Broken Things God Uses

BROKEN THINGS GOD USES

Amos 9:11-12

INTRODUCTION

A. HUMOR: Driving in the Middle -- Rocky Meyerson

1. A policeman looked up to see a woman racing down the center of the road at 100 m.p.h. He pulled her over and said, "Hey, lady, would you mind telling me why you're going so fast down the middle of the road?"

2. "Oh, it's okay, Officer," she replied. "I have a special license that allows me to drive like that." "Oh, yeah?" Let's see it."

3. The cop looked at the license and then concluded, "Ma'am, there's nothing special about this. It's just a temporary license."

4. "Look at the very bottom, though," the woman insisted. "See? It says 'Tear along the dotted line.'"

B. TEXT

“In that day I will restore … I will repair its broken places, restore its ruins, and build it as it used to be…declares the LORD, who will do these things” Amos 9:11-12

C. THESIS

1. Ever since the fall of man, the world and its inhabitants have not been whole. Just as in Jeremiah 18, where Jeremiah observed the Potter fashioning the clay and the vessel was marred in his hands, so our world has been marred. But God in his wisdom is able to take that which has been marred a fashion it again.

2. It is through the genius of God that broken things can become useful. Many times in Scripture God used broken things:

a. The broken pitchers of Gideon and his men allowed the torches to shine out over the Midianite’s camp -- Judges 7:19-20.

b. The breaking fishnets of Peter convinced him of Christ's divinity -- Luke 5:6.

c. The breaking of a little boy's fishes and loaves fed a multitude of people -- Luke 9:16.

d. A broken box of spikenard anointed Jesus for his trip to the cross and the tomb -- Mark 14:3.

e. A broken ship brought Paul to Rome -- Acts 27:14.

3. But these are not the only things that were broken that God determined to use. God has determined to use a Broken Covenant, Broken Branches, and Broken People.

I. GOD USED A BROKEN COVENANT

A. HISTORY OF THE BROKEN COVENANT

1. Moses said, “So I turned and went down from the mountain while it was ablaze with fire. And the two tablets of the covenant were in my hands. 16 When I looked, I saw that you had sinned against the LORD your God; you had made for yourselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way that the LORD had commanded you. 17 So I took the two tablets and threw them out of my hands, breaking them to pieces before your eyes” Deut. 9:15-17.

2. What a tragic day. God had brought them such a long way: through 10 plagues, delivered them from Egypt, through the Red Sea, across the wilderness, to great revelations of God – and STILL they turned back to idolatry!

3. It should be a lesson to us of how prone our hearts are to wander, even after deliverance and baptism and great revelations. But this gives us greater reason to thank God for His remedy – the Indwelling Holy Spirit!

B. GOD MOVED FROM STONE TO HEARTS

1. 31 "The time is coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel….32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers…because they broke my covenant." 33 "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." Jeremiah 31:31-34.

2. What the Law could not do because of the weakness of the flesh – God did through Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Rom. 8:1-2. Now by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can live the Christian life, and no longer have to sadden the heart of God by our disobedience and rebellion.

3. “You are a letter from Christ…written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” 2 Cor. 3:3. I can’t think of a better place for God to write His Word than on our hearts!

II. GOD USED BROKEN BRANCHES

A. JUDGMENT ON THE OLIVE TREE

1. God spoke of the Israelites collectively in the metaphor of an Olive tree and individually as the branches of that tree. This symbolism of nations being spoken of as trees is commonplace in Scripture. In Ezek. 31:9-18, God spoke of Assyria and Egypt as prominent trees in the Garden of Eden, which He would bring down.