2nd Corinthians 12: 9 And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
1st Corinthians 1:25, “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”
Romans 6:19, “I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.”
1st Corinthians 2:3, “I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling.”
1st Corinthians 12:9, “It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.”
Hebrews 11: 32 And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: 33 who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.”
Psalm 34: The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, And saves such as have a contrite spirit.”
Psalm 51: 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart-- These, O God, You will not despise.”
Isaiah 53, “1 Who has believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant,
And as a root out of dry ground.
He has no form or comeliness;
And when we see Him,
There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
3 He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
4 Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He opened not His mouth;
He was led as a lamb to the slaughter,
And as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
So He opened not His mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment,
And who will declare His generation?
For He was cut off from the land of the living;
For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.
9 And they[a] made His grave with the wicked—
But with the rich at His death,
Because He had done no violence,
Nor was any deceit in His mouth.
10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him;
He has put Him to grief.
When You make His soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,
And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.
11 He shall see the labor of His soul,[b]and be satisfied.
By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,
For He shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great,
And He shall divide the spoil with the strong,
Because He poured out His soul unto death,
And He was numbered with the transgressors,
And He bore the sin of many,
And made intercession for the transgressors.”
One of the key issues confronting the congregation today is the issue of brokenness. You may ask brokenness is a key issue? When we look back at those God has really used in history we see those who have been broken. Do you remember when King David was broken before Nathan? God had to break the back of his spiritual lust and expose it. What is in the dark will always come to the light in due time. Brokenness is where the Lord wants His people because it is there that He can minister to them. Do we remember the lady who touched His garment? Do we remember the lady at the well? What were the characteristics of these ladies? They were all broken, one touched the Lord’s garment, and the other was ministered too by the Lord. People are hungry and hurting, and it’s our job as believers, a royal priesthood to minister to those who are living in brokenness by meeting them with the Word of God, so that the Spirit of God can change, and minister to them for His glory.
Isaiah 53 teaches us that a Suffering Servant would come to die for our sins so that we could have eternal life through His blood. This suffering servant spilled His blood then how much more should we be broken so that He can restore us? How much more should we realize that we have brokenness in our own lives, and need to go from brokenness to wholeness? How much more would we understand of salvation if
in our relationships everyday if we realized that what God wants for us is for us to be made whole? Acts 4:10 let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole.”
2nd Corinthians 5: 18 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 20 Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. 21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
What would happen if the entire congregation acted as if ministering to others in forgiveness and not in arrogance were the norm? What would happen if ministers of darkness were exposed? What would happen if people came to the Body to be healed, and equipped to walk in the power of His Spirit? What would happen if ministers were open/honest and even real about their own troubles/tribulations and trials? The congregation is to be a place where broken people come to experience wholeness through experiencing and receiving true biblical instruction from the Word of God so that they can walk in His Spirit as His ambassadors in the world. The congregation is to be a place where broken people find healing, and restoration; where they are encouraged to study the Word of God for themselves, so that they can be equipped in the ministry that they have been given by and for Him. Everyone has a ministry to do, but everyone also has to let God minister to them, and let others use their gifts, so that the Body of Messiah may be firmly established in maturity of His Word. In a real sense, the congregation is to run a rescue shop, not for the well, but for the sick, that they may find the Truth and find rest in His peace. Matthew 9: 12 When Jesus heard that, He said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ’I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ F38 For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."
God isn’t looking for more pew sitters, He is looking for more doers to do His Word, and not just talk about His Word. If God wanted a crowd of people to sit around, look pretty, He would have said so in His Word. In Truth, God calls the sick, and makes them well, because they realize the depth of their need is for Him, and not for man. The people that God uses are the one’s who aren’t afraid of seeing themselves as they truly are, desperately and utterly immoral apart from being in Him and allowing Him to create in them a new heart, full of praise for Himself, and not the applause of the world.
God is looking for a generation of David’s who will seek after the Father’s heartbeat and not the heartbeat of man. God is looking for worshippers who will dance before His very throne, and who aren’t afraid to pursue His Spirit wherever it will lead them. God is looking for a generation who will praise His name in Spirit and Truth. God is restoring in this generation and in this hour in His house, the understanding of what praise and worship really is. God is calling for a generation like King David did, who will worship Him with all that they are for His praise, and for His glory. God is at this moment in the course of history restoring the ministry of David, which is the ministry of worship with radical abandonment.
Throughout the generations one of the key issues that satan has wanted to destroy is the nature of worship in the congregation. The devil has infested the congregations with many “ministers of darkness” who have spread “doctrine of demons” throughout the congregation that the people of God may merely be fed “half truths”, which lead them to continued brokenness, instead of restoration in their brokenness. The house of God is to be known as a house of prayer for people to come and find Him, not a place where we need more programs, but a place where we need more of Him, and less of us. What we need is more of an understanding of His character, and more awareness to the move of His Spirit, and His voice, rather than the “voice of ourselves”.
Isaiah 56: Even them I will bring to My holy mountain, And make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices Will be accepted on My altar; For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations."” Matthew 21:13, “And He said to them, "It is written, ’My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ’den of thieves.’” Mark 11:17, “Then He taught, saying to them, "Is it not written, ’My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it a ’den of thieves.’ "”
These doctrines of demons have infected the way we worship, and then we expect a visitation from Him, but the reality is that He is already there; we just have failed to recognize that He came already to meet with us. He is there right now to minister and to share His Truths with us, but we have to invite Him into our present circumstances and situations. If more people realized that He is everywhere, and wanting to teach us through out circumstances of our lives the Body would be far different than it is today. Each believer ought to be learning from Him during the course of our everyday activities and events, so that we can surrender even more of what we don’t want too, to Him, so that He can live/breathe and move through us even further.
Brokenness abounds in our society, and we don’t even have to cross the street to finds its tentacles coming after us. We can see it for many of us in our friend’s lives, or in our homes. We can see it when we visit the hospitals, or even visit our local stadiums, and congregations. If we have a God who meets us in our brokenness to change us and mold us into His image through His Son’s blood then we must have a problem right? If we have this same God who comes in by His Spirit to change us then why are our congregations so broken, so empty and void of His Spirit? God isn’t interested in our beliefs or customs, what He is interested in is our hearts being transformed by the move of His Spirit in our lives. If God were merely interested in our thoughts and our ways, and what we could say; then we could fill entire library’s as man is doing today with what we think, but God gave us His Word to base our lives around. He gave us His Word so that we would know Him, and what He did for us throughout the history of His people Israel, and through His Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, and Evangelists. God is not housed
in systems of our own thought, but in the reality of His function everyday in our lives, to change that which is broken, and make it whole.
The community of faith is supposed to be a place where people come to experience the peace of the Lord, and the move of His Spirit. It is a place where people can come to be touched, ministered and then set free from the bondages that they have been afflicted with. The community of faith is to be a place of deliverance and ministry not a place of infighting and bickering. It is exactly this attitude of murmuring of jealousy that gets us into trouble. Jealousy and contempt for another brother or sisters in Messiah not only shows a lack of godly maturity, but it outright denies the resurrection since that person claims to be a believer and through His resurrection we have new life. The reality is that man’s words fail, but God’s Word will never fail. Every single person has to look deeply into who they are, and where they have been that they may see their own brokenness and then come to know Yeshua (Jesus) in that brokenness.
The congregation is in a sense a place where God can come and move. Yet through tradition and man made teachings this has not been the case nor the norm throughout the history of the church. The history of church records massive amounts of division, contempt, and jealousy for our “brothers and sisters”. It even records throwing out men and women of God, because they were preaching the Truth, and the political leaders took over the congregation because they couldn’t handle what the preacher was saying. We need a few more godly men and women of God to rise up and call it how it is, and let God minister to His people. Man has tried to minister to man for far too long, and its time that we let God come into our congregation to do a changing work for His glory, and for His praise. It’s about high time that we let the Spirit do the Spirit’s work, which is transformation for His praise, and glory.
Why do we have so many broken people in our congregations? The American congregation has just as much divorce, porn usage, and other such ills that should not characterize believers in Messiah. Why is the congregation so broken? Have we lost our minds, or have we just lost a sense of what sin is? Sin is a direct affront against God’s holy character, and Yeshua (Jesus) took our place on the Cross to pay for our sin, so that we could now live a new life. Yet the attitude at this point that you may say, is I did all that, which I’m going to say, “Great!” Now are you demonstrating your new life to others? Is your example reflecting the newness of life that you have for Him? If it’s not your repentance means little, because repentance means turning from yourself and towards Him not only with your mind, but with your heart and actions as well. Is that your attitude, and does your life reflect true repentance?
This attitude of false repentance is so common because religion is so often proclaimed rather than the life liberating Gospel that Yeshua (Jesus) and Paul taught us. We are saved by grace through faith not by works lest we should boast, but to demonstrate the works through the work of grace inside of us (Ephesians 2:8-10; James 2:12-24). This attitude of religion is what has our congregations in trouble, and what has them lacking in the power of His presence to transform and heal lives. The congregation is to be an oasis of healing for the ill and the sick to come and be ministered to, by the proclamation of His Word, and the move of His Spirit. It is about time that we let the broken be delivered, set free, so that they can go forward and not remain in the spiritual confines of religion, but released in the power of His Spirit to share forth the abundance of the new life that they have in Him. It’s about time brothers and sisters that we let the Spirit move by His anointing and His power in our lives, so for His praise, and for His glory. It’s about time that we let the congregation be a place where people were delivered from the captivity and into the wilderness of His Spirit.
In all honesty this ought to not shock anyone. Many people ask me everyday why they aren’t experiencing more of His presence and anointing. I’m telling you right here why in this sermon. People are hurting, because the Pastor is more interested in the teachings that they have received rather than the Words that God is speaking to them. A true Shepherd of God’s flock will hear from God on what they are to share to His people, but a minister of darkness, will only share what is on his mind, but not what is released from the Lord. Those who are not for Him are against Him, and there is a major spirit of contradiction in the Body today, because people will not “hear thus says the Lord”, because they are afraid if they hear the Word they will perish, but the reality is that the perishing that they will experience if they don’t hear the Word of God will be far worse than what they didn’t if they didn’t repent, than if they just repented after hearing and acting upon the Word of the Lord. The congregation is to be a place of healing, but sadly man has made it into nothing more than a den of thieves run by people who want only what they cherish or desire, and sadly this contrary spirit needs to be rooted out, exposed and then tossed out. This spirit needs to be tossed out along with the spirit of jealousy, confusion, division, bitterness and resentment that has held onto the congregation for the last two thousand years.
It’s about time that we had a Spirit of freedom in our congregations that would come and minister to the brokenness of our lives. Growing up the song, “I surrender all”, would play all the time, and the other day I got to wondering what do I surrender? What does the congregation need to surrender? What does the congregation need to repent of? Its time brothers and sisters that we looked at our traditions, and all of our beliefs to see if it aligns with God’s Word. If the teaching that you’ve been instructed in isn’t of God, then it ought to be tossed out. Tradition does not have supremacy over God’s Word and way, for God’s Word will always outweigh man’s ways.
Brothers and sisters it is time that we did what the Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 4: 20 But you have not so learned Christ, 21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: 22 that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, 23 and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” Ephesians 4: 11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head--Christ-- 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.”
Brothers and sisters in Messiah, we are one new man, with a purpose and a vision from Him! This vision is to take people from their brokenness to wholeness in Him. Its time that we ran a rescue shop for the sick, ill, and broken instead of for the high, and mighty. The Gospel is for those who recognize their needs, and want to do something about it by learning who they are in Him. Who we are in Him is reflected by our development into the One new man. This new man is our true selves and our God given identity! The Body of Messiah is to build itself up in love by teaching others how to love, and be built by the love that they have for others, and not the tearing down of others.
It is time that we were one new man, and not two thousand five hundred different men, and women running around like we own this place. Yeshua is our head, and He is the Chief Shepherd. Everyone is under Him, and the leadership of His Spirit. What we need is a few more people who are set like King David was upon worshipping the Lord in radical abandonment who will not stop to just look or savor His presence, but will follow hard wherever His presence leads them, and whatever the cost is. God is by His Spirit and move reawakening the understanding of the One new man so that His Body can be built up in Him who is the Head through the operation and function of all the Offices, and giftings that His Word says were not dead, but still alive. God’s Word has not changed in two thousand five years, but man’s intreptation of His Word, and their own thoughts have placed God in a box, but God will always blow the box of man’s thoughts out of the water, so that His glory, His name, and His praise will go forth to His people with the result that the people may be delivered from the oppression and margalization that they have experienced. Its time brothers and sisters that we realized that this move of God is for Him, so that He can live/breathe/move by His Spirit, for His glory among His people once again.
Its time brothers and sisters that we renew our minds, and show that our lives have been changed, because He has given us the new man through His blood, resurrection and Ascension. It is time that the Body were a healing balm for the ill, sick and broken hearted to come and experience the refreshing waves of His presence ministering to them in and for His glory. God is looking for worshippers who will teach His people how to worship. Everyone is worshipping something right now, but God is looking for a few who wish to worship Him in Spirit and Truth! Will you come into the light of His presence, and engage the process of wholeness today, or will you stay as you are, and remain as you were? Or will you desire more than you have, and desire the deep things of God? Will you be one who was said to be a radical worshipper? Will you be one who’s described as dancing before the Lord with gladness?
God is in this hour raising up a generation who aren’t content in the old, but will seek after the new. God is rising up a generation of worshippers who are tired of man’s traditions and deceit. God is rising up a generation who will seek after Him, in Spirit and in Truth. God is rising up a generation that will not bow their knees to false teaching, but will study to show themselves approved and aren’t ashamed to ask the hard questions that it requires. God is rising up a generation that is PASSIONATE about His presence, and will stop at nothing to follow after His presence.
Friend are you broken today? Are you afflicted, beaten, torn, and burnt out? Let God touch you in the depths of your being today. He came down to die, by spilling His blood upon a tree, to give you new life, a life of radical passion, and radical obedience. Don’t put God into a box, and say you understand, today. Don’t say, “I have to know everything”” Just come and worship Him by receiving His Son into your life.
Friend are you struggling in addictions, and afflictions? Let God come and break the yoke of your oppression and addiction. Let the Words of the Lord soak into the very fabric of your being, and as a result your mind will be changed, and your life transformed by the radiance of His glory. Let God breathe/speak/move in and through you today, for this is what He seeks after; those whom He can take from brokenness to wholeness.
May the Lord bless you richly,
Pastor Dave Jenkins
http://www.servantsofgrace.net
