In this sermon, the speaker shares his experience of preaching in South America and Albania. He talks about the challenges of driving in South America and the importance of watching and praying. The speaker also shares a powerful testimony of God breaking into a gathering and bringing reconciliation among pastors. He highlights the impact of revival and emphasizes that the outpouring of the Spirit of God is more powerful than any human effort.

Goedemorgen, it's a wonderlijke voorraad om u samen met ons te hebben vanochtend. I'm not speaking in tongues, but I'm speaking a heavenly language. So, you know, my wife is Canadian, which means that Janice can only, does not understand this language, but when we met I was able to teach her two sentences in my native tongue, and the first one is, and the second one is, and I'm tempted to teach you the second one this morning, but you will not forgive me, because the first one means, I love you, and the second one means, I'm a baboon. And we haven't had, there's been no need for 20 years for any marriage counselling because of those two statements. It just keeps the balance in an immense way, but it's been tremendous to be with you. This is our last morning that we have been together, and we want to thank you for the interest in these mornings. If you've not been with us, the kind of format that we are following is that we share with you some things, just practical things as they relate to prayer, then we pray together, and then what we do, we turn to the Scriptures. I haven't had time to mention this to you, but people often come to us and they would say, is there a way that we can pray with and for you? And we sent out a prayer letter once, four times a year, and just sharing with people what God has been doing, and then we will never ask people to support us financially in our prayer letters. That's something between them and God and their churches, but we ask them to pray for us. If you are interested in that, we would like to send it on to you. I visit an average of about 7 to 13 countries every year, and God has opened between 30 and 40 countries for us where we are able to travel to. I wish you could have been with me in Peru, in South America. They've asked us for a 15-year commitment to ask about 500 churches in Peru to see the church becoming a movement of prayer. They saw the charismatic movement trying to get into Peru. They didn't feel that this was of God. They saw all this other stuff, the seeker-sensitive movement trying to get in, the purpose-driven life, and all of us, you know, and they just said, no, we don't feel this is of God. And then I went to Peru three years ago and just came with this biblical understanding of prayer, and say, when you speak about prayer, you can't go from experience to exposition. You can't isolate the Word of God as it relates to prayer. And what needs to happen is that God's Word needs to be rightly looked upon, and the consequences of when that becomes part of my life, because we are born of personality. God is building up Christian character. 75% of our growth is depending upon what we read, with 96 slots of 15 minutes in every day, and time is a piece of eternity. And so I went there, and we just got into the theology of prayer. And those Peruvian churches came to me and said, this is what we want. And so they said, can you help us for five years? And then they came back this year and they said, can you help us for 15 years? And last year, you know, there is what they call the Lima Encounter, where they bring about 6,000 pastors and leaders from all over Peru together in the city of Lima. And we had four glorious evenings with them. And the problem with the Peruvians, if you get to know them, you know they are amazing people. They never run time. And I said to them the last night, you know, if Christ would come back, it depends on what your theological perception is about the second coming. I said, but if Christ comes back and He will take the Christians with Him, if you believe in that, and I said, if Christ will come back and take the Christians with Him, I said, He's going to take them all. And then He looks down and He would say, oh, we need to go back. There's the Peruvians coming because they're always late. Never on time, you know. But, you know, we dealt with 6,000 leaders and they didn't have a big enough church. I was in a church in Peru about four weeks ago, and they have seven services with more than 1,000 people in each service. You had to preach the same message seven times, starting 6.30 in the morning and finished by 8.30 at night. You know, I was preaching until three o'clock the next morning, same message. I don't want to touch that message ever again, you know. But these Peruvians, when we were with them last time, because they don't have churches large enough, we had to be in two churches every night. And so, we would go to one church and they packed the place out with about 3,000 people. And I had an hour to lecture and to speak to them on prayer. And then my translator would rush me over in 10 minutes time to the other church. So, they started two different times. And so, we're out. And he had this little, what we would call, skedonk of a car. I mean, the thing just about falls apart and it's driven by faith and watching and prayer. And Francisco Beltran, who's my translator, would rush me over to the other church. And one night we were late. We got into the car and he said to me, we have six minutes to get to the other service. And I said, Francisco, I watch and pray and you drive. And so, he was flying me. And if you know anything about driving in South America, brother and sister, the way to discern the essence of time in South America is to find out how many people would blow the horns of their cars between the light being red, turning from red to green. That's how you discern time. It's just an atrocious situation. And my translator, in six minutes time, he got us there. And the last night, when everything was over, we were driving back to my hotel room and he said to me, he said, Brother Gerhardt, he said, what would you consider as the greatest miraculous happening of the last four days? You know what I said to him? That we didn't kill anyone. Just because of the way these Peruvians are. But, oh, I wish I can take you with me to some of these countries. Brother and sister, it breaks your heart. Albania, Eastern Europe, you know, which has been brutalized by communism for so many years. And the country of Albania was under communism for 51 years. One of the most brutal communist dictatorships that you would have been able to see in Eastern Europe. Here was a man that took his philosophy of communism from Mozart and the brutality of what was happening in that country. The suspicion that a child couldn't go to school and say to his friend at school, my father said that the meat of the government is bad because his father would land up in prison. And the suspicion that was in the families of the land of Albania. And when I was asked to go to Albania about seven years ago, dealing with missionaries and pastors of the country. Albania, the church is very, very young. Not many Christians in the country. Majority of Christians are 40 years and younger. But you know what happened in Albania? Missionaries from Switzerland for 25 years would go from Greece to Italy. And in order for them to take a ferry from Greece to Italy, they had to go through the Adriatic Sea on these ferries. And four times a year, those missionaries would do that. And what they did when they came close to the coast of Albania, they had gospel tracks. And this is how they looked. And they would seal it in a plastic envelope like this, totally that the water would not be able to get into it. Those little white, yellow things is a kind of a thing that helps it to float. And four times a year, for 25 years, when they would come close to the coast of Albania, they would throw thousands of these gospel tracks into the Adriatic Sea, and the wind would come and take these gospel tracks to the coast of Albania. The communist dictator would find out about this. He would send out the army to confiscate this and to burn it. People were not allowed when they see that. But right through those years, there were men and women that secretly, when they saw it, they would take it and they would hide it where no one else would be able to see it. When Albania became independent in 1991, and communism fell apart, incidentally, the communist dictator of Albania found these last days of his life. He was dying of cancer. He found the last days of his life being cared for by a Christian family because no one wanted to do anything to do with him. He was such a brutal man. But when communism fell apart in Albania, I so deeply love that country because it's so poor. Average income in Albania is about 30 Canadian dollars a month. If you are a general practitioner or a doctor in Albania, your income is about 200 Canadian dollars a month. And 25 years they did this four times a year. And when communism fell apart, they came into Albania. And they came into a community about an hour and a half from the city of Tirana, a community with the name of Druas. And when they came into that community, because they figured out that was the area where these gospel tracks went to. Brother and sister, they found about 45 people that gloriously got saved. And when they said to them, how did you find Christ? And how did Christ come into your life? These people said, we found these gospel tracks and we hiked them. We were reading them through the years. And the Holy Spirit of God knows the best counselor. They were wonderfully saved. I was speaking in the city of Tirana last year. And a man came to me who was in the army. And he said to me, you wouldn't believe what happened to me. I said, what? He said, I was in the army. I was sent out to confiscate those gospel tracks. And he said to me, I took one in the winter in my army coat. I hide it in the basement of my little house. I supply it now. And he said, every now and again, he said, if they would have found me, it could have cost me my life. But he said, every now and again, I would go and read it. And he said, as a result of that, I was gloriously converted. And oh, brother and sister, it's tremendous. You pray for us. We are trusting God in November. This has never been done before. But I've been asked to bring believers in the city of Tirana together for a week of prayer in the month of November. Now, the Albanians are kind of slow. I'm not sure if we're going to bring this thing together. But they said, we want you to spend a week with us in prayer. And as we were discussing that, we will do it in the National Hall in Tirana. That was the place. You can see, it's about 5,000 people. That's the place where the communist dictator had his meetings when he was in control of Albania. And they said, we want to do it right there to make a statement about the Christian life. And God gave birth in my heart to take 100,000 New Testaments into Albania. Because the Scriptures has been only translated for about the last nine years. And people don't have the Scriptures. And to say to those believers, we're going to give you a number of New Testaments, some Gospel tracts, and we want you to go in. And you need to pray for us, because many of these Eastern European countries, brother and sister, is very volatile. One thing can go wrong, and they write back into communism. I mean, that's really what is happening in Russia. Poverty is brutal. I don't want you to misunderstand me. But there are communities in Albania where people would go on a Friday night in the middle of the night to look for stray cats or dogs, because they don't have meat on the table. And I'm not kidding you. There is an industrial city that when you go through the mountains and you look down, there are the city of about 400,000 people. And when my translator took me through the mountains, and as we were coming, he turned to me and he said to me, do you see that city? And I said, yes. He said, do you see how it's clogged in with pollution? I said, yes. He said the average lifespan could be between 45 and 55 years. It's almost worse than Zimbabwe. And they said, it's so bad. I stayed in a little house in the village. You know, I'm not fussy about these kind of things. I just need a quiet place where I can pray. But I stayed in a little house in the village and with a young man and his wife. And all we had was bread and coffee. And once they gave me a boiled egg, it was just a precious thing to them. You can't drink the water, it's so polluted. When they went down into the village, I went and I thought I just want a glass of water. And I opened the fridge and there was virtually nothing. And I was so, I felt so bad. And I, at the end of my time with him, I want to give him 50 euros. I said, it's just a little gift of appreciation. And they were so offended. They said, you don't understand. This is our gift to you. I was in one area and there was an elderly lady, a grandmother, a wonderful little woman of God. And she came to her son and said, I want to know what he really likes. And, you know, they don't have the money, you know. And so I said, listen, I'm not fussy. I mean, you learn, you learn just to love the lady. And I said, I, and she said, but what is he really like? And I said, you really want to know? And she said, sure. I said, listen, I'm an African. I was brought up in Africa. I was a farmer's boy. And there's something that I really like. And she said, what is it? I said, it's tripe. You know what's tripe? My dear wife, you know, she makes, she's a Canadian. She makes me tripe once a year. I call it the gray day of the atonement. And Janice would say, in fact, last time when she made it, I got sick. I think she did something to herself. This dear elderly lady, she made me, she said, let's go to the butcher. I said, where's the butcher? Oh, he's out there in the field. I said, what do you mean? Let's go. And they went and here's a sheep standing, you know, ready for the slaughter. And so they gave us. And brother and sister, she made a whole pot of tripe. Hey, listen, I'm not going to tell you how many times I went to the washroom, but I had a great time, you know, just eating tripe. You say, what is it? Sheep stomach. You can't go to Eastern Europe if you don't eat that stuff, you know. But pray for us when we go to these countries, Romania, Ukraine, Kosovo. I will take you into a village of Kosovo. Before the ethnic cleansing took place, there were 2,000 people. You know how many people are there today? 200. You say, what happened? A thousand of those people were found in mass graves. About 800 of those people has never been found. We don't know what happened to them. You and I have no idea. You can pray for us, you know, for $25, I'm able to take a pastor for three days of prayer in countries that can't afford that. You say, what do you do in the three days? We find them a camp, we find them a bed, we're able to cover their meals, and one day is prayer and fasting. And we bring them, and let me just say this because I don't want to dwell on this, but let me tell you, in the mountains of Peru about four weeks ago, five weeks ago, I should say, in northern Peru, outside of the city of Trujillo, we took 239 pastors and their wives for three days of prayer. And we had many different ways that I prayed with them. And we spent about five, sometimes six hours a day, just in prayer. And then I spent four or five hours teaching them about prayer. And you know what happened the Wednesday morning? We broke up in groups. And I said, the senior pastors, six of you, take your chairs. Here is some material. Go and sit under a tree. Go through this material. Ask one another questions. And then you pray for one another. Senior pastors, wives, and associates. And so we broke 239 pastors and their wives. You know what happened? In one of the groups, in the national leadership, plus the senior pastors, there were about six or eight of them together, a senior pastor stood up. Now, I was in his church the Sunday morning. Two morning services of about 1,000 people, 800 to 1,000 people in his services. And 31 people were gloriously converted. Brethren and sisters, they were not half born, you know. They were really saved. But this pastor got up in this little group. And you know what he did? He looked to these other pastors and he said to them, I need to put things right this morning. And he turned to them and he said, you know, my heart has been full of bitterness and anger against some of you and others within this group of pastors. And he just stood up. And he turned to them and he said, will you please forgive me for that which I have said and done? He said, many of the things you don't know about, some of them you do. And brethren and sisters, he just wept and wept and wept. And I didn't know what was going on, you know. I was sitting under a tree just praying alone with God. And I saw them there and I thought, well, God is working. And my translator came to me. And Francisco Beltran said to me, he said, listen, I need to talk to you. And I said, about what? He said, I need to tell you what happened to Besentos, the name of the pastor. And I said, what do you mean? He said, God broke into that gathering. And he said, he put things right. And he said, God did something there. And I said, that's wonderful, Francisco. We came into the main meeting. And when they were all together, I called him aside and I said, Besentos, I said, how are you? He said, you wouldn't believe how God broke my heart this morning. And I said, Besentos, if you want to share with the other pastors, I'm willing to give you a moment or so to do that. And you know, brethren and sisters, I got up and I took the microphone and I turned to these other pastors. He's highly respected. He's been asked to be the president of those 500 churches. And he kept saying no, but he's highly respected, been in that church for 25 years. And he took the microphone and he just turned to these pastors and he began to share, you know, the bitterness and the unresolved issues and things that God is speaking to him about. And he asked forgiveness for all those pastors. And the moment when he did that, you know what happened? The next three hours, we were in the midst of an organized disorder. You say, what happened? I just got up and I said, maybe there are some of you here and there are some unresolved issues. And for the next three hours, you wouldn't believe this. And these are kind of things, you know, that I wish you could see on a DVD, but sometimes they are so precious as these pastors would go from one to the other and ask for forgiveness and pray together. There was this old pastor in his 70s and there was someone there and he couldn't find this person. And he walked up and down. I was just standing at the front, seeing what's happening in this denomination and up until he find this pastor and he had said some things about him and that pastor knew that. You know, the Bible says if you bring your gift to the altar and it reminds you that your brother has got ought against you, leave your gift at the altar and go and reconcile yourself with your brother. And he found that pastor and they walk out there and with their chairs and sat under a tree and it went on for three hours. I've been in revival twice in my life, you know. Revival is not a series of special services, brother and sister. I want to tell you something. If you've ever in your life been in a revival, 20 minutes of an outpouring of the Spirit of God will do more for us than all the years of the kind of stuff that we've tried to do for God, you know. Lunchtime came. They didn't want food. I said, what is it? They said, we just want to pray. I couldn't stop them, you know. Went right into the afternoon, right into the evening. The president came to me and he said to me, we are in a touch of revival. And Vidal is a wonderful little Spanish godly pastor and president. He said, how far do you think we are from a real outpouring of the Spirit of God? Because by the grace of God, I've been there. And I said, Vidal, we're far away. And he said, what do you mean? I said, this is just a touch of God coming to visit us. I want to be honest with you this morning. I don't know Australia, but you know, I would love to see what will happen in this country if God will come to us as His people and God will come to visit us and God will begin to stir our hearts to pray for revival. I don't know if you know anything about Scotland, but in 1948 to 1953, in the islands in the highlands of Scotland, God poured out His Spirit in revival. He said, Gerard, what happened? Two elderly ladies on the island of Lewis made a covenant with God. And they said, God, You are the God of revival. And they said, we're going to pray for revival from 10 o'clock at night until 3 o'clock in the morning. And those two elderly ladies, I've got a picture of them in my library with a man by the name of Duncan Campbell. And they made a covenant with God and they prayed from 10 o'clock until 3 o'clock in the morning for revival. And brother and sister, you know what happened? There was a night when they got through to God. And when they got through to God for revival, you see, revival is in the sovereignty of God. But He's given unto us the privilege to pray. And His Word said, If my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, He said, then will I hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and I will heal their land. That's what the Scriptures is saying. And you remember when Solomon prayed in the Old Testament? And he prayed that prayer in the moment when the fire of God fell upon the altar. And those two ladies prayed through for revival. You see, in the free church and the high church of Scotland, on the island of Lewis. You say, what happened? They called the minister the next day and they said to the minister, he came to see them and they said to him, Minister, and if you see these two ladies, brother and sister, they were both in their 80s. One was so crippled with arthritis she could hardly walk. One was virtually blind. And they called the minister and they said to him, he came to see them and they said, he said, what is it? And he said, we've prayed through for revival. And he said, what do you want me to do? And they said, there is a man that God can trust with revival. His name is Duncan Campbell. We want you to ask him to come to the island. And they called this man Duncan Campbell. He was in Ireland when this happened. They called and they said, we want you to come to the island of Lewis. And when Duncan Campbell came to the island of Lewis, brother and sister, I heard Duncan Campbell many times. I heard him say this many, many times. He said, I never brought revival to the island of Lewis. He said, the island of Lewis was a community of prayer. And when he came to the island of Lewis, the elders of the church of Scotland and the free church, some of them, they waited for him as he came from the ferry. And as he came from the ferry, they turned to him and they said to him, Mr. Campbell, we only have one question. And he said, what is it? They said, Mr. Campbell, do you walk with God? And Duncan Campbell turned to them and he said to them, and the light that I have, my life belongs to God. That night, the services start in the island of Ness, a little community outside of Stornoway. And the place is full of the people, because you see, there was the stirrings of revival. And God was stirring the island of Lewis. They speak Gaelic, which is a dialect. And that night, the church was full of people. Duncan Campbell preached, and you know what? Nothing happened. Brother and sister, I want to tell you something this morning. If preaching in itself would have brought revival, the church would have been ablaze for God. If preaching in itself would have saved souls, I think the world would have been saturated to have converted people. There's something more, you know. You say, what is it? It's prayer. And Duncan Campbell preached, and nothing happened. And as they came out of the service, the elder turned to Duncan Campbell and he said to him, Mr. Campbell, I trust that you are not disappointed that God did not come. And then suddenly he stopped. And you know, if you know the islands of Scotland, Rachel who's been here, she's from one of the islands of Scotland. But if you know the islands, you know, people walk. The reverence for God is unbelievable on the island of Lewis. Sundays, shops are closed on the Sabbath. We used to say the dogs wouldn't even bark on a Sunday on the island of Lewis. I mean, everything is different. And as they came out of the church, the elder turned to Duncan Campbell and he said to him, he said, Mr. Campbell, I trust that you're not disappointed that God didn't come. And as people were walking back to their house and their crops, their little farms, as it were, and as they were walking, he stopped. And he said, Mr. Campbell, see, and suddenly, brother and sister, just like Jonathan Edwards, suddenly the Spirit of God came. And it swept into the island of Lewis. Duncan Campbell said, I could count on my one hand the people that were saved and converted in the island of Lewis from 1948 to 53. There were hundreds of people that were converted. But you know what he said? 75% of the people that were converted in the island of Lewis were not converted in their services. They came on their conviction of sin. They came to one service. And the conviction of sin was so brutal that many times before they came back, they were gloriously saved. I visited the island of Lewis 35 years after the revival. Can I be absolutely honest with you this morning? Because for years we have been researching revival. Brother and sister, I long to see and trust God to see this happen again when He pour out His Spirit in revival. 35 years after the Lewis revival, I went to the island of Lewis, spoke for 10 days in a marvelous church and stored away for those days. And I went from place to place to interview people that were saved 35 years ago. And you know what? In all those days of interviewing people and listening to their testimonies, after 35 years I did not find one backslider. Not one single one. And Duncan Campbell, when he lost his voice during the revival, you know, when God poured out His Spirit in the revival, and listen brother and sister, it's not this junk that we hear about, forgive me for the word, but it's not the stuff today that you hear today that is considered revival. It's got nothing to do with it. When God sends revival, I want to tell you something this morning, God the Holy Spirit will break into this little gathering. God sends revival. I tell you, you won't fall on your back. We will be on our faces. You won't do all kinds of funny things, you know, but we will be sobbing in the presence of God. I think it's possible that some of us will wonder if we've ever been born of the Spirit of God. And Duncan Campbell, when he lost his voice in the Lewis revival, he went to stay with a man that was one of my great mentors. His name was Dr. Stephen Alford. He was in Duke Street Baptist Church in the city of London. And Dr. Stephen Alford, when Duncan Campbell stayed in his house, his vocal cords were totally gone. He had to recover from them because sometimes he would preach three o'clock in the morning when they were seeking souls who wanted to be converted. And you know what happened? Duncan Campbell was in his house, could hardly speak, and Dr. Stephen Alford told us that he would go into Duncan Campbell's room and he would sit at his feet and he would say to Mr. Campbell, I don't want you to speak because of your voice, but all I want you to do is to whisper. And he said, Mr. Campbell, I just want you to tell me what happened in those moments when God poured out His Spirit in the revival. And Duncan Campbell, through a voice that was virtually gone, would whisper to Dr. Stephen Alford and say to him, you know, this is what happened when the Spirit of God broke through. And he would try to share with him. You know, one of the greatest treasures in my library is the reports of Duncan Campbell that he wrote himself during those times of the revival. Brother and sister, you could hardly read them. You read a page and I tell you, you become so broken because of the depth of the movings of the Spirit of God. And when Stephen Alford sat at his feet and he said, Mr. Campbell, tell me. And Duncan Campbell would be sharing with him what happened in those moments when God came. You know, this is all of God, brother and sister. There's nothing to do with man. And Stephen Alford turned to him and he said, Mr. Campbell, but there were hundreds of people that were converted. And Duncan Campbell said, yes, God graciously was at work. And then Stephen Alford turned to him and he said, Mr. Campbell, when all those hundreds of people were saved and they came to Christ, how did you do follow-up work? How did you disciple them? How did you help them in their relationship with God? And Duncan Campbell would turn to him and he would say to him, Stephen, you don't understand. You don't understand. We never did follow-up work. They just followed us. Alford said, what do you mean? He said, the work of God was so deep that we never had to do those things because of the relationships of God. I thought I want to share that with you. Before we pray together, we're going to break up in our little groups to pray. I just want to read you. Yesterday morning at our time together, we tried to look at some aspects of the Old Testament theology of prayer. And one of the things we talked about was the Hebrew word which is the word for the burden of God. When the prophet in the Old Testament would say, the burden of the Lord was upon me. Now, that Hebrew word is based upon revelation as it relates to the future. You find it in the life of Elijah when he said to the future king of Israel, and he said to him, and Elijah saw that he was going to become king. And when Elijah saw that he was going to become king, he realized how brutal he's going to be during his reign as king. And the prophet Elijah just broke and he was so affected. And this future king turned to him and he said to him, why are you weeping? And Elijah said, I am weeping because you're going to become king. And I will see what you are going to do to the lives of the people. That's the Hebrew word masa. That's what you find in the life of Moses when he spent 40 years in the wilderness. Of course, when he spent 40 years in Egypt, he became the prince in Egypt. Then he spent 40 years and he became the shepherd of the pastor in Midian. And then Moses, after 80 years, hey, you know what, brother and sister? God is never in a hurry and seldom late. God is seldom late and never in a hurry. And after 80 years, God came to Moses. And when God revealed himself to Moses, you discover this understanding of the burden of God, the masa. And it's based upon the revelation. And when the revelation of God came to Moses and he responded and the revelation of the need of the people, you discover the fulfillment of the understanding of the burden of God. And the burden of God brings brokenness. Brokenness is not emotion. Brokenness is a lifestyle of absolute submissiveness to God. And brokenness brings cleansing when God set me apart unto this burden. And when God cleanses us, the Spirit of God becomes precedent. And the Spirit of God goes alongside with the spirit of prayer. And the spirit of prayer leads us to the will of God in prayer. And the will of God in prayer is surrounded with the promises of God in prayer. Now, you sit here this morning and say, how do I know when I live a broken life? Let me read to you something, if I may. When my heart is broken before God, I'm overwhelmed with a sense of my own spiritual need. When my heart is broken before God, I have a spirit of compassion about my life. I can forgive much because I know how much I've been forgiven. I esteem others better than myself. When I live a broken Christian life, I have a dependent spirit and I recognize my needs for others. When my heart is broken before God, I've learned the secret of denying myself. There is a motivation in me to serve other people. I'm motivated to be faithful and I want to make others a success. And when I live a broken Christian life, I've got a passion to promote other people. I have a sense of my own unworthiness and I'm thrilled that God would use me in any kind of a ministry. And I'm so eager for others to get the credit and I rejoice when others are lifted up. And so when my heart is broken, I have an attitude that says, I don't deserve to be part of this church. I know I've got nothing to offer God except the life of Christ that is flowing through me. And when my heart is broken before God, I'm so humiliated by how much I've got to learn. I'm not concerned with a self-life at all. I'm willing to take risks to get close to others so that I can love them in the presence of God. And I accept personal responsibility when I've done something wrong. When I'm broken before God, I'm easy to be entreated. I receive criticism with a humble and an open spirit. And when I'm broken before God, I'm concerned about being real. I'm willing to be open and transparent with others as God will direct me. And once I've given myself to God in brokenness, I don't care who knows or who finds out anything about me, because I'm willing to be exposed simply because I've got nothing to lose. And so when I live a broken life, I'm quick to admit my failure and I seek forgiveness when it's necessary. And when I'm under the conviction of God's Spirit, I'm able to acknowledge the specifics about my sin and I confess them. And I'm grieved over the cause of my sin and the root of it. And I'm truly repentant over my sin. And the evidence is the fact that I want to forsake that sin. And so when I live a broken Christian life, I take the initiative to be reconciled when there is some misunderstanding or a conflict in any relationship. I race to the cross. I see if I can get there first, no matter how wrong the other person may have been. Once I'm broken before God, I compare myself with the holiness of God. And I feel desperately in need of His mercy. And I've got a passion to walk in the light. And I realize that I've got a need of a consistent cleansing. And I want a fresh encounter with God. But when there is pride in my life as a Christian, I'm so quick to blame others. I become totally unapproachable. I'm defensive when I'm criticized. I'm concerned about being respectable. I'm concerned about what others think. And I try to protect my image and my reputation. And I find it very difficult to share my spiritual needs with others. I want to be sure that no one finds out that I have sinned when there is pride. And I've got this inner instinct to try and cover up my sin. And I find it difficult to say, you know, I'm wrong. Will you please forgive me? And when there is pride in my life, I'm concerned about the consequences of my sin, simply because I've been caught. When there is pride in my life, I wait for others to come and ask for forgiveness when there is a misunderstanding or a conflict in the relationship. And when there is pride in my life, I compare myself with other believers. And I always feel wary of honor. And I'm blind to my own true heart condition. And I do not think that I've got anything to repent of. And when there is pride in my life, I focus on the failures of others. When there is pride in my life, I'm self-righteous. I've got a critical and a fault-finding spirit. I look upon everyone else's faults with a microscope. But I see my own with a telescope. I have an independent spirit and a self-sufficient spirit. When there is pride in my life, I'm self-protected of my time and my rights and my image and my reputation. And when there is pride in my life, I always want to be served. I always want to be successful. I always try to advance myself. And when there is this sin of pride in my life, I've got an inner drive to be recognized. I want to be appreciated. I'm wounded when others are promoted and I've been overlooked. And when there is pride in my life, I've got this subconscious feeling, this is what I say. This church, this ministry is so privileged to have me in my gifts. And all I think is what I can do for God. And I feel confident how much I know. And I always keep people in a distance. I'll be honest with you this morning, I never get through this list, you know. It sometimes just tears me apart because we're talking about a life that is totally submissive to God. You see, what is broken is the life of Christ is unbelievable. We want to pray, but you know what? Twice a year I'm amongst about 2,000 people in Pennsylvania that has come to Christ out of the old order Amish and the Mennonites and the Hadarites. And a number of years ago, I spent two hours with them on a Thursday night on the biblical theology of brokenness. And from seven o'clock to nine o'clock, we look at two aspects of brokenness. Brokenness in its negative understanding. And I took them into the Hebrew text of the Old Testament as it relates to sin and into the Greek New Testament. For an hour we spoke on brokenness in its negative theological understanding. And we saw the depravity of sin. And do you know what I did? The last hour, I said, now we're going to look at the positive understanding of what brokenness is. And we went to the life of Christ. And brother and sister, we discover His relationship with the Father and submissiveness when He said, the son can do nothing unseeless, He sees the Father doing it. And when He said, My Father worked it to Him, and so do I. And we explore it. I want to ask you this morning, if you ever ask God to give you a broken heart, you say, what happened? You see people the way that God sees them. You know what? You're never able to criticize people. You see them with the grace of God, and you see yourself without the grace of God. And you recognize the depth of your dependence upon God. Let's spend some time in prayer together. I want you to find five people. Turn around. We've got chairs that can move. Find five people. And there's something that you want them to pray for. I want you to share it with them. And then we're just going to spend some time in prayer. And then I want us to get into the New Testament as it relates to prayer. So can we do that? Why don't we just break it up in groups of five, maybe even six, and we spend some time in prayer together. We've got chairs that you can turn around and do that.