Man To Man

OK, John, this says on, are we? I didn't know the lights were on. This is a little bit of an unusual format for what we're going to do, but I'm glad it's not a big group. And that suits me fine, because we're going to be able to talk kind of openly. And hopefully, the dynamics will be such that you'll feel helped and included in the whole process. How many of you ever worked out with weights? I did when I was in high school for a while, just to kind of bulk up a little bit. I was real skinny then, and ended up. That was the beginning of my back trouble, by the way, because I got too aggressive and started bending things the wrong way. Then when I was in the Marine Corps, I worked out with weights out of fear. And when I was in my 30s, I worked out with weights for a while out of a challenge. Just one of my friends said, let's go do this. And it was great. But in my mid-40s, I worked out with weights because I absolutely had to. In the last few years, it was the only way to keep my back situation in some sort of balance. And I actually rather enjoyed it over the last couple of years, especially. But I found something that I could always lift more weights, especially bench presses, when I had a spotter. You know what a spotter is? We're all spotting Paul come in here. Yeah. No, it isn't that, Paul. It's just like I might as well be talking to the cement wall when it's great. All right. Look at Philippians 3 as a follow-up to this. Paul, make sure you get the outline. Here you go. Yep. How's this overhead? Is it working? Just knowing that I had someone there when you were bench pressing who could get that weight off your chest if you couldn't make it, just knowing that, even if they didn't specifically help you, gave you the confidence to go on a little higher. Look at Philippians 3. Philippians chapter 3 and verse 12. And in fact, anyone who doesn't have a Bible here, we'll just flash it up. I think I have it here. Not that I've already obtained all this or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, that I press on for the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. I was captured by the word pressing on. Paul is saying that he's not backing off. These epistles were written later on in his life in ministry. He's saying, I'm pressing on. And if I could say it this way, most of us as Christian men are pressing on without spotters. We're kind of just doing what we can do on our own. And most Christian men live a very lonely life when it comes to the things that they face and they struggle with together by themselves rather than together. I want us to look at some things in the next weeks that are issues that we face, issues that maybe are obstacles to our growth. Maybe they're issues that we normally wouldn't talk to anyone else about. Maybe they're issues that are frightening to us because they've been in our lives a long time. Maybe they're things that you have secretly wanted to deal with but didn't know how. And maybe it's just some everyday kind of things that would be helped by knowing other people are facing it. I have a few ground rules in these sessions. OK? And this is not a normal Wednesday night thing. But number one, we're going to talk kind of openly. And when I say talk, this is going to be sort of dialoguing here in a little while. Second, and I'm going to have to trust your maturity in this, but the doors are closed. There's no windows. It's just us. I do have a tape recorder on, but it will go off during the dialogue time. We're going to talk confidentially. And if anyone wants to risk some transparency, the rule is this is where it goes. You don't go out and say, well, we had a great talk. Oh, yeah. Ron told me all about the time that he, and we're not going to do that. And third, we're going to talk authoritatively. I find that when it comes to some of the things I'm facing, I'm looking for some answers, not just some suggestions. And the Bible is our authority, and we're going to talk authoritatively from the scripture and call it the way the Bible calls it, and then allow ourselves to deal with what it says. By the way, I mean, men's ministry right now is one of the greatest things. Of all the things that God is doing in America right now, men's ministry is like on the top of the pile, everything I read. And that's super. I mean, just guys, I don't know if you're newer to all this. It wasn't this way 10 years ago. Just getting men to come out was really a challenge. I don't claim to be an expert in men's ministry, but I do know some of the things that you're facing, because I'm living there. I also know how good we are at sort of glossing over the root issues in some of these things. And just I have a propensity to kind of just figure, as long as I'm sort of in the middle of the bell curve, I mean, I'm not terribly this, or I may not be wholly that. But if I'm in the middle, we can just keep moving forward. And in the end, God will sort it all out. But that's a lousy attitude. I don't want to live there. And I've also discovered that when I think I have something down, God surprises me. Life has a way of throwing me some curves after I've learned to hit the fastballs. And that's the way it's been with me. And this recent surgery was a whole different thing. I mean, I never dealt with anything like this before. And I had a great theology of suffering until I went through it. How many of your experience can mess up your theology a whole lot? What you believe about God can really be affected by what you experience. And that's what our experience tests what we believe. And we'll be looking at that. There are quite a few athletic metaphors. And we've already kind of looked at one. Here's a couple more. Turn to 1 Corinthians 9.26. 1 Corinthians 9. When you get there, someone, let me see your hand go up so I can read that, Paul, would you? All right, there is that metaphor of, again, athletics, running and fighting, OK? All right, Ephesians 6.12. Flip over there. It's right about 20 pages or so, 20 pages east. Got it? OK. All right, anyone have a different translation? That's what my translation is. What do you have, John? The Greek word for struggle there in the NIV is the word, literally, of two opponents wrestling. So he's talking, again, the metaphor is accurate. It's a fight. It's a physical confrontation is what he's describing. We do not wrestle against flesh. But do you ever feel like you're literally wrestling with issues? I mean, I go through a lot of that in my own life. All right, and finally, let's look at 2 Timothy 4.7. Again, let's move east here a few more pages. 2 Timothy. If you don't have a Bible, don't feel bad tonight. You'll know next week we'll be using them quite a bit. OK, Gene? I have fought the good fight. I have conceded the race. I have kept the faith. Paul speaking at the very end of his life in ministry, I have fought the good fight. So there we have it, three specific references, and there are others, about fighting, wrestling, and fighting. Guys, what I think we need to see here is that Paul, who was probably the most godly man other than Jesus Christ that we know about in the Bible, at least in the New Testament, fought to stay in the will and purpose of God. It was a battle in his life. He didn't just cruise along. Every day wasn't like, oh, more glory. It was a fight. He was wrestling. He was struggling. And at the end here, he was fighting to see that his reputation and character were kept intact. He wanted God to be pleased with his life and his ministry. He wanted to make a difference with his life. And we didn't read the next verse, but could we do that, Gene? Read verse 8. So Paul was saying, hey, there's a prize to be won at the end of this thing. And then how many of you are goal-oriented? You do better when you know what you've got to do and you put a goal out there. If you're in sales or any kind of more self-motivated, that usually pumps us up. But very clearly, there's a goal at the end of all this. There's a prize to be won. To me, and I'm going to get sidetracked here, but being a believer in Christ, I've heard people say, I'd be a Christian even if there wasn't a heaven. Have you ever heard that? I'd be a Christian even if there wasn't a heaven. Because living the Christian life is still the best way to live life, let alone whatever happens afterwards. Now, I suppose there are moments when I would think that that might be compromised. But the truth of the matter is, I think we probably more often than not lose sight of the fact that there is a heaven. Have you ever wondered why the people that don't pay any attention to God seem to do better than you sometimes? I mean, this guy's not even a, you know, he blasphemes God. He swears and curses and messes around with the other employees, and his quotas are above mine. And you think, what's the deal here? Well, remember, God isn't done with all this. It all gets sorted out. It comes to a place where God says, all right, now we're going to distribute, as Paul says, now we're going to see exactly what played out here. And if you ever get discouraged, just remind yourself that the Lord isn't losing track. I want to focus tonight on one of the fights that we're all facing, and it's the fight against sin and its power in our lives. You wouldn't be here tonight if you weren't earnest about your relationship with the Lord. Wednesday nights isn't for people who are just kind of indifferent. So I respect that. And I recognize that some of you will find what I'm going to share tonight and what we're going to interact over is maybe not new material. But I also find that I'm never past this. There was only one time in my life I was afraid that I was going to drown. I'd done some stupid things around water. When I was a kid, I snuck into the Beaver area swimming pool, if you're out in Beaver County, at nighttime with some buddies and was diving kind of in the middle of the night and could have gotten killed that way. I remember when I was a freshman in college, I went with a friend in a speedboat, and I was sitting up on the side of the boat. And we were going really fast. This was some speedboat on steroids, and I don't know how fast we were going. But out of nowhere, there was a log in the lake, and he swerved amidst the log. And I just went flying out, did a backflip off the boat, and I thought I was going to be dead. I jumped off a cliff into a little pool of water on the night before my wedding on a dare. I'll leave the gory details of that out. But it was my second year in California when I was in seminary. I went out to Newport Beach, and it was after a storm, and there was substantial waves coming in. I mean, a lot of fun. But I got out a ways and wasn't thinking a lot about it. And when I went to go back in, I found I started swimming, and I looked up, and I wasn't any closer. And well, I swam some more. And after probably seven or eight minutes of that, I realized that this was getting serious, because I wasn't getting closer, and I was getting more and more tired. And if you've ever been in that situation, it is a scary thing, because the undertow, riptides, and some of those along the ocean are very powerful. And I was too far from anyone to come out at that point to even hear me or see me. I was kind of out on my own. And I remember beginning to really pray. I mean, serious, God, if you're up there, it's time kind of prayer. So I mean, it was really serious. And some way or another, I managed to catch a couple of waves that carried me over out of the tide, and I got in. But I remember I was exhausted when I hit, and I was shaking a little bit from it all. But I've never forgotten it, because what it reminded me of is that there are, in our lives, there are undercurrents that we can be just sort of obliviously going along in life, and then all of a sudden, when we're out of bounds a little bit and we want to come back in to the things that we care about and love, we find we can't. And that's the way sin is. Sin is an undercurrent. It's an undertow. It has the capacity to pull you out and blow you away. And if we're really honest, it's something that doesn't change. I mean, I don't think the more mature you get, the undertows go. I think that your capacity to swim maybe improves, but I don't think the undertow changes. Let me ask you this. In today's society, it seems to me that the opportunity to compromise, the fight against sin, and I mean in its overt ways, moral compromise, mental compromise, ethical compromise, probably is as great now as it's ever been. I think we're bombarded. I mean, in terms of communication right now, we have so many impacts on our senses, tempting us to think, to consider, to pursue the possibility of compromising our values. The freedom that we have in transportation, how many of you travel? Just a couple of you? We can drive to another town in an hour just like that and be anonymous. We have the capacity to just do whatever our nature tells us to do and get away with it in a lot of respects, it seems. Let's just share for a minute, what kind of things do you find provoke you and provoke your, what are the kind of things that tempt you in terms of compromising some of your values? Just shoot out a couple of them. Doesn't have to be real personal, but just what are some of the things that, man, that catches me? Women, how? Just in the real, in the flesh, women? OK, good. OK, all right. What else? Television. I mean, if you watch any television, especially in the evenings, sooner or later, there's going to be stuff there. What else? I mean, OK. It's OK to, I mean, again, remember our ground rules? Open. How many of you consider the movies that you go to based on the ratings? Well, you look at that, and we could get, well, we don't need to get into it right now. But yeah, you know, in most movies today, if they're PG-13 or lower on the scale, there's going to be stuff there that's going to, I mean, it's going to confront your senses, period. And we're not going to get into, you know, I'm not going to have a movie list. I'm not constructed to make decisions for you. You have to do that. But, you know, all the media today is, boom, they're, what else, anything else that you find is an opportunity or a problem that you deal with? What else, anything? I just used the movie. Good, OK. Yes. All right, that's really good. I appreciate that. You're saying that the environment that you're in is contrary to what you value in many respects, and it wears you down. Good. How about just the temptation to want stuff? Are you all breathing tonight? I mean, is that like, people get stuff, and they build their lives around wielding, demonstrating that they have the capacity to want up. We live in a culture unlike any that's ever preceded us in terms of the proliferation of resource. And that can be a temptation. What does the Bible say about money? The love of it is the root of all evil. That's going to be our topic for next week, because I believe a lot of men, though they would not necessarily acknowledge they're out of the gate, are hung up in that particular area, because they live around it all the time. Oh, that's funny. I relate, man. Believe me. You've got a friend here. I had to sit down, so. OK, one or two others? Any other areas that, man, this one trips me up, or I struggle with this one. Any others? OK. And everything that goes with that. I mean, the whole scene. Sure, sure. I've had lots of friends tell me it isn't even the alcohol itself, it's just they miss what happened when they got together and the buddiness of it all and that kind of stuff. All right. No, I'm thinking of a, I can't tell a story about a friend. I have a friend that he just, he didn't understand why drinking beer was wrong. And I never said it was wrong, but he, but as he thought about it, it wasn't the beer. It was what happened when they had the beers together that eventually really caused him to go down the tube. But then he thought about it in terms of missionary drinking. But I think that's probably not in God's will. OK, we're going to go on our missionary bins drinking here. I don't know. Probably not. Add to this the fact that society as a whole really is staggering at the idea of setting its own norms. I was listening to Fred Hansberger a couple days ago. By the way, Hansberger is a Christian guy. He may not like his style or whatever. But someone called about legislating morality. Ever heard that one? You Christians are trying to legislate. You're trying to legislate morality. And this guy was arguing that you can't do that. You can't impose your conviction. But you see, we do that anyhow. The truth is, guys, we do legislate morality. We have decided, for example, that certain things are morally wrong, and we've legislated child abuse or child sexuality, pornography, and so on. But in other words, what I'm hearing, though, is more and more people are saying, you decide. I mean, everyone's a law unto themselves. This guy was basically saying, I'll just decide as long as I don't hurt someone else, it's OK for me. Just think about the implications of that. But what really holds us isn't, I mean, you can look outside, and you can blame all these different stimuli and people's different values. But what really holds us is what's in us. It's our old nature. That's what trips us up. And look what Jesus said. Turn to John 17. It's not so much the outside things. It's the inside things. And Jesus said, I guess I could have saved you all and immediately taken you out of all this stuff and eliminated the hassles. But that's not what he said. Look at verse 15 of John 17. Gary, are you there? Could you read it, please? So guys, if you're praying that God is going to remove you from the temptations and from the things that are there that might cause you to stumble, he's not going to do it. But he will protect you. And if I had, I would encourage you to circle that. Jesus is praying that you'd be protected. So when you feel alone, when you feel like maybe Satan's coming at you with something you may not be able to withstand, remember, bless you, remember that Jesus is praying for you to stand. John 17.15 is that verse. John 17.15. But here's my question as we just kind of touch on two or three quick points here. If you are truly born again, if you do know Christ, and I don't know all of your spiritual conditions, maybe you're not convinced of that yet, or maybe that's something that you're working through, why do you still struggle with sin? Doesn't the Bible say, well, let's look at Romans 6.6. Romans 6.6. I mean, Paul, throughout this whole book, talks in sort of shadowy terms about his own struggle with sin. And let's pick it up here, verse 5. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. Verse 6. For we know that our old self was crucified. The old self, the old nature, the sinful nature that we have inherited from Adam at birth, was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. Or as it reads, another translation, we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, done away with, we might no longer be enslaved to sin. If the sinful nature was destroyed or done away with, isn't that what that says? Why do we still struggle? Why don't I just walk right by the women? Why don't I just walk right by the bars, the guys that are dripping with the financial accoutrements, whatever? Why? Why do we struggle? Why do we struggle with our temper? Why do we struggle with reacting to things? Well, this is one of those things where if you get into studying your Bible, you really, it helps you a lot. The word there, and I don't, where's my little blue sheet? Okay, the word there for destroyed or done away with in the NIV is really best translated to be rendered powerless. And if I could encourage you, in your Bible margin, there up above that or on the side, where it says to be done away with or destroyed, just put a little note that says the best translation is to be rendered powerless. It isn't so much that that has been eliminated. It's just that God has broken the power of that old nature in our lives so that we do not necessarily have to go on sinning. So the number one principle is this. Though we are instantly saved, in other words, when you trust Christ, you are born again. You are brought into a right relationship with Christ. You were saved by the Bible definition. You are not instantly sanctified. Word to sanctify means to be holy or set apart as unto God. So though we know that we're set free from sin's power, that we are saved, we are not instantly made holy. Okay, that is something that God begins to work in a process. Another way of saying it is this. Prior to being saved, you weren't capable of fighting off sin on your own. How many of you could attest to that, all right? Prior to being saved, and this is what the Bible means when it talks about being a slave to sin. And the funny thing about people is they think that coming to Christ will narrow down their freedoms and they'll be bound up when in fact, when you look at most people, they are absolutely enslaved. They are enslaved to the pursuit of pleasure. They are enslaved to alcohol. They are enslaved to pursuing women. They are enslaved to their lifestyle. And folks, one of the things that we have to believe about that, you have to believe that down in their soul, they know that and they're waiting for someone to show them the way out. And I think we get intimidated. I know when I get around people who seem to have their act together in terms of the outward things, you think, well, what do I have to offer? But down inside in their soul, there's unanswered questions and you can rest in that. There always are. But when we come to Christ, it's not that those old things are obliterated. It's just that at that point, we have been given the power over that sin so it can no longer dominate our lives. The cross of Christ comes and drives a wedge into that power and breaks it off, even though I'm still susceptible to temptation. The difference is before I couldn't make those decisions. Now, I am free to make them. I may not make them. I may choose to just not listen to what God's telling me to do, but I at least have the power. Let me say it this way. How many of you have had some kind of an old accident or injury in your physical body, maybe even surgical, okay, like me? I had an old illustration here and the more I thought about it, I'll use a current one. I'm still wearing this, okay? There was, I had two little broken bones in my spine. That's what was causing my problem. It was the root of it. And the doctors went in and they fused those bones in that area together and so on. And now I have different stuff in there. I've got, you know, I can't go through metal detectors without creating a stirrup. I have a little card in my wall that says, this guy's not lying to me. He doesn't have a concealed weapon. He is a walking tool chest. And so those things in me, when those bones were broken, they had severe limitations. I was increasingly limited in what I was able to do. In fact, the Saturday before my surgery, I was beginning to find myself, I have a little difficulty even going up some steps without some serious pain going on. And now I've been, that's been fixed, but I still have some reminders that stuff's in there. Do you know what I mean? Now I can do the things that I want to do. I mean, I'm not there yet. I'm not totally well, but I'm believing that I will be. And I'm gaining in strength, but I have those reminders and I've got the metal in there. Even if I feel 100% totally normal, all you do is just go through the metal detector and it'll remind me, there's something going on in there. But I have the power now to overcome what was broken. You see, before I couldn't overcome it. Now I've been given the power to overcome it. Now I've been given sort of a new opportunity to go through the next 30 or 40 years of life without those limitations. Similarly, God doesn't remove the broken parts of your spirit. He heals them, but he leaves them in there to remind you that you, you know, from whence you've come and you need to depend on. And what I think he does is basically over time, he doesn't remove the boulders from our life and from the rapids of our lives, but he raises the water level so that eventually you kind of gloss over those things and you're able to keep going. So if you've got some of those boulders, if you've got some of those temptations, some of those struggles, and you're still hitting against them, you just need to ask God to raise the water level a little bit, increase the flow of the spirit in your life. And you'll find that you'll gloss them and bounce over them. Let me ask you this question. I'd like you to share this in twos, one to another for a couple minutes. And you don't have to, you can be as specific. Remember our ground rules, open, confidential, and authoritative. Share what you've tried to do in the past to overcome one of these temptations we've talked about. What have you tried to do? You know, for example, I'll just make one up. I don't know if this affects anybody, but maybe you were a smoker and you said, you know, after a while I just wanted to stop because I didn't think it honored God. And so here's what I tried to do to stop smoking. Or maybe it was, you know, maybe it's you had a problem with lust and you said, man, this was always a struggle. Here's what I tried to do. Or maybe you were just lazy. Okay, maybe it wasn't anything you, maybe you're just lazy. Maybe you did as little as you could do to get by in life and you became a believer and you realized, man, that's just not the way I want to be. But it was, there was this thing in you that was just continually, share what you tried to do to overcome that sin. Okay? Is that enough, have we kind of got a handle on that? All right. Great, just share with one or two other guys, you know, don't shut anyone out. Like you three might want to be together and two here, whatever. All right, think about it. What did you try to do to overcome an area of struggle? Break here while the guys are sharing. All right, just another minute and then we'll come back together. I can see that we're on course to go over here if I don't move along. So, but you're enjoying sharing. So I'll wait another minute. All right, I need to use these last few minutes, guys. I'll allow more time next week for this. How many of you have really tried to deal with some of these areas in your life? I mean, really attack them with some kind of actions. I mean, you've made resolutions. You've denied yourself. You've thrown this stuff out the window. I mean, have you done stuff like that? All right. Anyone willing to give us a corporate illustration of something you did to break sin's power? Anybody who wouldn't be embarrassed about it? Or just share what you shared in the group is all I'm saying. Just so we could all know. What have you done? Did I puncture you in the ear to quit smoking? That's a great illustration. So some way to break that power. And I think the Lord probably is just tremendously patient with us as we try every way. He just kind of waits. You know, we're like a fish. You ever gone fishing and you catch a fish and you pull him into the boat and he just flops and flops and flops a lot before he finally dies? That's what I think we kind of get. The Lord just lets us flop every way imaginable until we finally say, I can't do it. The second thing you're outlining is the point. The point is holiness, breaking the power of sin, getting free from sin's power is by grace, not by works. The same power that saved you from the effect of sin also works in you to free you from the power of sin. Can I say that again? The same grace that sets you free from the effect of sin, that is eternal death, also works to set you free from the power of sin in today's life. And guys, a beginning point in any of your journeys to get free from the power of sin is to say, Lord, I can't do it. Best thing you could possibly do to begin is say, Lord, I can't do it. I can't stop smoking. I can't stop lusting. I can't stop coveting my neighbor's stuff. Begin there, realize that the power of sin will defeat you without the grace of God at work in your life. And then begin to let God do a process. We won't take the time, but except right down to Ephesians 1, 4, it says there that it is God's will for you to be holy. So you know it's God who wants to work that in your life. And don't think that holiness is an option. I do want you to turn to this verse, please. Hebrews 12, 14, under the same point. Let me quickly move there. Hebrews 12, 14. Hebrews 12, 14. Paul, you're looking at it? Did you all catch that? Listen to it again. You may say, well, you know, I'm not interested in being holy. That sounds like a religious word. Well, God's definition of holy means set apart. It means made clean as the Lord. And he says there's no other way to see the Lord than to be holy. So this should be a desire, a passion of our hearts to be holy. Now here's the thing. Who makes us holy? Well, the Lord does. He initiates the activity. And can I say it this way? It's as if God says, Walt, I not only saved you, I now pronounce you holy. But you say, well, God, I'm not holy. I mean, look at this problem and look at that problem. And I covered this and I got mad at that. And I have this. And he says, I know, but I pronounce you holy. Now, the thing I've discovered is it's like, well, it's like if you went to enroll in the university and you walked in the first day and the chancellor came and said, Ron, I wanna confer on you this degree. You are now a bachelor of science and whatever. And you say, but I just enrolled. And he said, yeah, but I'm giving you a degree. He said, but now all you gotta do is go to the classes. You've already graduated, but now you gotta go to the classes. And so the next four years, he fulfills his requirements just to confirm that degree. Folks, all we're learning to do is to live out what God has conferred on us. He's done it. We just learn to live it out because it's his work in us. Philippians 2.13 says, both to will and to do is good pleasure. Let me end with this. Five quick things you can do to overcome the struggle with sin. If you're having a battle tonight, and I know that some of us are, I would expect we all are. Let me just touch on these and we'll pick up a little bit on this next time as well. In order to get in touch with what God wants to do, train your ear to listen to him. I'll go back to what I said on Sunday. The word of God is the revelation.