The Broken

Psalms chapter 51. I titled my message: The Broken. The Broken. Psalms 51 — for those who have studied the Scripture, some know that this is a — an interesting psalm. David has been confronted by the prophet. The man of God has pointed out to King David that he's a sinner. To be careful, sometimes being obedient to the word of God can put you in an interesting place. And I've often thought of how nerve-wracking it would have been to have been the prophet who had to go to the king to tell him: you're a sinner. You never know with kings how that's going to work out, for they have the power and the ability to take your life from you. But David received it. David acknowledged his sin. David understood that he was broken, and that he needed help. And we have here, as I start with verse number 12, the response is — David is crying out to God when he says: "Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit. Then I will teach trans- transgressors Your way, and sinners shall be converted to You. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise. For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it. You do not delight in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart — these, O God, You will not despise."

You know, it's somewhat common in our culture, especially in the South. We have an interesting way of using the English language. We tend to draw things out a little bit. We tend to add syllables sometimes to words, for emphasis. Now, if you've been raised in the South like myself, especially if you may have been raised in a little bit more of the rural South, sometimes you don't really understand how much of a dialect you have. Now, this can oftentimes be pointed out, especially when you might be around of someone who has descended here from the North, or you may notice that it sounds a bit different when you find yourself arriving in the North. Sister Ashley's mom is here. We're so thankful that you're with us today. She's from Michigan. See, we clap for that down here. But we had a conversation at ladies' conference. We talked a little bit about how that — Ashley's picked up some southern saiyans. She says "y'all" now. That's just — makes us feel good down here, because we know we're around home folks when we hear somebody say "y'all." How's your mom and him?

I got a saying that I know that is common, especially here in the South, and that is: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. There we go. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" — mean basically that if it's still functioning in some capacity, just leave it alone. Now, how many of you will be willing to admit that you have something in your house that you probably should have just replaced, but this motto rings true in your life? It ain't broke, don't fix it. You have something duct taped, glued together, propped up, lean to, that if anybody else walks in your house, they would look at that said item and ask: why do you still have this? Why are you still using this? To which you'd reply: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Now, I'm convinced that many people live their lives this way as well. Their motto is: my life is working just fine. I don't need fixing. I don't have any problems that I need any help from any outside source in my life. And what they don't realize is this truth: that if it ain't broke, God won't fix it. If it ain't broke, God won't fix it. In other words, until you admit that you've got a problem, God's not going to help you with the problem. So that put some responsibility on you and I.

Did you know that virtually the entire Bible is a story about broken relationships, broken covenants, and broken dreams, and broken people? For example — and I give you a very short list here: Abraham dealt with being old. Elijah was suicidal. Joseph was abused by his family. Job lost his children, had a difficult marriage, and unkind friends. Moses had a speech impediment. Gideon was afraid and had no confidence. Samson was prideful, and he was disobedient, and he was a womanizer. Rahab was a prostitute. The Samaritan woman was divorced multiple times and was an adulterer. No, it was a drunk. Jeremiah was a cry baby. Jacob was a cheater, deceiver, and a liar. David was a murderer and adulterer. Jonah ran from God and just didn't like people. Naomi was a widow and blamed God for abandoning her. Peter had anger issues and denied Christ three times. Martha worried about everything and loved to point out everybody else's flaws. Zacchaeus was short and money hungry. The disciples argued about who was the greatest. They fell asleep while they prayed. And Paul persecuted and killed Christians before he came. Someone — you should feel good about your life, when I read to you just a few examples of the broken people in Scripture, that God said: hey, I like them. They're the people I want to use. They're the people I want to do great things with. What I have discovered in my life, and what I see throughout Scriptures, is this truth: God is drawn to broken, flawed people. God is drawn to blok, broken, and flawed people. That ought to make you feel good. It makes me feel good, because I'm broken and flawed. Maybe you're perfect. Maybe you think, yeah, everything in your life is just grand and great. I'm not that way. I'm not perfect. I am broken, and I am flawed. But I'm so thankful that I had a God who was drawn to me. I'm so thankful that I had a God who didn't discount, or discard, or throw me away. Instead, He looked past my flaws, past my mistakes, passed my failures, passed all the things that didn't live up to what society was right, and said: I still am drawn to you. I still desire to have a relationship with you. I'm so thankful that I was not disqualified for my shortcomings and failures. Instead, that qualified me for His grace.

Isaiah 61 — it's avail, your very familiar passage of Scripture. Most anyone who's been around church any at all is going to recognize these verses as I read them. The prophet, as he was being moved on by the Spirit of God, says this: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord hath anointed Me to preach the good tidings to the poor. He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified."

We love these promises. I love the fact that God was moving on a man to let us know that He is going to do all these things, to reach out to where we are — that our God is willing to look past a whole lot of stuff, if we would bring ourselves into a right relationship with Him. And these promises — and I see Isaiah 61 — they shine so brightly. It speaks of One who is going to proclaim good news to who? To the brokenhearted. To set free the captives, and bring joy in place of mourning. When Jesus started His public ministry, we read in Luke that He goes and He quotes these verses of Scripture as He starts His ministry, to remind those people that were so distant and so far away in a relationship with God, that He was there again for the brokenhearted, for those that were grieving, those that were mourning, that He was there to bring joy into their life, to help them with their broken state. And I thought it worth pointing out that when the hope Jesus offers is figured into the equation, even brokenness — as painful as brokenness is — can be seen as a gift.

If you allow me just a few minutes today, I want to show you how often times what can be the most painful moments in our life, God uses in ways beyond our ability to understand in the moment, to bring about a resurrection in our life. I'm so thankful for the brokenness in my life. I'm going to say that again. I'm so thankful for the brokenness in my life. I have lived long enough at this point, in my 45 trips around the sun, that I can tell you without any reservation or hesitation, there's a lot of things that I have experienced in my life that, in the moment, I was not happy about. As I was going through it, I didn't care for it. I didn't ask for it. I didn't sign up for it. But on the other side, I seen how God had His divine hand in my life, that He was orchestrating and moving things in and around me — stuff that seemed unfair, stuff that seemed like it was unreal, that God didn't love me. But it was quite the contrary. In His mercy, and in His love, and in His divine grace, He was working things in my life, and He was working things out of my life, so that He could bring me to the place where He wanted me to be.

Jesus brought hope to the hurting, though it required great suffering on His part to do so. On Wednesday night, I've already talked about it being communion. We're going to remember the sacrifice through the symbols of crushed grapes and broken bread, as we celebrate Jesus' proclamation that the kingdom of God has arrived here on earth for you and I. We acknowledge that brokenness is still all around us, ladies and gentlemen. We live in a broken world. Brokenness is all around us: religious brokenness, ethnic brokenness, economic and national divisions continue to exist. Broken homes, broken marriages, broken relationships, broken hearts abound. Brokenness may come from what we do to ourselves, or from what others do to us. We don't always keep our promises to God, nor do we always keep our promises to each other. And sometimes the hard truth is that one person's healing requires another person's sorrow, because we are broken people. All of us are broken in one way or another. Yet this does not negate the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. His good news is still good. His good news is still good. His word is still true. His word is still settled. His word still talks about — as I preached last Sunday — than expected in that He has for you and I, regardless of the circumstances I'm in, regardless of what hell I'm going through right now. God is still a good God. God is still a faithful God. God is still a God who loves broken people, and is willing to go to great lengths to right the wrongs in our life.

Deep brokenness leads to mourning. And mourning has the capacity to lead us towards God. When we feel personal pain, we often try to avoid it. And if we can't avoid it, we try to numb it. When we interact with others who are in pain, our normal inclination, our normal response, is to minimize their grief and to try to make them feel better. But have we ever stopped and thought for a moment, and to ask ourself: should we be learning to sympathize with them in their pain, and to share the burden that they carry? For I feel, this reading through the Scriptures, that's the command we have from God: to bear ye one another's burden. We have this thing again that we do in the South, where we ask: how you doing? We are expecting a standard response back, which is: I'm fine. How much of a lie is that response? Because the overwhelming majority of the time, we're not fine. Something is going on in our life. Sometimes great big things are going on in our life. But we have learned to live in this world where: I don't really know about your problems, and I don't really want to know about your problems. And I won't share my problems with you. I'll keep them to myself. And you and I can just agree that we're going to keep our stuff, our trouble, our struggles, and our troubles, and our trials to ourselves. We're not going to bear one another's burdens, when that's not what God's word asks us to do. We're afraid if I reveal myself to someone else, they're going to think less of me, than who I really am. We are uncomfortable with, and perhaps fearful of, sorrow. But there's a prophet in the intentional engaging of our grief.

Have you ever noticed, when you read through Scriptures, the times that Jesus Himself wept and was grieved? He wept and shared the grief of Lazarus and his family. He wept for the people of Jerusalem, who were like baby chicks scattered everywhere. He wept at the thought of His own suffering and death. And He said: "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted," in Matthew 5. And He meant every word of what He was saying. Because He understood this: that mourning comes from — come — comes before comforting in your life. And brokenness comes before healing. There is a direct connection in how they come about. I have come to believe that, in some ways, we are never more in touch with our soul than we are when we are weeping. And we become better acquainted with our soul on the road back to God. There's a sense in which our tears, distilled from the deepest parts of our pain, can become a sacrament of the soul, and a means of communion with the Holy Spirit. And it's only through the grieving — it's only through the morning — that we have that direct connection with Him.

I can tell you, some of the most intimate moments I've ever had with God have not been in times of joy, but they have been in times of sorrow. They have not been in times when I was living out of victory, but there had been times in my life when I was so vexed, so — so bothered, so troubled, deep down at the very core of who I was, as I began to pour myself out on an altar and ask God: where yet, for I feel as though You have hid Your very face from me. In those moments, He comes shining through like the brightest ray of sunshine ever into my life. It was in those moments that I felt His arms wrap around me, and embraced me. And it was in those moments that I heard His voice speak into my ear, telling me: I still love you. I'm right here. We are never closer to God than when we weep. And in doing so, we may find ourselves on a journey towards joy. Though the road may be long, the destination is sure. And as we engage our brokenness today, we open our hearts to forgiveness, to acceptance, to growth, and to ultimately renewed strength, and the healing that He has for you and I. You and I may discover that all the pieces didn't get put back together in the same way they were before. Quite often, I'm never the same on the other side of whatever God's taking me through. Usually there's parts of my life that are missing. Some things have been added to. Brokenness changes us. But when we approach it in the right way, the change is for the better. When we have experienced both brokenness and healing, we gain a greater capacity, and understanding, and care for others, by entering into their world, and sharing with them the grief and the sorrow that they carry. And in doing so, we discover hope, we discover healing. We discover it wailing up inside of us, and for them as well. And we come to know the oil of gladness instead of mourning, in the mantle of praise instead of the spirit of heaviness. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to human understanding and logic, that that's what happens. But God doesn't operate in the same economy the way you and I do. He does things like exchanges: beauty for ashes, and joy for mourning. And when we understand and comprehend these things, it makes me all the more aware that in the moments of my greatest sorrow, in the moments of my greatest loss, I have the opportunity to have my greatest experiences with God.

Broken because of sin. Human beings are fundamentally broken. I'll go back to the Psalms, a psalm of David, in 34 18: "The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." Because of our cultural expressions and understanding in the world that you and I live in today, we think to ourselves about a broken heart or a broken spirit — that's a weeping harder. It's a sad spirit. But the primary meaning of David's expression here literally is the definition of broken: violently separated into parts, shattered, damaged, fractured, violated, disrupted, made weak and firm, subdued, crushed, bankrupt, reduced in rank, cut off, disconnected, and completely cut off. Is there anybody that can identify with any of those words I just read in that definition? That at some point, some peace, some part of your life, something inside of you, all of a sudden felt a connection to the words that I just read. Why? Because we're broken and flawed people. Sin has entered the world, and sin has brought this upon us. And it's sin that we deal with each and every day.

David realized two very powerful truths. First, that his heart was broken — not merely that it was sad, but something was fundamentally wrong with what was going on in his life. Something was broken inside himself. And second, that God was attracted to that brokenness, because he said, "He is nigh unto them. Thou will not despise." This is what David wrote about being broken: that in my brokenness, I found that God is the nearest to me in my life. Not when everything's going right. Now, when the sun is shining the brightest. Not when my bank account is full. Not when me and my wife are getting along. No, but when everything seems to be falling apart in my life, there, in the middle of all the chaos, in the storm, is where I meet God. Why is it that way? Why is it that God does this? I don't know. I can't give you all the — all the reasons behind it. But I can tell you this: that God is drawn to brokenness. He's drawn in. He's attracted to it. He can't help Himself when He sees the brokenness of humanity. That is where He goes. David knew that if it's not broke, God will not fix it. And that's why David didn't mind admitting his problems. That's why he was so forthcoming where he was in his life. Psalms 31 and 12: "I am forgotten as a dead man out of mine. I am like a broken vessel."

In fact, the whole purpose of the Old Testament law was to show man that he was fundamentally broken, and that he needed God for help. Romans 7 and 7: "What shall we say then? Is the law of sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law. For I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." Paul, talking to the church and Galatia, says this, in Galatians 3 24: "Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster, to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith." The law of Moses was given to point out the brokenness that was in mankind. And earthly vessels that we see in Scriptures — we read when there was a flaw, they were broken. There was always a command that went along with it. Any earthen vessel contaminated by an unclean object, animal, a person, was to be broken. When leprosy had broken through the skin, a person was unclean. It had to be separated from everyone else. When leprosy had broken out on the walls of a house, the house was to be torn down, broken, and set aside. The Old Testament is really an ongoing contest between God and all the false gods that afflicted Israel. The altars that were built, things that came about, the implications that were there, were always about this. There was always things at play. God was requiring obedience, but man was falling after himself. So sad are the words that in those days, every man did what was right in his own eyes. Those words ring true in 20 21. Everybody is doing what is right in their own eyes. We should not be surprised by this. This is not nothing new. This has been going on since the beginning of time, since the fallen of the garden, since sin into the world and brought brokenness. There are too many illustrations that humanity is broken by sin. And until sins power, or its altar, is broken in our lives, we live under a certain threat of eternal destruction.

If I can boil it down in its simplest terms — if you're taking notes, this is the one take away you have — my next statement that comes out of my mouth: either you break sin, or sin breaks you. Either you break sin, or sin will break you. It'll bring you to the point. It'll humble you to your knees. It'll get you down to the lowest point. And then it'll dig a basement and take you even lower. But I'm here to tell you, when you get to the lowest point of your life, you're not by yourself. It may seem like everything else has left you, and all your friends and family have abandoned you. But it's in that broken moment, it's in that most destitute state, when God will march into your life and prove Himself to be God and Lord of all, if you will allow Him.

No sacrifice that was imperfect was allowed to be offered on the altar of God. No man who was broken, or even blemished, was permitted to enter into the presence of God as a priest, further illustrating the fact that our brokenness separates us from God. We get this from Leviticus chapter 21, verse 17: "Speak unto Aaron, saying, Whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations, that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God. For whatever man he be that hath a blemish, he — he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that has a flat nose, or anything superficial, or a man who is broken footed, or broken handed." Going down to verse 21: "No man that hath the blemish, of seed of air, and shall Aaron the priest shall become night, to offer the offerings of the Lord made by fire. He that hath the blemish, he shall not come nigh to offer bread for his God." Now, you and I read that — I don't know about you, but I'm thinking: man, He got pretty specific. No flat nose, no broken hands, no broken feet. I mean, He's getting pretty picky. And I'm thinking, as they're looking around, man, there's only going to be just a few people that were there. And it makes me a little bit sad in some ways, because I think to myself: God, those are the moments where Your presence was, and He was saying, you can't come into My presence if you have any of them flaws and His blemishes. If you have anything in there that possibly disqualifies you, you're not allowed to offer a sacrifice.

I've studied the Scriptures, and there's many of you who understand where I'm going with this: that you were not allowed to go into the one place where the Shekinah glory was. You could not go behind the veil, because you had too many blemishes and too many flaws. And I'm so thankful that God, in His infinite wisdom, and His mercy, and His grace, said: you know what, there's going to come a day when I'm going to fix that problem. You're going to have blemishes. You're going to have flaws. Man, born of woman, you're going to have trouble in this life. There's a lot of stuff you're going to face. So I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll go to Calvary, and I'll die for you. And we're going to celebrate next Sunday the resurrected Savior. But let me give you a little precursor. Let me give you a little — little example of why we celebrate so much. Is because when He died on that cross, the veil was rent in that temple, and no longer did I have to qualify myself by being perfect and unflawed, but a perfect and a flawless God said: I'll take your place. And because He took our place, now you and I have the ability to go beyond the veil, on the other side, that I can be in the presence of God. It's not based off of my qualifications, but it's based off of His qualifications, and the finished work in Calvary, that my God reaches down in the most blemished, hurtful moments of your life, and says: I'm not looking at what got you there. I'm looking at what I can do with you.

Oh, we can become broken by so many things, so many things. But ladies and gentlemen, let's be honest. Most of the time, we break ourselves. Most of the time, we break ourselves. Oh, there's — I know in this room there are extenuating circumstances about abuse and neglect, and all kinds of things, and very sad, harmful stories that have been done, and it will break our heart. But if I'm going to be fully truthful in my preaching today, oftentimes it's you and I who break ourselves. We mishandle life. Our stubborn insistence of doing things our own way is our worst enemy. But the good news is: it doesn't matter how broken you are. It doesn't matter how broken you become. God is willing to fix you, if you'll cry out to Him for help.

Psalms 147 and 3: "He healeth the broken and heart, and bindeth up their wounds." I quoted Isaiah 61, but here's the words of Jesus, red letter words, in Luke 4, as He's beginning His ministry: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He sent Me to the heel of the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering sight to the blind, and set at liberty them that are bruised."

The only thing He asked of you and I — ladies and gentlemen, the only thing He asked of you and I — is that we break our pride, and that we admit our need for Him. When we do, He steps in and breaks the power of sin. But you must take that first step. Oh man — oh woman — why would we allow pride to prevent a healing from God? Why is it always in the moments of the greatest need, when we finally will humble ourselves to the point to ask God for help? Why do we take that far journey? Why not simply admit every day of your life, that God, I am nothing without You. I must have You every day in my life. Why do we have to allow it to go to the end, to the very end, to be as broken as we could possibly be, before we'll ever actually cry out to God?

And then let me ask you something, ladies and gentlemen. Could it be that God knows you and I better than we know ourselves? Could it be, in His infinite wisdom and His mercy, He looks down to where you and I are, and He already knows: they will not bow a need to me. They will not pay Me any attention. And in His infinite wisdom and His mercy, He begins to orchestrate the pieces of our life. He begins to put things in, and to take things out, to get us to the point till we finally cry out: God, I need You. God, I need You. Why? Why do we allow it to go that far? Why do we refuse to humble ourself? Why, when we know we're broken — we know we're broken, we know we're flawed. Let's be honest. We know we're broken and flawed, and prideful, and hurtful, and shameful. We have these things in our — they consume us: anger, and lust, and in coveting. It's a part of every human being who's in this room right now. We are broken, flawed people. But we will stand like the three-year-old in defiance, looking up at the parent, saying: I don't have to have you in my life. And God, who's just full of mercy and love, is telling us: you have no idea how much you really need Me. So let Me show Myself to you. You — you will not see this as love. You will not think that this is mercy. But I'm going to put some things in your life, and I'm gonna remove some things out of your life, so that you can get to the point that you can really see Me for what I really am: a Father who loves you, and a Savior who's willing to give Himself completely to redeem you.

I know — I know this is always hard for us to wrap our minds around, because we just want to live and flourish in the blessings and the goodness of God. There's not a one of us in this room who doesn't love that stuff. I love God's blessing. I love it. I love it. I love it when He rains down in my life. I love His mercy. I love to feel His presence so strong. But I'm going to tell you, I have been in this long enough to know, whether you agree with this or not: my best, my most favorite moments is when He reaches down to, in my lowest state, and He grabs a hold of me. Then He pulls me back up into a higher height than I've ever been. It took a breaking in my life. It took a removal of some stuff. It took a humbling in my life, so He could elevate me to be where He wanted me to be.

You and I must make the first steps. Contrary to popular belief, pride is not thinking too much of oneself, but simply thinking too much about oneself. Pride makes me the center instead of God. Jesus met up with two proud people in the city of Jericho. There was one who I call the up and outer, this short little tax collector named Zacchaeus, in Luke 19, who had hummed himself and climbed up a tree in order to see Jesus. I think about this. I know how many times in my life that I've fallen short. And I think you know this about you, too. There's been many times that you have fallen short in your life. A love — that he humbles himself to climb up into a tree. In spite of his outward success, Zacchaeus finally realized that he was inwardly broken. And God had planted a sycamore tree years ago for him to humble himself and climb up into, so that he could see the redemption in his life. I'm telling you, there have been things that have already been set in motion for you, God has already planted, that are growing right now, that are going to be the very things that are going to show you where He is in your life. And I'm telling you, you got to be very careful, because it could be very easy for you to go in and pluck up the very thing that God has planted. You think it's a mistake. You think it's simply a weed. You think it's something that should not be there. But God has put it there for a reason and a purpose. Because there's gonna come a day when you're gonna need to elevate, you're to need to climb up something that God put in your life for a reason, so that you can see you've got to make some changes in your life.

And there was a down and outer. He was a blind beggar named Bartimaeus, Mark 10. He humbled himself to cry out, even when he couldn't see for himself that Jesus was there. When his friends told him, you just need to be quiet, they tried to hush him. Look, keep it down. Don't know. He — he was the one saying: you don't understand. You don't — you — you have your sight. You don't understand just how broken I am. And if you're telling me that God is somewhere close around here, I'm going to cry the more until He comes to where I am. And when I look at this, it was the blind man who could really see in the crowd, and all those who had sight, who missed the point. They missed the point. It was a blind man who understood the circumstances of his life. It was the down-and-out guy who said: look, I got nothing to lose. I'm not about to be quiet. There's a chance. There's a hope that God's going to pass me by. Why would I sit in my predicament and be quiet, when there's a chance that God is walking by? And it was that down and out state that brought him the miracle in his life.

These are two reactions that keep us from breaking our pride. And the Scripture is there for each of them. When we say to ourself: I'm not broken, we must understand that the Bible addresses this. Whether you're an up and out, or you're down and out. Revelation chapter 3, verse 16, says: "So then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of My mouth. Because thou saith, I am rich, and increase with goods, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." The cry of an up and out person, saying: I'm not broken. And God's saying: you think your money's going to save you. You think your status is going to save you. Think your house, or your car, or your vacation — do you think those, that's — that's really God? You — you are broken. You — you are miserable. You are poor. You are blind. You are naked.

And then there's the cry of: I am too broken, the down and out person. Jeremiah 33 and 20: "Thus saith the Lord, if you can break My covenant of the day, and My covenant of the night, and that there should not be day or night in their season, then may also My covenant be broken." God's promises is always going to work, ladies and gentlemen. I don't care what comes into your life, the sun will rise tomorrow. I don't care what comes into your life, the sun will rise tomorrow. Even if there's cloud cover, even if the storm is raging, even if the wind is blowing, even if you experience the weather we've experienced the last few days, the sun still rose every morning. Why? Because God spoke it into existence, and it has set there, and it's going to continue to rise, until He decides it's time for it to stop. There's nothing that can prevent it from rising tomorrow. And if He can do that, what can He do in your life? No matter what comes your way, what He has said in motion will come to pass. The only thing that can stop it is you.

I get ready to close with this. Around the turn of the 20th century, there was a guy named Alfred Adler, who began to study individuals who seem to have what you and I would consider to be disadvantages in life. And he came up and proposed a counterintuitive theory of compensation, believed that what we think of as disadvantages often proved to be exactly the opposite. They proved to be advantages in life. The reason was is, they forced the individuals to cultivate attitudes and abilities that otherwise would have laying dormant and gone undiscovered. It was when individuals would compensate for their weaknesses in their broken places, that they often discovered a gift to the world — to what I would consider their kingdom purpose. Seventy percent of the art students that Adler studied have optical abnormalities. That didn't make sense to him. And many of the composers that he studied — Mozart, Beethoven among them — had degenerative conditions of the ears. Yet they went on to become the greatest in their fields, even though you and I would look at their circumstances and say: they have all these disadvantages. There's no way they could rise to be the top. Long story short: perceived disadvantages, things like birth defects, even environmental challenges, can actually be springboards to move them further in life. Success is not achieved in spite of those perceived disadvantages, but it's often achieved because of them. And that is, this theory that he put forth in his compensation plan in a nutshell. And what I'm trying to get here is that we have to be very careful how we inventory our life, especially the broken places that are there, because oftentimes they are the greatest opportunity for God to do the miraculous in your life.

It was the apostle Paul who beseeched the Lord three times for the thorn in his flesh. Even though you and I have no idea what that thorn was — there's some theories out there, but that's all they are, they're theories, we don't know. What we do know is that he asked God for it to be removed, for that broken thing, for that flaw, for whatever it was that he struggled with in his life, for God to please deliver him from it. To which God's response back to him was: Paul, My strength is made perfect in weakness. Paul, what you're asking Me to do is to take away where your source of strength comes from. Because every time you fall short, and you reach over and grab whatever that thorn and your flesh is, know that I use that to prove to you: it's not about you, Paul. It's about Me.

You can't convince me any other way, that there are things in my life that God has purposely placed there. I have prayed for Him. I've asked God to take Him away from me, to deliver me from those things, and He has been very quiet. But every time I try to blame my failure on the brokenness, He reminds me: why didn't you ask for help? He has always been faithful to me. I don't know your story. I don't know where you are. I don't know what you've been through in your life. I can speak, though, about me. I've faced things in my life, and I've been through stuff that didn't seem fair. I didn't ask for them, but yet they happened. I was given no reason. There was no revelation, no understanding to them. They just simply happened. But it reached a point to where I refused to be identified with that broken thing. So I took that brokenness, and I gave it back to Him. And the moment I took my hands off of it, He came rushing in like a flood, and He strengthened me in ways that I can't even explain to you. And I heard Him whisper to me: My strength is made perfect in weakness.

I'm reaching for somebody today. We're broken, ladies and gentlemen. We are broken. But we serve a God who specializes in broken things. He takes what seems to be all but lost, and He simply says: bring it to Me. Break it to Me. Bring Me those hurts. Bring Me those pains. Bring Me those failure. Bring Me that shame. And let Me show you how I make beautiful things out of a burnt out life. And there's no way that I stand here today without having gone through the broken places in my life. And there have been times when God has brought back to my memory those things that I have turned over to Him, and walked away from, and He allowed me to forget. There have been times that He would bring those back to me. Years it went by, and He would bring those back to me, and He would say: now you know, because you can tell them you've been there, too.

There's a healing that I feel is going to take place in this room today, for He specializes in fixing broken things. So I ask you, if you're comfortable, to please close your eyes right now, and allow me to pray for you. For God desires to do a work in this place. Jesus, my Savior, Your presence is so sweet in this moment. God, I pray that that drawing Spirit begin to tear down walls of resistance right now, that Your love would begin to pierce through in that dark place, that someone would realize that this word was for them today. God, they went into safety mode, and they've walled up around that, that is the most precious to them, thinking they could keep things safe. But God, all they've done is significantly limit what they can do in this life. Lord, I pray that those walls would — would fall down right now, that they would feel a love that they have not felt in a very long time. That they would understand that the brokenness that they hide is the very thing that You want to use to further Your kingdom. Or — this altar is open. If you would like, I invite you to come down. We're not going to do anything to you, but pray. But there is a God who's waiting on you to make that first move, for you to make that first move in your life. And I invite you to come. Bring that brokenness with you. Don't — don't leave it there. But bring it with you, and allow Him to do what He specializes in. He puts lives together.