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[0:00] Just some thoughts around the Lord's table as we commune together. 1 Corinthians 11.

[0:24] Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that we can come and take bread this morning with our brothers and sisters here and with you.

[0:43] And we can be reminded in fresh of everything that Calvary costs and what it means for us now. Lord, we come to you reverently and prayerfulness and our hearts bended before your throne.

[1:00] Lord, let it be that you will minister to each heart here today, that you would be glorified in each life. Help us, Lord, to put aside the cares and the weariness of the world and to put our whole hearts trust in you and what you have done.

[1:18] And rest in that supply. In Jesus' name. Amen. The Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread.

[1:29] And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take, eat, this is my body, which is broken for you. This too, in remembrance of me.

[1:41] And when he had given thanks, he broke it. To fully picture this, we'd have to have a loaf that we break, tear apart in two.

[1:57] Tear, torn. And he broke it and said, Take, eat, this is my body, which is broken for you.

[2:11] This do, in remembrance of me. Broken bread. What a picture. What a sign. What a symbol. Acts 2.42 it says, And they, the disciples, the early church, continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, the teaching, and fellowship, and breaking of bread, and prayers.

[2:36] As we break bread together, we're like them, just a simple service, a simple picture, a simple service.

[2:51] As we break bread together, we remember the brokenness of Christ. Think of the brokenness of Christ for a moment. Broken body.

[3:02] Body broken. He says, Take, eat, this is my body, which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. What has he done for us?

[3:13] He was broken for us. Broken. Think of it. His body was broken. His skin was broken. Torn. Pierced.

[3:25] His back was like a ploughed field. As they tore his flesh, it was broken. As they lashed him, he was beaten badly, beyond recognition, marred, disfigured, more than any man.

[3:46] His face was broken. The thorn-pierced brow. His skin torn and broken.

[3:57] Disfigured. Degraded. This was humiliation of the utmost degree of the time. It was the most vile and degrading death.

[4:09] Yet, the broken body represents God breaking down the barrier. The sin barrier that divides us from him.

[4:23] He broke that barrier as he broke that body, as it were. And we see the burden of guilt lifted. Poor relief. That burden lifted off our shoulders.

[4:37] Peace restored. Peace restored. His punishment is our peace. His pain is our relief. His rejection is our acceptance.

[4:51] It's bewildering, isn't it, that he should deign, that he should humble himself for such as us. He knows what it's like to be broken, to be forsaken.

[5:04] Isaiah 52, 12, 14, it tells of the travail of his soul. Travail. Now, us blokes don't know what travail is, but some of you ladies do.

[5:16] Travail. Whoa. Childbirth. The travail of his soul. Wow. Agony. We can't put it into words, we can't put it into words, can we, what that pain would have felt like, of his mistreatment.

[5:32] How mistreated he was. He bore the agony, the grief, and most of all, the guilt, the guilt, the punishment of the whole human race, the judgment of God against our sin.

[5:45] that was the ultimate, wasn't it? And consider the betrayal, just that, that they forsook him and fled. He was left alone.

[5:59] Consider the wounds still in his body, even now, in glory. He was forsaken, abandoned, broken, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.

[6:18] Some of us have shed tears on pillows. He was acquainted with our grief, amen? He was acquainted with it. He is the man of sorrows. And he was humiliated, he was cursed, for me, for you, for us.

[6:32] The question is, what will our response be to this one broken for us? I put to you the appropriate response is for us to be broken.

[6:43] For us to be broken. The Bible tells of the broken body and it tells of we that are here who trust him of brokenness of heart, a brokenness of heart.

[6:59] In Psalm 34, 18 it says, the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart. Broken heart. Psalm 34, 18.

[7:11] The Lord is nigh, is close to those who are of a broken heart and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. So, to be saved, we need to have a contrite spirit.

[7:24] We need to have a broken heart such that we come to the broken Saviour with our broken heart and we acknowledge our guilt, our sin and his saving power.

[7:36] Psalm 147, 3 it says, he healeth the broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds. If you're wounded today, whatever life's journey, whatever the world's weariness has laid on you, whatever sadness you know, he is close to you, he says.

[7:56] He is close to you. He healeth the broken in heart and he bindeth up their wounds. He is nigh close to them that are of a broken heart and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.

[8:09] So, there's an encouragement there that even when we're feeling broken, when we're feeling shattered, when our life is in little pieces, that he is close to us, he's close to you, especially you that feel broken, to know that he can make us whole, he can heal that hurt, that wounding and then look 4 verse 18 it says, our Lord, as he quoted Isaiah in Luke 4 verse 18, he says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he had anointed me, anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind.

[9:00] to set at liberty them that are bruised. I love that part of that verse, which sadly is missing in some Bibles, but not in this one.

[9:12] Luke 4 18, these words in particular, he hath sent me to heal the broken hearts. That's important, that's important, and that's true, that's his mission, to heal the broken hearts, that our Lord Jesus Christ is close to them, and he's come to set at liberty, to set free them that are bruised.

[9:34] So, friends, at the table, healing is here, wholeness is here for our brokenness, and in his brokenness is our completeness. You know, the word tells us that we are to break up the fallow ground.

[9:49] You know, the farmers have these fields that lie fallow, dry and barren, and left dormant for a time.

[10:01] And then they come and they plough their furrows and break up that ground ready for the new crop. And the Bible speaks of the breaking up of our fallow ground.

[10:13] And some use that picture of revival, that we come and we let the Lord break it up. We break up our hearts, ourselves before him.

[10:23] We open up our souls before his presence. We have that receptivity to receive from him. As a fallow ground would be broken up, cultivated, ready for the rain, and the freshness, and the growth, and the planting, and the growing.

[10:41] And what a picture that is. And as we think of the cross, we think in his bruising is our healing. And where there is a brokenness of heart before him, as we come in repentance, as we come in contrition, as we come seeking his forgiveness, as we come with that brokenness of our heart before him, he can heal those wounds, whatever our wounds be.

[11:02] He can heal. And he can make us feel whole and right and full and restored. Broken people can still come. So the only one who can restore us.

[11:16] And what a blessing it is to know the truth that God fixes up broken people. Amen. And some appear more broken than others, but really we're all inadequate, aren't we?

[11:27] We're all lacking, we're all needful, every one of us here. And God repairs people damaged by sin. We see the damage that sin does to people. We see, for some it's more apparent when it's, you know, perhaps things that we can see with our human eyes, the scourge of drugs and such.

[11:46] us, but even for clean living people, they're still broken because we still, all of us are damaged by sin. But the good news is that God is in the soul restoration business.

[12:00] And think of it this morning that the hands that tore the bread can put us together, can put our lives together, can put the lives torn by sin back together.

[12:14] There's a preacher that said this, God uses broken things. God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to bring the rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength.

[12:38] It's the broken alabaster box which gives forth perfume. And it is Peter weeping bitterly, broken who returns to greater power than ever before.

[12:53]  Brokenness. That's a rightful response for us, isn't it? As we think of the broken bread today.ยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยย