Sitting At The Table of Brokenness

I want to give you my best thank you Jesus I want to leave my hands in the sanctuary I want to be a living testimony that it is no secret but God can do second Corinthians at chapter number 12 commencing in verse number seven through verse ten unless I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations that was given to me a thorn in the flesh the messenger of Satan to buffett me lest I should be exalted above measure for this thing I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me and he said under mean my grace is sufficient for you for my strength is made perfect in weakness most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me therefore I take pleasure in infirmities in reproaches in necessities in persecutions in distress is for Christ's sake for when I am weak then am i strong thank you and I am weak then am i strong when I am weak then am i strong I want to talk a minute about sitting at the table of brokenness a little girl found a cocoon and she placed it in a jar in her bedroom because she knew that eventually out of it would come a butterfly and so she saw that butterflies struggling in a little opening in that cocoon trying to get out and she made a larger hole to help the butterfly in her thinking get out of its cocoon and rather than its wings being beautiful and flighty the wings were drooping stuck to his body and it was doomed to a life walking rather than flying because in her youthful innocence she could not know that it was the struggle to get out of the cocoon that made the butterfly strong its struggling its crisis it's bad news this sickness is distress it's getting tired it's trying to put one foot in front of the other with the wind in your face it's the struggle in life that strengthens you to make you strong but there are some things in life that God is determined that he will not think until you go through the crucible of suffering I wish I had a witness I'm not talking about being shattered because that's a difference between being shattered and being broken divorce will shatter you but you can get married again losing your job can shatter you but you can get employed again being shattered means you can get fixed but to be broken means God's got to Humble you I got on my knees at the end of December and I asked God for strength we're getting ready to build this new church and I want to finish teaching in the book of the revelation so we can get to this evangelism piece where well a church will just explode I just see God doing marvelous things through the explosive growth that's growing on going on here and little Grove and I ask God to just keep my body strong give me what I need to to lead in this effort keep me strong give me grace give me your favor put your hands on me that I might lead your people but he gave me a brain tumor I didn't ask for that I ask for grace I ask for his hand to be on my life I ask for strength to lead my church in this effort I asked him to give me more power this year than he gave me last year but he gave me a brain to New Year's Eve I was preparing to preach and I got so sick I thought I was having a stroke I thought I was going to die I don't know what dying feels like but it was anything like what I felt I got my sister to get me to the hospital and when I got to the hospital I would have been satisfied with a stroke as as crazy as that sounds that's the diagnosis I was looking for because I could handle changing my diet and taking medication and and relaxing I could handle that diagnosis but the emergency room physicians set on the side of my bed and said to me rather matter-of-factly you have a brain tumor it's a pituitary macro adenoma it's it has worn out the bone at the base of your brain it has for all intents and purposes he said ruined your endocrine function your hormone function has been ruined and the doctor the neurosurgeons and neuro-ophthalmologist will be able to tell you more later but I think you will have to be on medication for the rest of your life and he looked at me and I looked at him and he said did you understand what I said I said yes I understood perfectly what you said he said well you don't have any reaction it seems I said well I thank you for your diagnosis but but I need to talk to somebody else and like here's a kind I turn my face to the wall and I said Lord I've been preaching your gospel since I was 18 years old I've been telling your story sharing my witness singing my song preaching my prayer I'm not going to do that now in this sick condition and the word came to me lest I should be exalted above men through the abundance of the things God has already done for me to keep my feet on the ground to draw me even closer to him he gave me something that I got to depend on him now more than I ever had because if I let you do all you got planned to do without me you gonna take glory that does not belong to you so to keep you humble to break you to to know you to shape you to keep you where I want you I've got to make you dependent on me cuz Mama's not there dad is not there brothers and sisters will come to visit but late in the midnight hour you will need somebody whose grace is sufficient now I want you to I want you to understand there's a hurry how paul shares the depths of the dilemma that he's in because he uses the word son and buffett son is not a prick from a rosebush it's a wooden stake that impales you that every now and then in children impales you and then he uses the word buffett which means to be struck with a blow constantly i want to talk to somebody here this morning who's being positive who has had a phone who has been through your own crisis oh you're going through it right now nice little anecdotes sweet little Church sayings won't see you through I wish there had some noisy a lot of people who mean well have said to me you got the same thing I got no I don't because it's in my head and it ought not be there but sis's got there it didn't catch God by surprise now listen it may have been carried to me by Satan but it was conceived by God because God won't let anything happen to his child that catches him off God now if you haven't been through anything you sleep right through this message but if you've been through your own stones if you had your own time jig in here every time you thought you were getting around a corner the jugs you're good every time you thought you were feeling better it killed you again every time you thought you stopped trying it juggler anybody here I said anybody here if I had your own thorn in the flesh the loss of a child the loss of a mother sickness in your body wherever your fart is I've got good news for you Paul said I went to the Lord like I went to the Lord and asked him to remove it I asked the Lord I can't preach like I launched this this endocrine system and this this hormone replacement therapy that I'm on I get hot flashes quit laughing at women over 50 it wakes me up and knife and then I eat things I like but it doesn't taste the same activities that I enjoy my energy level is depleted god I can't do what you want me to do in this condition the doctors are giving me medication and hopefully properly it will shrink the tumor but I'll have to stay on the medication the rest of my life to keep it from coming back and I will have to wear a medic alert bracelet because I am deficient in a hormone called cortisol and if I'm unconscious and wind up in an emergency room you cannot tell by looking at me that I'm suffering from this condition and doctors will not know that I need this medication so I need a medic alert bracelet to remind me that I'm still under the doctor's care I'm deficient in a hormone that I need and so I need a reminder that I got a weakness if I don't know who I am if I lose reasoning and consciousness I need a reminder that I have a deficiency can I take it up a little higher every now and then God has to put me in my place to remind me but I got a deficiency that without him I can do nothing I went to the Lord and I asked him to remove it but like Paul I hear him saying Terry my grace is sufficient my grace is enough I know in your weakened condition you are not enough you wanna know something terror before you got in this condition you are not enough I just kind of let you think you had it going on I just kind of let you believe that you were doing all that preaching on your own and passing that church on your own I'll let you believe that you will know but now you know that all I got to do is move my hand and everything that you call yourself will come to nothing macarons will make up for your insufficiency because my strengths can only be made perfect in your weakness I wish I had time to preach on it and so gladly baffle that when I rather glory in my infirmities the power of God may rest upon me you gonna help me close this one I wish I could hollow right here oh I wish I could hollow right here but in my weakened condition I've got to depend on His grace I thought I was I thought I was doing pretty good I thought I was a strong Christian I thought I was a faithful believer but God said I'm not to show you something you ain't seen nothing yet you thought you was preaching the last 21 years wait until I kept you where I want you you really thought you were passing a little Grove let me show you something you're not going to be able to make a step unless I walk with you you're not going to be able to stand and preach unless I stand up in you it's going to be my power that they see and not yours and when they shout it won't be on your preaching it will be because my grace yes sufficient His grace woke me up this moment his grace started me on movin his grace is standing me up right now His grace will keep me all the year long and so when I turned my face to the wall like Hezekiah I said lord I don't know how many years you're going to get me however long however short my time here I want to give you my best hallelujah I want to give you my best thank you Jesus I want to leave my hands in the sanctuary I want to be a living testimony that it is no secret but God can do you can help me close this won't you I went to the doctor this past Monday and I stayed there just about all day he brought me from running room to another room and I was getting nervous because the doctor the neuro-ophthalmologist was concerned about my eyesight the tumor is pressing on my optic nerves and it has pushed the nerve up so far that it's hard for them to see it even on the MRI and the doctors kept going back and forth talking to one another but not saying anything to me I called my sister in Alaska and she could tell that I was nervous about what was going on she called Gwynn Tate who works over at MD Anderson and Gwen Tate came out of her office left all of her work and came and sat with me in my doctor's appointment the doctor came back again and said I got to look at one more thing she left out for about an hour and came back again and said I'm sorry it's taking so long I got to look at one more thing and when she finally came back about 3:30 she said here is what's going on your tumor is pressing on a chiasm where your optic nerves intersect it has pushed it up so high that we can't understand why the tumor is pushing your nerves so high but your vision is still 20/20 she said mr. Anderson you are a lucky man I said hold on dr. Schiffman let me get your V ologists treat this ain't got nothing to do with luck I waited patiently on the Lord and he inclined his ear under me he took my feet out of the miry clay is there anybody here no God answers prayer won't he do it I said won't he do it I know I'm standing here too long but my soul is happy why don't you grab somebody tell him he will make away I don't know where he will pick you up he will turn you around thank you for tuning in to a call to Joy it is our prayer that the Word of God has brought joy strength and faith to your life we would love to have you as our guest at little Grove Missionary Baptist Church where we are exalting the Savior equipping the Saints and evangelizing the center for your convenience we have a 7:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. worship service every Sunday morning and 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday nights lily Grove is located at seventy thirty forty Westar Street Houston Texas 77021 or feel free to visit our website at www.teamclarke.org

Channel: lillygrovembc

Views: 346,393

Rating: 4.755435 out of 5

Keywords: Reverend, Terry, Anderson, Pastor, Lilly, Grove, Missionary, Baptist, Church, Houston, Texas

Id: pZXM1gONolA

Length: 28min 29sec (1709 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 01 2012