Sunday Morning Sermon Series - Victory in Seconds and Inches Part 3 (Date: 01/23/2022)

Standing for the Gospel, Not Just Cultural Battles

Now, I want you to pay attention. It wasn't anything in Israel. It wasn't their military size. It wasn't the type of people to stand up to.

We're going to be in 2 Samuel chapter 23 today, and we are continuing our series on overcoming adversity in inches and in seconds. This is, I think, part 3 or part 4, but you'll note on your paper that it's the wrong date, and that's because it was scheduled for Snowmageddon last week.

Now, next week, we're going to continue this, but I'm also going to be speaking to our Hispanic church that is worshiping right up there, and I've selected a passage of Scripture from the book of Nehemiah about rebuilding the wall.

Some of y 'all will get that later on tonight. Alright, 2 Samuel chapter 23, starting in verse 11. And next to him was Shammah, the son of Agi, the Harite. And the Philistines gathered together at Lahi, where there was a plot of ground full of lentils.

And the men fled from the Philistines. And he took his stand in the midst of the plot and defended it, and struck down the Philistines. And the Lord worked a great victory. Now, at this time, obviously, again, the Philistines, which are the antecedents, or I should say the ancestors, of the Palestinians.

These folks were attacking the Israelites. And yes, they were attacking them to kill numbers, but strategically, they did something very wise. They waited until the harvest time. And the reason why is, is because in fjords or militia units, men could not be gathered together as an army and still harvest their crops at home.

And so they would wait till that harvest time was ready. The other reason was this. As men and people were gathered in the fields to go, not only could they kill the people, but they could destroy the fields and the food as well.

So, in other words, they would win a tactical victory in the slaughter of the people, but they'd also win a long-term strategic victory in removing the food source from the people. And we see here in this, and I put on the map on the back of your paper, the general location of where this is.

And if you'll look, I guess, northeast on that map, you'll see Jebsu. This is the time where Jerusalem was still called by that name in some areas. So anyways, this is the general idea of where that was.

Guys, how do you know when to fight? How do you know when to fight? How do you know when, in adversity, because I hear people say a lot of times, choose your battles wisely. And there's some logic to that.

There is. I'm not discounting that. But here's where we are in the church today. We have chose to segregate ourselves from the world to such a degree that the world doesn't even know the Gospel. Oh, they know that the church hates facts.

They know the church hates sin. Oh, they know how bad we sit there and say, oh, you're a worthless good for nothing. They know that. But they don't know the Gospel. Why? Because we have chosen to remove the Gospel of Jesus Christ and replace it with the creed of the church.

And that's why so many people are confused. Guys, when do you know it's time to fight? Well, if you look at our culture and society in the United States today, I think it's way past time that we need to fight.

Guys, what is at stake? Well, that's one of the parameters that I use when deciding what is something worth fighting for. Now, look at this. They were basically harvesting beans. Harvesting beans. And as the Philistines came in, everybody took off except for one man.

He decided to stay and fight. Last week, does anyone know what last Sunday was? It was Sanctity of Life Sunday. Oh, yeah. What does that mean? Okay, that's what I'm talking about. Think about it. It's what?

That's true. That's true. The C4 law, yeah. Guys, we actually fight against man's sin. That's not what God told us to do. God did not tell us to fight against man's sin. God told us to stand for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Guys, Sanctity of Life Sunday has nothing to do with a legal battle. It is the church recognizing the sanctity of unborn children. That's what it's about. It seems as if sometimes the church has so fallen asleep that we can't even identify those things which are important.

This man decided to stand by himself and fight over a field of beans. Ladies and gentlemen, what is worth fighting for? Well, if unborn children are not worth the church standing up and fighting for, I don't know what is.

Now, there are some of you out there, some of you visitors, that may sit there and say, well, that's a political thing. No, it's not. God said thou shall not commit murder. Murder. There ain't no two ways about it.

We got so many pregnant people around here. Where's a pregnant woman? There's a pregnant woman. There's one. Okay. There's a pregnant woman right now. How many more weeks till you're done? What'd she say?

This week. This week. She's done this week. So, I probably said that wrong, but you know what I'm saying. Okay? Right now, in some places, that baby can be killed legally. Guys, what's worth fighting for?

Do you really want to send out another mass email over them taking the nativity scene down? Do you really want to get that fired up over another Confederate statue? I mean, I got church people. They get more angry over them taking the Lord's Prayer out of school.

Guys, really? The nativity scene isn't even scriptural. That's not even real. But more people get mad about that than they do about the slaughter of unborn children. And by the way, scientifically, if you disagree with that, please, do me a favor, make an appointment and come educate me.

I'll pay you to come educate me. Guys, it's ridiculous. We've reached a point where the things that are not important we get angry about and the things that are in our front to God, we dismiss. Guys, a field of beans is important because it belongs to God.

You see, it's not the innate nature or worth of what is there that's important. What is the important thing is that it belongs to the Lord. Our children, our high school kids, our college kids, we have spent a decade teaching them systematic theology and apologetics.

Why? Because we want to arm them and fight for them so that when they go out in the world and some tofu-eating, sandal-wearing, liberal, hippie professor tells them that they evolved from a stupid ape, they can sit there and go, you're an idiot.

You're an idiot. You see, that's worth fighting for. That's worth fighting for. I don't care about chandeliers in the gymnasium. I don't care that our church isn't fancy and painted and decorated. That ain't worth fighting for.

That ain't worth sacrificing for. The next generation of this place, I will lay my blood down for. What is worth fighting for? That is when you decide how to fight. Look at this next thing. It says this, verse 9.

Read verse 9 with me. Not only did he fight on a field of beans, but if you read verse 9, David talks about another man. And next to him, among the three mighty men, was Eleazar, the son of Dodo. You know, that kid got in a lot of fights at school.

The son of Ahohi. He wasn't Hawaiian. And he was with David when they defied the Philistines who were gathered there for battle. And the men of Israel withdrew. He decided, though, he rose and struck down the Philistines until his hand was weary and his hand clung to the sword.

Have y 'all ever used a hammer so long that when you put the hammer down, your hand won't open right? Yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry. Millennials, it's a device for hammering. Never mind. Guys, you know what's hard about knowing when to fight?

It's sometimes you use your level of exhaustion to remove yourself from the fight. You see, Satan doesn't wait till after another woman sings some soul-jerking, tearful song. We all want to fight in the middle of the creed of Christ.

When we're gathered in here and we're praying to God and all your little spiritual feelings are all fired up. Oh yeah! I mean, I'm ready, right? Bring in the Russians parachuting from the sky. Wolverine, we will win!

That's right, man. But that ain't when Satan attacks. He attacks when you're tired. Christian, let me ask you a question. How come you're so tired all the time? God! Guys, seriously, man, we got to toughen up a little bit.

We have got to toughen up a little bit. Some of you 20-year-olds that work part-time show up here and you're like, I'm tired. From what? You have no adversity in life? Except maybe Battlecode 32 Black Ops helicopter game didn't download on your Nintendo.

That's a real struggle, baby. Guys, stop being so tired. Listen, you want to know when you're actually ministering for the Lord? It's not when you have a title like pastor or deacon in front of your name.

Because I've met a bunch of lazy bums that have those titles. You know when you're spiritually exhausted? After you've invested in somebody's life, and you have been absolutely hammered and exhausted, and then finally they reject what you're saying, call you a hypocrite and say, I thought you were a Christian, when you're correcting them about their sin, and they walk away never to see you again, and it breaks your heart.

That is when you're going to get hammered. That's when you're going to get hammered. And here's what you need to do. You need to go and crawl up on the pastor's couch, and you need to let me hold you, and stroke your little hair, and say, oh good, you're going to be okay.

No, man, that ain't how warriors fight. You say okay, and you find your next target, and you swing till your hand can't open no more. You Nancy, stop being so tired. The Word of God tells us, do you know what the standard for our Christian walk is?

Is that we stand for Christ until blood. How many of y 'all bled for Jesus this week? Then stop being tired and go to work. Oh, I went to church. What did he do? Well, I taught a Sunday school lesson, I sang in the choir, I preached the sermon.

Guys, what I'm doing here is not ministry. Pastors who call this ministry are liars. This is not ministry. Ministry is investing in the life of somebody else to raise them up in the image of Jesus Christ.

And it is to do it in a sacrificial manner in which there is nothing that you will not do. There is no grist you will not grind. There is no price you will not pay to see that person sanctified in the name of Jesus Christ.

Have you fought on that field this week? Guys, here's the other thing. Sometimes we don't know when to fight because we don't know what to fight for. Well, here's a great example for you. If you read Acts 20 .27, it says this, For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

Do you know how many over the years people have come up and put their arm around me? Man, Pastor, I love you. Usually when they say that, I'm waiting for the but. Pastor, I love you, but... Yesterday, man, you offended somebody.

Right? Now, here's the problem. If I personally offend for the sake of offending to subjugate someone else and make myself feel better, that is called sin. But if I preach the Word of God and the Word of God offends you, you don't need to rededicate your life to Jesus.

You need to repent. Too many of us have sat there and watched people walk down an aisle to rededicate their life to Jesus Christ, meaning they want an emotional feeling of acceptance back from God because the joy of the Lord has been missing from their life.

And they want to blame it on, I don't read my Bible enough, or I don't pray enough. That's not it. Preach the whole counsel of God. The first words out of Jesus' mouth were, Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.

You do not need to rededicate your life. You need to repent of your sins. You've got a head full of Jesus and a heart full of sin, and you cannot understand why the joy of the Lord has left you. Guys, repentance is key.

That is where you need to fight. Second thing, how do you fight? I know I went over to the SOG gym. Now I'm a fat old man, and everyone picks on me when I go over there. They call me meatbag. Hannah, Sister Hannah will put some gloves on me, kick me in the ring and say, Parker beat him up.

And Parker will just pummel me. And I'm defenseless. They all pick on me. Mississippi redneck. Guys, I'm sorry, Alabama, high praise indeed. Guys, decide. Here's how you fight. The first thing you've got to do to fight is you've got to decide to stand.

This today, how many of you are struggling with personal, private sin right now that is eating your spiritual life up? Okay, pastor, about eight or nine of you. Man, y 'all are awesome. This is an awesome church.

I don't feel worthy to be your pastor. Except most of you are just lied. Because once again, that's the Christian mantra, is on Sunday mornings, God bless you. Oh, it's so good to be alive. And you're dead, and your body and your soul are full of dead men's bones.

But if you cover it up long enough, you'll be accepted and it will go away. Except the true Christian knows that God loves us so much. Yes, Lord, I know. It never goes away, does it? Ever. Guys, some of your families are in absolute turmoil.

Your marriage is in turmoil. Men, let me tell you something. You cannot be a leader by sitting there going, I don't know what we're going to do. Ain't nobody want to follow the guy in a burning building that goes, Oh, God, we're all going to die.

That's not how it is. Do you know that the number one thing that will spread through a group of people is fear? Fear will spread quicker than almost anything else except this. Courage. One man stands up, one person stands up at your work, or in your family, or somewhere else and says, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

For it is the power of God unto salvation to all who will believe. You will start seeing people go, I agree with him. I don't want to make too big a deal of it, but I agree with him. Now you'll have also Christians that will come alongside and say, Don't offend anybody.

Let's be safe. It takes courage to stand. And if you stand, God will bring you help. Now I want you to understand this. Some of you in this room go, I can't do that. Let me tell you something. Leaders are not born, they're built.

And you know how they're built? They're built on the anvil of adversity. When you're in adversity now, if you learn how to stand and you learn how to move forward in the face of that adversity, God will build on that.

And yes, I'm not going to lie to you, that adversity will grow and it will grow and it will grow. And each time that you stand in faith and conquer it, God will bring something else along. But understand this, not only will God bring other adversity along, you will bring other people with you to peace and grace.

That's how you do it. You've got to decide to stand. Now this man here, he didn't probably start out as a very strong man. But yet we're reading about him 2 ,500 years later under the title of a valiant, mighty man of God.

How many of us in this room can say we are valiant, mighty men of God? If you're shaking your head no, when are you going to choose to fight? If not now, how much more are you going to get pushed? How much more are you going to sacrifice your family for the sake of your procrastination with a stupid TV show?

How much more fear are you going to let dictate the course of your children's life to keep going in a worldly direction so that you don't even recognize them or your grandchildren a generation from now?

How much longer? If not now, when? And it's hard sometimes, men. And yes, I know some of you will see this as sexist. Feminists, hang on, I'll get to you. Men, you were chosen by God to lead. By God. Not by this culture or a church, but by God.

Now some of you say, well my wife won't follow me. Listen, you subjugate yourself to the Lord, you will find her submitting to your leadership. Trust me on that one. Some of you say, you don't know my wife.

You don't know my God. Okay? See, it's your fear and your cowardice and your past failures. Why do you expect her to follow you that are batting zero? If you were, as a husband, an airplane pilot and you flew ten times through Paris and you crashed every time in the Atlantic Ocean, I'm not getting on the plane with you.

And you're kind of the idiot that goes, well I got you halfway there. Good job, loser. Choose today to be actually a real leader. Guys, and sometimes that means everyone else is going to run and you're going to have to stand there alone.

It is obvious by this passage of Scripture that we read that when the army and the enemy showed up, it's not that they fought and were defeated, they saw the enemy and they took off. It was hard to stand, but it's even harder sometimes to stand alone.

Guys, we in this church are an anomaly at a lot of things. But the sad part about in our nation is that we're even a bigger anomaly. And I'm going to tell you why. I'm going to tell you why. Because the church has decided, we have reshaped Christianity and the Gospel of Jesus Christ so that it is no longer offensive to those who desperately need it.

We have come to a place where we sit there and we will allow sin to continue to reign in people's lives claiming that we love them. Here's one that I get a lot. Pastor, can you not talk about people living together?

Do you not understand that nowadays people living together is acceptable? Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot. God called me to preach the Gospel but I'm supposed to go every five years to make sure I'm socially acceptable?

Stop smoking crack. Look, some of us in this room, our lives are spiritual loss because the only expectation and accountability you have in your life is your sense of moral justice and you have no one else in your life sitting there going, you can't do that.

Don't judge me as your mantra. And then you keep wondering why everything in your life keeps coming up snake eyes. It's because God said, confess your faults one to another that you may be healed. Not just helped, healed.

Alcoholics in here. We got a bunch of them, you drunks. Can you, without accountability, just keep going on? Man. Guys, if you're not in a program, you need to get into one. Today. If you're in a place where you come and you are the only bashing defense you have against your failures, let me get one closer to home.

Pornography. Whenever I say pornography, people get nervous and then I see all these men's heads do this. And some women too. Some of them go watch pornographic movies with the pastor's wife, but we won't talk about that.

God help them. I know. Thank you. This is our women's men. Thank you. That's a joke, guys. Guys, let me wrap this up a little bit. I want you to look at verse 5. 2 Samuel, chapter 23, verse 5. What do you find interesting about that verse?

Here's what another thing of knowing how to fight is. How many of you really have had over your Christian experience many times where you've crushed that crack bite? Okay. Maybe not a couple of you. Okay.

I got you. I got you. How many of you have failed? Your lustful eyes have cheated on your wife or your husband? Okay. Once again. Man, some of y 'all are just awesome. How many of y 'all in here have ever hated someone?

Have you ever been going good for Jesus and then you stumbled and fell? And then you sit there and you go, Dear Jesus, please forgive me. And you really mean it. And you do good for a while. Then you stumble again.

And then you stumble again and again and again and again and again. And then this is what your prayer life is like. You're ashamed. God ain't gonna listen to you. God ain't gonna hear you. Man, if I could just have Pastor Jeff's face.

If I could just be like Miss Carol. If I could just be as dynamic as Brother Shane. Bad example. You give him a banana and a tire swing, he's fired up. But it's like you're so embarrassed with God that you just...

What's the use of even doing it? These are the last words of David before he died. Look at verse 5 again. Now, I want you to read it in this context now. David committed adultery. David committed murder.

David was unrepentant. David's entire family went to the garbage pail. He had one son kill another son. Another son raped a sister. His family was in absolute insanity. His spiritual life looked like this constantly.

Read verse 5 again. On his last breath, he said this, For does not my house stand so with God? For He has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure. For will He not cause to prosper in all my help and my desire?

Guys, here's what you need to do to fight sometimes. You need to realize that no matter how bad you've failed, God is not done with you yet. Oh, but pastor, you don't know what I've done. No. You need to hear the words again.

Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. You need to hear again. I will never leave you nor forsake you. Oh, but pastor, I keep doing the same sin over and over again, and yet I tell you that every smallest drop of blood from that cross on Calvary is enough to cover every sin ever committed by mankind.

Do not doubt the power of God's grace and God's mercy and the rejuvenation of your faith to meet the call that God has on your life. Quit looking at your failures. Quit looking at how much of a big fat stupid loser you are.

God already knew that. That's why He came and died for us. Remember that you cannot have mercy without failure. You cannot have grace unless you don't deserve it. Some of you doubt God's grace because you're still waiting for your gold star Sunday school report to make you feel like you're accepted by God.

That is not how grace works. Where are you today? Listen, even though you've messed up, guys you've got to wake up. Guys even though you've failed, you've got to fight. Dare to stand even if it means to dare to stand alone.

Dare to have a purpose outside of going to work and having another event in your life. Whether it be a childbirth or a birthday or another Christmas or something that you've got to look forward to over here to find validation for who and what you are.

Guys decide to stand and stand alone. Desire listen, desire to find God's purpose for your life and then share it with someone else so that you will have that accountability. Many of us in here don't know how to fight because we haven't decided what to fight for.

How many lost people do you know in your life? How many lost people do you know? Man, the redneck white trash I've got in here you can't swing a dead cat in your life without finding some crackhead. You people in here, you know a lot of lost people.

Are you fighting for them? Are you ministering to them? Are you sharing them with the Gospel not just with your mouth but with your lifestyle? Some of you young people in here, are you missionary dating?

Are you expecting that man or woman to matriculate into a mature Christian while you're shacked up with them and sleeping with them? And then you wonder why the church, why the world calls us hypocrites.

You heathen, godless pig. Repent today. Understand that souls won are not won by preachers or churches or people. They're won by the Holy Spirit of God. But the reflection of our lives in the eyes of lost people give our tools that the Holy Spirit used to validate the truth of the Gospel.

How much is that truth looking at in your life? Lads, listen to me and I'll close here. Listen to me. Understand that we are reaching a time in churches where we are settling for just not losing. In other words, it's kind of like last night.

I was talking to someone and they actually said this. Well, the Titans only lost by three. Wow. That's like kissing a stepsister, you know? I mean, what do you mean? We only lost by three. We lost. Does it really matter if it's three or thirty?

Oh, well, you know, people will talk harder. We ain't worried about what people talk about. We're worried about winning the game. Guys, listen to me. I know some fight when I used to coach. When I used to coach.

I had a few guys that you could tell that they wanted to get in the ring and this is what they would say. Just to say I've done it. Just to experience. Those are the guys that are going to lose. You don't climb in the ring to experience it.

You climb in the ring to win. Guys, a tie on critical issues is an absolute loss. In our church, if we are not fighting for the next generation, filling their heads with truth against the world who is telling them and propagating lies, to simply say, well, we gave it a good whirl on a Sunday morning.

You parents who keep sending your kids to pastors and to deacons and Sunday school teachers and youth leaders and say, well, they need to put that gospel in. I ain't going to live it out in front of them and then wonder why they rebel against the hypocrisy of your life.

It is arrogant to sit there and say, well, I gave it my best shot.