Break up your followed ground.
The introduction, just like farmers have to prepare
the ground to bear fruit, we must prepare
our hearts to receive from God.
You see the ground, right?
That's followed ground.
The ground has been broken up.
It's ready to now receive.
And the Bible talks about, and I'm going
to read some verses about preparing our hearts.
And the reason I wanted to, this actually,
I wrote down the title of this message
and the concept months ago, wanting, just feeling
a desire to break up, because sometimes as
Christians we forget we've got to prepare our
heart to receive from God.
We can't just sit here and not receive
from God and go home with the same
attitudes, the same dispositions that we came here
with.
We have to prepare our hearts for God.
And often, I'm just throwing a blanket statement
out there, a lot of hearts are not
prepared to receive from God.
There's not a worshiping heart going on.
I often think of this, and I'll share
it with you, I'll be transparent.
If I came up here and said, you
know what, Brandt, just keep going on for
the next hour, I'm not even going to
preach.
How many people say, well that's going to
be boring.
I mean, if you're saying that's going to
be boring, there might be a worship disconnect
there.
There might be a problem that God's wanting,
how do I know?
Because that was me.
Back row, as soon as the last song,
give me a quick message and I'm out
of here.
I did that for many years.
That was my M.O., modus operandus, right?
That's how I operated.
I got enough in of God, so I'm
a good person, but I definitely am not
going to sit there and worship.
You might as well just scratch fingernails on
a chalkboard.
So just a heart check.
You've got to look at our heart because
we have to prepare the heart to receive
from God.
You get the heart ready to receive.
Imagine this for a minute, water, raining, pouring
in on that ground, it's ready to receive.
Now parallel that with the parking lot, concrete,
rain falling on that, where's that water going?
It's not receiving.
Why?
Because of the hard concrete versus the fall
of ground.
And God rains down and God brings His
word and He wants to invest and change
our hearts, but if it's concrete, you're not
going to receive it.
And I think we live in this mindset
that I heard the word, I'm at church,
so I received.
Not necessarily.
Because there's a lot of people, they'll hear
something and then they'll tune it out because
the heart's not ready.
I made a comment last night at Grace
Fest and I think a lot of people
tuned me out right then, but I felt
led to say it, talking about arrogance and
not standing for the national anthem.
That's a height of arrogance that we're seeing.
You're being paid, I'm not going to beat
up a dead horse, right?
I did that last week.
I have a history of bringing up topics
again, but I could tell the people just
tuned me out.
And that's okay because we need to hear
some of these difficult things from time to
time.
Here's what the Bible Hub said about this
expression of breaking up your fall of ground.
Do not sow your seed among thorns.
Break off all evil habits.
Clear your hearts of weeds in order that
you may be prepared for the seed of
righteousness.
Land was allowed to lie fallow that it
might become more fruitful.
But in this condition, it soon became overgrown
with thorns and weeds.
It became comfortable.
If you leave that ground like that for
a year, anyone even know what that's going
to look like in a year from now?
You're not even going to know that there's
rose in there or it's just going to
be a mess, just a field of weeds
and things have grown up.
So you have to prepare that fallow ground
is what the sermon is going to be
based on.
The cultivator of the soil was careful to
break up his fallow ground to clear the
field of weeds before sowing it.
So says the prophet, break off your evil
ways, repent of your sins and cease to
do evil.
No matter what we try to do, we
can't get away from that concept, can we?
It's everywhere.
I just, when I was preparing, I'm like
this word repentance and turning from our sins
and stop doing evil is everywhere throughout the
Bible.
And then the good seed of the word
will have room to grow and bear fruit.
Now at this point, you might be saying,
Shane, I have broken off those evil ways.
I have repented.
I'm ceasing to evil.
I'm trying to follow hard after God.
And that's good.
I'm going to try to encourage you this
morning.
But I would also want to throw out
just a word of caution that we can
turn from many visible sins, but we can
keep many sins of the heart unseen.
Did you know I can hold jealousy in
here and bitterness and resentment and animosity and
judgmentalism and you wouldn't even know.
Now, technically, you would know because it would
come out of my preaching, it would come
out in the way I treat people.
But it's not a visible sin.
It's a hidden sin of the heart.
So that's really what the putting some of
these scriptures in context, they're talking about the
heart getting the heart right, plowing up that
that that hard and stony ground.
Here's the scripture references to actually, I found
a third one for you.
Jeremiah four, three, break up your fallow ground.
Keep that in mind, break up your fallow
ground and do not sow among the thorns.
In other words, that would be a lazy
farmer, wouldn't it if it just weeds everywhere?
I don't care.
I'm going to plant my corn now.
It'll make it in there somewhere.
But that's what we do.
We want we want this fruitful harvest from
God, but there's weeds growing everywhere.
So he's calling the people back to God
saying, prepare your heart, break up your fallow
ground.
Do not sow among the thorns, circumcise yourself
to the Lord.
That just means remove everything that's not of
God and focus on the Lord and take
away the foreskins of your heart.
There's a circumcision of the heart that takes
place.
Hosea 1012, sow for yourself righteousness, reap in
mercy, break up your fallow ground.
So he's saying as you break up that
fallow ground, you're sowing into it righteousness and
you're reaping God's mercy.
For it is time to seek the Lord
till he comes and rains righteousness on you.
Anytime you're going to seek the Lord, you're
going to have to break up that fallow
ground.
A deeper seeking means a greater breaking.
If I'm going to seek and you might
say, Shane, you must seek the Lord really
good like Billy Graham.
No, just like all of you.
We're all in the same boat.
It's a different calling.
But if I wanted to seek God more
fervently, I would starve my flesh.
That's why I talk about fasting often.
I would starve that flesh.
I would get on worship.
I would disconnect Facebook for the next two
weeks.
I would not care what's going on with
ISIS and Iran and Trump and Hillary.
I would just turn all of that off
and I would seek God and I would
remove these things.
We can clap.
Just one more person can clap than that
because that's the truth.
See, we can all seek God more fervently
if we begin to remove these seeds and
these weeds actually that are penetrating, that are
preventing that.
Now, of course, there's nothing wrong with knowing
what's going on.
But I have a feeling that we're a
little bit more concerned with what's going on
here than what's going on in the heart
of God.
How do you know?
You just listen to people talk.
You just listen to Facebook.
People are inundated by what's going on.
And I love this verse.
I'd love to just do a sermon on
this.
Joshua said to the people in Joshua 3
.5, sanctify yourself.
See, God sanctifies us.
We're right before God when we put our
trust in Christ.
Now I can stand before God because of
Christ's righteousness.
It's called imputed righteousness.
His righteousness was given to me.
But this type of sanctification, sanctify yourself for
tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.
God will do wonders in the hearts of
those people who sanctify themselves.
This is a good one-liner.
God moves on a prepared people and on
a prepared heart.
God moves on a prepared people and a
prepared heart.
And I'll just share with you, you've already
heard all this before, but for some reason
God keeps bringing it up in my heart
to share with you what I shared last
night.
If my people, and really Luke came up
with a good title, if my people have
five minutes.
Because we're at a crossroads.
And a lot of those people last night,
they know it but nobody brings it to
their attention.
Everything's fine, right?
Go back to sleep.
So I said we're at a crossroads.
We are now a nation calling, we've crossed
that line.
We're calling good evil and evil good.
The prophet said woe be to that nation,
woe be to that group of people who
call evil good and good evil.
We've crossed that.
We're at a crossroads.
There's something interesting going on.
And we're looking, God help, you've got to
do something.
God you have to move somehow.
And any time, any time you'll see throughout
church history, throughout biblical history, that any time
God changes and revises and restores and break
down and renews, it's out of boldness.
It's coming from boldness.
What about the love of God?
Yes, but it's the love of God that
compels me to be bold.
That's the whole point of boldness.
The boldness of the Holy Spirit confronts sin,
doesn't run away from it.
It confronts what's going on, doesn't turn its
back.
It's a loving confrontation.
Jesus did it throughout the Bible.
Oh you cities, you did not turn Bethesda.
You did not turn when I preached to
you.
The five of the seven churches repent and
turn to me, you whitewashed tombs.
It was consistent boldness calling the people back
out of their wicked ways.
Now in this whole movement to be silent,
to not talk about that drives me crazy.
Because God gives us a hope, does he
not?
He said when I send pestilence, when I
send famine, when I send all these things,
Solomon, tell the people, if my people who
are called by my name will humble themselves
and seek my face and pray and turn
from their wicked ways.
If my people, I've got to tell you
up front, Hillary's not the answer, Trump's not
the answer.
It's not found in Washington or Hollywood.
It's not found in Lady Gaga or Katy
Perry coming to repentance.
It's if my people, God says, I just
want you, you, you, you, you, you, probably
you in the balcony.
If my people humble themselves, you see there's
a humility that takes place.
And there are a lot of pastors there
last night and Morgan said you might have
stepped on some toes.
I said that's okay.
I don't care if you have 4,000
or 40.
If you don't have humility, I don't want
to hear from you.
Pride must die in you.
Andrew Murray, Andrew Murray said pride must die
in you or nothing of heaven can live
in you.
See that's the problem and we don't even
know it.
I'm a good spotter of prideful people.
Why?
Because I look in the mirror often.
But we forget this pride has to die
in you.
I don't care if you've been a Christian
all of your life.
If you're proud and arrogant, come to the
foot of the cross and repent.
If my people, that's the first step that
we miss.
We're prideful, we're arrogant, we're judgmental and then
we come to, but I pray and I
seek his face and I've turned from my
wicked ways.
Well wonderful for you, you've missed the first
step of humbly acknowledge.
See it's very hard to say I was
wrong.
That's why we come up with excuses.
Even husbands and wives fighting.
Excuses, excuses, excuses, excuses.
But it's very hard to say I was
wrong.
So God says if my people, I'm assuming
not everybody in here is perfect, that we
come to God and we say God, I'm
a prideful man, I'm a prideful woman, I
need you.
That's the first step.
And then if you pray, if you pray,
this is not a quick little prayer.
This isn't me coming up and just saying
something.
This isn't driving home saying God bless our
day and bless this food.
This is a whole life of prioritizing prayer.
Prayer becomes the priority, not the afterthought.
When was the last time, let's be honest
but don't raise your hand, when was the
last time you prayed for over 30 minutes
and actually maybe shed some tears over the
condition of our nation?
You don't have to tell me because I
know it's not many.
And this is the most disheartening part about
this topic of prayer for me is I
talk to parents all the time, prayed for
some last night for their prodigal son and
they don't know the Lord and they won't
even spend 30 minutes praying.
They won't fast, I've got to work, I've
got a schedule.
Folks, prayer removes the hand of God.
This is how you do warfare.
You're not going to send them little Facebook
tweets and little scriptures all the time to
convince them.
You need to grab down heaven and pull
it down and say God save that child.
I'm removing everything until I pray, until I
fast, until I seek you.
If my people humble themselves and pray and
seek my face, not my hand, not what
I, how many of us are seeking his
hand?
Finances, retirement, Lord open, just seek my face.
You parents, you know, how bad would you
feel if you knew the only reason the
kids loved you is because of what you're
giving them.
That would break my heart, I don't know
about you.
And the seeking, you all know but I
explained it last night, it's like if they
lost their child at Grace Fest and who's
going to say, I'll find him at 10
o'clock when this is over, when things
calm down.
They would stop everything, they would go, that's
what our life, that's just seeking God, we
don't get this concept.
When you truly seek God, nothing else matters,
yes I'll go to work, yes I'll do
this, I've got responsibilities, but the primary purpose
of my life is to seek God.
See, here's the interesting thing, we're on the
topic of Saturday service, Sunday service, if you
want to seek God, you'll move everything around
your schedule to fit church and to fit
God.
I'm tired of God taking a back seat,
oh no, no, no, let me get started,
I'm just getting started.
I'm tired of God, I didn't even shave
today, I'm that upset, or passionate I should
say, right?
But I'm so tired of hearing God get
the back seat, if I can fit him
in with soccer and baseball and this silly
potluck and this birthday thing and this and
this and this, then I might squeeze him
in and if the church can offer services
every night so it's more convenient, so I
can just fit him in whenever.
See, the old saints used to say, God
is my priority and everything else will fit
in when he's the priority, then you're seeking,
that's seeking God.
If you want a user friendly message, I
can list about ten churches and they're closer,
but it's time, I don't know, I came
with a mission to get the church seeking
God, and first he's got to do this
work in my heart before I can bring
it to you.
And then of course, what's the last point,
the one we just, actually let me just
act like I forgot it and move on.
Where was I?
If my people humble themselves, pray, seek my
face, and turn from their wicked way.
Wickedness is anything that we talked about before,
anything that opposes God.
So if there are things in our lives,
I could read statistics on what pornography is
in the church now, that it would alarm
you, or maybe it wouldn't.
Or all these other sins of the heart,
just turn, you've got these idolatry and idols,
anything you place before God is an idol.
God says you've got to remove these things
from your life.
If you humble, pray, seek, and turn from
these things you know to be wrong, then
I'll hear from heaven, and I will forgive
your sins.
The Bible says, is not my hand short
that I cannot save, or my ear heavy
that I cannot hear, but your sins, your
iniquities have separated you from me.
Now that might not apply to everybody, I
realize that, I realize there's some strong saints
of God in here, but you've got a
pride issue.
You've conquered besetting sins, but you've got a
pride issue.
You've got pride of the heart, and I
can name many people, and I can name
myself.
Those of us who have learned to conquer
some things, forget, forget that pride is the
worst of all sins.
We'll look down on the drug addict who
can't give up heroin, but we don't confess
and repent of our prideful, angry, judgmental hearts.
Think about it, how prideful have we been
judging, even judging this church, judging ourselves about
this, or about that, or about, we're so
prideful and arrogant.
I don't know, I'll call it, what's old
saying, it's better to ask for forgiveness than
a permission.
But I'm going to open up for just
a minute here.
There are times where I feel God moving
at this service.
For example, now I don't know what comes
over me.
Twenty years ago I would have been scared
to death to even walk up here, and
I feel the worship is powerful.
Yeah, maybe a little too loud.
Maybe it's not the songs we all want,
and I feel a powerful service.
Me and my wife are sometimes brought to
tears.
We love it.
We can't get enough, and then I start
to hear this, the little complaining, and it
breaks, it's like, were we not at the
same service?
What am I missing?
God's moving powerfully.
Sure, we're sinners.
We don't do everything perfectly, but there's so
much complaining about the little things, and no
wonder we're not experiencing revival.
You think God's going to bring revival on
those types of hearts?
So we're so excited, we're built up, and
then we hear all the little grumbling and
complaining.
It's like, my God, help us.
And we need to hear what I'm saying
right now, so we stop it.
That's the whole point of conviction and boldness,
is to say, stop this little stuff, and
start focusing on what God is doing.
Who in their right mind would see this
and complain about what God is doing unless
their heart is hard?
And confession, I've been going through valleys of
this often.
We all do.
That's why it says, humble yourself.
Humble yourself.
And maybe that's, forget the whole rest of
the message, but this, we have to look
at our hard hearts.
How can we experience a powerful worship service
and leave here complaining and bickering?
I can't believe they're stopping Saturday.
I can't believe it's that far.
I can't believe they did this or this
or that or that.
It's like, folks, why even have church if
our heart's not changing?
Yeah, it's difficult to hear, but we need
to hear it.
Because we won't change, will we, until we
hear it.
Listen, I've counseled enough marriage couples to know,
unless the spouse says, unless you change, I'm
leaving, the person doesn't change often.
They think everything's fine until they're confronted.
Same thing happens when we look at the
Word of God, that it confronts us.
So back to this topic of preparing the
hearts.
To make something ready for use, doctors are
prepared, teachers are prepared, and parents try to
be prepared.
I know there's a lot of kids in
the service this morning, some kids, but keep
this in mind.
What you don't like in your parents and
what you don't like them doing, they're actually
preparing you for life.
If they didn't care, they just let you
do whatever, then they don't love you.
The reason they love you is because they're
preparing you.
They're getting you ready for life.
And Christians need to prepare, breaking, sowing, sanctifying.
This is interesting.
I actually emailed a friend of mine who's
a farmer in Washington on follow ground.
He said this, we rely on follow ground
for the land to rest and save moisture
for an entire year.
It takes 14 inches of water to grow
a crop, and follow ground, this, allows us
to save that.
But then it must be tilled and prepared
for the subsequent crop.
It is usually hard and dry.
See, this is interesting.
The land that was once useful and ready,
after a year, it's now hard and it's
dry.
And I'm wondering, how many of us have
become hard and dry?
Listen, the only reason I'm saying this is
not to, well, maybe a little bit.
I want to say a little bit.
But the point isn't to say, yeah, and
beat you up.
The point is to say, yeah, I've become
hard and dry.
God calls us from Genesis to Revelation to
examine our heart.
Has your heart become hard and cold and
callous?
It's very healthy.
Paul says, examine yourself.
Do you not know yourself?
Is Jesus Christ in you?
Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God.
In due time, he will exalt you.
You exalt yourself and he will abase you.
It's all over Scripture.
So let me ask that question.
Have you become hard and dry and callous?
Repent of it this morning.
And he said, then there's moisture about four
inches down.
The tillage breaks up the soil, the fallow
ground, and allows for the seed to be
planted again and brings up the moisture.
That's what I love about God.
The seeds that were planted years ago, if
you become hard and cold and callous, plow
up that hard ground and God can plant
the new seed again and you'll thrive.
There's nothing better than a saint repenting.
But a saint of God, there's a wonderful
thing that happens when we repent and get
our lives back on track with God.
That hardness is softened up and God begins
to plant that seed again.
If we want a deeper relationship with God,
if we want to receive from God, if
we want to grow, we must prepare the
soil.
If we learn anything from the Old Testament,
if I've learned anything at all from reading
Old Testament over and over again, it's this.
Fallow ground that is not broken up leads
to disappointment and delay by God.
God delayed certain things because of that.
I just right now, I'm in that wonderful
account, you know, children of Israel, God says,
here's the land, here's the land.
This is amazing.
I stopped, I put down my Bible and
said, this is unbelievable.
Now, I'm not too critical because that could
have been me.
I might have done the same thing.
But God says, here's your land.
I brought you to it.
It's been 10, 12 days, 15 days, I
don't know exactly.
Here's your land.
Go in and possess it.
The spies come back.
We can't do that.
A God that just parted the Red Sea,
a God that's just been providing for them.
They've seen all these miracles.
God says, here's your land.
They said, no, we can't do it.
We're not able to take this land.
Caleb, Joshua, we are well able to take
this land if God is with us.
And their hearts need to be broken up.
But what happened?
No, no, grumbling, complaining.
So God says, okay, this whole generation is
going to wander the next 40 years until
you're all dead.
And then I'm bringing your children into the
promised land.
This is still applicable today, that certain things
are delayed when the ground is not, if
a ground's not ready, he's not going to
plant, the harvest is not going to come
if the ground is not ready.
The ground has to be positioned to receive.
This is interesting too.
The ground does not, the ground, the ground
doesn't do anything on its own.
It merely submits to the hand of the
farmer.
The farmer will till it.
The farmer will get it ready.
The farmer will remove the wheat.
Same thing to us.
We have to submit to the hand of
the Father.
Lord, I'm submitting to you, tear up this
ground and position me.
So a few points and I'll be out
of your way.
I'm sure some of you are happy and
some of you are not.
But a couple of points, I don't know
why I said that, I just did.
You have to remember, I don't say everything
perfectly for an hour.
It's tough.
You try it.
Okay, here's what we need to do.
What are you sowing?
Let's look at what we're sowing.
Like the farmer said, the moisture received during
the fallow period is stored for future use.
So the ground is like this and it
rains and rains and they store 14 inches
for a crop.
So the concept what God is saying is,
what are you sowing?
What are you putting into that fallow ground?
Galatians 6-7, do not be deceived, God
is not mocked, for whatever a man sows,
he will reap.
Here's the deceptiveness of sin.
Even little kids, you can hear this too.
You can hear everything, but this is more
specifically.
The deceitfulness and the deceptiveness of sin is
that you will reap a very fruitful harvest.
Here's what sin says, you can plant terrible
things, weeds, all these things, you can continue
in your sin, don't worry, you're going to
reap a bountiful harvest.
See, you don't see anything yet.
You're like, oh look at that little green
thing, that is going to be corn, we're
going to receive so much corn.
See, God doesn't, this sin I'm doing, all
this stuff I'm doing, it doesn't matter, I'm
still going to get a harvest.
And as that little green thing grows, you're
like, oh my Lord, I have a field
full of tare.
I have a field full of weeds.
What happened?
Because what you sow, you also reap.
See, we don't commit a sin all the
time and then the consequences are right then.
It's like touching a fire.
We don't receive, it's like a couple of
days, couple of weeks, maybe a couple of
months.
I know pastors where God has given them
years, years, to repent of certain things.
But the deceitfulness, sin says, come on in,
it's not that bad.
And then you realize that what you're now
reaping is what you sowed months and months
ago.
And many people go, oh my goodness, Shane,
guess what?
God can pull up all of that.
He can till that soil, He can remove
those weeds, and He can bring back the
fruitful harvest if you, what's the whole message
of the sermon?
If you break up your follow ground.
That's the wonderful thing that God will do
that.
But be careful because sin never shows you
the end result.
He'll say, look at the flirtatious, the flirtatious
atmosphere at work.
And oh, this person loves me, they respect
me, they understand me.
And your heart starts to see, oh, this
is nothing wrong with this.
They're building me up, they're encouraging me.
And then three months later, you're at a
hotel.
And your marriage is gone.
What happened?
The deceitfulness of sin, it always works that
way.
Ask any alcoholic, it started with the first
drink.
Ask any, somebody addicted to painkillers, it started
with the first surgery.
See, it just, the sin paints this picture.
And that's what the enemy does.
He waits, he waits until an opportune time
to drop the hammer and tries to destroy
us.
So that's why God says, remove it now,
remove it now.
That's what confession, that's why confession is so
important.
Don't go around hiding and hoping, and people
think a certain way of me.
Yeah, we already know.
We're all sinners.
So bring that to the light.
Once you bring sin to the light, it
dies.
And you say, I'm struggling with this, I
need help.
You bring it to the light.
So be careful, because when you sow sin
consistently, you will eventually reap that harvest.
That's the deceptiveness about it.
Number two, we have to prepare to receive.
You have to get your heart like this
to receive.
What does that mean?
It means digging up, stirring and removing.
Ezra 10, 710, for Ezra had prepared his
heart to seek the Lord.
There's a preparing that has to take place,
which we've been talking about the last 20
minutes.
It's interesting, the farmer I talked to said
you have to remove the weeds and you
have to remove the rocks.
Why?
The weeds are the things that compete for
the nourishment of the ground.
I didn't realize that it's not just weeds
growing by the wheat, it's the weeds actually
pulled out water and that nutrients from the
ground that the corn should be getting.
So what is pulling from us?
What is the things that should be directing
us towards God?
That spiritual nourishment, what is pulling?
And that's why I make fun of Facebook
a lot, but it's true.
Or the media, is it not?
Is really, is the majority of the media
really pulling us up and building us up
spiritually?
Let's just be completely honest.
I don't even answer, I know it's not.
It's not.
The prince of this world who has the
airways, right?
The majority of the time what we're focusing
on is not building up spiritually.
So ask yourself, is this building me up
spiritually?
Or is it pulling me down?
So you have to remove those things that
are competing for God's attention.
And it'll start with your time and your
calendar.
Look at your calendar and look at your
clock.
How do you spend your time, your money,
your calendar?
That will show you what is competing for
your time.
Number eight, out front or rain on the
soil, what's going to be received?
The difference between those who leave here receiving
from God and those who don't are the
difference between concrete and this type of ground
when it rains.
The heart's not ready, the heart's not going
to receive.
I mean, think about this.
God is raining down daily.
He's raining down righteousness daily.
How many people, how many people, they're not
prepared?
God's saying, I'm raining down righteousness.
Guess what's happening today?
NFL.
Guess what?
I'm too busy.
I have to go to Home Depot.
I'm too busy.
And God's raining down righteousness.
He wants to bring that water on that
soil, but we're not preparing our hearts to
receive.
It's very important.
And I like the fourth point.
Seek until he comes, for it is time
to seek the Lord until he comes and
rains righteousness on you.
We just read that earlier.
It's a season.
Many people get frustrated because it's not happening
right now.
Well, this is not, they invented the microwave
for food, not for spiritual things.
God, I've learned, and this is a challenge
for me.
Type A personality wants answers now, wants to
get things done.
God's not in my time frame.
He's not on my clock.
So you've got it.
God, no matter what happens, I'm going to
seek you until you come.
I don't feel like praying, so I'm going
to pray.
I don't feel like reading your word, so
I'm going to read your word.
I don't see the difference right now.
God, I'm still struggling, so I'm just going
to go back to that lifestyle.
God says, don't go back to that lifestyle.
I'm working in the spiritual realm.
I'm pulling down strongholds.
I'm preparing your heart.
I'm showing you to trust me in the
midst of the storm, in the midst of
the battle.
Will you still hold on to the anchor
when the sea billows roll?
I think there's a song about that.
Right?
Will you still trust me when that happens?
I mean, this is a good reminder.
The guy who wrote that song, Horatio Spafford,
something like that, lost his daughters at sea.
Their boat hit something and collided, and all
of his daughters were drowned in the ocean.
We have problems?
All of them.
And he went over that same spot where
his daughters were, and he wrote that famous
hymn.
It is well with my soul.
I mean, that would have set most people
off the deep end.
There's no God.
I hate God.
There's no God now.
He says, seek me no matter what.
Seek me no matter what.
And that's what we have to do.
If you want righteousness to be poured down,
if you want, I still have an anger
problem.
I still have a hard heart.
I still, God says, still seek me.
I'm breaking through.
Do you break down a wall one brick
at a time, right?
Same things.
Many times, don't be discouraged.
Be encouraged.
Many strongholds don't just fall down.
We come, we pray, God, I need brokenness.
I need you to break this completely out.
And he doesn't.
Sometimes it's one brick at a time.
And that's why this point is so important.
Seek him until he comes.
We'll wait months for a home to close
escrow, years for a dream vacation, and a
lifetime for retirement, but we're too busy to
seek God.
And the fifth point where we're close is
reap in mercy.
The Bible says that if you do these
things, you will reap in mercy.
It's interesting.
God's mercy is available right now.
If you don't know him, his mercy, his
grace is available right now.
But the only way to reap that mercy
is to prepare the heart.
That's why the Bible says if you confess
that Christ is Lord, if you repent, if
you turn of your wicked ways, acknowledge your
dependency on God and say, God, I need
you.
You just prepared the heart to receive the
mercy and the grace of God.
And I want to clarify those two things.
Mercy is compassion shown to somebody who it's
within their punishment or it's within their power
to punish you.
It's almost like a sheriff seeing somebody get,
you're getting pulled over and you're going to
jail for a while.
He says, no, you need to get to
church.
I'm free and unmerited favor of God.
So see when he saves us, I didn't
deserve it.
I deserve hell.
As bad as I, as hard as I
try, I'm still, there's wickedness in there, especially
when we're unconverted, right?
There's just tremendous.
And we deserve, we don't deserve God, but
in his mercy, he saves us.
And then it's because of his grace, unmerited
favor, the blessings of God are poured out
on us like, so when we sing that
song, how deep the father's love for us,
how vast beyond all measure that he should
give his only son to make a wretch
his treasure.
What wonderful, who could write that but under
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to write
a song like that.
That is so true.
People say, we were saying that song last
week.
Well, I don't care if we sang it
yesterday.
My goodness, my goodness, we are spoiled as
spoiled gets.
I mean, I shouldn't talk.
I mean, I shouldn't, maybe I can't relate,
but I hit rewind on my YouTube and
rewind and rewind and rewind.
I need 20, 30 minutes before my heart
begins to fill and penetrate the penetrating power
of God.
How deep the father's love for us, a
God that created all of universe is beyond
measure that he should give his only son
to make a wretch his treasure.
Do you understand what happened on that cross?
He gave his only son to be beat
by the creation that he created because of
me and he turned this wretch that should
be dead and buried in Lancaster.
Most of you too, so don't get all
uppity on me.
We should be dead and he saved us.
He made a wretch his treasure, a treasure
that we can stand before God.
My goodness, I don't know why people have
a problem with worship.
It doesn't make any sense to me.
They can go home and who's playing later
today?
I have no clue.
They can get all excited, paint their face
and grab a 12 pack of Budweiser and
sit down and get all excited.
But when it comes to God saving a
wretch like me, we somehow forget what happened.
That's why Jesus says, remember and return, remember
and return, remember and return.
That's the whole point of preaching many times
is soul wrenching, heart hurting, gut wrenching truth.
And then we leave here.
We should leave here encouraged saying, God, you
saved me.
I am so encouraged.
I'm going to live my life different.
I'm going to seek you.
I'm going to break up the fall of
ground.
It's time to seek the Lord.
But if you leave here still grumbling and
complaining and hard hearted, there's some serious things
going on in your heart because it's not
penetrating.
That rain is hitting concrete.
And I just came with a 60 pound
jackhammer and it's time to break up that
fall of ground.
You give me an air compressor and a
80 pound jackhammer and we can break up
some concrete.
Better yet, I'll just get a backhoe with
the big digging bar on the back of
it and do some serious damage.
That's what God's word does.
But if something's not allowing that, what's going
on?
What's it going to take?
I mean, I can't preach much more passionately
than that.
God's spirit can't be much more passionately than
that.
I go to churches and I hear worship.
You guys don't know what you have here.
The worship is powerful.
It's heart searching.
The message, the time of prayer, the leadership
you have here.
This is God moving what is going on.
The reason is breaking up your fall of
ground.
You might say, Shane, you sure gave us
a spanking today.
Well, we all need one.
See, here's what happens.
Here's what people don't realize.
He spanks me first.
I'm going to humble you.
I'm going to break you.
What he does in my heart, I'm just
trying to get it in your heart.
And all of us together.
This sermon applies to all of us.
You don't think I have fall of ground?
I mean, the media, all these things people
are posting.
It just draws us away from God.
And critical hearts, negative hearts, all these things
are stopping God.
And I feel, and maybe I'll share this
with you in more detail, but I feel
that God is going to pack this place.
Whether it's two services, whatever it is.
There's a church in Washington.
John Corson is the pastor in Applegate.
People drive 20 minutes and they have 2
,500 people.
Now, I'm not saying it because we're caught
up in numbers or I'm caught up in
numbers.
I'm happy with whatever God wants to do.
But when you can get that many people
to come out of their way and worship
God, that's called commitment.
You have people on fire for God, wanting
to hear from God.
I see times where I, throw that clock
in the trash.
Who cares?
People are worshiping God in the places, erupting
with the praises to the Father.
The kids ministry is flourishing.
Kids are coming to the Lord.
Things are happening where God is moving.
Can anybody get healed?
I mean, what happened?
I read Acts and I'm like, what is
going on?
Why can't we get healed of certain things?
And why can't we be set free?
Why?
Sometimes you have, not because you ask not,
but often it's because the fall of ground
is not broken up and we can't receive
from God.