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God Wants Brokenness (Clip)
Ian Robson

Ian Robson (NA - 2024). Born in India to Christian parents, Ian Robson was a founding elder of the Christian Fellowship Church (CFC) in Bangalore, India, established in August 1975 alongside Zac Poonen. Initially a Central Government employee with Indian Railways, he felt called to full-time ministry in Secunderabad in 1968. Choosing to serve without a church salary, he founded a furniture manufacturing and interior decoration business to support his family, reflecting his commitment to financial integrity. As an elder for nearly 42 years, Robson preached a simple, Christ-centered Gospel, emphasizing new birth, holiness, and mutual love, with sermons like “What It Means That My Heavenly Father Loves Me as Much as He Loved Jesus” (2017) delivered at CFC’s Nilshi Camp. His ministry helped shape CFC’s growth from a small house church to a global network, grounded in New Covenant principles. Married with one son and five daughters, he remained a humble servant-leader until his death, celebrated at a funeral on September 10, 2024, in Bangalore. Robson said, “God wants to do something new—open blind eyes and bring out prisoners from darkness.”
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Sermon Summary
This sermon emphasizes the importance of humility in our spiritual journey, highlighting how God uses various circumstances and relationships to break and humble us. It stresses the need for brokenness rather than self-sufficiency, illustrating that God desires humble hearts that are willing to yield to His work. The speaker shares personal experiences of being humbled by God's leading and encourages the congregation to embrace humility, recognizing that God tests us to reveal what is truly in our hearts and to see if we will obey His commandments.
Sermon Transcription
A woman for a young sister may be a mother-in-law, but everything is to teach us humility. Father-in-laws can break a son-in-law, mother-in-laws can break a daughter-in-law, if we have the right attitude. And it should not take long for God to break us, my brothers and sisters. But unfortunately, sometimes it takes a long, long time, and I want you to understand that through the years that God has sought to teach us this in the church, that it's broken men and women that he needs, not capable, efficient, intelligent men and women. It's broken men and women. And God uses different circumstances, like I said, it may be a father-in-law, it may be a mother-in-law, it may be a brother, it may be a sister, it may be a member of the family, it may be a boss, it may be a wife. Many husbands think they have difficult wives, they don't see how difficult they are, that they are difficult husbands. But all this is to teach us humility. And if we look at it that way, that God wants to humble me in all the situations of life, I think we have learned something on this earth. But if we don't learn it, we'll wander around in the wilderness like these people. Why did they have to wander around for 40 years? They didn't realize that what was on their body was a standing miracle. They grew into those clothes. They didn't realize that their feet didn't swell, they had good health. And all the miracles that when they needed food, God provided for them supernaturally. When they needed water, God provided for them supernaturally. But just imagine, all this and all that God did for His people in the wilderness did not break them. So we can experience, we can see science, we can see miraculous answers to our prayers, we can receive miraculous healing, but that doesn't break people, that doesn't break the breakers. It's difficult circumstances, situations that God allows into our lives. It may be a sickness, it may be a financial difficulty, it may be some problem that we face that doesn't seem to go away quickly. It's only to teach us humility, my brothers and sisters. That's the first thing. And I believe that right from the very beginning of this church, that that's what God sought to teach us. To leave the denominational church and come out was a humiliating thing, it was a humbling thing. Because Zach was a famous preacher, called to speak at big conventions and all that. Then to be asked, when he offered to step down, the church offered to accept his proposal to step down. And when I had to leave and we had just the roof over our head and not even one month's salary, it was a humbling thing. Because I didn't know what I was going to do, we were just a few families, I didn't know how I would support myself, I was willing to, like I said at one time, to even drive that toy train, because that's all the experience I had. But I knew that God would not fail me, he never failed me before that, in the 8-9 years I served him as a full-time Christian worker. He humbled me. And that's what I can testify to my brothers and sisters, that God used circumstances and situations, you don't know that even in our working together, in our working together with each other, there's not been a smell of strife. But God has used situations and circumstances to teach me humility, to make me humble myself. And I want to say to you, my dear brothers and sisters, the number of years that is determined that we live in the wilderness is the number of years that it takes for God to humble you and me. The longer it takes, the longer we are in the wilderness. If we submit to him, we will come out of the wilderness and enter into what we have read here, we'll enter into a good land, we'll enter into a good life. So if we can decide that if in the different situations, in whatever number of years you've been in the Church, you have not yielded to God, I want to encourage you this morning, yield to him, whatever you're facing, in your work spot, in your home, in relationship with other people, in relationship with relatives, in relationship with the brothers and sisters, just yield to him. Allow him to humble you, allow him to humble me, and to break us, because God needs broken men and women, my brothers and sisters. Many of you young people are very talented and gifted, but I want to say to you, no use to God, allow him to break you, and see what he will do in your life, and see what he will bring forth from your life, see what he brought forth from this sister's life, Fanny Crosby, because she was a broken woman, God used blindness to break her, that she said if perfect sight was offered to her, she wouldn't accept it. That today what she's written, the poems she's written, the songs that we sing, are from a broken life, it's broken men that can bless people, it's broken women that can bless others. Let's really seek to yield to God, that's the first thing he teaches us, and the second thing I want you to see there, he says they're testing you, testing you, there in the middle of verse two, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not, that's the second thing that God seeks to do, he tests us to know what is in your heart, God already knows what is in your heart and mind, he doesn't need to know that, he knows your heart and mind, but so that we would know what is in our heart, testing you, for you to know what is in your heart, whether you would keep the commandments of God or not, and so that's why he humbles us and he puts us in situations where he tests us so that I see I'm not really humble as I think I am, I discovered that, not discovered that, but I keep discovering it all the time, even when I'm driving to the meeting this morning, just to me think this is one of those days, mad days, when everybody is just driving as they like, and then the Lord shows us, you're not as humble as you think you are, there's a lot more that I need to do in you, that even in driving on the road that you can be a little more humble and courteous.
God Wants Brokenness (Clip)
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Ian Robson (NA - 2024). Born in India to Christian parents, Ian Robson was a founding elder of the Christian Fellowship Church (CFC) in Bangalore, India, established in August 1975 alongside Zac Poonen. Initially a Central Government employee with Indian Railways, he felt called to full-time ministry in Secunderabad in 1968. Choosing to serve without a church salary, he founded a furniture manufacturing and interior decoration business to support his family, reflecting his commitment to financial integrity. As an elder for nearly 42 years, Robson preached a simple, Christ-centered Gospel, emphasizing new birth, holiness, and mutual love, with sermons like “What It Means That My Heavenly Father Loves Me as Much as He Loved Jesus” (2017) delivered at CFC’s Nilshi Camp. His ministry helped shape CFC’s growth from a small house church to a global network, grounded in New Covenant principles. Married with one son and five daughters, he remained a humble servant-leader until his death, celebrated at a funeral on September 10, 2024, in Bangalore. Robson said, “God wants to do something new—open blind eyes and bring out prisoners from darkness.”