When we Fall

But we have the power and authority to tell the devil to stand back. To get out of the way of God's plans when he's trying to interfere, you know, me talked about how that interference can come in many different ways and one of the key verses and that was Mark 8:33. Which reads? But when Jesus turned, and looked at his disciples, he rebuked, Peter get behind me. Satan, he said, you do not have in mind. The concerns of God but merely human concerns. But you know, we can all understand that we all have our own unique concerns and things that we're dealing with in life. And often those are the exact things that the enemy loves to use. To get us off track of what it is. God might have for us in life. And then last week, I asked the question. You know, why do we wait until we're desperate to cry out to God? We know that he is always available to us. We know that at any time, we can ask for his help.

but we don't,

Yeah, that just doesn't make sense.

Why do we do that to ourselves? You know, it's like trying to deal with your pants being on fire while holding a fire extinguisher but refusing to use it. It's the same. When we're dealing with struggles in life and we know God, we know what it says in his word, but yet we fail to apply it to whatever we're going through. But yet, we do that even though it's ridiculous, even though the solution seems clear, We try to deal with it on her own because we want to be strong and independent and show everyone how great we are.

Like I've often said sheep aren't known for their intelligence. Are they?

You know, why is it we have to get to that point of desperation when we finally call out to God?

You know, and so often when we finally get to that point, we're not just asking for God's help. We're begging for his divine intervention. At that point. The key verse for Psalm 34 vs 17 and 18. Does the righteous cry out and the Lord hears them. He delivers them from all their troubles, the Lord is close to the Brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

No. Something else I said last week is that we so often struggle to accept that help. Cuz we don't feel worthy of it. When we find ourselves in trouble, when we find ourselves in a bad situation, you know, we realize that it's our own actions that have gotten us to this place. So we should be the ones that have to figure our way out of it, right? We feel like we shouldn't bother god with it. Like, you know, we are the only solution to it.

You know, it's okay. If we're thinking okay, we made the mistake. We need to own it and we need to work through it. That there's truth to that, we do need to own our mistakes. We do need to take the responsibility. But it's often our pride that gets in the way of us. Just accepting the help that God, and maybe other people are offering us.

And I think this can be especially hard for us as fathers. We think, you know, we always have to be the strong masculine one the Macho. Tough one, we have to be a solid rock in the midst of anything. You know, we have to be like those old commercials. We used to see if the Marlboro Man, right? Rugged, and weathered and sturdy. And I know the kids have no idea who the Marlboro Man is but You know, that was back when they used to have cigarette commercials on TV and you know, he was this old weathered cowboy, who would always be smoking his more girls you know while you know chewing on a piece of barbed wire, I don't know. But he was always this. Rugged individual. and for some reason, that's the definition we think is men we always have to follow but anymore in our society who knows what that definition is going to be?

Gino is 5 listen to this song when I fall.

You know, it's made me wonder. Okay what's her scripture behind that? And as I looked into it Psalm 27, verses seven and eight were the main versus she had behind that. You know, those verses talk about a vulnerability and Reliance on God.

the song talks about themes of, you know, being overwhelmed, feeling overwhelmed with what's going on in life and you know, Finding peace, only when you turn to God, And reading some of what Katie Nicole said about the song. She said she wrote it because she had gotten tired of trying to be okay. you know, to try to always keep that fake smile on and let everyone think she was okay, even when she wasn't

You know, we all struggle with that, but I think as fathers, I think we can especially struggle with that. Thinking that we always have to be okay. We can never show our wife and our children that hey, we're struggling with this. This is difficult. This is something that I can't do on my own. Again, like I said, we believe the lies that make us think that, you know, real men can't show any cracks in the wall that we've built around our emotions, the fake facade that we put up. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Honestly, I don't think there's anything more manly that we could do as a father than to set the example for our family that when things get tough, when things are difficult, when we don't understand things, the first place we turn is to God.

It would be a great thing if we would all set. That example of showing our Reliance on God, in every situation,

Psalm 27, verse 7, & 8 reads, hear my voice. When I call Lord, be merciful to me and answer me. My heart says to you seek his face, your face. Lord, I will seek

You know, these versus describe a feeling of vulnerability and needing to be held by God. Like I said, those are not ideas that always fit, well, With what our society once of us, not just men, but in general, you know, we're all supposed to be strong and independent and able to deal on things on her own.

But you know, that's what I like about this song is when it expresses those feelings of peace and Solace. That can only come when we are in God's presence. The strength that we can feel when we are in the Embrace of the father, when we're allowing him to hold us and care for us.

You know, I think showing that we have that vulnerability is never a sign of weakness, but of true strength.

You don't interesting thing, I've found out about Katie, Nicole, in a lot of the songs that she's written, is she used to be a youth leader.

She wanted to be able to send prayers to her students when they went away to college. So for her, the easiest way to do that was in song. And a lot of the songs that are now hearing on the radio were actually first done as short video prayers to her students. And then she would share those videos to them so that they could know that someone was praying these things over them and for them. Like I said with this song, you know she's talking about feeling tired, feeling exhausted from trying to deal with the situation on her own. And finally seeking God's presence.

I mean, I think about that line, you know, my God, I'm tired of feeling of trying to be okay. And I wonder how many of us. Get to that point. We're tired of trying to be okay when we know we're not okay. But we're afraid to let anyone know that we are not okay.

You know, it's okay for us to express.

That we have a desperate need for God. That we have a desperate need for his presents.

And it's okay for us to do as we talked about last week and cry out in desperation, because the truth is, God, already knows the situation. He knows how it's all going to work out. We just need to invite him into it so that he can give us that piece of his presence.

Do you know that's another main theme? We're talkin about here, and all these weeks is, you know, surrendering to God. But when we do that, the hope that we can find in doing that.

You know, why is it that so often? We think prayer and turning to God is the last resort when we've tried everything else,

What if we flip that around and we tried prayer and going to God first instead of everything else? Might save us a lot of bumps and bruises. And wrong tries on things he can save us from getting to that point of desperation because we turn to him first.

But when we fall, it's hard. Your father's. We don't want to admit, maybe we messed up for made the wrong choice. But you know, is I was recently talking to someone else about some other situations going on. he pointed out, he's like,

you know, there was a lot of dad bill and that situation, I'm not around here might understand that, but I think those of us who our fathers can when you know we might advise our children a certain way and it doesn't work out like we thought it would. So we feel bad about that or maybe we simply Didn't keep our cool with something. The way we should have kept our cool and a situation, or handled it the way we should have, or maybe it's that. We didn't Point them to God in the middle of a situation where we should have.

You know, I can't think of a better thing as a father that we could do then to model for our children. What it looks like to surrender, everything to God.

Not just your troubles, not just your problems but everything. You know, show your children that in the good and the bad, you still turn to God, that you know who you are, as a man who you are at your career, who you are. As a leader of the family is all centered on God. It is your faith in God. That is your Guiding Light for everything.

Cuz you know, the truth is that so often what that means and fully surrendering to God is that we have to be willing to lay down everything. This world tells us is significant about us being a man or being a leader. In order to truly follow God.

But who can be a better model for being a father? In the Holy Father.

You know, we need to be willing to lay everything in our lives down at the foot of the cross in order to be that example to the Next Generation.

Philippians chapter 4, verses 6 & 7 says do not be anxious about anything. But in every situation by prayer and petition with Thanksgiving, present, your requests to God and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

You know as a father or as a Christian in general, are you anxious about anything?

And what is it? That's occupying your mind. How do you deal with that?

You know, what do other see, and how you deal with that? What does your family see?

How significant would it be if they saw you? Take those troubles, those worries. Those things that bring you anxiety to God and lay it at his feet and say, God help me to deal with this.

You know, this whole idea started back when I was doing my series about Joy when I was working up to get ready to go into Easter. And do you remember when we talked about, Psalm 23, and God leading us to Still Waters?

Psalm 23 verse 4 says yay though. I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil for you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Again, it's talking about the presence of God, that his being there is what brings comfort knowing that he is there to protect you and to guard you.

Especially on the hard days.

And just because things, get hard things get messy, maybe our health is failing again. That doesn't mean that the father has left you, it means that he is right there. God is always right there with us. Even if we're walking through some of the most difficult circumstances we've ever faced in life, God is right there in the thick of it with us. He's leading us through that.

Like I said earlier, it can be hard for us to believe that and accept that because we know that it was our own actions that got us into this. We know that we were acting off of our wisdom or worldly wisdom. And now we find ourselves in this trouble. And I feel ashamed to turn to God and to ask him to help us out of this situation. We got ourselves into

she know it's not so much about him helping you out of the situation. As him helping you through the situation. Teaching you growing. You guiding you as you walk through it. You know, it says we walked through those things that God often shapes us into Hoover supposed to be. Ephesians chapter 2 verses 4 and 5 says but because of his great love for us, God who is rich in Mercy made us alive with Christ. Even when we were dead and transgressions, It Is by grace that you've been saved.

You know, is we start talking about Joy leading up to Easter? And then as we talked about leading up to Easter, you know what it accomplished with Christ, going to the cross and dying on the cross stand. We've come past Easter and we're looking more at that of the power, The Authority that's given to us as Believers the safety, the insurance. We should have And there it is. Again, mercy and Grace.

Those are always at the core of everything we see.

Yeah, I believe it's at the core of everything that God ever has or ever will do our grace and mercy that he is trying to show us

Last week, I read Hebrews 4:16, this is let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find Grace to help us in our time of need.

you know, that is especially important for us to remember when we fall You know, when we're struggling when we're stumbling in life, when we don't know what to do when we're faced with a situation that it seems really has no good outcome.

Do we turn to God? Do we show that Reliance upon him? I pray that we do. I pray that we understand that. It's all about God's mercy and Grace. It's all about what Christ accomplished when he died on the cross for our sins. Jesus removed all of those barriers between us and a loving, father. Who is full of mercy and Grace? So, it's Father's. I want to challenge us to do everything. We can to those in our lives. You know, our lives, our children are other people who are significant to us, to remove all those barriers, to them, seeing what our relationship with God is really like,

yo, to them seeing us being willing to lay everything at the foot of the cross into, except that forgiveness. To be able to give that forgiveness. For them to see that, no matter what we're dealing with, we turn to God first. Says we transition to our time of worship, I want us to think about that and as always, you know, the altar is always open. If you feel a need to come down and pray, please do you know, someone can join you and pray with you or you can feel free to pray on your own, but just as we do it, I want us all to think about how much the father loves us and how much he is there for us, even when we fall, we just need to accept his mercy and Grace. Please bear with me in prayer. Heavenly father, as we come to you to worship. Lord, I pray.