Cracked But Not Crooked --- Bishop Dale C. Bronner
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00:00This is Bishop Dale Broder. Thank you so much for joining our YouTube channel today.
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00:30Our scripture today comes from the seventh chapter of the book of Romans,
00:37the Apostle Paul writing to the church at Rome.
00:40The Roman Empire was in tremendous power, perhaps the most formidable governmental power in the earth.
00:50They were the United States of America of the time.
00:54They were the global superpower.
00:57And the Apostle Paul is writing to the church at Rome and sharing some things here
01:04that you perhaps are familiar with from this seventh chapter of Romans.
01:08Notice there are these words.
01:10Paul says, I'm a mystery to myself for I want to do what is right
01:16but end up doing what my moral instincts condemn.
01:21Now notice, I'm a mystery to myself.
01:24He said, I don't even understand this.
01:26He says, and if my behavior is not in line with my desire,
01:30my conscious still confirms the excellence of the law.
01:34And now I realize that it is no longer my true self doing it
01:41but the unwelcome intruder of sin in my humanity.
01:47For I know that nothing good lives within the flesh of my fallen humanity.
01:52The longings to do what is right are within me
01:55but the willpower is not enough to accomplish it.
01:58My lofty desires to do what is good are dashed when I do the things I want to avoid.
02:05So if my behavior contradicts my desires to do good,
02:09I must conclude that it's not my true identity doing it
02:13but the unwelcome intruder of sin hindering me from being who I really am.
02:20Through my experience of this principle,
02:23I discover that even when I want to do good,
02:26evil is ready to sabotage me.
02:29Truly, deep within my true identity,
02:33I love to do what pleases God.
02:36But I discern another power operating in my humanity,
02:40waging a war against the moral principles of my conscious
02:45and bringing me into captivity as a prisoner of the law of sin,
02:51this unwelcome intruder in my humanity.
02:55And I'm talking today simply from the subject cracked but not crooked.
03:00Cracked but not crooked.
03:04I heard a Christian man a few years ago say that
03:08in his own wrestling like with this text of Romans 7,
03:15he admitted, he said, though he's a Christian man,
03:18he said, I am weak but I'm not wicked.
03:24And we're saying today cracked but not crooked.
03:29We can have issues that have cracked us
03:32but yet it has not made our nature to be twisted.
03:37Wickedness means twisted.
03:41You take a nature of something that is right and good,
03:44when it becomes wicked, it is twisted.
03:47So, you'll discover here that some theologians actually theorize
03:53that the Apostle Paul here was not really giving
03:56an autobiographical statement of his own personal struggles,
04:00but he used this as a sort of a rhetorical device of solidarity
04:06to build and connect with the experiences of all people
04:10who live under the law.
04:12And they understood law because the Roman Empire
04:15was the preeminent empire in the world in those days.
04:20So, Romans chapter 7 here is not the present experience
04:25of just one person, but it is actually the testimony
04:29of a delivered person describing the condition
04:33of an undelivered one.
04:35Now, here's what the Apostle Paul is talking about.
04:38We didn't come to be theologically deep
04:41and take you down an eschatological pathway
04:45of confusing you toward your journey of living for God
04:48in the future.
04:50But this is a test of our own Christianity
04:54and what we deal with because this is an example
04:58of what it feels like to be saved
05:01but not yet delivered in some areas.
05:06And I bet that everybody who's here knows somebody
05:11who is saved, but they are not delivered in certain areas.
05:17I'd even go far enough to say this,
05:20that everybody who's here who is saved
05:23is still dealing with some issues in some areas.
05:29Can we be real?
05:31This is Grown Folks Church here now.
05:33But isn't it amazing that God's love for us
05:37is so outstanding that He can know every weakness,
05:40every human proclivity that we have toward sin
05:44and He still says, you know what, that's my child.
05:47I still love them.
05:49They belong to me and I'm walking with them
05:52and I'm going to grow some things out of them
05:55that have not yet been grown out of them.
05:57You know, sometimes people would say
05:59if you feed people long enough, they'll start looking like you.
06:03Well, this is God's way of saying
06:05that if you'll just hang with me and let me feed you,
06:08that I know that you're saved,
06:10but you've got to be delivered in some other areas.
06:13You're saved, but yet you've got some stuff
06:16that you're still working out.
06:18You can hook up with people, you know,
06:20and you think that because I'm saved and you're saved
06:22that that makes a beautiful potential marriage.
06:24Listen, you need to be more than just saved.
06:27There is compatibility on a whole nother different,
06:30a lot of different levels,
06:32because, you know, how they think about money,
06:34how they think about discipline, the kinds of hurt,
06:36whether or not they had a daddy in the home
06:38because they won't know how to respond to a husband
06:40or whether they have issues with their mama
06:43and all of this, you can be saved
06:46and yet not delivered through certain hurts,
06:50abuses, and things that still linger in your memory
06:54and sometimes in your DNA, the weaknesses, the struggles,
06:58and you'll be slipping and sliding and wondering.
07:01The devil will whisper when you do something wrong
07:04and say, see, you're not even saved.
07:06If you were saved, you would have never done this.
07:08But Paul says my true identity is not the one doing that.
07:13It is sin that has slipped in trying to confuse me
07:16and make me think that I am what I did,
07:19and he's saying you are not what you have done.
07:22You are what you have overcome.
07:24That's the real truth.
07:26You are not what you have done.
07:29You are what you have overcome.
07:31You are not what you have done.
07:33You are what you have overcome.
07:36So don't let it get twisted because the devil will whisper
07:39that if you were saved, you wouldn't think a thought like that.
07:42Well, he's the devil that put the thought there.
07:46There was a little boy that was confused by his own father
07:50because his daddy was a fireman,
07:53so he rode with his daddy.
07:55It was in a small community where they had volunteer firemen.
07:58And the son began to notice that he says,
08:02Dad, he says, why is it that that little red fire truck
08:06keeps going different places and setting things on fire?
08:10See, he was drawing the wrong conclusion
08:14that because the red trucks were at the scene of every fire,
08:18he assumed that they were the ones causing it.
08:21But no, they were there to put it out.
08:24They had been summoned.
08:26So that when the devil is doing something,
08:29he's created a mess and now we've called God in,
08:32now he wants to blame God for something that he did,
08:35trying to confuse the identity and get you mad with the deliverer.
08:40Wondering, said, Lord, why did you let me in?
08:43It wasn't the God, it's your true identity that really loves God.
08:47Your true identity.
08:49When God saved you, he saved your soul, your spirit man.
08:53But then there are certain things that you have to work out in your own salvation,
08:57and he is purging out of you over time.
09:01You don't get all of that attitude and all of the clear-ups from how they were raised.
09:06There is a great conundrum between how you were raised and how you were made.
09:12We were fearfully and wonderfully made.
09:15Don't let the devil get it twisted how you were made and how you were raised.
09:20You're dealing with somebody that was raised in a twisted, jacked-up kind of way,
09:25and then he's saying that that's how you were made.
09:27No, no, no, that's how you were raised.
09:29You were raised with dysfunction around you.
09:31You were raised thinking that this was the way that everybody carried on.
09:34That's how you were raised.
09:36That's not how you were made.
09:39You were fearfully and wonderfully made.
09:41You were made with a divine image on the inside of you
09:44to be able to cast out devils, lay hands on the sick, and see them recover.
09:49How you were raised is not how you were made.
09:57So there must always be clarity.
10:00I'm just telling you, Charles Kettering said this,
10:03a problem well-defined is a problem half-solved.
10:07A problem well-defined is a problem half-solved.
10:11So if you can just define the problem,
10:14what is the problem and what is not the problem,
10:17because sometimes the person that God will bring into your life,
10:22you'll be looking and saying,
10:24that's my problem.
10:26The devil will sit on one shoulder and say,
10:28that's your problem.
10:31He'll sit on the man's shoulder and tell him,
10:34she's your problem.
10:37And that same devil will sit on the woman's shoulder and tell him,
10:39he's your answer.
10:41And he's setting both of them up for failure.
10:44Because he's whispering different things,
10:46and now they come to each other with a different expectation.
10:50You are never disappointed by what you find.
10:52You're only disappointed by what you expected to find.
10:58And if I expect you to be an answer, but you give me a problem,
11:02now I'm twisted, I'm confused about who are you.
11:06Who sent you?
11:08Let me just tell you this.
11:09Certain things, God's not concerned about your comfort.
11:13He's concerned about your development.
11:15There are some people that God will send into your life
11:18as special agents to be able to agitate you,
11:22to develop you,
11:25because you don't develop in comfort.
11:27The things that teach you your greatest lessons
11:30come through somebody that's been like sandpaper
11:33to get out your rough spots and to smooth you out inside.
11:37Anybody understand what I'm talking about?
11:43So here the Apostle Paul is trying to let us know
11:47that your true identity really loves God with all your heart,
11:52but then you've got sin, this sin nature, this fallen humanity.
11:56We are both a combination of both dust and divinity
12:01abiding in the same person.
12:04This is not in any way an attempt to justify sin
12:07because sin is sin, and sin is displeasing to God.
12:10But this is the bloody side of the work of redemption
12:13that happens in a human life.
12:15This is the bloody side.
12:16There's always a bloody sort of dirty side.
12:18You know that when you catch fish,
12:20it doesn't look as pretty as when it's been battered and fried
12:23and laying up on the plate.
12:25No, no, no, you've got to slip that rascal open
12:27and pull out some kind of gutty kind of stuff.
12:29That's the ugly kind of stuff that happens back in the kitchen.
12:32I don't want to see that.
12:34And I took my family.
12:36We were down in the New Orleans area one time,
12:38and I ordered a seafood platter for the table.
12:44And they brought out crawfish with the head on
12:47and shrimp with the head on.
12:49I had never seen.
12:52And they were like monsters, and all of my children were petrified.
12:55And I was scared too, but I didn't want to let anybody know it.
12:58So nobody touched it, and so I had to say,
13:01excuse me, garcon.
13:07I said, would you take this back and decapitate these for me?
13:11Because I wasn't used to my food looking back at me like that.
13:15These looked like creatures, like little monsters.
13:19And I wasn't used to that.
13:21And the presentation, so see, there's an underbelly
13:26of this walk that we have with God
13:29that's not always, you know, the table presentation.
13:33But they had brought it there, and I wasn't expecting that.
13:36And so it put the whole family in shock
13:39because of how the food was presented, just looking back at us.
13:43So we were just looking at them.
13:45They were looking back at us.
13:48And so this is not an attempt to justify sin in any way.
13:54Pastor Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and verse 31,
13:57Paul said, I die daily.
13:59I die daily to myself.
14:02He said, there's a war going on in my flesh of my true identity
14:06with this undercurrent, this war zone that I'm put in,
14:11that I'm in a spiritual warfare.
14:14And the spiritual warfare does not begin until you get saved.
14:17As long as you're flowing in the same direction with the devil,
14:20he doesn't bother you.
14:22If you're his pal and both of you all are walking in the same direction,
14:25why would the devil come against you
14:27when you're walking arm in arm with him in the same direction?
14:30So it's only when you turn, when you make a 180,
14:34and now the devil is trying to go this way
14:37and the Lord is leading you to go this way,
14:39that's when all hell breaks loose.
14:41That's when stuff starts happening in your salvation.
14:44So you wonder that, Lord, because I've given myself to you,
14:48I mean, why is it so hard now?
14:50Why am I having all of these attacks?
14:52Why are these people falsely accusing me?
14:54Why is this happening? Why is that happening?
14:56But you're going to have to go through a war
14:58where the only way that you can win is to die every day.
15:00Every day you've got to find a place to put, where do I die?
15:03Because that's going to be something of where
15:05something that is not your true identity
15:07is going to sneak in and raise its head
15:09and say, hey, this is who you are.
15:11And you're going to have to say, no, no, no, no,
15:13that old man is dead.
15:15That part of me is dead. That's over right now.
15:18But we have these things that I would call them battle scars
15:22because the moment that you surrender to Jesus Christ,
15:26you're in a war of good and evil.
15:30The things that you want to do
15:32and that you know that you should do
15:34and then the stuff that you wind up saying, you know,
15:36Lord, I don't know where this came from,
15:38but I messed up again.
15:40But it happened to the Apostle Paul.
15:43And I want you to see what the Apostle Paul said
15:45in Galatians chapter 6 and verse 17.
15:47Notice, he says from now on,
15:49let no one trouble me,
15:51for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.
15:55I bear in my body, I carry in my body the marks.
15:59You know, whenever you're in a war,
16:02I call that a battle scar.
16:05I mean, sometimes you're living this thing
16:07and you live your life,
16:09it'll be something on your credit score.
16:12That's a battle mark.
16:14You bear that in your body.
16:16If something happened, it's to let you know,
16:19yes, something bad happened here.
16:21But you know what the scar is?
16:23The scar says, yeah, a bad thing happened,
16:26but it didn't kill you.
16:28Something happened to you, but it didn't take you out.
16:31I like to call the battle scars,
16:33like I've got on the back of this hand here.
16:36The only time that I caught myself
16:38going to a secular party as a teenager
16:40and I was riding on my motorcycle,
16:42got right in front of the house where the party was to be held
16:44and my motorcycle fell over, I'd never fallen.
16:47I'd never fallen and never fell since.
16:50But I've got these scars on the back of my hand
16:54letting me know that that life was not for me.
16:58He knocked me off of my motorcycle right in front.
17:00I was a skilled driver.
17:02And he knocked me off of my motorcycle.
17:04Skin came off of my hand.
17:06Blood came out.
17:08They are battle scars.
17:10They remind me, don't you ever use that hand.
17:13And it happened to the one that I had the throttle on
17:15to accelerate.
17:17And I'm flying there going to my party
17:19on, you know, at a young man's house
17:23and his name was Nasty.
17:37I mean, I went up to his house one day
17:39and I asked, can Nasty come out?
17:41And he said, Nasty don't leave.
17:42I didn't know his real name.
17:47But you can imagine that probably
17:49nothing good was going to come out of going to a party
17:52that was hosted by somebody called Nasty.
17:56So I had an experience.
17:57I bear in my body the marks
18:00that let me know this is not,
18:02you are not to be about that life.
18:05The marks, every time I look at that
18:07and see that,
18:09it may have faded some with time now,
18:11but I'm reminded
18:13this, you're not to be about that life.
18:16I bear in my body the marks.
18:19Now listen, it's not a scab.
18:21A scab is a sign that you've been hurt
18:23and you have not healed.
18:25You're in the process of healing.
18:27And this is why you have no business
18:29marrying scabby people.
18:34You got to wait until that scab falls off
18:36and there's only a scar.
18:38The scar says I've been wounded,
18:40I've been hurt, but I'm healed now.
18:42I am over it.
18:43I'm not angry with you.
18:45I'm not going to take anything out on you.
18:47I've gone through process.
18:49I'm delivered now,
18:51but God has walked me through the healing process.
18:54But when I'm scabby,
18:56I still got to cover,
18:57I'm trying to cover what's still trying to heal.
19:00And if you touch it,
19:01there's still some sensitivity.
19:03But when I touch my scar,
19:04I don't feel any pain.
19:06And I can talk about it without feeling any pain.
19:09That's how I know I'm over this.
19:11I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.
19:20So it's a little different.
19:21It's a little different when you have been to a place
19:24and you've got a scar.
19:26You've got a mark.
19:27That's a mark.
19:28We are marked for Christ.
19:30And Jesus will let certain things mark you
19:33as a sign of remembrance
19:35that you don't want to go back there.
19:37You don't want to go back there.
19:38You don't want to go back there.
19:40I've always been, you know, careful about hot grease
19:43because my mother got burned on her ankle
19:45and that scar that was there,
19:47it traumatized me
19:50that you be careful around hot grease
19:53because you get burned there.
19:55And it was a reminder.
19:56And sometimes God will leave a scar.
19:58He'll let you heal,
20:00but He will leave that scar.
20:01You can cover it with makeup
20:02and try to do different things about it,
20:04but you know,
20:06when all of the cosmetics come off,
20:09you know what's under there.
20:11It is a scar of something that happened,
20:14you healed,
20:16and you survived.
20:18The scar becomes a conversation piece.
20:22Yeah, this happened back in 1980
20:24when I was doing such and such.
20:26And God will leave scars.
20:28Everybody who's in this place today,
20:30you got something that happened to you along the way.
20:33I bet you know the year that it happened
20:35and maybe the month that it happened
20:36and sometimes even the day that it happened.
20:38But you do know the season that that thing happened
20:41because it marked your life.
20:43And God will send people that will mark you for good
20:46and other people that will vex your soul
20:48that you wish that you had never met
20:50that will mark you for bad.
20:52And both of them become a reminder to say,
20:54Lord, I thank you that I went through this.
20:57This thing hurt me.
20:58It damaged me.
20:59It almost destroyed me.
21:01I almost lost my mind, but I survived.
21:04I came out of the depression.
21:05I came out of the sickness.
21:07I came out of the darkness.
21:08Who am I talking to in this place?
21:10I declare in the name of Jesus,
21:12it is a privilege to be able to bear in our bodies
21:16the marks of the Lord Jesus.
21:23I bear them in my body.
21:25I bear them in my body.
21:26You bear them in your body.
21:28God will leave marks there as a testimony
21:30to let people know you've not just been a bed of ease.
21:33People will think that things happened for you overnight.
21:36It didn't happen overnight.
21:37It happened over time.
21:39And they didn't see the time that you cried yourself to sleep
21:42and when you were worried about how you're going to pay the bill
21:45and whether this was going to happen
21:46and that was going to happen,
21:48but God left something in your life.
21:53Yes!
22:01You don't ever know what's happening with people.
22:04I was just over in India last week
22:06and a part of the health program that we were there doing,
22:09even though I spoke while I was there to a 40,000-member church,
22:13but a young man in his 20s was a part of some of the therapy
22:18that I was doing to help with balance.
22:21And so he's a choreographer that had worked with movie people
22:26and all of this kind of thing and doing dance choreography.
22:29And he could just do it naturally.
22:32Indian young man.
22:33So I'm in the class.
22:34I'm the only student.
22:37And he's telling me,
22:39Do your legs like this.
22:44And so he was working with me,
22:45but hip-hop, Michael Jackson kind of moves.
22:49I wanted to moonwalk so bad.
22:53I'm like, teach me, teach me.
22:58And then he taught my wife and I salsa.
23:02And it was interesting that after he's imparting to me,
23:07then I said to him, young man,
23:09I wanted to share something.
23:10I knew that I was in the land of Hindus,
23:12and I didn't know where he stood with the Lord Jesus Christ
23:14or whether he was Hindu,
23:15because the vast majority of them were Hindus in that area.
23:18And he says, Yes, I grew up Hindu.
23:21And he said, I was born to dance,
23:24and I'm doing what I love.
23:28And he tore his ACL,
23:32and it crippled him.
23:35And he called out to his Hindu gods
23:38and found no relief.
23:41And he began searching.
23:45And he discovered Jesus.
23:51And Jesus miraculously healed his ACL.
23:58I couldn't tell that it had ever been broken,
24:03but he bore in his body the scar
24:07of what had happened there.
24:09I was in the gym a few years ago,
24:12and a young man in his 20s
24:16was a basketball player.
24:18He was five.
24:21And he showed me a scar on his ankle.
24:24And I said, What is that?
24:27And he told me he had had an ACL injury.
24:31And they had taken tendons from a cadaver
24:37and put it in his body.
24:41And the message that I got out of him
24:44was that he was standing today 6'5",
24:48very skilled on his feet,
24:51but being supported by stuff
24:53that came from dead folks.
24:56And you don't ever know who has died
24:58and paid a price to empower you
25:01to be able to stand where you stand today.
25:07And sometimes when people see you,
25:09God will leave in your body a mark
25:12that says something happened,
25:14but it did not take you out.
25:19So you're designed, you're designed, you're designed
25:22to be able to use the marks in your body
25:26as a testimony for Jesus Christ
25:28that said, This happened to me, but I still love it.
25:31I almost died, but I made it through.
25:34And it just reminds me, Be careful how you walk.
25:37And never forget what he did you,
25:39what he delivered you from,
25:41what he brought you out of,
25:42what he healed you through.
25:44Don't ever forget, he'll leave a mark on you.
25:47That's why he left Jacob with a limp.
25:51Because he said, This is a defining moment.
25:55I can't let you walk the way you've been walking.
25:58I got to let you remember the day
26:01and the time, the minute, and the hour
26:05that something divine and supernatural happened
26:08so that you no longer carry yourself
26:10in the same way as before
26:12you had an encounter with the divine.
26:17When God touches your life,
26:19you'll never walk the same again.
26:23But I want you to realize that oftentimes
26:25cracks are the result of pressure
26:29and shifting fault lines.
26:32There are fault lines that run through Georgia
26:34and California, various parts of the United States.
26:37It means that if we ever have an earthquake,
26:39the fault lines, this is where you can feel
26:41the deepest tremors is from what's called a fault line.
26:45Isn't it amazing? A fault line.
26:47It's a crack in the earth's surface.
26:51In the crust of the earth, that's all that it is.
26:55It's a crack that happens in the earth's crust
27:00as a brittle response to stress.
27:06And when you get stressed sometimes,
27:08something snap, crackle, pops.
27:12And if you get a certain age and try to move too quickly,
27:16you can have another snap, crackle, pop.
27:22It's a fault line.
27:24It's a crack, cracked but not crooked.
27:30But I'll have to say this to you,
27:33that a life without pressure leads to nowhere
27:39because it is pressure that even forces our birth.
27:44No baby comes through a regular vaginal delivery
27:47without pressure.
27:49The contractions, the labor pains
27:52that force that baby down and out,
27:56down and out, down and out.
27:58And sometimes you don't understand why
28:00you're under the pressure that you're under.
28:02Maybe God's trying to force something down and out,
28:05down and out, down and out.
28:10A life without stress leads to nowhere.
28:13It's amazing how people want the fruits of your success
28:16but none of the pressure.
28:19They don't want to pay the price that you paid.
28:22They don't want to do what you did.
28:24They don't want the discipline.
28:25They don't want the heartache.
28:26They don't want to being up at night and dealing with IRS.
28:28They don't want to deal.
28:29They don't want the tax liability.
28:31They don't want of having people steal.
28:33They don't want all of that.
28:34They just want to be the boss.
28:39As though that's some type of an Instagram lifestyle
28:42where they're just showing you big balling out
28:44but they don't show you what's behind the scene.
28:49Let me help you to understand that stress and pressure,
28:53they are normal to life.
28:55They're normal to life.
28:57You don't want to live constantly in stress
28:59because it's a killer and it's toxic.
29:02You have to know how to use stress and pressure as a catalyst.
29:08They jump start things to get you to do something.
29:11Sometimes we can't get it done
29:13until we get under the last minute pressure.
29:16It's a stress.
29:17It's like I got to have this by next Monday.
29:20You can be messing around Wednesday and Thursday and everything
29:23but that pressure starts building on you
29:26the closer you come to that due date
29:28where you know you got to make a decision,
29:30pull the trigger on this deal.
29:32Pressure.
29:33You can't do anything worth having with no pressure.
29:38No pressure.
29:39Pressure is how the body responds to pain.
29:44When a woman is in the process of giving birth
29:47and if she chooses to get an epidural,
29:49it blocks the sensation of pain
29:52and while the woman cannot feel pain,
29:54she feels pressure
29:57because pressure is pain
30:01with a hand over its mouth.
30:05Pressure is pain
30:08with a hand over its mouth.
30:11Pressure is pain.
30:13So when your body is experiencing pressure,
30:16you're actually in pain.
30:19But there is a hand over the nose
30:23to the point you can't actually scream
30:26but pressure is pain.
30:30But you can't do anything great without having some pressure.
30:35And when you experience stress or pressure,
30:38realize that it is often simply a call to lament in prayer to God.
30:49Whenever you feel pressure,
30:50whenever you feel stress,
30:52stress is a call to prayer.
30:55Stress is a call to prayer.
30:58To lament.
31:00May I remind you of this.
31:02Over one-third of the Psalms,
31:05there are 150 Psalms in the book of Psalms.
31:09Over one-third, over 50 of them
31:12are laments to God.
31:1550 of them crying out to God.
31:18What does lament mean?
31:19To lament means to cry out to God in pain
31:23of whatever is hurting your life.
31:25It's to cry out and say,
31:26Jesus, I don't know how much more of this
31:28I'm going to be able to take, Lord.
31:30Oh, God.
31:31Call, cry out to Him.
31:33Listen, let me just tell you this.
31:35Before you pick up the phone to try to lament to your friends,
31:40I'm going to tell you this.
31:42Because if you lament to them too much,
31:44they're going to stop answering your call.
31:46Because they can only take so much of your drama
31:50and your lamenting because they're lamenting
31:52over something themselves
31:54where they need a release and an expression.
31:56And yet we have a tendency to lament
31:59and whine and bellyache on other folks.
32:03And God is saying, listen, I'm here.
32:05My ears are open to you.
32:07Cry out to me.
32:08There's a whole book in the Bible.
32:10Lamentation is dealing with the brokenness
32:12of the human heart.
32:14And God says, I need you that when you feel overwhelmed,
32:17when you feel stressed out,
32:19talk to me.
32:20Tell me how you really feel.
32:22You don't have to dress it up
32:24and come to me with some pious,
32:26Oh, God, thou who sits high and looketh low.
32:28No, no, no.
32:29Just tell Him, Jesus.
32:31I'm about to fall to pieces, Jesus.
32:35Just be real.
32:36Lament.
32:37Pour it out.
32:38Say, Lord, they're about to kill me.
32:39I don't know how much more of this
32:40I'm about to take, Lord Jesus.
32:42I'm about to explode.
32:43I'm going to walk in there, Jesus.
32:44Help me, God.
32:45It is your pouring out and lamenting to God.
32:48I'm telling you,
32:49when things get stressful in your life,
32:52fall out on the altar of God
32:55and pour your heart out to Him in prayer.
32:58Weep before Him.
32:59Cry before Him.
33:01Pour it out.
33:05And little did you know
33:06that when your water is pouring out of your eyes,
33:09out of your tear ducts,
33:12they're loaded with toxins.
33:14And that's why after a good hard cry,
33:17you feel so much better.
33:19You have just,
33:20it is God's divine way of detoxing your body.
33:24He says, come to me.
33:25Cry it out.
33:26Get these toxins out.
33:28Even if nothing else changes,
33:30He said, I'll change the way you feel.
33:33If you will just lament,
33:34if you'll talk to me
33:36and cry out the very thing
33:38that's got you in an arm hole
33:40and you're crying,
33:41but God says, talk to me, lament to me.
33:44Don't expect people to be able to do for you
33:48what God alone can do.
33:51There's a role for people to be able to play.
33:53We need people.
33:54I'm not saying that we need people,
33:56but we need God to do what only God can do.
34:08Cracks reveal the weaknesses
34:11of our fallen humanity,
34:15but cracks also reveal the redemptive power of God
34:18in our lives.
34:19So the cracks that you carry,
34:21they reveal the redemptive power of God in our lives.
34:27I mean, as we age, we get wrinkles.
34:29It's because of a crack in your skin.
34:32It's age, it's time, it's pressure.
34:35When you see that, you know,
34:36at least I'm so thankful to God
34:38that at least for men, we don't call them wrinkles.
34:40We call them character lines.
34:43But it's a crack nonetheless.
34:46It's a crack nonetheless.
34:48And you know, in the Japanese culture,
34:50they have this thing called the kintsuji,
34:53kintsuji art and pottery,
34:55kintsuji bowls.
34:57These are where things have cracked.
35:00And instead of letting it be ruined,
35:04they fill it in with gold.
35:06Let me let you take a picture of a Japanese kintsuji.
35:09There's one right there.
35:10You see, every place there's a gold
35:12is where the pottery had cracked.
35:15Gold in the Bible
35:18is a symbol of wealth.
35:20It is a symbol of power.
35:22But thirdly, and most importantly,
35:24gold is a symbol
35:26of God's divine presence.
35:29So that in the tabernacle,
35:31God dealt with them harshly
35:33when the gold was stolen
35:35and they replaced it with brass.
35:37God's not brass, he's gold.
35:40And it is to say that when your life
35:42begins to crack and fall apart,
35:44God says, I will hold you together
35:46with my presence.
35:48My presence will be the super glue
35:50so that the pottery is not ruined.
35:52He says, I will use the design
35:54and I will make a mosaic
35:56when you have felt fragmented
35:58and broken and rejected.
36:00God says, I will
36:03take my super glue
36:05of my gold, of my presence
36:07and hold you together
36:09when you felt like you were cracked up,
36:11broken up, emotionally fragmented
36:14in your thoughts, in your personality
36:16about all of these things.
36:18I'll bring the goldness of my presence
36:20into your life
36:22and hold you together.
36:26So instead of throwing you away
36:28when you've made a mistake,
36:30God says, I'll bring in the gold.
36:32I'll add value to you.
36:34I will make you a unique piece
36:36because nobody else would crack
36:38exactly like you crack.
36:40And when I feel in those fault lines
36:42and say, I'm not going to hide your fault lines,
36:44it's a reminder to say
36:46that you are a human being
36:48embodied by the goldness
36:50of God's presence.
36:52And we carry this treasure
36:54in an earthen vessel
36:56that has cracked.
36:58And it is to say, yes, I was broken
37:00and I was fragmented and I couldn't hold
37:02what was being put in me
37:04until God's presence comes into you
37:06and allows you
37:08to be able to be held together
37:10by a divinity that adds beauty
37:12to you so that we can now
37:14declare that I am
37:16beautifully broken.
37:18I am
37:20beautifully broken.
37:22I am
37:24beautifully broken.
37:26When he says to us
37:28in Isaiah that I will give you
37:30beauty for ashes,
37:32he says, I'm not going to throw it away.
37:34I'll add my presence
37:36into your life and I will
37:38give you beauty for ashes,
37:40beauty for ashes, beauty
37:42for ashes. I will give you
37:44beauty for ashes.
37:46He makes all things beautiful
37:48in His time.
37:52All things beautiful, all things
37:54beautiful, all things beautiful.
37:58This is about our finding God's strength
38:00amid our
38:02human imperfections.
38:04God's presence amid our
38:06human imperfections. I want you to
38:08notice what the Word of the Lord says in 2 Corinthians
38:10chapter 4 and verse 8-10.
38:12The Apostle Paul said that
38:14we are pressed on every side by troubles
38:16but we are not crushed.
38:18We are perplexed but not driven
38:20to despair. We are hunted
38:22down but never abandoned by
38:24God, never abandoned
38:26by God. God says I'm always there.
38:28We get knocked down but we are not
38:30destroyed, knocked down, cracked
38:32but not crooked.
38:34He said we get knocked down but we are
38:36not destroyed and notice through
38:38suffering
38:40our bodies continue to share in the
38:42death of Jesus so that the life
38:44of Jesus may also be seen in
38:46our bodies.
38:48He says you know you've been cast
38:50down but it didn't destroy you.
38:52He says I brought my
38:54goldness and my presence
38:56into your life.
38:58The crack is the evidence
39:00that you were cast down but not
39:02destroyed, that this thing didn't take me out,
39:04that it didn't wipe me out, that it didn't make me
39:06where God couldn't get some glory out of
39:08life.
39:10I want you to see this little picture
39:12of the cracked water pot
39:14where the lady is. You'll notice on one
39:16side where the beautiful roses are,
39:18the beautiful flowers or tulips or whatever they are.
39:20You'll notice the crack that's
39:22in the pot that is where the water
39:24is coming down through that and on the other
39:26one it's whole, it's never been cracked
39:28but there's nothing that comes out of it to water
39:30others that are around it. God will
39:32use your brokenness to be able to bring life
39:34to other people
39:36along your path. You don't have to
39:38go out of your way. They'll be on your
39:40journey. They will be on your journey.
39:42God will place hurting people,
39:44rejected people, broken
39:46people, depressed people,
39:48you know, stressed out people on your
39:50life and because you've got a crack
39:52in you, where the
39:54glory, your crack is a spout where the
39:56glory comes out. It is just
39:58that spout that comes out
40:00to where it can water and
40:02they ask the Buddha, they ask
40:04the Buddha, what is the difference
40:06between liking someone and loving
40:08someone? And he said
40:10it just like this.
40:12He says, when you like
40:14a flower, you pluck it
40:16but when you love a flower, you water
40:18it daily.
40:20And some of you are being plucked
40:22instead
40:24of watered.
40:26And there's something
40:28differently that happens in your psyche
40:30if someone is only
40:32plucking you, using you
40:34as opposed to watering you
40:36and fostering your growth
40:38and your development and wanting
40:40the best in you. When you get with
40:42somebody, they ought to be your best friend. A best
40:44friend always brings out the best in you.
40:50It's amazing.
40:52And I just want you to realize
40:54that
40:56God doesn't hide from us
40:58whenever we become broken.
41:00Here's the
41:02spiritual truth.
41:04Brokenness on earth creates openness
41:06in heaven. Brokenness
41:08on earth creates openness
41:10in heaven. Brokenness on
41:12earth creates openness
41:14in heaven. So
41:16whenever we are broken,
41:18God opens to the heavens
41:20to rush down to the
41:22brokenness. He said
41:24that he loves a contrite
41:26and broken spirit.
41:28They summon the heart of God
41:30just like when a parent
41:32sees or knows that their child is
41:34in danger because when you're a sensitive parent,
41:36you know the difference between a hungry cry.
41:38You know the difference between
41:40I'm wet kind of cry
41:42and the kind of cry
41:44that comes from your child
41:46when they're hurt
41:48and there's danger that is imminent. You know
41:50that difference. And
41:52no matter what that parent is doing,
41:54they will stop cooking. They'll stop watching their
41:56they'll stop scrolling on their digital
41:58distraction
42:00to immediately rush
42:02to where the brokenness
42:04is. To come to where
42:06the scream is coming from.
42:08Realizing that there's something that's broken here
42:10and they will rush to that broken
42:12place. Our brokenness
42:14summons the presence of God.
42:16Whenever your
42:18heart is broken, somehow
42:20God is summoned
42:22just through the breaking of the heart.
42:24It summons Him. It summons Him.
42:26Our cracks
42:28reveal our
42:30brokenness of our humanity.
42:32And they are very, very gentle reminders
42:34that
42:36we are not enough
42:38all alone.
42:40No matter how good you are. No matter how
42:42wonderful, self-sufficient person that you
42:44think that you are.
42:46God's design for us is not to be self-sufficient.
42:48It's to be God-dependent.
42:50God-dependent.
42:52And I love the words
42:54of C.S. Lewis who said that God
42:56cannot give us happiness and peace
42:58apart from Himself
43:00because it is not there.
43:02There is no such
43:04thing.
43:06Looking for happiness?
43:08Looking for peace?
43:10You can't get it without God.
43:12It doesn't come in a bottle. You can't get it
43:14from a syringe.
43:16It only comes from God.
43:18And let me just tell you this.
43:20Some people feel like, you know,
43:22man, I just got a bad
43:24lot in life. Man, life has dealt me a bad
43:26hand. Do you really
43:28honestly think
43:30that God dealt you a hand
43:32that you can't win with?
43:34Do you really honestly think
43:36is anything
43:38too hard for the
43:40Lord? Do you really think that God dealt
43:42you a hand
43:44that you can't win with
43:46because of the background
43:48that you came from?
43:50Because of the mistakes that you made?
43:52Do you really honestly think
43:54that God dealt you a hand that you can't win with?
43:56Let me just remind you
43:58of God's word in Proverbs chapter 24
44:00in verse 16 in the
44:02Passion Translation of Scripture.
44:04For the lovers of God may suffer
44:06adversity and stumble
44:08seven times, but they will
44:10continue to rise over
44:12and over again.
44:14Over and over again.
44:16Though you suffer adversity
44:18and stumble seven times, they will
44:20continue to rise over
44:22and over again, but the unrighteous
44:24are brought down by just one calamity
44:26and will never be able to rise again.
44:28God says when you're
44:30submitted to me, though you make a mess
44:32of things one time, He says over and over
44:34again, you'll rise back up out of there.
44:36You got a God
44:38thing that is a resilience on the inside
44:40of you where you will rise again.
44:42Though you fail again, God says
44:44you will rise up again.
44:46You fall seven times, you get up eight.
44:48You will rise again. You will
44:50rise. Do you think that God has really
44:52dealt you a hand that you cannot
44:54win? You
44:56gotta win when you walk with
44:58God that has already
45:00thanks be unto God that giveth
45:02us the victory. Thanks be unto
45:04God that giveth us the victory.
45:06Thanks be unto God that giveth us the
45:08victory. We are not fighting for
45:10victory. We are fighting from
45:12victory. He's
45:14with us. He's with us. He's with us.
45:16All you need is a
45:18little faith.
45:20When I was growing up, I used to turn on the radio and listen
45:22to R. W. Schambach, and he says, You don't have
45:24any problem. He said, All you need
45:26is faith in God.
45:28And here's what the word of the Lord says.
45:30Even though the apostle
45:32Paul was writing and saying that when I would do
45:34good, evil is present, and the good that I would
45:36do I don't do, and the evil that I didn't
45:38want to do, that's what I find myself doing. When he
45:40said that, listen, that's not the end of the
45:42story. I want you to hear how the story
45:44ends in Romans chapter 7, verse
45:4624 and 25. Notice what he says.
45:48What an agonizing situation I'm in.
45:50So who has the power to
45:52rescue this miserable man
45:54from the unwelcome intruder
45:56of sin and death? He gives us the
45:58answer in the next verse, verse 25.
46:00I give all my thanks to God
46:02for His mighty power has
46:04finally provided a way out.
46:06He's provided a way out.
46:08He's provided a way out through Jesus
46:10our Lord Jesus
46:12the anointed one.
46:14So if left to myself
46:16the flesh is aligned with the law of
46:18sin, but now my renewed
46:20mind is fixed on
46:22and submitted to
46:24God's righteous principles.
46:26My renewed mind is
46:28fixed on and submitted
46:30to God's righteous principles.
46:32Be not conformed to this world
46:34but be ye transformed
46:36by the renewing
46:38of your mind.
46:40Renew your mind. It has to be
46:42a daily process of renewing
46:44my mind, renewing my mind,
46:46renewing my mind.
46:48I love the words of Charles Spurgeon who said
46:50that a little faith will bring
46:52your soul to heaven but great faith will bring
46:54heaven to your soul.
46:56And what we need in this day
46:58is great faith to be able
47:00to bring heaven down to our soul
47:02and not merely to our soul but to our earth.
47:04Jesus, one of the prayers that
47:06has not been answered that Jesus taught us to pray
47:08he taught us to pray, Lord thy kingdom
47:10come, thy will be done
47:12on earth as it is in heaven.
47:14We need to bring heaven down to earth
47:16that every time we open our mouths
47:18every time that we create that we
47:20are bringing heaven down to earth
47:22to where we begin to transform
47:24that's the reason that God didn't let
47:26what happened to you kill you
47:28because you are here on assignment
47:30and God was protecting
47:32his own interests
47:34in why he saved you, in why he
47:36redeemed you, in why he
47:38had to raise you up and to bring you out
47:40even though you came out
47:42limping and with bad credit
47:44and with a divorce on the files
47:46but he brought you out, nonetheless
47:48thanks be unto God
47:50who gives us the victory
47:52through our Lord
47:54Jesus Christ that I got
47:56hurt, something happened
47:58and this is the testimony
48:00that Jesus helped me
48:02in the midst of my affliction
48:04in the midst of my adversity
48:06he was there
48:08as my strength
48:10and my redeemer
48:12helping me every step
48:14of the way
48:24Elizabeth Elliot
48:26the author said that the secret
48:30is Christ in me and not me
48:32in another set of circumstances
48:34because I know
48:36that you would think that I'd be alright
48:38if I only had
48:40x, y, z
48:42the answer is not you
48:44in another set of circumstances
48:46the answer is Christ in you
48:48and if Christ
48:50is in you
48:52in whatever circumstance you
48:54find yourself
48:56if you start out in poverty
48:58you don't stay there
49:00there's a cream in you that's gonna rise
49:02to the top
49:04you can come from struggle, you can come from
49:06affliction, you can come from
49:08dysfunction, you start there
49:10but you don't stay there
49:12you start there but you don't stay there
49:14if Christ in me
49:16the hope of glory
49:20you don't stay where you start
49:22you're on your way somewhere
49:24you're on your way somewhere
49:26you're on your way
49:28take your seat for just a moment, every head bowed, every eye closed
49:30if you're in this place, please
49:32nobody walking now, just in reverence to God
49:34just in reverence to God
49:36if you give him just a moment, somebody is hanging in the balance
49:38right now, somebody
49:40who has been struggling to try to live this thing
49:42and you say
49:44God, I've failed you so many times
49:46Lord, I've just gotten
49:48almost embarrassed to even repent publicly
49:50before, again
49:52but I need you
49:54Jesus, you feel like you keep on
49:56failing and disappointing God
49:58over and over
50:00listen
50:02though you fall
50:04seven times
50:06you rise back up again
50:08you got the one
50:10that's the comeback kid on the inside of you
50:12he makes
50:14you resilient
50:16some of you
50:18have been living that prodigal life
50:20and there's a
50:22there's a father who's still standing there waiting
50:24and watching
50:26he doesn't have any attitude
50:28you're not going to say man, I told you so
50:30he just stands there
50:32without judgment
50:34with his arms wide open
50:36waiting on you, just glad
50:38that you came back home
50:40glad that you came to yourself
50:42because he realized
50:44before that young man came
50:46back to his father, the Bible said
50:48he came to himself
50:50out of his mind, all sin is a form of insanity
50:52let me say it again
50:54all sin is a form of insanity
50:56it'll have you out of your mind
50:58all sin is a form of insanity
51:00when he came to himself
51:02he said I will arise
51:04and go to my father's house
51:06today I want to
51:08speak to your true identity
51:10in Christ
51:12he said your father
51:14is waiting on the portals, waiting and watching
51:16for you to come home
51:18we hope that you enjoyed that message
51:20don't forget to like and subscribe
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