s not the tool that God uses; it’s our response that determines whether we benefit from it or not. Stay on the wheel! Listen, stay on the wheel. When God picks you up, puts you on the wheel, and puts pressure on you, don’t jump off and lay in the dirt somewhere. Stay on the wheel.
Oswald Chambers wrote,
God can never make us into wine if we object to the fingers He chooses to use to crush us . . . we must never try to choose the place of our own martyrdom. If we are ever going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed . . .
If we are ever going to be made into wine for God’s use, we are going to have to be crushed.
The truth is, we cannot be conformed into the image of Jesus Christ apart from being broken. Jesus himself experienced true brokenness here on earth. When Jesus cried out in the garden in Luke 22…
Luke 22:42 (NLT)
42 “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”
That was brokenness in our Lord, and the theme of brokenness in our Lord is carried out regularly in the communion service. When Jesus initiated communion at the Last Supper, he took the bread, and he did what with it?
He said: this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.
And then the cup, which represents his blood, poured out for us… what more intense picture of true brokenness can there be? And yet, as we say, “Thank you, Jesus, for being broken for us,” we at the same time often refuse to be broken for him.
Brokenness is the breaking of our will to God’s will and the breaking of our ways to God’s ways. It is only through the process of brokenness we can experience the life that God has for us.
When God sends his means of brokenness into your life, stay on the wheel. Stay in the fire. Allow God’s tool to bring the blessing of brokenness into your life.
Here’s a poem that I find so often applies to my life.
When God wants to drill a man,
And thrill a man,
And skill a man
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part;
When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways!
How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects!
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him
Into trial shapes of clay which
Only God understands;
While his tortured heart is crying
And he lifts beseeching hands!
How He bends but never breaks
When his good He undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses,
And which every purpose fuses him;
By every act induces him
To try His splendor out-
God knows what He’s about.
Stay on the wheel. Embrace the blessing of brokenness.