Desperate People In Desperate Times

Chapter 1
It Matters Not What Brings You to Desperation

“…but Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me”

It was for fear that Jacob cried out, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” What a mess of things he had made. Now he would have to face his brother, Esau, the next day, which, by all appearances had armed himself with an army of men to take his rightful vengeance out upon the one who had stolen his inheritance. Now all of his manipulating, deceiving and lying had come home. Now what will he do?

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The Promise
“The Lord said to her (Rebekah), “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger” (Gen. 25:23).

Why, when the Creator of the universe has promised an outcome, would the mother who heard the words manipulate circumstances to try to help God with His desired outcome? Is God not capable of keeping His promises all on His own? Does He give words so that we can help Him to bring us to a desired end?

“Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “Look, I overheard your father say to your brother Esau, ‘Bring me some game and prepare me some tasty food to eat, so that I may give you me blessing in the presence of the Lord before I die. Now, my son, listen carefully and so what I tell you: Go out to the flock and bring me two choice young goats, so that I can prepare some tasty food for your father, just the way he likes it. Then take it to your father to eat, so that he may give you his blessing before he dies. Jacob said to his mother, “But my brother is a hairy man, and I’m a man with smooth skin. What if my father touches me? I would appear to be tricking him and would bring down a curse on myself rather than a blessing.” His mother said to him, “My son let the curse fall on me . Just do what I say, go and get them for me.” “She also covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck with the goatskin.” (Gen. 27:6-13, 16)

This is an amazingly elaborate plot, all to help God fulfill the destiny that He had for Jacob. Jacob is not innocent in this conniving. He was absolutely complicit in arranging for the details of this plot. And do not forget that earlier Jacob took advantage of a situation when Esau came in famished from work and insisted that Esau trade his birthright for food (Gen. 25:32).

When Esau came into his father, Isaac, to discover that Jacob had received the blessing of the firstborn son, he was furious. “He took my birthright, and now he’s taken my blessing! Esau held a grudge against Jacob…the days of my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.” (Gen. 27:41)

Jacob fled for his life to Paddan Aram; and after being away from home for fourteen years, Jacob brought his herds, servants, and wives back to his homeland. All of his conniving and manipulating had come to its logical conclusion. Was it a surprise that his brother was now coming to meet him with four hundred men? Fear gripped him and caused him to now seek the Lord for his life. Jacob knew that if God would not bless him with the Lord’s favor that the encounter would be his end. So what do you do when you are desperate? Cry out to God until He answers. Jacob stayed up all night and wrestled with the angel of the Lord for assurance that he would receive what he needed.

Fear brought Jacob to a place of being desperate and the Lord honored him.

What brings us to this place of desperateness does not seem to matter. Jesus is attracted to people who are desperate for Him. Perhaps the reason can be found in its definition:

“Desperate 1. Reckless or violent because of despair; driven to take any risk. 2. Undertaken as a last resort. 3. Nearly hopeless; critical; grave 4. Marked by, arising from, or showing despair; despairing: the desperate look of hunger. 5. In an unbearable situation because of need or anxiety. 6. Extreme because of fear, danger, or suffering.” (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, p. 308)

Jacob’s condition was marked by some of these qualities. As you read through the chapters of the Bible that tell the story of Jacob’s life it is easy indeed to see the decisions that took him in an unnecessarily difficult way. As I read through this portion of history I mentally find myself giving counsel. I would say, “You have a great cause Jacob, going after the promise of God is a good thing. But you are working hard doing the wrong thing. Your motives may be well but your methods are getting you into trouble!”

The counsel that I was given a few years ago concerning my leadership in the church was similar. I had been laboring for many years under the misguided notion that if it was going to happen, it was up to me. All of the demographic studies, needs analyses, gift surveys, programs, charting, vision casting that I had done were all very sophisticated ways of bringing me to the same end as Jacob. These were used in my ministry to create clever methods for doing the business of God. And I am finding that I am not alone in my Jacob-like condition and in the midst of a cosmic clash of two wisdoms.

By the world’s standards and by outward appearances it looked as if all was well. Little did I know that God, in His sovereign plan, was at work to create a meeting place where I would be fired as the project coordinator for His business!

As in the days of Jacob, God was demonstrating to me that if all I have to employ is man’s wisdom, man’s cleverness and man’s knowledge that ultimately, it will not be enough.

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Desperate Times In The Church
When we look at the condition of the church in America, most would agree that she has become a marginalized minority in the culture. When the world looks at us, it is not with desire because we have something that they do not have or because we are the picture of integrity, morality and honesty in the community. The best surveys suggest we, the church, participate with the world in all it has to offer.

Our evaluation of ourselves is not that bad. We have kept ourselves pretty busy with rolling out new programs and outreaches in the community.

For the past ten years we at Victory Fellowship had occupied ourselves with building a new facility to house all our growing needs in anticipation of all that we were hoping for. As we did this we also expanded our programs and participated in every outreach in our community that came along, all promising the same thing - growth. In reality these things only succeeded in keeping us very busy.

It is indeed painful to look at the fruit of all our work over the past century, if we measure ourselves against the expectation of the New Testament record; Are we experiencing souls daily being added to the church? Or, do we regularly see the demonstration of the Spirit’s power through miracles, signs, and wonders?

We have invested millions of dollars in fine edifices, soft padded pews, worship teams that sing the latest songs and programs that promise the world. But the truth is that we have not seen what the New Testament promises. Instead, for our investment of resources we have seen a declining church.

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The Diagnosis
We could say that the condition of the inside of the church is a result of the condition on the outside of the church. In other words, the problem is out there, in the world that has lost its way.

If we have concluded that the problem is the condition of the world then we might deduce that the lure of the world is what is drawing people away from the church and God. We would then come to the only real solution: work harder and do a better job at creating programs to attract people, i.e. entertainment, give-a-ways, crusades, etc.

This was exactly my thinking. In my pastoral experience I was desperate; desperate to do good things in my community and reach the lost and hurting people in the community. My training taught me to work hard and I was. Our church had growth in the years that my wife, Carolyn and I had pastored there. We established a Christian School and a college level training program to help disciple people and train them for ministry.

We had purchased fourteen acres of ground and built a new facility which we had just occupied a few months before the elders and I began to really feel that something was missing.

The issue for me was not moral failure or doctrinal error. It was much more sinister than that. I had assumed through my every day routine of studying, visiting, managing, administrating, and program building that He was just with me. As important as those things are – God was as far from them as He was from Jacob as he manipulated circumstances to help God get to His desired outcome. We had become Rebekah-like in our actions.

Somewhere along my way I substituted the business of ministry for His presence, preaching pop psychology for the Word of the Lord, and had created a way to measure success that looked closer to a business in corporate America than Kingdom.

Perhaps I had misinterpreted something in my training. I felt that if the Lord loved me, which I believe He does, He would automatically give me His favor; if I have His favor, everything that I do will automatically be successful, which I interpreted as growth and prosperity. Therefore, if I was not growing and prospering, I was really depressed — what was wrong, I wondered?

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A Different Diagnosis
On Thursday, August 5, 2004, the Heartland House of Prayer in Council Bluffs was hosting a conference with a speaker by the name of Rhonda Hughey. I remember the date well because that was the day when I had a Jacob-like experience. Rhonda’s message is a call to the church to consider where she is.

“The current condition of the church suggests that we have replaced the purity and simplicity of the gospel with sophisticated, entertaining activities that have left people inside and outside the community of faith questioning the reality of Jesus Christ and His life-changing power…The western church is struggling with her identity, authority, and purpose.
Understanding our true identity in Christ must occur before we can exercise spiritual authority and accomplish our God-given mission as an agent of change in the earth…God is challenging the church’s self-centered identity and shifting our mindsets and ineffective methodologies. He is inviting us to respond to one of the greatest challenges we have ever faced – to return to our first love and to step out of our compromised church culture into His kingdom!” ¹

This encounter became a divine wake-up call to our church. Every one of the leaders of Victory Fellowship that was in this meeting heard it. We all knew that we must act, but how? Our quest was one to try and recover our First Love, the One we had left and did not even know it. Little did we know at the time but this would be a long, costly journey that would end right where we wanted to be - the very Heart and presence of Jesus.

This is the story of our journey together. It is not just a story of my personal struggles and change, the journey of our leadership team and a congregation but also the story of the progress in our community to see presence-based transformation. Not transformation that is based on my wisdom and ingenuity, but transformation that is a based on Heaven’s response to hearts that are crying out to God for Him to restore His presence in all that we do.

The message that Rhonda Hughey first brought to us led us into a wilderness experience. It was a dry, humbling season, for the purpose of reorienting us to His presence. In this season God would show us much that needed to be repented of. We also would learn in the desert that what the Lord wanted was death to a whole elaborate system of doing church that had become very comfortable to us but very non-threatening to the strongholds in the city.

Next to my conversion experience, this experience would be the most provocative, disorienting, confusing time in my life.

I have been a Christian all of my adult life, and have pastored a growing church for over twenty years and was having an experience that was showing me the wretchedness of myself. It was the most uncomfortable time of my life and yet I knew in my spirit that it was the Lord who would lead me and I was committed to the journey.

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Personal Journal Entry: August 9, 2004
1 Peter 4:17 “For the time has come for judgment to began at the house of God.” Psalm 19:9 “…the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether, more to be desired are they then gold…sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb, moreover by them your servant is weaned and in keeping them is great reward.

I have never felt the judgment of God on my heart like I do now. It is a very fearful thing…I feel disgusted with myself, my devotional life… everything! I am starting a fast today and also feel I am to stop spending time studying and to just get alone with God. I feel the judgment of God on my life and I want to know how to consider them sweeter than honey.

God is leading me to a lot of verses that have to do with idolatry and He is pointing out things that are idolatrous in me that I had never considered. My desire and worship is so centered on accomplishments…I cannot believe that what brought me joy only a few days ago, I now am weeping over! I don’t know what to do except repent.

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