It Blossoms in Desert Experience - Described

God breaks us not to destroy us, but to protect us and to preserve us and to accomplish His greater and higher purpose within. Our lives. And just to help us understand exactly how important this concept is, turn with me to the book of Hebrews at the outset.

And we'll see two verses that help us understand how instrumental this process was in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Over in Hebrews chapter 2. Verse 10, it says these words: For it was fitting for him, for whom are all things and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect The author of their salvation through suff. Christ Jesus was made perfect. Through suffering. Now, turn over to Hebrews chapter 5, verse number 8. It says this: Although he was a son, he learned obedience.

From the things which he suffered. And having been made perfect, he became to all those who obey him the source of eternal salvation. Both verses speak of the process in which the Son of God was made perfect. And both ascribe that process. To the suffering experience. Christ was never disobedient, he was sinless. But his sufferings were the testing ground in which his obedience became full grown. If suffering was the means by which the sinless Christ became mature, so much more do we need it in our sinful.

And so God is going to use a process. And tonight we want to describe that process, in which we even titled the desert experience, something in which Christ takes us through in order to break us from our independence from Him to establish. Our dependence upon Him. And tonight we want to give three biblical descriptions and then three practical exhortations or explanations. So turn with me to Hebrews chapter 12.

Over a couple more pages, and we want to give first of all this biblical description. For the scriptures, give us three graphic illustrations as to what this process is all about. And all three describe a negative process, but all result in a positive product. Hebrews 12, verse number 5. And you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, my son. Do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him. For whom, or for those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives.

It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we are earthly fathers. Or we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them, shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time, as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his Hol.

All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyous, but sorrowful. Yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit. Of right. The process in which the writer of Hebrews describes is the process of a father disciplining his children. When we discipline our children, we don't do it because we like to spank our children. We don't like to scourge our children. The text is very graphic here when it talks about our Father in heaven scourging his children. That's a word used of a whip upon the backside of an individual.

Yet, that's how the father deals with his children. Sometimes he has to take us through the discipline process. Sometimes he has to scourge us to get us to fall in line so that the end product will be one of per. Hebrews 12, verse 10. Christ wants to perfect us. He wants us to be made holy. He wants us to be just like him. To do so, he takes us through a scourging process as a father would discipline his children. So, when God disciplines us, when God allows trials to come into our lives, what's the famous phrase we like to use?

I don't need this. How many times have we said, I don't need this? Don't ever say you don't need that. You might not want it, but my friends, if you got it, you need it. Because God ordained it, right? And then over to John chapter 15. Turn back there with me if you would, please. And here the process is the gardener pruning the vine. It says in verse 1 of John chapter 15, I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. And every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it, that it may bear more fruit.

So, some people say, Well, you know, I consider myself a fruitful Christian. That's good. But Christ is going to prune you so that you bear more fruit. And we don't like the pruning process. The pruning process is the cleansing process, where everything is removed from the branch that would tend to divert vital power from producing Fruit. And so that pruning process comes in various forms. It could come in the form of sickness, hardship, loss, persecution. But God ordains the trouble to prune the branch, to prune the vine.

That branch might bring forth more fruit. You see, no matter how much fruit you bring forth, no matter how many good deeds you do because of God's great work in you. No matter what kind of attitude you produce because of what God has done in you, it's never enough. It's never enough. You might say, well, you know, you just can't please God. Well, no, that's not true. You can please God. But God is looking for more fruit to come. Because if more fruit comes from your life, then more people's lives are touched.

And the more people's lives are touched, the greater their walk with God will be. And so understand that God prunes the branches that they will produce more fruit. So the product is the vine's fruitfulness. The end product is production. God wants more production from your life. And so therefore he prunes the branch. Galatians 5:2 to 23 describe the fruit of the Spirit, right? Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. You don't have those things, God's going to produce them in your life.

You say, well, I'm producing a lot of fruit because I love a lot of people and I got a lot of joy and I got a lot of patience. But God says, man, you got to have more faith and you to have more meekness.

So I to prune the branch so those things come out in you. So he produces more and more fruit in your life. Those are some biblical descriptions that God uses. That God wants us to see the process in which He takes us through our desert experiences that we might be more and more like Him. Now, turn with me to Isaiah 45 for a second.

This verse has caused more problems for more people than you can shake a stick at. But I just want to kind of run a by you this evening and let you look at it because I really like this verse.

I like those verses that cause great turmoil in the lives of people. Isaiah 45, verse number 7. We'll begin with verse number 6. He says, That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is no one besides me. I am the Lord, and there is no other. The one forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating. Calamity. Oh, I love that verse, man. That sends all kinds of people in such a turmoil that God would create calamity. And then it says, I am the Lord who does all these things.

Folks, God is sovereign. And we've said it before, and if you've been with us for any length of time, you really understand that God has no plan B. He's only got plan A. The earth is not out of control in God's timetable. Everything's running as God wants it to run. Everything is happening as God has designed it from eternity past. There's nothing new that comes on the scene that catches God off guard or catches him by surprise. For God is the author of calamity. Now, understand this. If God wants to stop something, He can stop it.

Is that not true? Remember the storm on the sea a couple of weeks ago, Mark chapter 4? Disciples were fearful for their lives. There was a storm that came on the sea. So they awoke the Lord. He said, hush, be still, and it was stopped. So God can stop any kind of calamity he wishes to stop. Any war that he wishes to stop, he'll stop. Any disease that happens, if he wants to stop it, he'll stop it. Any death that he wants to stop. He can stop, or he can reverse if he wishes to do so. Because God is God, God is sovereign, God's in control of all things.

But God's going to do what God's going to do because his glory is at stake. And what happens happens because God is the author of calamity and he is going to guarantee. That he is going to get his glory no matter what. God's in control. And so God has all these things happen. And although he's able to prevent them, God will use calamity sometimes to judge the earth, right? That's what he did back in Genesis chapter 6 with the flood. And so sometimes he wants to teach us things, right? So John chapter 9, when the disciples asked the Lord, who sinned, this man or his parents, as to the reason this man was born blind?

And Christ said, neither. He was born blind because today you're going to see the works of God. Wow. Man, God caused this man to be born blind, not because he sinned or his parents sinned. So he went through his whole life blind, so that when Jesus came to earth and walked upon earth and met this man, his disciples and all those around him could see the glory. Of God displayed. I think, man, that's kind of unfair to the guy, isn it? But that's the way God designed it. Amazing when you look at it from God's perspective.

And there's a phrase that somebody said, I can't remember who, I think's Swind, who says, you know, we can't think logically, we've got to think theolog. Is that not true? We think on a horizontal plane. And God says, you can't think that way.

You've got to think on a vertical plane. You got to think theologically. You got to think my way. You can't think this way. You start thinking this way, you're going say, oh, wait a minute, God, what are you doing? You're going to question God? You're going to ask the why question? You're going to wonder whether or not God loves people. Those things are never into question when you think the. And the only way to think theologically is to delve into the scriptures and to see things from God's point of view.

Psalm 107 tells us that he creates things that he might show man's helplessness. Man thinks he's pretty independent. He doesn't need God, but God says, wait a minute, you do need me, and let me show you how helpless you are without me.

Over in Luke 13, remember the story? The disciples are walking along, and Christ says, Remember the tower of Shiloh that fell on 18 people and they were all killed?

Christ says, You better watch out, same thing might happen to you. God says this happened because people need to repent.

And this is a warning sign that they better wake up and smell the coffee. That's in the Greek. But you've got to wake up and smell the coffee, that if you don't repent, Judgment's coming. It's a warning. So people say, well, why this plane crash, or why that bus accident, or why that murder? And God says.

You better wake up. The same thing just might happen to you or your loved one. You gotta repent. You got be ready to meet your Maker. You see? God allows all these things to happen because you see His glory is at stake. And maybe through the death of one individual. Others will be saved and come to a saving knowledge of who Jesus Christ is, and that's how he will receive the glory. I don't know. I don't have an answer. All I know is what the Bible says.

And if the Bible says that God is a creator of calamity, folks, there it is. It's in black and white. I'm not here to argue with God. I'm here to let you know that God's in control of all things, and God's going to do what God's going to do because His greater purposes are at stake. Remember Psalm 119? Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word. We see that a few weeks ago. Great verse. But never read verse 67 without reading verse 68. Know what verse 68 says of Psalm 119? Anybody know?

Thou art good and doest good. That's important. The psalmist says, Before I was afflicted, I went astray. I did my own thing. I acted independently of you, but now I keep your word He goes, Now I understand why. I was afflicted. I did my own thing. But now I keep your word. And then he says, Thou art good and doest good. Boy, you've got to understand that. God was good in the days of his affliction because God drove him to the word of God. You can read on in Psalm 119:7, I believe it is, or 72. It was good for me that I have been afflicted, I might learn your decrees.

How do you learn the decrees of God outside of affliction? Answer. You don't. You only learn them in affliction. That's important to grasp. Folks, that's where God wants you. He wants you satisfied. With him. And just a little hint: until you're satisfied with him, all these things. Who the author of calamity brings your way are designed to make you totally satisfied with God alone. Folks, that's intimacy with the Master. But most of us don't want to pay that price, do we? If push comes a shove, we'd just rather live our nominal Christian lives because it's less painful.

But like we said last week, live to know God or live to be comfortable, you can't do both. You can only do one or the other. God is rarely known. In the comforts of life. It was April of 1984. I had been saved for 12 years. And I was a dean at a Bible college. I was coaching baseball and things were going well for me financially. Things were going well for me physically. I didn't have any outward ailments or problems that I could see or anyone else. Pointed out in my life, and things seemed to be going well, but there was something that wasn't clicking spiritually in my life, and I didn't understand what it was.

And you know, I taught a college and career class every Sunday, and it began with five kids in a small room no bigger than That one right over there, and we had five college students. And in the end of six months, we had 75 college students. And we were out of the room that size, by the way, into a bigger room. And God was just doing a great work. And yet, I There was something not clicking spiritually in my life. I couldn understand what it was. I wasn't satisfied where I was spiritually. So one day, Sunday afternoon, my wife was taking a nap.

Knelt down on the side of my couch and I said, Lord, there's something not right. I don know what it is. I don know what the problem is. But this is my prayer. Whatever it takes for you to make me into the man you want me to be, you have free reign to do whatever it is you want to do. Because there's something missing in my walk with you. I'm not sure what it is. I can't put my finger on it, Lord. But whatever it is, whatever it takes for you to do in my life to make me walk with you. To exper that so-called abundant life, then you need to do that.

Got up off my knees and waited for the roof to cave in, it didn't. Two weeks passed. I got fired from my job. Two weeks after that, my wife was contacted with cancer. Two weeks after that, she had a mastectomy, radical mastectomy, and was given less than a 10% chance to live five years. She died 15 months later. And yet, I would not trade anything in my life for what happened those two years in which we went through that experience and all that God has done. All the things that God taught me. You see, if you're really serious about God and following Him, You will say, God, you do whatever you have to do in my life to make me the man and the woman you want me to be.

But let me let you in on just a little secret. When you got saved, did you not give your life to Jesus? Right. When you got saved, did you not turn it over to Him? Right. He did. God's going to do whatever He has to do. Sometimes He's going to touch your heart and get you to pray, prepare you. Other times, He's going to lower the boot. But it's going to happen because God needs to make you like Him. And I'm no great Christian, and I'm no. You know, great man of God. I have my imperfections and I have my sins, and there's a lot of things in my life that aren't right.

But you know what? I know today what I did not have in 1984. And I praise God for what he's done in my life. And I seek to ask him every day, Lord, you do whatever you have to do in my life to make me the man you want me to be. I don't fear to pray that prayer. I long to pray that prayer because I want God to do whatever he has to do to do that. And to understand that, I want to take you to three practical explanations and talk about God's technique. And then God's target and God's tools in your life in the time that we have left.

First of all, I want to talk to you about God's technique in this desert experience He wants to take you through.

Two strategies that we must understand on how God breaks a life, and both of them work together. Technique number one is this: that nobody is ever fully Broken.

It's a lifelong process. It's an ongoing process of trials and difficulties that come into your life. Psalm 103, verse 14 says that God knows that we are frail. He knows that we are but dust. And God's not out to smother your life. God's just out to make you just like Him. So that technique, understand, is a lifelong process that God takes you through. Yet, I believe that God calls for at least one bedrock experience. One bedrock experience like Moses had. One experience that brings you to the end of yourself, knocks out all your props.

One bedrock experience where God forever alters your view of self. God and your ministry. And after one of these, you will look at God differently.

And you will say, well, how will I know? Folks. You'll know. You'll look at God completely differently than you've ever seen him before.

Remember Job? He lo everything. And what did he say in Job chapter 5, verse 7? Man was born unto trouble as sparks fly upward. Folks, sparks only go upward, right? That's all they do. And as those things go upward, you can bet that man was born. Under trouble. Now, what's his target? That's point number two.

What's his target? Ready for this? His target is whatever on the human level is your greatest strength. That's his target. God goes for the juggular. That's the way he works. Whatever is your greatest strength, that's his target. Wherever your flesh is the strongest, God zeroes in. Why? Because God is not out to rattle your cage. He's out to totally destroy your self-resources. That's why. Your greatest virtue. Will become your greatest vice. And when God gets a hold of that virtue and breaks it.

He knocks out the main prop. Everything else around that prop will come falling down around it. See, he can knock out the little ones. But they don't mean much. It's the main prop. And once he gets that one, everything else falls down round about it. And that He's got you right where He wants you. You have nothing except Him. God doesn't want to change you. He wants to sanctify you. He wants those things that he's given you set apart for him and his glory. That's what he wants. That's all. You say, well, I'll give it to him.

He can have it. He doesn't have to take me through all that process. I'll just let him have what he wants. Yeah, I wish it worked that way. But you know what? Your heart's deceitful and your heart's desperately wicked. You can't even know your own heart, can you? God knows your heart, though. And God wants it all. And lastly, God's tools. His target is that area in which Is your greatest strength on the human level. His technique is one where he calls for one shattering bedrock experience. What's his tools?

They're different for each of us. That's good because it shows us that we're just not a number. But God deals with us with us personally. God's tools always inv human failure. Always. Maybe through a loss, a set, a pain. For Moses, it was 40 years of failure. For Peter, it was one momentous. exper on the night before the crucifixion of failure, all God wanted them to do was throw themselves on Him for dependence and for mercy and give up human security. You can't learn that lesson in success. I wish you could.

God never broke anyone with success, prosperity, health, strength, or human advancement. Too bad, huh? He never does. God breaks with affliction, pain, weakness, and illness. He's got to take you through the desert experience. That you might understand the length and depth of that plan and how He wants to use you.