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Mills River SDA Church

Overcomer Series

Cory Reeves

01 The Disconnect: Brokenness in Christianity

02 The Deception: Identity Theft in Conflict

03 The Advocate: Bull’s Eye

As we dive in, the Israelites' exodus from Egypt.

And if you think about their journey, about all God had done from them, I want you to imagine some of this right now.

He had just brought them out of the plagues, right?

He placed the plagues upon Egypt, and somehow they were protected from them.

He parted the Red Sea, and I don't know if you can imagine, I've often, especially when I was a child, imagined walking through the Red Sea with the sea on either side.

I wonder if they could see any of the fish.

And not only did he bring them to the other side, he waylaid the Egyptian army so they couldn't attack him and then when they tried to use their same path of escape he used that as a destruction of their enemy how about the miraculous way he provided food in manna If you gathered more than 1 day, it would be filled with worms the next?

There's a special message in that for another sermon.

How about living in the desert, hot and tired with millions of your best friends?

Where do you get water for that many people?

It's only God that would bring water from a rock, isn't it?

Do you remember Joshua leading the troops and Moses stands on the hill and he raises his hands and what starts happening?

And he put his hands down, and what starts happening?

And this is the famous part where Aaron and Hur hold up his arms to help them win the battle.

Israel arrives at the foot of Mount Sinai in a terrifying display of thunder, lightning and thick clouds.

God speaks the 10 commandments directly to his people.

Wouldn't all of that make you realize how powerful God is how much he loved them individually and personally he had done everything for them and what was their response at times their response was beautiful You remember they stood on the shore of the Red Sea and they sang praises to God.

But next we see Moses go up Mount Sinai to meet with God And after all God has done, Israel responds, Exodus 32 verse 1.

Now, when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron and said to him, come, make us gods that shall go before us.

For as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.

We wanna say that these people aren't smart.

And kids, you're not allowed to say this word if you're too little, But come on, how stupid are these people?

Next, God tells Moses to go down and He says in Exodus 32, 8, they have turned aside, what?

Quickly, out of the way which I commanded them." After all of God's miraculous leading, God says they quickly turned.

After the miracles they had seen, Aaron goes and gathers the earrings they had taken from Egypt.

And later, Aaron tries to shift the blame by saying they threw him in the fire and this calf popped out.

It's horrible and Aaron even leads them so many times we look at stories like this in the Bible and we play football term I'm sorry to anyone who's not football Monday morning quarterback we're all really good at looking back in time and judging the performance of others things we would never fall for right yet and I pray this doesn't happen but in 1000 years I pray we're in heaven in 1000 years, but if we look back, if someone was able to look back at our story in 1000 years, would they say the same things about us?

I pray not, but how stupid are those people?

God has done so much for them, Yet they go back and forth.

I feel it's miraculous that I'm a pastor.

I feel we miraculously have a beautiful school.

I feel each and every 1, as I look around this room, I feel each and every 1 has been led here for something special.

I feel the school building was miraculously constructed on time.

I believe it was miraculously paid for, not complete yet, but very close.

So why do we distrust God in other things?

Why as a people do we give to God and then we go off in times and worship with the world?

I'm jumping right in for a new series, aren't I?

I want to start talking about a difficult thing.

We need to be very honest as if in a family meeting with the elephant in the room.

The not often discussed secret is that I believe most of us know how to do church well.

We know how to, we know our fundamental beliefs.

We certainly know how to make perfect vegetarian dishes for fellowship meal.

But behind the happy smiles and the happy Sabbaths, many people are living or have lived in quiet desperation.

What we say, what is so hard is we say we have the good news in our heads, but for many it doesn't feel like good news in our daily lives.

Because we lack the power over our private suffering.

The lack of power is because of, as we will discuss, our reliance in our own power, and not the full Gospel.

This lack of power builds our doubts, our fears, our anxiety.

We look at where we have fallen short and our heart hurts.

Where those closest to us have let us down or even at times abused us.

We have the truth but we still feel fundamentally broken.

Today we are going to look at this disconnect between the Christianity we profess and the brokenness we often experience.

And guys, I love each and every 1 of you.

I love sharing the Gospel with each and every 1 of you as well.

But to be honest, there have been weeks over the past years where the sermon hasn't gone together like I like it to.

There have been weeks when I get the feeling that God is preaching more to me in the sermon than to any of you, and I'm not sure I'm ready to preach it, because I sure don't want to hear it.

And when I need the message more than I'm giving it, I have hurts and brokenness as well.

And I want to tell you, I pray that this series isn't just something that I'm sharing, but it is a journey that we can all go on together.

In the book there was a woman named Diane.

Diane was a baptized active SDA church member, but 1 Sabbath she was sitting in her car in the church parking lot, white knuckling the handle of her car door.

Now many of you that are in the church would say why would anyone be afraid to be in church?

You see Diane suffered from intense agoraphobia, I'm hoping I pronounce that close to right, but a fear of public places.

She had panic attacks so severe that they manifested physically in irritable bowel syndrome.

Whenever she faced the unknown, her body, she says, would go into full crisis mode.

She was terrified of the dark, the changing of the season.

She was scared to death to get stuck in traffic.

She refused to ever ride as a passenger in a car because she didn't want to be out of control.

But as she sat in the car, a voice whispered in her head, I have already tried religion.

I've accepted God as my savior, and where has it gotten me?

Maybe Diane's exact issues are not your issues, but the overarching problem is the same.

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Series

Overcomer Series

01 The Disconnect: Brokenness in Christianity

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Alan & Nicole Parker: Love Me, Love Me Not

Healing the Hurting Heart, Part 2

1h

For Women: Godly Relationships

Crystal Fountains and Slimy Cisterns - Part 1

54m

The Gospel Remedy: True Keys to Wholistic Healing

Inspiring the Launch

1h 2m

GYC 2011 Seminar: Healing from Sexual Brokenness

The Broken Image, Part 2

39m

Know Peace No War

49m

Burning or Burnt Out?

05 Burn Your Bridges

59m

Plenary Sessions

How Jesus Enters My Story

2h 21m

The Ten Commandments By Philip Mills

Do Not Lie & It’s Not about the Tesla

55m

Sound Doctrine