Brokenness
John 12:20-21
There are several indicators of a strong, healthy church: wet eyes, bent knees, and broken hearts.
1. Brokenness is a process and maturity that often originates, with simple curiosity.
Many have only wished to see or hear a man who speaks much of Jesus, his miracles, and his mercies; and in hearing have felt the powers of the world to come, and have become genuine converts to the truths of the Gospel.
2. Brokenness is the process of surrender or our heart, mind, and body to Christ.
John 12:20-21 KJV
20 And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast:
21 The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus.
22 Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus.
23 And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.
24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
25 He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
Sir, we would see Jesus - The Jews seek signs, the greeks sought to know Jesus.
This is possible through Brokenness
Brokenness is what we allow God to make of us.
Generally speaking, there is no comparison to be made between the value of a diamond and that of a grain of corn, yet all depends on the disposition you make of the corn. Put both of them away, and at the end of a hundred years the grain of corn will still have no money value, while the diamond’s value, running up into the hundreds of dollars, will be undiminished. At the end of a thousand years the same thing will be true. But suppose, instead, we bury the grain in the warm, moist earth, and year after year throughout the centuries let it go on producing and reproducing. In that time it will have produced a store that the whole earth could hardly contain. Its production represents a money value that makes the diamond’s price not more than an atom in comparison. To have saved the grain of corn would have been to lose all it was capable of producing.
"Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground, and die, it abideth alone" (John 12:24).
To save your gift from God may seem to be a prudent thing, but let me tell you that in the end it will mean loss.
To see Christ, to experience him, we need to die to self.
20 And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast:
21 The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus.
Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)
We need to remember that we cannot train ourselves to be Christians; we cannot discipline ourselves to be saints; we cannot bend ourselves to the will of God: we have to be broken to the will of God.
God uses broken things.
It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to produce rain, broken grain to give bread and broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. It is the broken Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever.
Brokenness brings Wholeness
Dwight L. Moody said that one of the happiest men he ever knew was a man in Dundee, Scotland, who had fallen and broken his back when a boy of fifteen. He had lain on his bed for forty years and could not be moved without a good deal of pain. Probably not a day had passed in all those years without acute suffering. But day after day the grace of God had been granted him, and when Mr. Moody was in his room it seemed as if he was as near heaven as he could get on earth. When Mr. Moody saw him, he thought he must be beyond the reach of the tempter, and he asked him, "Doesn’t Satan ever tempt you to doubt God and to think that He is a hard master?" "Oh, yes," he said, "he does try to tempt me. I lie here and see my old schoolmates driving along, and Satan says, ’If God is so good, why has He kept you here all these years? You might have been a rich man, riding in your carriage.’ Then I see a man, who was young when I was, walk by in perfect health, and Satan whispers, ’If God loved you, couldn’t He have kept you from breaking your back?’ " "And what do you do when Satan tempts you?" "Ah, I just take him to Calvary, and I show him Christ, and I point out those wounds in His hands and feet and side, and say, ’Doesn’t He love me?’ The fact is Satan got such a scare there nineteen hundred years ago that he cannot stand it; he leaves me every time." That bedridden saint of God did not have much trouble with doubts; he was too full of the grace of God.
Brokenness Empowers
A Brahmin compared the Christian missionary to the mango tree. All its branches hang with fruit. It is then assailed with stones and clubs by passersby. How does it respond--by dropping fruit at every blow at the feet of those who assail it. At the close of the season, it stands scarred and battered, its leaves torn off, its branches broken. But the next year it bears more fruit than the previous year.
That is what our Brokenness should do in the world bear fruit, fruit that descends low at the attack of cruel words and actions.
Brokenness helps us identify with others
It was a terrible fall, and it sickened those who saw it. John Pounds, a tall, muscular teen laborer at the docks of Portsmouth, England, slipped and plunged from the top of a ship’s mast, pitching headfirst into the bowels of the vessel. When fellow workers reached him, he was nothing but a mass of broken bones. For two years he lay in bed as his bones healed crookedly. His pain never ceased. Out of boredom, he began to read the Bible.
At length, John crawled from bed hoping to find something he could do with his life. A shoemaker hired him, and day after day, John sat at his cobbler’s bench, a Bible open on his lap. Soon he was born again.
John ultimately gathered enough money to purchase his own little shoeshop, and one day he developed a pair of surgical boots for his crippled nephew Johnny, whom he had taken in. Soon John was making corrective shoes for other children, and his little cobbler’s shop became a miniature children’s hospital.
As John’s burden for children grew, he began receiving homeless ones, feeding them, teaching them to read, and telling them about the Lord. His shop became known as “The Ragged School,” and John would limp around the waterfront, food in his pockets, looking for more children to tend.
During his lifetime, John Pounds rescued 500 children from despair and led every one of them to Christ. Moreover, his work became so famous that a “Ragged School Movement” swept England, and a series of laws were passed to establish schools for poor children in John’s honor. Boy’s homes, girl’s homes, day schools, and evening schools were started, along with Bible classes in which thousands heard the gospel.
When John collapsed and died on New Year’s Day, 1839 while tending to a boy’s ulcerated foot, he was buried in a churchyard on High Street. All England mourned.
Some things are ruined when broken, but the heart that God will use, is at its best when broken.
Psalm 34:18
Many in this world live with broken hearts. A broken limb of any kind is bad, bruised and wounded flesh is hard to bear. But when you heart is crushed or broken, or when your spirit trembles, you are depressed and utterly wretched. You are dreary company. Others get away from you like the herd leaves the wounded deer to bleed and die alone. People instinctively avoid the company of those who are habitually gloomy. Their own desire for happiness leads people to escape from the miserable.
Those who are taught by God will help the brokenhearted, but human sympathy is soon worn out because of its inability to help. You can set a limb and the bone will grow, but what can you do with a broken or crushed heart? Not liking to attempt the impossible and not caring to be continually baffled, it seems natural even to good people to avoid the depressed. Thus, the sad are doomed to sigh, “Loved one and friend You have put far from me, and my acquaintances into darkness” (Ps. 88:18).
When people comfort the depressed, they often become bitter by their conscious failures. They criticize until the poor tortured creature cries out in agony, “Miserable comforters are you all!” (Job 16:2). The trials of the brokenhearted are difficult because they are often despised and avoided.
Happy is it for them that “the LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit” (Ps. 34:18).
Application
Let us pray that God will use us.
Let us pray we can become a healthy, strong church.
Let us pray with wet eyes, bent knees, and broken hearts.
Let is Pray for broken minds, hearts, and bodies.
