Lord Break Me — William MacDonald

The Bond Servant and the Call to Brokenness

17, the 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke. And I'll begin reading in the 7th verse. Luke, chapter 17, verse 7. Which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he comes from the field, Go and sit down to me, and will not rather say to him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me till I have eaten and drunken, and afterward thou shalt eat and drink.

Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I frown not. So likewise he, when ye shall have done all these things that are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants.

We have done that which was our duty to do. I never thought the Lord would want me to put myself in that position, the position of a bond servant, but that's exactly what it means. I'd like to speak to you this morning on the subject of brokenness, because that's what this is all about.

And I really do believe that brokenness is one of the greatest needs today among God's people. In his book The Calvary Road, Roy Heston gives five marks of the bond servant as found in this passage of Scripture, and will also be bond servants of Jesus Christ.

First of all, the bond servant must be willing to have one thing put on top of another without any consideration being given to him. That's what happened to this one, isn't it? He had one thing. I know Stoner got in from the field and he was told to put on his apron and get a supper ready.

One thing put on top of the other without any consideration given to him. Two, in doing all of this, he must be willing not to be thanked. Does he thank him? I should say no. Number three, in doing all of this, he must not charge the other with selfishness.

A bond servant doesn't say, hey, what's going on there? I have an evening. Do I have to get down and serve you? No, he mustn't charge the other with selfishness. Four, he has done everything. There's no room for pride or self-congratulations, but the bond servant has to confess that he is an unprofitable servant.

And we have to confess that. Of no use to God or man in ourselves. He says at the bottom, he's quite knocked out by the fifth mark of the bond servant, the admission that in doing what we've done and bearing what we have borne, we have not done one fish more than it was our duty to do.

This is what the Lord was speaking of when he said, take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest unto your souls. This is the difference I think of business meetings and of wrangling that has gone on in them.

I think of elders' meetings. I think of home situations and of tempers that have flared. And I realize we need the meek and humble spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. As we heard yesterday, man puts no value on broken things.

God’s Love for the Broken

We break a dish, throw it away. There are three pieces of clothing, get rid of it. Bottles, furniture, mirrors, and the like. Breaking them decreases their value if it doesn't make them valueless. Love broken things, and especially broken people.

You have that thread going through the scriptures. Psalm 34, verse 18, the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken spirit. He is nigh unto them that are of a broken spirit. Psalm 51, verse 17, the sacrifices of God are of a broken spirit.

You want to come to God with a suitable sacrifice? Bring him a broken spirit. He'll be very pleased. James chapter 4, verse 6, God resists the proud that give us grace unto the humble. It's really something that the omnipotent God can't resist, a humble and a contrite spirit.

In the Old Testament you have in times of we in the earth and where vessels and each one had a torch within it. And when the vessel was broken, the light shone out. You come over to the New Testament, you find the Lord Jesus by blue Galilee breaking the load, and a multitude was fed.

You have that woman coming to him and breaking the alabaster box of ointment, and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment. And you have Calvary, where his body was broken and multitudes were redeemed.

Conversion as the Beginning of Brokenness

The beginning of brokenness in human life is conversion. True conversion is a form of brokenness. Before we're saved, we're rebellious. In many cases we have our feet preached against God. As the poet said, against the God who built the sky, I fought with hands up, lifted high, despite the mention of his grace, too proud to seek a hiding place.

And God has to break a wild-ass's cult like that before that man is useful to him. And so the Spirit of God comes in and convicts us of sin. What a painful, breaking process that is. So we lie panting at the foot of the cross and acknowledge him as being Lord and Savior.

At last, the shrewd is changed, the cult is broken, the sinner is mastered. And then that person is ready for the yoke. Yokes are only for broken animals. That man is ready to take the yoke of Jesus upon him.

So that's the beginning of brokenness in the life. But there are grades in the school of brokenness that the Lord wants us to learn. And one of the first grades is repentance and contention and apology as we go on in the Christian life.

Repentance, Confession, and Restitution

Brokenness means a readiness to contest to God. I sometimes think we all take ourselves far too seriously, and oftentimes pride keeps us from doing the very thing that we should do. Brokenness doesn't sweep thin under the carpet.

Brokenness doesn't say, time heals all things. Brokenness doesn't say, I'll forgive you if you forgive me. Brokenness says, I was wrong. I am sorry. Those are the hardest words in any language. I am sorry I think that's what it means when it says a bishop, an elder, must be blameless.

I'm glad it doesn't say sinless. We wouldn't have any elders. But it says a bishop must be blameless. A blameless man is a man who, when he has done something wrong, is quick to make it right. And that's how he makes it right.

He first goes to God, and then he goes to those who were wrong, and he said, I was wrong. I am sorry. Please forgive me. David was a broken man. You'll read it in Psalm 32 and 51, where he cried out his heart to the Lord against me.

The only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. If you want to hear words of brokenness, read those two lovely psalms. Paul was a broken man when he was up there on trial, and he went missing there.

And he said to the high priest, not knowing he was the high priest, that God will smite you, you whited wall. And they said, oh, you speak to the high priest that way? And he said, well, I didn't know he was the high priest.

He said, it is written, thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people. I tell you, it took grace for him in a situation like that, where he was being mistreated, and unfairly treated, to say, I was wrong.

I shouldn't have done it. You shouldn't speak evil of the ruler of your people. Brokenness means the willingness to make restitution. You've worked for a company. You've taken things that didn't belong to you.

Maybe they were true. Maybe they were office supplies. Maybe it was money. And now God has done a work of grace in your heart, and he's barbecuing you about it, and you don't get any rest about it. And you go back and say, look, God's been speaking to me.

I took this from you. I shouldn't have taken this from you, and I want to make it right. Brokenness. I like to tell about W .T. Nicholson preaching in Belfast, Ireland, years ago, and preaching in such power, in such conviction, that people were saved, and they started returning tools to machine work in Belfast.

And some of the companies had to build sheds to house the tools that were returned. And finally it became so oppressive, they had to send out a notice, don't return anymore. Oh, that's wonderful, isn't it?

Forgiving Those Who Have Wronged Us

When God hits a city that way, that really happens. Restitution. Brokenness is not only repentance and confession, but it's willingness to forgive others. Sometimes this is rather difficult, too, isn't it?

Someone has wronged you, and has grievously wronged you, and you know it's that wrong. Well, your gastric juices become sulfuric acid, and you can't sleep at night. And then the person comes and apologizes to you.

I think of Corrie Kidman after the war, speaking in that auditorium in Germany, and she looked down in the audience, and she saw a man with a big great coat on, and she recognized him. He had been one of the guards in the concentration camps.

Her father had died in a concentration camp. Her sister had died in a concentration camp. Here's one of the guards sitting there in the audience. And she stood at the door at the end of the meeting, and he came to her, and he said, Corrie, he said, God has forgiven me.

Would you forgive me? And she had her hand in her coat, and she started to struggle to get her hand out of her coat pocket. It didn't want to come. Finally she reached out her hand and shook hands with him.

The grace of God manifesting itself in brokenness. I believe that as soon as someone wrongs us, immediately we should forgive them in our hearts. Immediately we should forgive in our hearts, and that leaves it between them and God.

Then when they come and ask forgiveness, we administer forgiveness to them. We tell them that we've been forgiven. I personally don't think it's righteous to tell a person he's been forgiven if he hasn't repented or confessed it, because you're only encouraging him in his sins that way.

And incidentally, when somebody comes and confesses to us, we just tell them, yes, I forgive you. Our tendency is when somebody comes and confesses, we just kind of wave it aside. We say, oh, well, it was nothing.

That isn't what they want to hear. They want to hear you say, I forgive you, and throw your arms around them and give them a big hug. That's what they really want. They want the expression of forgiveness, and God hates an unforgiving spirit.

Enduring Wrong Without Retaliation

Brokenness is enduring wrong without retaliation. Enduring wrong without retaliation. Our Lord Jesus gave us the example of this. When he was reviled, he reviled not again. He did not give tip for tap, did he?

And we are called to that kind of a life. In effect, this chapel is a monument to brokenness. Did you know that? It is. This building that we're in today is a monument to brokenness. Because something was done in the construction of this building that was not righteous.

It was not right that the Christians here turned the other cheek. And I'll never think of this chapel without realizing that it really is a monument to brokenness. There was a Highland minister once, and his wife made life pretty miserable for him.

And one day he was sitting before the choir, and he was reading his Bible. And she came, and she grabbed the Bible out of his hand and threw it into the fireplace. What would she do? He said to her, I don't think I've ever sat by a warmer fire.

And his thorn became a rose, and his Jezebel became a Lydia. She was broken by the way he took it, and she never gave him another bit of trouble. I don't think I've ever sat by a warmer fire. Brokenness is not only enduring wrong without retaliation, but it's repaying every unkindness with a kindness.

And of course that's what we're told to do in Romans 12, isn't it? Recompense evil with good. That's hard, isn't it? Recompense evil with good. But it is the way, the master way. E. Stanley Jones tells the story of a man driving an elephant down the road in Bombay.

The man had a metal gold in his hand, and he was pushing the elephant to move along, and all of a sudden that metallic gold fell to the ground with a clashing noise. He turned around, picked it up from its trunk, and handed it to the man.

Honoring Others Above Ourselves

I guess I should say trunked it to the man. But that elephant was enduring pain as a result of that, and yet turned around and gave it back to the man who was doing it. Brokenness is honoring others above ourselves.

When it says in Philippians chapter 2 that we should esteem others better than ourselves, it doesn't mean that I should look at these members of the mafia and think that they have better characters than I have, because that would be ridiculous.

But honoring others above self means esteeming them, putting them before self, putting their interests before self. You see it in the case of Abraham and Lot, don't you, when they came up and there was a dispute among their herdsmen over the pasture land.

And Lot's men looked toward the well-watered plains of the Jordan, and they said, that's for us. And Abraham said, fine, take whatever you want. I'll take what's left. That was really wonderful. He esteemed, he honored others above himself.

And that's the kind of brokenness that God wants to see in us. I think I used to see it in Gerald A. Ironside. He was such a gracious man. He was a very broken man. And I don't know why, but people like to engage him in controversy, or try anyway.

And then come up to him after the meeting with some little nitpicking. I certainly didn't agree with you tonight, this sort of thing. And he'd say, well, brother, when we get to heaven, one of us is going to be wrong, and perhaps it'll be me.

And you know, you can't argue with a man like that. Now, he didn't say that about the great fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. Don't misunderstand me. He was saying that about secondary matters, remember that.

Remember that, young people. When we get to heaven, one of us is going to be wrong, and perhaps it'll be me. Good brokenness, huh? I was telling our interns this last week. I think they come and they expect us to know all the answers.

One of the great revelations that you get when you get to middle age is how easy it is to say I don't know. It's a great thing to learn, to say I don't know. Nobody knows all the answers. Why do we have to be proud and pretend that we do?

Obedience to God and Death to Public Opinion

Brokenness is prompt obedience to the word of God, broken in accepting and obeying his will. That's what he wants. He doesn't want us to be like Jonah, taking his ship to Tarsus when he should have been taking the train to Nineveh.

He wants us to be like that cult on which the Lord Jesus rode into Jerusalem, a broken youth. No one had ever stabbed that animal before. And yet the Lord Jesus got on, and that animal took him right into Jerusalem.

I think that's beautiful. The Lord Jesus wants us to be like clay in the hands of the Father. Isn't that wonderful? If we could just be so sensitive to the moving of his hands, to the movement of his eyes, as it were, that we would obey him in all of this.

Brokenness means death to public opinion. When I know I'm walking in the will of God, when there's no doubt about it, when I'm obeying the word of God, the grace that enables me to walk with God enables me to think rightly of the opinions of others.

And it's a great thing to be dead to public opinion. Friends, when I go back to W .T. Nicholson, after he was dead, he got into the Salvation Army, and one of the old officers said to him, you mean business for God?

And he said, I think so. And he said, well, let's make a sandwich board. So they made a sandwich board for him, and they said, now go out in the city and walk around for two hours with this. And it said that on it.

It said, dead to public opinion. And he said it was one of the great formative influences in his life as a Christian. And if you read the story of his life, you'd know that was true. He was one of God's irregulars, and it's usually the irregulars that God uses most.

Keeping Calm in Life’s Crises

Brokenness is keeping one cool in the crisis. Poised and equanimity in the crisis of life. I don't fly off the handle. I don't lose my temper. I can accept delays and interruptions and mechanical breakdowns and even accidents and schedule changes and disappointments without frenzy, without panic, without hysteria, without ruffled feathers.

Why, that's nice, isn't it? To see God behind a flat tire out on the freeway. How could he be behind that? Well, somebody may stop to help you, and you can speak to them about Jesus. Maybe that's the only way we could ever get together with that person.

It's wonderful when we can react instantly with calmness instead of with impatience. This is what brokenness means. The poet said, pictures, pictures for the lamps of God. Heart, the cry goes forth abroad.

Not the beauty of the make, but the readiness to break marks the vessels of. Some people think that meekness is weakness. It isn't. Try it. A broken man is not a mistoast. He's not a spineless jellyfish.

A broken man who has the strength, the human strength of the Holy Spirit. And broken people are the most influential people for God. The psalmist says, I have gentleness that makes me great. It takes some of us a long time to learn this lesson.

Some of us are proud of our quick temper and our ability to react instantly. I think of myself. Years ago, I was in a home with two extreme servants of the Lord, and reconstruct the conversation, but they started off against the mayor's Bible school, and the mayor's Bible school was my baby.

You don't like anybody to tell you how ugly your baby is, do you? The red coming up under my collar, and the steam was boiling up in the boiler. And after a while, I just let loose. And with a few well-chosen words, I laid them out in lavender and lace.

I sure took care of that situation pretty well. Sometime later, I was on my way to a weekend of meetings in the Midwest. The Spirit of God got a hold of me. There was no question about it. He said, a fine thing that you're going to tell other people how to live the Christian life, and you've never made that right for those two brothers.

You've never apologized to them for the way you spoke to them. And I couldn't get on the platform that weekend until I had sat down and written a letter to them and apologized. And you probably think, oh, the end of a beautiful friendship that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Brokenness in Christian Relationships

God's way is the best way. And after that, we were better friends than we ever had been before. Brokenness commits relationship. The opposite of brokenness, we can embrace them. Why do you think I would have learned my lesson, wouldn't you?

So one day, I was sitting in my office at a mass, and I was getting ready for Harold Harper's funeral. I had been asked to take part in the funeral. And I was sitting there meditating, and the telephone rang.

And it was a brother from England. And I happened to know that this brother was a post-tribulation rapturist. I happened to be a pre-tribulation rapturist. I believed the Lord should come at any minute.

He would come today, and he will come before the tribulation breaks on the earth. And he started talking on the phone, and words began to fly. And I'm sure the wires began to get hot. There was terrible preparation for a funeral.

And once again, I felt rather satisfied when I got through. I still believed in the pre-tribulation raps. I still thought I was right. You know, after that, I was walking down the street in London one day.

Very vivid in my mind. I can still see that telephone booth, that red telephone booth ahead of me. And the Lord said, Well, here you are, Bill. You're back in his turf. You've now made that right. What about it?

So I went to the telephone booth, and I dialed the number, hoped he wasn't there. But he was. He answered the phone. And I had my speech all prepared, and he said, Could we get together tomorrow for lunch?

Brokenness in Revival and Repentance

We got together for lunch the next day, and we had a wonderful time. And you know, I still believe in the pre-tribulation rapture. It wasn't that. It was the way I handled it,. Two years ago I was in London, and I met a man named Shannon Bill Butler.

He was a clergyman in the Church of England. And after we had tea together, he told me a most remarkable story. Years ago in the African country of Rwanda, there was a great revival going on, mostly among the national believers, the black people there.

And Bill Butler was sent out to Rwanda to teach in a school that was training men for the Anglican ministry. So he went out there and he started teaching. And there was a group of men in the school, a group of national believers who were born again.

That was their name. In Africa they were called the born-again ones. The others weren't. I mean, they were nominal Church of England. And Bill Butler began to teach, and as he began to teach, he became more and more liberal in his theology.

And he heard that there was a group of men meeting every morning at 4 o 'clock to pray for him, for Shannon, for Shannon in the Church of England. And there were black men praying for him, and so excited he had to do something about it.

So one day he was called the leader into his office. He fainted being demeaned with unkind words. The great mark of that revival in Rwanda in those days was brokenness among God's people. And that year black men sat there and listened to the tolerance of words that were directed against him, and he never said a word.

Till the end, he looked kindly at Bill Butler and said, but you really do need help. Time went on and God began to work in that dear man's heart, Bill Butler. He began to see that what he was teaching was not according to the word of God, that he was teaching denial of the word of God.

And so he jumped in the minds of these men concerning the scriptures, and God began to do a gracious work in his life. In part of it, he became so strong that one day he had to go to the bishop and tell the bishop, look, what I've been teaching in the seminary there is wrong, he said.

And the bishop buried his head in his hands, and he said, oh, Bill, he said, now you can never become a bishop. And Bill said, praise the Lord. Then the men came to him, the born-again ones came to him, and they said, Brother Butler, we meet every morning at four o 'clock.

They said, wouldn't you like to meet with us? And he had a thousand excuses why he couldn't meet with them. But before that, he realized he had to go to this black man and apologize for the way he had treated him.

And he thought it was very demeaning for him, a canon in the Church of England, to go and apologize to a black man. But the Lord was working in his life and unsettling him, and finally he got in the car one day, and he drove to where this black man lived, and on the way he prepared to speak, he was going to apologize to the black man.

And when he drove up into the yard of the home of this dear man, the man came to the door, and he saw Bill Butler's face. And before Bill Butler could say a word, the black man said, Hallelujah. It was one of those prodigal son speeches that really never had to be delivered.

Bill Butler said to me, he said, It was the first time I ever embraced a black man. It was the first time I ever wanted to. God brought him down. And as I said, they asked him if he wouldn't come to the prayer meeting, the morning prayer meeting, and meet.

He had fifty theological reasons why he couldn't go. But they said, Well, we could just try it for a week. And he wore out all his excuses, and so he started to meet with them. This came to the notice of the administration of the college, and they made a rule.

First of all, they transferred Bill Butler to another place. And then they made a rule that there be no meetings of more than two people before seven o 'clock in the morning. These young black men had to decide whether they would obey God or man.

And they decided that under the circumstances, they should obey God. And they continued to meet, and they were expelled from the school two weeks short of graduation. Were they better? No, they weren't better.

They were broken. They were just broken before the Lord. After that, they searched out Bill Butler, and they said, Brother Butler, we feel that we still harbor thoughts of bitterness in your heart towards the bishop, and we think you should go and apologize to him.

A Lion for Others and a Lamb for Himself

He did. He did. And this was the basis of that whole revival in Rwanda. Brokenness manifested among the people of Rwanda. I was told of Dr. Alexander White, a servant of the Lord in England, years ago.

One day a member of his congregation came in to him and said, Dr. White, a preacher has come to town, and he says that your colleague, Dr. so-and-so, is not a true believer. Dr. Alexander White became most incensed, most incensed, to think that anyone would say concerning this man of God that he was not a true believer.

And he vented his feelings in no uncertain words there. He expressed his anger against the man who had been guilty of this sin. But then his parishioner said to him, but that isn't all, Dr. White. This visiting preacher says that you're not a Christian either.

Dr. White slumped in his chair, and then he said, Please leave the room, that I may get before God and examine my heart. You see, he was a lion in the cause of someone else, but he was a lamb in his own cause.

Practicing Brokenness in Daily Life

That's the spirit of brokenness, isn't it? That's what the Lord wants to see in our lives. How can I be broken before the Lord? I think the first step is to ask him to do it, because there isn't something that I can do.

I'll never forget years ago in one of our all-night prayer meetings at a mass when young people would gather together on 9 o 'clock on a Friday night from all the colleges in the Midwest, Christian colleges, and they'd pray till 7 o 'clock in the morning.

And I'd never known prayer meetings with such power as that. And I remember one night, although not of red-blooded American fellows on the floor, praying to God and while he said, Lord, grace me. And I shuddered.

I had never prayed that prayer, and I wasn't sure I was ready to pray it then either. Lord, grace me. It's wonderful when the word becomes flesh in people's lives, and that's what happens among those young people.

I wonder how many of us here today are willing to pray that prayer. Lord, are you so satisfied with yourself and the way you are now that you feel there's no room for improvement? Or are you willing that God should come in and let him break it?

It's a painful process. Be careful. It's a painful process. And I'll tell you, it'll mean a new loving spirit in the assembly, spirit in the home, Christ in the business. If we can go forth from this conference and be really broken before the Lord.

That's step number one. Pray, Lord, grace me. Two, the past in your life, the wrongs that have never been righted, the unkind words that have been spoken, the words that have been spoken in the flesh.

We've all been guilty of that, I'm sure, haven't we? Have we made it right? Can I look back and think of some time when the AC valve blew, my temper, when I wounded someone with my prayer, have I ever made it right?

That's what I have to do. That's part of brokenness, isn't it? Then confess that thing to God. Try and get out in the open, confess it to God, and then confess it to the person who has been wronged. And then I would suggest something else, that when you do that, you share the experience with someone else.

I think just by sharing the experience with someone else, you encourage others to do the same thing. Once again, I say, as I said at the beginning, I think of times when Christians have got together in business meetings and it was anything but honoring to the Lord.

It wasn't over the great fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith or the secondary matters, but it was the attitude that I have to have my way. That's detrimental to any fellowship of Christians. Two years ago we started a new assembly out in San Lorenzo, California, under God, and we set some ground rules when we started that assembly.

We said we had a church planting room of seven men, and we said, look, on the fundamentals of the faith, there's got to be no disagreement. We must have absolute unity on the fundamentals of the faith.

We said, on all other subjects, we're going to go by the consensus of the group. And you know, it's a wonderful thing that we drew up that ground rule, because two times since then, we've had occasion to use it.

Three times since then, when one man tried to push his view, he said, remember, remember the ground rule, this is not a fundamental, this is a secondary matter, and we're going to go by the consensus of the group.

And they were seated, and they kneeled. Pray, Lord, brightly, ransack the past in your life of something you've done wrong. Go and make it right, confess it to God, and confess it to the person wrong, and then share the experience.

Don't be ashamed to share the experience with somebody else. Somebody's waiting for you to know that you're not perfect, to know that you have feet of iron and clay, and perhaps they'll do the same thing.

The Prayer for a Broken Spirit

Shall we pray? While our heads are bowed, I wonder if there's anyone here today who, quietly, silently, without any outward show, is ready to say, perhaps for the first time in your life, Lord, break me.

Whatever the cost may be, I want to take the yoke of Jesus upon me, and merge him who is weak and lowly in heart. I want that rest to my soul. Give me the brokenness of cannon-billed butler, who would do such a thing as he did.

Alexander White, that would be a lion in others' cause, but a lamb in his own. Lord, we would make this our prayer this morning. Lord, break me. What thou saviour, weak and lowly, and with such a worm as I, weak and sinful and unholy, dare to lift my head on high.

Lord, forgive us that we've ever been proud, we've ever been arrogant, that we've ever considered ourselves above correction. Lord, bring us to your feet. Help us to have that brokenness that we'll be able to see others better than ourselves.

Put them in the important place. Endure wrong without retaliating, and repay every discourtesy with a kindness. We ask it in Jesus' name, and in order that we might better represent him. Amen.