Chase the Lion - Part 7: Looking Foolish

The following message is from The Crossroads Community Church message series "Chase the Lion." The messages 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.

Today, we are closing out our series called “Chase the Lion.” And “Chase the Lion” has been all about answering the question “What if the life you really want and the future god wants for you are hiding right now in your biggest problem, your worst failure … your greatest fear?” God wants to use those challenges in your life, and he doesn’t want you to back down from them.

Today, we are going to look at the last characteristic of being a lion-chaser, and that is looking foolish. Each week we have been looking at the same story from the Bible through these seven different lenses: defying odds, facing your fears, overcoming adversity, embracing uncertainty, taking risks, seizing opportunities, and now looking foolish. This all comes from 2 Sam. 23:20-23:

“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.”

Benaiah was one of David’s mighty men, his elite forces. There are three instances recorded in 2 Samuel 23 about Benaiah’s life. He faced off against two mighty Moabite warriors, he took on a giant Egyptian who had a spear with only a club, and one snowy day, he chased a lion into a pit and killed it. And as a result of all those feats of strength and courage and daring, he eventually becomes captain of David’s bodyguard, and eventually commander of all the army of Israel.

But I want you to imagine, what if Benaiah had encountered the lion, chased the lion, the lion falls in a pit, Benaiah jumps in after him, and the lion kills him. What would everybody have thought? Would he have been remembered as a valiant warrior? Would he have been considered a mighty man? No. He would have been thought a fool. His tombstone would have said, “Here lies Benaiah, a complete idiot.”

But, you know, I believe deep down inside every follower of Jesus Christ, there is a primal desire to do something crazy for God. We want to chase a lion like Benaiah. But our fear of looking foolish keeps us from attempting some amazing things for God.

Poll after poll shows that most people’s number one fear is the fear of speaking in public. Death ranks number two. That means there are a lot of people who would rather die than speak in public. Why? It’s the fear of looking foolish.

But, the willingness to look foolish is one of the key facets of faith. Throughout history, the people who God uses most are the people who are willing to look the most foolish. Noah looked foolish building a giant boat in the middle of the desert where it had never rained and nobody even knew what rain was. Sarah looked foolish buying maternity clothes when she was 90 years old. The Israelites looked foolish when they laid siege to the fortified city of Jericho by marching around it and blowing on trumpets. David looked foolish as a teenage boy attacking a giant with a sling shot and a stone. Benaiah looked foolish chasing a lion. The wise men looked foolish following a star for thousands of miles to find a baby. Peter looked foolish stepping out of a boat in the middle of a lake. And Jesus looked foolish hanging half-naked on a cross dying for the very people who were executing him.

But Noah was saved from the flood. Sarah gave birth to Isaac. The walls of Jericho came crashing down. David killed Goliath. Benaiah killed the lion. The wise men found the Messiah. Peter walked on water. And Jesus rose from the dead. Do you know why so many of us haven’t killed a giant or walked on water or seen the walls come tumbling down? Because we aren’t willing to look foolish.

Now, today, I want to show you two hindrances that you have to let go of to be able to embrace looking foolish for God, or how to look foolish. Now, look, it’s easy to look foolish. Literally, any idiot can look foolish. The key is, being willing to look foolish for God so that you can embrace the life God has for you. You see, following God’s purpose and plan and God’s will for your life will often look foolish to other people. Look at what 1 Corinthians 1:27 says, “God deliberately chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise.” God delights in using things that look foolish from a human perspective, because when he does amazing things through foolish things, two things happen: he gets the glory, and human wisdom gets confounded.

So, let’s take a look at how to look foolish, two hindrances to you being willing to look foolish for God. First, you have to let go of the need to conform. The need to fit in, the need to be like everybody else, the need to do what everybody else is doing, the need to go with the flow, to follow the crowd. The refusal to stand out from the crowd. We are often hindered from our ability to chase lions that God puts in our path and embrace the life that God has for us, because we don’t want to be different. We don’t want to stand out from the crowd.

The essence of Jesus’ teaching here on earth is the Sermon on the Mount, this sermon Jesus preached one day on a hillside by the Sea of Galilee. And, kind of the theme verse for the sermon on the mount is Mt. 6:8: “Do not be like them.” Jesus wants us to be non-conformists. Don’t do what everybody else is doing just because everybody else is doing it. Don’t think or act or be like everybody else.

There’s this thing educators call divergent thinking. And divergent thinking is intellectual originality. It is creativity and counterintuitive thought. It is creative thinking. It’s seeing things from a different perspective, doing things your own way. Between the ages of three and five, ninety-eight percent of children score in genius category for divergent thinking. Between the ages of eight and ten, the percentage drops to thirty-two percent. By the time they are teenagers it drops to ten percent, and after age twenty-five, only two percent of us score in the genius category for divergent thinking. Gradually, we are taught and pressured and trained to be like everybody else and think like everybody else and act like everybody else.

But I think divergent thinking, divergent spirituality is one of the keys to spiritual maturity. Rom. 12:2 says, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” We are supposed to proactively resist conforming. And not just that, we are supposed to be transformed, continually being reshaped and refashioned. And, we are supposed to be tranformers ("more than meets the eye"). We are supposed to actively bring about transformation in the world around us.

Somewhere along the way, I think we may have missed the point. Christians are supposed to be non-conformists. Yet, somehow, Christians have become the most conforming group in our society. We look the same, act the same, talk the same, vote the same. We are the most conservative people in our nation. But we are supposed to be the change agents. We should be dangerous to be around.

Hello, have you read the Bible? God tells Ezekiel to cook his food over dung for a year. He tells Hosea to marry a prostitute. He speaks to Balaam through a donkey. One time, just for kicks, he afflicts the Philistines with a plague of hemorrhoids. His Son was born in a barn. None of that is normal. But here’s what I’ve learned. There’s no such thing as normal. As soon as we get over our need to conform to whatever normal is, we will be much freer to do what God has called us to do with our lives.

Look at John 8:36: “So if the Son makes you free, you will be truly free.” As Christians, we should be the freest people in the world to be the person God has called us to be. To stop trying to be like everybody else, and be the person God has called us to be. I believe Christians should be the most creative people in the world. I believe we should be the best artists, the best musicians, the best writers, the best scientists, the best thinkers the world has ever known, because we are free to be who we really are. When you have experienced the freedom that comes from knowing Christ, then you don’t worry about looking foolish.

Then, the second thing you have to do to look foolish is let go of pride. You see, another reason we are afraid to look foolish is because we are afraid of what other people will think of us. We have to let go of the need to be cool, the need to be accepted, the need to be popular. We have to let go of ego, let go of self. When you are more worried about your self-image than pleasing God, you can’t be used by God. In fact, when you begin to exalt yourself over God in your life, it won’t be long before God does something to humble you. “God sets himself against the proud, but he shows favor to the humble” (James 4:6). When you try to protect your own ego at the expense of what God wants you to do, in other words, when you aren’t willing to look foolish for God, you cut yourself off from being used by God in a significant way.

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is when David brought the ark of the covenant back to Jerusalem. The ark was this gold-covered box that represented God’s presence among his people. It had originally lived in the tabernacle, the place of worship for people in the Old Testament. But it had been hidden away for the last hundred years. So, David decides to bring it back to Jerusalem, and has some trouble along the way getting it there. Finally, he gets the ark to Jerusalem. And the Bible says that as the ark is entering the city, that David leads the procession and he strips down to his underoos and dances before the Lord with all his might. Well, his wife, Michal is watching, and when David walks through the door, she says, dripping with sarcasm, “How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls.” And I love David’s response.

“David retorted to Michal, ‘I was dancing before the LORD, who chose me above your father and his family! [Just a little dig there.] He appointed me as the leader of Israel, the people of the LORD. So I am willing to act like a fool in order to show my joy in the LORD. Yes, and I am willing to look even more foolish than this.” 2 Samuel 6:21-22

David didn’t care what Michal or anybody else thought. He was willing to put his pride on the line to totally give himself in worship of the Lord. He says, you think I acted like a fool today. Well, I was doing it all for the Lord, and when it comes to what I’m willing to do to show my love for the Lord, you ain’t seen nothing yet. I’ll become even more foolish than this. That’s the kind of life God uses, people who are willing to lay it all on the line for God. Look at what Jesus says about following him, Matthew 16:25: “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.”

The fear of foolishness paralyzes us in life. I can’t share my faith—I might look foolish. I can’t pray for a miracle—I might look foolish. I can’t get involved in a ministry—I might look foolish. I can’t seek out counseling—I might look foolish. I can’t change majors—I might look foolish. I can’t quit my job—I might look foolish. I can’t ask them out on a date—I might look foolish. I can’t raise my hand—I might look foolish. I can’t be baptized in front of everybody—I might look foolish.

But if you will be willing to look foolish for God, if you will embrace the incredible life God has for you, you just might find that there is some amazing stuff God wants to do in your life. Look at 1 Corinthians 1:25: “This ‘foolish’ plan of God is far wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God's weakness is far stronger than the greatest of human strength.”

So, what lion is God calling you to chase? Let me give you a lion chaser’s manifesto: Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Grab life by the mane. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Don’t let what’s wrong with you keep you from worshipping what’s right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze a new trail. Criticize by creating. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don’t try to be who you’re not. Be yourself. Laugh at your-self. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away. Chase the lion!

Chase the Lion - Part 6: Seizing Opportunities

The following message is from The Crossroads Community Church message series "Chase the Lion." The messages 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.

“Chase the Lion” is all about answering the question “What if the life you really want and the future God wants for you are hiding right now in your biggest problem, your worst failure … your greatest fear?” God wants to use those challenges in your life, and he doesn’t want you to back down from them.

Now, today, we are going to talk about seizing opportunities. We all love Starbucks. Starbucks is literally a worldwide phenomenon. It is synonymous with coffee and coffeehouses. It seems like there is a Starbucks on every street corner, every mall and every hospital in America. Pretty soon there are going to be Starbucks in Starbucks. But it didn’t start out that way.

When Howard Schultz purchased Starbucks on August 15, 1987 it was a small chain of coffeehouses in Seattle. Nothing more. Nothing less. Howard Schultz said his big, audacious goal was to open a store in Portland, Oregon. A few decades later, there are 15,000 stores in 44 countries with approximately 35 million customer visits every week! And for what it’s worth, Starbucks opens 5 new stores every day 365 days a year.

But Howard Schultz almost passed up the opportunity because it seemed too big. Schultz said it felt like a case of the salmon swallowing the whale. In other words, it seemed like a 500 pound lion. The asking price was $4 million. Schultz describes it this way in his autobiography, Pour Your Heart Into It:

“This is my moment, I thought. If I don’t seize the opportunity, if I don’t step out of my comfort zone and risk it all, if I let too much time tick on, my moment will pass. I knew that if I didn’t take advantage of this opportunity, I would replay it in my mind for my whole life, wondering: What if?”

On June 26, 1992—less than five years after Howard Schultz seized the opportunity—Starbucks’ stock went public. It was the second most active stock traded on the NASDAQ and by the closing bell, its market capitalization stood at $273 million. Not bad for a $4 million investment. Schultz saw an opportunity and he seized it.

So, today, we’re going to talk about how to seize opportunities in your life. Benaiah, the guy in the Old Testament that we are looking at, seized the opportunities that were put in front of him.

“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)

The biggest dangers, the scariest moments, the most challenging times, the biggest lions, become the doors of opportunity for Benaiah.

There’s this verse, tucked away in Colossians 4 that maybe you have missed. Colossians 4:5: “Make the most of every opportunity.” This Scripture doesn’t specify how many or how few opportunities. It doesn’t quantify how small or how large the opportunity. We simply need to make the most of every opportunity. The word translated opportunity in Colossians 4:5 is the Greek word kairos. It refers to a serendipitous window of opportunity.

During the holidays, a lot of times you will see signs in advertisements that says “for a limited time only.” You could post that across so many of the opportunities that God places in our lives, “for a limited time only.” So, you have the seize moment, take advantage of the opportunities while they present themselves.

Seeing and seizing opportunities is an underappreciated dimension of spiritual maturity. We are surrounded by God-ordained opportunities—opportunities to love, opportunities to laugh, opportunities to give, opportunities to learn, opportunities to serve. Seeing and seizing those opportunities is at the heart of what it means to follow Christ and be filled with the Spirit.

So, how do you seize opportunities by the mane? How do you take advantage of the opportunities that come along in life? And, listen, before we go any further, it’s important to understand that I’m talking about the opportunities that God gives you to make a difference in the world, not just any old opportunity.

Well, you do three things. First, be alert. You’ve got to be alert to the opportunities that arise in your life. A lot of the opportunities that come along in life, we don’t seize them because we don’t see them. We get so tied up in our own worlds and in the things that we have to do, that we miss the things that God wants us to do in life. So, we have to change our focus. I love the Message translation of Colossians 3:2:

“Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that's where the action is. See things from his perspective.”

What causes us to miss opportunities so often is that we can’t see past what we have to get done right now. It’s the tyranny of the urgent. The urgent stuff in our lives keeps us from being able to do anything else. There’s all this stuff that has to get done, so we miss out on what needs to be done. So, you have to go through life with eyes open to see what is happening around you that has kingdom significance. See other people through the eyes of Jesus.

Look at Ephesians 5:16-17: “Make the most of every opportunity for doing good in these evil days. Don't act thoughtlessly, but try to understand what the Lord wants you to do.” You see, the Bible teaches us that God is always at work around you. God is always working all of history to bring about his purpose and his plan. And you’ve got to be ready when your moment arrives. You’ve got to be on the lookout for where God is at work. To do that, you have to give consideration to what God is doing in your life. You can’t be thoughtless. But let me tell you a little secret from the life of Benaiah. Most of the life-changing, world-changing moments in your life don’t look that way in the beginning.

They usually appear in one of two ways. Either, they are a mustard seed. They’re tiny, just a little dream that you may have. A casual conversation with someone where God stirs something in your heart. Several years ago, I went on a mission trip to Mexico doing Vacation Bible School during the summer. While I was there, the missionary told me that each year, hundreds of people die in the city during the winter because of exposure or because they build little charcoal fires to keep warm and die of carbon monoxide poisoning. Their lives could literally be saved by a blanket. Just a little conversation. But it stirred something in me. And when I got back home, I talked to our church about it. That first year at Christmas we delivered 150 blankets to Mexico. Three years later, we delivered 1,400 blankets to Mexico. You’ve got to be alert to see those opportunities.

Then, the other way God’s opportunities come into our lives is disguised as 500 pound lions. They present themselves as huge problems, challenges, difficulties. I’m guessing that when Benaiah saw that lion on a snowy day, he wasn’t thinking, “This is my opportunity to rise through the ranks and become commander of Israel’s army.” You take on each of the challenges, each of the opportunities God gives to you, and he gives you greater ones.

So, how do you be alert to see those opportunities. You have to be in prayer mode. Look at Colossians 4:1: “Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.” The word watchful is a throwback to the Old Testament watchmen whose job it was to sit on the city wall, scan the horizon, and keep watch. They were the first ones to see an attacking army or traveling traders. People who live in prayer mode are watchmen. They see further than others see. They see things before others see them. And they see things other people don’t see. Look at Psalm 5:3: “In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.” When you live life in prayer mode, you expect God to respond, you expect God to do something. And as a result, you are more attuned to what God is doing. Think of it this way, if you are thinking about buying a new car. And you shop around, and you find one car in particular that you really like and you start to think about buying that car. All of a sudden, what happens? Everywhere you go, you start seeing that car. You are attuned to seeing that car. That’s what prayer does in our spiritual lives. As we pray for God to give us opportunities, it creates an awareness in us of those opportunities in life. So, you have to be alert, and prayer is how you do that.

Second, be available. A lot of times we miss opportunities that God gives us to make a difference because we are not available, because we have too much going on. We see the opportunity, we know what we are supposed to do, and we say, “Hey, God that’s great, but I just don’t have time right now. Can you call on me when it’s more convenient?” But the more convenient time never arrives.

Listen, I’m pretty sure that Jesus had the most important job that anyone has ever had ever in the history of the world. I mean, he came to save humanity from their sins. And yet, he was always available to do what the Father wanted him to do. The last week of his life, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, and there was this blind guy who wanted Jesus to heal him. And the guy is calling out to Jesus and making a commotion. And the disciples tell the guy to be quiet. Jesus doesn't have time to mess with him. The story is found in Luke 18:40-41: “Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him. When he came near, Jesus asked him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’” Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem to die on a cross for the sins of the world. But for a moment, all of human history is put on hold, because there’s a blind guy who needs a touch from Jesus.

So, here’s what you do. Say, “God, I’m ready to be used by you. And God, I’ve got my schedule, and I’ve got the things that I want to do, and I need to do, but God, at any time today, if you’ve got something you want me to do, feel free to interrupt my schedule at any time. I’m available.” You see, here’s another thing about opportunities. God’s opportunities most often appear as interruptions. Look at Jesus’ life. Most of his miracles, most of his healings, came as a result of an interruption. Healing the blind man, healing the lame man, healing the woman with the hemorrhaging disorder, bringing Jairus’ daughter back to life, they were all interruptions.

Take a look at Benaiah’s life. I’m pretty sure that none of the three stories listed there, the two mighty Moabites, the big Egyptian with the spear, and the lion on a snowy day, I’m pretty sure none of those were on his schedule for the day. They were interruptions.

I don’t think that God takes delight in interrupting our lives. I think it’s that most of the time we don’t leave any space for God, so he has to interrupt our lives. But you’ve got to be ready and available when he does interrupt. Respond like Isaiah did, Isaiah 6:8: "Here am I, Lord, send me." Many of us would respond, “Here am I, Lord, I’m too busy.” People who seize opportunities are people who are ready at a moment’s notice. God wants to use you in amazing and incredible ways. God wants you to make a difference. And God has some opportunities for you that are more amazing than you can imagine, but you have to be available.

Third, to seize opportunity by the mane, take action. When the moment comes, when opportunity arises, don’t just talk about it, don’t stand around and wait, do something. It’s not enough just to be alert. It’s not enough just to be available You’ve got to take action. Take action when the moment arrives. Get into gear and act. Look at Ecclesiastes 11:4: “If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done.” If we had waited for perfect conditions to get married, to have kids, to start a church, we never would have done any of those things.

Benaiah seems like the kind of guy who takes action. I mean, chasing a lion into a pit on a snowy day and then jumping in the pit with the lion, not the most logical thing in the world to do. Some people would say, it wasn’t prudent. And maybe there was a voice in the back of Benaiah’s head that said, “Wouldn’t be prudent.” But the Bible doesn’t describe Benaiah as prudent. It says he was valiant. Benaiah could have done what was prudent and run away and maybe he would have survived. But lion chasers aren’t the most prudent people on the planet. They aren’t focused on avoiding problems. They want to chase them down and overcome them. They seize God-sized opportunities by the mane and wrestle them to the ground.

Look, there are times when you should be prudent, do the logical thing, do the responsible thing. But at the end of the day, when it’s all said and done, and they put you in the ground, what would you rather it say on your tombstone, “a prudent person” or “a valiant warrior”?

Take action. James 4:17 says, “Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.” Once you know what you ought to do, do it. The moment you know what God wants you to do is the moment God wants you to start doing something.

The English word opportunity comes from the Latin phrase ob portu. In the days before modern harbors, ships had to wait till flood tide to make it into port. The Latin phrase “ob portu” referred to that moment in time when the tide would turn. The captain and crew would wait for that one moment, and they knew that if they missed it, they would have to wait for another tide to come in. Shakespeare uses this idea in the following lines from Julius Caesar. He says,

“There is a tide in the affairs of men

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries

On such a full sea we are now afloat;

And we must take the current when it serves,

Or lose our ventures.”

Are you going to take the opportunities that are placed before you in life, or are you going to miss them and be bound in shallows all your life, waiting on another opportunity to come.

Spiritual maturity is all about seeing and seizing opportunities. And that is how our spiritual journey begins. It begins by seizing the greatest opportunity we’ll ever be offered—the opportunity to spend eternity with God. John 1:12 says, “But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.” All we have to do to seize the opportunity is to receive Christ.

Chase the Lion - Part 5: Taking Risks

The following message is from The Crossroads Community Church message series "Chase the Lion." The messages 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.

On October 31st, 1517, a monk named Martin Luther walked up to the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany and posted a piece of paper on the church doors. His 95 theses listed 95 points of contention with the sale of indulgences—the selling of forgiveness by the church. Luther was put on trial. He was excommunicated from the church. But that one act of courage had a domino effect—it ignited the Protestant Reformation.

On April 18th, 1945, a factory owner named Oskar Schindler had a list of 1097 names manually typed—297 women and 800 men. He rescued them from Nazi Concentration Camps. Schindler lost everything. He died broke. But that one act of courage had a domino effect—a half-century later, there are more than 6,000 descendants of the people on Schindler’s list.

On December 1st, 1951, a seamstress named Rosa Parks got on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Segregation laws required black passengers to give up their seat for white passengers. Rosa Parks refused to do it. She was arrested. She lost her job. But that one act of courage had a domino effect—it inspired a citywide boycott and a court battle. Within two years, bus segregation was ruled unconstitutional.

Here’s the point: it is often small acts of courage that change the course of history. Someone takes a risk and it has a domino effect.

Now here’s the thing. We think about people like Martin Luther and Oscar Schindler and Rosa Parks in heroic terms. But they didn’t know they were making history when they were making history! They were just ordinary people taking risks! But when you take a risk you never know what kind of domino effect it is going to have.

During the Chase the Lion series we’re looking at this guy in the Old Testament named Benaiah. He was one of the most decorated and celebrated warriors in Israel’s history. He was the captain of King David’s bodyguard. He was one of David’s thirty mighty men, his special forces. And Benaiah goes on to become Commander-in-Chief of Israel’s army. But it all goes back to three risks that Benaiah took found in 2 Samuel 23:20-23:

“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.”

Benaiah took three risks, and those three risks had a domino effect. Here’s the point, often the life of following God involves taking risks. Now, most of us tend to shy away from risk in our lives. We try to do everything possible to reduce the amount of risk in our lives, whether it’s relational risk or financial risk or job risk or emotional risks or physical risks. We try to eliminate the element of surprise in our lives. But I’ll bet some of the best things in your life involved taking risks. Some of the most amazing things God wants to do in your life involves taking risks. Perhaps the only thing between you and your destiny is one small act of courage. Taking a risk may be the key to the life God wants you to live.

In fact, Jesus told a story one time that illustrates the necessity of taking risks when it comes to being a follower of Jesus Christ and having an impact in life. Look at Matthew 25:

“The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. 'Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.’ His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ … Then the man who had received the one talent came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’ His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.’”

If you really want to appreciate this parable you’ve got to realize that one talent was the ancient equivalent of over twenty-seven years of a day laborer’s salary. So, the servant who receives 5 talents receives over 135 years of salary. I don’t know about you, but if someone gives me a hundred and thirty-five years wages I don’t know if I ever take another risk. I’ve got enough money to last the rest of my life. You know what I’m saying? It had to tempting to play it safe. He had more to lose! But he also had more to gain!

Now, from this parable, I want to give you three principles about taking risks, and maybe they will encourage you to take more risks in your life and in your faith.

First, faith requires risk. Faith always requires risk. We talked about this quite a bit last week. Faith always involves an element of the unknown, so there is always a risk involved in faith. In the story, the servants who take the greatest risk are commended. They are called faithful. Don’t miss that. Faithfulness involves taking risks. I think we tend to think of faithfulness in maintenance terms. Faithfulness is holding the fort, maintaining the status quo, hanging on to what you have. And nothing could be further from the truth. Faithfulness is multiplying what you have to the best of your God-given ability. Faithfulness isn’t minimizing risk. Faithfulness is maximizing risk. The greater the risk, the greater the reward. The life of following Jesus, at it’s core, is a life of embracing risk, of putting our own hold over our lives and our safety at risk in order to follow Jesus. Check out Mark 8:35: “If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will find true life.” That’s putting your life at risk.

I am a huge football fan. I love to watch football. And one of the things I hate to see is when a team plays not to lose, instead of playing to win. You know, when a team gets a little lead and then just tries to sit on that lead till the end of the game. I want a team to go on the offensive. Not just hope they can hold a lead. I think too many of us are playing not to lose. The parable of the talents is about playing to win, risking what you have to get more.

Somewhere, I think we have gotten the mistaken idea that faith involves a reduction of risk in life, like the goal of faith is to reduce risk so that we are safe and at ease and everything is secure in our lives. But, have you read the Bible lately? Faith is risky business. Look at the descriptions of faith in Hebrews 11:

“By faith … Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land …Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going … He offered Isaac as a sacrifice when God was testing him … The people of Israel went right through the Red Sea as though they were on dry ground … By faith these people overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, and received what God had promised them. They shut the mouths of lions, quenched the flames of fire, and escaped death by the edge of the sword. Their weakness was turned to strength. They became strong in battle and put whole armies to flight.”

Risk, risk, risk. Hebrews 11 is the Bible’s longest discussion on faith, and every instance of faith cited in Hebrews 11 involved risk. The goal of faith is not the elimination of risks. God never promised us a risk-free existence. What he does promise is that He will be with us. What’s interesting is that the promise of God’s presence in our lives throughout the Bible is almost always in the context of risk. When you go through the flood, when you pass through the valley of the shadow of death, when you go through the fire, when you face your enemies, as you take the gospel to the ends of the earth, when you are persecuted, I will be with you. Faith requires risk. Your greatest experience of God’s presence, your greatest growth times in your faith, will come when you take risks for God.

Now, here’s the second truth, playing it safe is risky. One servant in the parable plays it safe, he buries the silver his master gave him. Instead of taking a risk, he hides what he has been given. He breaks even. And some of the harshest words in the Bible are reserved for this servant. Apparently breaking even isn’t good enough. In the context of this parable, wickedness is burying what God has given you in the ground and just sitting on it. He doesn’t take action because he is afraid of what will happen if he messes
up.

Psychologists tell us there are two types of regrets in life, action regrets and inaction regrets. Action regrets are regrets for something we have done. Inaction regrets are regrets for things we didn’t do, opportunities we have missed, things we wish we had said or done but we didn’t. And what they have discovered is that in the short term, action regrets are stronger, but over the years, inaction regrets are stronger. In other words, when we come to the end of our lives, the things we will most regret are the things we didn’t do. And the Bible confirms this. “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.”

Righteousness is about more than just not doing the bad things that God doesn’t want us to do. It’s also about doing the good things that God does want us to do. It’s about chasing the lion, changing the world, taking risks,
stepping out in faith.

There’s this story in the New Testament that I love. The disciples are out on the sea of Galilee in a boat, and it’s the middle of the night, and the wind is blowing really hard. And the disciples are afraid, and Jesus comes waling to them on the water.

“During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. ‘It’s a ghost,’ they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them: ‘Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.’ ‘Lord, if it’s you,’ Peter replied, ‘tell me to come to you on the water.’ ‘Come,’ he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’

When you take risks and step out in faith, you almost always second guess yourself. You make the decision to get out of the boat and you have second thoughts. And you start sinking spiritually because you start focusing on the wind and the waves. Now, Peter gets a tough rap, a lot of times. He’s the guy who denied Jesus three times, but he was the only one who got close enough to Jesus to get caught. He’s the one who seems to stick his foot in his mouth all the time, but it’s only because he says what’s on all the other disciples’ minds. And he’s the one who sinks in the Sea of Galilee. But he’s also the only one who walked on water. Do you know how Peter got back to the boat? He walked on water again, with Jesus. How much would you give for an experience like that? To be able to walk on water with Jesus. Here’s what I think: sinking is better than sitting. I’d rather have wet clothes than splinters in my butt. I’d rather walk on water with Jesus than stay in the safety of the boat. If you want to walk on water you’ve got to get out of the
boat.

Take risks. Try big things for God. Dream big dreams and go after them. And here’s the great thing, God honors our attempts to please him and to serve him. Teaching my kids to ride their bikes. The reward of riding a bike far outweighs the risk. Playing it safe is risky.

Now, here’s the final truth that I hope will encourage you to take risks in life. There are no real sacrifices when you follow Christ. Now, I know, the Bible instructs us to give our bodies as living sacrifices. We’re called to deny ourselves, to take up our cross daily, to give up our lives so we can find them. But I don’t think anyone has ever ultimately sacrificed anything for God. Because we always get back more than we give up. And if you get back more than you gave up, in the end, is it really a sacrifice? No, it’s just smart investing. That’s what the faithful servants in the parable did. They made a risk. I mean, think about if the master came back and they had lost his money. I mean, you think he was mad at the guy who just broke even. What if they had lost it? There’s real risk there. But they risked in order to gain. Look at Mark 10:29-30:

“Let me assure you that no one has ever given up anything—home, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, or property—for love of me and to tell others the Good News, who won't be given back, a hundred times over, homes, brothers,
sisters, mothers, children, and land—with persecutions!”

That is not sacrifice. That is just wise investing. There is an old saying that says “No one ever bet too much on a winning horse.” At the risk of sounding sacrilegious, God is always a winning horse. If you are seeking God and following God and living your life in pursuit of God, there is no way you could ever do anything that God won’t give you back immeasurably more than what you give to him. I know this, the only regrets we’ll have at the end of our lives are that we didn’t seek God more or seek God sooner. That’s it.

You see, there are risks involved in following God’s will for your life. There are risks involved in giving your life to Jesus Christ. But the rewards are infinite. If you’ve never given your life to Christ, I want to challenge you today to take a risk. But listen, the risk is so small in comparison with the
return. Because the return is a life of happiness and peace, a life of excitement and adventure, a life where you make a difference and change the world. The return is you get to be a part of God’s family. The return is knowing that God loves you, that Jesus died for you, and that the Holy Spirit will come to live inside of you. The return is forgiveness for your past, purpose for your present, and the promise of heaven for your future. Take a risk and embrace following Jesus Christ.

You can play life not to lose or you can play life to win. Guess which camp lion chasers are in. Too many of us live our lives as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. But that is not the kind of attitude Jesus says we are supposed to have. “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it” Matthew 11:12. There is nothing remotely passive about following Christ. Following Christ is not about sitting on the sidelines in life. It is about storming the gates of Hell, with a water pistol if necessary! God is raising up a generation of lion chasers who don’t run away from evil but who have the courage to compete for the kingdom. Take a risk! Chase the lion!

Chase the Lion - Part 4: Embracing Uncertainty

The following message is from The Crossroads Community Church message series "Chase the Lion." The messages 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.

“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

I know one thing for sure, Benaiah didn't plan any of those encounters. They weren’t on his calendar. They weren’t on his dayplanner or his palm pilot. They weren’t on his to do list. I would guess that Benaiah didn’t wake up on the morning of his lion encounter saying, “Today, I think I’ll chase a lion into a pit, jump in the pit with the lion and kill it. Oh yeah, wait a minute, and it will be snowing.”

It is so easy to read about an incident that occurred three thousand years ago and fail to appreciate the element of surprise because we know how the story ends. But what you need to see is that killing the lion was not a foregone conclusion. In fact, it was probably a statistical unlikelihood. Hand-to-hand combat with another human is one thing. Humans have tendencies. You can predict punches and counterpunches with a higher level of certainty. But savage beasts tend to be volatile and unpredictable. Their actions and reactions are less certain. Plus you have to account for topographical, physiological and atmospheric conditions. How heavy was it snowing? Was it packing snow or slippery snow? What was the footing like in the pit? How about visibility? What time of day was it? How hungry was the lion? How well did Benaiah sleep the night before? Did he eat his Wheaties for breakfast that morning?

There are a thousand variables and they all add up to one thing: a high level of uncertainty! Benaia could have run away from the lion. And running away would have reduced uncertainty and increased security. But lion-chasers are not afraid of venturing into the unknown, of embracing uncertainty in life.

And here’s the reality. There is a tremendous amount of uncertainty in life. Think about the thousands of factors that affect your life: the weather, how other people drive, what your boss or coworkers are going to do or not do, what your children are going to do, what is going to happen with your health, what is going to happen with the economy, who is going to be elected president, what is going to happen to the cost of groceries, whether one of your kids is going to break an arm, whether or not your car breaks down, what your husband or wife does in your marriage. Now, how many of those things do you really have control over? Life is uncertain. Life is often chaotic. What are the middle two letters of the word life? If. Life is filled with contingencies and uncertainty.

Now, you can do one of two things about uncertainty in your life. You can try to reduce uncertainty in your life. You can try to be in absolute control of all the situations and circumstances in your life. You can try to make sure no one in your life does anything unexpected and make sure you have everything planned out in life. And if you do that, you are going to make yourself and everyone around you miserable. Why? Because you are going to be what is called a control freak. The other option is that you embrace uncertainty. You try to plan your life and live life with a measure of control, but you accept the fact that uncertainty is a normal part of life and you embrace it.

Lion chasers embrace uncertainty. So, let’s look at how to embrace uncertainty.

The first thing you’ve got to do to embrace uncertainty is embrace faith. Embracing uncertainty is one dimension of faith. You see, faith always involves a component of the unknown, the uncertain. If we knew everything God was going to do, if we had 100% certainty about who God is and what God is doing and what God wants us to do in life, then there wouldn’t be any room for faith. Faith, by its very definition involves uncertainty. Hebrews 11:1 defines faith in terms of uncertainty: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” There’s kind of an oxymoron going on in that verse. Faith is being sure of what we hope for, being certain of what we do not see. You see, faith is guaranteed uncertainty. It’s having this settled confidence in the midst of not having all the answers, not knowing everything that is going to happen, not having everything worked out for ourselves.

Werner Heisenberg was a German physicist who won the Nobel Prize in 1932 for his research into quantum theory. His most famous finding was the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Now, I won’t get into all the details of it, but in a nutshell, it stated that, related to quantum particles, the building blocks of the universe, “The imprecise measurement of initial conditions precludes the precise prediction of future outcomes,” or in simple terms, there will always be an element of uncertainty. Life is infinitely uncertain. Now couple that with the fact that God is infinitely complex. Just when we think we have God all figured out, we discover that there is a new dimension to him that we had never even contemplated. So, if life is infinitely uncertain and God is infinitely complex, then all we can do is embrace uncertainty. 2 Corinthians 5:7 says, “We live by faith, not by sight.” I think a lot of people have the mistaken notion that faith reduces uncer-tainty. Nothing could be further from the truth. Faith doesn’t reduce uncertainty. It embraces it.

Now, I think faith does reduce spiritual uncertainty. We can know that our sins are forgiven; we have been adopted as God’s children; all the promises of God are yes in Christ; every spiritual blessing is ours in Christ; and when we cross the spacetime continuum we’ll spend eternity in a place called Heaven. But here’s the trick. I think it is those spiritual certainties that enable us to embrace circumstantial uncertainties. Faith results in a reduction of spiritual uncertainty, but it often results in an increase in circumstantial uncertainty because God is going to call us to go places and do things that require total reliance upon God. And in many instances, the more faith the more uncertainty!

You see, lion chasers don’t have to know what is coming next, because they know that God knows. They don’t need explanations for every disappointment because they know that God has a plan. Jeremiah 29:11, one of my favorite verses, says,

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Now, notice, God doesn’t say, I’m going to tell you all my plans for you. He just says, “I’ve got plans and they’re good ones, so hang on for the ride.” I can look back over my life for the last fifteen years, and look at all the stuff that has happened in my life, relationships I’ve formed, experiences I’ve had, the way God has worked in my life, and now I can see how they have brought me to this point. Several years ago, LaRissa and I lost a baby in a miscarriage. And just honestly, I never have figured out why God allowed that to happen. But, the important lesson I learned through that experience is that I don't have to understand what God is doing to trust him. To embrace uncertainty, you have to embrace faith, embrace the fact that God is working it out according to his plan.

Then, second, embracing uncertainty means embracing adventure. For the disciples, following Jesus certainly meant an increase in uncertainty, but it also meant an increase in adventure.

“As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. ‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will make you fishers of men.’ At once they left their nets and followed him.” Mark 1:16-17 (NIV)

They left the security of family and home and job to chase the adventure of a lifetime with Jesus. And Jesus promises them insecurity: “But Jesus said, ‘Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but I, the Son of Man, have no home of my own, not even a place to lay my head.’” Matthew 8:20 (NLT). When you follow Christ you never know where you’re going to end up. Anything can happen. All bets are off! That is scary, but it is also exciting. Jesus was promising high levels of uncertainty—the element of surprise. And He delivers on His promises! Following Christ is the ultimate adventure! Tremendous amounts of uncertainty, but tremen-dous amounts of adventure.

Our family likes to go camping. Now, let me tell you, our camping trips are always an adventure. There are massive doses of uncertainty in our camping trips. Several years ago we went on a camping trip to Beaver's Bend State Park in Oklahoma. We got ready to go to bed, and put away our food in our cooler. The cooler latched shut, so I didn't think there would be any problem, and left the cooler sitting out. Ten minutes after we got in the tent, it sounded like WWIII outside. I look outside the tent, and an army of raccoons has arrived to raid our campsite. I look at the cooler, and all I can see is the back end of a raccoon. The rest of him was in the cooler.

So, I scare the racoons off and put away the cooler. But the raccoons continue to fight over the food they managed to get out of the cooler for the next several hours. That is, until about 3 a.m. That's when something else entered the camp, somthing bigger and scarier. We hear a low, rumbling growl, and the raccoons disappear. LaRissa whispers to me, "Whats' that?" To which I respond in a very manly way, "I don't know, but let's be really still and quiet and maybe it will leave us alone." Well, whatever it was, it began to sniff the sides of our tent. Somehow, I deluded myself into thinking that the thin, fabric walls of our tent would protect us from whatever the creature outside was. LaRissa, somewhat hysterically, says, "What should we do? (I should mention at this point that I was sleeping in the middle of the tent, and she was sleeping next to the edge where the critter was)." So, I respond, "Shhh, if we're quiet maybe it won't know we're in here." So, we spent the next several hours praying for dawn. Dawn arrived and the critter was gone.

Uncertainty is what makes camping so much fun. There is something about a camping trip that turns everything into an adventure. You aren’t just eating. You’re adventure eating—you cook your food over the campfire. You aren’t just sleeping. You’re adventure sleeping—you’re in a tent under the stars. You aren’t just walking. You’re adventure walking—it’s called hi-king. When you go camping it turns everything into an adventure! That is precisely what a relationship with Christ does? It turns everything into an adventure. And part of adventure is high levels of uncertainty!

Now, what we often do is focus our energies on telling God what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. And repeat ourselves over and over again to make sure God doesn’t miss any of the important details. But look at what happened in Acts 2:1-4"

“When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”

The Day of Pentecost was an unplanned day for the disciples. It’s not like they woke up and said, “Today, I think I’ll speak in a foreign language that I have never learned.” I’m pretty sure the day started out like any other day for the disciples. But here’s the thing, you can’t plan Pentecost. God’s greatest adventures usually aren’t things we’ve got planned. The most unexpected things in our lives are usually the biggest adventures.

Think about it this way, the greatest movies have the highest level of uncertainty. You have romantic uncertainty or dramatic uncertainty or relational uncertainty, but if the movie is going to hold the attention of the audience, there generally is some suspense, a high degree of uncertainty. Uncertainty produces adventure. High levels of uncertainty don’t just make the best movies. High levels of uncertainty make the best lives! So, here’s what you have to do to embrace that uncertainty. You have to be flexible. If you are going to turn uncertainty into adventure, you have to be flexible.

Then, to embrace uncertainty, you chase the wind. Now, chasing the wind is usually an expression for an uncertain or questionable venture. But I want you to look at what Jesus says in Jn. 3: Jesus: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” Jesus uses the analogy of the wind to describe the working of the Holy Spirit in the lives of people who come to faith in Jesus Christ. You can’t see where the wind is coming from, you can’t tell where it is going, but you can certainly see its effects. In the same way, I can’t tell how or when the Holy Spirit is going to be at work, leading, directing in a person’s life. I can’t predict who is going to be moved by the Spirit at any given time, and I certainly can’t tell you how the Spirit is directing your life or what He is calling you to do in life. But I can definitely see the effects of His activity in people’s lives. And here’s the thing that’s cool about that verse. Jesus doesn’t say, “So it is with the Spirit.” He says, “So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” It’s not just that the Spirit is unpredictable. He also produces unpredictability and uncertainty in the lives of God’s people.

Following the direction of the Holy Spirit will result in chasing the wind in your life. You will do stuff you never dreamed you’d do. You will go after dreams you thought were impossible. You will attempt things you never thought you could do. You will accomplish stuff that is humanly impossible. You will go to parts of the world you never would have before. You will eat things, talk to people, do things, experience things you would have never done before, all as you follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit’s direction in your life is not always going to make sense. It’s not always going to be according to your plans. Following God’s direction and God’s Spirit will produce uncertainty in your life. And it’s awesome! Look at what Hebrews 11:8 says about Abraham, “He went without knowing where he was going.” Can I get a witness? Women, you ever feel that way riding with your husband? That’s what I have come to call obedience in the unknown, and that’s what God wants of us. We don’t have all the details. We don’t have it all worked out. There is a high degree of uncertainty. But we know that God has called us to go, so we go.
There are things that we can know in life. We can know to some degree what God’s Spirit is leading us to do, even though we don’t know all the details. And we have to make a decision to follow when we don’t know all the details.

In his book, The Barbarian Way, Erwin McManus writes about the names of different animal groups. A group of fish is called a school. Ants are called colonies; bees are called a swarm. Cattle are herds, birds are flocks, and a tribe of lions is a pride. For what it’s worth, a group of buzzards is called a committee! But here’s my personal favorite: a group of rhinos is called a crash.

That name seems so fitting! Believe it or not, a rhino can run about thirty miles per hour which is pretty amazing considering how much weight they are carrying! They are actually faster than squirrels which can run about twenty-six miles per hour.

But here’s the funny thing. Rhinos have terrible eyesight. They can only see about thirty feet in front of themselves. So they are running thirty miles an hour with no idea what’s at thirty-one feet! You would think they’d be timid creatures because they can’t see very far in front of themselves. But God, in his amazingly creative foresight, gave rhinos a big horn on the front of their head.

Now, here’s the lesson from the rhino: “The future is uncertain, but we need to move toward it with confidence. There’s a future to be created, a humanity to be liberated. We need to stop wasting our time and stop being afraid of what we cannot see and do not know. We need to move forward full of force because of what we do know.” Chase the wind! Chase the lion! Move forward full speed and full force following the leading of the Holy Spirit.

I love Deuteronomy 29:29: “There are secret things that belong to the LORD our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our descendants forever, so that we may obey these words of the law.” There are some things that God has not revealed to us. There is uncertainty in life. But we don’t allow uncertainty to cripple us, because we know the one who is in control. There was this old song we sang in church when I was a kid. And it said, “Many things about tomorrow, I don’t seem to understand, but I know who holds tomorrow, and I know who holds my hand.” Who is holding your hand?

Chase the Lion - Part 3: Overcoming Adversity

The following message is from The Crossroads Community Church message series "Chase the Lion." The messages 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.

Today, we are continuing our series called “Chase the Lion” where we are looking at how God uses challenges, difficulties, and tough circumstances to bring about the life that he wants for us. And it’s based on this passage in the Old Testament about a guy named Benaiah. 2 Samuel 23:22 says, “He chased a lion down into a pit. Then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it.”

The day Benaiah stared that lion in the face and wrestled with him in that pit was a tough day. But just a couple of verses later, the Bible tells us that King David made Benaiah the captain of his bodyguard. What better qualification for being a bodyguard than saying, “One snowy day, I chased a lion into a pit, jumped into the pit with the lion and killed it.” So, what seemed like a very bad day to Benaiah becomes the source of what God wants to do in his life in the future. And that’s what this series is all about. It’s about how God wants to use the biggest challenges in your life to bring about the incredible, awesome, amazing life that he has in store for you.

During this seven-week series, we are exploring seven lion chasing skills: defying odds, facing fears, overcoming adversity, embracing uncertainty, taking risks, seizing opportunities, and looking foolish. So, today we’re going to look at overcoming adversity. How do you deal with problems, difficulties, overwhelming situations in life. For Benaiah, a 500 lb. lion was certainly an adversity. Yet, he faced the challenge and overcame the adversity.

Now, in case you haven’t figured this out yet, life is tough. Adversity comes in life. Things don’t always work out the way you planned. Tragedies and heartaches and difficulties come in life. And just because you are a follower of Jesus Christ does not mean you are immune from adversity in life. I am not one of those preachers who will tell you that if you love Jesus and you live the kind of life that pleases him that your life will be free from heartache and you’ll have plenty of money and a nice house and you’ll never get sick and never suffer. No! In fact, following Jesus can be tough. Now, I believe it’s the best life you could possibly have, and I don’t know how people get through the adversities of life without Jesus, but it’s still tough. To quote from the great theologians Poison, “Every rose has its thorn, just like every night has its daw-waw-hawn, just like every cowboy sings a sad, sad song. Every rose has its thorn.” In fact, Jesus promised that life would be tough. He said, “In this world you will have trouble.” Can you identify with that? In this world you will have trouble. And why is that? Because this ain’t heaven. So, you are going to have adversity, and today we are going to talk about how you overcome adversity.

But before we get started, let me tell you about one of the lion chasers in my life. Almost eight years ago, I moved to north Texas to pastor a church in Sherman, and I rapidly became friends with the associate pastor of our church, Brick James. After my wife, Brick is the very best friend I have ever had in my life. From the moment I first new Brick, he had cancer. He had been diagnosed with malignant melanoma. For the next six years, Brick fought the battle against cancer. But unless he told you he had cancer, you would never know it. Cancer did not define him. He was a happy guy. He loved life and he lived it to its fullest. Brick used to say, “God is good all the time and all the time God is good.” And he lived his life that way. Right up until the very end, Brick never let cancer win. He lived life with joy and peace and contentment.

At one point in the progression of his cancer, the cancer had moved to Brick’s brain, and he had surgery to remove the tumor. He had surgery on Monday, and on Sunday, he was sitting in worship, praising God. That day, I thought, what right do I have to complain about anything? Anytime I’m tempted to think about how bad things are, how tough my life is getting, I just think about Brick.

You know, a lot of people going through those kinds of circumstances would have become bitter. Their spirit shrivels until nothing is left but bitterness or anger or depression. But I don’t know that I’ve ever met anybody who was a greater encourager or who had a kinder heart or a more positive attitude than Brick.

What is it that enables someone like Brick to overcome that kind of adversity? Here’s what I learned from Brick: who you become is not determined by your circumstances! The outcome of your life is determined by your outlook on life. Your altitude is determined by your attitude. Our greatest problems in life aren’t circumstantial. Our greatest problems are perceptual. It’s your attitude that determines how you handle adversity in life. I can show you people who have been through some horrendous things in life, and yet they have joy and peace in life.

How do you do that? How do you overcome adversity in your life? Well, first, you reframe adversity in your life. You change your attitude. You change your perspective. And you do that by looking at life through the frame of Scripture. You see things the way God sees them. Look, I’m no interior decorator, but I do know this, the type of frame you put around a picture determines what people notice in that picture. The frame determines the focus. If you want to see yourself and your life and your circumstances the way God sees them, you need to look through the frame of Scripture. And when you do that, you’ll begin to see your life differently. Scripture is about reframing.

Let me give you a few examples. Matthew 5:11-12:

"Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

That’s reframing your problems in the context of eternity. Problems now mean priceless treasure later. The book of Acts tells about the disciples after Jesus had died and rose from the grave and returned to heaven. They were preaching about Jesus and got arrested and told not to speak again in the name of Jesus. But during the night, they are set free by an angel who tells them to go back out and preach again. So, they do that, and the next morning the guards go to look for them and find them defying the orders of the court. So, they arrest them again. And look at Acts 5:40-41:

“They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.”

Reframing suffering. Suffering for Jesus is seen as an honor. Now I want you to think of the next verse as a frame around adversity. Most of us don’t like adversity, but if we put a biblical frame around it, we begin to realize that there are some life lessons and some character traits that can only be learned and developed via adversity. In fact, adversity expands our capacity to serve God.

“It has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.” Philippians
1:29 (NIV)

Now let’s be brutally honest. If you’re anything like me, there are certain passages of Scripture that you sort of wish didn’t make the Bible. You know they’re true, but you wish they weren’t in the Bible! They are hard to swallow and tough to digest! But those are the verses that often help us grow the most.

This is one of those verses. We like the belief part, but the suffering part not so much! Now, here’s the amazing part, the word granted in this verse means “to grant a favor.” It’s like God is saying, “Listen, I owe you a favor. So let me let you suffer.” We tend to see suffering as a necessary evil at best, but Paul calls it a divine favor. And here’s the thing. There is nothing theoretical about this approach to life! Paul is writing these words from a middle-eastern jail cell.

So, what’s the answer? How do you reframe your life? The answer is worship. Worship is the way to see our lives from a different perspective. One time Paul and Silas were preaching about Jesus in the city of Philippi. They get arrested, are beaten, then are placed in a jail cell with their feet bound. If I’m Paul and Silas, I’m physically, emotionally and spiritually spent. I’ve got nothing left to give. My back is bleeding. I’m in a maximum-security cell block, I’m uncomfortable, and I’m just a little ticked at God that he didn’t keep me out of this mess. And that’s why Paul and Silas’s reaction is so incredible. Acts 16:23-25:

“After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody’s chains came loose.”

If that had been me, it probably would have read, “About midnight Shawn was complaining about his circumstances.” Nine times out of ten, when I am discouraged or depressed or getting beat up by my problems, it’s because I have fixated on my problem or my circumstances. And the answer is for me to zoom out and get some perspective. And the way I zoom out is worship. Here’s the principle: don’t let what’s wrong with you keep you from worshiping what’s right with God. To reframe your problems, you stop focusing on what’s wrong about your circumstances and start focusing on what’s right with God. Paul and Silas made a choice to worship God in spite of their external circumstances. When my problems are greatest, that’s when I need to worship God the most.

So, to overcome adversity, I have to reframe adversity in my life. I have to have a different perspective, and I get that through worship. Then, second, you overcome adversity by letting God remodel you through adversity. Life is just preparation for eternity. This is just the preschool, the training ground. God wants to use adversity in your life to prepare you for eternity. God has a purpose for the problems in your life. Look at Romans 8:28-29:

“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son.”

What is God’s purpose for problems in your life? What is God’s goal for your life? Once you become a follower of Jesus Christ, God’s goal for you is that you become just like his son. Now, if God is going to make you just like Jesus, then he’s going to take you through the same things Jesus went through. Did Jesus ever get tired or hungry? Was he ever criticized? Was he ever betrayed and abandoned by his friends? Was he persecuted? Did he ever suffer? Then you can be assured that we will go through the same things.

But the great thing is that God has a purpose in adversity.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James 1:2-4 (NIV)

Not lacking in anything. Wouldn’t you like that for your life? The only way to get there is by facing troubles. Did you know that if you break a bone, that bone goes through an initial period of weakness as it is healing from the break. But our bodies have a miraculous power to heal, and it actually overcompensates so that the bone is actually stronger than it was before the break. Very rarely does a bone break again in the same place because it is thicker and stronger than it was before the break.

So here’s the deal. Sometimes God breaks us where we need to be broken. He fractures the pride and lust and anger in our lives, but he does it to remodel us into His image. And once we heal, we end up stronger than we were to begin with. I wish I could get in shape sitting in a lazy boy watching football. We want to be in shape without the workout. We want to be smart without the homework. We want to be wealthy without the work. And we want spiritual maturity without spiritual disciplines. But it just doesn’t work that way!

There is an old saying: no pain no gain. But, you know, I think some of us operate with a slightly different philosophy of life: no pain no pain. But what we discover is that the path of least resistance is the path of least fruitfulness. The people God uses the most are often the people who have experienced the most adversity.

God wants to use us in incredible and amazing ways to change the world. God wants to give us a life of joy and peace and contentment and adventure and excitement. But to do that, God has to transform us. God is not content to leave us like we are. And I am so thankful. Think about it this way. What if God just left you like you are? What if he never did anything about the selfishness, the pride, the anger, the discouragement, the worry, the doubts in your life? What if he never did anything to overcome the temptations in your life? What if God just left you alone and let you stay the way you are for all eternity? And what if God did that for everybody? If that were the case, then heaven would just be this life forever and forever and forever. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I would like it very much.

God loves you and values you enough that he is not content to leave you like you are. And the greatest tool God uses for transforming us, for remodeling our lives, is adversity. 1 Peter 1:7 says,

“These [that is, suffering] have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

God values your faith over all the treasure in the world. God values your character over your comfort. He cares more about your long-term potential than your short-term comfort.

I don’t know what kind of adversity you’re facing, but I know that God is in the remodeling business. Instead of asking God to get us out of adversity, maybe we need to make sure we get something out of those adverse situations! There are lessons to be learned and character traits to be developed. And honestly, it is adversity that will present you with the greatest opportunity to prove yourself as a parent, a spouse, a friend, a neighbor, and a leader. Your greatest adversity, your biggest hurt, your greatest failure, your biggest pain is the source of the most amazing things God wants to do in and through your life. Your biggest hurt is most likely the area of your greatest ministry. Look at 2 Corinthians 1:4: “He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When others are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.” If you don’t turn your adversity into ministry, then your pain remains your pain. But if you use it to comfort other people, then your pain becomes someone else’s gain.

Here’s the beautiful thing: God never wastes a hurt. God never wastes a hurt. God uses the adversity in our lives to refine us, to fashion us, to transform us. And God is so amazing that he can use our biggest hurt, our greatest failure, our biggest disaster to be the greatest opportunity in life.
I think all three encounters recorded in 2 Samuel 23—taking on two Moabite warriors, a giant Egyptian and a 500 pound lion—could have ended Benaiah’s life! They were make or break moments! But if it hadn’t have been for those adversities, Benaiah wouldn’t have become captain of David’s bodyguard and he almost certainly wouldn’t have appeared in the pages of Scripture. It was adversity that turned into an opportunity for Benaiah to prove himself as a valiant warrior.

What you see, when you look through the frame of Scripture, is the way God used the adversity to remodel Benaiah. Each adversity remodeled Benaiah as one of David’s mighty men, captain of David’s bodyguard, army commander, and eventually Commander-in-Chief of Israel’s army!

Now, what about you? Where have you been broken? What adversity are you facing right now? Do you have any overwhelming problems? Maybe God is remodeling you. Maybe God is taking the problem you never thought you would be able to overcome and turning it into the greatest opportunity of your life. But that only happens if you give God control of your life and reframe your adversity and let God remodel you.

Chase the Lion - Part 2: Overcoming Your Fears

The following message is from The Crossroads Community Church message series "Chase the Lion." The messages 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.

Alright, well, obviously, today we are talking about fears, overcoming your fears. Now, remember, we are in a new series called “Chase the Lion,” and it’s based on this passage in the Old Testament about a guy named Benaiah whose story is found in 2 Samuel 23:20-23:

“He chased a lion down into a pit. Then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it.”

Remember, last week, I said that day probably seemed to Benaiah like a very bad day. But just a couple of verses later, the Bible tells us that King David made Benaiah the captain of his bodyguard. What better qualification for being a body-guard than saying, “One snowy day, I chased a lion into a pit, jumped into the pit with the lion and killed it." So, what seemed like a horrible, no-good, very bad day to Benaiah becomes the source of what God wants to do in his life in the future. And that’s what this series is all about. It’s about how God wants to use the biggest chal-lenges in your life to bring about the incredible, awesome, amazing life that he has in store for you.

During this seven-week series, we are exploring seven lion chasing skills: defying odds, facing fears, overcoming adversity, embracing uncertainty, taking risks, seizing opportunities, and looking foolish. So, today we’re going to look at overcoming your fears. It is so easy to read about a lion encounter that happened three thousand years ago and totally underestimate the fear factor. I’m sure there were nights Benaiah woke up for the rest of his life in a cold sweat because of dreaming about that lion. Sure, he killed the lion. But not before it scared the living daylights out of him. He was inches away from thirty bared teeth. He was in a dark, confined space on slippery ground with a 500 pound lion that was faster, more agile, more sure-footed, stronger, and could see better than him. I don’t think he ever forgot the smell of the lion’s bloody breath. And the sound of the roar had to echo in his mind’s ear forever!

I don’t care how battle-tested or battle-scarred you are. I don’t care how crazy or courageous you are. You don’t come face-to-face with a five-hundred pound lion without experiencing sheer terror or pure fear! But one thing sets lion chasers apart. They don’t run away from the things that scare them! Normal people don’t chase lions, but lion chasers aren’t normal. Lion chasers chase their fears!

God wants you to be a lion-chaser, to chase your fears. Look at 2 Timothy 1:7: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.” Fear will keep you sidelined in life. You will miss out on the incredible adventure of the life that God has called you to if you allow fear to dictate what you do or do not do in life
.
So, how do you overcome the fears in your life? Three things: First, you unlearn your fears. Psychologists believe that we are born with only two fears: the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. Every other fear is learned. We learn our fears through our experiences, things that happen to us, through what we are taught, through what other people say to us. All the other fears in our life are learned. Now, here’s the good news. If our
fears are learned, they can also be unlearned.

Unfortunately, unlearning something is twice as hard as learning it. It’s like missing your exit on the interstate. You have to drive all the way to the next exit and double back just to get to where you needed to be. You wind up going twice as far to get to the right place.

To overcome the fears in our lives, we have to unlearn some things in life. Some of the things we believe, some of the hangups we have, some of the things that cause fear and anxiety in our lives are wrong, and we have to unlearn them to overcome our fears. For instance if you have been taught to believe that you aren’t a success, then you probably aren’t going to take risks in life. So, you have to unlearn some things about yourself. Check out Romans 12:1:

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

So, how do you do that? You do that by allowing your mind to be reframed by the teachings of the Bible. Irrational fears and misconceptions keep us from being the person God wants us to be, so we have to unlearn those old patterns, those old ways of thinking, those fears that keep us down in life. We have to allow the word of God and the teachings of Jesus to reframe the fears in our lives.

A large chunk of Jesus’ teaching was about helping people to unlearn what they had been taught. Look at Matthew 5:21-22: “You have heard that it was said … But I tell you…” Jesus is saying, “What you have heard is wrong. Now let me give it to you the right way.” Jesus comes into our lives and he reprograms our old ways of seeing things, our old fears about life.

How can you, in a very practical way, unlearn your fears? My brother does schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s research. He tells me that they have discovered that people who spend thirty minutes a day doing a crossword puzzle or Sudoku or some kind of mental challenge, don’t get Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s is caused by a buildup of plaque between the connections in the brain. What they have discovered is that the crossword puzzle people, their minds are constantly growing new connections, so that Alzheimer’s cannot take effect. Do you want to know how to unlearn the fears in your life? Spend thirty minutes a day in God’s word, reading, praying, meditating on it, and before you know it, your mind will be reframed around your old fears. We call it having a quiet time. It’s a habit I want you to learn to have, because it is the best way to unlearn the old fears in your life.

Now, the devil doesn’t want you to unlearn your fears. In fact, one of the greatest tools Satan has to use against us is to keep us captive to our old fears. He wants to keep you crippled and afraid and paralyzed by your fears so that you won’t chase the lions and do incredible things for God. But I want you to see what Jesus says about the Devil: John 8:44:

“He [the Devil] was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

The Devil is a liar, and he wants to keep you believing the lies of the fears you have learned in life. You have to see your fears for what they really are, lies that the devil tells you about who you are and what you are able to do in life. Unlearn those fears.

But, it’s not enough just to unlearn our fears. You have to use your new knowledge to face your fears. That’s the second way to overcome your fears. You’ve got to stand up to them – and conquer them. Benaiah jumps in the pit with the lion.

A few years ago, our family went on a camping trip up in Oklahoma to a place called Robber’s Cave, and we were doing a little hiking. Well, we come to this place called Devil’s Slide. And Devil’s Slide is this rock face that’s, I don’t know, about a hundred feet up at about a 45 degree angle, and it’s slick. I mean, there are very few handholds. Well, I send LaRissa and the girls on ahead, and I say, “Hey, James (who was about eight years old at the time), you want to go up it?” Well, he was pretty nervous, but he said, “Yeah!” So we take off up this thing, just kind of crawling on our hands and feet. And at some points, I’m getting kind of nervous. And I say to James, “Man, this is pretty tough, huh? This is kind of scary?” And he says, “Yeah!” But then I say, “But we can do it! We can make it! You’re awesome!” Why did I do that? Because I want my kids to learn to face their fears, to take on challenges, not to be afraid of taking risks. My kids were a little nervous when we took them to Mexico last year, but I don’t want them to back down from the big things God wants them to do in life.

Think of your fears as mental lions. If we don’t learn to chase those fears, they can keep us at bay for the rest of our lives. But as a loving Father, God helps us to unlearn the fears that keep us from living the life he wants for us. Look at 1 John 4:18: “Where God's love is, there is no fear, because God's perfect love drives out fear.” The result of love is fearlessness. As we learn how much God loves us, we can overcome the fear that paralyzes us and neutralizes our effectiveness in life.

I’ve been told, there are 365 times in the Bible that God says, “Fear not, don’t be afraid, do not tremble.” That’s one for every day of the year. Now, I just want to show you a few of those, and show you some of our common fears that God says we don’t have to be afraid of. 1 John 4:18 that we just read is actually about the fear of punishment or the fear of judgment. That’s guilt, fear derived from past failures. And God says, you don’t have to be afraid of that if you have entered into a perfect love relationship with me.

Look at the next one. Dt. 31:8: “The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” Fear of being alone. Some of you have that fear. You’re afraid because you feel all alone in life. Or you wonder, what if I never find the right person? What if my spouse dies? What if I lose my family? And God says, “You don’t ever have to be afraid of being alone, because I will never leave you.”

1 Chronicles 22:13: “Then you will have success if you are careful to observe the decrees and laws that the LORD gave Moses for Israel. Be strong and coura-geous. Do not be afraid or discouraged.” The fear of failure. What if I don’t get a good job? What if I get laid off? What if I don’t live up to everyone’s expectations of me? What if I try and don’t succeed? The fear of failure cripples a lot of people. A lot of people wind up not attempting anything big in life because they are afraid of what will happen if they fail. So they wind up sitting on the sidelines in life. So, God gives a promise for that.

Isaiah 44:8: “Do not tremble; do not be afraid. Have I not proclaimed from ages past what my purposes are for you? You are my witnesses—is there any other God? No! There is no other Rock—not one!” This is a big one right now, fear for the future? What about my finances? What about my job? What about gas prices? What about the economy? What about my house payment, my grocery bill, my retirement account? Listen, I am not fearful about the future, and I’m a guy who left a better paying job to start a new church, so why am I not afraid? Because God is in control, and it’s all working out according to his plan.

Face your fears. Listen, for some of you, the best thing that could happen to you is for your fear to become reality. Because then you would discover that it is not the end of the world. You can get through it. You can face up to it, and it’s not the end of the world.

God wants us to face our fears. The Bible says that the Devil is like a roaring lion constantly looking for someone to devour. And how are we supposed to handle the Devil? Look at Jas. 4:7: “Resist the devil, and he will run away from you.” God doesn’t want us to run away from the enemy, to run away from our fears. He wants to raise up a generation of lion chasers who don’t just run away from evil, but who put the enemy to flight. Face your fears.

But there’s one more key component missing for us to really be able to overcome our fears. You have to have faith instead of fears. You see, faith is the opposite of fear, believing in God and depending on God whatever the circumstances that we may face in life. You can’t face up to the things that scare you most in life without the power and strength that come from dependence on God. Psalm 46:1-2 says, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.” If God is your refuge and strength, what do you have to fear? Listen, if you believe that God is absolutely in control, that nothing, absolutely nothing in life can happen to you unless God allows it, and if you believe that God loves you more than anyone else in all the world, then what do you have to fear? When each of my kids were little, I would throw them up in the air and catch them. Now, that was scary at first, but they came to learn that I would always catch them and they came to love it.

Instead of fear, we have faith. Check out 1 Peter 3:14-15: “‘Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.’ But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.” You don’t have to be driven by fear like everybody else. No matter what is going on, stock market tanking, banks going under, elections and politics, grocery prices going up, jobs going away. We don’t have to fear what they fear. Because Christ is Lord. You set apart Christ as Lord in your heart, you say, Jesus you are in control no matter what, you understand that he is in charge, and suddenly there’s not a lot left to be afraid of in life.

Look with me at Romans 8:15: “So you should not be like cowering, fearful slaves. You should behave instead like God's very own children, adopted into his family —calling him ‘Father, dear Father.’” When my kids are scared, they come running to their Daddy. They want me to put my arms around them, to protect them. They bury their head in my chest. They believe that everything is okay so long as they are with their Daddy. They believe that Daddy can fight off whatever it is that they have to be afraid of. With God as our Father, we don’t have to be afraid. We can depend on him for whatever we may come against in life.

So, don’t run from your fears. Don’t let fears paralyze you in life and keep you from living the kind of life you were made for. Don’t let mental lions keep you from experiencing everything God has to offer. The greatest experiences will often double as the scariest experiences. The defining moments will often double as the scariest decisions. Just imagine if you had been able to sit down with Benaiah at the end of his life, and you were to ask him what were the greatest moments in his life. What do you think he would say? Then imagine you asked him what were the scariest moments of his life. What do you think he would say? I can see Benaiah’s grandchildren crawling up in his lap and saying, “Grandpa, tell us about the lion again.” Here’s my advice to you: live your life in a way that is worth telling stories about. Quit running and start chasing!

Now, I want you to read together with me today as our confession, Psalm 91:

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

2 I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust."

3 Surely he will save me from the fowler's snare and from the deadly pestilence.

4 He will cover me with his feathers, and under his wings I will find refuge; his faithfulness will be my shield and rampart.

5 I will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day,

6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.

7 A thousand may fall at my side, ten thousand at my right hand, but it will not come near me.

8 I will only observe with my eyes and see the punishment of the wicked.

9 If I make the Most High my dwelling-- even the LORD, who is my refuge--

10 then no harm will befall me, no disaster will come near my tent.

11 For he will command his angels concerning me to guard me in all my ways;

12 they will lift me up in their hands, so that i will not strike my foot against a stone.

13 I will tread upon the lion and the cobra; I will trample the great lion and the serpent.

14 "Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

15 He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.

16 With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation."