Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, July tenth. God's motive is never to break our spirit, but He does oppose our pride and independence. In today's podcast, we learn what happens when you hold on to something after God says, let go.
We crush grapes to get wine and we grind wheat to get bread. And God breaks our self-will to make us useful vessels for the kingdom of God. And when you look into the Scriptures, here's what you'll find. You find God working in the lives of men and women in order to make them the godly persons He wants them to be and to equip them for the kind of service that He has in mind. And what I want to talk about in this message is God's path of brokenness. Now, usually when people think about brokenness, they think about suffering and hurt and pain. And oftentimes forget what is it all about? Who's behind it all?
What's the purpose of it? Is there any way to avoid that and still be useful for God? Lots of questions, and I want to answer those questions. One of the most perfect persons in the Scripture to demonstrate brokenness is the Apostle Paul. So, I want you to turn to Second Corinthians, if you will, and in chapter twelve.
And while you're turning to that, I'll just give you a little idea of what's happening. He is talking about His ministry, for example, in chapter eleven, and defending His ministry, and also in the process of doing so, He talks about all the things He's been through from having been thrown into prison to being beaten thirty-nine times out in the sea, left to swim for His life. And so, then He moves on down to talk about the daily pressure of the churches that He's having to deal with.
And then He talks about these visions that God has given Him, these revelations. And finally comes to say this in verse six of this twelfth chapter. For if I do wish to boast, I will not be foolish, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from this, so that no one will credit me with more than he sees in me or hears from me. Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from exalting myself.
Concerning this, He says, I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, but power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I would rather boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake, but when I am weak, then I am strong.
This is a powerful passage of Scripture because Paul deals with something here that all of us have to deal with at some point in life, at some time, and we have to deal with it for the purpose of being used by God. And so, when you keep that in mind, what I'd like to do, first of all, I want to define what brokenness is. And also, this first definition should clear up something else you oftentimes think about. So, notice what it says. This is God's method of dealing with the self-life.
Now, what's the self-life? It's that desire within us to act independently of God. Now, sometimes in the Scripture you'll find Paul using the word flesh, for example. And what he means by that is just simply what we're talking about here. It's that inward desire within us to act independently of God. Now, somebody says, well, now, didn't God give us another nature when He saved us? He certainly did. But, somebody says, well, do we have two natures?
I don't think so. It's not that we have two natures as a believer, but we all still have that desire within us to act independently of God. I mean, I don't care how committed you are to Christ. There are times when there are those desires to act independently of God and have our way. And so, brokenness is God's way of dealing with that.
Here's the principle about brokenness. Because Christ has purpose to bring every area of our life in submission to His will, He will continue to remove every obstacle necessary for our complete surrender and full trust in Him. That is, that's true of every single believer. That's what God has in mind. So, when we talk about being surrendered to the Lord and trusting Him as our personal Savior, and then having trusted Him, we want to live a committed life, a surrendered life.
This is what He's up to. Removing those obstacles, that is, those attitudes in our life that keep us from being fully and totally committed to Him. So, when you think about your own life and your commitment to Him, is there one area of your life that God keeps pointing to? Is there something in your life that you know deep down inside is not really consistent with your being a follower of Jesus Christ?
More than likely, that is the area in which God is going to deal with in your life. And I think about it in this light. Here's a big, beautiful, black, wild stallion. All the power and strength and muscle and valuable to whom for what? Not very valuable until he's saddle busted. When he's saddle busted, somebody's ridden him till he's broken. When he's broken, what happens? It doesn't break his spirit. It doesn't break his energy level. It breaks his will to the point that he is willing to immediately respond in obedience to the person who's riding him.
He's been saddle busted. And so, brokenness to some degree is the same thing about our own life. That is, God has to break this self-will in us in order to make us valuable servants of His.
Now, let's distinguish between three things. First of all, chastisement. Chastisement is what God does in the life of a believer when He's dealing with immediate sin in that person's life.
And so, He's identified that, you know it's wrong, and so He chastises you for it. Well, brokenness has the future in mind, not immediate sin. Brokenness has the future in mind, and we're talking about dealing with attitudes that God needs to deal with, and He has your future in mind and service in mind. Then there is punishment, and God does not punish believers. He chastens believers, but He punishes the unbeliever. That is, His vindication for righteousness. That is, God punishes those who are unbelievers for their sin. He chastens believers because of their sin. And He breaks believers in order to equip them to be useful servants for Him.
So, He's dealing with attitudes today that affect their future. Now, when a person is broken, what does that mean? It means God has brought that person's will in submission to His will.
Now, what does He do? God is able to live out through that person, first of all, the life of Christ. He's also able to accomplish through that person what He desires that impact the people around them and all the things that God may have in mind for your personal life. So, when you ask yourself the question, what is it in my life that would keep me from being used by God? If you ask Him, He will show you. Because you see, you may feel, well, I'm not educated enough, I'm not wealthy enough, I don't have prominence, prestige, I don't have all those things.
That's not the issue. The issue is God will use you. And He will use you to the degree to which you allow yourself to be broken and brought into harmony with His will, His purpose, and His plan for your life.
And He does have a will for your life no matter who you are and what's going on. Now, when I think about it, I think about, well, what's the whole message of brokenness? That is, what is this all about?
Well, here's what it's all about. It's all about the fact that God loves you. He loves you enough not to allow you to live comfortably in disobedience, full of self. Self, we are living your life after what pleases you, honors you, that oftentimes isn't of God. And so, God is going to work in your life and mind to break us. God does not want us operating just out of our abilities and talents and skills and strength. But He wants us to be so submitted to Him that it's the Spirit of God within us who's working through us and does a great deal of difference. And you've heard people speak, for example, in which there was no anointing whatsoever on what they said, and they were just words. It didn't reach your heart, didn't reach your spirit.
You said, well, they're a good speaker, or shall we say, they were very eloquent. God isn't interested in eloquence. He is interested in a surrendered life, yielded to Him for the purpose of bringing Him glory, Him praise, and Him honor, and not self-serving. So, whoever you are, wherever you are, ask yourself this question. Am I living for Him, or am I living for myself? Am I more interested in what He can do for me than how He can use me to impact the lives of other people?
Am I more interested in me, myself, and I, or Christ, His will, His purpose, His plan for my life? There are a lot of people who will live out their lives and never understand what it means to be fully surrendered. And granted, many people will never live and understand what it means to be broken for Him, because they don't hear the message.
But you're hearing it. This is the Gospel truth. And God works in people's lives in the most awesome way when they're willing to be surrendered to Him. So, when I think about that, I think about probably three of the most evident people in Scripture that God certainly worked on to break. Moses was one of them. You'll remember that forty years after he killed the Egyptian, forty years on the backside of the desert, the Lord was working in him, getting him ready for this awesome responsibility of being the leader of this Hebrew nation and to free them from the ironclad bonds of Egyptians who held them for four hundred years in captivity. Now, He's going to break them loose from that. Well, who does He use?
Some captain, some general, no. He uses a shepherd. That is, Moses the shepherd, forty years on the backside of the desert, standing, sifting, breaking till he was a nobody but a shepherd. And when God got him broken enough, do you remember what happened? When the Lord began to talk to him, He started telling God all the reasons He couldn't do it. And finally, He yielded.
I think about Peter, for example, a perfect example of how God had to break, break, break, break, break to get him usable and to get him as a leader of the church and an awesome speaker on the day of Pentecost. Now, what's the process? Well, first of all, what's the process? Well, first of all, what's the process?
Well, first of all, what's the process? Then there's the apostle Paul. Broken, broken, broken.
Why? Because he raised him up to be the theologian. He raised him up to be, listen, the channel through which God has given this awesome truth all through His epistles that enabled you and me to live a godly life and to understand what God has given us. So, what's the process? Well, first of all, what's the process?
Well, first of all, what's the process? If He's going to break us, what's the process? Well, number one, He targets us. He targets those areas in our thinking, in our attitudes.
He targets those areas that need to be broken and crushed so that from us can flow the wine from us, and the water from us, to the water from us. And then the man that has the power to push us through that path, he uses that, both Paul and Peter. And you'll notice what Paul said in this twelfth chapter. He said, because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations.
So, here's what he's saying. Because God has given to him these unbelievable, to some degree, revelations of truth. And I mean by that, they're so awesome, First of all, he already had a lot running against him. He was a Pharisee. He was the leader among the Pharisees. And he was Saul of Tarsus.
He had the background, he had the education, he had the prominence, the prestige, the recognition, the power, and all the rest. He was the one they sent after to destroy the Christians. Paul admits in this particular chapter that the reason God went after him and one particular area of his life because he knew he would not be usable as long as he was his prideful, arrogant Saul of Tarsus. And so, what did God do? The Scripture says He gave him a thorn in the flesh. He targeted his pride.
He targeted his self-sufficiency. He targeted the very thing that would have kept him from being a humble servant of God. And so, when I think about Peter, for example, turn to the 26th chapter of Matthew for a moment and let's look at a couple of things here because God certainly chose to use Peter in a very wonderful way.
And this is just one example. But in the 33rd verse of the 26th chapter of Matthew, the Scripture says that Peter said to Jesus, even though all may fall away because of you, I will never fall away. Jesus said to him, truly I'm saying to you that this very night before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. Peter said to him, even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you.
Rather boastful, is it not? Because the Scripture says, and Luke gives this account, He was standing by the fire and this young lady said to him, I think you're one of them. I don't even know him. He said to another man, no, I'm not one of them. To another man, why do you ask me that?
I'm not one of them. And then you remember what the Scripture says? That about that time Jesus walked by and Peter saw Him. And the Scripture says, and Jesus looked upon Peter and Peter remembered.
And what did He do? The Bible says He went out and wept and wept and wept and repented of His sin, absolutely broken. You remember when Jesus was washing the feet of His disciples, a sacred moment in the life of Jesus and His apostles. He came to Peter, not washing my feet. What was that but pure pride? And Jesus had to say to him right in front of the rest of them, if I can't wash your feet, you have no part in the kingdom with me.
Doesn't mean He was lost, but He wasn't going to use Him. And when you think about time after time, Jesus had to do this to Peter. In the sixteenth chapter of Matthew, which is a turning point in Jesus' life, this is the first time He begins to talk to them about the fact that He's going to have to suffer and be crucified and taken away from them. They're going to have to do something about it. And so, what does Jesus say? He says, I'm not going to let that happen. I'm not going to let that happen. I'm going to let that happen. I'm going to let that happen. And what's Peter's response?
It's not going to happen. I'm not going to let that happen to you. When I think about how ornery he was, I'm not going to let that happen to you. And you know what Jesus said to him right in front of them? Satan?
He calls him the devil. And so, when I was a little kid, I was a little kid, and I was a little kid, and I was a little kid. And so, I tried to get me to thwart God's purpose for my life.
Everywhere you turn in those early years, here's Peter going to be out front and do it his way. And people say, well, have you been broken? Yes, indeed. How many times have you been broken? I can't even count them. And one of the first times in my life that I realized that was happening, which really sparked me to begin to study the Word of God, and I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was. And I was doing all of that. And I was doing it for my staff members at that particular point and having all the responsibility of the church and a small staff and three television programs.
Two of them were live, and one of them was recorded. And so, there I was doing all of that. If you asked me why then, I would have probably said, I'm doing it for Jesus naturally. And I would have probably said, I'm going to do it for Jesus. And I would have probably said, I'm going to do it for Jesus.
And I would have probably said, I'm going to do it for Jesus. And when I broke me, I realized it wasn't just for Him. Because I liked doing all of that. And all the time I liked it, I was becoming more and more weary. Went to the hospital three times one year, and each time I told them, there's nothing wrong with me, I'm just tired.
Well, you know, a doctor's not going to accept that, so they give you all these tests. And so, I started on Sunday, I started on Tuesday. Then I started on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and Saturday and tomorrow was Sunday, and I could hardly make it until finally I just had to stop. God had to break me to make me realize He could do it without me, number one. And that was humiliating. And secondly, that I couldn't do all that and do it satisfactorily to Him. So, what happened?
Laid me out for three months. When I came back to the church, do you know what the kind of people I was going to be? I was going to be a man of God. I was going to be a man of God. I was going to be a man of God. This is brokenness.
More people attending, more money, more everything. And I'd been gone for three solid months. Well, that's exactly what I needed because it taught me a great lesson. I'm only as valuable to God as I am obedient to God and broken to God.
And I know that's not true of me. And yet, God knew what was on the inside and needed to be broken. You say, well, is that the only time He's broken?
No. He's broken me about other things in life. And the truth is, I want to be sensitive all the time to whatever He's got in mind because I don't want anything in life to keep me from being what God wants me to be. And I think that should be the spirit of every single follower of Jesus.
If His goal and purpose is to live through us the life of Christ and to work through us whatever is necessary, then we should be willing for Him to do whatever He needs to do. Thank you for listening to God's Pathway of Brokenness. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, in Atlanta, Georgia.
