Discipleship: Brokenness Series

INTRODUCTION

-Today we are going to be partaking of the Lord’s Supper

-Holy Communion

-This was a special meal that Christ ate with his closest disciples on the night he was betrayed

-The eve of His crucifixion

-We do this quite often, but let us learn a valuable discipleship lesson today as we look at the accounts of that evening once again

-Matthew 26:26-35

-Oh, bold Peter

-We all long to be like Him, don’t we

-Brashly refusing to believe that he would stumble

-Willing to take up the sword for His master

-Matthew 26:69-75

-Peter was a broken man

-Society shuns brokenness

-It says the broken are weak

-It says the broken are overly sentimental

-It says the broken are worthless

-Brokenness is a good thing

-Luke 20:17-18

-Brokenness is necessary for one who would come to Christ as their cornerstone

-Brokenless commitment is false commitment

-Another term for brokenness is godly sorrow

-II Corinthians 7:10

-You see brokenness is necessary for one who would truly repent of their sins

-And without repentance, there is no forgiveness of sins

-In the New Testament, repentance is consistently tied to salvation

-This morning, let’s consider three areas in which we should be broken before the Lord

I. Broken Over Our Sins

A. Willful, intentional

-These would be those that Wesley said were properly called sons

-These are the things we know are wrong but choose to do them anyway

-Some say that we sin everyday in thought, word or deed

-It need not be so with the sins in this category

-The Holy Spirit is able to give us strength to resist these

B. Unwillful, unintentional

-These are sins that spring out of our human nature and our human fallabilities

-These are the sins that I do believe we all do constantly

-We often kind of dismiss them

-Thinking that God surely would not hold us accountable for them

-They are those sins that may be present within us for a long time that we finally one day discover and must deal with

-Progressive Sanctification

-The reality is, God does hold you accountable in some way for them

-Whether a loss of eternal reward or loss of blessing

-But worse than that, God is grieved by them

-They still go against His plan for us

-They are still part of the reason for Calvary

-Q: When is the last time you wept over your sins?

-Whether intentional or not

-Whether willful or not

-It is time we become broken over our sins

-Both those willful, intentional ones and those we unwillingly and unintentionally commit

II. Broken Over Our Savior

A. His selfless surrender

-ILL: The Garden Of Gethsemane

1. It was for us

-Even if you were the only one

2. It was for the Father’s plan

B. His suffering sacrifice

-ILL: The Passion Movie

-Q: When is the last time you wept over Christ?

-His surrender to God’s plan on your behalf

-Whet He went through to provide you salvation

III. Broken Over Our World

A. Moses, when he came down from the mountain

B. Jesus, when He cleansed the temple

C. Jesus, when He wept over Jerusalem

D. David, as he saw the wickedness around him

E. Weeping pray-ers

-Q: When is the last time you wept for the lost?

-Not just laughed at them

-ILL: Anna Nicole

-Not just shrugged them off

-Thinking them a hopeless cause

-Q: When is the last time you shared Christ with the lost?

CONCLUSION

-The fact of the matter is this: the unbroken are unusable by God

-Oswald Chambers put it this way; “The natural heart will do any amount of serving, but it takes the heart broken by conviction of sin, and baptized by the Holy Ghost, and crumpled into the purpose of God, before the life becomes the sacrament of its message.”

-True disciples are broken people

-They do not wallow in depression, but they see that they are nothing without Christ and surrender all of themselves, nothing as they are, to Him to be used for His purposes

-So, this morning, as we partake of the Lord’s table, let’s do so in a spirit of brokenness

-Over our sins

-Over our Savior

-Over our world