Feel Like Giving Up? Watch This! | Kingsmen

Theocast

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:05

Welcome to the Kingsmen podcast, where we are reclaiming biblical manhood by training and equipping men for the work of the kingdom.

00:13

I'm John Moffitt, I'm the host, and I'm also a pastor in Spring Hill, Tennessee, of Grace Reformed Church.

00:19

And if you've not heard of another podcast we do called Theocast, I encourage you to check that out as well.

00:25

Today's one of those episodes that I want you to be able to store away on your worst day.

00:31

The day when you wake up and you feel like you don't want to go on anymore. You want to dip into the sins that you shouldn't be involved in.

00:41

You want to revert back to anger or solitude. It's those days where you can't figure out from down, and no matter how hard you try, you're not encouraged, you're not strengthened.

00:53

And then you have about five people in your mind you know you want to call and ask for help but you don't. What do you do?

01:00

Well, maybe this podcast can be that moment where you go back and say, I need to go back and get my head on straight.

01:06

I need to be reminded. I need someone to point me to truth because I can't seem to find it right now.

01:12

That's the hope of this episode. I want to tell you what I wish someone would have told me. And I have these days.

01:19

Believe me when I tell you, I have these days as well. So I'm speaking from experience. And so I want to tell you what

01:26

I would hope that someone would tell me in the midst of my depression and despair when I'm discouraged and things feel so dark that the light is impossible.

01:36

We're going to begin with, okay, no matter what you're feeling, feelings aren't reality.

01:44

I know that's hard for us to embrace. I know there are times where our emotions and what it is, the experience of what's pressing in on us, this emotional experience that creates within us.

01:56

And I'm not downplaying whatever circumstance you might be grieving. You may have just had a loss, a massive fight, whatever it is, given back into sin again.

02:06

So you're under the depression because you gave in to sin again. But there are times when you know your body is telling you lies.

02:15

You know your heart is telling you your emotions. Everything is lying to you. You're believing everything.

02:21

First of all, don't make any decisions and don't buy anything. Okay. That's the worst thing you can do.

02:26

Don't make decisions and don't buy anything because you're not thinking logically. You're thinking based upon emotions that Satan has come in and completely disrupted you.

02:35

Now what you need to hear is truth. And I want you to hear it from a one broken sinner who struggles to another broken sinner.

02:43

And we're going to look to the King together. And as Paul tells us to, he says, consider how to build one another up, that's

02:50

Hebrews. But in Galatians, it says, bear one another's burdens, the struggles that we have. And so I'm going to help walk you through what that might look like.

03:00

One of the things that we've been talking about for the last few weeks now, I guess months now, is the reality of the world.

03:09

The world is not a level playing field. You don't wake up with the same opportunities as everybody else.

03:16

And remembering that we are holding tightly onto Christ while we finish the work that's here so that he can come and fix and restore this.

03:27

I said this to my wife last night as we were driving to dinner, at times I forget we're not in a battle.

03:33

We're in a war. And there are times we lose the battles and we can lose multiple in a row.

03:40

And it just feels really hard. Like wait a minute, are we really winning this?

03:46

A lot of times we don't understand why God wrote certain things to his people.

03:52

For instance, if you read Ezekiel 38 and 39, the battle of Gog and Magog, it's a brutal battle scene.

04:00

Take Blackhawk down or Saving Private Ryan times 10. God describes just how he's going to decimate the enemy of the world.

04:10

Well, if you ever read Revelation, it's the same way. The book was written by John to people who were being persecuted to death, by the way.

04:19

They were living in exile. They were running all over the place because they were dying for their faith.

04:25

And they began to wonder, like anyone would. I mean, John the Baptist, who had seen and walked with Jesus, who prophesied that he would be the

04:34

Messiah, is in prison. He's like, ah man, is this really? Can someone go talk to Jesus and make sure he's the right one?

04:42

The strongest men have the weakest faith. We've all experienced that. And John wrote the book of Revelation to show us, in the end, the spiritual war, this two -kingdom life we live in, where there's a spiritual war happening and then the physical world that we live in.

04:59

The spiritual world wins, and then it transforms. When he's done with the war, he transforms everything.

05:06

Your body is no longer clothed with the righteousness of Christ. You are righteous. The world that we have here is no longer groaning because it's been restored.

05:15

So when you read end -time theology, it should bolster and encourage you, because God is saying,

05:21

I understand you feel the battle right now. You may have lost a couple, you may have won a couple, but I win the war, right?

05:27

Victory is mine. He's already proclaimed it. I said this a couple episodes ago, I'm going to remind you of it now.

05:34

Paul writes to Timothy, and he says, we suffer a little bit. We're going to be suffering until God has what?

05:40

For the sake of the elect, until he brings his children home. Suffering means that there are times we lose, and that loss creates discouragement.

05:49

That loss creates anxiety. And I know Paul expected us to live in anxiety, and he expected us to deal with failure, because what does he tell the

06:00

Philippian church? Cast all your cares, your anxieties, your struggles, cast them on who?

06:05

Cast literally means to fall into the arms of, to just stop holding onto them and just give them over.

06:13

And the way in which we give them over to God is we verbally tell him, Lord, I am not okay. I am upset.

06:19

I am struggling. I am doubting. And Paul says, why should you do that?

06:25

Because he cares for you. So he understands, we have a sympathetic high priest who understands our weakness because he has been tempted like we have been tempted.

06:35

He calls us to confess our sins. He calls us to cast our anxieties on him, to cast our fears on him, because he cares.

06:44

And then it's at those moments, won't we do that? We need to find methods and ways. The church is to God's design, right?

06:51

We allow, gentlemen, we allow so many things to, and I know there's ladies who listen to this, men and women, we allow so many priorities, or I would say strongholds to come in and govern our life in such a way it turns us away from the real hope that we have.

07:10

I don't think you should take lightly when the writer of Hebrews says, do not forsake the gathering of the church, because some of you are doing this and some of you are turning away from the faith and you're going back to the law, right?

07:22

The law cannot get us through our discouragement, but the gospel can. The law cannot change our hearts, but the gospel can, right?

07:31

And what's hard about when I say the gospel, man, we just, that's the hardest thing we forget.

07:37

The fact that the Bible tells us we can forget it should scare us. Second Peter literally says, you're trapped not doing the fruits of the

07:46

Spirit. You're ineffective and unrighteous because you have, what, forgotten you've been cleansed from your former sins.

07:53

The opposite of this, Paul says it this way, he says, hold fast the confession of our faith, right?

07:59

Do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord. So in those moments when you are allowing your circumstances, your feelings, your emotions, your body, your blood sugar, your exhaustion, whatever it might be, we've all felt that, and it's clouding your judgment, it's clouding your mind.

08:15

We feel like the best thing that could happen is the existence goes to an end. That's the lie of Satan.

08:21

If God was done with you, he'd take you home. He's not done with you. And you need to trust that. Every time you take a breath, you have a gracious father who says, my grace is sufficient.

08:33

I love it when Paul's struggling with some physical ailment, he too is in those moments of depression. You know,

08:39

Romans 7 is a great example of this as well. Who will save me from this body of death thinks be to Christ.

08:45

And then he goes, I cried out three times to God to help whatever my physical ailment was. And he says, my grace is sufficient to carry you through this.

08:53

This is why he says in James that, count it a joy when you enter a trial because it's going to test your faith.

09:01

Faith in what? The sufficiency and power of God over you. A trial is a situation you cannot get out of.

09:08

It's a negative experience that you cannot alter. He says, actually be okay with it and embrace it because what it's going to do is create endurance of your faith.

09:17

You're going to be able to trust God more for his power and not your power. That's why he says we walk by faith.

09:24

Faith in what? Our capacities to just pull ourselves out of this? No, we walk by faith in the capacity of Christ.

09:32

So let's start first of all, most of the time when we're dark and we're loathing and we find ourselves in deep depression, we feel weak and out of control and we feel like a failure, right?

09:45

If I would have, if I'd done this, this and that, stop. God knows you're a failure. That's why he doesn't trust you to save yourself.

09:53

You failed there already and it's an epic failure because Christ died the most gruesome death by the hatred of his father on your behalf.

10:01

So yeah, you failed big time. That's what it required for Jesus to fix that. And secondly, you're a failure at sanctifying yourself.

10:07

You cannot be holy. Guys embrace it. You're not good at being holy. So if you're struggling with that, understand that it's

10:16

Christ's righteousness, his obedience that allows us to get up in the morning and keep going. And number three, it's not up to you to make it to the end.

10:24

He who began a good work in you will complete it. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

10:31

So this moment when you're doubting and this moment when you're afraid and you're frustrated and you've fallen again, what does the writer of Hebrews say?

10:40

Setting aside the weight and the sin. By the way, that's an active action. It's not a one -time action where we set it aside once and we move on.

10:48

We are actively setting aside sin and weight that constantly is besetting us. First John 1 .9,

10:54

he is faithful to what? Forgive you when you confess with boldness, with confidence, run into the presence of your father.

11:00

So guys, if you're listening to this, I want you to right now realize your father looks upon you with love and affection.

11:07

We love him because he first loved us. While we were yet sinners, he had demonstrated that love for us by killing his son on your behalf.

11:15

Okay? He didn't say, no, take it from here and do well. He says, every day walk in that faith and that trust.

11:23

Believe in it. Let it wash over you. Let you find your confidence there. And here's the second part of this.

11:29

It's not so you can gain that confidence to go do whatever it is that you want to do. That's what gets us into this.

11:35

When we come up with our own agenda, we come up with our own purposes. We figure out what it is that we want to do.

11:41

And then we fall flat on our face again and we get, well, why is this happening? Because we're not paying attention. Okay?

11:46

God has a purpose for our life. And listen, I know that sometimes I say things like that and people are like, well,

11:52

I don't know what God's purpose is for my life. It's real simple. Love God. That's purpose number one.

12:00

And the best way to keep learning how to love God is to receive his word over and over again. So be in a good church. Have them be accountable to you.

12:07

Hear the word. Don't let anything get in the way of that. Number two, it says love your neighbor. And what we're doing when we do that is we're taking the love of God and we're being the ambassadors.

12:17

As I told you, remember, when Paul says this, we are declaring the good news of Christ to be reconciled to God.

12:24

It doesn't matter where you're at, to your family, to your neighbors, to your coworkers, by the way that you act and live.

12:29

But it's hard for us to have that mission in mind when we're wallowing in our failures and we're down here struggling.

12:38

Guys, I'm not judging you. I fall in this constantly. It's like up, down, up, down, two steps forward, 97 steps back is what it feels like, right?

12:47

It just feels like there's no progress. Well, that's because we live in a world that we're constantly being bombarded by Satan and his tactics and our own flesh.

12:54

Remove Satan out of the equation. We are good at just destroying ourselves. Then you add in an extra wave.

13:02

It's like a guy who can't swim and you go put him out in the deep water and then a wave hits him. It's like a double. It's a double whammy on him.

13:09

And that's the world that we live in. If we don't have Christ's power, we're not going to be able to do this, right? So when you finally find that confidence again of God's love and God's affection towards you and that he is not putting you in this place because of your failure, you're in this place because your eyes got off of the right power source, which is the gospel.

13:31

Now we need to get our eyes back on what it is that God has for us. I want to close with this. Theocast is doing an episode on this.

13:38

It probably comes out in a couple of days. So listen to this and then go listen to that episode. What you're going to experience is you, the gospel that you and I love, this gospel where we are reminded of the power of Christ not only to save us, but to transform us and to take us home to glory.

13:57

That gospel is being attacked on either side of us. There are going to be those over here who say, yeah, John, but if you believe that, people won't obey.

14:04

You can't emphasize grace so much like that. You can't emphasize Jesus so much in his work because then people won't want to obey.

14:10

Well, that's ridiculous. That doesn't even make logical sense. I'll just give you two passages that break that entirely down.

14:20

Galatians 3, he's talking to legalists. People are trying to use the law. He says, the way you begin is the way you continue.

14:26

You begun by faith through grace alone. You're going to continue by faith through grace alone, okay?

14:31

For the glory of God alone. Second one, 2 Peter 2, why aren't you producing fruits of the spirit?

14:37

Because you've forgotten you've been cleansed. He keeps pointing back to the work of Christ in our behalf.

14:43

The positive side of that, I've already said, he who began a good work in you will complete it. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, right?

14:51

So don't let people over here tell you your performance is what God looks to to determine whether or not you're effective or not.

14:58

It is not your performance. He looks to Christ's performance. The other side of this, which our culture is starting to feel this, you're going to see it in entertainment.

15:06

You're going to see it in the news. I have children, I have teenagers, they're feeling it. We are changing the gospel message to where the gospel is just, it's this nice relationship with God, but it doesn't really save me from my sin.

15:19

Being homosexual, being transgender, sex before marriage, all of this, which we're trying to normalize,

15:27

Romans says it this way, they suppress the truth and unrighteousness. The truth is, two genders are not supposed to be together in marriage.

15:35

We're suppressing that, right? We are told that the marriage bed is for the marriage.

15:41

Not before that. We suppress that. We normalize it, right? When you start understanding that the gospel is being attacked on either side by the self -righteous and the sinners, it feels like you're being attacked on every end.

15:54

This is why if you're not looking unto Jesus, if you're not focused in on what He's doing, and you start looking at the law, or you start looking at your own righteousness, you are going to fail.

16:05

My encouragement to you right now, as you're in this dark moment, you might be being attacked on either side, feeling not righteous or feeling tempted to give in.

16:13

Be like, yeah, well, you know, they love each other. You are now losing the power of the gospel.

16:18

You are now losing the very purpose and the essence of your life. So I'm coming down to the end here,

16:24

I want to encourage you guys with this. Hold on. Don't give up.

16:31

All right? This is hard. Remember, this is not a one -time get it done.

16:37

We are in a war. It's going to last a lifetime, but we know who wins. So you're down right now, but find that energy in Christ again.

16:47

Be encouraged. Be strengthened. And then remember, your life is very significant.

16:54

Not in the eyes of the world. The world thinks you're crazy. How many times did Paul say,

16:59

I'm not ashamed of the gospel? He says that four different times. I'm not ashamed of this message.

17:04

You might want to be ashamed of it, but don't, because it is God's power. So church, you're holding, or men, you are holding the literal power of God in your heart and your mind, and you have the capacity to proclaim it to the world and liberate them.

17:20

You can liberate people from their sin, and they can have the joy of Christ in their hearts.

17:26

If you are able to get up one more day, trust in the gospel, look to Jesus, he's your one who gave you your faith.

17:34

He'll sustain you. Just trust him in your weakness and give Christ the credit, and then go and do what you need to do as a human being, right?

17:43

Love God, love your neighbor, do your job, care for your family, care for your neighbor. Give them the hope of the gospel.

17:49

Don't let Satan win. Don't let him take us out. Don't let him make us ineffective and unfruitful.

17:56

We're not here to save ourselves, we've been saved. We're not here to rescue ourselves, we've been rescued. We are now commissioned to go rescue others, okay?

18:04

Guys, trust this. I know it's hard, and you're going to need to hear this message every week because I do.

18:10

You're going to need to be reminded of your cleansing and the power that you have and the hope that you have. And here's the last thing that's hard for us.

18:17

We can only see what's in front of us. This is why the new car and this and that is so appealing to us.

18:24

Remember it's breaking down. Go back to last week's episode, tap into the matrix and realize that this is all a lie.

18:31

That one day you will stand within the presence of your King and you will have no more fear or doubt or anxiety.

18:38

You will never experience a day of depression. You will never experience a day of failure ever again in your life. But while we wait, we hope in what?

18:47

In Christ's sufficiency, not our obedience. In Christ's power, not in our capacity.

18:53

In Christ's promises, not our verbal promises, right? Okay, guys, I hope that's encouraging to you.

18:59

If you're down and it didn't make sense, go back to the beginning and listen again. Hopefully it encouraged you. Find a brother, pray with them, speak the gospel to each other, find a church, be committed to it.

19:09

If they're not preaching the gospel, move. Go find a church and move there and be a part of that kingdom mission because that's where real hope is, is in the community of people who are preaching the gospel.

19:21

All right, we'll see you soon. God bless you.