Divine Breakthrough

Transcript

We are ready to go and act upon what we hear. That God has revealed himself privilege.

And I'm going to read. It's going to be on the screen.

Jesus and his disciples arrived at the country as he a man of the city.

For a long time he had worn no clothes. And he did not live in a house, but in the room before him. And shouted at the top of his voice, what have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high God, to come out of the man. For many times it had seized and bound.

Jesus asked him, what is your name? He said, legion. For many demons. They begged to order them to go back into the abyss. Now they are A large herd of swine was feeding.

And the demon Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine. And the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and the country.

Then people came out to see what had happened. And when they came to Jesus, a man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerizes asked Jesus to leave them, for they were.

So he got into the boat and returned. The man had gone, begged that he might be with him. But Jesus sent him away, saying, return to your home and declare how much God has done for you. So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him. This for the people of God.

May be seated.

Yeah. Yeah. Are you good with that? I'm good, yeah.

I was going to put this back on to cover up that. I'll keep. Keep doing it. We have three wardrobe changes here. All right, we're coming.

Getting it in place. All right. I greet you again in Jesus name. It's such a privilege to be here. And I've loved being here this weekend, seeing the way your church has served a wider community.

And before I'm gonna say this is before I preach. I don't know if you're gonna believe me that I'm not preaching right now, But I just want you to know that your church plays an important role, not just here in Madison, but in ways that probably none of us will certainly ever understand. But I want to kind of give you a little picture of that, because I serve in a role where I work with many denominations and many churches around the world, but particularly in the United States. But Harvest Point is a special community, not just because every community is special, but because of your pastor's influence within kind of an ecclesial, like a church wide perspective. For whatever reason, in God's providence, he's called upon your pastor to serve, enroll within the association of Independent Methodists of Leadership to guide more than 140 churches and to help them have a kind of a common goal.

But he's also serving in a body called the Global Wesleyan alliance. And he's on the board of Wesley Biblical Seminary. And where we're training, we have 744 students training to be leaders in a church. And so God has called your pastor to do that. And you have a role to play, all of you, the youngest kids here.

And what happens in this community has an impact in ways that you can't see. And I get to see some of those things. And I'll say too, even just to the bigger DAG family, like your marriage, your family, family life, all that happens in this community has a deep impact other places. And so I hope you know how important you all are to people you don't know. And the way that you tithe, the way that you give, the way that you serve, the way you worship is a part of a bigger story.

And I think that that's what's happening even in this passage that I just read. For us, this is a wild scene. You hear this guy who comes and he is possessed by, they think a demon. And then they find out it's me, many demons. And this passage tells us this.

Again, I'm going to just say it's wild because it is that he's chained and he breaks the chains. They cannot hold him back. He is so possessed by demonic spirits that he's held back. And it's as if when Jesus comes there, people before had come to a roadblock. And I want us to think a little bit about roadblocks today.

So I'm gonna take us back. We have a lot of scripture today and you know, I want you to know that's a good thing. Thank you for reading for us. This is wonderful for us to recite the Apostles Creed and to hear various portions of Scripture and even Psalm 22, which was read for us, that represents a bit of a roadblock. You know, those were the exact words that Jesus said on the cross.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And then there's a part that we Picked up on today. It's so clear that Jesus said, they divide my clothes. This is what happened to Jesus. I mean, Jesus at the cross, even at that place, might have been wondering, God, what do you have in mind?

What is it that you're thinking here? And, of course, we get a little picture of that with him in the garden of Gethsemane, where he wonders if there could be another way. Not my will, but thine, he says. And so, as we look at this passage, I want us to go back to Second Sam, second Samuel, chapter five. And I'm gonna read more Scripture to you, just a short version.

This comes to us, second Samuel, chapter five. It's not gonna be on the screen, so if you have your Bibles, you're welcome to follow along with me. This comes as David takes the throne. Now, he is already. If you were to look just ahead of this passage, he's already been ruling in Judah, and he did this from the capital of Hebron for seven years.

So this is one of these pieces we often miss, is that David served only for the first seven years, the southern portion of the kingdom. But then the tribes, the multiple tribes come together, and then he attacks. And I wish I had time to go into this. He attacks Jerusalem by going up through the pipes of the city. It's crazy.

It's a wonderful. I mean, it's like. It's a movie. And I know Amazon prime, it's gonna take them a long time to get to this part of the story, but they're gonna get there. If there's this David, like, how can they not tell this story about David and his men crawling through the pipes, taking over Jerusalem?

So that's all done now. But he's just got there. The kingdoms have just been united. He has been crowned king of all of Israel. And he faces his very first, first roadblock.

It's a royal roadblock for him. And this comes in verse 17 of chapter 5. When the Philistines heard that David had been anointed king of Israel. So this has happened. Well, look at you.

Jackson, my man. It's up on the screen. I don't know if it's the same version I have. They mobilized their forces to capture him. But David.

You hear that? The Philistines mobilized their forces to capture him. But David was told they were coming and went into the stronghold. The Philistines arrived and spread out across the valley of Rephaim. So David asked the Lord, should I go?

Should I go? Should I go out to fight? The Philistines will You hand them over to me. The Lord replied, yes, go ahead. I will certainly give you the victory.

So David went to BAAL Perazim and defeated the Philistines. The Lord has done it. David exclaimed. He burst through my enemies like a raging flood. So David named that place BAAL Perazim, which means the Lord who burst through.

The Lord who burst through. So David comes into the situation after the Philistines have set out to attack him. Now, you all know David has a complicated relationship with the Philistines. Pretty much everybody in Western society probably knows about his interaction with this guy named Goliath, right? Okay, we get that piece.

But then it's a little more complicated after David starts to have some of his victories where he slays his tens of thousands, but Saul slays his thousands, if you know what I'm talking about. There was like, these issues. Saul chases him out of the kingdom. But who is it that David goes to for refuge? He goes to the Philistines.

That's wild. He goes to the Philistines for refuge, and while he's there, he fights for the Philistines. But then he has another complicated story. He ends up leaving them and then coming back. And so now these people who.

Who he probably even fought beside are attacking him again. They know they have to take him out. And it's in this context that he comes and he. As the Philistines surround him, they come up to him. But notice what the text says.

He goes down into the stronghold and then he says these few words. Should I go? Should I go? Will you go ahead of me? And this is so similar to almost all of the Psalms.

If you were to read the Psalms, so many of them are wondering, God, are you gonn do something? Are you going to step up? Because it seems like my enemies are surrounding me. Like we sang earlier today.

This reminds me of one of my favorite books, book series, which my boys are here. And they can confirm this back at least two times. We've read the Chronicles of Narnia out loud to them. And then we've listened to it too, on Focus on the Family. So it's a. I feel like my son's 18, gonna head to college next year, so I have one more year with him.

I feel like they might feel like little kids, but I wanted to go through them again, like, just to get it in again. And so the second book, Prince Caspian, okay, some of you will know this, like the lion, Witch in the Wardrobe. There's an Aslan is the lion. Who is the Christ, like, character in that book, I see people shaking their heads. They know what I'm talking about.

Aslan is incredibly dominant. In the lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, he comes back to life representing Jesus, and he takes on all the enemies. But then in Prince Caspian, it comes hundreds of years later, but they come back still as children. And it's this weird thing. As they come in, Lucy, who is the youngest child of the four kids, sees Aslan, but nobody else sees him.

And so they're wondering, like, okay, maybe I was just imagining that, Lucy thinks. But then Aslan comes back to her again and he reveals himself to her. And there's this interesting interaction that I want to highlight for you all. I'm going to read it. And so Aslan tells her, go and tell your siblings that you found me.

Then she says, but they won't believe me, said Lucy. It doesn't matter, said Aslan. Oh, dear, oh, dear, said Lucy. And I was so pleased at first finding you again. And I thought you would let me stay.

And I thought you'd come roaring in and frighten all the enemies away like last time. And then in a very British way, she says, and now everything is going to be horrid. I'm sure you guys don't talk that way, right? Here's Lucy saying, I thought you were going to come in like you did last time. I mean, you came.

Aslan flies in and saves the day, but now he's coming in a different way. I thought you come in roaring. Like, I believe you can do that. I believe Aslan, you can do that. And we might even say that same thing to God, like, I thought you were gonna step in by now.

You can do that, right? You could take on all of the problems in this world right now. Why have you not done that? And David comes asking this question. Just imagine he is surrounded by his enemies, and he goes down and says, should I do this?

Will you act? Will you help me, God? Will you step in? How does David come to this place? He comes to this place because he does not want to take a step forward without the support of God.

Now, I think this is a bit of a surprise to me to see this funny name in this story. When I read it, you might have heard it, BAAL Perazim. And I kind of got myself wondering, what is the deal with that name? Like, why did he say that? And I want us to go back and just maybe you understand why David would name this place.

That is going to take us a second. And I'm gonna. Don't Worry Marshall's gonna be back preaching soon. You won't have to like. But I want us to think about this deeply.

Okay? I think we can do it. I'm looking at all of you. Nobody's asleep. I think you can hang in here with me.

This goes back to Genesis 38. Genesis 38. Now, if you've ever done a kind of read the Bible in a year type of program, you know, like, you work through Genesis and by the time you get to Leviticus, it gets a little tough, but you kind of keep on plowing through. Marshall pushes you through, keep on reading. But by the time you get to the end of Genesis, you get to the Joseph story.

Sometimes it's called in academic circles the Joseph novel, but there's something really weird about Genesis 38. Genesis 37 is where the story of Joseph picks up. You know, the guy with the multicolored coat and all that sort of thing. Technicolor dream coat, some, you know, so you have that, that's 37. Then it picks up again in 39.

But Genesis 38 is this story that comes out of nowhere. And scholars have even said, I've read multiple scholars, John Walton is one of them, who says, yeah, this is just obviously has no connection to whatever else is happening here. We don't know why Moses, who probably wrote and put together the first five books of the Old Testament, why he would do that. And I have my old professor who was 80 years old when I was with him, he said, you know, the author of Genesis has been around a little longer than us, and so we might not want to question his plot line. There might be a reason Genesis 38 kind of is put in this place now.

Genesis 38, when you're reading through the Bible in a year or whenever, when you're going through Genesis, it's weird. Okay? There's sexually intense words used here. I'm not gonna read it all. But basically what happens is there is the daughter in law of Judah ends up going to extreme sexual lengths.

I'm just saying what's in the Bible, friends. I know it's R rated, but it is what's in there. So goes to these lengths to make sure Judah's line is continued. And it comes to this place at the end of that passage where it describes what happens. There is twins are in her womb, and one sticks his hand out first and they tie a scarlet cord to say that one came out first.

But then another one comes and pushes the other baby to the side and comes through first. And so they Name that baby Perez, the one who burst through. Now this is interesting. So it seems like this story is here because it shows how Judah's line is one that will continue. And it was almost to the place where it wouldn't continue unless Tamar, this daughter in law of Judah, would have done this seemingly indecent act.

But because she did that, the line of Judah continued and it continued through this baby named Perez. So even in this story, Judah says about this, his daughter in law, Tamar, she is more holy than me. So this labor and delivery is a part of they name this baby the one who pushes his way through. Now you might say, oh, that's kind of interesting, little connection there. But it seems to be that this story's important in the rest of the Bible as well.

So I started just to look and I just did a search for the name Perez. Where does that come up? You might know if you've ever read Ruth, which is his four chapters. The beautiful story of Ruth has a function within all of the other books of the Bible. It's trying to get us somewhere.

And the very last words of Ruth point this out. Ruth 4, verse 22. Obed was the father of Jesse. Jesse was the father of David. David's important, right?

David's a part of our story. Hang in there with me. I'm almost done now. Almost done preaching, but almost done telling this hard part. I know some of you got excited there.

Okay, 22, you have David. The whole point of Ruth is to say, how do we get to David? Now let's look at this line go up. Just a few verses. If they're going to draw the family line of David, don't you think they would say, hey, he comes from Abraham, he comes from Isaac, Jacob, Judah?

Nope. Let's see what they say. This is the family line beginning with their ancestor Perez. Perez, why Perez?

And it goes through and it shows how Perez was the father of Hezron, verse 19. Hezron was the father of Ram. Ram was the father of Abinadab. Abinadab was the father of Nahshon. Nahshon was the father of Salman.

Salman through Rahab, by the way, was the father of Boaz, Boaz through Ruth, the father of Obed. Obed was the father of Jesse. Jesse the father David. Now you might be saying, Andy, these are generations and generations. What's going on here?

We're going to Judah, to Tamar, to Perez, to Ruth. This is just a coincidence, but I also think it's interesting if you know the story of David, he happens to name one of his daughters Tamar.

It seems like this story is significant to David. So now we get back to our story, the one that I read for you, where David is surrounded by his enemies and he is at a roadblock, a crossroad, and he says, should I go? God then brings him an amazing victory. And he says, after that Victory, in chapter 5, verse 20, the Lord did it. He burst through my enemies like a raging flood.

So he named the place BAAL the Lord. That's just a generic name for the Lord BAAL Perazim, which means the Lord who bursts through. So this great, great, great, great great great grandson of Perez says this place will be named BAAL Perez Bael Perazim, the Lord who burst through. And this is exactly what happens. This is why in Genesis 38 we have this story, is because even at the darkest place, when Joseph was being carried away, Joseph was at a roadblock.

Remember what happened to Joseph? He was supposedly gonna be one who had these dreams of what could happen in his life. And he's carried away by the Ishmaelites. But it's right there in Genesis 38 where we get that story, where light begins to break through. And when the 30 year old David is new on his throne and wonders what he should do, God bursts through.

And I'm saying all the world is a sense at these types of roadblocks. You're at these roadblocks in your life from time to time. And we wonder how God is going to work. Social issues abound, geopolitical issues that we're dealing with in the last 24 hours. Are there moral issues, questions about truth, questions about sexuality?

They're all here. And the promise of this passage is that God will burst through, that God will accomplish his plan, and he wants to do that for you and in you. A few years ago, I was with my wife at a old camp and we went into a kind of white clapboard chapel that was like this little bitty sanctuary. And when we were walking out, we looked at the back wall and there was some stained glass windows on the back wall. And they were people who founded our movement, John Wesley.

Charles Wesley in Francis Asbury. And there was this kind of green, somewhat corroded plaque. And it had this dedication of these windows there. And it happened more than 75 years before we saw this plaque and it said these windows represent these things. And it says, John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, Charles Wesley, the sweet singer of Methodism, Francis Asbury, the prophet of the long road.

And Then it had this interesting line. It said, from these three people came a worldwide revival.

And then it said this, which has not yet spent its force, basically saying, it's not done. It's still moving forward, there's still more to accomplish.

And we think about David Tamar Perez, and we remember that there is more to this line of Judah, because there is a lion in the line of Judah, a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah Perez and David that comes bursting through in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. This lion of Judah from the lion of Judah comes bursting through the tomb on Easter morning. He bursts through death, and he says he is risen. We say, he is risen. He is risen indeed, because of this fact.

Jesus burst through. And he then not only just bursts through on the scene to show us what God is like and to demonstrate and answer questions and get us in a mindset of understanding how God could become man, but not only that, he bursts through death, he bursts through reality as he ascends to the right hand of God the Father and is seated there and available for us. And because he's there, because Jesus is there, we say, what is Jesus doing? Like my new mug has that I was getting, what is Jesus is available for us now. He wants to burst through your sickness.

He wants to burst through your despair. He wants to burst through into your marriage. He wants to burst through into your family's life. He is ready to burst through. He wants to burst through the mess of sin in our lives and the mess so that he can bring about his good purposes.

And we have confidence, a deeper confidence. And not only did God burst through in the person of Jesus Christ, we have a greater confidence for our world, even in light of the challenges that it's experiencing at this point, that not only did he burst through, but he will burst through when Jesus returns. He will put everything right that is wrong. And we hear this in the beautiful poetry of Revelation 21. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them.

They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe the tears from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who is seated on the throne said, I am making all things new. I will burst through.

I will burst through. This is what Jesus promises us, is that even when we come to roadblocks, the reality of his being wants to burst through into our lives.

Marshall and I both have a Person who's a mentor, who we probably only spent so much time with, but he's a mentor mainly through his writings. And that's a man, I'm sure it's quoted from this pulpit many times, Dr. Dennis Kinlaw. And I had a privilege to be able to spend some time with him. When I was in seminary. I was actually writing a paper about him.

He was 85 years old at the time. And I had an old fashioned tape recorder and I press. Some of you all have no idea. I'm just going to educate you all on how things used to work. I used to press play and record at the same time, right.

And the tape would start recording everything that was happening. So when that was happening, I had a three hour conversation with him that I still have on tape. All right. It's pretty cool. I just had to find a tape player to be able to listen to it.

Okay. But anyhow, so nevertheless, I have this recording and I've gone back and I've listened to it a few times. And it's actually very hard for me to listen to myself. Cause I was 22 years old, a new seminary student. I was trying to show this giant of an intellect and spiritual leader.

I was trying to make sure he knew that I was really smart. That didn't work out very well, right. And I could tell, like in the conversation I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. And this, this and that, whatever. And when I was there, I kind of had one of those moments where he was leading to this.

He was almost preaching just to me. And he like had this climax he was coming to and he said, and this is what we mean when we talk about holiness. I'm like, what is it? What is it? And he says, if any man would come after me, if any man would come after me.

And then me thinking I would be the smart one again, I jumped in and interrupted him and I said, take up his cross and follow you follow him. And then like a moment that is like kind of frozen in time for me, this old 85 year old man with kind of like a wiggly chin kind of reached and he like put two fingers right on my chest and it kind of like pounded on my chest. And I felt like he was like piercing my heart. And then he said, deny, deny himself. Take up his cross and follow me.

Oh, I forgot those words.

And what he was saying was the essence, the essence of this doctrine, which I know Marshall talks a lot about, of sanctification, is that we deny ourselves, we give up who we Are. This is what we do in baptism, right? We die to ourselves and we are raised to new life in Christ or even with Christ at the right hand of God the Father, if that's what happens. We deny. What happens is just like my chest that day when I was 22 years old was kind of like cratering in with the weight of spiritual weight of this man.

What happens is God actually burst us. He burst us. Not only does he want to burst through in the Incarnation, burst through through his resurrection, burst through someday when he will return, but he wants to burst you. And I'm telling you, when you learn to deny yourself, give up your control and let God take over, that's when you find who you really are. That's when you find who you were made to be.

And I believe God wants to do this type of work in you today. He wants to burst through and he wants to help you be the person he's called you to be. I told this story the other night, so some of you heard it, but there's enough people here who weren't there. I'm going to tell it again. When I was with the Salvation army leading that Red Kettle campaign, I had an opportunity to go to.

It's not quite halftime. There are three periods in a hockey game, and between the first and second periods of this hockey game, I was there with a Hall of Fame hockey player who was going to present me with a check for the Salvation Army. And so as he's, like, waiting for this to happen, I was up on the jumbotron, just like we went to a baseball game yesterday. I was a guy. I was actually in the beginning of the.

I was riding around on this big truck called a Zamboni, where they're, like, making the ice even. And I was throwing shirts out to people. It was like such a cool thing. Well, there I am now on the Jumbotron, waiting for this to happen. And I realized that the guy who was actually I was with, I had seen his statue in front of the arena earlier.

See, when that team, the Tampa Bay Lightning, had won the Stanley cup, he was the best player, and he was holding up the Stanley cup trophy. And so I said to him, hey, I saw your statue earlier. And he's like, yeah, it's kind of embarrassing. He's like, now that I work for the team, every day I walk by that same statue. He's like, oh, it's kind of.

It's kind of weird, isn't it? And I said, yeah. He said, the only kind of funny thing is Every now and then people want to take my picture. I'm so sure they do. And he says, actually they hand me their camera and I take a picture of them with my statue.

So like, there I am. And I said, do you tell him? He's like, oh, no, I don't want to embarrass them. I was like, it's too much. And like, it's like, man, that's so wild.

And I think so many times, like, that's how we might treat Jesus, like, there he is, like the real living Jesus. But we settle for a statue.

Because Jesus, if this is true what I've said, that he's burst through all reality just like he did for David, and that he's available for us. He wants to access your life and he wants to burst through. But we might just be saying, you know what? I'll keep you on Sunday and I'll keep you as a statue when God wants to do so much more. The real living Jesus wants to enter into your life today.

And so as we close, I'm going to turn it back over to Marshall, I don't know, mentioned earlier, maybe there's even somebody here who needs prayer for healing. Specifically this was mentioned in our prayer time. If you need God to burst through physically, emotionally, or there's something you need to give up, or if you need to spend time at one of these places of prayer today, just saying, God, I want you. I claim the fact that you're going to break through just like you did for David when it seemed like it was a time where he come to a roadblock, God burst through. Will you let him do that?

Jesus, we give this time to you. We pray that we could get out of the way and let you burst through the roadblocks of our life. We say this acknowledging your real risen, exalted presence right here with us. And we say this to the glory of our triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and in Jesus name, amen.

Total Duration 00:34:12