Transcript Petie Kinder Judges 14-15 How are you guys doing? Good. Hey, if you have a Bible, grab it and get to Judges chapter 14. If you don t have a Bible, no sweat. We ll have them on the screen for you. We are in a series right now called Man Up. This series is about strength. Now I love that because I think that every one of us, no matter who you are, no matter what background you re coming from, no matter if this is your first time in church or your thousandth time in church, everybody needs a little bit more strength. Really, specifically, what we re getting at is how do we develop and gain the inner strength that we know we need in order to be the people that we know we re supposed to be? Really, what we re trying to get after here is we re studying this guy named Samson, and Samson was a really interesting character. We re going to talk about him today. The dude was freaking crazy. If you think you re messed up and you think you shouldn t be in church, this guy can top you. He can crush your sin with the levels of craziness that he gets to. Samson was a man, though, who had great external strength. God actually supernaturally gifted him to be like Hulk. CrossFit Diesel got nothing on Samson, right? He was a huge, huge, strong dude on the outside, but on the inside he was actually one of the weakest people you could ever meet. Samson had no internal strength, and we re going to unpack that today. I kind of want to give you a preview of the sermon before I even preach it to you. I m going to give you three things today, and that s just like a typical preacher thing. I don t know why we do things in sets of three. I don t know, man, we just do. I m going to give you three things. I m going to give you a problem, and it is a problem that we all experience. This is a very, very relatable message today because it doesn t matter if you re a Christian or not. It doesn t matter what faith background you come from. This is a problem that every single one of us experiences. I m going to give you a prescription for that problem. Like a good pastor, a good preacher, I m going to tell you how I think you should fix that problem. We ll kind of turn it into a little mini quick counseling session. I m going to tell you the same thing I would tell you if you were sitting in my office and saying, Hey, I don t have the strength to live the life that I m supposed to. What do I do? I m going to give you that prescription.
Then I m going to throw a wrench in the thing at the end, throw a wrench in the whole thing, with a confession. It s a confession I think most preachers and pastors should say more often, but we don t. So a problem, a prescription, and a confession. Judges chapter 14, let s dig in, verse 1. You re going to see just how crazy my man Samson is. I don t need any jokes today because the Bible itself has got all the jokes you need. It is unbelievable how messed up this dude was. This is just funny to laugh at him; glad it s not me. Verse 1, let s start with this. It says, One day when Samson was in Timnah, one of the Philistine women caught his eye. Girl done caught his eye. When he returned home, he told his father and mother A young Philistine woman in Timnah caught my eye. I want to marry her. Get her for me. We re going to keep going. His father and mother objected. Isn t there even one woman in our tribe or among all the Israelites you could marry? Typical mom and dad move, right? Like you re bringing her home, and they ask, Why must you go to the pagan Philistines to find a wife? But Samson told his father -- this ranks up there as one of the most sexist pig lines of all times -- Get her for me! She looks good to me. I can t make this stuff up. It s the Bible. You all need to read it more. It s crazy. I want her. Get her for me. It s like this is the most womanizing, sexist thing. He sees a girl he likes. He wants to put a ring on it. He treats her like a piece of meat from the get-go. So my man makes good on his desire. He goes to Timnah to try to put a ring on her finger and set a wedding date. Now, on the way to Timnah, if you read throughout chapter 14, something happens. It s a really weird thing because when you read it, you re kind of like why would the Bible even describe that? It seems like such a weird aside that makes no sense in the story, but it actually is the snowball event that would lead to a whole series of unfortunate events. It says that on the way to Timnah, Samson got attacked by a lion. Now fear not because Samson has the supernatural strength, so the text tells us that Samson rips the lion s jaws apart as easy as if it were a baby goat, according to the Bible. Now I ve never ripped apart a baby goat s jaws. It does sound easier than a lion, though. I will give it that; it does sound easier. So Samson kills the lion and goes on to Timnah. You re like super-random. What kind of detail is that? Okay, Bible, I ll keep reading. 2
You keep reading. He goes to Timnah. He gets the girl to say yes, and then he goes back home and leaves her to do all the wedding planning, which is another typical dude move. Leave her to do the wedding planning, go back home. On the way back home, he stops by the lion s carcass again, I guess just to admire the work of his hands. He looks down and he sees that there are some bees swarming inside the lion. The bees have actually created some honey inside the lion, and so Samson wins the GMA grossest man alive award by reaching his hand in and scooping out some of the honey and eating it. That s beyond the five-second rule. That is way beyond five-second rule. That s just filthy, Samson, it s filthy. But he doesn t stop there. You re thinking still, Why are we talking about this? This is so weird. What are we doing here? So what Samson does is it sparks an idea in his head. He s getting ready to have a bachelor party. He s getting ready to have some dudes come around and celebrate him before he gets married, and so he decides, I m going to use this lion and the honey thing and I m going to come up with a little game. I m going to come up with a riddle, and they are going to have to solve my riddle at my bachelor party, and so he kind of turns it into a stupid party bet. Again, total frat guy move. We re going to make a stupid party bet. So he makes the stupid party bet. He says, If you guys solve my riddle, I m going to buy you all new clothes, but if you can t solve it, you gotta buy me new clothes. They all agree. They re all in, and this part is too good to summarize. We have to read it word for word. Verse 14, here comes the riddle. I m kind of impressed with him. This is like one of Samson s brighter moments. He comes up with a good riddle. He says, Out of the one who eats came something to eat; out of the strong came something sweet. Look at that! Samson s a poet -- bright young man, all the promise in the world. He comes up with good riddles. It says, Three days later they were still trying to figure it out. On the fourth day they said to Samson s wife, Entice your husband to explain the riddle for us, or we will burn down your father s house with you in it. Did you invite us to this party to just make us poor? So Samson s wife came to him in tears and said, You don t love me; you hate me! You have given my people a riddle, but you haven t told me 3
the answer. Samson again, rookie move. Any husbands in the room, you know this is a rookie move. He says, I haven t even given the answer to my father or mother, he replied. Why should I tell you? FYI. If you re on the road to marriage, never give your wife any indication that your mom and dad mean more to you than her. Standard rules to follow, okay? Bad, bad move. So she cried whenever she was with him and kept it up for the rest of the celebration. She s ruining the bachelor party. At last, on the seventh day he told her the answer because she was tormenting him with her nagging. I could make so many jokes right there. I ll keep going. Then she explained the riddle to the young men. So before sunset of the seventh day, the men of the town came to Samson with their answer: What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion? Then one of my favorite lines of the entire Bible. Samson replied, If you hadn t plowed with my heifer, you wouldn t have solved my riddle! For those keeping track at home, my man just called his soon-to-be wife a heifer. You all gotta read this thing more. It s so good. This continues on this horrible parade of manhood gone wrong because this set Samson off. He ends up killing a total of 4,030 people, according to the text, over the next chapter. He ends up burning down half the town. The father of the bride gives the bride to the best man for him to marry, and then Samson culminates this epic manhood-gone-wrong rampage in 16:1 when it says that Samson went and stayed the night with a prostitute. So you have a womanizing, reckless, demeaning, out-of-control, boastful, arrogant, gambling, sexual deviant. This is Samson. I m sure you re sitting there thinking, Why are we talking about this guy in church and what could we ever learn from him? What could I ever learn from Samson? He s a mess. 4
He tops anything I ve ever done. The dude s crazy. You know, I asked the same question, but then the more I started digging into it, the more I started really asking God what He would want us to talk about today and what s God teaching me through it, I started to get to a really uncomfortable place where I feel like I see myself in Samson. Actually, I think we re all a lot more like Samson than we d ever care to admit. Maybe not on the level with the murdering and all that, but honestly, all of that, the prostitute, the murdering, the burning down the town, those are symptoms of the problem. Samson had the same problem that you and I have. Samson s problem was no different than what you and I go through. See, Samson s problem was that he just always chose the wrong kind of pain. Samson always chose the wrong kind of pain. There are two kinds of pain I believe that you have to choose in life. This isn t always the case because sometimes life throws you stuff that you did not choose. You had no option. Stuff happens to you and it hurts and you re in pain and there s nothing you could ve done about it. That absolutely happens. But oftentimes I feel like life gives us a choice between two different options when it comes to pain. There is short-term pain and then there s long-term pain. It s often our choice as to what we will experience. Really the pain isn t optional. You can t get out of pain. Life is going to hurt. It s going to be hard. You re going to experience pain. The question is what type of pain, and the two are actually pretty easy to differentiate. Short-term pain is often visible. In fact, it s very visible, very loud. It s right in front of you. Attached to it is temporary discomfort. It s going to hurt for a little bit. If you choose that short-term pain, it is going to hurt. Long-term pain, though, is often invisible. You can t see it. You can t smell it. You can t hear it. It s so far off it s almost as if you start to believe that it doesn t exist. It s out there though. But the consequences are often permanent damage, long-term damage that you can t really shake. Samson s problem was that he just always chose the wrong kind. Samson always chose the long-term pain. Go back through the events we just unfolded for a second. Think about what Samson could have done. 5
Samson could have chosen to be a good fiance, a good husband, but that would have required him saying yes to the short-term pain of taming his tongue, not calling his wife a heifer. Samson could have been a good friend and had a good friend crew around him, like a good support system. He had all these dudes at his bachelor party, all these dudes he was hanging with. He could ve built great friendships with them, and that really could ve been a good support system for he and his new wife as they started this marriage journey, but that would have required the short-term pain of not making stupid party bets and probably not being the center of attention and not getting revenge when they treated him a way he didn t want to be treated. Samson could ve been a man of integrity and character. Samson could ve went down as one of the most incredible men of faith and integrity and character, high character, high integrity, but that would ve required saying yes to the short-term pain of not gratifying his instant desires and probably some lonely nights. Instead he said yes to the long-term pain, and his long-term pain was awful. His long-term consequences were horrible: A failed marriage. Everyone turning their backs on him. Samson had nobody supporting him. The Philistines wanted him dead. The Israelites wanted him handed over. They tried to tie him up and hand him over and get him out of here because he was causing so much trouble. Sometimes when you read the Bible and you go, Wow, he committed 4,000 murders, and then it just kind of moves on. I want you to pause and just think about what that must ve been like, to have lived through that, and what you ve probably seen and will never be able to shake. Sleeping with a prostitute, the long-term shame and guilt and pain and memories that come from that. These are long-term consequences that are way worse than the short-term pain, but that s what Samson always chose. As I start unpacking that, I realize, Oh my goodness, I am no different. We are no different. We always choose the long-term pain that we can t see. Very few of us have the strength we need to choose the short-term pain. I know, this looks different in your life than Samson, but think about our circumstances. Let s go with something really basic that everybody kind of agrees with. Eating healthy. It s a wise thing to do, right? Everyone agrees? We should be eating healthy, good decision to make. That would require, though, saying yes to the short-term pain of putting down the Zebra cakes. They know what they re doing; there s two in each pack. They know you re not going to stick with one, so they went ahead and stuck two in there for you. They re so good, but for real, if you 6
can t say yes to that short-term pain, you re going to say yes to the long-term pain, if you can t get your health under control, of bad health in your older years and it s going to inhibit you and keep you from being the person you know that you want to be. Think about the decision as to whether or not you re going to build into some relationships that really matter to you. Think of your friends, your family, your spouse, or your kids. That s going to require some conversations, some intentional time. When you get home from work, you get home from a long day, sometimes the last thing you want to do is talk. The last thing you want to do is call mom and check in on her. The last thing you want to do is intentionally sit on the front porch with your spouse and just see how they re doing. You just want to zone out because honestly to do that, to be that person, you would have to say yes to the short-term pain of not turning on the TV and not going through Netflix. Have you seen how many new shows dropped on Netflix this month? I got 20 hours of TV I could be watching, and it s so much easier, so much easier. But if you can t say yes to the short-term pain of turning the TV off and building these relationships, you will say yes to the long-term pain of isolation. We see it all the time. How many of you have an older relative who it seems like they have nobody around them? They re completely isolated and alone. That s because they didn t say yes to the short-term pain. For those of you who are single in the room, the decision as to who you re going to date and how picky and how selective you re going to be with who you date, like are you really going to make the decision to not date somebody who doesn t share the same spiritual beliefs and convictions that you do? Because that s going to require saying yes to some short-term pain of lonely nights. That s going to require saying yes to that looming fear over your head, like, man, if I don t go out with that person, what if that s one of the last people that is ever really interested in me and what if I never have another chance to get married? That s going to require saying yes to some short-term pain, but if you don t, you re going to say yes to the long-term pain of being in a marriage with someone who does not share the same faith that you share, and you will be torn -- I see it happen all the time -- torn between this person that you love and you ve committed yourself to and this faith that you feel like defines you. It s long-term pain. We are no different. We re in the same boat with our daily decisions as Samson is. Here s my conviction for you all and for me. 7
We ve been running this Downtown campus now for six months. I m getting to know a good amount of you guys. I feel like I m starting to hear more stories come through, and I ve just got this conviction that so many of you are on the brink of a breakthrough in your life, like really stepping into that person that you know that you should be, and really making a difference with this one life you ve been given, and really using your gifts to their full potential, and really living the Christian life the way you ve always wanted to, and God just really fulfilling you. I think some people are like right there, but this would require you saying yes to some short-term pain. It s just hard. Let s just cut through it for a second, real talk. Very few of us actually have the inner strength we need to say yes to some of these decisions that we know we should be making. Just by a show of hands, how many of you are sick and tired of saying things like, Today s the last day, and starting tomorrow, I m going to be like that? How many of you guys are sick of saying that? If you aren t raising your hand right now you re a liar. That s all right. Samson s got you beat still, but I m looking down on you. No. We all want it. We all want the strength, but how do we get it, and this is the universal problem. This is what I m talking about. It doesn t matter what faith background you come from, doesn t matter how long you ve been in church, this is the problem that everybody experiences: that we all find a way to betray our values. We all find a way to betray our conscious and betray our convictions. It doesn t matter what your faith background is, and that alone should push you to ask some really deep heart questions. Why is it that we can t control ourselves? This is a problem that everybody experiences. What s the prescription? I m going to give you the prescription real quick. Let s turn this into a minicounseling session. You can write this down. Probably one of the two is something that you need to apply to your life, maybe both. I don t want to live here forever. I just want to kind of give you the prescription that I would tell you if we were sitting in my office and probably any good pastor or preacher would tell you. If you lack strength, you need to do two things. 1. Get your head right. Most of our problems start with issues between our ears. Our thinking is so flawed. I always go back to Romans 12:2. This says, Don t copy the behavior and customs of this world. The way the world works is crazy. Normal is broken. Don t copy the behaviors and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. If you want to be different, if you want to be a new person, if you want to step into that calling that you feel like God s placed on your life, if you want to do the thing you know you should do, you have to start changing the way you think. 8
This is why I m so passionate about church attendance. Church attendance means nothing to me in terms of bragging rights. I don t give a rip how many people show up. Early on, when we first started this thing, I remember I had a conversation with Aaron, our lead pastor, and he was like, Well, what would be like a sign of failure? I was like, I don t know. What do you think would be a sign of failure? He was like, Well, would you be okay if 50 people show up and that s it? Yeah, I m okay with that. All right, cool. Let s go. I don t care how many people show up. The reason I need to show up to church every week and you need to show up to church every week is because we all need to sit under good biblical teaching and preaching so that you can get God s truth lodged in your brain so it can change the way you think. That s it. There s a reason you need to read your Bible every day as many times as you can a day. It s not so you can check anything off a list and impress God. He s not impressed by it. It s so you can get His truth inside your brain and it can change the way you think. You have to get your head right if you want the strength you need to make the decisions that you should be making. You gotta get your head right. Dear brothers and sisters, when trouble of any kind comes your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. Second thing is this. 2. Get your crew. I think this is probably the most fascinating observation from the life of Samson, if you d take a step back and say, Man, isn t it so weird that this guy had not one person call him out on anything he did? Outside of mom and dad, who are like, Hey, you really gonna bring that girl home? and really that had nothing to do with Samson; they just didn t want Samson to reflect poorly on them. Samson had not one person that said, Hey, do you really think that burning down half the town s a 9
good idea? Have you played that one out? He had nobody. He had no one surrounding him. I m telling you, we need somebody to call us out on our crap. We need it. Every single one of us needs it. I know you guys have heard me push groups from stage. We say it all the time. If you want to get in a group, visit Connection Central, visit tpcc.org/groups. We have groups meet all over the city. Groups, groups, groups, groups, groups. Oftentimes, what people will say to me is like, Petie, I d love to get in a group; I just don t have time, and what I say to them is, I totally understand. I get it. Let me know when you change your mind. That s what I say. What I internally am thinking is what I m going to share with you now because I m on stage and if I say it now you won t know if I m actually talking about you. It s kind of the freedom that comes with this right here. What I want to say is, Man, if you don t have time for people to come around you and encourage you and to call you out on your stuff, I don t know that you have time to follow Jesus. I mean, this is what it is. The Christian life was never created to be lived in isolation. Proverbs 27:17 says, As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend. We all need some iron sharpening us in our lives. Still some people will say to me, Well, I m not in a group and I m not in any sort of what you would call a group, but I got some coworkers that believe in Jesus and we talk about stuff, or I ve got some family members that are believers and sometimes we ll talk, and that s awesome. That s great for you. I love that. That s awesome. However, I don t quite know that that s actually what we re talking about. Because all you have to ask yourself, as to whether or not your people around you are really a biblical community, ask yourself this question. When s the last time they called you out? When s the last time they said, Hey, you said something a couple days ago and I m not so sure that s a very healthy thing to say. You okay? or Hey, I know you ve been talking about making this decision, but I m not sure that you ve played it out all the way through. I m really worried about you, or Hey, you did this and that really hurt me. Can we talk about that? Because here s the thing. If your crew is not calling you out on stuff, that s not a biblical community. You know what that s called? That s called having friends that talk about you behind your back. You all want me to get real? I m just saying you know if they aren t saying it to your face, they re saying it to 10
their spouse on the way home. Can you believe so-and-so? I can t believe it. I can t believe his wife doesn t ever say anything. I know. I can t believe it either. I know. It stinks. Must be tough to be her. This is what I m telling you. If you want to get real, if you want to develop the inner strength, you need to be the person you ought to be. You have to get your head right, and you have to get a crew. You need both of those. That s the prescription, real easy, real cut and dry. Now, I told you I was going to throw a wrench in the whole thing, so let me throw a wrench in the whole thing with a confession. It s what most pastors and preachers just don t say and it always drove me crazy. And it s the uncomfortable truth that many of you have experienced in this room and some of you are experiencing it right now -- I ve experienced it -- which is that the prescription to the problem doesn t always work. The prescription doesn t always work. Sometimes, you re in the environment, you have the crew around you, they re calling you out on stuff, you re digging into the Bible, you re coming to church, and you still find yourself making stupid decisions all week long. I ve been there. In fact, I was actually just there very recently. Go back to January 1, okay? Six months ago. For those of you that don t know, January 1 was when we started this church. We started the Downtown campus on January 1. We launched it in the Central Library. It was kind of our soft launch. We did things there for about two months before the building was finished just to kind of get our legs under us and figure out how to pull off a church service, which is way more complicated than you can imagine. By show of hands, how many people ever attended a service at the library? I m curious. Cool, decent amount of you did and that s awesome. January 1, we started this church and I was preaching that day, so I was pumped. I was ready. I was excited to be preaching. I was probably a little too worried about it. You know, I thought, Man, the success of this thing is really dependent on how good I preach on one day. That s what I was really thinking in my mind. So I was just so psyched up for it, so geared up for it, and so ready, but at home, we had an eight-weekold baby; my third child, Tatum. She s just the sweetest little thing, fattest cheeks, fattest thighs on a baby. I love her to death. She s the best. But, girl wasn t sleeping at all. Eight weeks into this thing, my wife and I are just exhausted, haven t slept more than an hour or two consecutively in eight weeks, and 11
truthfully I was rolling into the launch of this church completely exhausted, completely on fumes. I had nothing. That morning, January 1, New Year s Day, the night before was New Year s Eve and Tatum, my little girl, showed us her true colors. She partied all night long Lionel Richie style. She was just crying, doing her thing all night long. It left both of us exhausted. So 6 a.m. rolls around. I m getting ready to leave, walk out the door to get ready to start a church, to preach, and my wife says very innocently -- it was a very innocent request. She said, Hey, can you stay back just for like 10 more minutes because I wanted to talk to you. I think we re not doing something right with Tatum s sleep issues and I just want to help her sleep better, and I need just a little bit more help with the kids. Could you stay back just a little bit? Totally reasonable request, 10 minutes. It should be no biggie, right? You all are like, You gotta say yes to that, Petie. Internally, though, here s what I was thinking in all honesty. You all ready for some honesty? I was thinking, Do you not understand what I m about to do? Do you not understand what is happening today? We re getting ready to start a church. I m getting ready to go preach. This is the day we have been praying toward for so long. It is one of the most important days in my life, and you re going to ask me to stay back for 10 more minutes? Really? How crazy do you have to be to not understand what I m going through right now? What are you thinking? All of this is going on in my mind, and I had that opportunity to either say yes to the short-term pain; of being the husband that I should be; of being slow to anger, slow to speak, quick to listen; abounding in love for this woman that is my everything, whom I ve been with for 14 years, whose birthed my three children, whose put up with my crap for so long. I had that option to say yes to the short-term pain and just give her 10 more minutes and just be the husband I should be. But do you know what I did? I said yes to the long-term pain. By the way, I was in a group, multiple groups, and one group with a group of guys and one specific accountability partner that we talk nearly every week. I was in a group. I had my crew. I was in the Bible. I was in church. I knew in my head the right perspective on this. I just lacked the strength I needed to make the decision that I should make. So do you know what I did? I said some really mean things, just angry things. I just let my anger flip out for a few seconds, and then I walked out the door, the man of God, to go start a church. 12
I said yes to some long-term pain. I said yes to the long-term pain of for that first month that we started this church we had some realtalk conversations of whether or not I truly love her more than I love this church, which is never what I would want her to think. I love her more than I could ever love a ministry, and there s no sermon I could ever preach that s more important than her and my kids. There s no way, but my actions said otherwise. I said yes to the long-term pain, and this is the one that I ll never be able to get back, of some of the most exciting months of ministry that I ve ever experienced before. I m telling you all, the first six months of this Downtown campus, what we ve experienced so far is unbelievable. I ve been in ministry for over 10 years. I ve never seen anything like it. I ve seen God move in so many incredible ways. I ve had a front-row seat to so much life change. It has been so awesome, but for those first couple months, where it was building up, all of these incredible things, everybody s loving it, I didn t get to experience that together with my wife very much. We were just on different pages. It s not all because of that conversation, but partially it was due to some of those decisions I made, and I ll never be able to get that back. Some of the most exciting months of ministry I ve ever experienced, I ll never be able to go back and say that I experienced those really closely together with my wife. That s long term, and just when I m tempted to think, Man, I m the crazy one. It s me. I m the issue. I m the one who s wrong. Nobody else is this bad of a husband. Nobody else is this bad of a pastor. Nobody else is this crazy. I am such a screw-up. I cannot believe it. Just when I m tempted to go down that trail, I remember Paul s words in Romans 7. I want to read them to you. They re some of the most relatable words. Some of you are going to read this and think, Oh my goodness that is my experience. That s why I love the Bible. The Bible relates to the human experience, whether you re a Christian or not. This is so relatable. This pinpoints the human experience. By the way, Paul followed the prescription. Paul had a crew of people around him supporting him. Paul dug himself into the Bible. Paul had the right perspective. His head was right, and he had a crew, and then look what he says in Romans chapter 7. He says, So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. 13
This is Paul that wrote the vast majority of the New Testament and planted churches everywhere. One of the greatest Christians ever. He said, I don t really understand myself, (has anybody ever been there?) I don t really understand myself for I want to do what is right, but I don t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can t. I want to do what is good, but I don t. I don t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. I have discovered this principle of life -- that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God s law with all my heart. Have you ever been there, where you re just like, Man, God I love you so much and I want to be the person that you called me to be? But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? It s almost like Paul saying there at the end, Where will my strength come from? I m doing all this stuff right and I feel like I m going down the path I should be going down, but why can I still not choose the short-term pain? Why can I still not say yes to it? Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? If you re feeling that way right now, you re not the only one. One of the greatest lies that Satan could ever tell you is that you re the only one experiencing what you re experiencing. You re the only one feeling what you re feeling. That s a lie. One of the greatest Christians to ever live, one of the most impactful men of all time, is sitting here saying the exact same thing: You re not alone. I love his answer to the question. He says, Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? It almost sounds like a rhetorical question that he s not going to answer. He sounds like he s so miserable, but he actually turns a corner. Look what he says in the very next verse. He says, Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. Do you notice what he says there? He says the solution is not another three steps to live the best life now and five ways to make every day a Friday. That s not what he says. He says the answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. You see, Paul learned the secret that I want you to learn, that I m trying to learn myself, which is that strength, true strength, is found in a person, not a prescription. 14
Strength comes from a person, not a prescription. It s found in this man named Jesus, who, by the way, was able to say yes to all the short-term pain that was presented him. He was able to live the life that we could never live. He was tempted in every way according to Hebrews, tempted in every way, yet without sin. He always chose the long-term gain. He said yes to short-term pain in favor of long-term gain. He did it perfectly. And Paul says that in Jesus you have your answer. You see, what you don t need is another prescription. What you need is desperation. You need desperation for Jesus. You need to cry out to Him and say, God, I ve tried everything else, and You re my last hope. You re everything, and if You don t come through for me in this situation, it s not going to work. I m not going to have the strength I need to do what You re asking me to do. I need You right now, God. You need to learn to be daily desperate. You need to be like a DD. I m not talking about a designated driver. You need to be daily desperate. You need to roll into your work and go, God, I know what I m about to face, I know the meetings I m about to roll into, and God, I need Your strength. I need You to give me what I don t have so that I can live for You today in this workplace. You need to say in your car ride home when you know you re about to walk into a crazy house with a bunch of kids that are going to be pulling on you left and right. You re exhausted. You need to just desperately pray, God, give me the strength I need. Please, God. Give me the strength I need to be the dad or the mom that you called me to be. You need to pray in desperation. When you ve hit the last bit of energy you have in your day. God, give me the last bit of strength. God, I got nothing left. I got no emotion. I got no willpower left. God, I just need You to come through for me. I need some more strength right now from You. I ve tried everything else, and I ve come up empty. I m just desperate for You. God responds to desperation. God responds to desperation. Jesus said, I m the vine. You are the branches. If you ll remain in Me, if you ll abide in Me, if you ll come to Me -- no formula, no pattern, no prescription -- if you ll just come to Me and ask Me what you need, I ll give it to you. I m the vine. You re the branches. Remain in Me and you ll bear much fruit. And It says, But apart from Me, you can do nothing. There are two words that happen right before Paul says the answer is in Christ Jesus. Those two words are thank God with an exclamation point. It s not just, Well, hey, you re sick. You ve got this 15
problem. The answer is in Jesus and you get desperate for Him and then He ll give you what you need. No, he says, No, no. Thank God that that s the answer, because that s actually a good thing for us, because you know what that tells us about God? God is not in this for a transaction. God s not in this to have some sort of transaction with you where you come to Him and He says, Okay, now that you re desperate I ll give you the strength you need and you can go on and do the things I want you to do. Good day, sir. He s not in this for a transaction. God s in this to know you, to have a relationship with you, to walk alongside you. God wants to be included on every decision you make, in every struggle you face. In every fear, in every insecurity that you have, God wants to be included in it because He wants to walk alongside you. He wants to know you because He loves you more than you could ever imagine. Strength is not found in a prescription. It s found in a person. You need to come before Jesus daily, desperate for Him, and watch Him give you the strength you need to man up and to live the life you were called to live. I want to give you a chance to do that right now. Every week we take communion. It s a little piece of bread and a cup of juice that symbolizes what Jesus did for you on the cross 2,000 years ago. Because we do this every week, this can kind of become a ritual, a mundane tradition. You take the bread, you take the juice, you sit there, be quiet, and you move on. I m just saying you have an opportunity every week where there is nothing else going on. There s no other thing clawing at your attention. You have no other responsibilities. It is your chance to sit there and to cry out to God and say, God, I m desperate for You. I need You, and if You don t come through for me, God, I got nothing. I m praying that today that s what happens for you during these next few moments. Let me pray for you, and then we ll take communion. Jesus, we love You so much. God, right now I pray for that person in the room who has convinced themselves that they don t need You. God, I know that there s someone out there right now that they hear us talking about being desperate for You and lacking the strength that we need, and it s just not hitting them. I know there are people out there that have just convinced themselves that they re fine without You. God, I pray that You d remove the blinders right now and You d help them to see how desperate we all are for You. God, I pray for people in the room right now that are experiencing some really difficult situations and 16
don t know what the future looks like, don t know how they re going to face the future, don t know if they ll have the strength to make it. I pray that right now, God, You d meet them in that place of desperation. God, I pray for our Downtown campus, that You d help us to be a group of people that hit our knees in desperation all day every day asking You to come through, asking You to grow us, and, God, we trust Your word that says that He who began a good work in us will carry it on to completion, that You re not going to leave us hanging, You re not going to leave us out to dry, that if we ll come to You You ll give us everything we need. God, thank You for being our vine. God, we want to remain in You. We want to be close to You, God. So right now, God, as we take communion and we remember Your great sacrifice for us, God, I pray that You would be right here with us and that we would actually sense it, we d sense Your presence, and we might walk with You more closely as a result of Your Word. It s in Jesus name we pray. Amen. 17