Encountering God's Process

Waiting room was because he did not give Dr. Tony Evans says would often rather cling to our illusion of self-sufficiency learned a hard lesson of how much we need the Lord because this is the only way you get to experience God. This is the alternative with Dr. Tony Monger speaker, pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas Texas and president of the urban alternative. Ultimately we all surrender to God. The question is whether or not we do it willingly today. Dr. Evans will talk about what happens when our only path toward obedience is brokenness. Let's join him see has to be broken before plant comes from it.

What I must break before baby emerges a stallion must be broken before the rider can control it. The seal of cologne or perfume must be cracked before the smell and the aroma emerges. The shell of a peanut must be opened before the enjoyment of the nut can be experienced in other words, to get to the core of a thing to get to the benefit of the thing, a breaking must occur. As long as it stays unbroken what it is designed to produce does not emerge in order for you to have a divine encounter. You must be broken without brokenness. The experience of God where you see with your own or sway you his reality becomes alive for you will escape you the reason a lot of us are still waiting on our breakthrough is because we've not yet been broken. We have not yet been to the place where God has been free to express himself to us for us and through us because we remain unbroken Psalm 138 verse six says that God keeps his distance from people who are not broken. So the reason why many Christians have a long distance relationship with God rather than an up close experience of God is. They insist on not being broken. Brokenness is a criteria of experience, other than that God remains a theology and idea, a concept without being a dynamic reality. What do I mean by being broken to be broken spiritually means to be stripped of self-sufficiency.

It means God has ripped you of your independence. It means you and I we have come to the place where we have discovered Jesus's statement without me you can do nothing as long as you are independent and self-sufficient. You remain unbroken and as long as you remain unbroken you remain unchanged and as long as you remain unbroken. Thus, remaining unchanged.your expert variance with God escapes you and so I want to talk to you today about the process of brokenness to encounter God's process of him stripping you of self-sufficiency so that you can experience a new level of his reality in your life and mine correct a misunderstanding, probably every Christian has quoted it or has had quoted to them and unfortunately it is an incorrect quote to give you the quote. God will not put Laurel in you, you can bear. That sounds good.

It makes you feel good is just not true.

There is an occasion in which God will put more on you than you can bear.

And the occasion in which God puts more on you than you can bear is when he wants to break Paul says in second Corinthians chapter 1, we were undergoing a great deal of affliction and it was so overwhelming.

We gave up on life. He says we wanted to throw in the town we wanted to quit. Was so over well me we could take it any more, but merely describes why God did it and he says God allowed us to go through this affliction, so that we might experience him who raises the dead. So sometimes God will put you in a death grip where you are so overwhelmed with the pain with the problem with the trial with the trouble with the temptation and you are so overwhelmed that you don't feel like you can make it another day when God puts you in that situation he's trying to break you because he plans on remaking brokenness is when God intervenes in your life through a negative set of circumstances to attack a flaw in your personality. There is a flaw in your humanity. That desperately needs to be addressed and he recognizes that at the core of it is independence and self-sufficiency and to strip you and me of it. He begins a process of breaking us you ever been broken down by a situation or by a circumstance would be best to how this works and they will see it work in the life of a man in Scripture. You have three parts to you, a body, a soul in the spirit. First Thessalonians 523.

You are made up of spirit, soul and body.

Your body allows you to function in the physical world through your five senses through the five senses. You are able to relate to the world around you. Your soul enables you to relate to yourself, your soul is your personhood. The reason why you know your you and that you're here is because you possess a soul which is the life principle that allows the body to operate, so your body allows you to function in the world also allows you to function with you. Your spirit allows you to function with God. So your spirit is God your soul as you and your body is the world around you. Everyone was born into the world is born into the world with a scarred soul sent has scarred our soul reporting since shaping iniquity. We are born flawed now that shows itself at different levels for different strokes for different folks. But there is a scarring of the soul.

Some of that was transferred from your mother and your father and that's where we find ourselves doing a lot of things our parents did, because we pick up some of the scarring from them just pick up and looks.

You pick up the scars and then the scarring is increased by things that happen to us by circumstances that overwhelm us by wrong done to us by wrong done by us. All of this adds to the scarring of the soul that scarring of the soul breeds independence from God. When a person accepts Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit invades their human spirit giving them the ability to now receive spiritual data when the Holy Spirit is the human spirit the human spirit, which is now infused by the Holy Spirit invades the soul to transform it and get rid of the scars he wants to strip away the scars of the soul which causes us to do all the wrong things we do with our bodies so we do wrong with our bodies we got scars on our soul that the spirit wants to heal so that we function in a way that brings God's glory and brings us good.

This transformation is from the inside out, and it is designed to bring a change in the life and in the character but to heal the soul.

God must break throw it. He must penetrated.

He must invade it, he must interpret in order to dominate our souls naturally resist that invasion our souls do not want to be invaded by this divine interruption and so the invasion is resisted in order to not resist the invasion. God must deepen the breaking. So, the longer it takes you to break the more resistant you are to breaking only means that God will up the ante of what is needed to strip you down because God can't give you God as long as you are self-sufficient and so he must break us, but he's breaking us to remake us. Dr. Evans will illustrate how the process works when he returns in just a moment for so I want to let you know about her brand-new book is written called kingdom encounters is a collection of stories about biblical characters who found God of the times they least expected, usually in the middle of conflict and trials you discover why sometimes when God feels farthest away your right where you need to be to have your life changed. We want you to experience kingdom encounters of your own. That's why we're offering a copy of this brand-new book as a thank you gift when you make a contribution to help us keep Tony's teaching on the station where 100% listener supported ministry so there's no way we can do that without your help, along with the book will also include CDs and instant digital downloads of all eight full-length messages in Tony's current series divine encounters. This special offer will only be available for a few more days, so make it a point to visit Tony Evans.org right away to get the details and make the arrangements or reach out to our resource Center at 1-800-800-3222 were friendly team members are ready to assist you with your resource request 24 seven that's 1-800-800-3222 four. Dr. Evans will come back with more of today's lesson right after this year. Like most Christians, there are going your life. Who knows, you may not know Jesus do something about that feeling equipment to share your faith effectively. In other words, meaning if you knew more you can do more. That's where the Tony Evans training center comes in. It's an online Bible's with classes that will take you deep into the most important important concepts of things start with our free introductory course on the things listen to move on the subjects like spiritual warfare, marriage, building maturing in the faith, and many more. Content is challenging through it at your own pace. Anytime your online is also lots of custom content from Tony and an online forum where you can get your specific questions answered no to Tony Evans.org and follow the link to the Tony Evans training center. It's like having a seminary on your smart phone Genesis chapter 32 we have breaking occurring in the life of the patriarch Jacob. Jacob has a name and is named Lee trickster's name means he'll grabber. His name means some plantar. His name means deceiver Jacobs name fits his character in the Bible names matter. We name people because we like the name in the Bible names were given to explain the character Jacob was a board deceiver from the time he left his mother's womb.

He grabbed his brother, his twin brother Esau's heel. He'll grabber he tricked his brother out of his birthright to join forces with his mother to deceive his brother and to steal his birthright for a bowl of porridge began a new style of deception using a borderline leave as far back as you been looking they been lying. They just can't help it is just just lie in just feels like the truth so Jacobs name is trickster deceiver supplanted.

He'll grabber he will do whatever it takes to get over on you and that was his lifestyle that was his habit was a one time thing is how this man rolled. That was his name. He comes to a crisis in chapter 32 the crisis is that it looked like his brother has gotten tired of him killing in chapter 32 verse six it says the message is returned to Jacob saying we came from your brother Esau, and furthermore he is coming to meet you and 400 men with him. Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed.

And he divided the people. It says in the two camps to try to make sure they didn't kill everybody but he scared. Please clarify. Because his trickery has finally caught up with knives brothers, with 400 men it says in verse nine.

The next thing he did was say all God and that what you do when you get scared enough, all God.

Lord have mercy.

Oh God my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac will who said to me return to your company into your relatives and I will prosper you and worthy of all the stuff you done for me. Verse 10 and then he makes his request. In verse 11. Deliberately, I pray from the hand of my brother from the head of Esau for fear him that he will call me in the mother's with the children. I am scared to death. My life is on the line now and is awful. I been doing this stuff all these years is the way I've been learning to live my life and now this stuff is finally called off on me and I don't think I can make.

He's in a situation he can fix the problem you can't solve the reason why God is getting ready to break when God put you in some you can change when you largely been a certain situation that the doctors can fix the context can't fix the medicine can't fix the money can fix the relationship can fictional skill set can fix your education can't fix when he put Cheryl up against that wall have begun the process of breaking his back is against the wall. He's cried out to God.

He's desperate. Esau's common 400 men strong that he. Verse 34 then Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. Jacob was alone. He's alone because nobody knows and nothing he knows can help you. He's by himself. You have a bit of a situation where you are all alone though you you may have folk around you, but you might as well been by yourself. Nothing around you could make a difference. He's got a problem with brothers after him, he prays to God aptly prays to God, things get worse. Somebody shows up at an wrestled him so he already scared and alone and attacked a scary situation and he wrestled him tell daybreak. You know God is trying to break you when you're going from one negative toward the negative. And you got the fight just to stay afloat.

It says wrestled him please put in a struggle and a scary situation until daybreak. Jacob refuses to submit and cry uncle Jacob said you not go get me you not obeyed me. I am going to fight you to the bath, he refuses to submit to the stranger saw the stranger takes his finger and touching his socket and dislocate now socket is your core issue: when he saw that Jacob was not about to give up. He just couldn't look at the point of his strength. He disconnected them out of the point of the major thing that is depending once in order to keep writing. In other words, to be broken down say when God is trying to break you. He'll make it bad.

But if you're not responding, he'll make it worse. He'll take even lower and lower and lower until you get the message. So now he's wrestling without a straight he's wrestling without his outlook is roughly with his cool. Now I think about it. The stranger only needed a finger to touch his hip socket and dislocate it is years that the stranger is not trying to get the stranger wanted to kill him. He could touch his and the fight would have been over. I know you feel like you Diane when God is trying to break Scripture down, but if he really wanted to kick it would take that long to protect you in a different spot, and you wouldn't be here anymore. Now he's trying to remove your strength. He's trying to move your call.

The thing that you are tattling on to be able to deliver you and so he breaks it down breaks it down because brokenness is the only way you get to experience God if you can identify with the experience of being broken ready for God to start putting it back together again process can start for you today. A lot of people think it's a matter of going to church every Sunday.

Trying to be good but the Bible tells a very different story.

That forgiveness and eternal life only come through a relationship with Jesus and complete trust in his sacrifice on the cross will 20 is a short video that explains it all.

Visit Tony Evans.org and follow the Jesus link to see it and I hope you do that today and when you do, don't forget to take advantage of the special resource package I mentioned earlier today, all eight lessons in Tony's current series divine encounters. Plus his brand-new book kingdom encounters which digs even deeper into how you can have a real life experience with the Lord. Even when he feels far away. This double resource bundle is our gift to you. When you make a contribution to help us keep this listener supported program here on this station at around the world. Just visit Tony Evans.org today to get the details and make the arrangements.

Again, that's Tony Evans.org or call our 24 hour resource Center at 1-800-800-3222 where team members are ready to assist with your resource request, day or night. That's 1-800-800-3222 when our circumstances turns sour. We can't wait for them to change.

That's only natural. Tomorrow Dr. Evans will talk about an unnatural way to think of a crisis, and the benefits it brings to your relationship with the Lord. I hope will be with us, the alternative with Dr. Tony have is advising her of an alternative is made possible by the generous contributions of listeners like