Marriage: Hope for the Hurting — Shane Idleman

The marriage series is actually coming to an end tonight. A little sad about that. It's been eight weeks. I think we've exhausted pretty much every topic that we could on that. Of course, I could keep speaking on it, but with Easter coming up and different things.

So tonight is the last night on the marriage series. And if you didn't get last week's message, it's online now, but the title of it was sex, believe it or not. Is it good, is it gross, or is it God in your life?

And those are the three things you will follow under one of those umbrellas. It's either gross, it's good, has God ordained it and created it, or it's God in your life. And the topic I'm going to talk about tonight is hope for the hurting.

And as I was preparing for this, it became crystal clear to me that the reason many people are hurting is because of last week's topic. Sexual immorality or adultery or something, some type of perverting of the sexual union has been broken and people are going from relationship, relationship or divorce or separation, and they're hurting, they're carrying all this baggage into either an upcoming marriage or they're going through divorce and separation.

We never really talked about this topic. And I could have unpacked 1 Corinthians 7, there's a lot in there about a wife should not leave her husband, a husband should not leave his wife. But if they do, if an unbelieving spouse departs, they're not under bondage in such cases, and there's a lot to unpack right there.

You could do a whole series on remarriage and divorce and spend some time there in those scriptures on what does God's word say. And we might do that, I haven't ruled that out yet, but it hasn't been on my heart as much as some of these other topics.

So I'm gonna pray about that and see where God wants to take us. We are gonna start, it looks like something for the men. Monday nights, we've got the sanctuary and I think Jeff's gonna help out and Mark and Russell and Matt.

As of now, we're just gonna do something for the men every Monday from six to eight. And we have got the sanctuary. We don't know when it's gonna start yet, probably within a month or so. And we're excited about that because we wanna start working with the men, equipping them, helping them, training them, motivating them.

And then kind of take it from there and see what develops and mentoring and different things. So we are finally gonna start that. We've got the facility, more nights, and we're excited for that. But onto this topic, hope for the hurting.

Now let me put a big disclaimer out there. I'm gonna talk about a lot of things and people probably say, yeah, but you don't know what I went through, what I'm going through. And you're right, I don't wanna discount the deep emotional pain that people are experiencing.

I don't wanna discount that. But I do wanna remind everybody in this room that God makes provision for us in his word. See, it's not like somebody who's going through depression, you just say, oh, just get over it.

You can't just get over it. Somebody who's hurting because of a failed relationship, you can't, oh, just get over it. You've been dwelling on this too long, just snap out of it. You can't. You can't in many cases.

Now granted, God's word provides healing and direction and restoration. So I don't wanna discount the deep emotional pain that many go through. But at the same time, I can't ignore God's word. If you've been here any length of time, you know that I cannot do that.

This is the standard on which our lives are built. This is the foundation. This is the solid rock upon which our lives are built. We must look to the scriptures and trust them to bring clarity to our lives, to bring wholeness.

And after many, many counseling appointments and speaking at men's conferences for years and talking to people, I came to the conclusion that a lot of people know what this says, but they don't wanna obey it.

And as we go through scriptures on healing and restoration, the Bible says, let this mind be in you. Make no provision for the flesh. Put away bitterness and anger. There's commands to do these things.

So a lot of times we believe, I know what they say, but I'm not going to do them, so we don't walk in victory. Because the power's in the obedience, not in the knowing. That's the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

I know we've talked about this before, but it bears repeating. Knowledge is, I know what this says. Do you know that the devil has knowledge of this? The Bible says that even the demons believe in Jesus Christ and they tremble.

It's not the belief that we have where you put your trust and faith and hope in Christ. They believe intellectual knowledge, they have to. They know the spiritual realm. Even the demons believe and tremble.

And many people know the word of God, but the power comes in obeying it. And I talk to people all the time. Yeah, I know Jesus died on the cross, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I know all this, I know all this.

And there's people gonna spend eternity in hell because they know, but they did not apply. They did not repent, they did not believe, they did not trust. The Bible is a Bible of action words. Do this, turn and you will live.

Obey and you will live. Do these things. And then you get into the big debate on free will. You know, does man really have this free will that he can choose or does God choose certain people? And to me, when the Bible says to do something, it implies that we can do it.

Or it wouldn't say to do these things, repent, believe, trust, have faith, if we weren't able to perform what's being asked. So with that, I'm gonna tread into this topic of hope for the hurting, because I've seen God deliver people out of sheer darkness.

I've seen him deliver people out of depression and anxiety and fear. Just not like every time it's overnight, you wake up, you're a whole different person. But through his word and applying his word and the power in his word, lives are radically changed.

And you guys remember, maybe six months ago, I played my in-laws, or actually, she's my Morgan sister, and please pray for Morgan. She's in with the children's ministry tonight. It's her night. So she's got all the little ones.

Can't wait to hear about that when I get home. But her sister, and she shared a quick testimony from Arizona on video, was on, man, I think 10 different pills and drinking and all this stuff, and just couldn't get through Isaiah or Jeremiah.

And just trembling, and the word was breaking her and restoring her, and just cold turkey. Anxiety, depression, all these things. So see, that's the fine line we walk on. We can't just say, get over it.

You should never be depressed. You should never do this. Paul was the spirit of life. So we're gonna go through things, but we also can't ignore the radical power, the transforming power of God's word.

If it was not for that, I wouldn't be up here today. So when we talk about healing those hurts, God's word does do that. For some people, it might be a journey. For some, it could be overnight. For others, it could be a breakthrough.

Others, it could be this bitterness and resentment and unforgiveness we're holding onto. There's a lot of things, if we begin to obey God's word, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church, your home life would turn upside down.

Arguments would cease, for the most part. Wives, respect your husbands. Just show them the due honor. Men will be radically changed in that. So once we begin obeying the word of God, and it's not the hard obedience, you gotta do this, you gotta do that, but it's loving obedience.

And I've talked to before, as men serve Christ and serve their spouse, then a wife wants to come underneath that covering and that shelter. Not some man who's stomping his foot and pounding the pulpit and yelling.

Nobody wants to, and God's not saying that. He's saying, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. That's the example. That's a hard example. So we talked about all these things, and then we come into this topic, hope for the hurting.

And I wanna just read a brief excerpt from a book that has really stood out in my mind for the last 10 years, once I came across this excerpt. And I've written about it, I've put it in the paper, I've put it in a few of my books.

But it comes from the book, The Sacred Thirst. The author writes, the bride and the groom are standing in front of everyone, looking better than they're ever going to look again, getting so much attention and affirmation, everyone even stands when they walk in.

So they think that this marriage, at least, is about them. It's not. Just look at the worn out parents sitting in the first pew. They understand this. The only reason these parents are still married is because long ago, they learned how to handle the hurt they caused each other.

They know that the last thing you ever wanna do with hurt is to let it define you. And that's what's happening. If you talk to young adults who are cutting, suicide, killing each other in the streets, they're letting the hurt of their life define who they are.

They're looking to Hollywood, not the Holy Spirit, for direction. They're being let down. That's where cutting comes from. I don't like myself. I am hurt at life. Or in people going through life, if I'm hurt, this hurt now has defined me.

This is who I am. People go through divorce, feel like they got a big D right here. Have you been married before? Yeah, I just, you know, I'll tell you about it later. What happened to your ex-spouse?

What's going on? You carry around this weight of a divorce, and people who haven't been there can't relate to you. They don't understand the pain and the shame, but that should not define you. See, we go through life and hurt, and we bring hurt and baggage and all these things, but it is not who you are.

When we are in Christ, we are a new creation. The old things have passed away. These things aren't meant to carry with us. Yes, there's circumstances. Now we're a certain way, but we build these walls to protect us, and they end up imprisoning us.

These walls. He's not gonna do that to me again. I'm not gonna go through that again. I went through my last relationship, and we have these walls now that are built to protect, but the protection becomes an imprisonment.

And hurt defines us. The hurt, now this is who I am. See all these hurts? See what people have done to me? This has defined me. And that's why when God says, "'Let not man put asunder what God brings together.'".

So when marriages come apart, that's why there's so much pain, because it wasn't meant to happen. It's like taking this paper here and just ripping it apart. It'll never be restored. It will never be restored.

That's why divorce is so detrimental. That's why we fight for it. That's why we pray for it, because it shatters and it breaks lives. And then the person walks around like this, the limp that won't leave.

You know, the thorn in the flesh. This is who I am now, and they become defined by this hurt in their lives. So God's Word says, "'Do not let hurt define you.'". It's not supposed to define us. Young adults, can you imagine if they would get into the Word of God, they would be built up by people and encouraged by people and show them who they are in Christ.

God created them not looking at TV saying I'm 20 pounds overweight or I don't look this, I don't match this, I don't look up to the... And they're constantly being fed by the media, by Facebook that paints this picture of our lives that it is not true.

Don't get jealous of Facebook. The people are posting those things to look better. They're always on vacation. They're always having a latte. They're always at the gym or they're always laying out by the pool.

That's not life. And we have this fake... Don't get me started on that thing. But what happens is we look, oh, wasn't that my life? Why haven't I lost 25 pounds in 25 days? Why didn't I do this? Why isn't my husband bringing me roses and chocolate and sweeping me off my feet and taking me on a date?

Why, why, why? And the young adults, look what they're watching. MTV and all these things that, yeah, well, let's have tons of sex and partners and then they wonder why they wake up depressed the next morning, and they're living a disparate of life because those things are not who you are and then you're hurt.

The young adults are carrying more pain into their marriage than we've ever had to deal with is when we were older. They're carrying years of scarred relationships because hurt is defining them. So we've got to point them to the Word of God.

That's why our culture is in desperate need for this. You'll read it and say, you're more than a conqueror. You're the head and not the tail. You've been given, you are in the royal priesthood. You are one of God's children if you trust in Him.

That's who you are. Not who friends or the media or anybody else says you are because they will just try to destroy you. The enemy comes, but what? To kill, to steal, and to destroy. That's his job. And he will destroy you by brokenness because what happens from brokenness?

Bitterness, resentment, unforgiveness, gossip, jealousy, anger. All these things come from hurt. You don't see a thankful, hurtful person unless they've been broken and humbled. Usually those people hurt by life and they haven't brought it to the cross are very, very bitter, upset people.

I know, I used to be one. I can preach this. Again, as you know, my sermons are always pointing back at me. I'm not up here saying, how could you? I'm saying, guys, we're all in this together. Hurt cannot define us.

Now on that note, let's talk about the first point. When it talks about hope for the hurting and you might say, well, this doesn't really apply to me right now. Life's going great. I know some of you, it is going good and people are getting married and this and that, but trust me, you'll need this message someday because life chews you up.

It spits you out and that's why young adults, I think, have this season of rebellion, 18, 19, 20. I'm out from under my parents' wings now. Now they're gonna tell me what to do. Now I can go out and do all this and then life just gives you a right hook and a left hook and uppercuts and throws you down and spits you out and then you come out in your 20s going, holy cow, what was that?

That was life. Go through life and you will need this message because you'll get some raw deals. You'll get people to trespass on you and just upset you and let you down and life just destroys you if you're not grounded because it's hard enough as it is.

That's why Jesus himself said, build on the rock. Build on the foundation because when the rains descend and the flood comes and the wind blows, it will come. Is your house founded upon the rock? He didn't say it's gonna be a nice beach in Hawaii, no wind, no this.

He said build on the rock because the storm is coming. The storm is coming and it's the man who did what? Built his house on the sand, on the sinking philosophy of man's philosophy, on relativism in our culture today.

Can we really know truth as God's Word? Truth, no, we don't know truth. Let's build our house upon the sand of man's thinking and it all comes crumbling down. So the first point is it's an internal battle.

The battlefield is here. Shane, you said that before. Yeah, and I'm gonna say it again until you get it in your minds and I get it in my minds. Right here is where the battle is won or lost. When it comes for rebuilding after brokenness and hope for the hurting, yeah, it's right here because as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

Look at what Ephesians says. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. What does that mean? Well, Paul's basically saying we don't fight against things that we can see. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal.

We don't use swords. We don't use billy clubs. We don't use bats. We don't fight the enemy like that. Our enemy goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour in the spiritual realm. Oh, Shane, now you're getting way out there.

Well, I'm just telling you, there's the earth where we live and there's a spiritual realm. There's demonic influences. Just as Jesus said, God is spirit. Those who worship him must worship him in spirit.

There is that spiritual realm. That's why Paul goes into Ephesians saying we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, so get that out of your mind. Your battle's not right here. It'll be manifested here.

We'll go through things here, but our battle is against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this age and against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. That's where our battle is.

It's in the mind, the mindset. The enemy plants, a lot of times, thoughts or our own thoughts, our own flesh, draws us away. And Paul will go on to say, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood. The weapon, and he goes on to say the weapons of our warfare are not carnal.

Our weapons are not carnal. Sometimes, if I could just get enough stock, if I could just get enough 401K, if I could get enough real estate, if I could get enough gold, if I could just do this and have this and put an alarm system on my house, the weapons are not carnal.

These things are not gonna work coming against the enemy. The enemy can bypass all of these things. And he writes in 2 Corinthians 10, memorize this verse, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments at every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

You control your thought life. I control my thought life. Paul's saying cast down every argument. That is something that goes against, argues against God's standard, whether it's his standard of morality, of purity, of righteousness.

Cast down those arguments that come against it. The attic is gonna hear, oh, you can just have one drink. Don't worry, you can start over tomorrow. You can have just one, try it again. That is an argument coming against what you know to be true and they fall back into their own pattern because of that argument.

Somebody cheating on their spouse. Oh, they just don't love me. They don't respect me. The thought life's going. Boy, look at how they're appreciating me at work. The thought life's going. Cast down that argument.

Bring your thoughts under obedience of Christ. You know what is right. I know what is right. Our thought life right here. This is what is destroying us. Paul lays it out perfectly. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty who in God for the pulling down of strongholds.

Now Paul is assuming that people are getting into the word of God. They're feeding their mind with the things of God. If he could come in our culture today, he would say no wonder there's so much disunity.

No wonder people are rejecting Christ. No wonder marriages are falling apart. Your mind is a cesspool. My mind can be a cesspool of pollutants. The weapons of our warfare are in our mind bringing thoughts to the obedience of Christ.

If our mind is lusting and fighting and bickering and everything, the mind that we're losing the battle right here. So we go and we pop pills. We go and we take drinks. We go from relationship, relationship, when the battle's right here and nothing changes.

People go from relationship to relationship to relationship. Hence the word promiscuous, promiscuity. Validate me, validate me. Now they're rejected. Now the relationship's over. Would you validate me?

Now they validate them. Now this is over in a few months and now they're destroyed and now they've got four or five relationships they're pulling around. Will you validate? Promiscuous, going from relationship to relationship when the battlefield is right here.

You don't need a man or a woman to validate you. God validates you. It's who you are. And then you live from that standpoint. So if you want to prevent her, you want to restore and be rebuilt and come against brokenness, it starts right here.

The eternal battle. This is why most people are bitter at God. Most people I've noticed that are bitter at God is because they're losing the battle up here and they blame Him. They blame Him. He's doing this.

He's caused this. He's done this. No, take your thoughts captive. Be thankful. We talked about this before. Bitterness and all these things can't dwell in a thankful heart. A thankful heart cannot be bitter and angry and upset.

They cannot coexist. And people become bitter at God. How could He put me through this? How could He do this? And they walk away. No more quiet time. No more prayer time. Yeah, they'll come to church now and then, but they start to drift because they're bitter.

They're mad. They're upset. The enemy uses that pain and brokenness to draw people away from God when it should draw us to Him because He's the great shepherd. He's the healer. He's the redeemer. And we get upset at Him because we're losing in our thought life.

And this isn't just about the power of positive thinking. I mean, I don't talk on those things. I mean, there's some truth in being positive. I mean, you wanna say, you know, I love my wife, I love my kids, thank God.

I mean, you wanna think positive, but the power comes in that prayer closet. We've talked about before. The internal battle right here. Hurt is diminished in the prayer closet. Life is rebuilt. Brokenness is restored in the prayer closet and reaching out and crying out to God.

That's when He heals you and restores you. We can't just get in a car for a few minutes on the way to work and think positive thoughts and it'll all work out. We've gotta spend time in that prayer closet.

Broken, anger is quenched in the prayer closet. Gossip is put to rest. That's what the prayer closet does. It gets us in right relationship with God. You don't need a closet. I'm talking metaphorically.

There needs to be a time where you cry out to God, you cleanse your heart, because we take on all this filth of the world. It's like we step down into a cesspool. And we walk, that's what Christ did. That's why Paul says, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider robbery to be equal with God, but he made himself of no reputation and took on the form of sinful flesh and became obedient to the point of death, even the death on a cross.

It's a sin nature, it's so polluted. If you don't get into the Word of God and the prayer closet and ask God to restore you and rebuild you, Lord, take away these things, take away this anger, this gossip, because it will not leave on its own.

You don't think a few positive thoughts throughout the day and hope it all ends. The battlefield is the mind, the weapon is the prayer closet, the sword of the Spirit, the breastplate of righteousness, the helm of salvation, all these things that God has given us, but the most powerful weapon you possess is prayer.

That's why many people don't do it. If we were to take a survey right now, how many of you would say, my prayer life stinks? And we wonder why we're losing the battle. We wonder why we're losing the battle for our minds, for our marriages, for depression, for anxiety.

And I've talked about this many times before. I never, people are struggling with these things. I never want to discount the pain that they're going through, but I always go back to, are you in the Word of God like a fish lives in the sea?

Are you in the prayer closet? Are you crying out to Him? Are you doing these things? Oh no, I don't really, you know, I've tried all that. No, no, no, that is the weapon that you've got to press in. Jesus said, keep knocking, keep asking, keep seeking God.

God says, I'm a rewarder of those who diligently seek me. The word diligence, it's like a drip of water coming off a roof continually. It eventually makes a dip in the concrete, in concrete. You take enough water, drip, drip, drip, it'll wear out that concrete.

That's a word there. God wants us to seek Him diligently because you know what that shows? How bad do you want it? It's like when I was dating Morgan, you're dating whoever, you just call them once and leave it at that.

No, no, you sought them. You pursued them. That's when the flowers came out and the nice dinners, all these nice things. You pursue, that's what God says, diligently seek me with all of your heart. Not with some of your heart, with all of your heart.

So I would submit to you that if you, the brokenness in our mind, or actually the brokenness starts in our mind. Where do our thoughts go? Where do our thoughts go? Because it's hard to be angry if you're not concentrating on being angry.

It's where we let our, and he's saying bring every, either the Bible's wrong or it's right. Bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. And this is where some people need to repent tonight.

I'm gonna use that word again, repentance. But this is where many people need to repent tonight, right here in their thought life. Right here in their thought life. They're holding people in mental prisons of unforgiveness and all these different things in their thought life.

Taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Number two, to have hope for the hurting, release must occur. Say well Shane, what are you talking about? Well I'm glad you asked, let me finish.

Those who do not forgive or release bitterness, anger and hurt, never experience freedom, happiness or true restoration. Let me read that again because that's powerful in and of itself. Those who do not forgive or release bitterness, anger and hurt, never experience freedom, happiness or true restoration.

What? Yeah, if you never forgive and release those things, it's like a cancer. It just wells up inside of you. That's why Paul says in Ephesians, let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor and evil speaking be put away from you.

And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God and Christ forgave you. I mean that's a powerful scripture that we don't want to obey. You've got to release these things.

So if there's emotional damage, especially in divorce, I'm gonna hold on to this as long as I can. I'm gonna show them. No, you're not showing them, they've moved on. It's imprisoning you. The hurt is imprisoning you, not them.

I believe that forgiveness releases us more than it releases them. God says you want to follow a spiritual principle? Forgive those who have wronged you and you'll experience true freedom. But we say, I'm not gonna forgive them.

That makes it sound like they were right. Oh, absolutely not. Forgiveness does not mean the other person was right. God forgives us. Does it mean we were right? No, it means I'm releasing you. God forgave us in Christ Jesus.

I'm releasing you of the debt, of the penalty that you did, that sinful nature. I'm releasing you of that. I forgive you. That's all forgiveness is. And then you can walk around in freedom because you're not holding on to unforgiveness.

Unforgiveness is so destructive that Paul will go on to say that all forms of malice and evilness derive from this one thing because unforgiveness is like a weed that just keeps growing and growing and other things grow from it.

That's where gossip comes from. That's where hatred, that's where anger comes from. And bitterness, unforgiving. Look at Cain slew Abel. Jealousy, it just builds up. So that's what forgiveness does, it releases.

I'm upset, I release you. I mean, I've got people in my life that upset me too. It's difficult. But that's where true hope for the hurting comes from, releasing it. First the thought life, then releasing these things.

I don't hold you accountable anymore. I'm not gonna hold you responsible. I'm not gonna be upset. I'm not always gonna bring up the past. I release you. I forgive you. And it's just freedom flows. And you start to rebuild after brokenness.

That hurt starts to be bandaid up and restored because you've released, you begin to do that. Now a lot of people are caught in the past because of their thought life. You talk to people who've been divorced years ago.

Yeah, but they did this to me and they did this or business deals that went sour or friendships. Yeah, but they're caught in the past from years ago. That's what forgiveness does. It releases that. I'm done thinking about it.

I've learned my mistakes and they move forward. The next point, vitally important, stop wandering. Stop wandering. And this is more for those who are maybe promiscuous or those who are going from relationship to relationship.

God, to truly restore, to be rebuilt and to restore the years that the enemy's taken from you and to rebuild and have hope for the hurting, you've gotta stop wandering from relationship to relationship because you're looking for other people to fill that spot that only God can.

And that's why people, right when they separate, they walk out the door, they separate, then they meet somebody else, dating. You go to the bar or nightclub down there, their friend sets them up, they're still married.

They're separated. They go from, I can't be a single for a week, let alone a month. Oh my gosh, no, when you're separated, you're single forever until it works out or something happens where the divorce is final.

And then even then, I tell people, take time, a lot of time, to make sure God isn't working on the back end. But everybody jumps right into relationships. And I would say that is the number one reason many marriages are never restored, ever restored, because they meet somebody else while they're separated.

The grass seems greener on the other side. They pursue this other person. Divorce goes through. A year later, they wake up and go, oh my God, what did I do? The grass is not greener. But I'm too prideful and arrogant to admit I was wrong.

So they stay in this second relationship or third relationship or fourth relationship. And it goes from person to, and I've seen it, they wander. People with addictions, they'll switch addictions from another addiction to another addiction to another, or they'll switch and they'll just wander.

Stop wandering. To rebuild hope and to rebuild your life, go to the foot of the cross. Spend time broken, let God rebuild you. Because when you empty yourself, that's when the Spirit comes in. The Holy Spirit is full of love, joy, peace, contentment, long-suffering, gentleness, kindness.

You don't think people who hurt need that? That's why you'll find the people in life that have been the most hurt are often the most forgiving. And they're often the most filled with the Spirit of God.

Because that brokenness has emptied them of themselves. Now they're filled with the Spirit of God. And here's some of the best preachers I love. When you hear about their life, man, they went through hell and back.

God had to break them. And that's what He does to us many times. He doesn't necessarily do it on purpose. He allows things to happen. So you have to stop wandering. Stop trying this or trying that. A lot of people, they get hooked on the next diet or the next weight loss thing and that doesn't work.

And then they get hooked on this thing and that doesn't work. And then they try this and they keep, instead of going to God and let Him just break you, take a weekend off and seek Him and stop wandering from this thing or that thing.

Because it doesn't help unless God rebuilds the house or actually unless God builds the house, they labor in vain who built it. So you can labor, you can do all this stuff, but unless God's in it, you labor in vain.

I labor in vain. And that leads me right to the next point, the power of brokenness. See, there's something I've noticed in people that are hurting. A lot of times they're not broken. And I'll just be honest with you.

They're not broken. They're still angry. They're still prideful. They're still hurt. They're still upset. They're not broken. And you cannot be rebuilt until you acknowledge that you're broken. Lord, I need you.

I'm coming to you. I need you. Please, restore my life. I'm coming to you. I'm broken. I'm humble, Lord. Please. You can look throughout the entire Bible, that one aspect of men and women filled with the Spirit of God was brokenness and full surrender.

It's fertile ground for the Holy Spirit to move. I even believe that God doesn't use a person mightily in ministry until they are completely broken. Because then you go into ministry saying, Lord, what do you want to do?

It's all about you. It's all about the cross. I just, by the grace of God, there go I. If it was not for the shed blood of Jesus Christ, I wouldn't be up here. And then you understand the correct position.

The correct position is humility and serving. So to truly be rebuilt and to have hope for the hurting, true, genuine brokenness needs to take place. And we don't like to talk about that topic because pride gets in the way and says, I'm not gonna release them.

I'm not gonna let that go. I'm gonna hold on to that. Well, great. How are you doing so far with that? It's not working. There's no brokenness taking place. God does mighty things in the lives of those who are humble and broken.

He actually gives grace to the humble, but what's he do to the proud? He resists the proud. God gives grace to the humble, but resists the proud. And the scripture I chose here was in Philippians. Paul said, whatever gain I had, I count as lost for the sake of Christ.

Now you need to understand, Paul was a Pharisee, a Pharisee of Pharisees. I believe he was of the tribe of Benjamin. He was circumcised on the eighth day. He had the law down. He was it in his day, but he lost everything when he denounced that legalism and Phariseeism and incorporated Christ into his life and started to preach the cross.

He lost all of that, but he said, I count it all as nothing. Indeed, I count everything as lost because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and counted them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him.

Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ and faith in Christ alone. Let me emphasize that point. There are many Christians thinking they're so spiritual, so this, by obeying and doing all these things, they're nothing more than modern day Pharisees.