Brokenness: The Plan - Part 2

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Tuesday, April 30th. No one likes pain, but God often uses hardship to do His greatest work in our lives. Here's part two of Brokenness, The Plan. Every single one of us came into this world with a bent, not toward God, but away from God. And so we have to learn obedience.

We came into the world with a desire to have our own way when we wanted it, how we wanted it. This is why baby cries, and they cry till you do something about it. Their life is totally self-centered when they come into this world. That's how they sort of exist.

The problem is, too many of us never get over being a baby. We just want our way all of our life. And what I want you to see is this, God is after something. And so here we are, body, soul, and spirit, so that a person who is an unbeliever is really only two-thirds alive.

Because their spirit is dead to the things of God. When the Holy Spirit comes into our life in salvation, we are now able to relate to God. We can have an intimate relationship with Him.

Then we begin to talk to Him and understand what He's saying to us. Then we are a whole person, body, soul, and spirit. So with our body, we relate to the world, our environment. With our soul, we relate to ourselves, our personality, our being. And we relate to other people. We think, we love, we hate, whatever it might be. Body, soul, and spirit. With our spirit, we relate to God. Now, let's say that you've trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. You say, well, if God has my body, soul, and spirit, then isn't that all of it?

No. Because you see, you and I come into this world, He said, dead in our trespasses and sins. And so we are ruled by what? Here's what we are ruled by. We're ruled by the decisions we make, our soulish decisions. Remember, our soul is body, soul, mind, will, emotion, conscience, consciousness. So that's our decision making.

That's you. That's the inside of this body. Now, either we will allow the Holy Spirit, who is within our spirit, to control our soul, the way we think, the way we feel, our emotions, the things we desire. And therefore, our body will respond the same way. And so our body will be a temple of the Holy Spirit used of God. Or we can decide to muff the spirit, that is, quench the spirit, dampen the spirit, suppress the spirit, and repress the spirit, and decide that whatever our body, our sensuality, whatever we want in life, that's what's going to control us.

And this is exactly where most people live. And tragically, this is where too many Christians live. They live in their soulishness, not control by the Holy Spirit. The Bible says the Spirit of God comes into our life when a person is spirit-filled and they're living a spirit-filled life. It means the Holy Spirit is now in control, sitting upon the throne of their will, of their emotions, their consciousness, sitting upon the throne of their heart, and that the soulishness of man and the body of man is responding to the dictates of the Spirit of God who is within him. Now, we'd like to say that once you're saved and trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, that's the way it is the rest of your life.

But that's not true. What is it that God's after? What's he breaking? What's the objective of all of this? And here it is, and if you get this, it'll save you a lot of heartache.

But it won't save you any heartache unless you're willing to abide by it. I want you to think about your life for a moment. What is it that God is after?

Listen, he's after your old self-life. Because every single one of us has carnality within us. That is naturalness. That which we came into the world with when we were born, we still got it. And there are people who'd like to believe that you're totally and absolutely obliterated of all of that, but you know what? I love the Lord.

I want to be obedient to God and walk in his way. Do I get tempted? Yes.

Do I falter sometimes? Yes. Do I have wrong thoughts sometimes? Yes. Do I love every single person I see?

No. You know what? I'm human. And you know what? You don't have to smile because I know you have the same thing I have. We all have it.

And you know what? Praying about it does not get rid of it. What is it that God's after? He's after this self-life. Because, you see, the Spirit of God cannot rule in our life as long as self is there.

So I want you to think about it, and I want you to jot these words down because we all have to deal with them. Self-life, how does it express itself? Self-advancement. That is, I want to get ahead at your expense or your expense. I want to get ahead no matter what.

I want to be first. I want to be known. Self-advancement. That's one of the things that He's after. Secondly, there's self-centeredness.

That is, my idea is that the world revolves around me, a person who's self-centered, the world revolves around them. What do I want? What pleases me? What brings me pleasure? What satisfies me?

What do I like to indulge in? Now remember this, no self-centered person can love anybody. No, you can't. You may have affection for them. There may be moments when you think they're the greatest person in the world, but you know what? You can't love yourself to that degree of being totally self-centered and love the Lord Jesus Christ or anybody else.

So part of what He's dealing with is self-advancement. Listen, self-centeredness, self-dependency. That is, I can handle it.

I don't need anybody to help me. I can take care of it. Depending upon yourself, not upon God. Likewise, self-righteousness. Don't tell me I have to go to church. Don't tell me I have to be baptized.

Don't tell me do any of those things. I'm a good person and I like the way I live and so what happens? Self-righteousness. And what that means is you don't need God's forgiveness.

You don't need God's cleansing. A person who's self-righteous feels and thinks and believes and acts as if there were no God. Or if He's there, that He's pleased with them when they're living in sin and disobedience. A person who's self-righteous compares themselves, and listen, usually to the worst person they know. Usually it's to somebody that there's no argument about I know that I'm better than him or better than her. So that they win at that game.

The only problem is they lose. Self-righteousness is hypocrisy. God hates it.

He doesn't want it in our life. So there is self-centeredness, self-advancement, self-dependency, self-righteousness, self-sufficiency. I can take care of it. I have what I need. And you see, many people spend their entire life trying to get themselves in a position whether it's financially or relationally or whatever it might be, they don't need anybody else. They have what they want in life.

They're self-sufficient. And then, of course, there is self-will. I'm going to do what I want to do. When I want to do it, I'm in control.

Now I want you to think about this for a moment. What is it that God's after? He's after the self-life.

And the self-life is our desire to advance and to be known or to achieve at other people's expense. He's after this whole idea of being self-centered. The world isn't centered around us. Listen, Jesus is the center of the world. He's the center of everything. A self-centered person wouldn't say it, but their lifestyle, their actions, their attitudes, their treatment of other people, it all is self, big I. I rule, I reign no matter what.

And to be self-dependent, self-sufficient and self-will, all of that, you know what brokenness is all about? Bringing that to its end, bringing it to death. God wants death to the self-life in us. And I want to ask you this question. Are you afraid to get by yourself quietly before holy God and say to Him, Lord, I want Your best. You're a good God, a loving Father. I believe You've got the best for me. I want to become the person You want me to be.

I want to be able to achieve the things in life that You've set for me. Are you willing to get before Him and say that and then say, Lord, show me the self that's in me ruling my life, reigning over me, controlling me, coloring everything I see, clouding my mind of what I'm really like? The way I treat others, the way I treat You, Lord, the excuses I give You, the rationalization that I go through for not being obedient to You. God, show me that. You know what?

It takes courage to look at yourself. And let me ask you this. Would you not agree that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is worthy of your whole life? He died on the cross for your sins and you'd be hell-bound if He had not. Is He not worthy of a full surrender, a totally yielded life? Are you willing to let Him put to death the self-life in you and let the Spirit reign and rule?

And you know what will happen? Then you become the kind of person, not only, listen, who can love and have peace and contentment and joy and all the rest, but you'll be the kind of person who will, listen, attract people to Jesus because they will see in you this awesome life that they've never seen. And let me tell you something, the world is looking for people who demonstrate what we preach, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

He loved us enough to down the cross and if we follow Him, He will bless us and enable us and strengthen us and guide us and bless us in ways that only He can fully understand. The world's looking for truth, proof that what you and I believe works and that it's real. What is He after? He's after that part of you and me that doesn't fit who we are.

Now how does He go about it? You say, well, if He's after all this, then how does He break us? Well, now this is the tough part because when I think about all the ways that God has worked in my own life and I won't give you all those ways, you have your own.

When I think about all the ways that He's worked in my life and the lives of other people that I've known, how does He deal with the self-life? Because, as we said in the beginning, old habits hard to lay down. It's very difficult for us to let patterns die in our life because they've been there for years and years and years.

They're desires that cling to us and desires that maybe we cling to. All of these things have to be dealt with and so what? God doesn't give us one experience of brokenness, but He begins. When you say, I want to be fully and totally surrendered, He deals with you to one level at a time. He may take this, He may show you this, and you may go home and get on your knees or wherever you are and say, Lord, I want you to deal with each one of these areas of my life.

You may see a couple of things. You say, well, I want you to deal with this. And then you walk away and you're grateful and God has given you a sense of peace.

Before long, you know what? He brings up something else that you need to deal with. Now, secondly, even after you and I have said, Lord, I lay it down, because we still have some soulishness within us, because we are still temptable, we still have human desires unless the Spirit of God is controlling and guiding and leading, unless what we lay down to Him remains dead, and that is a decision we make.

I choose death to death because it doesn't fit who I am, doesn't fit where I want to go, doesn't fit what I can achieve, doesn't fit my blessings. What happens? God has to bring us through again sometime. And how many of us have had to be broken about the same thing more than once?

I certainly have, more than once. Sometimes things that I gave up, I want them back. Sometimes maybe relationships change. Sometimes something that I had turned away from, the tendency as well to rationalize and say, well, you know, that's not wrong.

You know what? It's not about right or wrong. It's what's the will of the Father?

What's the will of the Father? And so God begins the breaking process. What does He use?

I've said it 20 times. He uses pain. You know why He uses pain most of the time? Because that's what it takes to get our attention. We can rationalize and sometimes God works in our life and it's painful and it's difficult and it's hard. What do we do? We rationalize and say, well, it's just a mistake I made.

Or something happens and well, you know, if I'd have just been thinking right. Sometimes God is working in us to do what? Bring us to the point of realization. He's after something.

That part of old self is still ruling and reigning in your life. Sometimes it gets real painful and He wants us to look at our life. He wants us to examine our life. He doesn't want us to waste any sorrows and any hurts. He doesn't want us to waste any pain. He wants us to examine, lay down, walk away from, separate ourselves from those things that He brings to our mind and heart to realize.

We're so absolutely, totally dependent upon Him and we are. Sometimes it's loss. Sometimes it's embarrassment.

Sometimes it's some experience in our life that we would never think these things would come into our lives and yet they do. What is He after? He's after some bit of self that He still sees.

You say, well, when is He ever going to be satisfied? You know what? I can't speak for you. I can only speak for myself. I don't think I'll ever reach that stage where I can say, well, well, well, I finally got here.

No. You know why? Still have this old body. But you know what? The Heavenly Father will enable you and me to walk wholly, righteously and obediently before Him. He will help us to enable us to walk in such a fashion that what He has provided for us is there waiting.

You say, well, now let's say, for example, that I come to that place in my life and maybe I've had to give up friends, relationships, money, all of these things, whatever it might be. You and I may ask the question, well, what can I expect? Here's what you can expect.

Listen to this. You can expect a new view. You can expect a new view of God's purpose in your life.

Here's what's going to happen. When you lay down all the junky stuff that doesn't belong there, you're going to begin to see what God's up to in your life. And so many times people come to church and they listen to sermons and they say, well, that doesn't relate to me. I'm not an important person. Oh, yes, you are. You are so important that if you'd been the only person who ever lived and it took Jesus dying for you, He would have. You say, oh, now that's just preacher talk. Let me ask you a question. Can you take the Bible and prove to me that God loves anybody else anymore than He does you?

No. Who did He die for? For God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son that whoever in this world believes in Him would not perish but have eternal life. We get a whole new view of what God's like. The second thing is we get a whole new freedom in our spirit. You know what happens when you've laid down all the stuff that doesn't belong there?

You have a great sense. Listen, you have a great sense of peace as a freedom and a peace about all that. You're not struggling over that anymore. Your mind's not divided.

You're not fragmented anymore. You can concentrate. You've got contentment. You're not struggling for you're not grasping for you're not cleaving to it.

You haven't got to have it. Listen, once you allow the Spirit of God to bring to death all that stuff that makes up the self-life, what happens? There's a whole new perspective on God's view of you.

There's a sense of peace and freedom. But thirdly, there is a new sense of power and authority in your life. Whether you're serving God in some fashion or whether you're living the Christian life in your daily work with your family, your job, whatever it might be, you know what happens? There becomes a new sense of authority and confidence in your life about what you're doing and who you are. And God will begin to work in your life and impact others through you. But it's a decision you have to make. Now I want to ask you a very sobering question. What are you holding on to today of the self-life that you're willing to keep on holding on to knowing that it's going to cost you God's best in this life and His best for all eternity? Some position, some possession, some relationship. What are you holding on to that you're willing to hold on to even at the expense of God's loving best He's provided for you?

It's not worth it. And the wisest thing you can do is to say to Him, Father, here's my life, everything I have, whether it's possession, reputation, relationships, whatever it is. Here I am, Lord. Above everything else in life, I want You to have me, all of me. Lord, I may have lived 20, 30, 40, 50 years, 70, 80 years, Lord. I may be a little late, but I'm coming, God. I just want to be sure when I face You. I won't have to face You and say, Oh, God.

You see, there's not going to be any argument at the judgment seat of Christ. And here's what you don't want to do. You do not want to live your life. And come to the end.

And have this awesome, inescapable, penetrating, deadening regret. I wish I had surrendered my all years and years and years ago. It is my prayer in Jesus' name that you'll open your hands and your heart and your life and let Him put to death everything in you that is an obstruction to the perfect will and plan and love of God for your life. Thank you for listening to part two of Brokenness, The Plan. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.