No. 1 - BROKENNESS — THE PREMISE

1 Corinthians 11:24-26

1 Corinthians 11:24-26 -- "And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come."

Today we are beginning a new Bible study series I am calling, “Brokenness, the way to Blessedness.” The title is one that gets an immediately reaction. The two words, “brokenness” and “blessedness” don’t seem to go together. If anything, they seem to be exact opposites.

Let’s do some audience participation. By a show of raised hands…

How many personally knows what it means to be broken? We have all been shattered, to feel our world coming apart. Some of us have not only hit bottom, we have bounced off the bottom with a thud. Our brokenness is accompanied with tears and fears, confusion and delusion. People who have been through brokenness can tell your of a dark hour, maybe a dark day or a day month or year. Brokenness is an event that cannot be ignored. It is a process that cannot be put off. Brokenness is not merely inconvenient; it is life-changing. It is the deepest hurt, but it is more than hurt.

How many personally know what it means to be blessed? The experience of being blessed is when God shows up (actually He never left you) and steps into our situation.

· 2 Chronicles 16:9 “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.”

· Isaiah 57:15 “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”

When we read the Bible there are often things set before us that serve as a precedent, an example of some great truth or doctrine. What are the examples of brokenness? Is there a precedent which will help us see that “Brokenness is, indeed, the way to Blessedness?”

1. Redemption Came Through a Broken Savior.

· 1 Corinthians 11:24 “And when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.”

In this Scripture our Lord makes an amazing and, often overlooked, statement. John Philips says, “There is enough in that simple but sublime act to fill a book,” Exploring 1 Corinthians, p. 248.

How does Jesus want us to remember Him? As…The greatest Teacher to ever teach...The greatest Leader to ever lead...The greatest Healer to ever heal...The greatest Man to ever live?

Jesus wants His followers and His churches to remember Him for His cross, His shed blood, His sacrificial death, His broken body.

· Bread...Probably, every day of Jesus’ life He had eaten bread.

· “Gave thanks.” Jesus wasn’t simply thanking God for the bread, but He was anticipating what He was about to do. The “bread” was His “body.”

· “He Break it...” Jesus lead in this.

· “This is my body...” Jesus was connecting the dots for His disciples.

· “Which is broken...” That body of Jesus was battered, bruised, bloody, broken. Jesus was punched and slapped, crowned with thorns, His back was plowed with a cat of nine-tails, His beard pulled from His face, His hands and feet were nailed to the cross, every bone of His body would be torn out of joint—He was broken and He gave thanks!

· “For you.” That is the disciples then and for us now.

The precedent is clear: Even our blessed Savior was not spared brokenness. Actually, He came to be broken.

· In Gethsemane Jesus offered to His Father a broken will. “Not my will, but thine be done.”

· On the cross at Calvary He endured the broken fellowship with His Father, when He was forsaken in the dark moments of his dying.

· As we celebrate communion in the church we are to remember, “...this is my body, which is broken for you…” 1 Corinthians 11:24.

· Psalm 69, a Messianic psalm declared, “Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness,” v. 20.

Our sacred substitute was made sin for us and took upon Himself the proud, unbroken ego of fallen man, and was broken on the cross in our place. “Oh, the old rugged cross, so despised by the world, has a wondrous attraction to me.”

If God’s Son was not spared brokenness as a way to blessedness, then dare we think we can travel any other way?

· Hebrews 13:12-13 “Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without outside the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.”

2. Regeneration Comes to a Broken Sinner.

· Matthew 21:42-44 “Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures (Psalm 118:22-23), The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes? Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom shall be taken from you, and given to a nation (the church is referred to as a “holy nation” in 1 Peter 2:9) bring forth the fruits thereof. And whosoever shall fall on this stone (Jesus Christ) shall be broken: (that’s salvation) but on whomsoever it shall fall (judgment), it will grind him to powder (that’s condemnation).”

Jesus was the “the stone” Daniel saw “cut out of the mountain without hands,” Daniel 2:45. Isaiah 8:14 saw Messiah as “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence.”

The Rock of Ages, the Lord Jesus Christ, suffered the brokenness of rejection. “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not,” John 1:11. So many were so wrong when it came to our Savior—about His offer and His demands. They rejected Him. Some simply did a secret side-side and said “no.” Others, like Pilate’s wife, said, “Have nothing to do with that just man,” Matthew 27:19. Basically, the whole Jewish nation rejected Jesus Christ as Messiah, yet He became “the head of the corner.”

God was building a great kingdom whose foundation was Jesus Christ. He is the head of the corner. He is the One you must confront, the One that confronts you today.

Really, sinners have only two options when it comes to the Rock of Ages.

Option 1: Fall on the Rock and be broken, v. 44a. The sinner sees His sinful condition before a holy God, he realizes the coming judgment and wrath, and as he is pointed to the broken offering of Jesus, he is broken at the foot of the cross. The proud, self-justifying, self-reliant, self-seeking sinner has to come as a lost, undone, guilty sinner, whose only hope is to fall on the mercy and grace of a loving Savior.

Option 2: The Rock falls on you in the day of judgment and you will be utterly broken, v. 44b. There must be a thorough breaking in the heart of the sinner before, during and after receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior. And here is what happens when the sinner comes before God in brokenness. Jesus comes to “bind the brokenhearted,” Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18.

For the sinner, Jesus is either the Rock of our salvation or the Rock of our condemnation.

Defined: Brokenness is the process whereby God brings us to the end of ourselves and into total love, trust, and submission toward Him. By the way, the most foolish thing people can do, when God is trying to break them, is to resist God.

Normal Grubbs, in his booklet "Continuous Revival", reminds us that “all Christian relationships are two-way. They are horizontal as well as vertical.” At salvation, we believe with our heart—that’s vertical, God-ward. And we confess with our mouth—that’s horizontal, man-ward. How genuine would a person’s faith be that said, “I’ll accept Christ in secret, but I will not let anybody know it.” Real brokenness in salvation involves both personal trust and public testimony.

Grubbs gave the illustration of a man being like a house. “It has a roof and walls. Man in his fallen condition has a roof on top of his sins between him and God; and he also has walls up, between him and his neighbor. But at salvation, when broken at the Cross, not only does the roof come off through faith in Christ, but the walls fall down flat, and the man’s true condition as a sinner saved by grace is confessed before all men,” p. 15.

This is how we are to live after salvation, understanding that we are in a two-way relationship. We are to live in openness and brokenness before God and people. But our most deep-rooted and subtle sin is pride—what we think about ourselves and what we want others to think about us.

How does the Bible speak of the men and women of the Bible? Does it only tell us of their successes, their victories, their strengths? No. It is the honest accounts of their real lives—their failures, their defeats, their weaknesses. Abraham is remembered for his regrettable false step with Hagar, Jacobs of his cunning tricks against Isaac and Esau and Laban, Moses of his disqualifying disobedience in striking the rock. And then there is Elijah’s running from Jezebel and Jonah running from God and Peter denying the Lord.

Consider Israel’s first two kings, their sins, their response to their sins, and God’s response to their response.

· King David...his sin—adultery, murder, hypocrisy….his response….2 Sam. 12:13… “I have sinned.” God’s response…”I have put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.”

· King Saul....his sin—failing to kill the Amalekites, keeping the best sheep (he said to sacrifice to God)….his response….1 Samuel 15:24… “I have sinned,: for I have transgressed the commandment of he Lord.” God’s response… “The Lord hath rejected thee from being king over Israel,” v. 26.

Why was their such a difference in the way God accepted their confession?

· King Saul...1 Samuel 15:30.. “I have sinned: yet honour me now, I pray thee, fore the elders of my people, and before Israel…” Saul showed his lack of brokenness when he wanted his sin hidden and wanted to have the honor of the people.

· King David… “I have sinned,” and wrote it down in three Psalms—32, 38, 51. Word by word, line by line.

Brokenness brings with it openness, the proof of our sincerity before God.

(1) Jesus died in brokenness. Hebrews 13:12-13 “Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without (outside) the gate.”

(2) We claim His gift of salvation in utter brokenness.

(3) “Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.” We follow our Savior in a life of brokenness. This is how we become close to Christ. We have not just accepted the work of the cross, we are to now walk in the way of the cross. The cross is not just an atoning act, it is an eternal principle. It is a way of meekness, not mightiness. It is a way of giving, not getting. It is a way of loving, not leading.

So how do we reclaim an intimate walk before God?

3. Restoration Comes to a Broken Saint.

· Psalm 34:18 “The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.”

· Psalm 51:17 “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.”

· Isaiah 57:15 “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”

Here is the problem that often develops after we become a believers. For some reason, we want to come to the place where we have arrived, never need to admit failure, never need to confess faults, never need to repent of sin, never need to weep over our coldness. But the brokenness that begins our relationship with God is to be a part of our daily walk with God.

In 1976, and again in 1985, I visited Bethlehem Square and the traditional place tradition say where Jesus was born. In the church building that sits on that site there is an interesting door. It is no more than four feet tall. At one time it was a grand, large entrance, but during the time of the crusades they literally road on their horses into the building. Well, they soon put a stop to that. Now, you must bow in order to enter.

This is why God’s children remain in sin and defeat. The way to God is not too high that we cannot reach it; it is too low for us to stoop. We are just not willing to go that low.

To go deeper in the Christian life is simply to realize that we are bigger sinners than we ever thought and that Jesus is a bigger Savior than we ever knew.

· Psalm 31:12 “I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.”

· 2 Corinthians 4:6,7 “We have this treasure in earthen vessels…” Imagine it this way. Inside an inexpensive, clay pot is a priceless, brilliant treasure. The treasure is inside, not outside. So, how can that which is on the inside become known to those on the outside? We need to become “cracked pots.”

· Psalm 147:3 “He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.”

Charlotte Elliot was a sickly English woman who had developed a long history of refusing to do things she was asked to do because of her illness. Her brother, who was a pastor, had been particularly persistent in trying to get her out of herself, trying to get her involved in doing something positive. But Charlotte had always refused. “I’m not feeling up to it. I’m an invalid, you know. I just don’t think I can.”

In 1834 her brother asked one more time. They were trying to raise funds for a school for young women. Charlotte Elliott was asked to help...at least just to go to the event and do something, anything. But again she refused, again she spoke of being too tired, too sick. And so the family all went off and left her home along.

That night, Charlotte Elliott began to think about how sickness was taking over her life. She began to feel ashamed, because she would not risk anything for Christ’s kingdom. She realized that actually her brokenness had become the most important thin, maybe the only thing, in her life. And that night Charlotte Elliott heard the call of God in her heart. Out of her restlessness, out of her self-pity, she wrote.

"Just as I am, without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me,

and that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee, 0 Lamb of God, I come.

Just as I am, and waiting not..

just as I am, with many a conflict, many a doubt.

Yes, just as I am, poor, wretched, blind... just as I am, I come."

Yes, I'm a mess, but I am coming. No more excuses. Without one plea.

Charlotte Elliott learned the lesson of brokenness: that brokenness is but a step on the way to blessedness; that feeling like you are nothing is discovering God is everything and always enough!