Challenging Men
Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 1 view5 minutes to share. Camp theme is Navigate and share scripture and thoughts on how the Lord directed them, spoken to them, and taught them about trusting him through difficult times.
Notes
Transcript
Let me begin with an apology for something I probably didn’t do. How many of you have been encouraged by these verses
11 For I know the plans I have for you”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
Without pointing out that these verses were actually to the Jewish people which most of us are not part of so many also fail to mention the other words this prophet said about himself,
14 May the day I was born be cursed. May the day my mother bore me never be blessed.
Life can really suck. Even when you walk with God life it can be awful. Let me apologize to any of you who have been over sold on Jesus. Over sold, it’s that thing where someone tells you to come to Jesus and watch your problems fade away. They don’t. Some may. A lot will change, but life on this side of heaven, still hurts.
I can’t blame those who fall away, backslide, whatever you want to call it, if you got sold a Jesus that if you just behave and go to church God will answer your prayers by giving you what you want.
Men, I’m so excited to be speaking to men. I can talk to you in a certain way. I can be brutally honest right?
Men, you guys know, we follow a Jesus who died on a cross, right? I’ve been beat up before but I never got beat up to pay for someone else’s sins. I’ve been betrayed before but I never healed someone’s family, changed the weather for a person, only to see that person betray me. I’ve never done that but Jesus did.
What can I say men, when hard times come? And they do come.
I first know that my Jesus bled for me. He took wounds for me. He was abandoned for me. How can I act like he is a product just to make my life easier?
Jesus told me the opposite. Jesus said to pick up my cross, the thing he died on, the thing that means death and follow Him. He wasn’t trying to sell us on Him.
He told us,
24 Seeing that he became sad, Jesus said, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!
25 For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
it’s impossible for the rich to be saved and there is no one who has ever in the history of the world been as wealthy as us! We are rich. Some of you might say Bill I couldn’t get Nachos, I’m that broke. To that I say two things: One I will get you Nachos tonight. Two do you know how many wars were fought for the spices we put into our food? How easy it us to light up the night, drink clean water, heat up food, Make the craziest and tastiest cheese ever? Even the poorest among us have fabrics on that Kings in Jesus day could only dream about. I could go on and on about how much better life is for us compared to history and even other parts of the world now, but I can not treat God like He a products or service available to us. If the repairman doesn’t fix my appliance I get a new repairman. How rich can I think I am that if God doesn’t do what I want, I get a new God or ignore the only one there is?
Men, God doesn’t need us. We need God.
When I think of difficult times I think of that fact that at the end of the conference this year, by the time I got home, my new friend and ministry partner Bobby died of cancer, beating us home to be with the Lord. A month later my mother would be diagnosed with leukemia, my Dog would be dead of old age, and at work, where I teach special education, some lady would yell all kinds of horrible things about me, in front of my co-workers. IT SUCKED!!!!
Many men can share worse than me, and that was just this year. But men my God will supply all my needs. Including hope in these dark times.
I think of 3 women. My mother who in the midst of her leukemia, has such extreme faith in Jesus, that she knows at any second she is ready to be at home with God, still chose to fight her leukemia so she could be an encouragement to others and now you. Her faith hasn’t changed because she follows a God who died for her.
To my friend Sara, who as a Chinese woman she share her illegal faith in Jesus in China through printed pamphlets, she was arrested and beaten, with blood pouring all over her body, she was forced to walk around chained walk in puddles of her own blood, She told me all she could think about was how Christ spilled his own blood for her. There is no more difficult time than having no hope from the government, no hope but she found her hope in Jesus.
To my friend Alicia, who was born with a severe disability, parents told she would never go home from hospital after birth, to not making it past 12 and then not past 21 and then last year celebrated her 40th birthday even though its been a life in and out of the hospital. Her favorite verse is my favorite verse.
3 And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance,
4 endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope.
5 This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
When the darkest times come, get ready friends, God is about to tell the brightest story.