Beyond The Brokenness | Jason Martin

You're listening to a message to go from acts church.

We hope this message will light up your tea.

So this year, our team for this year is disciple first.

And for the previous sermons I have started on just

a series of what a disciple is, what's the goal

of a disciple? And right now I'm going into one

of the first sermons which Jesus spoke about, and that

is the Sermon on the Mount. Yes, is the Sermon

on the Mount, right, because this is the sermon which

is considered to be one of Jesus' greatest sermons, and

it also is a sermon that teach us us disciples

how to live. All right, So let me just start

with my slides. Okay, So again just to bring a

bit of context to those of us who are new

or probably have missed out previously. So what is a disciple?

A disciple learns from Jesus, lives like Jesus, and tells

others about Jesus. Right, got that and he just put

it here. Okay, next, light, So the Sermon on the mount,

remember the first one. It is written here reading from

Matthew chapter five and seeing the multitudes, he went up

on a mountain, and when he was seated, his disciples

came to him. Then he opened his mouth and taught them, saying,

blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for the

hours is the kingdom of heaven. Okay, So again this sermon,

Jesus was speaking to disciples. So, disciples are you and

me people who say that Jesus is my personal Lord

and savior. And when we went through this, blessed are

those who are poor in spirit. Remember we discovered the

definition of a few words. Okay, next, light, what is

blessed or what is blessed? What is blessed? Do you

all remember? I think it'll be very difficult to remember

because it was about one month ago, but I wanted

to just refresh us again. Okay. So there's two definitions

of blessed in the Bible, and today, according to this sermon,

we are going with one of those definitions. So next, so,

blessed is deep joy from walking God's way. So if

we follow the beatitudes, we will experience deep joy, and

that's the bless that Jesus is talking about. There's another

definition of blessed where God's favor shines upon you. Okay,

that is another definition of blessed, but for the context

of the beattitudes. When we follow the beattitudes, we will

be living with deep joy. Okay. So that's why he said,

blessed are those who are poor in spirit. When we

are blessed, when we are poor in spirit, we will

live with deep joy. Okay. And a few examples. Next,

happy are you, o Israel who is like you a

people saved by the Lord. The shield of your help

and the thought of your majesty. Your enemies will submit

to you, and you shall tread down their high places.

So the Israelites are considered blessed because they are considered

a person with deep joy because God was on their side.

When God is on your side and you have nothing

to worry about, won't you be joyful? Right? Another example

was First King's ten. So this is when the Queen

of Sheba visited Solomon, and she saw all of Solomon's

splendors and riches, And what did she say? Happy are

your men, and happy are these your servants who stand

continually before you and hear your wisdom. So those who

served Solomon, they were blessed because they had no lack.

They were in the richest country in the world, and

they were ruled by the wisest men in the world.

So they were blessed. And when we said blessed are

those who are poor in spirit, the title of my

sermon previously was this next light less is more less

of us and more of God. When we have less

of us and we have more of God, than we

are blessed because when we are poor in spirit, we

are saying God, I can't do everything on my own.

I need you, all right. And I ended that previous

sermon using this phrase, which says, next light, ditch the

pride and God steps inside. So when we are poor

in spirit, we cast the sight all our pride and

then God steps inside. So that was a brief summary

of my previous sermon. All right, it's a brief summary.

I know that y'all are looking at me like, Okay,

what's going on? But follow me because there is This

is one of Jesus' sermons and there's a lot of

truth and nuggets that if we live by them, we

will live a blessed life. Okay. So today we were

going we are supposed to go into the second beattitude.

And when I look at the second beattitude, I was

thinking should I preach this for family Sunday? Because this

seems like a very heavy beattitude, and how are the

I wonder whether the kids will understand or how am

I going to bring it across to all both adults

and kids. But then I felt and I could have

easily picked a sermon which is easier, but I felt

God challenging me and say that, hey, this is what

I have preached, and I preached it to both adults

and kids, all right. And kids, if you learn this

from a young age, it is even better, all right,

So bear with me, and I need God's grace and

mercy to come upon me to preach this all right.

So if you think I'm struggling, you just stretch out

your hand and say help him Lord. All right? Okay,

so are you already? So the sermon title for today

is this Beyond the Brokenness, Beyond the Brokenness? Okay, So

let us look at the verse. The verse is Matthew

Chapter five, Verse four. Blessed are those who mourn, for

they shall be comforted. Okay. How many of us have

read this verse before and not understand what it means?

Is it only me? All right? Max got a friend

in Max and Emmanuel. Okay, when you read this verse

and say, blessed are those who mourn, for they will

be comforted. What is the definition of blessed again? Blessed

is deep joy. So if I replace blessed with deep joy,

you will have deep joy when you moan. How does

that work? You will have deep joy when you moan,

and then you will be comforted. So that's why I said,

I need God's grace to help me preach this today

and next light. What does it mean to mourn? What

does it mean to mourn any of y'all? What does

it mean to morn? Mon is to be sad, grieve, depressed. Okay, kids,

you'll also understand what is morning on? I'm sure you do.

You know why because when I was prepared ring this sermon,

I was trying to look for an illustration that depicts morning,

all right, And I found a couple of them, and

the kids are quite well versed with them, actually, so

you know how difficult it was to find something that

related to mourning. All right. So this is a clip

from Lion King, right, and you know that Simba he

was actually in mourning because he lost his dad and

because of that he ran away. He ran away, he

ran away from his calling, he ran away from who

he was. He just got lost in terms of it.

And how many of us have experienced mourning, Okay, you

have experienced mourning. And when you're in when you are

in mourning, right, sometimes it seems very final, like this

is the end. I can't move forward anymore, you know.

And morning means that sometimes you realize that you are

no longer in control. You're no longer in control. You know,

you do not have any more power, you don't have

any more protection, and you know that life is fragile,

you know, And when you are in mourning right, suddenly

it seems that the world is coming to an end

and you can't move forward. And guess what, every single

one of us cannot escape from grief or mourning because

you are we all of us are living in an

imperfect world where there are so there is sickness, there

is this, there is war, there is difficulties, there's financial problems,

there's health problems, there's so many things. And that's why

I mentioned that for the kids, if you guys learn

this at a young age, that hey, we can't escape

from morning. We can't escape from grief. But how do

we handle it? How can we handle it? What does

the Bible teach us about mourning? Because the Bible say it,

blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

And who mons all of us, all of us will

mourn at one time or another. But today I want

to bring us across how should we moan? So that

if we are prepared early on, we know what to

do when we are in that situation. You know, the

worst time to prepare is when you are in the

seat situation. When do you prepare for an exam before

the exam? And the same way we have to prepare

ourselves before we enter into a period where we will

experience grief. Okay, So next light Ecclesiasis three. To everything,

there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven,

a time to weep, a time to laugh, a time

to mourn, a time to dance. So there is a

time for everything, you know, and it's written in the scripture.

So although all of us do not want to to

experience grief, you do not want to experience morning. But

guess what, there is a season for it, and all

of us will be going through this season, whether we

like it or not. Okay. So what happens when we

go through grief? Okay? Next light uh yep. So I

wanted to bring across a story, a story in the

Bible of someone who experienced grief and the lessons that

we can learn from it so that we can move forward. Okay.

So this is from First Samuel thirty. Now it happened

when David and his men came to zig Leg on

the third day that the Amalakites had invaded the south

and zig Lag and attacked Ziglag and burned it with fire. Okay.

So David and his men were staying in a place

called zig Lag. They were staying in a place called

Ziglag because they were running away from Saul. Okay, this

is in Palestine territory. But when they went out to war,

they left Ziglag. And suddenly what happened. The Amalakites came

and invaded them and attacked them and burned it with fire.

And they'd taken captive the woman and those who were there,

from small to great. They did not kill anyone, but

carried them away and went their way. So David and

his men came to the city, and there it was

burned with fire, and their wives and their sons and

their daughters had been taken captive. Then David and the

people who were with him lifted up their voices and

wept until they had no more power to weep. So

imagine this, David and his men they went out to war,

So they left zig zigg Is where their whole family

is together with their wife and kids. And what happened.

The Amalakites came in, invaded and kidnapped or took hostage

every single one of them, all their wives, all their kids, everything.

How would the David and his men feel? And David

and the people who were with him lifted up their

voices and wept until they had no more power to weep.

So David and his men they were mourning. They were

grieving because suddenly they lost all their family, They lost

all their everyone that they knew, and they were sad. Right,

this was a deep sadness. So there is three points

that I wanted to bring across today when we are

dealing with mourning, okay, and they all start with the

letter G. Okay. So the first one is grief. So

when we are mourning, we are in grief. We are

experiencing sadness. Okay, Let's go to the verse first Samuel thirty. Okay,

so this is the scripture that I just read right,

that David and his men wept until they had no

more power to weep. Okay. Then verse five the next

light David's two wives, ah Nium and Jessel lightis and Abigail,

the widow of Nabal the Kama Light, had been taken captive. Now,

David was greatly distressed for the people. Spoke of stoning

him because the soul of all the people were grieved,

and every man for his sons and daughters. But David

strengthened himself in the Lord, his God. So when you

go through grief, there's two ways that you can handle it.

One way was how David handled it. What did David do?

David strengthened himself in the Lord. But another way of

handling grief is how the rest of the people handled

What did David's men want to do? They wanted to

stone David. Why did they want the stone David? Was

it David's fault that all their family and their children

and their wives were taken hostage? It was not David's fault,

but they still wanted to stone him. And when we

are going through grief or depression, sometimes what we want

to do is we want to look for someone to blame.

We want to say that, hey, it is somebody's fault.

Because when we say it's somebody's fault, then you think

you have control and you can go and take out

your anger on that person. So you can see that

the people spoke of stoning him because they were grieved. Okay,

and there are five stages of grief. How many of

you all know there are five stages of grief? Is

a psychology lesson a quick one? Okay? When you are

having grief, all of us we go through these stages

of grief. It may not be in accordance, but and

we it may not be in sequence, and we might

go back and forth. So what happens when you're in grief,

First one is you are in denial. You know what's denial?

Denial is how can it be? This cannot be happening

to me? You know, I don't think this is real.

When you are going through grief, especially if you lost

someone close to you, you believe that I can't believe

that this person is no longer with me. And that's denial.

After denial, you get angry because God, how can you

do this to me? Or David King David. Our need

to stone David. Because of David, my whole family was

taken hostage, and my house and everything was burned to

the ground. So you get so angry you want to

retaliate and you want to take it out on somebody.

And then after a while you get angry and then

you cool down. After you cool down, you're like, Okay,

what should I do? You know, and you just think

that you feel like, I just feel like giving up. God.

If you come true, you take over. You know, I

can't do anything. You're overwhelmed. And then because of that

sometimes you go into depression. And finally, if you come

to it, you accept it. When you reach a point

of acceptance and you say that, Okay, this has happened

to me. I don't know why it has happened, but

I accept this has happened, and then I can move forward.

So just now in the Lion king right, Simba for

the longest time, you know, he lost his father when

he was young, and the clip that I showed you

just now right was when he was a grown lion.

Really he took so long to come to acceptance, you know,

because most of the time he was living in denial.

He was living in anger because he thought it's his fault.

And most of the time, that's what we are going through,

because when we are going through grief and denial, we

think that, hey, we are no longer in control. What

can I do? I don't trust God anymore. How many

of y'all know people who like have gone through a

tough time and they believe that God is not good anymore.

You know. There's a famous question, if God is so good,

why do bad things happen? You know, and we start

doubting God. And that's what happened to David's men. They

started doubting God and they said that, and they started

doubting David. You know that they followed David because they

believed that David was God's chosen king. But the moment

something went wrong, they turned on David. They got angry,

They had denial and they wanted to take it out.

Do you think that David was grieving as well? David

was grieving as well because he lost his wives, he

lost his children, he lost everything, and he lost and

the people that he were leading all of them lost

family as well. He was grieving as well. How did

David deal with grief. David strengthened himself in the Lord,

which leads me to my second point. So the second

point is grow. So after you grief, after you grief,

while grieving, you need to choose how you grief, because

there's two ways of grieving. One way of grieving is

where you will self destruct. Your self distruct and you

will turn against God, you will turn against everyone. But

the other way of grieving is putting our trust in God.

And that's why they say it, Blessed are those who mourn,

for they will be comforted because if we mourn as

how Jesus wanted us to mourn, then God's comfort will

be with us. Okay, let's see the verse next. First

Samuel Thade. Now David was greatly distressed. So you see

David was also mourning for the people. Spoke of stoning

him because the soul of all the people was grieved,

every man for his sons and his daughters. But David

strengthened himself in his God. Then David said to Abiata,

the priest, a him Alek's son, please bring the effort

here to me, and Abitar brought the effort to David.

So David inquired of the Lord, saying, shall I pursue

this truth? Shall I overtake them? And he answered him, pursue,

for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all.

When you are in grief, who do you turn to?

When you are in mourning? Who do you turn to?

Do we turn to God or do we turn away

from God? It is very easy to turn away from

God when we are mourning, because I'm following God. Of

course things should go my way? How come it didn't

go my way? But David, although he was grieving. Can

you imagine you lost your wife, your kids, and they

are in the hands of the enemy, and you do

not know if they are going to be tortured or killed.

And David's first instinct was to turn to God. And

when he turned to God, what did God do? God

told him what he needed to do. Right so verse

next light. Now it happened in those days that the

Philistines were gathered their armies together for war to fight

with Israel. And as he said to David, you assuredly

know that you will go out to me with battle

you and your men. So David said to Aish, surely

you know that your servant can do. And I said

to David, therefore, I will make you one of my

chief guardians forever. This is chapter twenty eight. This happened

before David was attacked, you know. And this David was

going to war to fight with who Israel? Do you

see that David when the Falan because the Phalenestines were

he was staying with the Phalistines. The Phalestinians asked him

join me and go and fight against Israel. And what

did David do? David went, and because he went to

fight against the Israelites, when he left Zigleg, that's when

the enemy attacked him and looted him. So you can

see that David did not do what God wanted him

to do. And as a result of that, zigg was attacked.

But the moment it was attacked, what did David do?

David repented, and David mourned. He mourned his decision to

disobey God. He mourned his actions, and he said, God,

you are in control, which ties to the first beatitude.

David became poor in spirit and says, God, you are

in control. I mourn my bad decisions. Now take control,

tell me what you need to do. And God came

thrue for David. And this is there's so many verses.

When we are weak, then he is strong. Another one

is Isaiah forty verse thirty one. Fear not Isaiah forty one,

verse ten, Fear not, for I am with you. Be

not dismayed. For I am your God. I will strengthen you,

as I will help you. I will uphold you with

my righteous right hand. So when you are weak, and

when you are you know that grief right when it

comes to you, you have no energy at all. You

don't want to get out of bed. You feel so tired,

you feel so exhausted, you just feel depleted, and you

just feel like sleeping. You know, that's how I feel

when when I go through grief or when I'm going

through a downtime, I just don't want to talk about it.

I just want to sleep. I just want to sleep.

I just hopefully I wake up feeling better. But usually

it doesn't because on our own we do not have

the strength to do so. And that's why when we mourn,

we need to seek God. And when we seek God,

God will help us to grow and then we are comforted.

In Isaiah forty verse thirty one, those who wait on

the lot shall renew their strength. They shall mount out

with wings like eagles. They shall run and notn't be weary.

They shall walk and not faint. Okay, there's a type

of there supposed to be Isaiah forty verse thirty one.

Those who wait until Lord shall renew your strength. When

you feel that you have no strength, when you are weak,

when you're going through a tough time, that is when

you need to seek God, and God will give you

the strength. God will give you the strength, and then

you will mount up with wings like eagle. You shall

run and not be weary. You shall walk and not faint. Right,

and that's the second g So, first of all, you

have to grief. When you going through things right and

you're going through a tough time, you have to grief.

You cannot escape from it because if you don't grief,

you pant it up. You will explode. After you grieve.

You have to grieve the right way. Grief the right way.

Let me just put it here. Yeah, you have to

grieve the right way. In how David grieved, David seek

God and then God gave him his strength. And after

God gave him his strength, what did he do, Which

leads me to my third point. It is go. So

first you grief, then you grow, and then you go

a lot of us. If we do not know how

to handle our grief, we will be stuck at grief

and we will not grow. God does not want us

to stay where we are at, because we are more

than overcome us in Christ Jesus right. So grief with

God helps us grow. And when he grew, when we grow,

then we have the strength to go forward. So the

verse first Samuel thirty. So David went, he and six

hundred men who were with him, and came to the

brook bazaar where there is those who stayed who were

left behind. But David pursued. He and four hundred men,

for two hundred stayed behind, who were so wary they

could not cross the brook bazaar. So David went with

six hundred men, but two hundred of them were still

so wary, they were still down with grief. They could

not go forward. Next, then David attacked them from twilight

until the evening of the next day. Not a man

of them escaped, except four hundred young men who rode

on camels and fled. So David recovered all that the

Amalothlites had carried away. David rescued his two wives, and

nothing of the ass was lacking, either small or great

sons or daughters, spall or anything which they had taken

from them. David recovered all. Then David took all the

flocks and herds they had driven before those other livestock,

and said, this is David's spall. So because David, when

he was in grief, he looked to God as his comfort,

that's where he had the strength and the wisdom to

go forth and take back what the enemy has stolen. So, Church,

this morning, the enemy might have stolen a lot from you,

might have stolen your marriage, might have stolen your richest,

might have stolen your health. And there is no one

else that we can turn to. Only God. Only God

has the power to give us strength and comfort us

in time of need. And when we do that, right,

like I mentioned, all of us go through grief. So

the world is looking at how do Christians handle grief?

You know? And I want to show you another scripture

next then all the wicked and worthless men of all

those who went with David answered and said, because they

did not go with us, we will not give them

any of the spall that we had recovered, except for

every man's wife and children, that they may lead them

away and depart. But David said, my brethren, you do

not do so with that the Lord has given to us,

who has preserved us and delivered us into our hand.

That the troop that came against us. So remember there

were six hundred men that followed David. Two hundred men

left behind because they were wary. And because these two

hundred men didn't join David in battle, the four hundred

people who went into battle, they say that, hey, let's

not give them because they didn't go with us. But

David said that no, we have to give it to them,

because you should not. You shall not do so with

what the Lord has given us and preserved us and

delivered us, delivered into our hand. So David knew that

it was not he that fought the battle, but God

fought the battle. And David wanted to tell the other

two hundred men that didn't go with him that God

was with us. God with us, was with us with

our in our grief. God help us grow, and God

help us go forward and take back what the enemy

has tolnm. So even as I draw towards the close right,

I wonder the Second Corinthians one blessed be the God

and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Father of

mercies and God of all comfort, who comfort us in

all tribulations, that we may be able to comfort those

who are in any trouble with the comfort with we

ourselves are comforted by God. So, like I mentioned, all

of us will go through grief and the world is

looking at us. How do we handle grief? Because if

the world sees that we handle grief differently, we handle

grief with hope, We are comforted, we have deep joy.

Even though we are going through grief, the world will

want to see what it is that we have different,

which comes back to what I said about disciple first

next line. When we go through grief, we have to

learn how Jesus handle grief. We have to live like Jesus,

and then we have to tell others about Jesus. And

this goes the same way to managing grief. Because God

wants to comfort us, but he can only comfort us

if we come to him. So blessed are those who

mourn for they will be comforted. Iron you encouraged to

know that if I'm going through a tough time and

I think the world is coming to an end, the

Bible says that I go to God and he will

comfort me. And because he comforts me, I will tell

the whole world of how good he is. So even

as I draw towards a close, I wanted to just

share share my story as well. So one of the

stories that I had, So this happened a couple of

years back. So we were having different challenges when it

came to parenting, right when the kids were much younger.

We're having different challenges and it was really really tough. Okay,

it was really tough, to the point where both Jess

and myself we just wanted to give up. We just

wanted to give up. We're like God, we prayed, we

did everything, we are serving you, but still nothing. There

seems to be no breakthrough. And I still remember this

instance very clearly. We were supposed to go for homes

all right, Holmes is our small group, so I think

Jess was supposed to lead worship. I'm supposed to do

the word for homes. But then before we went for homes.

There was we were facing a crisis at home, okay,

where the kids. I mean, it was really a challenging

situation where we really didn't know what to do. Okay,

we really didn't know what to do. I'm sparing all

the details because if you know, you know, it's family

Sunday and we have the kids here in terms of that.

But if you come and speak to me, I'll give

you a bit more details. But suffice to say, we

were at wits ends. We could not we were leading

the homes, and we just wanted to give up. So

what happened is, Okay, just decided to stay at home,

and I said, I will go for homes. I will

go for homes in that state of grief, and I

will worship lead and I will do the word. When

I went to homes that day and I did a

worship lead, and I was worship leading the songs that

I chose. I have no idea when I chose those songs. Right,

one of the songs was I raised a Hallelujah. I

started strumming a guitar and started I couldn't sing because

I was breaking down in tears. I don't think my

homies knew because I knew how to cover, but I

was struggling and somehow made it through the homes taught

the home notes, and then after Holmes, I went back

into my car. I locked the door and I just

screamed at the top of my lungs because I was like,

I had it higher enough. I could not handle this anymore.

I was like, God, where are you? Where are you

in this situation? You know? And I just let it

all out. And after I let it all out, I

just felt peace. I felt a piece that surpasses all understanding,

because I believe that when I was morning, he comforted me,

and when he gave me peace, suddenly there was a

boldness to like say that God, Okay, I believe you

are in control, and no matter what the enemy throws

at me, I'm gonna go harder, I'm gonna go stronger,

I'm gonna go faster. And guess what now, I'm like

leading the church plan here. This was way before us

leading this church plan and things got a whole lot

worse after that. But you know what, that lesson where

blessed are those who mourn and day will be comforted.

I took that and I say, God, you are gonna

comfort me. You are in control. I am gonna go

as you tell me to. So church this morning, I

just wanted to share that that song again, I raise

a Hallelujah all right, even as a play played this song,

this song is so powerful because it started from a

place of grief of morning. So even as we just

played that video, you can hear the testimony.

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God bless