Josh Brake (00:00.994)
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Breakthrough Church Podcast. I have something different to share with you this week. Normally I have testimonies from service and how the Lord has met us or healed us in some way, but there was something that happened this Saturday that I thought was something to pay attention to. Do you ever have that moment in your life where you're like, hey, that wasn't where I expected to encounter God?

in that way, but I did and I need to pay attention to that and pray into that. Well, we had that, had a moment like that this last week on Saturday. It was our 14th service and everything was normal. You know, it's December, people are out. So I knew there was gonna be a lot of people out of town doing different things. But I was still going in expectant and I had a great week of prep and just felt the presence of Jesus and I just was.

Man, really, in all of the pure, simple gospel, that Jesus Christ came and died for sinners in our place, and that God bled for us, God died for us. I mean, just, I mean, I know God can't die, he's eternal, but you know what I mean, he put on flesh and he submitted himself to death in our place. Man, it was powerful, and Genesis 22 was on my mind and heart all week, just meditating on how for me God is. And he's so for me that he was

didn't spare his one and only son. I was reading Romans 8 and then that launched me to Genesis 22 because I remembered the language of Abraham did not withhold his son and I thought about God not withholding his son. And so I meditated on Genesis 22 and it wrecked me in a lot of ways. I felt just so in awe of the pure simple gospel that Jesus Christ came to die in the

place of sinners, of which I am one. And when I receive him and I acknowledge my sin and I receive his death and resurrection, I am changed forever, starting right now. And yeah, just, the Holy Spirit made that a fresh revelation. So it was so sweet. It was awesome. Get there on Saturday. I'm expectant.

Josh Brake (02:24.322)
And service was good. Service was good. was, you know, I preached and we were done by 6.30, which meant we got to go to dinner together. And there was probably, I don't know, 12 to 15 of us that went to Jason's Deli on Coit and Beltline right after. we enjoyed Jason's Deli and free frozen yogurt and the salad bar, which hits. It was a great time. But of all the times, the pre-service prayer was the best moment on Saturday. We do pre-service prayer.

And it's just the team that's in the room prepping for worship or slides or whatever. So there's probably seven ish, eight of us, depending on how big the team is that week. There's other people getting kids stuff ready and connections ready. And, but there's a, there's a small group of us that spend time in prayer before service. And it's normally good. mean, sometimes it's little, it feels a little transactional kind of like, okay, we need to do this because we want God to move. And we know prayer is how you.

and get God to move, which is not the best language. But this time I just felt like really, really meditating on the revelation of Christ crucified, Jesus on the cross. And I had the picture of Pilate whenever he presents Jesus to the crowd after he's been beaten and bloodied and accused and spat on and tortured and crown of thorns and lashed however many times and just beaten and bloodied. And he says, behold the man.

I thought of John the Baptist's words where he says, the lamb. And I thought of Genesis 22 and I grabbed it and I just began to read Genesis 22 slowly. And if you know the story, and this is what we do at Breakthrough, pray and when we pray, there's so much scripture. We read a lot of scripture and prayer. And I read Genesis 22 and God tells Abraham to go, and it was a test. It was testing Abraham to see if he feared the Lord.

He said, Abraham, want you to go sacrifice your only son whom you love. And Abraham says, okay. So he gets up early the next morning, takes two servants with him. So him, Isaac and two of his servants, they go to Mount Moriah and Abraham sees from afar the place God has placed for him. And he tells the two servants, hey, my son and I are going to go away to worship, which is the first mention of worship in the Old Testament and the Bible. And he says, we're going to go up and worship and we'll be back.

Josh Brake (04:49.932)
And so Abraham grabs the wood, gives it to Isaac, and this picture of Isaac carrying wood up a mountain, while Abraham has the fire and the knife, and they go up on the mountain, and as they're getting there, Isaac begins to clue into something. He says, hey, hey, dad, father, my father, he says. And Abraham says, excuse me, sorry. Abraham says, my son. I just think about, Abraham knows what he's about to do to Isaac.

And so when Isaac says, my father, imagine just the piercing words, those are to Abraham's heart. He says, my father. And Isaac says, here I am, my son. Abraham says that. And Isaac says, dad, see, I see the wood and I see the fire, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? And this next sentence is the most profound in most of the Bible.

It's all profound, it's all inspired by the Spirit. But this moment, Abraham says, God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering.

And as I'm reading this while we're praying together.

I tangibly felt the power of the Holy Spirit come upon my body.

Josh Brake (06:13.11)
Like, I felt God come into the room. And as we were meditating on the lamb of God, the lamb who was slain, Christ crucified, the cross, substitutionary atonement, like Jesus taking my place on the cross, as we were meditating on that, from scripture and the Old Testament, I felt the power of the Holy Spirit enter the room. And I opened my eyes, I was looking around, and you could tell.

that others were feeling his presence too. Hands were open, raised. People were praying softly in tongues. Sal would even admit later, he was like, yeah, there were a few things that were distracting me, but normally when I get distracted, it's hard to enter back in. But when I got distracted, I came back to the moment of prayer and I immediately was back in. I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit and Jesus was there. And it's one of those things, like I can say that, and it may not really hit, but like when you're in the room.

when Jesus makes himself known in those ways. I mean, it's like, wow. And I was like, why don't we just stay here the entire time? Why do we need to move on to service? Why do we need to get up on stage and get a mic and start leading worship songs? like, we're in, we're with the Lord right now. What else matters? And I was just, I was shocked. I was like, not shocked, I was.

because I expect God to meet us,

You you want that to happen and then you want it to happen in service. And if I'm being completely honest, it didn't really happen in service. were moments, obviously God's moving. I'm not saying God didn't move during service. He always does when saints gather to worship. But I think the Lord was speaking, like affirming, gosh, sorry. I think he was affirming.

Josh Brake (08:11.594)
our identity and what we're supposed to be about. And I still don't really know what to do with it, y'all, but.

I got into church planting not because I wanted to start a church. I did it because I fell in love with the man Jesus Christ and longed for his presence more than anything. And in his presence, he said, go plant a church. So we're doing it because we are obeying. And over and over again, God is reminding us of our origins. My origin, man, I got swept off my feet by the Lord and

Just like David says, one thing have I asked of the Lord and that's what I'm seeking after that I might dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I might gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and inquire in his temple. There's one thing David asked for, it was to dwell in the house of the Lord. And then Psalm 16, 11 says, you've made known to me the path of life, in your presence there is fullness of joy and at your right hand are pleasures forever.

And those two passages together, it hits on the core of our DNA. It's this longing to be in the presence of the Lord. There's no better place than in His presence. And if you've encountered, if you've touched and you've seen it and you've tasted and seen it, you know what I'm talking about. It's like you just, can't wait to be in the presence of the Lord in prayer, in worship, in the Word, wherever you might be. The goal is the presence of Jesus.

And man, when we were there on Saturday, I thought, there's no other place I'd rather be. No other place I would rather be.

Josh Brake (09:48.811)
and

Josh Brake (09:52.506)
I was telling Sal and some others, like, I don't really know what to do with this except the Lord affirming again, like, this is who you are. You've encountered my presence in prayer. And I just feel like he wants us to stay there. And I think it might have implications for Saturday nights and how they look because we didn't get in this just to plant another typical church. Like we want to build a house for his presence. We want to be a community that God looks at and says, yes, I want to rest there.

And I don't know, just a few practicals. I'm just processing with you guys raw right now and I'm bringing myself back to that moment. And I think there's a few practical things. Number one, who was around me? It was hungry people. The people that were in that pre-service prayer are committed, they've been sacrifices and they're hungry for the Lord. And the Lord goes where he's wanted. He feeds the hungry and he gives the thirsty drink.

When you come to him in that way, he is going to respond. So I think that there were people there in pre-service prayer that were hungry for the presence of the Lord. Number two, I think practically, I didn't feel constrained by any sort of formula or structure. I'm not saying we shouldn't have structure at all. We definitely need structure. But in that moment of prayer, I felt completely free to just enter in, man.

to just, I'm gonna go after Jesus and if anybody comes, great. If not, I'm going anyways. And meditating on Christ crucified and going there, I entered the presence of the Lord. I was like, my word, I feel him. My heart was burning. So actually, this is my third point, is that when we meditate on Christ crucified, I think we're hitting on something that is the core of.

Christianity, the core of the heart of God, actually. It's not just the core of Christianity. It's the core of the heart of God. When you think about who is God and what is he like and who is God and what's at the heart of God, there's one thing I believe that's at the very heart of God. And when we were praying, we were touching it. We were touching that peace, that heart of God that's so core. It's like if you want to know and go into the very core of who God is,

Josh Brake (12:18.7)
and you go there and you see it, what are you going to find? And I believe in Luke 24 we see that. I'm gonna share this briefly for like three to four minutes. Yeah, right, who am I kidding? Okay, I'm gonna try to be fairly quick, because it's a very long passage, but Jesus, he's resurrected from the grave. He goes to, he's on his way to a...

on a road to Emmaus. If you know the story, there's two guys, they're on their way to Emmaus. It's about seven miles from Jerusalem. They're talking to each other about the crucifixion of Jesus. They thought he was the guy, the Messiah, but I guess not. They're super disappointed. They're walking around. Okay, Jesus draws near and he went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. So they didn't recognize Jesus. And Jesus says, hey, what are you guys talking about? And they stood still looking sad.

Then one of them named Cleopas answered, are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened here, there in these days? And Jesus says, what things? Love this. I love this. Jesus is playing dumb. He's like, what are you talking about? What things are you talking about? He's drawing them deeper in the conversation through questions that he already knows the answer to, but he wants them to talk. He's drawing them in. And they said to him, concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet, mighty indeed in word before God and all the people.

and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all of this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the woman had said, but him they did not see.

And he said to them, foolish ones and slow of heart to believe, listen, all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? Listen to this. And beginning with Moses, that's Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, and all the prophets. So,

Josh Brake (14:35.148)
the rest of the Old Testament, and later he'll include the rest, but all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures, the things concerning himself.

Okay, according to Jesus, what are all the scriptures about? Him, Jesus.

but not just Jesus. There's something very specific that Jesus goes to in the Old Testament to show them, okay? So if you fast forward, Jesus acted as if he was going further. They urged him strongly saying, stay with us. And so Jesus goes with them. And in the moment, in their house, tent, wherever they were,

They were at the table, Jesus took bread, he blessed it and broke it and gave it to them and their eyes were opened and they recognized him. It was the moment of breaking the bread that their eyes were opened to behold who Jesus actually was. And when that happened, he vanished. He vanishes from their sight and they said, did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road and while he opened to us the scriptures.

This is what I felt on Saturday when we were meditating on the broken body of Jesus. I began to feel my heart burn.

Josh Brake (16:11.672)
It says, they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem and they found the 11, et cetera, et Jesus then reveals himself to the 12. He says, peace to you. They're startled, they're frightened, they're freaking out. Jesus is like, hey, give me something to eat. And he starts to eat with them. And then he says to them, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses, okay, the Pentateuch, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, in the prophets, but then he adds in the Psalms,

It's the entire Old Testament, must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. Okay, so I'm track with me. He says, everything written about me in the Old Testament, it must be fulfilled. And then he opens their minds to understand the scriptures. And then where does he go? Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer. Where does he start? The cross.

the suffering of Jesus, the lamb who was slain, the broken body of Jesus, the poured out blood of Jesus on the cross in our place. That's where he starts when interpreting the Old Testament concerning himself. He doesn't go to the Old Testament and look at anything else first. The first thing he looks for in the Old Testament is the suffering of Christ. And on the third day rise from the dead. And he hits on the resurrection.

And that repentance and forgiveness of sin should be proclaimed in His name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things." Jesus, in the moment of the resurrection, He's resurrected. He's hanging out with His disciples and He looks at them and He says, guys, why are you so slow to believe everything written in the Old Testament? He's just died and rose again. And He says, guys, all the scriptures, they spoke of this moment. And so when I looked at Genesis 22 with the team,

on Saturday, pre-service prayer, and I began to meditate and pray into the fact that Jesus went on the altar to be consumed by the wrath and fire of God for us in our place. It makes your heart burn. I feel him burning even now. When I think about Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, left the glory of heaven and took up the sufferings of man, exchanged heaven's diadem.

Josh Brake (18:36.28)
for a crown of thorns.

Josh Brake (18:42.466)
The same hands who fashioned the heavens were fashioned to a cross with nails that pierced his skin and let blood flow from his body onto the broken tree or onto the cross into the broken world.

When we meditate on that, the power of God flows. The presence of God descends. Holy Spirit begins to work. Because it's the pure, simple gospel, Jesus instead of me. God took my place, took my rightful punishment, the sentence of death that was mine because of sin, he took it on himself. And he put it in the grave, and then he rose victorious and invites us into relationship with him. I feel like this is...

where we're headed, a more clear revelation of the Lamb of God. And it's gonna come as we meditate on the Old Testament and see the cross, the suffering of Jesus and the subsequent resurrection of Jesus in the Old Testament. So I wanna encourage you, number one, if you're not hungry for the presence of the Lord, ask him to give you a hunger for his presence. He'll do it, he will answer that. If you are hungry for his presence.

Don't let him pass you by, just like these men. Say, stay with me, Jesus, stay with me. Be, what's the word, relentless. Be relentless in your pursuit of the presence of the Lord. Not because he's far off and you need to get near, but because he's near and you can have as much of him as you want right now. Number two, open the scriptures. Go to the Old Testament and look for the cross. Look for Christ crucified.

and you will find him and the Holy Spirit will come and he will change you and you will be forever marked by the love of the Father that he would not withhold his only son but give him up for us. I mean, what kind of love is that? What kind of love is that? Power didn't move God to give his son. It was love that moved God to give up his son. And when we behold him, we become like him.

Josh Brake (20:55.0)
We become a people of love because we've been loved and we know how loved we've been. Man, this is powerful. And I'm just kind of processing with you all right now, but I think that's my read on what happened in that moment of prayer, because the vessel that is prayer is the way we commune with the lamb who was slain. And there is nowhere else to go or be than in communion with the lamb who was slain. That's the essence of the Christian walk. It's not forgiveness.

fellowship with the Lamb. Forgiveness is what we needed to get into the presence of God. And now that we have been forgiven, how much more will we be saved by his life? And that salvation by his life comes as we fellowship with the Lamb who was slain, who loves us more than anything. And so I pray in the name of Jesus that you would be filled with the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit would open the eyes of your hearts to behold the Lamb who was slain.

that you would see the King of glory, Jesus Christ, you'd behold Him, that your heart would burn within you.

that your mind would be renewed, that your body would be healed and restored, and that you would be someone who walks in the love of God and never wavers and never moves, and that because of that you would be.

A source, just like the river of the Spirit that flows from within you, that love would flow from your heart into your hands to love those around you with such love that has no concern for yourself, but lays your life down that others might find their life in Him. So be a light. Be a light in this dark world and that comes only as we walk in the love of God displayed on the cross. And the only way we behold Him is by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Josh Brake (22:50.05)
So ask the Holy Spirit to help you.

So Lord, I just pray that you would bless every man, every woman that's listening. Bless them with a fresh revelation of the cross. A fresh revelation, not of death, but of Christ's death. That we might find life by the power of the Holy Spirit. Thank you Lord, we bless you in Jesus' name, amen. Thanks for tuning in again. And again, if you wanna visit us on a Saturday night at 5 p.m., we would love to have you. We're gonna lean into this, and the presence of God, and the cross, and the lamb.

that was slain. So come pray with us, worship with us. We'd love to see you. If you need a prayer for healing, obviously that is core to who we are. We'd love to pray for you as well. If you know of anybody that does need healing, send them our way. We would love to minister to them and see God heal them. Love you guys. Have a great week and Merry Christmas.