Rich & DawnCheré Wilkerson — Love Lies: How to Handle Heartbreak

we have been in a collection of talks entitled love lies and the premise of these talks is really when falling in love falls apart and we've been kind of talking on the dark side of relationships that there's pain in relationships and there's challenges in relationships and I'm just one of these people I don't believe that Jesus just came to this earth to get us to heaven I mean that's a really really big part of it and that's really good news but I also think that the way that he taught us to live it impacts our everyday life and our relational life should get better we should be better friends we should be better parents we should be better children we should be better spouses because of his message and so we've been taking time to look at God's Word and find healing and find restoration through God's scriptures and I kicked it off three weeks ago talking on the subject of lust which is not really a popular topic these days in church but the feedback we've got has just been incredible and I thought Don sharee absolutely hit a grand slam out of the ballpark come on can we thank Don Shree for last week's message loneliness I thought you did such an incredible job and tonight we're gonna preach together and next Sunday we're gonna have one more message I would encourage you to bring some people we're gonna share again together next week and I think next week's message is really gonna be encouraging for so many people on every level of relationships but tonight we want to zero in and we want to attempt to try to speak to this area where your heart is hurting for many people in this room and we titled tonight's talk how to handle heartbreak how to handle heartbreak anyone out there ever had your heart broken where you had tell people a couple a couple honest people Don sure and I we dated for five years yeah that was more your choice than mine day I saw you I was ready to marry you we're in high school oh yeah we were in high school sorry but in five years dawn she broke up with me how many times you break up with me twice officially tied with it how many know there's official breakups and there's unofficial breakups these are official unofficial breakups where you get in a fight at night it's like this is over and then the morning like I didn't mean it I didn't mean we did that seven times no um but but officially you broke up with me twice and I always say the first breakup was the worst you chose to break up with me the day before Thanksgiving that's true that's nicer than Thanksgiving Day right it's more considerate the night before what kind of heartless woman are you that's nicer than Thanksgiving Day there's the worst Thanksgiving my entire life I didn't eat anything that's horrible let's skip the mashed potatoes except the mashed potatoes no I skipped that I had a little sweet potato pie though I changed all the worship songs I was like Kier thanks with a broken heart here Thanks no you hurt my feelings really bad um we could talk for days of funny moments in our relationship but the truth is that when it comes to this subject of broken hearts or heartbreak it's not really a laughing matter in fact so many in this room even tonight if we could pass this microphone around this room there's people that are carrying real pain in their heart some of you've walked through things like divorce some of you have gone through a loved one cheating on you some of you you've lost a loved one to death some of you maybe you're even married right now or maybe you're even in a relationship right now what I'm learning more and more is that you can be in a relationship and still be suffering from a broken heart and tonight I want to try to speak to that place I want to try to speak to that pain because here's really the premise of what we're sharing tonight and the premise that we bring you is this is that God can heal your broken heart but you need to give him all the pieces and I think when it comes to trusting in God we can't halfway trust him we have to trust him all the way and every piece of our broken heart needs to be surrendered over to God because he can actually put it back together that's right and for us to experience complete healing we have to be in a place of complete surrender and last week we studied the life of David together and this week we find ourselves in the Psalms again and i love these scriptures because they just point us even in the most broken times of our life to hope in our God and this is what Psalms chapter 34 verse 18 says it says the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and he saves those who are crushed in spirit and again psalms 147 3 says he heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds he heals the brokenhearted and he binds up their wounds we serve a God who heals the brokenhearted who is close to the brokenhearted and today maybe you feel like God as far he is close to you and then the scripture goes on to say that he he binds up our wounds that it literally paints a picture of God's Healing Hands completing the process of healing in our hearts no healing is a process and healing does take time and that word bind in the here and now we know the binding of a wound or of a broken bone as a cast a cast is placed by a physician around a broken bone the cast is wrapped around it may be made of fiberglass it may be made of plaster but that casts around the broken area it supports it it sustains it it protects it so that the complete healing can take place and so today if your heart is in a million pieces maybe nobody around you even knows what you're going through I think the question is will you choose to trust God with the broken pieces of your heart because it may not have been your choice that your heart is broken but now that you're in a place where your life you never intended it to be you now have a choice of what you will do from here forward Deuteronomy says I set before you life and death and we have a choice and today we're gonna take the time tonight to decide what these choices are and what you and your life what you will choose on your path we have a choice in front of us right rich yeah when it comes to handling heartbreak I think there's four key choices that we constantly make and I love that passage that dontrey reference where God is speaking to the Israeli people when he's like here here's life and death but here's what's so cool about God he says here's life and death and he goes choose life like he's the best teacher ever because on the test he tells you the answer like I you got a pick life or death choose life like he's letting you know and tonight I'm gonna give you two choices for every one of these areas but I'm gonna also tell you choose life I'm gonna tell you which answer is gonna lead to your heart mending and to God binding up your wounds I think the first choice if you're dealing with a broken heart is this choice comes down to this idea that you have to recognize or rationalize everyone say recognize or rationalize I'm always amazed as when I talk to people that are dealing with broken hearts or pain from the past people will typically fall into one of two categories the first category many people fall into this this mentality that I'm good have you ever met somebody with the I'm good mentality it's like they just got out of a 5-year relationship but they won't show you any emotion as to how they're actually feeling I'm good it's good I'm doing all right and somehow we think that there's problems in life that we can just avoid because if I avoid the problem that would mean that I don't have a problem but everybody in this room tonight would understand that just because you avoid something doesn't stop it from actually being there have you gone to one of these restaurants before that say drive-thru only there's some spots that you go to that you're not allowed to go inside the only way that you can pick up your order the only way that you can complete your order is by going through the drive-thru I got to be honest with you when it comes to relationship pain and when it comes to heartbreak it's a drive-through only matter you can't go around it you can't avoid it the only way to get over it is to actually face it and drive through it [Music] you see if you never heal from what hurt you you'll bleed on people who never cut you [Applause] we think we can avoid this stuff we think because we say I'm good that people actually believe us now can you imagine breaking your leg and your there's blood everywhere and you walk into a room going hey I'm good that was like dog it you're bleeding no I'm not yeah you are but see what happens a lot of people is a lot of people even if they start to believe it and recognize it what they'll sort do is they'll start to rationalize it and some people will take on this mentality that I caused this problem and the reason why my heart is broken is because it's my fault and yeah my leg is broken but I shouldn't have been messing around and I shouldn't have been playing around I shouldn't been jumping around that might be true but if you don't begin to pay some attention to this wound you're gonna bleed out so regardless of how you got into this state tonight the only mentality you can take on is you must face the problem you cannot continue to rationalize the toxic areas of your life you can't continue to rationalize the fact that you're bleeding on everybody you come in contact with you imagine like if you had some stuff in your teeth but you didn't know about it for seven days so finally someone watching he's like yell Bravo you have something your teeth you're like I know but it's been there for seven days so well I take it out now because you're finding out about it now and if you don't start to recognize it you'll just rationalize it and you'll make excuses and you'll tolerate the toxic areas of your life I see this happen all the time in church this is where some of the marriages are at in this place that you've just accepted that your marriage will always be mediocre that you will always have these quiet broken areas of your life let me just tell you nothing gets better until you recognize that there is a problem you cannot heal that which you continue to hide you have to step out of darkness you have to expose it into the light in order for healing to occur this is why we need people in our life right cuz there you are bleeding like I'm good if you like now dude you're getting blood on me man prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah chapter 61 verse 1 he said the spirit the sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor watch this he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted and to proclaim freedom for the captives and reliefs from darkness for the prisoners now we know that in the New Testament Jesus is the fulfillment of this prophecy that Isaiah says but the very fact that Isaiah is declaring it is he's saying that I'm gonna step into doing these things and what it tells me is that this is not a scripture for the foreign mission field but rather this is a scripture for all of us on a day to day basis that you and I the people of God we are here in this community and part of our purpose is to help bind up to cast to come around the broken areas of people's lives and as we do so together we get better together we are stronger together we are healthier together we can get through the pain come on can I get a witness at 6:00 p.m. on a Sunday night if you know what I'm talking about I set before you you can recognize or rationalize but choose to recognize yes sometimes in order to recognize it means you have to go to the doctor and we hate gore the doctor my dad when I was younger I remember at one time he was out and he was had a hammer and he missed what he was trying to hammer and it hit his finger he smashed his pointer finger like just all the places he needed to go to the doctor and he needed a cast he needed the doctor to bind up those broken bones in his finger but he refused to go and yes the finger did heal but if you see his finger today it kinda looks like this what it tells me is that yeah your broken heart with time it can heal but just because it heals doesn't mean that it's right and if you're not careful you'll just scar over some stuff that needed to be cleaned out that needed attention paid to it and so many of us our relationship life kind of looks like this and it's because it healed but it didn't heal right the first step I think Don ensuring the first choice that we have to make is we have to recognize that we are broken we have to recognize that there are areas of pain on the inside yeah we have to recognize and once we recognize that there's an area in our life and again we're just talking about relationships this may not be from someone who hurt you in a romantic relationship but there are every single one of us in this room of experience heartbreak and you know our God is able to heal every one of us but like we said we do have choices before us tonight and the here and now regardless of what happened in the past and once you recognize it you have another choice before you and that is to face the issue before you with resolve or just to resign that it's always gonna be this way resolve is is a firm commitment to a chosen path that you look at the path before you have healing that God's placed in front of you you say I'm gonna choose to be committed to the path that's in front of me I'm gonna choose to stick with it even when I don't see things changing overnight I think a lot of times in our life when we're in a situation that we don't understand pain that's deeper than we've ever experienced before we can cry out to God we can fill our homes with worship we can go to church and get there early we can serve we can attend Cru one or two times we can decide to really engage in moments of prayer but give it 9 10 eleven days and man if we aren't completely healed we can throw up our hands and say well what's next what else can the world offer me that could possibly fix the way that I feel b/c healing complete healing is not a quick fix complete healing is choosing to trust God day after day as he thoroughly and wholly heals your heart God wants to heal your heart the question is will you choose to have resolve as you look at the path that God's placed in front of you I grew up in a family of athletes my dad played professional sports my brothers five brothers a lot of them been quarterbacks and I've seen some pretty nasty nasty injuries in my life in fact Dakota was sitting next to me the other day my youngest brother and he was popping his shoulder in and out and I just said can you just stop I know does it hurt you but it hurts me save it hear it one of my other brothers David Dee had all the cartilage torn from his knee before he'd even left high school it had two knee surgeries I've seen broken bones I've seen real serious injuries that have not taken days or weeks to recover but have taken months to completely heal you know Friday Night Lights it happens and the injury occurs but we didn't wake up Saturday morning and say okay take off that cast it's time for two days you're ready you got it you you have the willpower mind over matter come on have some faith put some weight on that foot you didn't run I would never dream of doing that why because he was injured he had a broken bone why do we understand the healing process when it comes to the physical but yet when it comes to our heart being broken we think that overnight we should be able to pull all the pieces together No is in the midst of your storm God is in the midst of the broken pieces of your life but you gotta keep just to him you have to let him place that cast you have to let him bind up your wounds God wants to bind up your wounds he wants to heal you but there's a process to healing it's trusting and you say oh yeah but you know my ex-boyfriend he goes to the same church yeah well we got two locations friends don't let anything keep you from God's house this is your church too and there's a place for you not making excuses have a little bit of resolve even in the midst of a broken heart God wants to pull the pieces together if you don't resolve to trust God with the broken pieces of your life you'll allow the world and its culture to place you in its cookie cutter bindings because the world has its bindings to you look throughout history and you see such painful imagery of what people have done because it was the popular view at the time you look to Chinese culture you look back throughout history and there was a time where women would have their feet bound at a young age that literally literally the bones and their feet would be crushed and broken and then their feet would be bound so they would not grow and as they grew and got older their feet would stay in that cast stay in that binding and they became deformed so painful so awful beyond our imagination you look to Western culture and you see in Western culture women in the Victorian age they would put their waste and corsets and these corsets wouldn't just cinch their waist and it would literally deform their entire body as their internal organs were pushed out of the place where they should reside because their ribs now took up that space and all of their Oregon were pushed downward they were bound because it was the popular thing to do it was considered attractive and hear me the wrong binding will only lead to more breaking the wrong binding will only lead to more dissatisfaction to more brokenness to more pain and the world and this culture looks at you and says oh no you should you should move in together you should figure things out before you make a real commitment but the wrong builing will lead to more breaking they look at you and say hey you can have as many partners as you want that's it's not spiritual its physical but more bindings will just lead to more breaking the world looks at you and they say porn it has no effect on your spirit you can watch whatever you want do whatever you feel but the wrong binding leads some more breaking and the world has a binding that they want to place on you but it will not heal you only the hands of God can heal you how many of you agree it's time for us to shove aside the lies and suits that's the truth of God [Music] you know the moment that you're in a situation where your heart is broken I think that's when Jeremiah 29:11 becomes more real than ever oftentimes we take this promise for for a graduation ceremony or for a birthday but Jeremiah 29:11 says I I know the plans I have for you so so even in the middle of your broken heart God has a plan for you and if you'll resolve that you'll stick to the plan day after day you'll just keep trusting him isn't it funny that my son grows every single day and I can't see the incremental changes as I stare at him but as those tiny incremental changes stack up it makes a world of a difference as he changes I can't stare at a wound and in five seconds one minute see it healed overnight but I can trust the process and every second and every minute it is healing as I submit and resolve to allow it to stay in the cast to heal is anybody with me tonight God is healing he's moving he's working in your life hold on and believe that the miracle is coming to pass it's powerful I think the third choice that comes our way when we're trying to handle heartbreak is this choice that am I gonna rebuild or am I gonna react that's the decision you got to make either rebuild or react I love thinking about this idea of a broken heart in a cast I'm one of these kind of people that I learned from metaphor it just speaks to me and I can see pictures better than I can see words at times and so the idea of a cast just the basic idea is that if my arm breaks the cast is really doing two things right it's resetting the bone but it's also creating restriction on the bone the bone has to rest in order for it to be rebuilt while it's in the cast it can't move but rather it's being set and it's being restricted one of the greatest mistakes people make is that they get out of one relationship and their heart is broken and their knee-jerk reaction is let me get into another relationship I'm bleeding right now hey come on over here and be my band-aid a lot of us go from heartbreak to heartbreak because we're using people once again as an instrument and we're bleeding out it's what we do is we say I want to escape from this pain and so what I'll do is I'll fill the holes of my life with a new infatuation with new feelings I'll fill it with romance I'll fill it with sex and for a moment I can escape the pain but in reality all I'm really doing is reacting I am NOT rebuilding some of you your theme song for your love life is jay-z I'm on to the next let me just tell you if your keep being on to the next thing and the next thing in the next thing your heart will never actually be rebuilt but rather it will go from trial to trial to trial pain to pain to pain drama - drama - drama you can't react you have to rebuild you actually have to rebuild and when I think about a cast the cast is restricting myself if you just got out of a relationship restrict yourself let yourself heal have some resolve to go sometime and not just mask over the pain but allow yourself to feel what's going on and to actually know what you want ahead a cast of course it's it's resting the bone but any doctor would tell you that while that bone is resting there's two vital things that you must do in order to rebuild the first is all about your intake everyone say intake because while my bone my arm is resting in a cast my intake matters the nutrients I put into my body the vitamins that consume the protein that I take in it's really important that while you're going through a season of heartbreak that you make sure that you're managing and you're watching what you take into your life what are you consuming tonight you said what should I consume how about you start with God's Word because listen me if you don't know God's Word you can't apply God's Word it's not good enough to put God's Word up on your refrigerator you've got to get God's word into your heart that's where it begins to do healing that's where it begins to do work you've got to consume his work how about getting a healthy perspective about relationships it's amazing because we can come to talks like this and we do these once or twice a year and there's some basic stuff that I always talk about when it comes to relationships if you've been a part of our church but we need to be refreshed in it and that basic premise is this is that people do not complete us I know Jerry Maguire has been messing all of you up for many years because you're like I just want somebody who completes me but if that is your aim in a relationship you're gonna be really disappointed because what you'll find out is that people can't satisfy you they can sharpen you but there's only one who can satisfy you his name is Jesus Christ he's the author Perfector and finisher of your faith it's amazing because when a heart is broken we're going yes Jesus is the one who binds up my wounds but as soon as I get another relationship going on we forget about Jesus and we start to think that person once again is our all-in-all and it disappoints us if your hearts broken why don't you start to take in a healthy perspective of a relationship that we're to sharpen one another that were to run together equally yoked that we have a race that we are partners together what about this what about getting a vision for your relationship I don't want to be caddy because I know there's real pain in this room and I'm not just talking about once again romantic relationship some of you in this room you have been dealing with father wounds since you were a little boy since you were a little girl and you've never recognized it you've never chosen to resolve to go through the process of it and because of it you just react all the time but I'm trying to speak to you know why not get a vision of what you want why not take all the pain from the past and put some purpose on it by learning from it rebuilding means man I've gone through some stuff but I'm gonna take all of the stuff that I've gone through and I'm gonna make sure that wisdom is produced from it I'm not going to react any longer but rather I'm gonna make sure that I'm taking in the right stuff that I can learn from these experiences one of my favorite scriptures is proverbs chapter 4 verse 23 it's a good one to write down it's an easy one to memorize the scripture says this above all else someone say above all else guard your heart for it's the wellspring of life now the scripture is powerful but the author is what makes it so powerful the author is a mammal native Solomon and scholars whether they're in the church or outside the church many would say that he was one of the wisest men who ever lived and the reason why I like this scripture is because he wrote a lot of good stuff yet it's like he's preached a lot of good sermons but in this one he says okay I've said a lot of good stuff but if you didn't hear any other stuff that's okay here this above all else if you're gonna get something from all my writings get this guards your heart for it is the wellspring of life what is he saying he's saying the very essence of who you are is your heart your heart is this intangible thing that you make all of your decisions from all of your choices your feelings come from your heart you better learn to guard that thing if you ever go into a bank the most secure place in a bank is the vault in a bank there's different levels of security clearances in fact if tomorrow you got the job at the bank day one they're not giving you security clearance to the vault why cuz they don't know you they gotta get to know you who gonna do some background checks gotta figure if you've got a record and as you show yourself worthy of trust trustworthy day after day as time permits you would be given security clearance if the job warranted it why because the vault is the greatest asset in the bank it's amazing I want you to think of your heart like the greatest asset to your life some of you have been giving security clearance to things and people that have no business getting near your heart you need to learn how to guard that thing because if you don't guard it stuff gets in it and what gets in it comes out of it that's why you have to decide and you have to resolve in your spirit that I'm gonna guard this my heart and I'm not gonna let anything get security Clint's guess what shame you don't have clearance to my heart come on in security you don't have clearance to my heart doubt sorry you don't have clearance depression you don't belong in my heart loneliness not anymore I've got a friend who sticks closer than a brother I got a friend who walks with me through every Valley I'm not giving you access anymore I'm guarding my heart so I can rebuild and become stronger you're in take matters what are you taking in what are you consuming during this moment of broken heart but it's not just your intake it's your output everyone say output every doctor would tell you that yes your arm must rest if it's broken but your body better be moving your body has to begin to move and it has to actually be put into action why because as your body moves blood begins to circulate through your body and that bone in order for it to repair and be rebuilt stronger it needs blood to head that way and the only way the blood gets happening is when your body starts to move what a lot of us must realize tonight is that if we're trying to handle heartbreak it's so important that we understand that it has to be output to our life and the greatest way we put our faith into action I believe in the context that we're speaking tonight is through community listen to me if you're broken don't take a break don't take a break from community we need each other we need one another don't let the person who didn't love you stop you from meeting the person who will love see what the enemy wants to do is the enemy wants to isolate you and the enemy wants you to find some valley and he wants you to camp out in that Valley and say nobody understands me and nobody knows how bad my heart is broken and nobody gets me because nobody gets me I'm gonna go and do this thing all on my own but I have come to remind you that that is a lie from the pit of hell that is simply a reaction and if you're ever gonna rebuild it's gonna require the people of God getting around you it's gonna require you to share with one another and walk through it together we need each other and we need this community every great athlete knows there comes these moments in the game where you have to learn at times how to play even when you're broke broken broken broken some guys like I am playing cuz I am broke sometimes you gotta you gotta even play her you don't keep putting your faith in action there's this amazing girl in our team her name's Jen grant and Jen have helped us start the church and she now oversees both our load-in and our loadout team she's just amazing and she uh she broke her she broke her foot a month or two ago and he was so funny to me because like loaded and loadout that's like you really love Jesus if you're on those teams you know people show up at 5:45 and some tonight we'll stay here till 11 p.m. long after you've gone to dinner they'll still be here doin Church and a couple weeks ago I was out in the courtyard and I see Jen she has this massive cast and this boot on her foot and she's just walking around the court now with a load of you put that over there get that there this there come on now let's go and I thought to myself if there was ever a moment to skip the load out if there was ever a valid excuse I think it's the moment that your foot is broken in a cast in a boot yet I caught a revelation as I watched her leading and as I watched her continuing to serve even with a broken foot and what it told me is is there some things that you just have to do even when you're broken and there's some things that shouldn't stop you from doing some stuff even when you're broken let me remind you tonight you have a broken heart you can still worship God you have a broken heart you can still serve God faithfully you have a broken heart you can still find a community here at vu Church you have a broken heart it does not give you an excuse to isolate but rather it's a moment you rebuild and grow stronger come on somebody you've got a shout of praise tonight you have a choice you can either rebuild or you can react choose to rebuild that's the answer choose to rebuild that's the answer how do you heal a broken heart you know finally tonight you have a choice before you to restore or to relapse hmm you have a choice to entrust your life to the hands of God that even when you don't see him binding your wounds you trust that he's doing what he promised or you can choose to trust yourself with the pieces of your broken heart and you can try to pull things together and then fall back in the pit again and again relapse and going back to the previous circumstances where you once stood but that's not God's plan for your life and you know what maybe you've spent a decade relapsing God still has a great path in front of you he loves you he's waiting for you to surrender your life to him so that he can touch you right where you sit when we look at the word bind throughout the Word of God we read from songs that he binds up the wounds that he heals the brokenhearted but that's not the only time we see this picture of bind in the word of God you see we see a picture of covenant throughout the Bible throughout the Scriptures this covenant this binding agreement we see throughout the entire Bible Old Testament New Testament it is the overarching concept the most beautiful picture of our relationship with our Creator and maybe you're wondering what is a covenant today well covenant is kind of like a contract but they're not the same see contract deals with exchange of property this is yours this is mine but a covenant deals with the exchange of lives that I am yours and you are mine a covenant it it isn't based on a specific period of time a contract says it starts today it ends on this date but a covenant spans generations contract is based off of what you get but a covenant is based off of what you give it's based on sacrificial love and this this contract it's not a contract that we hold it's a covenant it's an exchange of love and life between us all of humanity and God himself it's incredible this gift that we've been given and Jeremiah he prophesied that one would come who would be the new covenant that there was gonna be a new covenant that would change everything in 2000 years ago Jesus came to this earth as a baby and he lived 33 years right here on this planet a perfect life and he died on the cross for you he died on the cross for me he shed his blood and before he was killed he said this he said this is my body this is my blood poured out for you he said it's a new covenant and what he was saying is is that this covenant wouldn't be based on a physical altar where animals would be slaughtered to pay for the sins that we've committed but no this new covenant would take place in the realm of our hearts and that this new covenant would bind the wounds of our heart not just for a moment not just for a season not so that we'd have to return to a place and give another sacrifice but the blood was shed so that we would be healed once and for all so that the savior of the world as he was beaten and broken he was bruised for our transgressions we know that it was his body that would be the perfect sacrifice that binding agreement that sin has no hold over you that anxiety has no hold over you that fear has no hold over you that when the broken pieces of your heart seem impossible to heal that God himself would come around and that he would protect you and that he would sustain you and that he would hold you and nourish you all the way to complete healing because we weren't just broken we were dead but this new covenant this new binding agreement the price that Jesus paid on Calvary it was enough to heal us today I want to remind you you are covered and you are protected God has wrapped you he has bound you he has made a covenant with you a covenant that will not change in the seasons a covenant that does not waver based upon your attitude or your mood or your emotions or your feelings this is a covenant that is sure and secure it sustains you it's a it's a foundation for your life to rest upon always so you have to choose to believe will I choose to allow the hands of God to restore me or will I keep trying on my own you'll just keep relapsing until you get to a place well you realize the only his hands could heal only his hands can mend he's patient with you and he's faithful to you and he's able today to heal do you believe it today come on let's put our hands together for our guy that's who our God is he's a restorer you know this Bible I hold in my hand this one in particular this is my Bible and this Bible is really dear to my heart I was given this Bible the day I graduated from university 2007 the president of our school he he signed it wrote a note to me and I've been preaching out of this Bible for the last whatever it is now 11 years and this Bible maybe you're new to this kind of a gathering and I don't know how you walked in here I don't know who brought you who convinced you to come maybe you think you understand what this book is all about maybe someone told you this book is you know a roadmap to life or principles from heaven those things have have truth to them but it's not the totality of what this thing is that this this Bible is a love letter from heaven this is this is the story of God I like using that language the story of God from Genesis to Revelation it's God's story to humanity every book 66 books in the side of it every chapter every verse it's telling the story of a broken humanity that had fallen could not get up yet the God who's close to the broken sent his only begotten Son his name is Jesus and every page and every verse is shouting that name that God wants to redeem and restore God wants to redeem and restore what's amazing about this Bible in particular is that this Bible isn't well it doesn't look how it looked today I got it when I got it had a maroon cover on it I'm one of these kind of people that I like to write in my Bible I'm sorry if you're very religious and that upsets you but I got highlights all over it I think the Messier Bible the better your life yeah I just I devoured this thing and I preached from this thing and eventually that the Bible it got real messed up the dawn shoe she had to send it away to be restored in the way that this Bible was restored is that they had to the Bible had to be rebound cuz all the pages were hanging off the cover had fallen off it's an amazing thought that every book has a spine and the spine it holds all the pages the pages are bound together at the spine and because the book was rebound now it's been restored and I felt like I wanted to say to some people the night that some of you you're dealing with heartbreak and your knee-jerk reaction is man my heart is broke and I've heard you know what I need I need a rebound relationship no you don't you need your life to be rebound by God and see the power of Jesus is this is that 2000 years ago the cross like dawn she was talking about it is the great spine and the way that God works is that when we surrender the pieces of our heart he doesn't throw them away he doesn't waste them he doesn't just say that didn't matter no she'll take your mistakes it'll take your shame it'll take every embarrassing moment he'll take everything you regret and if you'll surrender it over to him the cross of Jesus Christ will begin to bind all of these moments together and before you know it your entire life is a story that the world can read and the story has one purpose to give glory to God my life is for God's [Music] while life has had a rebound my marriage has had a rebound he took all the stuff and he restored me because he rebound me he he binded me together he took all of the moments and all of the issues and when I hand them over to God he says I can restore you I can use this that's what we witnessed tonight with with Benny and Sharon many people would say that was wasted but it's powerful when you're bringing the brokenness and you bring the regrets and you say God could you work with this by itself it's just a page but when it's bound together with all of the other moments it becomes a story and the whole world says this God he is a God who restores he's a God who redeems he's a God who takes your past and says I still have a future in store for you come on if you believe in Boot Church can you go ahead and give God a big shout of praise over this room

Channel: VOUS Church

Views: 219,088

Rating: 4.9546728 out of 5

Keywords: love lies, sermon, vous church, rich wilkerson jr, dawnchere wilkerson, vous, heartbreak

Id: 6mSqvYplOrw

Length: 45min 50sec (2750 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 01 2018