Break My Heart

Dangerous Prayers

Break My Heart

This morning I am in week 2 of our three week series called Dangerous Prayers.

These are prayers that we want to pray because following Jesus was never meant to be safe!

Week 1 we talked about the Dangerous Prayer of “Search my heart, God”

This was a prayer of David’s and it’s dangerous because we are asking God to reveal things to us that maybe we are blind to.

Things that are holding us back from truly surrendering our hearts to God.

Today we are going to talk about a prayer that I guarantee not many of us have prayed in our lifetime.

This is a prayer that I don’t think too many people are going to be super excited to pray.

However, this can be a powerful prayer for you.

The prayer we’re going to talk about today is “Break My Heart”.

Some of you right now are thinking, that’s the dumbest prayer ever.

Why would I ever pray for God to break my heart?

Maybe some of you have experienced a broken heart?

Either through a relationship ending or a tragedy?

Or like me your heart breaks every fall when you watch the Lions play football!!

But we think why would I pray for God to break my heart?

You see we like to pray prayers like the prayer of Jabez!

Bruce Wilkinson wrote a book based on this prayer years ago.

1 Chronicles 4:10 “Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request.”

Now that’s a prayer we can get behind!

Bless me God, Enlarge my territory, keep me from harm!!

I like that prayer.

And God granted his request.

The thing that’s easy for us to do when we read the Bible is that we see a prayer like this and it’s the only prayer we want to focus on.

And there’s nothing wrong with this prayer.

But it’s interesting when you look at the context of this prayer.

Names in Bible times meant a lot.

The name Jabez means, “in pain”

Verse 9 even says it, 1 Chronicles 4:9 NIV “Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, “I gave birth to him in pain.”

Many scholars believe that’s one reason why he prayed this prayer.

Because his name meant, “in pain” he was praying that God would keep him from that.

And because of his earnest prayer God granted it.

Now again, there’s nothing wrong with praying this prayer.

However, I look at this as a “SAFE” prayer.

The question I have is who is willing to pray a dangerous prayer like, “Break My Heart”?

Are you willing to pray, “God break my heart for what breaks yours”?

An example of this is the prophet Jeremiah.

Jeremiah has the nickname of “the weeping prophet”.

Jeremiah was very open about his feelings and hurting for the things that hurt God.

And in Jeremiah 8 when he is seeing the people of Judah turn their backs on God and do horrible things which include worshiping idols, we see his response.

Jeremiah 8:18, 21NIV “You who are my Comforter in sorrow, my heart is faint within me... 21 Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me.”

Jeremiah is writing the feelings of God while feeling the same pain himself.

He’s crushed for the people that are helpless and hurting.

For the widows that weren’t being taken care of.

For the injustices taking place at that time.

And Jeremiah fasted, he prayed, he preached for things to change but it wasn’t happening the way he would have liked it to.

So he was crushed, he was broken.

Because God was crushed and broken.

Is that what you want for your life??

Because if we’re being honest that’s not exactly the feeling I want to have.

I want to go through my day and have everyone be nice to me and for nothing uncomfortable to happen.

And I want to post whatever I want on social media and not have to worry about someone attacking me.

I don’t want any problems, heartaches, or griefs in my life!

That’s why this is a dangerous prayer.

When I say “break my heart” I don’t mean, God give me an annoyance for something.

I’m not talking about when you see a homeless person on the side of the road so you have this slight feeling of pity for them so you give them a couple bucks.

Again, nothing wrong with that but that’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about breaking my heart in the fact that I have a burning passion to do something about a situation.

It’s something that I go to bed at night and think about.

I wake up in the morning and think about.

This feeling is eating at me so strongly that I need to make a move and DO SOMETHING.

I’m talking about that desire to not just give a homeless person a few bucks here and there but have the desire to say what can I do to get homeless people off the streets for good and into a job and into a home??

It’s saying God make me feel for those people the way that you do.

And that’s the opposite of what a lot of our Americanized Gospel preaches today.

All we hear about is how God wants to bless you and make you happy and take all your problems away.

Life with Jesus is supposed to be butterflies and roses all the time!

I love this quote though

“What if God’s greatest blessings come from God’s greatest breakings?”

What if your greatest blessings in your life were going to come after the greatest pain you’ve felt.

This pain that causes you to move away from selfishness and from comfort, and to care about people on His behalf.

You see the problem is if you’re like me you like comfort.

I like to be comfortable.

I like going on vacation and staying in 4 star hotels.

I don’t understand camping!!

Sleeping outside on the dirt when it’s hot and bugs flying all over the place sounds like tourcher!

I LIKE COMFORT!!

The problem is comfort NEVER moved me into action!

Comfort causes more comfort.

It’s like when you come home from vacation those first few days back at work are brutal.

Because you’ve just been living a week of comfort and maybe even luxury and now to have to come out of that and WORK for something is difficult.

We want to go back to the week of comfort.

Comfort doesn’t move us into action.

Comfort NEVER shook me into caring for those who are suffering.

BREAK MY HEART OH GOD!

This prayer snaps us out of our self centered pursuit of comfort and ease.

If you think that God isn’t in the business of breaking people’s hearts then you haven’t been paying close enough attention to the stories you’re reading in the Bible.

Look at Moses

Moses grew up seeing his people enslaved and beaten and finally one day he snapped and killed an Egyptian soldier who was abusing one of the Hebrew slaves.

So Moses had to run and he carried that burden with him until one day when God showed up at a burning bush and said it’s time to rescue your people.

And even though Moses fought God at first because he didn’t think he was qualified to do this, he chose to act because his heart was broken for his people.

So with Aaron by his side they went to Pharaoh and with boldness said, “LET MY PEOPLE GO”!

David, a young shepherd boy whose father told him to bring food to his brothers who were fighting in the army.

He shows up and sees this giant, Goliath shouting at the Israelite army and mocking God and His people.

And David’s heart in that moment BROKE for God and His people.

And instead of saying, “I’m going to go back to my comfortable life I know as a shepherd.”

He said, “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TO DEFY THE ARMIES OF THE LIVING GOD?”

“These men think you’re too big to defeat, I think you’re too big to miss!”

Look at Nehemiah

Nehemiah had a prestigious secular job as the Persian King’s cupbearer.

Living a comfortable life in a palace.

But he got word that the walls around Jerusalem had been destroyed and he responded like this...

Nehemiah 1:4 NIV “When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.”

Nehemiah’s heart was broken.

It was broken because he knew the danger that could come from the wall being torn down.

It was broken for the people that would have to live in fear now.

And it was that brokenness that moved him to leave the comfort of the palace to go lead the people to rebuild the wall.

When you pray for God to break your heart, He will.

He will give you a burden for something that will drive you into action.

The scary part about this is that we don’t know how the breaking will come.

Maybe God will just drop a burden in our heart out of nowhere?

A lot of the time though it comes through pain in our life.

I think of many people who fight for different causes.

Most of them it’s because they’ve experienced first hand the effects of what they are fighting against.

We see parents travel all over the country speaking and fighting against drunk driving because they’ve lost a child to a drunk driver.

And now they have this burden to make a difference and make sure no other parent ever feels this pain.

And in the process they’ve probably saved hundreds of lives because of what they are doing now.

How many people fight against human trafficking or abortion because they’ve had experiences with it themselves or someone close to them has and it broke their heart.

How many people are fighting for racial injustice because they’ve experienced it themselves?

The point is I don’t know HOW God will break your heart or allow your heart to be broken.

But we need to look at those moments of brokenness as opportunities for a blessing.

That God might be saying on the other side of this pain is a purpose.

And that this brokenness you are feeling now is going to lead to you making a difference FAR GREATER than you ever could have imagined.

For many years God has broken my heart for teenagers.

Seeing what the world and our culture has become God has given me a desire to reach the next generation for Jesus.

For pretty much my whole adult life I’ve gone to bed thinking about how to reach young people and I’ve woken up thinking about the same thing.

That’s why I went into youth ministry.

My heart has been broken multiple times by the stories young people have told me that have driven me to action.

From students telling me about the abuse they face at home or at school.

To getting a phone call about a student my wife and I were very close to that decided to take her own life.

These moments of pain and brokenness have just been reminders to me why these young people need Jesus.

And for 16 years I’ve had that burden to bring him to them.

So my question today is first, are you willing to pray this prayer?

And second, what’s God breaking your heart over?

Is it to fight against the killing of unborn babies?

Is it for the children or youth in our community?

Or children that don’t have a home or a family?

Is it to help bring clean drinking water to places in other countries that people die every day because they don’t have it?

Is it to fight against injustice in our country?

Maybe it’s for men and women who are fighting addictions.

Maybe it’s to help give people a second chance at life who are coming out of the prison system.

Whatever it is, pray that God shows you and when he does THANK HIM!

Thank him for allowing your heart to break like his.

Because like Craig Groeschel says in his book, “It’s better to hurt with a purpose, than to exist without one.”

Your pain has a purpose.

We need to find what that purpose is.

This is a mindset that we need to have.

I think of what Paul said in Romans

Romans 9:2-3 NIV “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race”

Paul’s heart broke so bad that he was willing to be cut off from Christ if it meant saving God’s people.

That’s the kind of love and compassion God wants us to have.

Remember the ONLY reason why we even have an opportunity to be saved and have a relationship with Jesus is because God’s heart broke for you.

It broke so much that He was willing to send his only son Jesus to die on a cross for us!

God’s heart still breaks today for his people.

It’s our job now to get in line with HIS heart and move on His behalf and make a difference in this world.

Altar Call