Broken Vessels Faith Series — E.A. Johnston

The Purpose of Faith Teaching

We are in our faith series, friends, and as we study the life of faith, our main objective is to affect change in someone's life. My objective isn't to fill your head with teaching and leave your heart untouched.

My prayer is that God will take some of these truths we are discussing and take out his divine surgeon's scalpel and cut on you a new attitude and outlook, wake you up, and clean you up so you can be a clean and empty channel for God to flow through in power and transformation.

Suffering, Brokenness, and Spiritual Usefulness

I remember a story my homiletical mentor, Dr. Stephen F. Olford, shared with me, and I'll never forget it. A pastor friend of his invited Dr. Olford to go hear a young preacher who was making some noise among Southern Baptists.

Well, Dr. Olford traveled with this pastor friend to go hear this young man preach in a nearby town. On the drive back, the pastor asked Stephen Olford what he thought of the young preacher. Dr. Olford replied, Oh, fine, very promising, but then he added, but he hasn't suffered enough yet.

Stephen Olford knew what he was talking about because he understood the connection between usefulness and brokenness. Listen, friends. God's eyes are continually searching the earth for those rare individuals whose lives of brokenness was directly connected to their usefulness.

Men like Moses and John the Baptist, Whitefield and Wesley, Finney and Moody, men who live in a different atmosphere than other mortals, men who have annihilated self with the cross and whose lives are broken, alabaster boxes from which fragrances arise to the heavens from the broken pieces of surrender and sacrifice.

God uses broken vessels to bring him glory and to demonstrate he alone is the sovereign ruler of all mankind. I want to share a story with you, friends, that clearly illustrates the relationship between brokenness and usefulness in a life of faith.

Sam Jones and the Broken Bronco

If you'll bear with me, I'll give you that story now. This is a story about the evangelist Sam Jones, whose mighty preaching turned the city of Nashville, Tennessee upside down in the year 1885 and saw revival and made Sam Jones a household word throughout America.

Well, one day Sam Jones was at home in Cortersville, Georgia, when he received a telegram from Texas inviting him to go preach to the cowboys of Southwest Texas. Well, he prayed about it, and he got on a train and went to Texas, and for two weeks he preached the gospel of Jesus Christ to the cowboys of Texas.

When it was over, as they came to the end of the campaign, the cowboys wanted to give Sam Jones a love offering. They felt the laborer was worthy of his hiring. They had received wonderful blessings from his time among them, but there was a problem.

They had no money, not a single dollar in any of their pockets, and they didn't know what to do, and they allowed Sam Jones to go back to Cortersville, Georgia with no compensation or love offering of any kind, whatever.

Well, Sam Jones went back, and a number of weeks passed, and suddenly one day he received a telegram. It was from the cowboys of Texas. It read like this, We are sending and we are shipping you a carload of Broncos.

And Sam Jones scratched his head as he looked in amazement at that telegram. What am I going to do, he said, with a carload of wild horses in the small town of Cortersville? Well, his friend was standing beside him, and he said, Why, it's easy.

Hold an auction sale. Sell the Broncos, and you'll get your money. You can get your love offering then and put it in your pocket. Sam Jones thought it was a good suggestion, so he held an auction sale.

He sold the Broncos, all except one. He kept the finest looking Bronco for his son. He wanted to give that Bronco to his son as a gift, and that's what he did. But the son had never in his life been on the back of an unbroken Bronco, and Sam Jones wondered what he could do.

He called the cowboy to him, who had brought the carload of Broncos to Cortersville, and said, Will you take this Bronco? Will you break him so that my son can ride him? Yes, sir, said the cowboy. I'll be glad to.

How much will you charge? $15, said the cowboy. All right, said Sam. Take him away. The cowboy disappeared with the Bronco. Two weeks later, he came back. Is he broken? Said Sam. Yes, sir, he's broken.

Can my son ride him in perfect safety? Yes, sir, your son can ride him in perfect safety. All right then, here's your $15. The father thought that before allowing his son to ride the Bronco, he'd better mount himself and make sure that the cowboy had broken the Bronco.

He started toward the Bronco. The cowboy came running up, waving his hands in alarm. Why, said Sam. What's the matter? What's gone wrong? Oh, said the cowboy. He's only been broken on one side, and you're mounting from the wrong side.

Said Sam, that will never do. My son might make a mistake. He might mount from the wrong side. How much will you charge me to break him on the other side? $15, said the cowboy. All right, said Sam. Take him away and break him on the other side.

Well, another two weeks passed by, and again, the cowboy returned, leaving the Bronco. Is he broken? Said Sam. Yes, sir, he's broken. Both sides? Yes, sir, both sides. Your son can ride him in perfect safety from either side.

All right, here's your $15. Well, I like that story, friend, because it's so true. You know, the average Christian is only broken on one side. He'll do this, but he won't do that. He'll go here, but he won't go there.

Complete Surrender and Being Broken on Both Sides

He'll give God just so much of himself, but still hold something back. He's like the Bronco. He's only broken on one side. And then he wonders why God doesn't use him more. He doesn't realize he's only been broken on one side.

And God cannot rely upon him. God cannot trust him. The man God uses is the man who's been broken on both sides. But some Broncos don't break so easily. They're more stubborn, more hard-headed, more self-willed, people like that.

At times, God has to use more drastic measures with us to get us to comply with him. Listen to me, friend, and get the wax out of your ears so you can hear me. God wants to increase your faith so you can be more useful to him.

But faith and brokenness go hand in hand like mashed potatoes and gravy. The men of faith I've known in my life who had power with God were broken men. Alan Redpath used to say before God can use a man, he must crush him.

David's Repentance and the Broken Heart

We get a sense of this brokenness from Psalm 51. King David fell into moral failure with Bathsheba. But after that incident, he was broken over his sin and broken off from his sin. He never sinned like that again.

And in Psalm 51, we see the vivid picture of a man completely broken before God. Psalm 51, 17 reads, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou will not despise.

Notice, friends, the word broken is twice mentioned, for David is broken on both sides. And that word contrite speaks of something that's been ground to powder. David's sin of adultery, murder drives him to repentance, to be completely broken on both sides, a broken spirit and a broken and contrite heart.

Faith Developed Through Yielding

I believe God uses broken things. Our faith must be developed through a time of brokenness in our life where all we can do is abandon ourself to God and believe him to be who he says he is so he can affect change in us.

If you've been stuck, friend, in a place where you're wondering why God doesn't use you more, perhaps the reason is you are only broken on one side. God cannot rely upon you. If you're brutally honest with yourself, you may know that deep down, you may be a little hardheaded, a little too stubborn for your own good.

And your only hope of going deeper with God is to give in to him, to yield it all to him, to where God can bring you, to that place where he wants to bring you. So when people look at you, all they see is the power and glory of God pressing through a broken, yielded vessel.

When you get there, friend, you will experience enough of the reality of God to live on for the rest of your life. I think I see this clearly when I read Philippians 3 .10, for in there is a striking life principle which always leaps out at me.

The word of God declares there that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable onto his death. You see, friends, if you want the power of his resurrection in your life, then you must be deeply familiar with the fellowship of his sufferings.

The power comes into a life that is broken on both sides.