Recently, I came across an interesting set of statistics on sanity. According to the study, one out of every four Americans is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Now, think of your three best friends. If they’re okay, then it’s probably you. (Rita Mae Brown, Church Champions Update, 11-26-01; www.PreachingToday.com)
Truth be told, ALL of us are broken in some way. This last year broke many of us, but only a few of us are willing to admit it. Many people wear masks that hide their brokenness, hoping nobody else will notice. They pay attention to outward appearances, hoping nobody really sees what’s on the inside. But that only keeps them from experiencing true happiness and joy.
There is real blessing in brokenness if you can just admit you’re broken. You say, “Phil, what possible blessing can come from my brokenness? What can be the good that comes from acknowledging the hurt, the pain, and the darkness in my own soul?” Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Genesis 32, Genesis 32, where we see what happened to Jacob when he finally came to a place of brokenness in his own life.
Genesis 32:22 The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. (ESV)
Jacob is about to enter the land God promised him and his descendants. It is the land of blessing.
Genesis 32:23-24 He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. (ESV)
In the original Hebrew, there is a play on words going on here that is quite significant. You see, before ya’aqob (Jacob) could cross the yaboq (Jabbok) into the land of blessing, he had to ye’abeq (wrestle) with somebody. There was no blessing without some agony and tears.
Genesis 32:25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. (ESV)
Up until now, Jacob has been a good fighter. He fought with his brother, Esau, winning a birthright and a blessing. He fought with his uncle, Laban, winning a great amount of wealth. Now he fights a “man” he cannot defeat, a “man” who cripples him in the strongest part of his body. An old doctor once said, “The hip muscle is the strongest muscle in the human body, a muscle that a horse could scarcely tear apart.” Yet this “man” with one touch pulled Jacob’s hip out of joint, and Jacob is now forever broken in the area of his greatest strength.
By now, we know that this is no ordinary “man.” This is a Supernatural Being, much stronger than Jacob. In fact, this is God Himself, who breaks Jacob down in the area of his self-confidence and his self-sufficiency. You see, there is no blessing without such a breaking, and if you want that blessing, you must…
LET GOD BREAK YOU OF YOUR SELF-SUFFICIENCY.
Let God break you of our self-confidence. Let God break you in those areas where you think you’re the strongest before He can make you truly strong in Him.
Chuck Swindoll once said, “When God wants to use a man greatly, He must first hurt him deeply.” Let me say it again, “When God wants to use a man greatly, He must first hurt him deeply.”
When I first heard that as a student in seminary preparing for ministry, I have to admit I didn’t like it at all. I didn’t want to be hurt. I didn’t want to be broken before God could use me in any significant way. But since then, I have discovered that it is very true. Oh the times of brokenness and hurt Sandy and I have experienced over more than 35 years in ministry. But those times of brokenness have always been followed by times of rich blessing in ministry.
And that has been true of all of God’s servants throughout history. Before God used Moses to deliver His people out of Egypt, God had to put him on the back side of the desert taking care of sheep for 40 years. Before God used Isaiah, one of Israel’s greatest prophets, He had to bring Isaiah to the point where he cried out, “Woe is me!” in Isaiah 6. Before God used the great Apostle Paul in the New Testament, he had to give him a “thorn in the flesh” to keep him from becoming conceited (2 Corinthians 12:7). In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul says, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore,” Paul says, ‘I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me’” (2 Corinthians 12:8-9). Even Christ’s body had to be broken on the cross before the blessing of His salvation could come to a broken world.
Vance Havner once said, “God uses broken things. Broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. It is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever.” (Vance Havner, Leadership, Vol. 4, no. 1; www.PreachingToday.com)
Are you broken today? Then come to God and let Him turn your brokenness into a blessing not only for yourself, but for those around you. For God uses broken things more than any other thing. In fact, God must break you of your self-sufficiency before He can bless you and make you a blessing to others.
Scott Sauls is pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, and he tells a story about an unnamed nursery worker who bumped into a first-time visitor named Janet. Janet had dropped her two boys off in the nursery. Sauls writes:
After the service, while Janet was waiting in the nursery line to retrieve her boys, one of the nursery workers quietly approached her and said that there had been some issues. Both of her boys had picked fights with other children. Also, one of her boys had broken several of the toys that belonged to the church. In front of a room filled with other children and their parents, Janet scolded her boys and then screamed in a bellowing voice, "S—!" Deeply ashamed and feeling like a failure, Janet got her boys and skulked out of the building. No doubt, we were never going to see her again.
But that unnamed nursery volunteer called the church office that Monday and asked if Pastor Scott could check the visitor notebook to see if Janet had left her contact information. She had. He gave the nursery worker Janet's address, and unbeknownst to him, she sent Janet a note. The note read something like this:
Dear Janet, I'm so glad that you and your boys visited our church. Oh, and about that little exchange when you picked them up from the nursery? Let's just say that I found it so refreshing—that you would feel freedom to speak with an honest vocabulary like that in church. I am really drawn to honesty, and you are clearly an honest person. I hope we can become friends. Love, Unnamed Nursery Worker.
The nursery worker and Janet did in fact become friends. Janet came back the next Sunday. And the Sunday after that. And the Sunday after that. And eventually, Janet became the nursery director for the church. Later on, I would discover that when Janet started coming to our church, she was a recovering heroin addict. (Scott Sauls, Befriend, Tyndale, 2016, pages 29-30; www.PreachingToday.com)
That’s what God loves to do with broken people, especially when God’s people show care rather than condemnation. He restores them and uses them for His glory! Let God do that for you. Don’t live on in your misery, because you refuse to let God break you. Don’t continue on in your stubborn self-confidence, insisting that there is nothing really wrong when everybody else knows there is. Don’t continue in your misery, making everyone else around you miserable.
Just let God break you of your stubborn pride, and let God’s people here minister to you. That’s because most of us have been broken too, and we know the blessing that can come from it.
For the Bible says, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:17).
Dear friends, if you want to be blessed and be a blessing to others, let God break you of your self-sufficiency. More than that…
LET GOD BREAK YOU OF YOUR SIN.
Let God break you with the realization that you are spiritually poor. Let God break us with the stark awareness that you are morally bankrupt, that, at the core of your being, you are deceitful and wicked.
That’s how God had to break Jacob before He could bless him. We pick up the story in verse 26
Genesis 32:26-27 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob”, [which means heel-grabber, usurper, deceiver]. (ESV)
God made Jacob tell Him who he really was. God made Jacob name himself as a liar, a deceiver, and a cheat. God made Jacob admit his own sinfulness before God blessed him.
Genesis 32:28 Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” (ESV)
God gave Jacob a new name, a new identity. He is no longer to be known as liar and deceiver – Jacob. Now, he will become known as one who struggles with God – Israel. Before, Jacob fought against God. Now, God fights for Israel. God gave Jacob a new name, and God gave Jacob a new relationship with Himself.
Genesis 32:29-30 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” (ESV)
Peniel means “the face of God.” God allowed Jacob to wrestle with Him, to come face-to-face with Him, to be real with Him, to struggle honestly before Him, and he didn’t die. Instead, Jacob experienced grace. Jacob was blessed instead of being cursed like he deserved. God gave him a new name, a new identity. God gave him a new relationship with Himself, and God gave him a new reputation.
Genesis 32:31-32 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip on the sinew of the thigh. (ESV)
The sun rose on Jacob that day, both literally and figuratively. It rose in the sky, but it also rose in Jacob’s heart. His despair is turned to joy, and forever God’s people remember what God did for him that day. Jacob was blessed, but only after he was broken of his sin.
And that’s what you must allow God to do for you, if you want to be blessed as well. You must allow God to break you of your sin. Tell Him who and what you really are – a liar, a deceiver, a sinner. Do that before He will give you a new identity, a new relationship with Himself, and a new reputation.
Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor IN SPIRIT, for theirs IS the kingdom of Heaven” – present tense (Matthew 5:3). In other words, only those who admit their own spiritual poverty can enjoy the blessings of Heaven starting right now on earth. On the other hand, those who continue on in their own sense of self-righteousness never experience that blessing.
Philip Yancey, in his book, What Good Is God, writes about being invited to speak at a conference on ministry to women in prostitution. After some discussion with his wife, Yancey agreed to accept the invitation as long as he could have the opportunity to question the women and hear their stories.
At the end of the conference Yancey said to the women, “Did you know that Jesus referred to your profession? Let me read you what he said: ‘I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.’ He was speaking to the religious authorities of his day,” Yancey said. Then he asked them, “What do you think Jesus meant? Why did he single out prostitutes?”
After several minutes of silence a young woman from Eastern Europe spoke up in her broken English. “Everyone, she has someone to look down on. Not us. We are at the low. Our families, they feel shame for us. No mother nowhere looks at her little girl and says, ‘Honey, when you grow up I want you be good prostitute.’ Most places, we are breaking the law. Believe me, we know how people feel about us. People call us names: whore, slut, hooker, harlot. We feel it too. We are the bottom. And sometimes when you are at the low, you cry for help. So when Jesus comes, we respond. Maybe Jesus meant that.” ( Philip Yancey, What Good Is God? p. 75; www.PreachingToday.com)
It is not the self-righteous who find the kingdom of God. It is only those who know their need and admit their sin. You see, Jesus came to die for sinners, not for the self-righteous. So admit your sin and find a new life in Him – Find a new name, new relationships, and a new reputation just like Jacob did when he admitted his sinfulness.
This is true not only for unbelievers, but for us as believers as well. We too must be honest with God and admit our sin if we’re going to be blessed and be a blessing to others. The Apostle John wrote these words to his brothers in Christ, his fellow believers: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteous-ness” (1 John 1:8-9).
Do you want a new life, new relationships, and a new community? It starts when you confess that you are tired of the old one. It starts when you confess that the old one is wicked and wrong.
If you want to be truly blessed and be a blessing to others, 1st, let God break you of your self-sufficiency, and 2nd, let God break you of your sin.
I close with these words from Anne Ortlund. They are her comments about the time when Jesus was “reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper.” There, according to Mark 14, “a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head” (Mark 14:3).
Here is what Anne Ortlund had to say about that by way of application: “Christians file into church on a Sunday morning. One by one by one they march in – like separate alabaster vases: contained, self-sufficient, encased, individually complete, contents undisclosed, no perfume emitting at all.
“There vases aren’t bad looking. In fact, some of them are the Beautiful People, and they become Vase-Conscious: conscious of their own vase and of one another’s. They are aware of clothes, of personalities, of position in this world – of exteriors.
“So before and after church (and maybe during) they’re apt to talk Vase talk.
“Mary broke her vase. Broke it?! How shocking. How controversial. Was everybody doing it? Was it a vase breaking party? No, she just did it all by herself. What happened then? The obvious: all the contents were forever released. She could never hug her precious nard to herself again.
“Many bodies who file into church, no doubt, do so because they have Jesus inside of them. Jesus! – precious, exciting, life giving. But most of them keep Him shut up, contained, enclosed all their lives. And the air is full of NOTHING. They come to church and sit – these long rows of cold, beautiful, alabaster vases! Then the cold, beautiful, alabaster vases get up and march out again, silently – or maybe talking their cold alabaster talk – to repeat the ritual week after week, year after year. Unless they just get too bored and quit.
“The need for Christians everywhere (nobody is exempt) is to be broken. The vase has to be smashed! Christians have to let the life out! It will fill the room with sweetness. And the congregation will all be broken shards, mingling together for the first time.
“Of course, it’s awkward and scary to be broken! Of course, it’s easier to keep up the cold, alabaster front.
“It was costly for Mary too.” (Chuck Swindoll, Living Above the Level of Mediocrity, pp.72-73)
But brokenness is worth the cost! Please, let God break you, so He can bless you beyond anything you could ever imagine.
