Hope for the Hurting Broken yet... — Shane Idleman

Rending the Heavens for Spiritual Awakening

But what we started was Friday night, it's called Ren the Heavens, and it was based on Isaiah 64. Oh God, would you ren the heavens, would you come down and visit your people? Because there's something special when the tangible presence of God hits a place.

That's when you go from normal church to God awakening His church. People hungry for God, on fire for God, that's where all these terms come from. The unction, the anointing, the power, the fire of God, it comes from that desire, that desperation.

Oh God, would you ren the heavens, rip open the heavens and come down? And I don't know about you, but I don't want to play church. I want the church of the living God to come alive, and where lives are being changed, the demonic realm is being broken, people are being healed, they're being set free.

That's New Testament Christianity. And we don't see it too much, so we think now that that's extreme, and we've kind of grown comfortable. And so what our church has done is we meet every quarter or so for a week or two sometimes, and we have church every night, because hunger has to be built up.

There's got to be a desperation building. And Lord, we're not just going to meet on Sunday, we want to meet on Monday. And our Monday nights are busier sometimes than our Sunday nights, and Tuesday night, and Wednesday night, and there's a hunger for more of God.

And so we just want to bring that up here to this area. Myself and Pastor Mike have talked about before, and that's really why we're here. And this is the final night of Ren the Heavens, and the title again, Hope for the Hurting, Broken Yet Unbreakable.

The Lord Draws Near to the Brokenhearted

Do you know there's something beautiful about brokenness? Corporate America won't tell you that. Pride is esteemed, and humility is a liability. But there's something beautiful about brokenness. Psalm 34, 18, I don't know if we have these scriptures, if not, I'm just going to read them to you.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and He saves those who are crushed in spirit. And that cry of Isaiah on Friday night that I gave you, Oh God, would you rend the heavens, that came from a cry of desperation, it should.

Lord, would you rend the heavens and come and do something about what's going on in our nation? What's going on in our country? And I told you before that your gun sakes are full, but your prayer closets are empty.

This is how we fight our battles, on our knees, through worship, and praying, and fasting, and brokenness, and humility. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Could it be that God is fighting some of us?

God fights a Christian? I don't know, that verse is written to Christians. James is writing to Christians. God will resist the proud, but give grace to the humble. The blessing of brokenness, He's close to the brokenhearted.

He saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 51, I love this one as well. My sacrifice, my sacrifice, Oh God, is a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. Oh God, you will not despise that. There's something, folks, when you humble yourself, and when you break before God, and you say, Oh God, I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy, I need you, I'm desperate for more of you.

Through that brokenness, as you empty yourself, you can become full of the Holy Spirit. As Jake mentioned, grace, it's an incredible word. The difference between grace and mercy is mercy is I'm not receiving punishment that I should receive.

But grace is unmerited favor. God wants to pour out His grace on His people. And I'll be honest with you, those are some hard messages Friday and Saturday if you were here. I was like, Oh man, but we need to hear it.

We need to hear the bad news to appreciate the good news. And to repent of besetting sin. But we don't want to get caught there. You don't want to get hooked up on repentance and God's wrath and judgment.

You don't stay there. You use that to propel you to grace and mercy. And that should break us and humble us. And I appreciate all the feedback from a lot of you that listen to the radio network up here.

And we were able to buy a few radio stations a couple years ago. And God has opened doors to where our ministry now is on a lot of different radio stations. And hearing from people all throughout the United States.

A Personal History of Brokenness and Restoration

But you have to understand that underneath it all, I'm a very broken man. I was raised in a home that my dad was very angry. Anybody relate? That's how you handle problems is you got angry. You handled it with more anger.

And the louder you got, then that would be who determined would win the conversation. And that's where that term walking on eggshells comes from. Right? I hope he didn't hear me come in. And I need to let you know, I've told my siblings, I love my dad.

I mean, he taught me hard work. Thank God for hard work. We are in construction. And boy, you don't cry. Just get up. We work hard. We finish our job. We keep our word. I remember when a man's word and a handshake, we didn't have contracts.

And so there's so many great qualities. And I felt looking back now, he came to know the Lord later in his life. But that angry home and that brokenness. And I didn't understand it then. And you begin to beat yourself up.

And that's why bowling is really big now. Kids don't understand who they are in Christ. And if that brokenness pushes you to the cross, it's a wonderful thing. And so that's when I realized I'm not real good in school.

Can anyone relate? I've shared before I graduated with a 1 .8. And looking back, it's amazing. I did a study on dyslexia, and I realized I'm like, everything dyslexia has, that's me, math and sentence structure and reading and attention span and not wanting to speak in front of people and being overweight and made fun of it.

I was chubby and lead britches and all these things. And just coming from a broken home. More specifically, what you would call a redneck. And it actually wasn't a bad term because it means your neck is red because you're working your tail off out in the sun.

And I knew that George, what's his, Country Boy Can't Survive, that was my theme song. And that brokenness though, coming from a small town. And through that brokenness though, God breaks you and so he can rebuild you.

A .W. Tozer said before God can use a man mightily, he hurts him deeply. He breaks him. And then someone like Jake will come up here and he'll do the worship. And what I don't think you realize is the worship comes from the anointing, from the brokenness, from the pain, the pain of our past.

And God begins to rebuild that, and out of the ashes I will arise. Any great man or woman ever used of God, there's a brokenness there. And you come up to the pulpit, I do with a limp. And God hurt me in a good way, he wounded me.

But as you persevere, as you continue to get back up and fight again. And I find it interesting, many of you know that Jacob wrestled with God. And the Bible says he prevailed. Now we all know that Jacob didn't beat God wrestling.

That doesn't even enter my mind. What happened though, I believe, and again, the Idelman translation here, I've looked the Hebrew up and I've read commentaries. But it could be that Jacob persevered. He kept fighting, he kept wrestling, he said, I'm not going to let you go until I get my blessing.

He's not quitting, there's a perseverance. And now his hip is out of socket, and he walks around with that limp that will not leave. And it's a reminder of his brokenness. I mean, we could go to Moses, 40 years in the backside of the desert, broken.

The list is long, Joshua's brokenness when he lingered in the presence of the Lord. Isaiah was completely broken, I talked about that last night. He said, woe is me, I've seen the king. And if you ever come into direct revelation of who God is, his presence, and you've seen the king of glory, not physically, but spiritually.

You see him, you stand before God, and there's something, a transformation takes place because you don't get all excited sometimes and get cocky, you get humble. You lower yourself. And how do you see God today?

Through his word. Through brokenness, through humility. I am near to those who are humble. I am near to those who are broken. Here's a sacrifice, God says, here's a sacrifice you can give me, is a broken heart.

Isn't that amazing? You can give God a sacrifice. That being a broken and contrite heart. The blessing of brokenness, here's what happens when you are broken, you appreciate more, you love deeper, you are very thankful, you are usable because you're teachable.

And you are filled with the Spirit. And I often ask, I like to ask this question, what's it going to take to break you? Could it be what's going on in our nation? Is God trying to get our attention? And I see a lot of angry Christians, you can tell by their posts, but are you broken?

Are you humble? Are you gracious? Because anger and arrogance never lead to revival. And that word revival doesn't have to be controversial. I love reading about revivals. I'm not going to go over that again.

Revival as Spiritual Resuscitation

But there's a, when God revives, what revival is, it's spiritual resuscitation. Wake up, church. You're lukewarm. You have no hunger for God. You don't want to read the Word. You have no desire for worship.

Let me revive you. And then something come alive again spiritually. Now the Word of God comes alive in their life. Now they want to do more for God. They are so revived that they wonder if they were ever saved to begin with in the first place.

That often happens. So a revival is God reviving his people. Ezra, I believe it would say, would you not give us a measure of revival in our bondage? And the psalmist would cry out, oh God, revive your people so that we can rejoice in you.

And it's a time of seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. But over the years they've made that word into something that is weird. Revival. I don't know, I don't want those revival meetings.

Are you going to hold up a rattlesnake and not get bit and do weird things? No, revival is just God awakening his church. And sometimes in order to awake you, I need to challenge you. I need to throw, metaphorically speaking, cold water in your face with scripture to wake up.

It was interesting, Jesus, one of the rebukes to the church in Revelation was I wish you were hot or cold, but you're lukewarm. I must spew you out of my mouth, but also be encouraged. And I don't make this obviously a doctrine because, you know, there's a little bit of wiggle room here.

But often, often the greater the brokenness in your life, the greater anointing you will have. Why is that? Because without that you're arrogant. You're arrogant. You're straight as a gun barrel theologically, praise God, but you're just as empty.

You need the Spirit to give you life. And the Holy Spirit will never fill an arrogant vessel. Often the way we quench and grieve the Spirit is through pride. Pride quenches and grieves the Spirit. And I have to remain broken because pride always wants to come up.

I think it was C .J. Mahaney who said, I'm a prideful man working on humility on a daily basis. So if you think I've arrived, check yourself. I have not. Oh, look, he's so humble. And I don't know, but when people say that kind of cringe, oh, God, if they could just see my heart.

Pastor, I really appreciate you. You're so humble and transparent. Oh, okay, yeah, maybe tonight. But driving home and anybody get in bad moods or just me? I have kids at home and challenges and things don't go well.

But thank God for the blessing of brokenness. That's the difference. You say, God, I'm not being humble right now. God, please help me. Keep me humble. Keep me broken. God, I snapped at my children. That wasn't right.

I was angry at my spouse. Lord, that wasn't right. I didn't treat them right. God, please, I humble myself. See, a beautiful word called repentance. Oh, repentance is a beautiful word. I don't know why we're afraid of it.

You know who doesn't like it is the arrogant heart. Arrogance does not like the word repentance because repentance is always attached to humility and brokenness. A humble, broken person will repent. And what is repentance?

I change my mind. I change my mind. And as a result, I change my actions. And if the truth be told, I'm going to just be transparent. I don't like being transparent. I don't want you to know about me.

I don't want you to know about my failures. I don't want you to know about my mistakes. I don't want you to know about my past. Because we have an image to uphold, don't we? But that doesn't help people because it's not true.

Returning to the Lord Through Repentance

And I shared, I think it was last night, how around 2005, and I'm just sharing the breaking process. First, the breaking process came in 1999. I was hungover, probably just got back from up here, who knows.

And on TV, my life was falling apart. Everything, God is taking away everything. And you have a choice to make. You get bitter or you get better. And that's why I'm so glad Jake mentioned repent of a critical spirit.

Because that will quench and grieve the spirit more than anything else. You can't be thankful and fill with joy and fill with spiritual life and be critical and judgmental and angry. Negative Nelly, judgmental Jerry.

You can't have both. And so I came back to the Lord in 1999. I mean, I could go into, but my testimony, full testimony is online. But from that broken home, maybe I should catch you up a little bit, but from that broken home and at 12 years old, I gave my heart to the Lord.

I believe it was up in the mountains in Wrightwood. And I just preached, I believe, in the same chapel a couple weeks ago when I was 12 years old. And now I remember the fire of God. When you experience God, nothing else is more important.

Nothing else is more important. You're on fire for God. And then I didn't get plugged in with good discipleship. My dad's not a believer. And when there's a struggle in a home, I want to be careful here because thank God for our wives and the women.

But there's something special when a man leads spiritually, when he validates your son, his son. When he says, son, this is the way to go. Gosh, there's so many rabbit trails I could take. Even just last week at our church, maybe a week and a half ago, a family that I know, he rolled his Jeep and flew out.

And I got a call. I got there at the hospital and broke his neck. And he's laying there, and I'm talking to him, and we're praying for him still. And as I was leaving, I remember, I think I could. You know when you pull back something and you have a vision?

You're like, I've been here before. I think that's actually where I went with my mom when my dad died on a construction site. Same room, same location. He's laying there dead with the tubes still in the throat and everything.

And I remember, was that the same place? The relevancy of this is he died, and he didn't tell me who I was as a young man. And I remember just, Dad, I'm 21 or so. What am I supposed to do? You're gone.

And of course, with that brokenness leads to alcoholism. I was introduced to my first drink at 12 with my dad. He didn't drink much, but I remember he thought it would have a reverse effect. You know, try this Coors Banquet.

You're going to think it's gross, and I liked it. Oh, I like how I feel. And so 13, 14, 15, without my parents' knowledge really, drinking and hiding it in my closet. And that was to get away from feeling dumb and stupid, that's what I turned to.

That's often why people turn to something, right? There's temporary freedom. And then a friend introduced me to something called crystal myth. Get an eight ball, head to Vegas for the weekend at 17. And then, of course, other things and just going down, down, down, down, down.

And then around that time, for self-esteem, I put so much stuff in my body, I don't know how I'm still here. But I was introduced in the gym to something called steroids. And you'll hear that term a lot lately.

You know, they call it anabolic or anabolic-anergenic steroids. Anabolic is opposite of catabolic. It's growth. Anergenic is maltestosterone, malhormones. And you change. You look a lot different. The problem is you don't want a lot more testosterone because something called roid rage is real.

You can't control your anger. You're so angry. And it's body worship. And from the pills, it turned into giving yourself your own injection of testosterone, cystinone 250, or Winstrel, Ecopoise, depending on water-based.

You know, all these things, it doesn't matter to you, but it mattered to me because that was my life. And so I'm now an alcoholic using steroids, crystal sometimes, and smoking bong loads. And that's who I was.

And as a result, everything falls apart. And God should have took me. And so be careful when you judge people how they worship because you don't know what they went through. Aren't you going to worship a little bit differently when you sing Amazing Grace?

How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I was blind, but now I see. I was lost, but now I'm found. Oh, I can sing it. I've experienced that. God's amazing grace. You might see tears. You might see hands lifted high and judgmental Jerry in the background.

That's a little emotional. Well, you just lost your voice at the Dodger game. I would say you're worshiping the wrong thing, sir. You're emotional. You express anger real well. That's just an excuse. And if you were in here for the last hour going, when is worship over?

The Prodigal Son and Deliverance from Destruction

You need to hear this message. I'm saying, I hope this isn't over. I don't want to speak. I just want to worship because God took the prodigal son. He pulled me out of the miry clay. He set me back on a solid footing.

He said, son, I love you enough, even when you're rejecting me, even when your fist is in my face, even when you love singing, I'm on the highway to hell. Oh, turn it up, God. I'm rejecting you. My fist is in your face.

I hate God. There's no God. Oh, he should have took me. I end up in the hospital for four days at age 24 with myopericarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle, 270 pounds, steroid user. And where they put that needle in your vein, and then they look at your heart and, you know, you've got an inflamed heart muscle, myopericarditis.

And that's why I understand if you're researching a lot of, well, I better not go down this rabbit trail. You know, I was going to talk about the COVID vaccine and what it, the MNR. Well, no, I'm just telling you the truth and what it does and how it, the proteins and spikes and the heart issue of myopericarditis.

And my background in health, I know exactly why it's causing that because of the spike protein gets out of control and it starts forming blood clots and different things. And that's what they're finding.

So anyway, this desire for health and fitness on my death bed, I was having a hard time breathing. And that's because the myopericarditis and he's man, you're, you're surprised you made it in here a couple more hours.

And I don't think you would have made it through the night. I'm 24. My parents were called, came back from vacation to meet me in the hospital. Where were they vacationing up the three 95 June Lake loop.

A lot of history here. Not good history. Whiskey creeks. I've been kicked out a few times. I just found out, I found out one of the guys was a bouncer there and we, we compared times 1990s. It might've been, he was here.

Are you here tonight too? I think you are here. And I said, yeah, there you are. I won't point you out. So not all good memories trying to redeem the theme up here. And that's why we're here, but catching up to this at 24, 25, I'm not going to go into a lot of details, but a broken man, a broken marriage, a broken family.

And God was, was breaking me and breaking me and breaking me. And finally, finally cried out 1999. I need you. Oh God, I'm so sorry. And the tears that came, how can you experience more joy than I've ever felt in my life in the midst of the worst situation I've ever been in?

How is that possible? Pieces or passes all understanding the joy of my, now I'm on the right path. Now I'm right with God, but be encouraged. Sometimes it's a difficult road. I fell back into that alcohol for a while because it's a hard thing to break.

The enemy, the enemy knocks on that door all the time. Remember Shane, come back. Remember the old life. He shows you the, the pleasure, but not the pain. And sometimes you have to fight that old man till the day you die.

Some people are delivered and set free. Praise God for that. But some people have a little fight going on. I still see a Coors banquet served at a bar. It looks good to my flesh. I wish I could tell you otherwise.

I wish I could say, Oh my goodness, God completely took that away. But that cold IPA at 8%, I remember those days and how I would, it draws and it looks good. And I have to make a choice, a choice, transparency.

My daughter, remember she's here. Just, I think it was last night. Somebody left a nice cold, ice cold Coors light on her front grass. I said, let's open it, pour it out, throw it in the trash. You see how the enemy works.

Always on alert. He doesn't sleep. He doesn't slumber. And so at that age, came in back to the Lord on fire for God. And that's when he gave me a desire for our nation and how far we've drifted and, and how it was for the Puritans and the pilgrims and, and, and how far we've drifted from the original intent of our nation.

And also desire for revivals and wells and Scotland and Evan Roberts and first great awakening, second great awakening and, and all these different, and I can, God, if you did it, then can't you do it now?

And that's what Michael, I don't know if you remember, but you said prophetically, it's so true that you're talking about that. That can, it can, when you hear about what God has done before, you get hungry for him to do it again.

And I believe that God wants to do it again. Could it be that we're, we're the hindering mechanism and not him. And those revivals would come out of arrogant, angry people. That's what I hate America.

I hate California. Let's just go. And God just baptizes them in brokenness and humility and a revival starts. No, it's men and women, sometimes six or 12 travailing and brokenness. And when Zion travail, sons and daughters are born and there's a brokenness that comes, there's a, there's a crying out, Lord, I don't care if you move nationally, move right now in my family.

God, my prodigal son needs you. My daughter needs you. I don't care what it takes. You're going to find me here every night at six o 'clock and I'm not going to eat God until you begin to move. Desperation.

Prayer, Desperation, and the Presence of God

That's the prayers that God hears comes from brokenness, brokenness and humility and desperation. The cries, God hears the cries of his children. I told you last night and you know that cry in your child, you know, the whimpering that you can ignore and you know, the cry, you better get off the couch and find out what's going on.

I've heard those cries. Daddy, daddy help. And I'm up and I'm out there. I'll break down the screen door to get to that child. Who's crying in desperation. God hears those cries, that desperate cry. And I came back to the Lord.

Oh, praise God. I remember, I remember Rancho Vista. I remember around 40th Street West. I'm driving and the floodgates of the Holy Spirit are just, I'm weeping and crying and weeping and crying joy and expressible.

So when you want to challenge me about the fruit and the supernatural act of the Holy Spirit, I just laugh and say, I'm glad I don't believe that way. Believe whatever you want, Mr. Negative Nelly. We don't have any of that anymore, but we have the Bible.

Now we don't need the Holy Spirit anymore. We have the Bible. Well, the Bible tells me I need the Holy Spirit. So you got me in a pickle here. Paul said, desire, spiritual gifts. The Holy Spirit, when he comes upon a person, did you know the Bible says it's okay for the Holy Spirit to come upon a person?

And like I told you last night, I believe there's theological debates, but that you have all of the Holy Spirit at conversion. But does he have all of you? That's why in the lives of deal, Moody, Adonai, Jetson, Hudson, Taylor, John Bunyan, writing pilgrims, progress in prison, John Wesley, Whitfield.

Um, many of these people, A .W. Tozer receive what they would call this mighty endowment of power years after conversion. And so as a result, some people make theology out of it. Oh, you just have to wait for the second work of grace that you might get maybe 15 years from now.

And, you know, just keep pressing in, go wait in an upper room. No, you have that. But in all those cases, they've never fully surrendered their life. And once they fully surrendered the life, their life, everything, Lord, I'm empty.

I'm, I'm, I'm yours. Then they're full of the spirit. Now they wonder if they're even safe to begin with. Perfect example. DL Moody. Do you know who that is? We would never know of him. If God didn't radically fill him with this spirit, he was a pastor.

And he was wondering about his ministry. He wanted to build his name, his church. Me, me, me, me, myself. And I very prideful. God's like, okay, do deal. Moody, you do whatever you want to do. But when he finally surrendered and repented of that, God filled him with this spirit.

He said it was so profound that he had to run into a room and say, God, stay your hand. I'm going to explode with your love. And I read that and go, I felt that way. I see, see, these things are biblical.

We don't judge the theology based on our experience, but we do judge our experience based on theology. And when the Bible tells me I'll have the joy unspeakable, that the Holy spirit will come upon me when we surrender.

It's amazing. So around 2005, I'm five, five years into this now on fire for God, something happened. It's the scripture that says knowledge puffs up. One thing about dyslexia is I have a really good memory.

Praise God for that. And so doing so, you know, you learn about all different aspects of theology, systematic theology and pneumatology and eschatology and soteriology and and, and, and homiletics and hermeneutics, and you've got it down and you begin to be puffed up.

And I can quote the Spurgeon and I can quote, uh, the, the, the, uh, pilgrims and the Puritans and, oh, I've got this wonderful theology. I'm so smart now. And I turn into a sin sniffer. That was my sin sniffing days.

Weeping Before Rebuking

Let's do a little bit tonight. Are you, are you still drunk? Can't you give that up? You, you disgust me. You, are you watching those movies? Are you doing that? You know, that's not right. You know what the Bible says and just looking, looking to pull people down, looking to find, do you know my brother, my sister, my this, and, and you're just finding that sin sin sniffer.

You could be right, but your attitude's wrong. And so my mom, God bless speaking the truth in love. She said, Shane, your family doesn't want to be around you anymore. You're too arrogant. Did I take that?

Well, no, I'm not. They're just not passionate for the truth. This is not arrogance. It's boldness. I just love the truth and they don't like to be rebuked. They are just living in sin. And that's their problem.

Mom, not my problem. Those people caught in sin. They can't take some conviction. Oh, we laugh because we know it's true. It's in this room. Leonard Ravenhill said, you have to weep before you whip. Jesus wept over Jerusalem.

Oh, Jerusalem. Oh, Jerusalem. Oh, if I could just gather you together, you're missing the day of your, your Messiah is here. I'm weeping. And then he goes and whips and dries out the money changers. Theology, whether it's preached or given to others, I believe must be underscored with love and truth and grace.

Because if not, you're just an angry person. And I tell parents, I mean, you might not agree with this. That's okay. Sometimes I'll say, listen, you've quoted enough scripture at them. You've texted enough scripture to them.

They know exactly where you stand. You've made that crystal clear. You've sent them about 30 of my sermons. They got it. It's time to love. Not enable. We don't enable, but we love. And you pray and you fast and you watch what God does, because is that the cry of a desperate mom crying out for her children?

That's a cry he'll hear. And I thought he was doing really good. And then my wife left out a journal on purpose around that time. And I read it. She said, I've, I've married a very angry or arrogant controlling man.

What the heck is wrong with these people? Right. We've been married a couple of years. I mean, I got, I've got MacArthur systematic. Well, it wasn't out then. I got Norman Geisler systematic theology, John MacArthur study Bible, the Calvinist, you know, the five points of Calvinism tool up and told her property on conditional action limited.

I got it down. I got all this theology down, man. I can quote this person and I can tell you this person. And what's the difference between Calvary chapel, fourth square, this denomination Baptist, the Anabaptist church history, man, I'm full of knowledge.

Why? What are you talking about? Woman? So I was mad. I took a drive and I was mad. And that's why some of you, you have to speak the truth of love. And I believe that's a problem with many churches today.

Paul pits in America. We don't speak the truth in love. We coddle sin and never confronted. And I took a long drive. I'll never forget. And God begins to show you if you're open, if you're open and teachable, he will show you.

But my defense attorney with within was on, on full scale alert. Do you have a defense attorney within defending you? And I came to the stark reality. And what my wife was talking about is, you know, I'm like, no, we're not going to start a makeup business.

You're not going to do this. The kids, you know, just being money using wisdom. It wasn't really controlling that sense, but no, we're not going to do this. We're going to, you know, my dad, I was very financially, you know, like a saver.

And my mom was a spender. That's a hard combination. And so that was some of it. And just being, you know, dogmatic and arrogant to the point. And, you know, as type a personalities, we got to, we need a little extra love.

Some of you type B and C, you need to put on the gas. We need to put on the brakes. Okay. You've figured out where God has you. And so that was breaking me. And then other things. And God's just breaking and breaking and breaking.

It's a lifelong process. The quicker you submit, the more wonderful it will be. Some of you need to stop fighting God tonight. You will not win. God's not saying, let's make a deal. He's saying, this is the deal.

And butts will get you in trouble every time. But you don't know my spouse, but you don't know my stress at work. I've got to get those drinks every night, but you don't know this, but, but, but, but get rid of the butts that prevents a mighty poor importing of God's spirit into your heart.

And there's another time I shared with you when I began preaching where this young 18 year old girl came up and she said, I struggle with same sex attraction and you made me, you were so angry about that.

And she's crying and I start crying. I'm like, oh my, that's not my goal. And I realized the big challenge is how do you help someone and encourage them and love them, but fight the agenda? That, that's the challenge.

That's the challenge. I love the person caught in sin. I want to help them, but I hate the agenda that is being forced down our throats. And I believe we are to stand up for that. I don't believe we are.

Silence speaks volumes. And so it's a, it's still a process. We hurt people still. Anybody hurt people? Absolutely. But that breaking process is beautiful because the more broken you become, I'm not talking about a doormat.

I'm talking about broken and sensitive and understanding and loving. The more God can move in your life. And so through those series of events, and that's why I'm, thank God I didn't pastor at a young age.

Thank God I didn't pastor when I was younger because I feel for a lot of these guys. You know, I know Mark Driscoll started at 24. I think that led to some of his problems as well with his church and what he went through because at that age, you're not prepared to lead.

Francis Chan started around 24 as well and God waited until I was 40. He needed to get me in a broken spot. And then that launched into the church. We planted the church, Westside Christian Fellowship, and then God got everything going with the radio and different things.

And that's where we find ourselves today. That's kind of my story in a nutshell, but it begins and ends with brokenness. And it has to, it's a continual walk of brokenness for the rest of your life. As soon as I, you know what?