Sermons

I want to talk to you about a man who ended up in the wrong place. Who ended up in the wrong city. It wasn't where he was supposed to be. He wasn't as fortunate as many of us that are sitting in this place today because of a bad decision he made. That we see what the end was and where he ended up at. Let me build my case here for the next few moments. I want you to take something to write with. I want you to get ready to jot things down on your phone, on your iPad, piece of paper for us older folks.

Then, let's just write this down for just a second. How many still use paper and pen, would you raise your hand. This is the old crowd. Okay. Here we go. Let's deal with this. You have to have, I believe, I think you have to have three people in your life that I think are really important. I think you have to identify them. I think everybody in their life needs someone in the genre of an Apostle Paul. What do you mean by that? Everybody needs a Paul which is really an older person, mentor.

I think coach that can build into us. Not necessarily someone who's smarter or more gifted, but really someone who has more journey, is more weather beasten. Has been down the road and can guide us and literally it's somebody that's willing to share their strengths and weaknesses. Someone that literally could say, "I've learned this in the laboratory of life and let me walk you through that." Let me just say this, you are never too old to have an Apostle Paul to look up to. You're never too old.

We always call it in our family, 'processing up.' If all you do is process this way, that's dangerous. Who do you process up with? That someone that can speak out of experience and out of relationship with God that can walk you through. I think everyone needs that. I think everybody needs a Timothy in their life. It's someone you're investing in. It's a young person, somebody that you are affirming, encouraging, correcting, directing, praying for.

It's who we would say and let me just say this to staff and leaders at Time Square Church. We say it like this. Who's your bench? Who is it? We'll say it like this. This is really important. You get hit by a bus on Broadway, who then takes over? Do we have to go out and find somebody? Our job has to be investment. If Greg leaves here and get's hit by the bus or get's hit by the F-train, we need some-- I'm just saying. Then who takes over? It's really important.

Pastor Teresa. Who's the bench that we have. It's always important that we're looking for that. Someone that we're bringing up and bringing to that place. Then the third person. Not only a Paul, Timothy, but jot this down. I think everybody needs a Barnabas in their life. Let me tell you what a Barnabas is. It's someone who loves you but is not impressed with you. That is willing to say, "Hey, I think you're messing up here. I think the way you spoke to your wife is not the right way.   I haven't seen you in church, I love you enough to tell you this."

It's somebody in our life that we know we can trust, that we have to make sure that I think it's important that those three people are part of our life. That there is a Paul that we process up. That there is a Timothy which is a bench for us and that there is a Barnabas, someone who loves us but is not impressed with us. I went on a journey, I only did it once and it was interesting. Social media allows you to do this. I kind of went on a journey with people.

I've been in ministry for 35 years and it's amazing that social media will allow you to see people that started in ministry with you and to see where they are today. Sometimes that's a scary thing. To see people that started in ministry, started with a fire, started with a real passion and a calling and to see where they've ended up today. From very questionable lifestyles to areas that I think would almost be scary for me that I kept thinking about.

Thank God for the Paul’s in my life that kept me on track. Thank God for the Timothy’s that motivated me to continue on and thank God for the Barnabas’s that loved me enough to tell me the truth. A lot of what happened to those people that I went on a journey to see what has happened to them, I think I started to realize that one of these men that we talked about had an ending, which I think will surprise us. We find most of his life in the book of Acts and then we got to jump to another book of the new testament to see the final word, if it was like going to social media, the final word about this individual and his name is Barnabas.

I'm going to tell you about this man Barnabas and I want you to follow with me on a journey. They say that since Greece started in a sense, the Olympics and those games that the world celebrates, it was interesting. I was reading something that they said that the first races that would take place was not simply a race that would happen with legs and speed when it was a running race, but they used to have to run it with a torch in their hand. That's where we get the torch being passed from country to country.

They said it was the man that not only finished the race first but finished with the torch still burning. I thought to myself, "God, I want to finish this thing with my fire still lit. I want to finish with a fire alive inside of me." That's what I wanted to see. I want us to take a look at Barnabas' torch. I want us to see and I want you to make the judgment call if it was still burning at the end. Let me walk you through a journey. Just jot this down with me as we go through because it all starts in Acts chapter four.

In fact, his real name is not Barnabas at all. His real name is Joseph. Barnabas was a nickname in Acts 4:36-37. It was literally for two things. This man is known as an encourager. That's what the name Barnabas means. He's also known as generous because in Acts 4:36-37, Joseph, who later becomes Barnabas as a nickname because he is such a positive, encouraging guy to be around. Can I pause here for a second and help you Times Square with something that happened with me yesterday here at Times Square that I want to encourage you.

Can I help you? Somebody said this to me and I had to say, "Stop. Let's do this the right way" They said, "Pastor Tim, I want to just say to you, I want to encourage you, but don't get a big head. Don't get prideful." I said, "Stop right there." I said, "If you're going to encourage me, then do it right." I said, "You are not--" Listen to me. Stop saying that. We live in a culture that beats us down. You're not the pride police. Okay, let's just get that straight.

If you're going to encourage them, then just say it. Just don't worry about pride. The Holy Spirit can worry about that. After service at six o'clock if pastor David is good, "Pastor David, I just want to say this, but don't get a big head, but you really did it." Just say you did a good job. Okay, enough of that. Here we go. Here's what I wanted to say. He was encouraging and generous, sold the plot of land and gave everything to the church. Then in acts chapter nine, we see him show up again. He is a visionary. It's an Acts chapter 9 that the Apostle Paul becomes a Christian.

He's on the road to Damascus and this man who is killing Christians now comes into the church and in Acts 9:25-28 when he gets there, the Bible says that all the believers were afraid of him and that they were not only afraid of him, but they thought he was faking is what the Bible says. "Then Barnabas brought him the Apostle Paul to the Apostles and told them how he saw the Lord." I mean, think about this. What would you do if you just saw Jesus become born again? You show up into the church and everybody's skeptical about you.

You'd almost go, "It's better to be out in the world. At least people are real. They don't even believe that I have a relationship with Jesus." I mean, think about this. If it wasn't for Barnabas, Paul could have just threw it all away and said, "Man, the people in the church act worse than the people out on the streets." In fact, let me say it to you this way because the Bible says Barnabas took hold of him. Listen to these words. Truth be told, if there was no Barnabas, there may not have been an Apostle Paul. Think about that for a second.

If Barnabas didn't go, "No, this guy's for real. He saw Jesus." We don't know if there would have been an Apostle Paul because somebody believed in him. Think about this. He is an encourager. He is generous. He is a visionary. He saw something in Paul that not even Peter, James and John saw. Do you know what the other thing is? He was in disciple or talk about a bench. Acts chapter 11. Jot this down, verse 25.

He goes and finds Saul again in Tarsus. What he does is when he found him, he brought him with him to Antioch, spent time there by pouring into Paul challenging him and even letting him do ministry with him. It was Barnabas and Paul at this time, so it wasn't like just, "Let me introduce you to the church," but, "Let me grow you in your relationship." Think about that. You are generous. You are an encourager, you are a visionary. You are a disciple. Here's another one, Acts chapter 13. He is a pioneer.

The first missionary team to go out is Paul and Barnabas. It says that in verses two and three, that the church right in the middle of a worship service, separate Paul and Barnabas and sent them out on the first missionary journey. Think of that for just a moment. You have an encourager, you have a generous man. You have somebody who's a visionary, a discipler, a pioneer. Acts 14 says that God was using them both in a healing gift, read the story on the first missionary journey.

They were calling them Zeus and Hermes, because people were getting healed and they had to stop them and say, "This is the power of Jesus." When you think about what was going on, generosity, you think of the encouragement, you think of the visionary to see something in Paul that no one else saw, a disciple or not just to lead him to cry or to help them into the church, but to grow him. To think of him being a pioneer, to have gift things from God of healing.

Finally in Acts 15, he's literally seen as the church spokesman, he is an elder spokesman in the church. The church hit a pivotal moment in Acts 15, of wondering which direction we're going to go and literally facing a racist direction. Do we allow Gentiles even to come into the building, to even be part of the church? It was Paul and Barnabas and especially Barnabas in verse 12, that has to stand up and the Bible says all the people kept silent, they were listening to Barnabas and Paul as they’re relating the signs that they saw among the Gentiles.

Literally, God would take this man, an encourager, a generous man, a visionary, a pioneer, a discipler, a man who had a healing gift and an elder spokesman in the church, think about who this man was. Then something happened in Acts chapter 15 that I want to read to you. This is where I think something begins to go awry, and finds him in the wrong place. Listen to verse 36. "Some days Paul said to Barnabas, 'Let us return and visit the brethren in every city in which we proclaim from the first missionary journey and see how they are."

Verse 37, "Barnabas wanted to take John called Mark along with him, but Paul kept insisting that they should not take him along because they deserted him in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work." Now, Times Square, look at verse 38, "and there occurred such a sharp disagreement, they separated from one another. Barnabas took Mark with him, sailed away to Cyprus and Paul chose Silas and left him being committed by the brethren to the grace of the Lord. He was traveling through Syria and Cilicia and strengthening the churches."

I want you to think for a second Barnabas one more time. Think about this, an encourager, he's generous, he's a visionary, he's a discipler, he's a pioneer first missionary team.

He has a healing gift. He's the elder spokesman at the Jerusalem council. There's no more mention of this man except one more verse. This is if you would go on social media in the first century, you'd find out. We don't have anything after Acts 15:38 until six years later, we have one more mention of this man Barnabas.

Who is the visionary, who's the encourager, who's the discipler, who is the elderly spokesman, who is the one that is the generous man? Let me read to you the final story of the man that I'm not sure ended up in the place that he was supposed to be. Listen to Galatians 2:11. "When Peter came to Antioch I had opposed him to his face," this is Paul speaking. "For what he did was very wrong." When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile believers who were not circumcised but afterward when some of his friends of James came, Peter wouldn't eat with the Gentiles anymore.

He was afraid of criticism for these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision. Look at verse 13. As a result, other Jewish believers followed Peter's hypocrisy even Barnabas was led away in the hypocrisy. I want you to think about this for just a moment. This is Barnabas, the man who is generous, the man who is an encourager, he's a visionary and a discipler, he's a pioneer. He has a healing gift, he's the elder spokesperson and the last thing we have of him is he's called a hypocrite?

Think of this for just the moment. I remember one of my Paul’s in my life that I processed up who used to say these words to me. He says, "Tim, always remember this. That the best of man are still men at best. The best of men are still men at best." Barnabas the encourager is now ending with being called the hypocrite. Barnabas the encourager is now finding himself in a city where I was hoping to be in Jamaica, God said you need to be in Detroit because that is going to begin to change the trajectory of your life.

Really for me to end up in Jamaica would be like Barnabas because it's like Barnabas ending up Galatia. Paul's ministry partner, Paul's first mentor, Paul's co-partner and missionary has now gone hypocrisy and what a harsh word to hear the man that was discipled now calling his discipler, he's involved hypocrisy. I think that this is so important. The first verse of Barnabas in 30 AD he's an encourager and a giver. Now you think about 54 AD, his last verse ever given in Galatians 2:13, 24 years later Barnabas is finishing his race it seems like as a hypocrite.

Listen to me, hanging out with people that are really starting to bring him down a road that he never should've gone before. How does a good man end up bad? How does a good man who starts off right, how does the torch go out on something like this? Because what's deceiving about Barnabas is he is hanging out with religious people and we think everything's okay because he's hanging out with religious people, but doesn't realize that the very people he's hanging out with are part of the same thing that he's doing, which is the hypocrisy.

I don't think I'm out of bounds here to think that six years later we get this Galatians verse that something happened to him in that disagreement in Acts 15. I don't think I'm out of bounds to look at a passage in Acts 15, the Bible uses this word, "Sharp disagreement. They go their separate ways." I have to believe when you look at the passage and the scriptures that something didn't get right in Barnabas. Something happened at that moment in that disagreement that six years later has him in hypocrisy.

Think about this for a moment, Times Square Church. You take a boat and just one degree off doesn't seem like much, but go one degree off for six years you can end up in hypocrisy. Just to be here, to not have somebody in your life to correct the one degree. Someone in your life not kind of just go, "Let's get that back in line, " but to continue on with something that's in there and to go on for six years, you end up where Barnabas did, which all of a sudden you go from encourager and you end up six years later because you didn't deal with something there, and you end up in hypocrisy?

You end up after all that happens, all that stuff in the book of Acts, just that one degree for six years. Think about this for a second, just for a moment. Acts 15, on that second missionary journey to Galatians 2 is six years. That means that that disagreement sat in his heart may be for six years. Now, listen to me close for a second and jot this down.

If there is a lie that I want you to get today it's this, time doesn't heal all wounds. That's just a phrase that people say. That's not Bible. That's not true.

Listen to me close. A wound overtime doesn't heal, it corrodes the hearts. It begins to start bringing something there that you end up one degree of-- Think about this for a second, let me just say it like this. Time is an awful doctor for a wound in the heart. It mistreats and deceives its patients, because the only thing that heals wounds is forgiveness. Not time. Time doesn't heal. Forgiveness.

What happens is, when something gets broken, when a heart gets broken, when a spirit gets broken inside of us, if it's not dealt with, the longer it goes on, the more off course you become. That's the danger that goes on. That's why it's so important for us to understand this. I know we're right in the midst of-- here in New York, baseball season and everybody's excited about the Yankees that they're doing so well with like six people on the injured reserve.

Let me give just a baseball thought here for a second. Just a thought. Everybody goes watch it, I'm a Met fan. Let me just say this to you just for a second. Let me go all the way back to the '30s, considered to be one of the greatest pitchers ever in the '30s. In fact, there was only two people in the last 80, 90 years that literally had 30-game season, 30-game wins in a season. One was Denny McClain for the Detroit Tigers, and another man is someone that we know his name by his nickname, kind of like Barnabas.

His name was Dizzy Dean. They were on the path, his team was on the path to becoming, literally going to the World Series and what took place literally ended his career. He was playing in the all-star game and when he was pitching a ball during the all-star game, hit him and broke a bone in his left foot. What happened was, because he wanted to win the World Series so bad, he still pitched the entire season with a broken foot.

In order to do that, when you're throwing a ball, you got to put a lot of weight, you got to end with a lot of weight on that foot. What he did was, he found a way to not put the weight there, but to really change his arm trajectory, and to throw it and they said, throwing the way you are and as fast as you are literally ended his season in two years. What he did was he adjusted because of something broken, he adjusted and ended his season.

What I kept thinking about was this, when you don't get something fixed, and you still stay in ministry and still preach and still sing, something has to adjust in us, something that literally-- Look at me for a second. Listen choir, if there's something that got stuck here, you have to adjust. You can't sing certain words, you can't say certain things when you know that there is a wound inside of you.

You can't lead and preach certain ways if there's something inside of you, because when you do, now you have to switch your pitching motion. What that does is shorten your longevity because now, you're broaching a place called hypocrisy that literally can destroy what's going on inside of your hearts.

[applause]

This is for all of us. This goes for everyone starting with me. Listen, if a relationship is broken and you don't address it and try to fix it then we adjust our Christian walk, we adjust our words. You can't finish well, the torch doesn't burn. You can't finish well with unforgiveness. I had a close friend, a friend of the family that I remember going to a funeral and while we're at the funeral, the child-- Let me say it like this, because David Wilkerson was involved with this.

There was a family many, many decades ago that had a child that had a terminal disease and they asked brother Dave to pray for the child. While he was praying the Holy Spirit spoke to brother Dave and said, "I'm not going to heal this child, I'm going to take him home," for whatever reasons. Brother Dave wrote a letter to them and said, "I've been praying and I want you to know that God is going to take your child, but he's going to comfort you, he's going to be with you in this."

That person took that note, folded it up and carried it for 40 years. I saw the note at a funeral when all of a sudden at a funeral, they opened it up, it was literally falling apart because it's been opened and closed to show so many people saying, "Look what he said." What he said was true. The Holy Spirit did speak to him and for whatever reason. Literally, for 40 years, they're carrying around a note to show people and all I'm watching is their whole life, 40 years of something getting in. Barnabas six years, he's in hypocrisy. Let that thing go on for 40 years, who knows where we end up at?

This could be a day that God finally gets us back on course today and lights the torch again so we can finish well again. We've got to believe that God shows us these things in the Bible. That's why the Apostle Paul, and I wonder if he had this in mind, when the Apostle Paul writes a few years later in the book of Ephesians it says, "Listen, you will have sharp disagreements with brothers and sisters. You will have sharp disagreements on staff." You will begin to have sharp disagreements, but you got to fix them before you get on that cruise line around New York City.

Listen to me close. Listen, the apostle Paul says you will have those. You're not unchristian because you're in an argument. The Apostle Paul says you have a time limit, though. It's not six years. It's not even next Sunday, it's sundown. You are allowed to be ticked till sundown. Then you got to get it right. Listen to what the Apostle Paul said. Listen to these words, jot this down. Ephesians 4:26, and 27, "If you are angry, don't sin by nursing your grudge. Don't let the sun go down with you still angry. Get over it quickly. For when you are angry, you give a foothold for the devil." That’s what he says.

[applause]

Could it be what the Apostle Paul was saying was, he says, "I've seen it firsthand." I saw it in my mentor. I saw it in my person that discipled me, that I processed up with. I saw it with my ministry co-partner, that he let the sun go down in his wrath, and all of a sudden, the one degree is going now a day. It's gone a week. It's gone a month. It's gone six years, and now the marriage is hanging on by a thread. Now, the relationship with your parent, because of what a mom did or a dad did. What a pastor has done.

We think if we come to Times Square, that we can just leave the church that we were at, and all of a sudden, but really Times Square is not God's direction. It's your deviation to get away from what you were supposed to deal with. Some of you are going, "I knew we should have went to that other church today."

[laughter]

[applause]

I think it was Corrie ten Boom, the great woman of God that came out of the Holocaust that said this. She said, "I can forgive but I can't forget is only another way of saying I'm not forgiving." I think God may be showing us not to take those disagreements lightly. They have a possibility of setting a course and a bad finish. How do you fix it? I want to close with this. How do you fix that? Let me be practical, and then let me end with the big picture.

I want you to get this today because I think we've got to get-- I don't want you going for six years. I don't want you to have a note for 40 years. I want to help you today for just a moment. Just very quickly, I want to speak to you. Not what the person did, I want to help you so you don't get off course today. You need to write this down. Number one is this. I want you to have high expectations of you and low expectations of people.

Pastor Tim, that, if you just stay with me. High expectations on you, low expectations on them because what I want you to do is, I want you as you make the journey to make something right, have no expectation if they're going to apologize, have no expectation that they're going to own it. I'm saying put the expectation on you because some of you won't forgive because they won't own it. Some of you won't forgive because they won't apologize. I'm telling you, you can forgive without an apology from them.

Some of you have gotten one degree off and because they haven't done their part, you haven't done your part. I'm telling you, the expectation needs to be on you, not on them. We start, does that makes sense? Stay with me because I'm going to be in your grill for just a second here, just say with me. High expectation on you, low expectation on them. This is you making it right, not them making it right. Number two, you apologize for holding a grudge and not making it right.

You apologize, what?! You apologize and said I need to come to you. High expectation on you, low expectations. What if they don't own it? It doesn't matter. You're not going to Galatia. You're not going to end up in Galatians 2. You're going to end up in the right place. Number one is high expectation on you, low expectation on them. Number two, you're going to apologize for the grudge that you held. You didn't say, "I should have come to you and I didn't have a chance to come to you."

Then you're going to say this, number three, get ready. You're not to choke this out, "Please, forgive me." Thank you. High expectation on you, low expectation on people. Number two, you are going to begin to apologize for holding it and you're going to say, "Please, forgive me." You're going to end number four by praying for them. This is the worst service I've ever been to in Times Square Church history.

No, I just going to get your torch burning that when you finish this thing, you're going to be right on course and finish the right way today. Listen, because some of you have been off, you've corrected your playing. You've corrected your singing, you've corrected your leadership and today we make this right. We go like this. High expectation on me. "I want you to forgive me, please. I've held a grudge."

They're going to look at you like, and they're going to pretend that you're the person. Like, you're the problem.

That's okay. That's when you're going to go, "Please, forgive me." Not with an attitude. "Forgive me." You're going to say it the right way. There's none of this.

[laughter]

There is none of this. You're going to say, "Please, forgive me. I've held a grudge. Can I pray for you?" At that point, back on course. At that point, we don't end up in Galatia, we end up with a fire still burning inside of our hearts and lives.

[applause]

Let me close. I want Greg since he's still alive.

[applause]

I want you to come. This is really important. I want you to understand how important this is because this doesn't only deal with the relationship that we have with each other. Listen to me close. It also deals with the relationship we have with God. Nothing is worse than to go to a family reunion, a family gathering and know that there's an elephant in the room that nobody's dealing with. Anybody ever been there before?

Nothing is worse than to think that I've come to church and I've dealt with God because I'm in His house and there's an elephant in the room called, "I haven't dealt with this sin in my life." Some people think that if I just come to church that God is happy. Let me define to you the difference between a religion and a relationship. Listen to me close. Let me tell you what a religion is. Religion is a lot of hard work to try to impress God so much that he's going to invite us to live in heaven with Him and in His house forever.

That's what religion is. "I'm going to make you like me God so much that when I die, I did so much for you to like me that you're going to bring me to heaven." Look at me folks. Nothing could be further from the truth. To be in church and to think I'm in church, all is good but not deal with the relationship with God. That will go on for a long time and that will get you off course. What do I have to do Pastor Tim? You've got to deal with a broken relationship with God. Church doesn't fix it. Tonight we're going to celebrate water baptism. Can I just tell you, if you go into that tank and you're not born again, you're just going to come up a wet sinner.

[laughter]

That's all you come up. You don't even come up clean because there's nothing in that tank-- Let's just be clear. Here's the truth. We don't bring that water in that's not from the Jordan. That's not Israel water. Can I say where that water is from? It's good New York water. That's all that is. How many know New York water is not going to change your life? Let me just say that. The only one that changes you is God himself. This building, don't be deceived that just because you stood up and clapped with the choir.

Just because you got excited about a message, and just because you sang some songs, that everything is right here, because, in order to be right this way, we have to fix that relationship. "Pastor Tim, how do we fix that relationship?" Let me ask you the most important question anybody can ever ask you, and it's this, "Have you been born again?" It's the most important question you can ask, not, "Did you go to church?" Not, "Did you get water baptized?" Not if you're a Catholic, you're a Jewish, a Protestant.

You have to ask that question. Jesus said this. Jesus said these words, "Unless a man or woman is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven." That's Jesus. You cannot get away from those words. If you want to go and say, "Well, I came to church. I did this." Okay, let's just be really clear. Jesus said the way you see heaven is not being in church, not taking communion, not being confirmed, it's not being, "I was dedicated as a child." It's not even that your parents went to church. It's, "Have you been born again?"

"Pastor Tim, what does that mean?" It's us dealing with that relationship because some of us have gotten so far off thinking, "I'm a good person. I've done all this." That you've gotten so far off that it's time to get us back on course here today. "Pastor Tim, then how does that happen?" Look at me for a second. Those in the annex, every home fellowship group, New Jersey, Summit, listen to me close. Jesus was saying this, as definite as you had a first birth, you need a second birth. That's what he was saying.

What is that? Okay, listen. My birthday was December 22nd, but I had to have a born again or second birth date where God began to change me, like Greg sang, from the inside out. Here's the part that I think we have to understand. "To fix that relationship, Pastor Tim, how does that happen?" I'll tell you this every time. It's as simple as ABC. Each one of those letters correspond to a word. A, it's admitting that we're a sinner. It's admitting that there is a sin issue inside of all of us that we can't fix with a priest, a pastor, a promise or even a program.

There's nothing. We can't fix it by going to church. You can drink all the communion cups you want to. There's not enough grape juice that can cleanse you free from that. You can't do it. You can try to act. You can make promises, "I'm not doing this again. I'm not doing this again. I'm not doing this again." We end up breaking promises. Today, we've got to come and realize that there was a broken part of us called sin, that we can't fix ourselves. We can try to fix the outside, but it's the inside that has the problem.

"Pastor Tim, then, what do we do?" That's the B-word. That's believe, that Jesus was sent by God the Father to fix the relationship with Him. How does that happen? When He died on the cross, He died in my place. He lived a life that I couldn't live, died a death that I should have died and gave me a heaven that I didn't even deserve. That's exactly what God has come to do for everyone here. God loves us enough. He is trying to fix the relationship, the disagreement, the sin issue between you and God today.

You can't fix it by just showing up today. It has to be a decision to go, just like you would go to a person. "God, forgive me. Come and change me from the inside out." Some of you have sat here, you've sung and you've listened, but today could be your second birth date. Because if you can fix you, then why would God have to send His own Son to die for you? Listen to this, because if you can fix you, then God sending Jesus through the abuse of the cross is the worst case of child abuse in human history, but we can't fix us, but God can.

It's A, admitting I'm a sinner. B, believing that God died for me and C, confessing Him as Lord saying, "You're the boss now. You're in charge of my life." Religion wants you to come on Sunday, relationship wants to see you every single day. Religion asks for 10 AM on Sundays. That's what religion does. Religion says, "Come at 10 AM and sing the songs and be part of a club." Relationship says, "How God is in charge of my life. God is the one who's in charge."

I want everybody here to bow your head with me, please. Annex, balcony, main floor, Summit, Jersey campus, every home fellowship group, I want you to listen to me close. The most important question is that disagreement between you and God because we are born with a disagreement between us and God that has to be fixed and today, it could be fixed by being born again. How do I get to heaven? You have to be born again. In fact, Jesus said these words, "You must be born again."

Times Square can't get you to heaven. This church, we can't get you to heaven. Jesus can. Today can be a second birth for you today. I want to pray a second birth prayer, a born again pray with you today. With every head bowed and every eye closed, I just want to ask you that question. Have you been born again? Today could be that day. Today is the day that it all changes for you. You may have been off-course but today we get back on course. This is the moment that we know.

It's not prayer that changes you. This is the day that we go, "God, this is me." Some of you are trying to figure out, I've done this and I'm presently doing this. I'm just telling you, you don't get good and come to Jesus, you come to Jesus, and He makes you good. Don't try to fix yourself up, come. Come with all that's inside of you and let Him start the process. If you're here today, you say, "Pastor Tim, when we pray that Born Again prayer, I want to be part of that, I want to start a journey." Okay, listen to me close. Perfect people don't go to heaven. Forgiving people go to heaven.

If you're here today, come on and start that journey with God, "I want to be born again. I want that disagreement between me and God to be fixed." If that's you, and you're here today and say, "Pastor Tim, I want to begin that journey." Every head bowed, every eye closed and say, "Put me in that prayer. I want to be part of that." Would you just raise your hand right now, hold it up as high as you can. As high as you can, keep them up as high as you can. Balcony, main floor, keep them up.

Here's what I'm going to ask you to do. Keep them up. I want to pray with you right now. Would you just, let me say, you won't even have to be embarrassed because these people are going to cheer crazy for you. If you have your hand up, would you stand up and walk down here and meet me right here quick, balcony and those people, just stand up, balcony stand right up. Come on, if your hand's up, stand up. These people are going to let you out and we're going to clap.

I want you to come down here, quickly. Balcony, come on down. This is going to be a great moment for you. Come on. Hey, come on, Time Square. Let's begin to thank God for them coming down.

[applause]

As they come, let's all stand. Come on, as they come, put your hands together as they come. This is a new day for us today. I'm so excited. I'm so excited today. This is going to be a second birth date for you today. Balcony, our ushers are going to let you down. In fact, as you stand up, our people are going to excitedly let you through. In fact, some of them may tap you on the shoulder going, "Way to go." That's awesome. That means we're excited for you today. We're excited for you today.

Come on, come on down, come on. Get closer because I want to pray with you. We're going to wait just a few minutes because some of the balcony people are making their way down. You being down here is exciting to us because you know what you're doing? You're fixing that relationship with God. How many know we've tried to make promises and they just don't, they just never work out, but we can. What happens is when God comes and lives inside of us, then He works from the inside out. That's what makes this exciting.

I want us today, before-- I know we're going to end with some baby dedications. Before we dedicate these babies that were born physically. We've got to pray with these that are being born spiritually today, is what we're going to do.

[applause]

We just want to wait just for a sec. I'm so excited. We're all going to pray this together. This is a prayer we're going to pray. Literally, we're just saying, let it come from your heart. This is God who loves you so much. He sent His own Son to die for you. This today, we're waiting for you. We want you to come down. We don't want to miss you. We want to see you down here. I'm so excited.

Times Square, this is why we exist. You got to take care of your sharp disagreement with people. They're taking care of it with God today. That's what makes this exciting. I want us to support them. I want all of us to pray this together. Come on, let's say these words out loud. Would you close your eyes and say this, "Dear Lord Jesus, I believe you're the Son of God. I believe that on the cross, you took my sin, my shame and my guilt and you died for it.

You face hell for me so I wouldn't have to go. You rose from the dead to give me a place in heaven, a purpose on earth and a relationship with your Father. Today Lord Jesus, I turn from my sin to be born again." Come on now say this with me, "God is my Father, Jesus is my Savior. The Holy Spirit is my helper and Heaven is my home. In Jesus name." Come on, put your hands together.

[applause]

Let me pray for us. I want to speak to you about healing of the heart tonight, healing of our hearts. Jesus, we thank you that we have heard from Pastor Nick that you want to do breakthroughs. You want to break through the difficulties, and the pain, and the crisis, and the problems, and bringing us to a new place. I ask for a favor tonight. Allow this word to speak to our heart in a way that just ministers. Just fill this room right now with a sense of possibility.

The things we think maybe would never be resolved, the problems that we have that we think we may never overcome, the crisis that we find our self in that seems like it's just gone on too long no matter how much we've prayed, believed, heard words of promise, and yet our heart is still breaking. Our wounds are still hurting and the relief doesn't seem to be in sight. We're asking tonight for a word from heaven. We're asking tonight for the healing.

As you said in The Old Testament, you called it a balm, a healing oil, a balm of Gilead, an oil to sab, to put on a heart that would heal that heart. We thank you for the healing. Father, this may not be a shouting word or a hip hip hooray and hallelujah word, but it's going to be a deep word. It's going to touch our hearts, and it's going to heal many people in this room. We now give you thanks in advance for that.

I don't want to preach this just kind of wondering what outcome it will be. I preach this with a confidence in the Lord that you have called this word because you're accompanying it with your power to do exactly what you want to do. We give thanks for that, in Jesus' name. Amen.

In Genesis 3:1, it says, "Now there was a serpent more crafty than any other wild animals the Lord God had made, and he said to the woman, did God really say, 'You must not eat from the tree in the garden?' The woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat at the tree of the garden, but God did say you must not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden. You must not touch it or you will die.'"

Verse 4, "You will not certainly die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows when you eat it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God knowing good and evil." In Genesis 1, 2 and 3, we see the formation of the garden. In the garden, he puts the man, and then soon after he puts his wife there, but it's the same place where the snake is. The snake, the serpent is in the garden as well.

One of my worship pastors back home was telling me a story of his little boy who's probably five years old at the time. He was up on top of the stairs. As he turned the corner to walk down the stairs, there was a towel that somebody had left, a bath towel. Somebody had left it at the top of the stairs, and he tripped over the stairs and he fell down the stairs, rolling over and over.

His father saw this and he was at the bottom of the stairs and he caught him just before he hit his head on the bottom of the floor. He grabbed him and picked him up and he said to his son, "Aren't you glad the Lord had me here to catch you?" The boy said to his dad, "Wouldn't have been better if the Lord would had just moved the towel?"

If you think about that for a moment, there's a lot in that about our own life. We're happy the Lord catches us. We're happy He lifts us up out of our trials and tribulations, but wouldn't it be better if we just didn't have to go through them? What's the deal with that? We see in Genesis chapter 1, there was a snake in the garden. Why did God put the snake in the garden?

It answers that, and I don't want to get into too much theology here in this, but the answer that we see much later on. When they were brought into the Promised Land and Joshua brought them in, and the Lord says to him, "I'm going to keep five enemies in the land." I was thinking why was that? He says to teach them how to war. Why was there a snake in the garden? To teach them how to war.

Why were there five enemies left in the land? To teach them in the war. I suggest to you tonight that it wasn't just Genesis chapter 3 that there was a snake in the garden. Can I say to you tonight, there's-- Here's my life experience, there's always a snake in the garden. Just about the time you start to enjoy the garden, the snake approaches, and starts lying to you, and starts trying to deceive you, and starts trying to empty your faith and hope and confidence in the Lord no matter what you're going through.

40 years of dealing with hurting people, 40 years and even beyond that when I was a little boy being around Teen Challenge, that my father started, and seeing broken lives, and seeing people come from all kinds of difficult backgrounds of abuse. Then not only being abused upon, but now beginning to abuse their own bodies, and some even abusing others, and violent streaks and all these things.

For 40 years of hurting people and broken hearts, and collapsing marriages, and addictions that seem too difficult, and then in my 40 years of pastoral counseling, I'm at a new place in life and I just want to be honest with you tonight, can I do that? I don't really want to preach to you, I've preached probably 4,000 sermons in my life, I'm not only tired of hearing sermons, I'm tired of preaching sermons.

When they get sermonic and they have the rhymes and things that, and I'm just going like, “I just want to hear it, I want life,” I'm tired of just hearing sermons, I'm tired of going to church services, and singing songs. Here's why I'm tired of it because I just know firsthand that so many people are singing the songs, and hearing the sermons and they're leaving, and they're going back home and their marriages are falling apart, and their teenage son is on drugs.

They've just been diagnosed with cancer, the job is on the chopping block, you may lose it at any moment, there’s some that leave church singing a happy song, they have a clinical depression in their heart, and in their mind they don't know how to get out of it. All the Christians are telling them like, "I rebuke that in the name of Jesus," and they're saying like, "You rebuking it is making me more depressed rather than helping."

I don't know this sounds gloom and doom here tonight, but there's an answer to this, the snake is always in the garden, the enemies are always in the land, there's always going to be a need and it's going to take more than songs and sermons. It's going to take more than a singular prayer of deliverance, putting my hand on your head and saying, "In the name of Jesus come out." Is going to take you and I being honest and saying, "There's a snake in the garden, there's a problem in the land, there's an enemy to be fought, there's a battle to be won, there's a victory on the other side for us," but we're going through something tough.

It's time to take off the mask, and it's time to quit playing church, and it's time to get honest with one another, it's time that the church become more honest than AA, rather than AA being more honest than the church. It's time to have small group meetings that aren't just talking about who was Zerubbabel's cousin's ring that he had on his fourth finger, and start talking about my heart is breaking, my marriage is falling apart, my finances are crumbling. I cry myself to sleep, I'm worried about my kids, I'm anxious and it's time to get honest about these things, it's time to deal with these things.

How do we go about this? That's what my talk is about tonight. How do we go about this? Number one I would say it's through relationship, it's through relationship. You don't know that from the time you're in your mother's womb, the Bible says that God created you, He formed and fashioned you in your mother's womb, did you know that? Scientists are just catching up to the word of God, now, and they have proven now that while you are being formed in your mother's womb, the very thing that your mother feels, you will feel.

They are being able to put these sensors on those mother's womb, and if the mother is anxious and worried, the blood pressure of the child rises. If the mother is depressed, they sense the movements of the child echoed the depression, and the movements, the lack of energy, vitality, and the baby in the womb. The baby in the womb is very connected to the mother.

My wife was so wonderful she prayed over our children certain things, and the Lord gave her a song for each of the four children. What amazing joy now to see my son 30-something years old, singing his song that my wife wrote for him to his babies. They're speaking to their children even in the womb because there's a God-given, even before you can hear, and see, and understand, there's a God-given connection between an infant and the mother.

There's a link there because God has built us to be attached to people, the need for attachment, some people might call it belonging, or connection, community, the Bible calls it love, we were built for love. So we had in our mother's womb this need to be loved and connected. The scientists have gone on to say if the mother hates the child, and is considering abortion, and maybe just hates the fact that she's pregnant, that that child will have problems at a young age oftentimes. Unless there's a resolve to that because they feel this un-attachment, a lack of attachment, a pulling apart, even in our childhood we see that.

Now, skip ahead to longer in time, have you ever noticed an older couple, let's say they're in their 80s or 90s or nearing 100, and they're healthy, and they're vibrant, and they're loving the Lord, and one of the spouses dies. Does anybody know what happens pretty rapidly? The other one seems to follow rather quickly. When my father died my mother was in good health, but nine months later, she passed away as well.

She fought cancer for 60 years victoriously and then succumbed to it in eight months because of just-- It's the need for attachment. From the cradle to the grave we were built to love one another, we were built to have community, we were built to be attached to one another. Something happens and then again, I'm just talking to you like your 40 years of pastoral counseling, like if you were sitting next to me on my couch, and I was just talking to you about heart issues.

One of the things you see about this in childhood is this need for attachment, something strange happens because I don't know how you were as a father, you don't see fathers here, but my attachment to my children had-- I'm trying to think of the right word here, had certain type of strings attached to it. I'm going to be real proud of you, and real happy, and hug you, and put you in my lap when you're performing well.

When your room is clean, man you're a great kid, when you score the touchdown or you kick the goal in the football game you're, "Well, I'm so proud of you," just the sense of attachment connected to achievement. When you lose that attachment, when there's the lack of the type of achievement that the father or the mother want, then the child begins to get confused.

There's actually a video, it's called Still Face, it’s amazing video done by a Harvard professor, and he took hundreds of children, little children two years old, and had their mothers sit right in front of them face to face. At first, the mother is smiling and touching the baby's face, and the baby is just smiling, and joyful, and laughing, and stretching their arms out.

Then the doctor says to the mother, "Now, just cover your face like this, and don't move, don't have any emotion, no smile, no anger, nothing just a totally still face." You see within seconds that baby at first gets this confused look, and then a few seconds later it reaches out to this mother with alarm, and then starts making almost violent sounds like, "U-u-uh," and crying, and then before long the baby's screaming.

The mother is not yelling at her, the mother is not abusing her, the mother's just still, but the baby gets confused because it's not that sense of attachment, of love, of connection. Then all of a sudden, the mother then just because of the smile on her face, and you'd see literally the baby's shoulders just goes down, "Aaah, Mama's back." So many of us have grown up in homes where the sense of belonging, or love, or affection, or attachment is related to our behavior and our performance.

When the performance is good there's, "Aaah, come to papa, come to mama," but when the performance is bad, there's a rejection, there's an accusation. This is not a sermon on tips to parenting, but let me just tell you one that has changed in my mind. When my kids used to misbehave, I would give them a timeout, anybody ever do that, do you do that here in Ireland, anybody? Wave at me if you give-- Have many of you been on a timeout?

Pastor Nick spent years in timeout-- No, I'm joking. [chuckles] I would give my kids this thing called timeout, and if you don't know what it is, say you're around the dinner table, and they're getting loud and like, "Oh-oh," you know something, "Be quiet, I'm trying to talk to mom." Then, "Oh-oh," they talk louder, and they're talking over one another, and I say, "Be quiet," and they don't listen, "Okay, that's a timeout, go to your room," and they go to their room.

I realized something there and I'm not saying it's not-- There's times that has to be done and there's a good thing about that, but what I realized is what was happening is when my children, listen to this carefully, when my children were being themselves I was punishing them for it. How many of you know children are loud, and children like to move, and children like to sing songs, and they to throw spaghetti. I mean, it's just that's what kids do.

Whenever they did something that they weren't supposed to do, I would separate myself from them. I no longer with my grandkids, now, I've got a new practice, I don't give them timeouts, I give them time ins. So I say,

"Let's go over here because there's something wrong. What is it about some of the rules we have as a household that are hard for you to understand because I want my grandkids to understand that the sense of belonging and attachment is not related to them behaving up to my standards all the time.

I'm not saying there's no need for discipline. I believe in spanking. I believe in timeouts, but doing it in a way to where they're not getting their sense of I belong when I'm doing good, I don't belong when I'm doing bad. The problem with that is when we learn that at a young age, we project that onto God. God loves me when I'm doing good, but He pushes me away when I'm not doing good.

That's why we call it coming back to the Lord. Well, He never left you. You don't come back to somebody who's never put you away in timeout. He's always been with you. He says "He'll never leave you or forsake you." He's there with you and He's helping you through that snake in the garden. He's helping you through that giant and the enemies in the land. He is not just-- Why? Because He belongs to you and you belong to Him.

There's that sense of attachment to the Lord. There's a connection with Him that will never be put off on His part, maybe on ours but not on His part. If we grow up in an environment where attachment is linked to certain behaviors, what we begin to realize is to be authentically myself is dangerous. If you are-- so my father was a rather serious kind of man, and some of you may have picked that up, listen to a few of the sermons he's quite serious.

My brother and I we love comedy, we love fun. I remember one time I was telling him a story, I said, "Did you see that comedy thing on last night on television?" The guy said this and that. We both laughed and my father got- he raised his voice, said, " That's not funny. The Lord is not pleased with that." Then I went, "Oh, all right. I don't know why he went like it was pretty funny. I thought it was like-- I think I don't know. So okay, being funny is not safe. You lose attachment if you're funny.

What you got do is get serious and get-- but I am not built that way. I'm not built like sort of the bony finger prophet. I'm built like I have a sense of humor and I love to laugh and I love to play games and I love sports, but I didn't feel like I was supposed to because if you're a good Christian and want attachment to the Lord and want attachment to your family, then what you've got to do is got to be serious.

Everything you have to say has to be a quote from the Bible and you have to wake up in the morning and say, "I was praying for six hours last night before I went to sleep, father and I just want you to know the Holy spirit gave me a revelation of the new covenant." I was like, no I was dreaming about girls and so it's hard to be yourself if authenticity is connected to attachment and when your authentic self, you don't get that seat. Then what happens is you grow up with a wound in your soul.

If I could sit down by one with each of you, I could probably in an hour’s time talk to you and we could probably discover together what is that core wound in your heart, what is that thing that-- what is that trauma? What is that event of a sense of no longer being attached, no longer being connected, no longer feel like you fit in. Does some of you in this room ever-- You're in a crowd, you're in a crowd here right now, but you don't feel like you really belong?

You go into a room and there's four or five people and you just feel like you're the outcast. That's a sense of detachment, of not belonging. That comes from trauma. That comes from some trauma. As a pastor, I see this all the time. Even recently, I was with a pastor, he's no longer pastor now, but he's still in ministry. He ministers to pastors who are addicted to sexual immorality and pornography and he tells his own story of being sexually abused as a child multiple times by multiple people.

He kind of stuffed that in and gave his life to Christ and he sort of stuffed it and didn't deal with it. Later in life, some issues with pornography came up and then later in life, even after pornography-- He said it was the strangest thing in the world as a Christian pastor he started visiting prostitutes and he told me. He said, "I can't believe it." He said, "I remember on Easter Sunday morning on my way to church to preach my Easter Sunday sermon stopping and picking up a prostitute and being with her before I went to church that morning."

Obviously he quit the ministry and he got help, but he talked about the trauma in his life and how that trauma caused a wound in him that he was confused as to who he was as a man. He was by no means excusing his sin and I'm not excusing his sin either. We have to deal with that but there's sometimes these wounds in our heart are the birthplace of some of the sin that we might still be responsible for but might find ourselves caught in because of those wounds of trauma.

There are some people in this room here, like that pastor who had to deal with certain issues in our youth. A close friend of mine, we were talking just a couple of weeks ago, my wife and I with our friends, she was telling us when she was a little girl, her mother would lock her in the closet if she misbehaved and she'd be there for some times, 15, 16, 17, 18 hours, no food, no water, no bathroom.

Her mother would then take her out of the closet and tell her, "You're worthless. You're no good. You're nothing." That's a trauma. That's a traumatic event that builds a core wound. People begin to say, "I'm not enough, I'm no good, I'm worthless, I'm hopeless, I'm not loved, I'm not accepted. I'm not worthy of love. I'm not worthy of belonging. I'm not worthy of attachment."

You see, most children, they don't blame their parents for the trauma that takes place in their life. What they do is they blame themselves. They say, "It must be me. It must be my fault that I did this because I don't want my parents to be bad. I want them to be good. For them to treat me this way, they must be good parents and I must be bad." You start saying to yourself, "I'm defective."

I think to some degree, everybody in this room, even the most healthy and whole people in this room could honestly say I'm defective because I am-- and you could fill in the blank. I'm not enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not strong enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not. I'm not prayerful enough. I'm not holy enough. I'm not righteous enough. I'm not-- Whatever enough, we fill in the blank of that thing saying there's this defect, there's this wound in my heart.

Are you following me so far? This is a tough one to speak. It almost feels like taking the air out of the room. That's the first type of trauma is, the first type of trauma are things that should not have happened to you that have happened to you.

A child should never be hit, struck, abused, physically, emotionally, verbally, or sexually but there are many people that have faced that type of trauma in their childhood or being locked in a closet or were like Nicky Cruz, my friend Nikki, who grew up where his father was a warlock and his mother was a witch and she would punch his face when he was five, six, seven years old, punch his face till his eyes were closed and blood almost sealed his lips.

It got so bad that when he was nine years old, he climbed up to a tree and put a rope around the tree and put the rope around his neck. If his older brother did not come and rescue him, Nikki Cruz would have taken his own life because of the things that should not have happened to him, did happen to him. There was a snake in the garden trying to destroy his life.

There's another kind of trauma that maybe more Christians have in reality, but it's often undealt with as well. These are not things that should have not happened that did happen, but these are things that should happen but didn't happen. Are you following me? The first one is things that should not happen that did happen to you. The abuse, the trauma. The other type of trauma is the things that should have happened to you that didn't happen to you.

Doctors and counselors tell us that this kind of trauma is often more difficult to deal with because the more physical, the more the things that clearly I should have not been struck. I should have not been abandoned. I should have not had that happen to me. I should not have that said to me. That's easy to start. Not easy, but you know it's there and you begin to deal with it maybe at an early age.

Whereas this second type of this withholding of things that should have happened that didn't happen, it's kind of hard for us to deal with because we feel like, "Well, I had good parents. They were nice. They were kind, they were happy," but there were certain things that should have happened and oftentimes those things didn't happen to you that should have happened to you because they didn't happen to your parents that should've happened to them.

They should have been connected. They should have had affection. They should have had belonging. They should have had attachment. They should have been loved. They should have parents notice them and care for them and hug them and touch them and be affectionate towards them. They never had that, so they can't pass that on to you. Therefore, you know they're good parents and they're kind to you and they provided for you but there's this sense of something should have happened.

There's a belonging that didn't happen and that causes this thing to feel like-- That just doubles down on this core wound of I'm not enough and so you start giving a language to the not enough-ness. You start giving it language. I'm not enough because I am lazy. I'm not enough because I'm fat. I'm not enough because I'm short. I'm not enough because I'm not a good athlete. I'm not enough because my parents were like this and I'm like that.

I'm not enough because I'm a preacher's kid and they're so holy and I'm not. You have all these things that you began to see. Now I'm going to close in just a few minutes, but here's what happens. When you get to that place in your life where you have this core wound inside and let's just say it's like I'm not enough, maybe that's your core wound. Well, what you're going to do with that to try to compensate for that, to try to correct that, what you do is try to build your own life. I call it a false construct.

You begin to construct a life that says, this is what I believe about myself, but I have to prove that wrong. If I believe I am stupid, then I'm going to try to read every book and sound intelligent and I'm going to spend my whole life trying to compensate for this sense, or if I feel like I'm a failure, I might be driven to make a lot of money to feel myself successful, or if I feel like I'm not accepted by God, I might try to work really hard at religion and fast and give money away, and make sure everybody knows it because I want to compensate for not feeling this way. I want that core wound to not be a reality in my life.

The way it cannot be a reality is to try to prove it wrong. For me, I grew up never feeling like I was enough. No matter what I did, it just didn't feel good enough. It's not something that comes from an abusive family. I have a good family but there's just that sense of something lacking. Inside of my heart, I just feel like I'm never enough. Do you know how I'll be enough? When I preach good enough.

You know when I'll be enough? Is when I lead enough people to the Lord, or when I go to enough conferences, or when I start the admissions department. When I do these things then I-- One of the worst ways you can live your life is what I call the when I, then I. When I make enough money, then I'll be happy. When I meet the right woman, then I'll be happy. When I get divorced from the wrong woman, then I'll be happy.

When I become a pastor, then I'll be happy. When I get to retire from being a pastor, then I'll really be happy. This always this when I. There's something more. It's called-- If the desire is to construct a life, I'm going to build a life on, when I get this, then I'll be happy, then I'll be joyful, then I'll be spiritual, then I'll be alive, then I'll be enough, then I'll be sufficient, then I'll be smart, then I'll be- whatever it is that we're looking to become but it's a false construct. We're building this life.

I'm building a life on ministerial success. It's like, I want my church to grow then I'll feel successful. I want my book to sell a lot of books, then I'll be successful. I want to look on YouTube and find out how many people have watched my sermon then I'll feel successful. How many of you know-- If you don't know now, you're certainly going to learn it. Those are things called external validation.

It's things from outside. You go like, "When I get enough money," that external validation, "then I'll be happy." You realize when you get that external validation it never makes you happy. There's nothing externally that can make you happy. It's the joy of the Lord that is our strength. It's something inside of us. It's not something that comes from outside of us.

It doesn't come from more money. It doesn't come from fame. It doesn't come from success. It doesn't come from popularity. It doesn't come from followers. It doesn't come from ministerial success or business success. It doesn't come from having lots of children. It doesn't come from anything outside of you. It comes from what the Holy Spirit puts inside of you.

He puts his love and his sense of attachment towards you, and a sense of belonging and connection. He's telling you that you may not have that from your father. You may not have had that from your mother. You may be seeking it from the world, but you'll never get it out there. You get it in here. It's when Christ lives in us. One day I had this vision, I guess you call it a picture. Just in my mind, I thought of constructing this life. The core of it is is a sandy foundation, not a rock.

The core of it is this foundation that says, "I'm not enough." I'm building a life that I am going to prove I am enough. I'm going to be the most spiritual, the most holy, the greatest preacher, the greatest minister and leader. I'm building this big construct of a life that thinks that I begin to believe the lie of Satan, that then you'll be enough when you get there. I'm up on top of this building and there's scaffolding.

Do you call it scaffolding here? The things on the side of the building that helps supporting the scaffoldings built all around it. I'm on top of this and it's beginning to sway a little bit. I'm thinking, "This thing's not on a good foundation. My whole life is not built on a good foundation and I call out to Jesus, "Jesus come help me. This building's rocking." Jesus grabs, hold of the scaffold in the bottom. I'm going, "[sighs] I'm glad you're here Jesus. Help hold this life up of mine."

All of a sudden he starts rocking it back and forth. "Oh, oh, Jesus, wait a minute. What are you doing? It was better when you weren't here. It's worse now. You're not helping. You're rocking the boat. You're shaking the scaffolding. This building might crash." The Lord says, "Good. Let that destroy this temple and in three days, I'll rebuild it."

Let that old life be destroyed. Let that old construct of constantly earning and striving and pressing and driving and feeling like you're not enough, and you're not sufficient, and you're not loved, you're not accepted and you don't belong. When you believe that kind of lie, it's almost impossible to not build your life, constructing a life that is on the sand.

When there's a shift, here's one of the things you have to do is, let there be a shift to realize, "Wait a minute, this is a hard shift." You might be 40 years old and for the last 20 years, tonight maybe you're realizing, "I have this core wound, and I have been trying to compensate that for my whole life. I've built this business. I've built this marriage and I've built this family on a false construct on sandy ground."

It's hard to admit that when you're 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 years old, because you don't want to admit it. You don't want to go like, "These last 20 years of my life I've been living in a way that's not healthy, not whole, W-H-O-L-E. There has come this sense of letting it crumble, of realizing that, that which is built on the sand is not worth keeping up. It's good to let it go.

When you let it go, you're going to have to do something. Jay and I were around Teen Challenge a lot. They were detox. When you're on drugs for a while, the first few days, you're going through detox and then your body's hurting and you're sweating, and your stomach is sick. When I help people get through moving this false construct over, they go through a detox because they're so used to getting the external validation, more money, more success more fame, more popularity, more acceptance, more approval of man, more applause.

They're so used to getting that. When they realize that's the wrong way to live their life of false construct and they let that be torn down. They just feel like, "What do I have left?" Can I suggest to you tonight? That's a perfect place to be. That's a great starting place. Allow yourself, you have to go through detox. Let your body detox from fame and success and notoriety and popularity and acceptance of man, because once you detox from that, then you can put your life on the rock, and something solid can be built.

For me, there's this glorious shift because I used to spend all my time and energy planning and plotting and driving. Not a godly ambition. My own ambition to become great and successful. All my decisions were-- What decisions are going to be born out of that kind of heart? They're never going to be spiritual. They're never going to be holy. They're always going to be corrupted by the flesh.

My decisions were very carnal so many times. Even in building ministries, it would be like I'm building my own kingdom. The Holy Spirit does us a favor. He lets that be destroyed. For me, there was this great transformation. I see the shift in my heart constantly where there was once a building that said success and fame and notoriety and popularity and accomplishment, then I'll be enough.

That was broken down when I went through detox, and now on this other side, there's something really different. "It's so fun. It's so just like, "[sighs] I can breathe finally. I have a life. There's my wife. I actually enjoy her. There is my kids. I just want to cuddle them and my grandkids. I don't have to go spend six hours in prayer. I can be holy wrestling on the floor with my grandkids." Because once that building of power and authority and success and fame and notoriety. Once that was torn down, the Holy Spirit started building his construct.

Do you know what that's built on? Whole different language. Love, and peace and joy, and patience and kindness and goodness and contentment and delightfulness and freedom and just these good things that feel good in the heart. If some of us tonight would see that false construct torn down and allow the Holy Spirit to build something, you're going to finally and fully enjoy being a Christian.

Right now you're supposed to enjoy it, right? If you don't, you're going to go to hell and it's fear-based. Like I‘ll get a timeout, an internal timeout and to be no attachment and so this is a fear-based thing and you can't build on that foundation. The transfer over to this is a love base. It's like I'm accepted. I'm loved. I will close with this. In this transformation, I realized just how much God loved me. What a great delight it is?

He loved me. This was so hard for me to say. A matter of fact, this was so hard for me to say. I'm still struggling saying it to you even tonight, even though I believe it with all my heart that Jesus accepts me just as I am. I always have such caveats on it. Not if there is sin in me. Not if I'm not performing well. Not if I haven't been in my devotional life the last three days. There's a lot of caveats to that.

With Jesus, there's no caveats. There's no restrictions on that. He loves you just the way you are. He will never love you any less, he will never love you anymore. He loves you just the way you are. Many of us know that intellectually, but we don't feel it in our heart.

We don't feel it because just the way we feel about ourselves, we project that onto God. "I'm never enough and I'll never be enough for you. I'm not good enough. I won't be good enough for you. I'm not smart enough for you. I'm not good enough preacher. I'm not a good enough preacher for you." We project that into our spiritual life, and when we do, we just live in pain. We live in sorrow. We live in brokenness and we just never get healed.

We never get healed, we get encouraged, we get revivaled. It's not even a word. We get built up in faith. We get admonished, we get encouraged. We have up times, but we're never healed in the heart because as long as we're living out of that lie, that core lie, then you're going to always build a false life. Let that be destroyed and come over to this side and finally realize how much God loves you.

Secondly, and closing, realize that God wants you to love yourself as well. That's hard for me to say, because I said that a few weeks ago, and I've got all kinds of emails from people saying like, "You're listening to the devil now. I thought you used to be a good preacher. I thought you were David Wilkerson’s son, how could you say such things?" I'm going to say it again, God wants you to love yourself.

I'm getting these emails, and I'm thinking, "What's the alternative?" No, God wants you to hate yourself. God wants you to feel like a perpetual worm who's nothing but ready to be cast into hell at any single moment, but He doesn't really love you. He saw Jesus do something. The Father saw Jesus do something nice for you. Therefore, He has to kind of cover you and He's covering you. God says, "Well, I don't want to look at that one but since you're covering him, Jesus, I'll let him into heaven because- but don't don't let me see him because I don't like him."

No, Jesus likes you and He wants you to like yourself. He wants you to be comfortable in your own skin. He wants you to breathe and He wants you to wake up in the morning and feel like, "This feels pretty good to be me. Feels pretty good to be alive." Jesus said this three times in the New Testament, "Love your neighbor as yourself." The word there- there are several Greek words and one is brotherly love. One is more of a passionate love, affectionate love.

This one is the supernatural powerful love of God. The unmerited favor of God that's called agape. Have you heard that word? The Greek word of agape. Here's what Jesus is saying. He doesn't say flatter yourself like brotherly. You would think he would say brotherly love others as you brotherly love yourself, but He doesn't use that word. He uses the word agape. Agape others. The way you agape others, I want you to agape yourself.

That's what Jesus said. Agape yourself. The word there means unconditional love. So many of us have conditions, "I'll love myself when I, then I'll love myself." When I do this, then I'll be loved by God. Then I'll be accepted, then I'll accept myself. Two things tonight. One is be healed by realizing that God loves you so much. Number two, be healed by realizing that God wants you to love, accept and have compassion and kindness for yourself.

Don't be hard on yourself. Don't beat yourself. So many Christians just beat themselves up. It's just like if they're not black and blue from their own beating, they're just not happy. They love to come to church to have somebody yell at them how bad they are because that makes them feel like maybe they're in good company at least. That's not the way God wants you to be. He wants you to have compassion on yourself.

To wake up in the morning and say, "I'm happy to be alive. I'm grateful to be alive." I'm grateful even when the snake is in the garden. Even when there's hard times around me. Even when maybe I don't feel these things, but I can know it and I can receive that. Stand with me if you would, please. I want to pray for many of you in the room here tonight. I pray that we could be honest enough to deal with some of the things in our life that you're hearing the Holy Spirit maybe speak to you tonight.

Not quite sure where to go with this. Part of me wants to give an altar call because I'm kind of used to that. Have people come to front pray for me, but part of it wants to make it a little more private, just kind of like you doing business with God without you having to maybe step out of your seats. Let's go that direction, just allow it. Miracles can take place right there and I love the altar call. I love the time together. There's something about the Holy Spirit moving that way.

Without any music, without doing the altar call, can we ask the Holy Spirit to do a supernatural work of healing in this building tonight? Can we ask him to mend broken hearts? Father, I pray right now in the name of Jesus for those who have had things happen to them that should have never happened to them. Out of that, they've built this life that is like, "I'm going to compensate for that."

I pray over them right now. I pray that you would heal that hurt. That they would not just repress it and push it down and say, "I'm not going to pay attention to that." They would allow you to bring it to the surface and that's painful. It's dealing with some things we don't need to deal with.

I pray that it would go beyond just me praying for them tonight, but I pray that they would find like my pastor friend, who was dealing with pornography and addictions. 15 years ago, he started a meeting with a group of friends and they brought healing to his life and he's been free from that for 15 years now and helping minister around the world.

Father, help us be like that, that we'd find a group of people, a good Christian friend that we could call that we could be honest with it. That we go beyond just a prayer meeting here tonight and go into a whole new lifestyle. Whole lifestyle of openness and connectedness and community because we were built that way from our womb to our death. We were built to share life with others.

Help us not to try to fight our battles alone, to try to heal our wounds alone. That's where those lies begin to penetrate. That's where those lies over your life, my friends. That come in and when you're alone, the enemy can say to you, "You're not enough and you're not good and not worthy and not acceptable." When you're with the body of Christ, you begin to learn the truth. I want to encourage you and I pray over you now that you would find community, true community.

If you don't have it, I pray that you'd be the forerunner to make it a reality. You'd be the first and invite others into it. I pray secondly for those who there were things that should have happened to you that didn't happen, neglect. You are meant to be loved and honored and given attention to and affection and you didn't receive that and you never heard anybody say, "I love you."

You grew up in a performance-based home. I just pray over you right now in the name of Jesus, that the Holy Spirit would reveal to you what that's done for you. How that has made a sense of false construct and that we would just tonight be willing to let you rock that thing to let tip topples over. That we would say no more, no more in our life, God. Thank you, God. You take away the flesh and you bring in the spirit. You take away ungodly ambition and you put in there peace and joy and contentment, freedom and life.

Just overwhelming sense of the presence of the Lord. We thank you for that. We're asking now, in the name of Jesus for miracles in this place tonight. I just feel words are so inadequate to deal with the business you're trying to deal with tonight, Holy Spirit. How you want to mend broken hearts? How you want to put salve on the hurting places? Holy Spirit, we just take a moment just to allow you to begin to speak to our hearts.

Maybe even help us identify some things that we have not really thought of before. Again, we don't expect to have it all accomplished in one night but we can believe something might be birthed here. Then maybe I'll throw this whole week as Pastor Nick has already said, "This is going to be a week of breakthrough." Maybe tonight, it was just launching this by saying-- Helping us identify, "Hey, yes, there are some snakes in our garden. There are some things we need to breakthrough."

Maybe tonight we just start with that just accepting the fact that there are some things that we need to do business with God as I've heard it put before. We just pray in the name of Jesus again, that any area of this life that we would not leave here tonight, discouraged or despondent. We would leave here very hopeful that we have a really good Father, Holy Spirit. Many of us we sing the song about our Father. We say He's a good, good Father.

Deep down, some of us are not really believing it. Even on top of that, He might be singing over us and you're good, good children and we certainly wouldn't believe that. We thank you that, that's what you call us your children and you love us and you cover us and you wash us and you cleanse us and you make us new. I'm asking that powerful miracle to take place.

I'm going to ask the worship team to come now if they would and we'll sing a song and then pastor Nick come back, but I just pray in the name of Jesus, that there would be a transition tonight. That the shift will begin to take place. Even if it takes a little detox, how many of you will be willing to detox if it gives you a better life? Anybody at all? Couple of you here, yes.

I'm willing to go through a little bit of pain, to get to the outcome, to get to the victory, to get to the clean mind and get to the clear heart, and get to the vision that He has for my life. Father, we just thank you that you're going to do this work. You're going to do a work of grace.