Owning Brokenness

Introduction

We’ve been speaking on the topic of ownership recently at 5PM and it’s been a great topic. Owning our faith - I always love ownership series. As we build this church, it just becomes more important to talk about these things, because the church we’re trying to build is not just about a single person - it’s about every single person in this room owning their faith, and taking ownership of this church too.

You’ve heard Dan, Tom and I say many times that this is not a celebrity culture church - and we have no desire to be one at all. But because of that, the culture of ownership becomes so important - as in YOU GUYS stepping up, and taking ownership of this house.

But do you know one thing that’s not really talked about when we talk about ownership? Owning your brokenness. Right? Because it’s a bit of a strange thing to talk about. Why do I need to own my brokenness, when I just sort of AM broken?

Like what does owning my brokenness even mean? Can’t I just “be” broken?

And I get where this train of thought comes from because we’re told as Christians that we are fundamentally broken people - we are sinful in nature. Brokenness is almost something that we can’t avoid, and so why try to fight it - there’s no real point. Whatever brokenness we have in our lives is just sort of there. My ownership becomes just leaving my brokenness for God to do whatever He wants with it.

There comes a point where the Christian has to ask this very important question - what am I meant to do with my brokenness? What does OWNING my brokenness even mean? Does my brokenness have any value at all or should I just be pushing through it and leaving it behind?

Let’s take a look at that today. Pray.

Segment 1: Own the Pain

1 Samuel 1:1–20 ESV

1 There was a certain man of Ramathaim-zophim of the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, son of Elihu, son of Tohu, son of Zuph, an Ephrathite. 2 He had two wives. The name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other, Peninnah. And Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. 3 Now this man used to go up year by year from his city to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts at Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests of the Lord. 4 On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and daughters. 5 But to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though the Lord had closed her womb. 6 And her rival used to provoke her grievously to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb. 7 So it went on year by year. As often as she went up to the house of the Lord, she used to provoke her. Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat. 8 And Elkanah, her husband, said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep? And why do you not eat? And why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?” 9 After they had eaten and drunk in Shiloh, Hannah rose. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. 10 She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. 11 And she vowed a vow and said, “O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.” 12 As she continued praying before the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. 13 Hannah was speaking in her heart; only her lips moved, and her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli took her to be a drunken woman. 14 And Eli said to her, “How long will you go on being drunk? Put your wine away from you.” 15 But Hannah answered, “No, my lord, I am a woman troubled in spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. 16 Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for all along I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation.” 17 Then Eli answered, “Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition that you have made to him.” 18 And she said, “Let your servant find favor in your eyes.” Then the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad. 19 They rose early in the morning and worshiped before the Lord; then they went back to their house at Ramah. And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and the Lord remembered her. 20 And in due time Hannah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Samuel, for she said, “I have asked for him from the Lord.”

This passage is about a woman named Hannah who is struggling greatly with her brokenness - specifically with the fact that she is barren, she’s unable to have child.

And it’s a grievous situation - you have to understand that back in those days a woman’s worth was closely tied to her ability to bear children, that was a huge part of a woman’s identity back in the day. It’s very different now because we measure a woman’s worth through different things like individuality, having a job, children are no longer a primary measure of worth like they were back in these days. But just picture it here, this is a woman who is grieving her identity as a woman.

But Hannah is also in quite a rare situation because her husband (Elkanah) is more than understanding of her plight and YET still loves her - he gives her a double portion of the sacrifice that he makes - which indicates his favour. He even tells her that she shouldn’t grieve, and assures her that he will always provide for her. That she is loved.

So in a sense - Hannah has no reason to really worry. She is provided for, she is loved, she is secure.

And so we come to why I’ve chosen to use this passage - Hannah doesn’t NEED to own her brokenness, in fact she’s almost been given an out here to ignore it in terms of her situation. But she CHOOSES to own her brokenness. She takes ownership over her brokenness.

She goes up to the temple and in the depth of her distress she cries out to the Lord, weeping bitterly.

Scripture says that she poured her soul out before the Lord. - this is offering language.

And at this point I want to pause because this in itself is something that may already be counter-cultural.

Because we live in a time where perhaps it is more normal to hide the pain, to mask your emotions. We need to appear put together, we need other people to think that we have got everything sorted out.

And so often because of this culture, or things like fear of judgment - we hide our brokenness away, even away from God! We don’t ask for prayer over it, we feel like we can’t genuinely talk about it with others. Maybe on some levels we feel like we can’t even approach God with it.

But here’s something that we need to know - God won’t restore what you don’t first reveal.

The first part of owning our brokenness is the willingness to bring it before God

When we choose to hide ANY brokenness from God - we are, in fact, telling God that this is an area that I don’t want you to touch. We are witholding our trust - leaning on our own wisdom instead of trusting in His providence. This is not owning our brokenness - this is choosing control over trust.

Because sometimes we allow a good environment to stop us dealing with our inward brokenness. We know that something’s wrong, we know that we need to deal with something in our lives - but because life is alright and pretty stable at the moment, we choose not to rock the boat, we choose to leave well enough alone. Unlike Hannah - we choose to ignore brokenness, believing that things will just get better over time.

And this is why I believe scripture is filled with IMPERATIVES that instruct us to APPROACH God with our burdens and brokenness.

Psalm 55:22 “22 Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you;

Matthew 11:28 “28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Psalm 62:8 “8 Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.”

In all these instances and so many more, there is an IMPERATIVE - a command placed on us to APPROACH God, to OWN our brokenness to BRING it out of the shadows and fully into the light.

By hiding our brokenness from God we are standing in the way of the work that He wants to do in our life.

Just as Hannah did in this passage. She did not choose control. She chose trust. She chose to own it, to bring it before the Lord and beg, cry, weep for deliverance.

ILLUSTRATION: Bringing up Mum’s passing

Many of you guys know my journey with depression a couple of years ago back around 2018. At the time the scariest thing about the whole situation is that we didn’t know what caused it - I went to see three separate psychologists and therapists to try and sort it out. And they all came to the same conclusion - this is a clinical case of depression with no trigger, in other words it’s just biological happenstance. It’s just unfortunate. Which kind of is the last thing that I wanted to hear.

I remember just giving into the diagnosis. But then as a last sort of attempt, I went to see a counsellor who was also a pastor at a church. And so I was sitting with her and talking about my past - and she later told me that she felt a prompting to ask me about my mum’s passing. And so I said to her oh no that was 10 years ago, I dealt with that a long time ago. And she asked me - well how did you deal with it? And I realised I couldn’t really give her a proper answer. I was just like…I guess I just moved on?

And then she said something to me which has always stuck with me since, she said - things that we don’t deal with often have a way of dealing with us. And so she started asking me targetted questions about my mum. Her passing, my relationship with her, regrets, things I didn’t get to say.

And man guys - you know I’m not an emotional person, but emotions just starting coming out of nowhere; I was like what even is this?

Do you know that over the course of the next few sessions - I realised that the grief that I had not dealt with in that situation, the regret I was feeling about certain aspects of my relationship with my mum - they were all affecting my current relationships, my marriage, my ministry, in ways that I didn’t even realise. Like I didn’t realise that I stopped praying for healing after mum passed away - I didn’t realise that I had lost FAITH in God to heal until I started to unpack this.

My point in sharing this with you is simple - I didn’t own my brokenness. I never truly brought it to God. I dealt with grief in my own way. I pushed it down, didn’t want to talk about it anymore - not even to God. And was paying the price a full DECADE later.

The lesson I learned was: Don’t expect HEALING for what you are busy HIDING

Segment 3: Own your Prayer

And then we reach the crux of the story - Hannah’s prayer. It is fervent, it is passionate, it’s distressed, she’s weeping, it’s raw and exposed.

1 Samuel 1:10–11 “10 She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly.

in v15-16 she tells Eli “I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord, I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation”

This is such an image of sheer DESPERATION. A woman who has a fractured identity, LONGING to be made whole. A woman with a dream LONGING for it to be fulfilled.

And I know there’s so much to unpack in this passage - but when I was praying God just placed such a simple point here that I need to go through

If we want to own our brokenness then we have to learn how to OWN OUR PRAYERS.

You know sometimes we try to get so theological and intellectual about scripture that we ignore the most simple and profound spiritual truths.

But see this for what it is - this is a woman banking EVERYTHING on prayer, bringing EVERYTHING to God in prayer.

Prayer is NEVER a last resort to a Christian, it should ALWAYS be our weapon of choice.

So when I say OWN YOUR PRAYER - what I mean is this:

Don’t oursource your prayers to anyone. Hannah didn’t ask Eli to pray for her, she brought her prayer directly to God. Don’t rely on pastors or your friends or your CG leaders to pray on your behalf and bring your brokenness and your petition to God. BRING IT YOURSELF. OWN YOUR PRAYER - DONT OUTSOURCE IT.

I want you to catch the sheer weight that Hannah places on prayer. This is her weapon of choice, this is her FIRST port of call. Note that v13 indicates that Hannah did not pray out loud but spoke in her heart so that only her lips moved but her voice couldn’t be heard.

And this was not a usual practise, ritual prayers, personal or otherwise are usually spoken out loud, that is the norm - as evidenced by the fact the priest thought that she was drunk until she finally answered Him.

This is not a prayer about performance, it was about presence. It shows me that she had no interest in RITUAL, she was seeking ENCOUNTER.

She’s not praying to impress the people around her - she’s praying to be HEARD.

We can so often nullify the power of prayer when we perceive it through the eyes of RITUAL, through the eyes of ROUTINE. “This is just something Christians HAVE to do, it’s something that is just part and parcel of being a Christian. It’s just ANOTHER checkbox that I have to complete.”

Oh - to pray like Hannah again. You know what it is? It’s praying like God will actually DO something. To pray like the BREAKTHROUGH is just on the other side of this prayer.

THAT’S the kind of prayer that we need to cultivate in our churches again. Prayer that MOVES mountains, Prayer that makes the IMPOSSIBLE seem LIKELY.

You know happens when prayer becomes nothing more than routine to you? You kill expectation. If prayer is nothing more than a routine to you then you are robbing your prayers of faith. You’re praying like God WON’T do something.

Bur Jesus says Mark 11:23–24 “23 Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

To anyone who calls themselves Christian in this room - who has stopped praying for whatever reason. I want to say this to you: Whatever you don’t pray about - you have already decided to handle without God.

Not praying is the same as declaring “I don’t need God.”

A prayerless church will kill revival before it has the chance to begin.

A prayerless Christian is a powerless Christian.

You want to own your brokenness - start owning your prayer life again. Start praying like Hannah.

Segment 4: The Surrender

In the midst of her prayer - Hannah does something strange. She makes a peculiar vow to the Lord. 1 Samuel 1:11 “11 And she vowed a vow and said, “O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.””

Now I say that’s strange because of a few reasons - she’s praying fervently to have a son, but now she’s saying that if the Lord gives her a son, she will give him away to the Lord immediately, for the entire duration of His life.

But do you know - this is actually the crux of the entire passage? And I genuinely believe the reason why Hannah’s prayer was answered.

You know what happens here? Surrender.

Hannah comes to a place where she releases the very thing that she’s desiring.

Hannah has moved from “give me a son” to “if you give me a son, then he is yours anyway.”

Can I tell you why this is significant? Because breakthrough without surrender becomes idolatry.

So often when we receive the breakthrough that we’ve been fervently praying for - our fixation is on the breakthrough, not on the Lord! And so the end goal BECOMES that breakthrough, that healing becomes our security, that provision becomes our identity.

We end up worshipping the gift, and not the giver

Remember that only 1 out of the 10 lepers that Jesus healed returned to thank Him.

Breakthrough without surrender becomes idolatry. But Breakthrough WITH surrender becomes offering.

When we surrender our breakthrough to God, we say to God - God IF you choose to heal, IF you choose to provide, IF you choose to deliver - then I will SERVE you with my BREAKTHROUGH.

But do you know what else surrender says? God EVEN IF you choose not to heal, EVEN IF you choose not to provide, and EVEN IF you choose not to deliver - then I will serve you even in my BROKENNESS.

That is the heart that Hannah cultivates - THAT is truly owning our brokenness. Coming to a place where we have not only presented our brokenness to the Lord, but we have surrendered it over to Him completely. All of it - our expectations, the result, the hurt, the pain - we choose to trust the Lord with it. Do with it as you will Lord - the brokenness is yours, and so is the breakthrough.

It’s not about pursuading God to come in line with OUR will. It’s about pursuing God and surrendering to HIS will.

And I want you to witness how powerful that level of surrender is - it says in 1 Samuel 1:18 “Then the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad.”

Pay attention to this - the moment she surrenders her brokenness to God her countenance changes. Her face was no longer sad.

Do you know what hadn’t happened yet? Her miracle. She hadn’t even received her miracle yet - and yet something had changed inside her. She was no longer sad - something big had shifted inside her.

You know what it was? I believe Hannah had not received her miracle yet - but she got her breakthrough.

So often we can confuse the two - that breakthrough only comes when we get the miracle, when we get the healing. But I don’t think that’s the case at all.

We can find breakthrough despite not having the healing, despite not receiving the miracle, despite not having the answered prayer.

Because breakthrough is not just about your situation, it’s about your posture.

God often does His deepest work in us before He does it around us.

Hannah’s breakthrough happened when she got on her knees and surrendered her brokenness to God completely. “God if you do give me a son - then He is yours either way.”

That was the moment that Hannah received peace from the Lord

ILLUSTRATION: Anxiety

A couple of months ago toward the end of last year. I actually started having some chest pains right above my heart. But I really didn’t think much of it - I thought maybe I injured my shoulder at the gym or maybe I was just sleeping wrong or something like that, so obviously I didn’t go to the doctor. I didn’t even bring it up to the doctor I’m married to - I just kinda soldiered on through it.

But I knew it was more serious than I thought it was when it was still there after months, and was actually starting to bug me more, it was getting worse - the pain was..not sharper, but I definitely noticed it more and it was really starting to bug me. And so one day after church, I actually talked to Sharon about it. And Sharon brought up a word that I never thought I would ever hear - she was like..I think you may have anxiety. It sounds alot like anxiety. And she pointed out (this was just after the church building finished) you’ve been working crazy hours, there’s so much to do still, Dan’s just given you a role that involves resourcing our campuses. I think you actually have anxiety. And like any good husband, I immediately dismissed her and was like what the heck anxiety get lost lol.

But of course - she was right. And over the next months, as I tried to push through it got heavier, and more painful, and then I started noticing it was significantly affecting my mood. It was much tougher to come to church, I was much more tired, normal tasks would take much more energy.

As I shared with you before, this isn’t my first rodeo with mental health issues - so (and this was only a couple of months ago) I went to the Lord in prayer, like - I know how to do a desperate prayer, I wept, and I begged Him to heal me, to remove my anxiety so that I could keep pushing on and keep serving Him at a higher capacity. You know what happened? Nothing. But He spoke. A very familiar passage. 2 Corinthians 12:9 “9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

You know the next day was Sunday. And remember - I hadn’t told anyone about this at all by this time. But on that Sunday, both Tracey during the 5PM service and Dan after the 5PM service - without even knowing anything or planning anything, they both separately come and talk to me. And both of them pretty much say the same thing - it seems like you’re carrying things that you’re not meant to be carrying. It seems like you’ve lost your contentment, like your joy in ministry is slowly being robbed from you because you’re always after the next big thing. Don’t forget Jon - God loves the church more than you do. Learn to rest in that.

That was maybe only 2 month ago - you know every week since I’ve prayed for God to heal me from this anxiety. And do you know what? Nothing’s happened. But I want to tell you something so you can hear it firsthand from me. Despite not being healed of it? I got my breakthrough.

I immediately took a step back - prioritised rest, released burdens, found contentment again. And the joy for ministry, and love for the church flooded back into my heart almost INSTANTLY. I’m not healed, but I got my breakthrough.

And I want to tell you this - because I am sure that my healing is coming. But God even uses this anxiety to teach me when I’m doing too much. It’s like a physical indicator that reveals to me when I’m overly worried, or carrying something I shouldn’t be carrying - and it forces me to let go, to pray, to seek rest. God is using my brokenness to achieve my breakthrough. How good is God.

1 Samuel 1:20 “20 And in due time Hannah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Samuel, for she said, “I have asked for him from the Lord.””

The Lord gives her the breakthrough she seeks - and Samuel goes on to become one of the most significant prophets in Israel’s history.

The name Samuel (Shemuel) means “God hears me”

Let me tell you friends - tonight, God wants to hear from some of you.

Altar Call

2 Things:

Those who want to bring brokenness to God - it’s time to surrender it at the altar.

Those who have a prayer request on their heart that they just really need to desperately seek God for. Healing for someone, salvation for someone, for a friend to return back, for family reunification.

It’s time to get desperate in prayer.