Chase the Lion - Part 1: Defying Odds

Several of you have been asking for audio of my messages. We currently do not have the capacity to record our messages (working on that), so I thought I would post my messages on here for those of you who are missing some of them. Please encourage your friends to check out our messages here, also.

These messages are from our series "Chase the Lion." They are inspired by and adapted from the book In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day and the accompanying messages by Mark Batterson, pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C.

I believe this message series has the potential to change your life, to change the way you see your life, your approach to life, the things you see as significant in life, and the things you give yourself for in life.

What is the biggest disappointment in your life? What has been your worst failure, your greatest challenge, your biggest fear? What are the biggest difficulties in your life, what are the things that you are most nervous about? Now, what if the life you’ve always wanted and the future God wants for you are hiding right now in the middle of those things? What if the lions in your life are the very things that God wants to use to bring about this incredible life that he has in store for you?

“Chase the Lion” is about taking on those challenges in our lives, facing them, and chasing them down to live out the life that God has for us. This whole series is based on this story in the Old Testament about a guy named Benaiah. Benaiah was one of King David’s “mighty men,” kind of like his special forces. These were the elite warriors in David’s army. There were only thirty of them.

2 Samuel 23 tells the stories of David’s mighty men, and tucked away in that chapter is Benaiah’s story. Now, you may have read this story before and never given it a second thought. No major doctrine of Scripture comes from this passage. You’ve probably never used it for a memory verse. But the important principle is about how God uses what we think are bad situations for his good. 2 Samuel 23:20-23 says,

“There was also Benaiah son of Jehoiada, a valiant warrior from Kabzeel. He did many heroic deeds, which included killing two of Moab's mightiest warriors. Another time he chased a lion down into a pit. Then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it. Another time, armed only with a club, he killed a great Egyptian warrior who was armed with a spear. Benaiah wrenched the spear from the Egyptian's hand and killed him with it. These are some of the deeds that made Benaiah almost as famous as the Three. He was more honored than the other members of the Thirty, though he was not one of the Three. And David made him commander of his bodyguard.” 2 Samuel 23:20-23 (NLT)

Now, it’s easy to read those verses from the comfort of your living room or here in our worship center. But for Benaiah, the day he squared off with a lion in a pit on a snowy day, probably did not seem like a very good day. In fact, it probably seemed like a terrible day. But God used that in a significant way in Benaiah’s life. Now, we are going to be looking at that passage through seven different lenses: defying odds, facing your fears, reframing your problems, embracing uncertainty, taking risks, seizing opportunities, and looking foolish.

So, today, we are going to look at defying odds. Take a look at each of the stories about Benaiah. In each one, he’s not the odds on favorite. Two mighty Moabite warriors. Now, I don’t know, but I’m guessing the odds were at least two to one against Benaiah. Or how about taking on a giant Egyptian warrior when you are armed with a club and he has a big spear. Number one, Egyptian has the size advantage. Number two, I’m taking long, sharp pointy thing over a club. So, Benaiah is not the odds on favorite there. I mean, he brought a stick to a knife fight.

And then, there’s the lion. Can you just imagine? Benaiah is walking along one day bowed against the cold and the snow, when suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he spots movement. He turns and looks, and twenty yards away, there's a lion. Now, the normal human reaction when you see a lion is to do what? Run, Forrest, run! But not Benaiah. Counterintuitively, he gives a battle cry and chases the lion. And then, the lion does the least likely thing. It runs away. Benaiah gives chase, and somewhere in the pursuit, the lion slips and falls into a pit. So, what would you do then? Turn and walk away and thank God for your good luck, right? But not Benaiah. He jumps in the pit with the lion and kills the lion.

Now, the lion has several advantages over Benaiah. A fully grown lion weighs upwards of five hundred pounds. It runs at a top speed of 35 miles an hour. It has cat-like agility and reflexes, which have to give it the advantage on slippery, snowy ground. Lions can see five times better than a human with 20/20 vision, which has to help it in the dim light of a pit. Odds makers in Jerusalem probably weren’t betting on Benaiah.

But Benaiah was a guy who took on the odds. I’m a Star Wars fan. I grew up with Star Wars. The first Star Wars movie came out when I was in kindergarten, so I just love them. And my favorite character in Star Wars was Han Solo. Han Solo was a little bit of a rebel, he's pilot of the Millenium Falcon, and he's just a cool guy. Well, in The Empire Strikes Back Han Solo and his friends are in the Millenium Falcon trying to escape from Darth Vader and the Empire. And they are about to enter asteroid field. The android, C3PO, tells Han Solo, "Sir, the odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field are 637,304 to 1 [or something like that]." Han Solo looks at C3PO and says, "Never tell me the odds," and he enters the asteroid field. That’s the kind of guy Benaiah was. He defied the odds.

And here’s the thing, God loves that. God delights in times when the odds are stacked against him. You look throughout the Bible, and God often doesn’t act until the odds are stacked against him. In fact, there are a few times in the Bible where God intentionally stacks the odds against himself before he acts. Look at Judges 7:2-3:

“The LORD said to Gideon, ‘You have too many warriors with you. If I let all of you fight the Midianites, the Israelites will boast to me that they saved themselves by their own strength. Therefore, tell the people, “Whoever is timid or afraid may leave and go home.”’ Twenty-two thousand of them went home, leaving only ten thousand who were willing to fight.” (NLT)

Those times and situations when the odds are stacked against us are typically unpleasant. They don’t seem like fun at the time, but when the odds are stacked against us in life, when it doesn’t seem like we can make it through, when it seems like all hope is lost, those are the times when God can act in incredible ways in our lives. Most of the stories from your life that are worthwhile are probably times when the odds were against you.

The odds were against me when I told God I would be a preacher. I took a risk when I asked LaRissa to marry me. She took an even greater risk when she said yes. The odds were against LaRissa and I being able to have children. Doctors told us we probably wouln't be able to have children and that we should consider adoption, but we now have four children of our own. All those are amazing stories of God’s goodness in my life. Lion chasers are people who don’t back down when the odds are against them. They are people who see those moments as times when God can act.

So, let me just take a few minutes today to tell you how to beat the odds. First, you’ve got to seize the God-sized opportunities in life. You’ve got to see those times when the odds are stacked against you as ppportunities for God to come through in miraculous ways in life, and you’ve got to take advantage of those times. Lion-chasers know that mipossible odds set the stage for amazing miracles. Seizing those poportunities are what make our stories testimonies of what God has done in our lives. What if instead of taking on two Moabite warriors, Benaiah had gotten a buddy and they defeated two Mennonite farmers? Or what if instead of defeating a giant Egyptian with a spear, Benaiah had fought a pygmy with a water pistol? Or what if Benaiah had chased his cat into his bed on a sunny day? We certainly wouldn’t be talking about him here today. It is precisely because he seized the opportunities, even when the odds were against him, that his story is worth telling.

Here’s the principle, God’s greatest opportunities often come disguised as 500 pound lions. They are often our biggest challenges, our greatest fears, our worst failures, our biggest difficulties, our greatest disappointments. What you do when you face those lions defines your life. Listen, this is the thesis for this whole message series: Your life is defined by the lions you chase. Chase the lions in life.

There’s another guy in the Bible who took on some pretty big odds in his life. His name is David. David was a teenage boy who watched his father's sheep. His brother's had gone off to war against the Philistines. And the Philistines had this giant warrior named Goliath who was taunting the Israelites and challenging any of them to come out and fight him. And the Israelites were all cowering in fear. Well, one day, David comes to deliver supplies to the army, and he hears Goliath's challenge, and he says, "I'll take him on." His brothers say, "David, you're just a little kid. Go back home." But David is persistent, and he goes to King Saul and tells him that he wants to fight Goliath.

“But David said to Saul, ‘Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.’”

And God does just what David says he will. Here’s the thing, when you are faithful to take on the opportunities God gives to you, he gives you greater opportunities. A lot of us want God to give us great opportunities, to give us big challenges, but we aren’t responding to the challenges he has already given us.

Now, how did those situations turn into opportunity for Benaiah. He became the captain of David’s bodyguard. David is going through the stack of resumes for his bodyguard. "I graduated from the Jerusalem police academy." Nope. "Served a tour of duty against the Philistines on the Gaza Strip." Uh-uh. "I worked as a supervisor for Brinks armored chariots." Not hardly. "One snowy day, I chased a lion into a pit and killed it." That's the man.

What are you going to do when you encounter situations where the odds aren’t in your favor? Are you going to run away scared to death, or are you going to chase down those lions? Seize the God-sized opportunities in life.

Second, to beat the odds, you’ve got to spend time in prayer. Now, I’m making an assumption here, but I think it’s a reasonable assumption. I’m assuming that on the day Benaiah locked eyes with that lion, that he said a little prayer. If you are up against the odds, you’ve got to ask God to work, to do something. Now, we’re not going to spend a whole lot of time on this one. But I just wanted to take a minute to point something out, and I’ll say this about my life, and if it’s true about yours, then you apply it to yourself. I have found that my prayers often involve asking God to reduce the odds in my favor. I’m asking God to stack the deck for me in life, to make it safe and easy and comfortable for me to follow God instead of asking God to do something so big and incredible and amazing and maybe risky and scary and challenging that he gets all the glory for it. Look at Matthew 21:21:

“I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt … you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

The problem is, most of the time we don’t ask God to move mountains. Most of the time we ask him to reduce the size of the mountain, to make life more manageable, instead of asking God to do something really big in our lives. And what we wind up doing is we try to manage God.

Last week, before our services started, I was praying for the service, and I asked God to do something totally unexpected, to do something we hadn't planned for, to surprise us. And I had told our team that one of my big goals for the day was to make sure we started on time. Well, five minutes before our service is about to start, we hear this loud crash. A huge gust of wind had come along and blown the canopies that we do children's ministry under on top of the building. Fortunately, no children were under there and no one was hurt, but, needless to say, we did not get started on time. But God answered my prayer, pretty quickly. I asked God to surprise me, and He did. He just didn't surprise me the way I expected Him to surprise me, which isn't really a surprise anyways. Here's what I learned, I had expectations about the way I wanted God to surprise me. I wanted God to do something that I didn't have planned, yet I kind of planned the unplanned thing I wanted God to do. I was trying to manage God, and He made sure I didn't do that.

Here’s the great thing, God knows way better than we do what’s going on in our lives, so he doesn’t always answer in accordance with what we ask or believe or imagine him to do. “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen” (Ephesians 3:20-21).

When we bring to God situations in our lives where the odds seem stacked against us, God says, “Oh, I can do way better than that.” Here’s what happens when we pray, God gets a little bit bigger and our problems get a little bit smaller.

Now, I want to get to the third way you beat the odds, because this really is the heart of the matter. You beat the odds by changing your perspective. Listen, I’m pretty convinced that most of our problems are not circumstantial. Most of our problems are perceptual. Our problems seem really big because our God is really small. If we really had the right perspective, we wouldn’t be quite as scared of a 500 pound lion.

A.W. Tozer said, “A low view of God is the source of a hundred lesser evils, but a high view of God is the solution to ten thousand temporal problems.” If we had a big enough understanding of God, then all of a sudden ten thousand problems don’t matter any more. If your God is smaller than a 500 pound lion and you cross paths with a lion, you are going to run the other way, but if your God is bigger than a 500 pound lion, you just might chase that lion. If we really understood how powerful, how amazing, how incredible, how wise and all-knowing God really is, we wouldn’t be as scared of a 500 pound lion.

Let me show you a passage of Scripture that really is the foundational passage for being able to go after the lions in your life.

“‘My thoughts are completely different from yours,’ says the LORD. ‘And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.’” Isaiah 55:8-9 (NLT)

Astronomers tell us that the farthest reaches of our universe, or at least as far as they are able to see, are 13.2 billion light years away. Now, light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles per second. In the time it takes you to snap your fingers, light travels around the globe six times. Now, if you do the math, and I did because I’m a nerd like that, in a year, light travels 5.87 trillion miles, that’s a light year. So, what that means is, the furthest reaches of our universe, as far as we know, are 13.2 billion times 5.88 trillion miles away. It’s a number so big, we can’t even fathom it. And God says, “That’s about the distance between your thoughts and my thoughts.” Your best thoughts about God on your best days fall approximately 13.2 billion times 5.88 trillion miles short of just how great and how awesome and how amazing and how good God really is.

So many of our problems stem from the fact that we are trying to understand our lives and what God is doing in our lives from the limited perspective of our own finiteness. We are trying to grasp an infinite, amazing, incredible God.

Look, that’s the problem with atheism. Atheists say, I cannot fathom a universe with a god I cannot perceive, I cannot understand God, therefore he must not exist. Now, do you see, for the atheist, human understanding is the measure of all things. How arrogant? Suddenly, we have become the center of the universe, and what we are able to understand is the limits of what can or cannot be.

Listen, I am so thankful that there are times that I cannot fathom what God is doing in my life. But here’s the payoff, if we can even begin to get a tiny understanding of how big and how amazing and how powerful God really is, then all of a sudden, our 500 pound lions look like cute, furry kittens. Romans 8:31 says, "If God is for us, who can be against us?."

God doesn’t fit within the confines of our brains, and that sometimes drives us crazy, because we want a God who we can comprehend and we can control. But God is incomprehensible and uncontrollable. And we have a choice to make. We can either learn to embrace the mystery and majesty of God and celebrate what we can’t comprehend or control, or we can create God in our image. We can downsize God so we can comprehend him and control him. But you know what, if your God is no bigger than the limits of what you can understand and what you can control, then when you cross paths with the lions in life, you’re going to run away. I don’t want to run away. I want to do something crazy and amazing and incredible for God. So, thank God he blows my mind with what he is capable of doing.

In Prince Caspian, one of the books in The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis, there’s this conversation between Lucy, this little girl, and Aslan, the Christ-figure in the books. Aslan is this giant lion. And Lucy and Aslan haven’t seen each other for a year. And Lucy says, “Aslan, you’re bigger.” And Aslan says, “That’s because you’re older, little one.” She says, “Not because you are?” And Aslan says, “I am not, but every year you grow, you will find me bigger.” Every year you grow, you will find me bigger. And that’s the way it is with our relationship with God. The more we grow, the bigger he gets. Listen, chasing lions is not about some foolish act of dumb courage. It is about defying odds because we believe in a God who is bigger than we can fathom or control.

Let me tell you some ways that you can magnify God in your life. Read your bible. You read your bible and you find out things about God that you never grasped, you never understood. Worship. You praise God for who he is, and he grows in your understanding. Missions. Nothing has increased my understanding of God as great as missions. Here’s really the question: How big is your God? Is he bigger than your biggest problem? Is he bigger than your worst failure? Is he bigger than your biggest disappointment? G.K. Chesterton said, “How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer of a higher God could smash your small cosmos.”

Don't back down. Defy the odds. Chase the lion.