In this sermon, the speaker discusses three themes: brokenness, integrity, and clarity of vision. He emphasizes the importance of experiencing brokenness in order to effectively minister to others who are broken. The speaker shares personal experiences, including the ordeal with his own daughter, which taught him about coping with injustices and letting go of the need to be right. He also highlights the significance of seeking clarity of direction from God as leaders. The speaker encourages listeners to listen to God and be open to change in order to fulfill God's purpose.

Well, there are a number of things I want to say in terms of preliminary statements before we get into this subject of brokenness. One thing is that I intentionally wanted to make sure I'm standing on the same ground that you're sitting on tonight, just because of the issues that we're talking about. I struggle, I've gone through a lot of things in my life in terms of creating brokenness, but I still struggle with brokenness. In fact, last night, when Dave was here, I'm having to let go of the leader development project and let Dave do it, and as Dave was presenting what he was presenting, I was sitting there thinking, now, let's see, just do it this way, Dave, and just say it this way, and a number of other things, and I thought, boy, it's tough for me to let go of things that mean a lot to me. And then today, while we were having our prayer time, when we had our first break, I was looking at some of you, and you looked really, really tired. And so I decided the solution to this whole process was for us to have about an hour of prayer and get out of here and have you go get some rest. And so I went back and told the prayer team, I said, hey, let's just pray for about another hour and shut this thing down. And Lee looked at me with all of the kindness, thanks, Dave, all the kindness he could muster, but he said to me, now, Alan, let me ask you a question. If we were about to share a message, would we shut it down so we'd go have a rest? And I thought, well, probably not. So I said, well, go ahead and do whatever you want to do. I felt a lot better after I said that, but I felt kind of guilty. I thought, see, now, there I did it again. I stuck my nose right in where it didn't belong. So brokenness is something that lives with us for a lifetime. And I want to talk about it more in terms of a family context, a we-ness, and I just want to put some things on the table that we can reflect on. Not that I'm right. I'm not suggesting to you that I've got this figured out. I don't by a long shot. But I'm sure there's some things that God wants us to talk about. But I want to put it in its broader framework. There are three themes that I'm bringing, and you will hear them at a leadership level until you absolutely are sick of hearing it. And I intend it to be that way because I learned when I was ministering in Canada that each year, or roughly each year, I would go off and spend some days with the Lord and ask the Lord, what is the direction? Because from a leadership perspective, clarity of direction is absolutely essential. And God is saying something. And we need to say what God wants to say. And so after the selection process, I went off and spent some days with the Lord, and I started to pray and ask God, what is it that you want to say to us? What do you want me to say? And I found in my experience in Canada that if you start with a clear message about the time leaders get sick of the message, it has just sunk in at the grassroots. And so you're going to hear this not this time, but you will hear it other times because I believe it's what God wants us to hear. And I hope you'll give me feedback, and I hope you'll tell me that some things need to change, and I hope that you'll interact with me on this. But the three themes have to do, one, with brokenness. The second one has to do with integrity. And the third one has to do with clarity of vision. Tonight, it's brokenness. Tomorrow night, it's on integrity. And then, of course, the last night is clarity of vision. Now, why brokenness? Well, I identified three things. Number one, what has happened in my own life? And I don't mean to communicate that I'm nearly as broken as God would desire me to be broken, but I experienced some things, especially in the ordeal with my own daughter. And it allows me to experience and sometimes feel things where you're in an environment and you can feel it, and if you've ever felt it to the depth that I felt it, you can look at it and you can say, you'll never be able to minister to a broken person until you've felt that kind of breaking. Because broken people can feel immediately whether you can touch them or not. And if you talk down to them, they know it. If you know all the answers or if you project that you've got it figured out, they're gone. And as I was mentioning to one group or one person tonight, as we were going through this struggle with my daughter, I used to go to church and go home in tears. Incredible pain. And I would sometimes say to Becky, I would say, we've got to leave. I can't take this anymore. And it wasn't because of what was being said. It was the way it was being said. It was coming to me in a way that I absolutely couldn't receive it. Because even though I knew that what they were saying was true and even though I knew that what people were saying about me was not true, I felt judged. And because I felt judged, I couldn't hear it. And it taught me what it is to be broken. Second, it has to do with what I've observed. I watch us, and I listen sometimes, and I say to myself, that will never touch a broken person. A broken person either can't hear it or they'll run from it. But it's got to come a different way. The message has got to touch them a different way. And then thirdly, the reason we're dealing with brokenness is because of prayer. In praying over it, God just confirmed that this is something in the Navigator work we need to be talking about. Now the issue of integrity comes up because I can't explain it. I honestly cannot explain in one sense why we need to be talking about integrity. I honestly don't know what the real issues are. I think we probably know somewhere collectively in this group what the issues are. I don't. I haven't been in the U.S. ministry long enough to really know what those issues would be. So when I talk about integrity, I'm basically talking about what it is and how it affects us. For example, a person of integrity, you can look right through them. You can live with vulnerability. You can have a place inside of you that is wounded, but you can say to the person, I'm wounded right there, and that's a scar or that's a wound, and I'm learning how to grow and to deal with my own woundedness. But what is inside and what is outside is the same. And that's what we mean by everything working. We're not talking about wholeness in the sense that we've got it all figured out. We're talking about some victories, some defeat that God has given us by His grace, and we're just talking about a complete vulnerability to be able to say, hey, this is where I am, and this is how we deal with it, and by God's grace we'll grow and we'll change. But integrity of life, especially in today's world, is an absolute essential. Not integrity in terms of being whole and together, but being vulnerable, transparent, being able to be transparent, and to be able to just express, well, hey, I'm working on that. God's helping me by His grace. That's the best I can say. People can understand that. But in today's world, what people can't live with is hypocrisy and duplicity. And when they pick it up, they know immediately that you don't love them. And they just read it almost, especially young people today, because they've been betrayed so many times, they just can read it as fast as you walk in the room almost. And the third thing has to do with clarity of vision. And that has to do with the fact that we've gone through a change process in the Navigator work, and all of you have lived through it longer than I have. Now, I've lived through it outside of the U.S. You've lived through it inside the U.S. as far as all of the changes in the work. Now, when I talk about clarity of vision, I don't say that with any criticism of the past. Some of you have expressed to me concerns about the past. I don't live with that. I don't worry about it. I basically look at where the Navigator work has gone, and I look at it and I say, I think we had to do that. I remember when Jim Peterson came back in the late 70s from Brazil. I had some real struggles with the changes that Jim was bringing, but the longer I lived in Canada, the more the reality sunk in, we have to change. And we went through the same destabilizing thing that we have felt here. But I'd like to just, I'm going to elaborate on this to a much greater degree two nights from now. But I've worked this out with Lorne Sanney and all of our elders, and I'd suggest to you that in our history, it took Dawson Trotman from 1926 to 1934 to launch a ministry. And then what he did from 1934 to about 1950 was the military ministry became our target. And then we went through another period of transitioning and repositioning ourselves. And they'll talk about our kind of, our elders are drying up in the grassroots in this area. A broadening ministry in terms of going to Billy Graham, working in a number of different places. But nevertheless, losing our edge in the grassroots during this period. Then in about 1960, Leroy energized us again, and then we had two target audiences, the collegiate and the military, from about 1960 roughly until the early 80s. Now we've gone through another period of repositioning the work, and it has been very, very painful on us because of cultural shifts, because of the struggles we've had to face in a number of different ways, the issue of the cities and the community and so on. And so as a result, it's taken us a longer period of time to make the adjustment. But I think about 1995, somewhere between 1995 and 1996, we started to see some real movement in the work. Now we're a long ways from being there, and we don't want to lie to ourselves and tell us that we have booming ministries all over America. We don't. And we've got a tremendous learning curve. But I do believe, and I'll show you from Isaiah 49 in two nights, that I think we're getting ready for a whole new season of growth. And we talked about that today. We talked about the fact that we all sense that God is saying something. We're beginning to see it in the grassroots. And I was just down in San Antonio with Doug Benchoff, and I came back and told the community guys, I said, hey, look, if you can deliver that one, we've got everything we want in that ministry as far as what's going on. It's okay by me. And I know of a number of other places where that's going on. And I was just up in the northeast and talking with Dave Bowman and what God is doing on the campus there, and some good things that are happening all the way across the work. And I look at that and I say, that's a wonderful thing. But what we need to do is we've also gone through a real expanding of our target audiences. Now we're into the community. We have different perspectives on ministry. We tend to divide along philosophical lines. And what we need is we need to raise the bar in terms of what it is that unifies us so that we can create an environment where we can work together in harmony and at the same time with clarity of vision. And we can do that. And I think I can demonstrate to you that we absolutely can do that. And believe me, if we can do it with Muslims in Asia and make it work, we can surely do it in America and come together with some core things that we're committed to, but with lots and lots of freedom and diversity. And so that's where we're going. And I want you to get a sense of that because I don't want you to walk out of here tonight listening to a message on brokenness and not have a broader context because believe me, I hope by God's grace that we will light the whole room up in two nights as far as vision. I believe that God is going to show us a way to go to America that will touch the body of Christ, will allow us to co-labor with the body of Christ, will allow us to do all kinds of things. And I believe that it will be something that will be so motivating that we can take it almost anywhere and people will get excited about what we want to do. But like we said today, the danger is to jump right to that without asking the question, okay, now Lord, do you want to do something in our lives? Now I feel like we live with a little bit of tension there because we have one group here that is pretty task oriented and they're very outward looking. And they're looking at it and they're saying, hey, look, sure we've got problems. And that's where we're going and let's work on it as we go. We've got another group that is deeply, deeply sensitive to what the Spirit of God is saying. And they're saying, hey, it's foolish to try to go on when we deny the reality of difficulties and problems that we have right now in front of us. Personally, I think we have to stop, ask the hard questions, address it, begin to pray and ask God to teach us. But just like the whole issue of brokenness is a cycle where you go through deeper and deeper and deeper cycles, I think if we get ourselves aware of what the issues are, by God's grace we can trust the Spirit of God to teach us and to bring us through it so we can go on but we can also face the realities of where we live. Now, I have my friend Rusty who is a great reader. I love to hear Rusty read the scriptures. And I'm going to ask Rusty to come and read to us Philippians chapter 2, verses 1 through 11. Yeah. Philippians 2. If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant. Being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Now, aren't we glad that the Lord Jesus did that for us? And aren't we glad that He was broken for us? Just think of what He surrendered Himself to. Think about what He was willing to do for us. And the Apostle Paul says, now have the same attitude. The same attitude in you that was in the Lord Jesus, that's the attitude I want you to have. Now let's contrast that for a moment. Convert, growing Christian, disciple, laborer, disciple maker, leader, ever ascending maturity. In our minds we go up, up, up, up. Now we don't intend to say that, but we do. And of course that's in our distant past history. But all of us as we sit here, grew up with that kind of mentality of how ministry works. And the problem is, is it takes us away from brokenness. It moves us away, it gives us a sense that we're getting better and better and better. And of course we'd say, well that's legalism. Now it doesn't mean that we didn't know how to live by grace, and it doesn't mean that we didn't do a lot that was really right. It just means that we had some basic thinking that we've had to address over the years. Now let's think about, what is brokenness? Now, I don't know whether any of you have ever, have you read this book, how many of you have read this book, Broken in the Right Places, Alan Nelson? If you haven't, you should sit down and really read it. I'm going to give you another one tomorrow night that you should also sit down and read. But here's what Alan Nelson says about brokenness, and I think it says a lot. Brokenness is a yielded heart open before God, a heart emptied of pride and self-claims of all arrogance, knowing our sin, our self-deception, our frailty, weakness, inadequacy. We discover ourselves again to be hungry and thirsty, poor and needy. When we have thought of ourselves full and needing nothing, along with the awareness comes a rediscovery of God's love, mercy, and forgiveness, His affirmation of us, His care for us, and claim upon us. Brokenness is not the opposite of wholeness. It is the continuing precondition for it. Interesting definition of brokenness. It allows us to experience God's grace. It opens us up to God's grace. It's the point where kind of the pressures of life bring us to the desperation that allows us to cry out for God's grace. Then the result of brokenness is what I said to you earlier today. Brokenness is surrendering to the will of God without resistance. It allows you inside to simply surrender to the will of God without fighting it and struggling with it. So that's not so much a definition of brokenness as it is a result of brokenness. That I can enter into God's grace without resisting His will. Think about all of those things that you struggle with. The things you don't want to give up. The things that you want to hang on to. Someone asked me today, well, what about brokenness? And I told them, well, the interesting thing is I found, let's say that this is where I was before I went through what I did with my daughter. I found that going through that pushed my sensitivity in terms of brokenness way up here. But after the battle was over, the water table receded, and I was only changed some. I wasn't as sensitive as I thought I was. And then I find that when the Holy Spirit speaks now, I hear it more quickly than I did before. But I wish that I had changed a whole lot more than I have. And that's kind of the way these experiences were. Now, let me tell you a story about my dad. Because my dad is a broken man. Not broken in the sense that he's broken, but broken in the sense that he has experienced the brokenness of the Lord Jesus. I took Andy and Marianna home with me a few weeks ago. And it was late in the evening, and I knew we were going to walk in the door, and I knew exactly what my dad was going to be doing. Didn't have to think about it. Didn't have to pray about it. Didn't have to worry about it. I just knew what my dad was going to be doing. I knew that when I turned that knob to our kitchen door, I was going to push the door open, and my dad was going to be sitting there with his head down, reading his Bible. I also knew that the following morning, about five o'clock in the morning, my dad would be on his knees, praying for his family, praying all over the world. He's an incredible man. Now, if you listen to my dad talk, he has trouble speaking the King's English properly. And my dad only has a grade eight education. But I admire my dad more than any man on this earth. And the reason I love my dad so much is I know so much about him. I know that my dad was a baseball player. I know that my dad was a hard-working young man. I know that my dad grew up in a family where his father literally beat him to incredible degrees. His dad was an alcoholic, and he made him work like a horse on a farm. And my dad finally left home. And I've heard stories all over West Virginia about my dad. He was a barroom brawler. I had a man tell me that my dad walked into a bar by himself one night, and the bar was basically full. He had been drinking. He got into an argument, and my dad literally cleaned the whole bar up by himself. He's about my height, and when he was younger, he had arms that big. And my dad was a tough man. Growing up, my dad was tough. But I watched him change over the years, and I watched the experiences change him, and the last experience was losing my mother. And he loved my mother so much that they were like courting teenagers all their years. And dad would hold my mother up like the most wonderful... He didn't believe my mother could sin. And in fact, sometimes we just... Dad, please tell her to stop, because my mother was a wonderful woman, but she was a powerful leader. And so we went through that experience. And now I watch my dad, and my dad is 85 years old. I just talked to him on the phone yesterday. My dad says, well, I've got to go over and help those old people at the nursing home. And they're all younger than he is. But he goes over there every day to help those people. He's a broken man. He listens to God. My dad hungers and thirsts for the Word. He listens to the Lord. And he doesn't resist God's leading at all. He's just an incredibly marvelous person. Well, that's brokenness. Taking a man who was a brawler, an alcoholic, and through the years, tenderness, love, and as soon as my dad and I see one another, we just throw our arms around one another. We really love one another. Now, you know, my dad was one who told me one time when I was a little kid, well, bud, you probably ought to go to trade school. Don't think you can make it. That hurt me. My dad would never say that to me today. He looked at me just a few weeks ago, and he said, Alan, I'm so proud of you. That's what brings brokenness in the grace of God. It's an incredible change in a man, inner transformation of the work of God that has come through the breaking power of God. Now, in the Navigator ministry, I'd suggest to you that I think there are three kinds of brokenness that we need to look at. I need to look at it. We need to look at it. Here sits the leadership of at least the next five years of Navigator history, and as we sit here, we're charged with future generations, and I think that as we look to the future, one of the big keys is going to be how are we going to function in a broken world, and can we minister out of the brokenness that God brings, and can we bring grace to a broken world? That's going to be the key. Can we bring the love of the Lord Jesus that binds up the brokenhearted? Can we bring the love of the Lord Jesus that sets captives free? Can we bring the love of the Lord Jesus that can comfort those who mourn? That allows them to take little ones and will help them become oaks of righteousness by the grace of God? And the key will be whether we minister out of brokenness or out of self-righteousness. I'd like to suggest to you that the first area we need to look at is the area of personal brokenness. Turn with me over to Genesis chapter 40. Actually, we're not going to spend that much time there, so we can talk about it, but we have the story here of Joseph. Now, notice how Joseph was broken. Joseph grows up in a home, and he's rather arrogant about his gifts. He is really gifted. He sees things. He dreams dreams. He sees visions. He's good. Really capable. And in fact, he's so capable that his brothers can't stand him. And so they decide that it's time to get rid of him. And so they sell him. And off he goes to Egypt. Now, can you imagine all of the tears of brokenness on the way to Egypt? Leaving your father. Can you imagine what's going on in his heart? The pain he must feel? I can't even imagine coping with that. But finally, he gets to Egypt. And when he gets to Egypt, Potiphar decides that he can utilize Joseph's services. So things are going great. But Joseph is a young man, and Potiphar's wife thinks he looks great. But Joseph stands in his integrity, and he's falsely accused. Off to jail. We think, well, jail's bad enough. Then along come the baker and the cupbearer. The baker loses his head, but the cupbearer makes it back to the king. And Joseph says, just commend me to Pharaoh. And he forgets all about Joseph. Can you imagine what's going on in Joseph's heart? Two more years. He's got to wait. Every day, living in that probably dungeon, they had to clean him up when they brought him to Pharaoh. Ever just one painful thing after another, but then what do you see? You see this magnificent man leading all of Egypt. And you see a man of justice, clarity, love, a lot of the character of God, and brokenness. Brokenness works a lot like that. It works through a series of events in life most often. Not always. But it starts out here, and it moves a little closer, and a little closer, and a little closer, and then finally something dies inside. I think in my own life, I've seen some of that. When I was in Huntington, West Virginia, I hated the navigators. Couldn't stand the navigators. And God had to bring me to a point that I could read Hebrews chapter 6, verses 11 and 14, and say, God has called me to the navigators. That was a breaking experience. It was a calling, but it was a breaking experience. I had to put down everything I had ever said, and turn around and say, God is calling me to the navigators. Then two years later, I moved to Maryland, and I was working in a situation where it was really, really difficult. But God tested my calling. Tested it to the nth degree, and I had to go through another breaking experience, but it had to do with my own pride. And then it was off to the University of Illinois, and God blessed in Illinois more than I ever dreamed. I was the most surprised person in all the world that God would ever do what He did. Couldn't believe that God was doing that, until people started asking me how we did it. And when they started asking me how we did it, my first answer was, well, it was just the Lord. A little while later, it was, well, maybe we did learn some things. Then we started sharing, and then finally, it was, well, what's the matter with all of you proud people? Can't you see that we're doing it right for the whole navigator world? And then, having to come to grips with the fact that I had taken the glory for what God had done. Now, it was that experience that prepared me for Canada. And for 14 years, I was able to lead in the Canadian work, and one thing I could do was lead and not take the glory, because it had been too painful. And I knew that God had done it. But there's still a lot of things in my own life. Pride. Self-righteousness. I'm right. Truth is more important than love. A number of things. Brian can remember. And then, as I was leading Vision 2000 Canada, 1989, about five in the morning, I was studying the Scriptures. No problem in terms of walking with God, believing Him, calling the nation to repent, to walk humbly with God. No difficulty with that. Read Isaiah 49, Isaiah 55. Theme to me that morning was, listen, listen to me. And I got up from my chair and I walked over to the corner. I got on my knees, and I only said one thing. Very briefly, I said, Lord, whatever you have to do to make me and my family hear your voice, do it. I meant it. There was no question that I meant every word that I said. But I had no idea of what was in front of me. And that's when the whole earth broke loose with my daughter. And what I had to do then was learn to cope with the injustices of life. And I had to learn to cope with issues in my own life of not necessarily having to be right. And walking into a hospital where my daughter was sitting with a bunch of daughters who had been incest. And I had to go through that period of sitting in that room and looking at those people and saying, I don't belong here. These people are sick. But I don't belong here. And I'll never forget the night I had the revelation that Alan, if you don't lean into this thing and begin to work with it, you're never coming out of here. And God forced me to work with it. And then to go into a trial and have your own daughter testify against you. And then to literally have to sit there and talk about the most intimate portions of your sex life. Just stripped everything. At least for a season. Well, but what it did do for me after I went through that and got out on the other side was one day I was studying 1 Peter and Psalm 42 and 43. As I was studying that passage, Psalm 42, verse 3. Send your light and your truth and let them guide me to your holy mount. Lord, just use your x-ray. Unload it on me. Let me see it. Whatever is there, deal with it. Just so frustrated. Lord, anything. I don't know what's in there. I don't even know myself anymore. All I know is whatever it is, show me what it is so that I can get out of this mess and get on the other side of it and walk with you. And that was the beginning of the recovery. Both for me and my family. Now we all live through difficulties, injustices in life. And somehow we have to come to the point that we can live out the will of God without resisting. Now all I can tell you is in my own life if I had not learned that lesson I would not be standing here tonight. Had to learn to give it up. Had to learn to let go of it and let God shine his light into my inner being and let him do anything he wants to do. And I could tell you more about that experience but I'm not. Now let's talk about personal brokenness in relationship to the navigators. First, I mentioned to you the residual theology of sanctification that lies somewhere in the back of all of our minds. That somehow we get better and better and better. And it creates a sense of self-righteousness if we're not careful. And then in leadership it creates a sense of condemnation of people and a judgmental spirit so that we see weaknesses in others. From a position of strength we look on others and see their sin. That's not brokenness. And the world that we live in can't handle that and it is not the love of the Lord Jesus. We are well-educated people. We're pretty capable people in the flesh. But think about the navigators. Very, very humble beginnings. Think about all those who've gone before us. Think about how much suffering has gone on to bring the navigator work to where it is today. Think about how we benefit from so much that has gone on before. But if we're not careful, our education, our capabilities that have allowed us to function well as human beings in the world and the grace of God that gives us the ability and the victory to function fairly well in this world. If we're not careful we take credit for it. And we begin to look at the rest of the world and we begin to say, I don't know what's wrong with you. That's scary. Because it can bring us into a ministry that allows, again, us to be a self-righteous people rather than a broken, grace-filled people. Also, positions of leadership. When you live inside of an organization, no matter how hard we work at it, there develops a hierarchy. And with that hierarchy comes to some degree, whether we like it or not, power. And sometimes we love power as leaders. And the question is, can we turn that power into servanthood and into a broken and contrite heart, oh God, you will not despise and will allow us to minister to others out of grace and love rather than out of power. Independence. There's something in our vision, spiritual multiplication, that says, I agree with Scott, we need to ask the question, where's your man? Where's your woman? What is God doing in your life? Absolutely. Absolutely. But, spiritual multiplication says, it's my ministry. I did it. The danger is to lose sight of the grace of God and what He did. Raj, I loved what you said today as you prayed over just the grace of God in doing and praising God for what He's doing in the BNP ministry. But our own vision keeps us from being team players. And it keeps us from cooperating with one another. And it creates potentially a spirit of independence if we're not careful. And when we think about those things, we need to ask ourselves, now are we broken enough to cooperate with one another, to live and minister together? Can we honor one another? Can we defer to one another's gifts? Are we broken enough to say, Lord, allow that person to move ahead of me. Can I defer to another person? Availability. Well, I can't move. I don't want to move. It just wouldn't be right. Daryl was saying one time, everybody's for moving as long as they move to be with me. And we're kind of an apostolic organization. And if we don't surrender some of these rights and let go of them and listen to the Lord Jesus, my question is, how will we ever get where we're going in terms of our ministry? Now, I throw those out as questions. I'm not throwing them out and saying, hey, you leaders, we're sinning. The other day I was thinking about myself and moving, and I thought, well, I don't really want to move either. But I think I would if God called. And I think that we've got to look at ourselves and ask ourselves, do we really see how deeply indebted we are to God's grace and to the mercy of the Lord Jesus in coming to us and being broken? And if the Lord Jesus can be broken, coming from on high, taking off His robes of righteousness and coming and living among us as a servant, can't we do that? What about being comfortable in ministering in an upper middle income bracket? Navigators always get mad at me for saying that. I live in an upper middle income bracket. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being there. There are people there who are wounded, broken, all of those things. It's fine. We probably, most of us, will stay there. But what if God spoke to one of us and God said, I want you to be a missionary to the poor? Are we broken enough to do it, to take off our robes of riches and go connect with the poor? I have a feeling if we're going to go where God wants us to go, He's going to call some of us to give it up and to go do it. I don't know what the complexion of the navigators is going to be. I don't know how Hispanic it's going to be, how African American it's going to be, but I know one thing, we'll never get there unless we're broken. I don't think we'll ever get over our gender issues and how we honor women like my dad honored my mother unless we're broken, personally. Because if we have something to protect, I think we're going to be in trouble. Well, let's take a look at the second aspect of it, and it has to do with ministry brokenness. Isaiah 42, 16. I will lead the blind by ways they do not know. I will lead the blind by ways they do not know. He's talking about ministry. It's the servant of the Lord. The blind going along, and it's like you follow the Lord Jesus and you've got your hand in His hand, and you can't see where you're going. That's the way ministry is. Now, ministry is a lot of other things, but ministry is a blind person being led along unfamiliar paths. That's the way ministry works. I remember watching Neal and Sue in Indonesia minister to Muslims. And as I watched them minister, I'd listen to Neal talk to me, and I'd say he's a blind man led along unfamiliar paths. He's just hoping he gets it right. And if Jesus doesn't help him, he knows he's dead. And there was a dynamic in that ministry. There's a tremendous dynamic. I contrast that with in our ministry, some of us resist the new and the creative. I'm one of them. I've done that. Been there, done that. And then we have others who disdain the past. One says, they're going to take us away from our calling. If they keep going that direction, we're going to lose our calling. The other group says, the navigator ethos has got to change. They're living in the past. And I guess we have to love them, but we must go on to the future. Think of the arrogance that comes with that kind of talk. Let God lead us where God is going to lead us. And have the humility to say, God has led me to do this. And led me to function. And as I was sharing with a group, I think it was yesterday, it's like Gamaliel. If God is with you, you're right. Who can stop you? And if God isn't with you, you're wrong. How can you ever succeed anyway? Then think of ministry philosophy. Same idea. There are the FOMers. Our calling is clear. And then there are the SRMers who are sure they've got it right. The truth is, that if we walk in humility, we can walk together. There's plenty of room for all of us to function in the navigator work. There are just core things that we've got to commit to. And God will lead us. He'll get us there. Then I think about leadership in the navigators. I love the tensions that we have in this group. There are the catalytic leaders. Those who are philosophically committed to that. You've got to have leadership. God raises up leaders and what He does is He anoints them. And when He anoints those leaders, they are called of God and they're led out. And then one group says, well, that's Old Testament. And the other group comes along and says, no, no. Jesus is the head. And then we line up a bunch of gifted people. One of those gifts is leading. But every person who is gifted when they exercise their gift, they lead out of their gifts. And we are a body. Now, that discussion goes throughout the whole body of Christ. We will never resolve that issue. But the truth is, as I get close to people and as I talk to them, it's never that cut and dried anyway in terms of how they see it. And the other thing is, both groups are saying something that has tremendous truth in it. And as long as we understand that we can have a little bit difference of opinion, we'll be fine. We'll go together and we'll labor together and we realize that, hey, Jesus is Lord. There are some issues that are absolutely indispensable. There are other issues that are not essential. As Bruce mentioned today, navigators tend to divide along philosophical lines. Ministry philosophical lines. And I'd suggest to you that the danger is if we're not broken in our own ministry concepts and if we don't learn to surrender those things and learn to hang on to the essentials but allow the wings to flap, we're going to be in trouble. The navigator work, our calling is going to be in trouble. But we can learn to live with those kinds of things. We can live in a world where those things can operate together. And when we get to Wednesday night, I think I will identify what I'm pretty certain are the core issues of what a navigator must hang on to. And hey, like I say, Doug Benchoff is a great SRM navigator and I'm telling you, if I've ever seen a navigator ministry, that's it. But you know, Dave Bowman is an FOM navigator and if I've ever heard of a navigator ministry, that's it. On a campus. I'm not too worried about it. It works. And both men deeply love the Lord Jesus. Both of them are anchored deeply in His love. And they're navigators. It works. And I would suggest to you that we've got to be in ministry blind people being led along unfamiliar paths. Because I can tell you this, that ministering to Muslims or Hindus or other parts of the world, if you think we're having trouble here, you should see what it's like there. It's downright scary. God will not be put in a box in ministry. And about the time we think we've got it all right, He's going to send some guy roaring in like He did into one of our Middle Eastern countries just preaching a straight up gospel, being an evangelist, and the Islamic leaders invite him in and boom. All kinds of people come to Christ. Now that really shook us up. Because we thought God couldn't do it like that. It has problems. But I'm just suggesting to you that there are a lot of ways God is going to do it. And I've seen them. I've been all over the world and I've seen God do things that have just shaken my mental framework up. And I learned about 1984-85, give it up, Alan. Stop trying to fight for ministry purity. And begin to let God lead you in a circumstance-by-circumstance way and make sure you're true to what the Scriptures say as you move through it. We get too precise. We have to learn to give it up. Isaiah 50, verses 10 and 11. Just suggest that we take a look at that passage because I think it has an awful lot to say about ministry philosophy. Who among you fears the Lord? Who obeys the voice of His servant? Who walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who encircle yourselves with firebrowns, walk in the light of your fire, and among the brands you have set aflame, this you will have from my hand, you will lie down in torment. It's Isaiah 50, verses 10 and 11. Don't light your own fires. This ministry is something that is terribly dependent. And ministry emerges out of brokenness. It emerges out of dependence and love for the Lord Jesus. He is the Lord. Let Him do the ministry. And if it's working and God is blessing you in a spot, then fine, by all means do it. Now, let's move to another area, corporate brokenness. I'm going to say something strongly and forgive me if it hurts your feelings because I'm just trying to say this for all of us. A sure sign of a lack of corporate brokenness is denial of corporate problems. Let me say that again. A sure sign of a lack of corporate brokenness is denial of corporate problems. When I was in Canada, staff used to come to me and say, Alan, I have a concern. And it would be over the same issue. And I would say to them, but you just don't understand. And I could beat them 10 days out of 10 verbally. Because I had all of the information. I had all of the financial figures. I mean, it was like David and Goliath only David didn't have a sling. And I was standing there with all of the tools in my bag to take care of their arguments. But I learned something and that is that when enough staff speak to an issue, they intuitively know something's wrong. And that it is very, very, very dangerous for a work to say, but you don't understand. And it is very, very dangerous to deny corporate problems. Whether it be ministry, whether it be finances, whatever it may be. Now, in Joel 2.15, I'm not going to go into it, but God comes to Israel and He says to them, now look, there's sin, but if you'll deal with it corporately, and if you will deal with this with a solemn assembly corporately, I will have compassion on you. Otherwise, the day of the Lord is coming. Well, but when you look at Malachi, or Malachi, it's really interesting. Turn to Malachi and look at this. Verse 2, chapter 1. God says, I have loved you, says the Lord, but you say, how have I, I'm sorry, how have you loved us? Isn't that interesting? They said to God, how have you loved us? Verse 6, God says, and if I am a master, where is my respect? Right at the end of the verse, but you say, how have we despised your name? Notice verse 7, you are presenting defiled food upon my altar, but you say, how have we defiled you? Notice verse 13, you also say, my, how tiresome it is. Verse 14 of chapter 2, you say, for what reason? Verse 17 of chapter 2, how have we wearied him? Verse 7 of chapter 3, how shall we return? Verse 13 of chapter 3, what have we spoken against you? Now, these are people speaking who are living in unbelievable idolatry, and they can't see it. I've just read in the last week through Jeremiah, almost all of Jeremiah, the thing that amazes me with Jeremiah's message is these false prophets actually thought they were doing God a favor. They were in absolute denial to the problems. Problems everywhere, but they couldn't see it, and they actually couldn't grasp the fact that they had problems. I'd suggest to you that in the Navigator work, I don't mean by any stretch of the imagination that we're in that arena, and don't misunderstand me, but let me suggest to you that we are a large work today. We've come from humble beginnings, a service station with a room in the back, through military people who are underpaid, through Billy Graham to students, and then as the students graduated to business and professional arena out into the cities, and now God is calling us to go to those cities. We've come from lower middle income to upper middle income. We are an organization today that has an $88 million budget. We have this gorgeous property that is worth a lot of money. I'd tell you how much, but it's on tape, and I don't want the whole world to know. No, I'm kidding. We Navigators, in the body of Christ, corporately kind of tell ourselves that we're the good guys. We relate to the lost appropriately. Some of the other guys have just never figured it out. We're good. We're really good. We're a wonderful organization. We've got all kinds of things going for us. We're capable. My, how we've grown. Now, I'd suggest to you that we don't say those things publicly. We don't say those things to one another, but it's pretty easy to drift into that kind of thinking, and I'd suggest to you that we've got to be careful about corporate brokenness. We didn't get here by ourselves, and I'll tell you what. If it had depended on us to get here, I'm not sure we would have gotten here, because some of those pioneers were incredibly dependent people. And when I go pray with Warren Myers, and I see what Warren and Ruth have done over the years in terms of their hunger for God, I think, boy, we stand on their shoulders. We stand on people who are giants. We didn't earn this. It's all the grace of God. God gave us the glimpse. We don't deserve to be proud about it. We're just beggars trying to tell another beggar where to find bread. We need to be broken. We need to be humbled before God. We are people who walk by the grace of God bringing the love that we have received from the Lord Jesus to a world that desperately needs to experience the love of the Lord Jesus. Pride will not get it. And I'd suggest to you that God is saying to us, Navigators, I've got a message for you. I've got these promises out here that are yours. I'm going to use you, and I'm going to use you in a way that you wouldn't believe, and in fact, you're going to say, where have all these children come from? You're going to say that. But, Navigators, you stand at a crossroads. And as you're standing at crossroads, the question is, are you going to be receivers and givers of grace, or are you going to take credit for it yourselves? Now, that's the mistake I made in Urbana. To do what God wants us to do will require suffering. Where we're going, if they hated Jesus, they'll hate us. We're servants. We're broken servants who are lifted up by the grace of God, and we are objects of God's grace, and God loves us. But it's because He was broken for us that we stand in His grace, and we don't ever want to forget that. Now, He's calling us to brokenness, to integrity. People can look right through us and use all the radar in the world, and they'll look at us, and they'll say, good grief, you've got a problem. And we say, yeah, we know it. God's grace has got to deal with it. I'm broken, you're broken. I walk by the grace of God. Jesus loves me. He changes me. You see, it keeps us right where we need to be. Now, God, I believe, is calling us. He's calling us. He's saying, I've got a great task for you, but it will only be done as I am your head, and you are the body. And it'll only be done as you line yourself up in the rest of the body as just a member of the body, doing your part, contributing and co-laboring and honoring all the other parts of the body. And the only way we can do that is to be broken, allowing God's grace to come in, and we are givers, receivers and givers of God's grace. So that's kind of the first installment. But let's think about it. Are we broken in the right places? Are we really broken in the right places? Or do we have some places of resistance? If not, we've got to deal with it. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much that you love us so much, that you care for us. Lord, we are receivers of your grace. Thank you for coming. Thank you for leaving your throne in heaven, giving up all the glory. Coming, and I think about that manger, how stinking and awful that must have been. Lord, just to be a baby, and to grow, what it could have been, but what you did for us. Lord, I think about the cross, the pain of the nails, the rejection, the woundedness of being separated from your Father. But Lord, I think about resurrection. And Lord, I pray that we will humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, that you will exalt us in due time. I pray, oh God, that you will do that. In Christ's name, amen.