Voddie Baucham - Brokenness

I'm not who I ought to be but I'm not who I was

Brokenness is the place where God stops us and halts our progress and causes us to see the end to come if we continue to go down that road. God crushes us with the weight of our own sin. Brokenness is an appropriate response to sin.

Psalms 51 - Written by David about a year after his sin with Bath-sheba.

David asks God to blot out his transgressions, wash him thoroughly, and cleanse him of his sin. David knew that his sin was a scar and stain on him and he would never forget as he would carry that scar for life.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. BLOT OUT is exactly what God did during the great flood. It's the same Hebrew verb used. God sent the flood to whip the slate clean, blot out. David is asking God to erase his sin, to wipe it clean, to cleanse him.

3 reasons why its good we can’t forget our sin

  1. If you could forget your sin, you could never testify of the goodness of God
  2. If we couldn’t remember our sins, we wouldn’t be warned against doing them again
    a. Can you forget fire is hot??
    b. God gives us the gift of the memory of our sin to call us to repentance and brokenness
    c. And we couldn’t’ rejoice in our victories if we couldn't remember
  3. Brokenness over our sin is appropriate because our sin is an affront to a HOLY GOD
    a. You sin against God….
    b. We must preach against sin because people don’t know they are bad and don’t know sin until it created a scar and a stain

People come to church now looking to personally be satisfied or appeased. Churches cater to their congregation in lieu of preaching the word of Christ. They give you light shows, concerts, paid musicians, gifts, and they leave you feeling good about yourselves. Today churches have a theology of worship that is completely man centered. A service that is openly identified as to lost sinners as it’s target and not the God of the universe who is the only one worthy of our worship. Without a sense of brokenness over our sin, all we have is appeasement of the tyrannical old man and appeasement never work for long. It’s only when we experience genuine brokenness that authentic worship makes any sense at all. Then and only then does it make sense.

David recognizes that everything he needs can only be found in God. Before brokenness we think WE can do it. After brokenness we know that only God can do all those things in you. We can not do it without God

Never get over the fact that God saved a retched sinner like you. Brokenness is to get you in the place where you can understand the magnitude of God’s grace and mercy. Sadly today in the name of Grace people are being robbed of it.

He judges and makes war, his eyes are like a flame of fire, clothed in a robe dipped in blood, from his mouth comes a sharp sword, and will rule with a rod of iron, King of King and Lord of Lords

That’s my Jesus… that’s the God I serve. The God who gets angry and pours out his wrath.