Sermon Tone Analysis

*The Perfection of Brokenness*

Text : Matt 14:14-21

Notice the words that have been highlighted!

And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.

15 And when it was evening, his disciples came to him, saying, This is a desert place, and the time is now past; *(a)* *send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves victuals.*16

But Jesus said unto them, *(b)* *They need not depart; give ye them to eat.*17

And they say unto him*, **(c)We have here but five loaves, and two fishes.

18 (d)He said, Bring them hither to me*.* *19 And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and *took the five loaves, and the two fishes,* and looking up to heaven, he *(e)blessed*, and *(f)brake*, and *(g)gave* *the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.

20 And they did all eat, and were filled*: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full.

21 And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children.

*Set up question* – Do you have desire to be used miraculously by the Lord?

If your answer is yes then *all things must be done in order, and in God’s time.**

*If your answer is no then stop reading until your answer is yes.

For those of you that said “yes!” Look at the ministry progression I have identified by bold type in the text.

a.

A need was identified which was bigger than the resources available to the disciples.

b.     Jesus assigns the responsibility of the meeting of that need to a group that did not have resources to comply with his directive.

i.                   His words are an imperative order for the disciples.

God’s will is for them to feed the people.

God’s will is the impossible.

c.

They brought what they had  to Jesus

d.

He took what they had.

e.

He blessed what they had.

f.

He broke what they had.

g.

He gave it back and he used it to do what was humanly impossible.

The equation for making sure your life counts for Christ is in this wonderful loaves and fishes story.

Dear Christian friend, our Heavenly Father did not save you just to take you to heaven at some later date.

His ultimate intention was two fold.

He came first, to save you, and  then secondly, to use you.

His desire is to use the rest of your life for miraculous things until the day He will call you to come into His presence.

Your life can be used, and will be used,  if you allow Father to do what he wants day by day.

Let’s set up the analogy in Matthew 14 by identifying the key characters.

Ø     *The little boy’s lunch* is a picture of you and I as believers.

Jesus takes possession of us when he saves us.

If he hasn’t come in as Lord then He has not become savior.The idea that Jesus saves us and then later on we make him Lord is an unbiblical teaching made popular by the desire to bring large numbers of people into church membership.

Lordship salvation became unpopular because men will gladly submit to church membership and even baptism as long as they were not required to change their lifestyle.

His life in you is a perfect thing.

He created a perfect thing in you that would naturally and increasingly be drawn toward Him.

At salvation, Jesus placed spiritual life in you which is evidenced by a naturally growing evolving desire to be totally His and His alone.

The moment he saved you a perfect relationship was created by his grace.

A grace relationship that is ten years old is supposed to look different than it did the day the journey began at your new birth.

The point is that it will look different if it is healthy.

Don’t get confused.

You don’t get more of Jesus because you are growing in maturity.

Maturity is learning how to use what you have had from the beginning.

You don’t become more perfect because you are spiritually healthy.

You become more controlled by the Perfect One because you ARE healthy.

Day by day as we grow we become more available to His purposes.

As you get more familiar with his voice, you learn to trust.

As you learn to trust then you learn to hear.

If you hear better then you will follow closer.

See?

The perfect must continue to grow in perfection.

Romans 10:14 shows a progression like this.

*Sending* results in *proclaiming* which results in *hearing* which results in *believing*.

*/Rom 10:14-17   How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?

and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?

and how shall they hear without a preacher?

15 And how shall they preach, except they be sent?

as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!

16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel.

For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?

17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God./*

You learn to follow stronger because of his faithfulness in the past.

You give in or agree with Father (by a commitment of your will) to the working out of the perfect which has been in you since He saved you.

Now, if you are healthy, all you want to do is say “Yes Lord!” Guess what?

That is all our Father requires of us.

Yes sir! Ready to go sir!

Whatever you say sir!

No need for explanation sir!

I trust you sir!

  Father gives every new believer time to enjoy being fed and nurtured by others.

He gives us time where we aren’t expected to have a lot of ministry responsibility.

He gives us time to learn who He is and more about what He has done for us.

He has gives us time to mature and allows us to be fed by the others Then, there comes a time when he wants to use US to do the feeding.

He wants to use us.

He wants us to learn to be givers, instead of just takers.

That is why we can say with authority that it is not Father’s will for you to drink milk forever.

There comes a time for Him to take you off milk.

Here is a problem.

You still have free will.

You still have a choice.

Father won’t make you do anything.

I will say this though that He may make you wish you had given him a different answer!

If you exercise your will negatively and refuse to allow the process of brokenness to continue there is consequence.

You don’t cease being saved.

The perfect work that was done in you was not ever dependant on your works and it is not dependant on your works now.

However, there is a huge consequence when we refuse Father’s hand of discipline and choose the easy road.

Do you know what happens?

The consequence of disobedience is that we become irrelevant.

Why the word irrelevant?

Refusing his hand of discipline makes us useless in the work of the kingdom because Father will not trust His miracles to the disobedient.

Joshua would call you a wilderness dweller.

Luke would call you a prodigal son.

Revelation would call you lukewarm.