Broken to Be Used

as you guys are being seated we're we're not supposed to give a lot of you know pastors like get hit it and get it and i will pastor i'm not going to disobey just this one time i want just this one time i want i just want all the preachers they always do this i give thank you i've never got to do this so i just want to say i'm so thankful that my lovely wife is here with me today yeah see i figured he'd be all right with leo disobeying that one time so thank you so much for being here dear if uh if you really want to know right about somebody ask their spouse and they'll just tell you they're they're heathen and that they like the disco i didn't do that so thank you so much for being here today have you ever read anything about or heard of the cedars of lebanon and not lebanon tennessee but the country lebanon the cedars of lebanon they are they're a a cedar that is old as time itself they've been there for i guess since creation uh and throughout history the cedars eleven them they've been prized for their building of boats uh and brother david you go ahead you can go ahead and put the picture a half of them up there i flew over this morning to uh to beirut climbed the mountain took this photo came back and made it back just in the nick of time all right yeah these treaties right here they are they've been prized for thousands of years as being the tree to have the egyptians wanted them they used them to make paper to make boats out of the phoenicians which were some of the greatest and one of the most the first seafaring people of all the world they they built their boats out of them uh and then we find a lot of mentioning of them in the bible the cedars of lebanon they've even the epic of gilgamesh which is the i i don't know if you're a history nut and in case you haven't noticed i kind of like history a little bit the epic gilgamesh it's the oldest piece of literature that we have found it was around 2700 bc so this was before the bible was pinned all right this was it mentions the cedars of lebanon they've been a staple of civilizations throughout time they're they grow and the reason the reason i had a picture is because i want you to look at how they grow where they grow they grow from from around anywhere from three thousand to six thousand feet in elevation it's rocky soil not not tall they're not 3006 on the mountains they grow in the mountains on rocky soil it's very uh poor soil it won't grow it won't it won't grow very much it grows rocks that's about it but somehow these massive trees will will root in there and they'll they'll grab root they they pull water from the from between the rock crevices they'll grow up to 100 feet tall up to six feet wide massive ancient trees they don't even start really to mature until they're 100 years old and then they start looking like that the rest of them they just kind of look like a regular old cedar tree but we find the mention of them in 1st kings chapter 5 verse 6 says now therefore command this is the english standard version now therefore command that cedars of lemon be cut for me and my servants will join your servants and i will pay for your servant such ways as you said for you know that there is no one among us who knows how to cut the timber like sidonians or lebanese or phoenicians solomon's riding here contextually to the sedonians and then their king responded back he said my servants shall bring it down the sea from lebanon and i will make it unto wrath into rafts and go by sea to the place you direct and i will have them broken up there broken up these massive trees that took sometimes thousands of years to grow sometimes thousands of years to to mature hundreds of years to mature and get to their full height they would stand the most in hospitable climates the cold the freezing temperatures they withstood the wind the lack of rain they withstood everything that nature could throw at them but before they could be used for the house of god they had to be cut and broken up that was it they they had to they had to give up what nature had taught had thrown at them they'd withstood it and then they had to to just be broken up and cut allegorically all right allegorically this kind of reminded me of my nature as a human being the the life would come at me hard it had come at me strong it would come at each and every one of us day in and day out right pop culture is full of what uh songs to encourage us i'm not gonna sing them what is it what doesn't kill us makes us stronger that keeps me from singing that right staying alive staying alive yeah yeah don't stop believing right all these things these are these are jams that we jam out to or maybe you know if you're a little younger you might not that's fine too uh if you're you know born anywhere in the last 40 years but whatever uh these these jams are all about building up staying alive keeping on and and not bowing down to the pressures that are thrown at us but that's not our name that's our that's that's our nature that's our that's our natural thing but that's not what we're supposed to do in the house of the lord is it before we can be used before we can be useful to god almighty before we can be be put to his purpose we've got to be broken we've got to be cut up we've got to be laid down and we've got to be put on an altar before him something about apostolic culture right is it's super focused hyper fixated on altar and it and that's what got this this thought started in my brain is where where why are we so focused on the altar can we not live right from week to week right i mean come on from an outside perspective why are you guys always having to go up there and repent over the same old thing and sometimes we might be having to right but most of the time it should be god i come to this altar to lay my will down i come to this altar to purposely break myself before you because i want to be a useful vessel to you i don't want to be used for your purpose and your will and your way that's that's a learned that's that's a learn brokenness that we have to have and it takes for it looks funny it looks crazy but that learned brokenness will put us to a place to where we can be used by god there's a there's a couple of gentlemen that that i grew up around these were men from the greatest generation these were men that fought in world war ii they saw the atrocities that mankind would do to each other they survived it they lived through they were wounded they they were they saw their friends killed they they knew what it was like to kill or be killed and i grew up i had the privilege of growing up watching these men serve the lord and they were as faithful as people you ever find they were they were as you just knew they were going to be there if they weren't there something was terribly wrong but these two men had two different takes on how they responded after these things because after we go through a psychologically after we go through a a stressor to put it lightly after we go through literal war or literal hell on earth our response is right i can make it through that again i've done this much i've got right like our natural response is i made it i've made it through sure god helped us all that but i've made it through when when they become so much a part of us it can permeate into all facets of our life you know like you give them a problem solved it's it's no problem when you know i've already when when those gentlemen they've already conquered the world so to speak there's no other there's no bigger problem than that but these these two guys have watched them and and they're old they're great men they've passed away now but one of them would come to church every service and i you know you know exactly where he said that you know exactly and he was there every service but he never moved he it was the weirdest thing he would he was there he was consistent he was faithful but his response to the word his response to worship his response to the presence of god was completely different than this other gentleman this other gentleman been through some of the same stuff some of the same atrocities but his response was to be broken before god you don't know what it's like i don't know if you remember seeing an elder who's eat up with parkinson who is who can barely walk and can barely talk hanging onto the side of a pew dancing he's been through the worst but guess what he's chosen he's chosen that yes i made it naturally but before god almighty i'm gonna break myself i'm going to break my will i'm going to break my desires i'm going to break my plans i'm going to lay them down before everyone i'm just going to worship i'm just going to praise i'm just going to worship i'm just going to praise because when the voice of the lord comes forth when the presence of the lord comes forth our only response should be worshipped our only response should be brokenness our only response should be god what would you have me do god i'm here for you can we do that right now we've experienced god can we stand to our feet and can we just respond with brokenness jesus oh come on somebody worship god right now can we do that right now in the name of jesus in the name of jesus god is good amen amen