 Last few months, I've been sharing about the Christian life. I shared about the living dead, how our old man was crucified with Christ 2,000 years ago. We don't look forward to dying, we look backwards to his death and that's where our old man was dead, right? I shared also about the blood of Jesus taking care of our sins and the cross taking care of our sin, the sin nature. And then I shared about what it means to be a Christian. It means we're seated in heavenly places, we are walking and we're also standing in spiritual warfare. I mentioned also that Jesus gave his life, meaning as the flesh was broken, life was poured out and this life now is in us. That's why we as Christians have Christ in us, the hope of glory. Amen. Today I'm going to finish if that is a series, I'm going to bring it to a completion with a message on why it doesn't work, why it doesn't work. And I believe that this is going to be a crucial message and so I would ask if every brain cell of yours could be engaged with me and this is not a sermon, it's a message. A sermon is what I prepare for because I have to preach. My message is what prepares me and I can't wait to release it. And we have both, I have sermons and I have messages and this is a message. I just kind of, I just literally boosted my, what do you call, the expectation for the message. Lord help me now. When I was a youth pastor, I had this thing, I was very into having a lot of illustrations because kids' attention is small so I wanted to create illustrations. I had a sheep here, had a pig one time and had this desire and you guys remember of bringing a car as part of my purity series. And so I tried to bring a car and we found this car, we took the mirrors, those mirrors off, we took the doors off and then we worked for about four hours, four to five hours in the lobby with this car to try to get it inside. We got into the lobby, yeah, so we got into the lobby, we just couldn't get it through these doors and so there was just one problem with the car. The car had no exhaust pipe so all the smoke kind of went everywhere. We had a school government school here so within about two hours the school had to dismiss all the children because of so much carbon dioxide that was filled. I mean we didn't care, no masks, nothing. I mean we were like we're gonna get this car in and after a long exhausting experience we still didn't get the car in so I had to settle for a motorcycle. And you can't get life of God inside of you by your efforts. It's a miracle of God where God takes his life, the spiritual life, gives you new life, puts Jesus Christ inside of your spirit, not through the human efforts and human means but by the sovereign supernatural work that we call salvation. Amen. So Christ in me, new life in me, I'm a new creation, no condemnation to those in Christ. See it in the heavenly places. All the good stuff that we read that we claim, we name, we profess, we confess, we believe in that. It cannot happen by your good efforts. So to get inside God does that work. The challenge that happens now is how do we get it out of us into the world and that's what we're gonna talk about today. We all have it as Christians. We have Jesus in our spirit. We are a spirit. Somebody say, I'm a spirit. I have a soul and I live in the body. And that's why people who are coming in today and maybe you're listening to the testimony and you are not born again and you're like, man, this is scary. You're telling somebody who is supposed to be a guy when she's born a girl that she needs to stay being a girl because that is, you know, you're imposing identity. See, you're missing the point. A Christian is not his soul. A Christian is his spirit. And when you don't have a born-again spirit, you live out of your soul and that's where the confusion happens. You feel like a guy, you feel like a girl, you feel like a coyote, you feel like a lion, you feel like whatever and you have to live by your feelings all the time because you are not living out of a spirit. We are a spirit. A spirit does not have a gender. So it's not abusing anybody's sexual orientation. It's pulling us back to the image and likeness of God to say you are a spirit who have a soul and live in the body. So in my spirit is when God deposits everything, not in my soul. But the challenge that I have is not that I don't have it. It's that how do I release it? My spirit has it. My soul is in the way and then there is my body. And so what we're going to talk about today is how to get it out of my spirit through my soul into my life. It's kind of like this. We all have a car in our garage. You have to open the garage doors to get the car out. The garage doors are your soul. If you don't open, if the soul is not dealt with, what is in the spirit stays trapped. It's present. It's just not flowing out. And you can have a Porsche parked in your garage. If you're scared of opening the garage doors or are not comfortable opening the garage doors, you will take a selfie with your Porsche, wash your Porsche, sit in your Porsche, talk about your Porsche. You just won't drive it. Many Christians have what Christ brought supernaturally in. They don't drive that life because of this one issue. They're not comfortable. They're afraid and they're not willing to get their soul out of the way. Most of us are in love with our soul, in love with our life, and that is keeping us from the life we dream of having. The world we live in today, hashtag love life. Christians don't hashtag love life. Life is the garage door. It actually restricts your spiritual life if you keep it closed, if you keep it in love, if you keep it obsessed with your natural life. Let's go to the Bible. In John chapter 12 verses 24 is what I've read a few weeks ago where it says the following. Most assuredly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much fruit. So Jesus is referring to himself being the grain. And now in verse 25, he's talking about us. He who loves his life, which is the dream of every person living in America, love life, build a life you love. Make sure that Jesus helps me to love my life because it's about me, myself and I, demonic trinity. He who loves his life will have something to post about it. No, Jesus says he who loves his life will lose it. He who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Now for some of you who are like, well, what does Jesus mean? He who hates his life. I will read another verse in the Bible where it says in Luke chapter 9 verses 23 and 24, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. Now, there's a difference between a funeral and farming. When a farmer plants a seed in the ground, he is losing his seed. But he's gaining a harvest. When a family is bearing a dead person, a dead family loved one, we are bearing that person into the ground and we're not getting anything back. It's a lot of tears. It's a lot of crying. And we're honestly, we're grieving. There's a loss. We're not sowing that person. We are losing that person. When our old man was crucified, it was nailed on the cross. Jesus did not crucify your soul. He crucified your old man. Your soul is still intact. Your natural life, the life that Adam had before he committed sin. The soul, natural life is still intact. This life is good. Nothing is wrong with it. For the world who don't know Jesus, this is all they got. That's why drinking juice, exercising, aligning your chakras is all they can do. Mental health is the preoccupation because there is no spiritual health. Garage is open. Garage is empty. For a Christian, mental health is not our goal. It's not our goal. Our goal is the spiritual health because we are a spirit. We live out of our spirit. Mental health has its place. But mental health is not our priority and it's not our goal. Our goal is the spiritual health because the spirit dominates the soul. If you don't have a spiritual life, you try to cater to your soul. So Jesus in here tells us something. He says, if you're a spiritual person, you belong to me. You give your life to me. He says, you will have one hindrance in your life and that is going to be your soul. All of the blessings, the prophetic words, the destiny, the calling, the purpose, everything God has is trapped in the garage of your spirit and the soul is the garage door. And Jesus says, if you want to live like I live, not natural life but resurrected life. Not natural life but supernatural life. If you want to live abundant life, He says, you will have to learn to use the garage door opener. And it's called the cross. It's called the cross. A disciple is not somebody who gives up his sin for Jesus. A disciple is somebody who gives up his soul for Jesus. In this stage, I give my sin so I can get salvation. But I grow out of believing into following and this requires giving up my sin. But this requires giving up my soul so that the spiritual life can freely drive out of my driveway. Your greatest hindrance to living a life you dream is not willing to give up the life you have. The life you currently live is blocking the life you've been promised. And there is a fear of giving up. If I give up my life, my soul, this is not sin. We're not talking about drugs, weed or your abusive boyfriend. This is hard because this is good life. Soul life and it's hindering, restricting the spiritual life, supernatural life, power of God life. And Jesus says, if you love this life, natural one. He says, you can't have this one flowing out. It's trapped. He says, in order to release this life, you have to be like a grain. He doesn't say you're a corpse in the soil. You are a grain in the soil. Meaning it's not about a field noodle. It's about farming. You're not losing it. You're investing it. You're not losing it. You're sowing it. My friend and a lot of us, when we think of giving up something, we think of a field noodle instead of a farming. I want to shift your mentality today to let you not be in love with your life because that would be your greatest hindrance to the life you dream of having. Life, God promised for you to have. My father-in-law shared a story. When Putestroika happened in Russia, he was a pastor in Moscow and he was gathering a church in his apartment. Now, the government didn't give them a place for the church gathering so he would gather them in his apartment. He would tell us stories. They had three services a week, three services that they had a week. Every time they had a church service, they fasted that day. So fasting three times a week. In Moscow, to go from one place to another requires an hour and a half minimum, two and a half maximum. So most Christians took a bus after fasting and took a bus or a train for an hour and a half to get to the church service there, to our service, hour and a half back. I was like, did anybody get burned out? They said, burn out. We were just happy. We were not killed. Very different perspective. He tells me about an incident. He says, we had a hundred-something people in his few-bedroom apartment. I said, how did you fit them there? He says, we took all the doors out. We took all the couches out and we just had people just stand and sit as much as they could fit. It was so hot in the winter and Moscow gets very cold that the wallpaper would fall off because of the heat. At one time, they had a German pastor who came to preach at this little house meeting and the German pastor brought one shirt and because it was so hot, it was drenched in sweat. So he comes to my father-in-law, my wife's dad, who's a pastor, and he says, listen, my shirt is drenched in sweat. Do you have a shirt I can borrow? The just only one thing is my father-in-law only had two shirts once he was wearing and the other one was waiting for him to be worn tomorrow for work. He's like, I do, but I only have one left. He says, can I borrow it? Imagine the insult when a German person who has a lot of shirts and he's asking for the last one. And of course, my father-in-law, he says with gladness, he takes the shirt, gives it to him. The guy wore it, of course, drenched it in sweat and everything. They were just happy to give that to them. A few months later, my father-in-law goes to Germany and this guy, he takes him to a factory where there is a lot of clothes and he says, I want you to go and find a shirt for yourself, but I want you to find yourself 50 shirts. Why? He says, when you gave me that one at your apartment, he says, I want to bless you. Not with your shirt, with 50 German ones. And for anybody living in Moscow during that time, you know one thing, you got a really good deal. This is what I want to communicate to you today. When the Lord is asking for your soul, he's not trying to nail it. He's trying to sow it. I want us to shift our mentality. The fear of losing things for Jesus should be replaced with fear of missing out living the life of Jesus. I want you to have FOMO, fear of missing out. Many of us have fear of what will happen if I come to one more service. I will die. You won't, honey. You will live. Maybe the Porsche is going to get out of the garage finally. Maybe the spiritual life will finally begin to flourish. What will happen if I will actually start giving instead of just saying, yes, yes, yes, I agree, everybody should give? What will happen if I will actually start reading the scriptures instead of keep downloading the Bible app on my phone? What will happen if I will actually get married instead of hooking up, shacking up, breaking up and all the other up? What will actually happen is that the life will begin to flow out. This is not to get the life. Like I mentioned to you, you don't get spiritual life through the doors of human effort. You get it supernaturally, but to get it out, Jesus says one secret. He says the soul, the natural life has to be lifted. And the fear, we freak out because I'm going to lose everything. Jesus says you're going to lose it if you hold on to it. And if you let it go, you're not losing it. You're sowing it. This is not a funeral. This is a farming. You're sowing a seed. This is not, you're wasting it. This is you're investing it. Come on somebody. Those who love their life, they don't follow Jesus. They only believe in Him. Those who love their life, they will avoid the cross at any cost. Those who love their life will lose the life they seek to preserve. And those who love their life will miss the life they dream of having. I want us to go to the second point, and that is that which God blesses, must be broken for it to become a blessing. Matthew chapter 14 and verses, that's the famous story of the multiplication of bread. And Jesus says, verse 19, then He commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass and He took the five loaves and two fish. Looking up to heaven, He blessed. Somebody say blessed. A little bit louder. Say blessed. And broke. Somebody say broke. Now, this is not broke, like some of us are here today. This is different broke. And gave, because the broke that we have can't give. This is a different broke. And broke. And He breaks it, and He gives it. Now, I want you to see this. Jesus blesses it. And whatever He blesses, He breaks so that it can become a blessing. The idea that once God blesses me, I will be a blessing without dealing with the garage door. Dealing with the brokenness is not scriptural. I want to share with you a secret to seeing your destiny utilize for God. One word, brokenness. Now, there's a difference when you are broken through life. That's not that brokenness. Three men were on the cross. One was there because he was broken. And the other two were there because they were disobedient. You can experience maybe even a same situation for a different reason. We're talking about Jesus breaking the bread. Not the bread being broken by somebody else. I'm not talking about right now putting yourself in bad situation because of bad decisions. I'm talking about giving yourself to Jesus. Say, Jesus, you gave me this blessing and now Lord break my will so that this blessing can become a blessing to the nations. Broken. We're all trying to be whole now broken. Pastor, I don't want this message. I came here because I've been broken. Oh honey, that's not that broken I'm talking about. The broken I'm talking about is when you actually whole. When you are blessed and you're about to become a blessing. You're blessed. You got the prophetic word. I don't even know why I'm jumping, but I'm excited. You got that word. You got the calling. You got the anointing. You're about to reach the masses. Touch the world. There's just one thing. It's called your soul. And Jesus has to break it wide so that the life can get through. Why is he breaking so he can release his life out through you? And brokenness is something. Let me just teach you one thing. Never ask God to break you out of a million prayers. This is the one he'll answer first. Literally, you can pray for everything for decades. No answer. The moment you say God break me literally in three hours. This is what I pray. I said, Lord, when you are breaking me, help me to be yielded. Lord, when you are breaking the bread, God, I want to be surrendered. I don't want to be stubborn. I don't want to be that garage door that doesn't want to wait. I just want to nicely come out so that the life begins to flow out. God, when you do break me, give me the grace and give me the anointing to endure it. What does it mean to be broken? It means when your will collides with God's will, your will gives in. Brokenness means this. Not my will be done, but your will be done. Most of us, this is how we say, my will be done, Lord, with your blessing. You know I really wanted, Lord. Could you bless it? Let me Google a scripture that I can stand on. Forgot to bless it. Because if I got the scripture, even God will have to do what I say. Guess who's the Lord in your life? You are. You're still living in a soul life. And even if you get your way, you'll always stand in his way. There is going to be no Lord. We will say, Lord, Lord, and even do miracles. And he will say, but you don't do my will. How come? Because brokenness is when your will to his will. You can do miracles and not be broken. You can be famous and not be broken. You can have a big church and not be broken. You can have many children and not be broken. You can have a perfect family and not be broken. Because the goal here today is not to get God bless your mess, bless your will. It's to join the will he has blessed. And that's what brokenness is. It's what is your will, Lord? Not what I want. What is your will? Amen. The third thing that I want to highlight is if we don't carry our cross, we will miscarry our calling. So not only the brokenness allows the life to flow out. Not only when the soul is moved, the spiritual life flows out. I'm not trying to get it. I'm trying to get it out, release it by yielding. I don't allow fear of losing. I want to have a bigger fear of missing out. But now let's just go one step further. This brokenness, meaning when my will is broken, I want to get a little bit more nitty-gritty and practical things. And this is a story of Hagar. And in Genesis chapter 16 verses 9 through 10 and verse 11, Hagar is pregnant. Somebody say pregnant. That means she has something inside of her. It's new life. It's Ishmael. It's nations. But Hagar got a little arrogant, a little cocky. Because you know, like when you finally got the baby and in that world to have a baby, like I guess was like a big status. And so Sarah couldn't have a baby. And you know, for Hagar, that was a big deal. She finally can have a baby. So she started to make fun of Sarah. She started to walk around like a diva and saying, you know, like, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do the chores. I'm not your slave. I'm pregnant. You know, and so she carried herself like that. And Sarah let her have it. And Sarah put her in her place. She got offended. She got hurt because the Bible says Sarah was harsh with Hagar. Now at first we're like, yeah, Sarah should read how to influence people. Book. And she should just be so nice to the people in her house and everything. But Sarah was right because Hagar was arrogant. And sometimes when you get pregnant, you get proud. Leave it there. Meaning you get something. You think you're this and that. But just because you're blessed, you still need to be broken. You got blessed, but without brokenness, you can't. There's no God's way. It's just your way. And God can't bless that. God's way is always ask Jacob. When Jacob encountered God, God's blessing. God's like, until I wound your strength, you need to walk with the limp. Why? Because I can't use those that I don't want. It just has to happen. And so Hagar is in the wilderness, offended. Which is exactly where all offended people eventually end up. In the wilderness, offended. And the angel shows up. And you would think the angel would give her water. The angel comes and he says, Return to the harsh lady. This is not from God. And he says this. And submit to her. He doesn't say preach to her. He says, return and submit. And then I love this. He says this. Behold, you're pregnant. Because Hagar would have said this. I don't need Sarah. It's true. You don't need Sarah. What you're caring does. I don't need to submit to my pastors, to my leaders or to my church, to my parents. I don't need. Yeah, maybe you can, you can survive what you're caring. Can't. What you're caring needs the garage door to be open. And this can't happen without submitting to the Lordship. And a lot of times submitting to the God given authority. He places in our life. But it's a toxic environment. It's interesting how much this word has been used to label every single situation that are not the same. There's a lot of toxic environments are because we are not transformed through our brokenness. I can tell you how many offended people have left this church. Not because this church is not perfect or it's because perfect. Because you were in the place of growth and brokenness. And you slipped out of the master's hands and you want to put yourself back together. Instead of allowing the Lord to break your will. I'm not talking about right now physical abuse, mental abuse or verbal abuse. What I'm talking about is pride abuse. What I'm talking about is ego abuse. It's when your ego gets affected. It's when your pride gets injured and when my way or the highway gets slapped on both sides. I'm talking about when the pride gets broken and we are hurting a little bit. And we're like, man, I'm going to go switch me churches instead of switch my attitude. I'm going to go switch me pastors instead of switch my pride. And we walk away from the place of birthing. And we're hiding in the wilderness, nursing our wounds. And we're coming to God and say, Lord, pour some oil on my wounds. And God says you did not finish the surgery. Get back on the surgery table. Return and submit. Why? Because you're caring nations. You need a proper environment for this. It needs to be broken. You go and humble yourself. Why? Because Ishmael needs a daddy. Ishmael needs circumcision. Ishmael needs Abraham. Why? Hagar, it's not about your feelings. It's about your destiny. God doesn't deal with you based on where you're at. He's dealing with you based on where you're going. I can't tell you how many times in my youth years when pastor was treating me like Sarah. This revelation, you can read in my Bible notes, how many times this revelation spoke to me. Because I felt abused. He was harsh to me. But in reality, and I was like, why is he so... He's supposed to be my mentor. I feel like he's my tormentor. I feel harassed. He tells me to get my act together. He doesn't even ask me nicely. He just tells me what to do. I look back now and I'm thinking, God wasn't using all of this to help a little preacher. He was trying to deal with me based on what I was carrying for years and decades later. It wasn't a torment. Yes, it was a torment for my pride, my ego. But I don't want it to do it this way. I don't like it. And in that part, yeah, it was being tormented. And if I would hold on to that, I wouldn't be able to tap into the calling that God had. You can't get the calling out until you get through this process. Now I understand this is not pretty, and I understand a lot of you after this here, and that's fine, but don't blame God. If you miscarry the calling, there's only one process. Take up your cross. Deny yourself and follow the Master. And there is no way around this thing where your pride will not be injured. There's just no way. I don't care how much you pray and how much you fast, how much Bible you read or how much education you have. You will have to go through the process where your will and your pride, your ambition and your ego gets... Ah! Oh, Jesus, yes, finally. You can use me now. I don't care about anything now. It's no longer about my will. Saul was on his throne, and God says, you're no longer the king. Saul holds on to it. Why? He's not a broken man. David is on the throne. Absalom comes to take it, and David walks away from the throne. God never said, David, you're not a king no more. David walks away from the throne. Barefoot, because he's like, I don't want to bring war to Jerusalem. I care about my people. Barefoot walks away, and then he says this. If God finds pleasure in me, he'll bring me back. But if God says this, I don't like him anymore. Here I am. Let him do to me what seems good to him. Wow! Broken man. Man after my heart, God said. Who are you and are going to be? I want us to be broken people. I'm not talking about broken because of abuse. I'm talking about broken because we're willing to be used by him. I have a refrigerator in my house. You probably have a refrigerator in yours. When you have a refrigerator, most likely you bought it. Because you bought it, it belongs to you. You have a very basic expectation. Very basic expectation of your refrigerator. For it to be available to work for you when you want it. Simple expectation. It's not because you're highly out there. Just a very basic expectation. Imagine if you come into your refrigerator today. And it says, it's my day off. I don't work today. How many of you realize? Oh yeah, totally understand. I'm so sorry for disturbing you. Can I see you tomorrow? Yeah. Now you will come and you say, where's that technician? Come over here. Fix that thing. Why? That thing is not responding to my commands. Why? I bought it, belongs to me. It should be available anytime. I want to use it. You don't live in your refrigerator. You don't use your refrigerator every second of the way. But it's in your house. And you are its Lord. When it comes to Christ, most of us have a view of Christianity. That's like this. Jesus is my American democracy. American democracy works like this. It's off the people, for the people, by the people. I am the center. My feelings should be considered. My schedule should be considered. The season that I am in my life should be considered. Don't you dare to tell me what to do. Ask nicely and I want to hear the word, please, in it. So that's fine with a human relationship. When you take that into your king who says, I bought you with my blood. You belong to me. I am not your president. I am your Lord. You keep saying that in the song. You belong to me. I bought you. You must be available to me. Harsh words, must. Maybe if I feel like it. I want to challenge you today. Don't embrace Christianity with an American mindset. Because Christianity is kingdom. We live in democracy, which is a great human government. It is not the kingdom mentality. Your feelings, I'm going to tell you the way it is, don't matter. His will does. People who sat in jail for 20 years, feelings were not considered there. My grandparents, or my father-in-law, who went to church three times a week and fasted three times a week, they didn't see themselves, oh, we gave so much. We just feel so tired. Another day in church. That's an American thinking, trying to stick into a kingdom world. Why doesn't it fit? Because it's kingdom and you're thinking democracy. Why am I presenting this message? Because what's about to happen in a church in the next few months and next few years is going to be crazy. And I just want to expose you to the idea we're not just believers, we're disciples. We are first kingdom citizens before we're American citizens. I happen to be an American citizen, but I am a kingdom citizen. That means I live by different rules. My life is not on Sundays, it's my day off for the Lord. It's my Saturday, it's my day off. There is no such a thing. I belong to Jesus. This has been wrecking with me because like everyone here, I'm in a full-time college. I have a full-time job at the church. I have a full-time job with VSM. I travel. I don't have a lot of time. And sometimes I had these pity moments. I said, Jesus, you're sacrificing so much. Jesus says, really? You're living the life you finally dreamed of. You're not sacrificing, I sacrificed. He says, you are my own. I own you. Your fridge is not complaining that it's only doing your will. It just does its will, and when it stops doing it, you replace it. And I just renewed my mind and I tell myself this all the time. My life, not just my Sundays, not my evenings. Oh, not just my eight, eight to five. That's what I serve God. No, every day and every night. I had my own life, hated it. I don't want it. I'd rather have spiritual life flow out. What could happen if we would fully surrender? And if you think that every moment Jesus is going to make you read King James' version, Jesus is way nicer than you are. He's going to give you more life than you'll know what to do with. He'll give you more joy you'll know what to do with. He'll give you more peace you will not know what to do with. He will give you more meaning you will not know what to do with. He'll give you more miracles you will know where to post them. Jesus is so much better and so much greater. He didn't come to steal your life. He came to give you life. Stop fearing Jesus asking you to finally put your seeds in the ground. Oh, I'm going to lose it. Jesus, you're going to get a whole forest. Relax. Amen. Let's take a different mindset and then the idea of tithing will not give you a heart attack. You'll be like, oh, wow, God let's me keep 90. What a generous God. Instead of what a generous me because I gave 10% total shift mentally from how much I can give to how much God lets me have. Thank you so much for being a part of this community. If you're interested in learning more about Hungry Gen, our internship, our conferences, deliverance, and so many other things, go to HungryGen.com for more information. And as always, remember better is not good enough, the best is yet to come.