The Struggle is Real - On Guard Wk 4

I know two people who are excited. I'll tell you that much. A man, they ready for the honeymoon, right? Can I get a hallelujah? Yes, yes. Y'all preaching. Don't. Don't go there just yet. Y'all wait another 20 years before you embark on to that endeavor.

My name is passed around. The lips of the church. Was so excited to be here today. I just love being with our church. I tell you, I miss being apart from you guys. Last week, my friend and I, we took a mini vacation, went to the Caribbean. So I'm looking kind of caramelized this okay, so it's a Caribbean tan, but yeah, my head is probably shiny too, right? Yes. Okay. That's the that's the second of glory that we are in, in a series that we been in the past several weeks and things, John, our our chair deacon who led service last week. I know he did an amazing job always in our absence. We have an amazing staff, amazing leadership team with our elders and our deacons.

And I just thank you guys for your leadership. We are in our absence that you guys are still just running the church. And that's just that's the beauty of having high quality leadership. Amen. Let's just give our leadership and our team just a round of applause for them are quick. These past several weeks, I've been in a series called En Garde is a series about spiritual warfare. And what we realize is that we've been under attack. If you have not been under attack, you've been in attack, or you are to come and go in, or somehow that you're coming out of a warfare. And over the past several weeks, we've talked about your opposition is an opportunity for God to use you.

And I want you to believe that the opposition is sometimes you may face in life, is an opportunity for God to use you. And I. We believe that the fight this are in today is developing the faith that you would need for tomorrow. Couple of weeks ago, we talked about if you only knew your potential and your possibilities, that and who you are, how God created you, how he he, how he molded you is such a great opportunity for God to use you today in God's promises is connected to God's process, right? Sometimes the promises of God is always connected to the process that He has for us. And sometimes we don't like that process. I would be the same person to say that sometimes guys process the way he wants. In my life. I don't. I don't like the way he'd go about it. Sometimes in me, God, we have this conversation, know, we just sit down.

We just have a little a little conversation. But the process is that God gives us is so uniquely connected to to his promises that I don't want to forfeit what God has for me, and I don't want you to forfeit what God has for you today as well. So if you have your Bibles, let's open up to the Book of Luke, the seven chapter verses 18 through 23 and I'll be reading from the Navy version Luke Chapter seven verses 18 through 23 and I'll be sure to keep my cadence for our translation and things be set up for translating today for our families. Luke Chapter seven Verses 18 through 23 says John disciples told him about all these things, calling two of them. He sent them to the Lord to ask, Are you the one who was to come? Or should we expect someone else? When the man came to Jesus, they said, John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, Are you the one who was to come or should we expect someone else?

At the very time Jesus cure many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits and gave sight to many who were blind. So he replied to the messengers, go back and report to John what you have seen and what you have heard. The blind receive sight, the lame walk. Those who have leprosy are cleansed. The deaf hear, the dead are raised and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Verse 23 Blessed is anyone who does not stumble an account of me today. My message, my title is called The Struggle is Real. The Struggle is Real. Can I get a man now? Know about that struggle? Oftentimes people ask me as a pastor, they like Pastor Ryan, were if as a new believer, where do I start? If I wanted to start to read the Bible, where do I begin?

And often times I would tell them to begin in the Book of John. That's the the typical pastors answer. But as I begin to really just live life and just live out this this Christian faith, I'll have a I'm beginning to tell people to start in the Book of Psalms. Oftentimes, many people start in the Book of Genesis. And that is the wrong place to start, because you begin to read the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth. Then you go down his decrees, the earth, the moons, the stars, and all the animals and fish and the birds of the air. Then you get to chapter one and three. Then you had to ask the question, What does this have to do with me?

Right? Begin to read about Cain with me and where I met with my walk with God. Or you can do the old Pentecost way. Take your Bible, open it up, put your finger down whatever you land on, you believe that's what God has. Give me the word to say, right? That's the Pentecost. The way. And I would say, do not do that. Psalms is easy to read. It's instructional, which is encouraging, right? Who won and who won? Who doesn't want to learn that the Lord is my shepherd, right? Our God comes and goes and he's not silent that have mercy on me or God blessed is the one who does the walk in the step of the wicked. These are great words of encouragement. Write the book of Psalms not only encourages relatable, it connects to how we live today, how we navigate through life. Truth be told, we may ask questions of God, existence, and the struggles of our life. But the struggle is still real. When we are searching for some type of encouragement or some type of word to give us that leap of faith or substance that we can go to.

Sometimes the struggle is still real. Have you ever questioned God before? Why God? Why is this happening? Why God? Is this happening to me? If God is who He is, why does He allow bad things to happen to good people? Have you had that question before? Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? Sometimes when we find ourselves in a very act of spiritual warfare or the battles that we have as believers, sometimes we have doubt about who God is. Sometimes we doubt we have this belief of what God wants to do for us. We know that Ephesians Chapter six tells us this that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but is against the rulers and against the authorities and against the powers of the darkness of against the spiritual forces in the heavenly realms. These are the spiritual things that we are dealing with.

These are the things, the battles that we are fighting week after week, day after day. And for some of us, night after night, no matter how big your Bible is, no often how matter how often you go to church, no matter how much you try, the truth is that you will be put to a test. The truth is that you will be faced with some challenge in your life at some point. Where are you going to ask God? Why God? Why is this happening to me? God, why is this taking place with my family and God's going to remain silent? And what are you going to do with that silence? Growing up in a school. Many of us, we often know that we are embrace or focus full force with our face, with things that love to teach me.

He was the greatest math teacher I ever had before. There's two things I loved about our two things that I hate about him as well, or did not didn't like about him. One was that he drank coffee and smoked cigarets. Now, if you if the smoking is your vices, it's all good. But if you know that deadly combination, smoking and drinking coffee, that's gingivitis and a whole ‘nother level.

Man, that's halitosis to the third degree. Smoking cigarets and drinking coffee was the vice that this math teacher had. But he was like the coolest math teacher. Who's that math teacher? Where everybody would kind of hanging out in his classroom where everybody went to go chill and hang out, just kind of chopping up with the teacher because he was one of the really, really cool teachers. But two things out of his class, more or less. One thing that he was notorious for was six words. Six words as a student in any school, as you're walking into a class and we have some educators here, so forgive me, you walk into their class and they say these six words pull out a piece of paper. Educators know if you were walking to class and you're studious, it's the first thing you tell your students to pull out a piece of paper.

What does that mean? There's a pop quiz coming. And he was notorious for having pop quizzes. Z pop quizzes was there to counter really to really to to put us in a place where to make sure that we studied the material that was given to us, that we were ready to take a test for the information that the teacher was giving us day after day. Pop quizzes was there to see if we were reading the textbook. C Pop quizzes taught us that we were not always be ready for what life is going to bring you. I know it's early in the morning, so some of you guys still think I'm in my math class, but actually I'm in the class of life. C Oftentimes our guy gives us pop quizzes that we're not ready for. Now we're faced with battles in this life that we're not ready for in all the time when God gives us those battles, those pop quizzes, do we pass or do we fail? The question is, God is asking you. Jesus is asking us today, are you studying his book? Because if you're reading his book of life is his book where you have just the information that he's given us how to navigate the sorrows and the troubles of this life we can pass with flying colors.

But oftentimes dusty bibles will lead to dirty courses. Go ahead. Go ahead. In Snapchat, tweet that right now, dusty Bibles will lead to dirty Christian so that dusty Bibles will lead to dirty Christian. Are you studying what the teacher has giving you? So I love pop quizzes, but my my most favorite pop quiz was the one that we have multiple choice to me is at least a 5050 chance. Right? True or false. ABCD question is right. Educators see even in life we have multiple choices. If you have a pop quiz of life, you have a you can align yourself with your family and your friends. B You can back down from that quiz and run. C You can call on Jesus or D You can do it yourself.

A You can align yourself with your family and friends. B You can back down and run. C You can call on the name of Jesus or. D You can do it yourself. Now, people would tell you most statistics will say they always to see, you know, multiple choice questions that you never know the answer to. Right. Right. Educators, I guess, don't take the home just to let you know.

But in this case, C, you always want to call on the name of Jesus, the pastor. And what does this have to do with spiritual warfare today? I'm glad that you asked, because if you look at a verse 18 of Chapter seven of Luke, the scripture says John's disciples told him about these things. John calling two of them, he sent them to the Lord to ask, Are you the one or should we expect someone else?

Do we look for someone else? Houston, we have a problem. Now what? You guys realize this is the apostle John. This is John. Who knew Jesus from birth? This is John who proclaimed Jesus in the Romans. This is John who preach the gospel. This is John who baptized Jesus. This is John, who is Jesus's cousin is asking him, is he the one? I want you to get that. That's like asking my brother Brian, who is the who? I'm a twin. If we're twins. John is asking to send his disciples to ask, Is Jesus the one or should we wait for another one? Now, see, that won't be a problem if it wasn't for the path of John. Because John is Jesus.

Because He walked in the life with Jesus. He was ready. He was waiting. Ready to have Jesus come. Jesus. John is asking Jesus, is he the one? Or should we wait for another one? Why doesn't John ask Jesus himself? Why does he send two of His disciples to ask Jesus if he's the one? Think about it. John can walk up and go ask Jesus himself. Right. But why can't he? Because John is in jail. John finds himself in jail. And how did he get there? How did John get in? Jihadi John get incarcerated? At that time, Hair was the king in Hair and Mary, his brother's wife. Come on, now. That's a scandal for you. That's not right. And John posed the question. John put it on Snapchat.

Instagram. He was tweeting it. He had it on Facebook and all of that different stuff. John put hair it on blast because John did it here. He puts him in jail and all of that puts him on a death sentence here. His daughter wants John beheaded. John is in jail. Lets me know this. That now always our experience is does not equal our expectations, our experiences, our experiences in life does not always equal our expect tastes. What do you mean? John has doubt of who Jesus is. John is circumstances is causing him to doubt. Jesus from very before himself. How is this happening? Why is this happening? Why am I in? Jesus. I walk. I teach. I preach the gospel. For many of us. I live the Christian life. I read your word, Dale. I go to church every single week.

Why am I experiencing these problems while I'm experiencing these these issues and caches? Jesus leads. John Open. Okay, let me translate that for the baby boomers. Jesus never answers. John. He never answers. John. Jesus could have simply said yes. But it said, Jesus is the disciples back with answers. And oftentimes when we're dealing with life's problems, as also as believers, we don't need these Christian clichés.

Right. Come on, Christians. You know what I'm talking about. If your friend is coming out, you guys are having problems and you have a circumstance, you don't need a Christian cliche. You need real life. And you've got real problems. Right? You don't need when God closes the door, he opens, opens up a window. You don't need your wash by the blood. You don't need that. I'm blessed. And hopefully I get all of that. You know, I don't need all those Christian cliches. Give me something I can take home. That's what get me out of my situation.

Christians, we have to stop giving out these Christian cliches. You know, my favorite one, God won't give you more than you can handle. Come on, now. I'm about ready to tap out the three things that you're going to need during your struggle. Three things that you can use during the time that you find yourself in warfare. That you find yourself in the battle of your life.

Three things that you would need for your struggle. The first one is this You need faith that is bigger than your struggle. Yeah, you need faith that's bigger than you struggle. Because I'm reminded is I'm remind you today that the fight that you're in today is developing the faith that you would need for tomorrow, that God has prescribed the challenges, even the circumstance that he has, allow those things to take place in your life, to begin to develop the faith that you need not only to walk with him, but believe everything that he has for you. Because God would not always take the thorn out of your flesh. God would not always take that thorn out of you. John is trying to evaluate his Christian experience and God as he answers during his response. You need faith that is bigger than you struggle. The second thing is this you need friends in the midst of your struggle.

Yes. Yeah, guys. And when you don't, we are not designed to do life by ourselves. We are designed to have community. We're designed to lean into one within one another. When life is hard, you need friends who will weather the storm with you. And this is what John finds with two of his friends. They left. They go visit John and Jill, take a message and deliver it to Jesus. And they go back with the answer that Jesus gave him. Any phrase is going to keep it real, right? Amen. If you knew how, I'm gonna keep it real with them. Keep it 100. So what do you do when the pastor is struggling? What do you do when Bishop John, the Apostle John, is struggling with his faith about Jesus?

You see that John is struggling with his faith about who Jesus is because of the battle that he's faced with. This is the response God gives. Jesus gives Him. Jesus tells the disciples, Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard. The blind have side the lane walk. Those who have leprosy have been cleans the deaf hear the dead are raised and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.

Jesus, this is not helping me out. Like, come on, Jesus, I need something that's going to help me navigate through my trials and my situation. So whatever you may be faced with today. Jesus, this is what you're going to give me right here, right now. Jesus never answered. John. So never judge your possibilities by your current position. Don't judge your possibilities by your current position. You need friends. That's going to keep a row with you. Right. We see John here struggling where he has the gospel in one hand and he's battling in the other. And he's he has the gospel on one hand and he also has some bills in the other.

Here. Come on, George. We have the Bible one him. But then he has a battle. It's another. He has the Bible in one hand, but then he has some brokenness in the other. And we have the Bible in one hand that we have birdies that we carry. In the other hand we have the Bible with one hand, and we may be carrying a blunt in another. We have the Bible in another hand. We may even have some Bacardi rum in another come on church and a Bible.

Brokenness burdens. For some it may be Boone's Farm or Bacardi Rum or whatever the case may be. Doesn't matter what your vice may be. There's no judgment. There's no condemnation here. The fact is this, as believers, as individuals, that we are called to be in Christ, but then there will be times where we have down there, even when we're battling and we have a Bible, that we still are dealing with brokenness, that we still are dealing with bad thoughts, that we're still dealing with burdens, that we're still dealing with life court bills and more bills.

We need faith that's bigger than you struggle. We need friends in the midst of your struggle. And the last one is this You need fuel to push, pass your struggle. And what is that fuel? What is that fuel? When you're when your gas that when you're you're just just in survival mode. Have you ever been in survival mode before? Like you're just going from paycheck to paycheck. You're just trying to make it to the next day. Have you ever been truly in survival mode because you've been battling, dealing with life, so what is your fuel? He tells us that in verse 23, he says this Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on the account of me. So what is it?

The few that I want to encourage you with today is that you're living a life that's in Christ. I'm not saying that is perfect, but you are a Christian believer. There's blessings that comes with your burdens and there's blessings that comes with your battles. There's blessings that come with those moments where you have bad thoughts. There's blessings that come even when you're battling the fight of your life. And there's our worship team comes. I'm just going to count off some of those blessings. Matthew writes In Chapter five, one of the greatest sermon on the Mount. So just in case, if you don't know what those blessings are, let me remind you what they are today. It says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for there is a kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the two, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for writing. It's for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure and spirit in the heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, not see. There's a blessing that comes with your battle. There's a blessing that comes with your burdens. This is a blessing that comes connected with you. Be so connected with Jesus Christ that you can walk out here today knowing that you can fight this battle. You're not alone and blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for there is a kingdom of heaven.

There's a book that has your name in it. There's a purpose that God has called you forces. Blessed are you. When people insult you and persecute you, even falsely say all kinds of evil things against you because of me. He says, rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great. So church today it's a simple message. I wanted to let us leave our sermon series this week knowing that even though that you're fighting may be fighting the fight of your life, you may be battling some insecurities, you may be battling some burdens. The one that you need faith that is bigger than your struggle that you should have a community of friends and family that will help walk you through this process.

Who's willing to go to the jailhouse for you and bring back a message to God from God to you? And only that the few that we have as believers comes with the blessing that God has for. So, as we stand today, we're going to sing one of my favorite songs, and it's called The Blessing. And we want to remind you today that as you align with with God in Christ, that is a blessing that comes with you and your children and your children from generation to generation. And so if you're here today who don't know, you may not know Christ, you may be in the battle of your life. You may be coming out of a bout. He may be going into a battle. You may be even at a point where you just at a resting point and God is giving you an opportunity to catch your breath before you get back into the next fight of your life.

Just know that you're not alone, that you have a church who's willing to partner with you to to new life, with you, to walk and do things with you. Such a way that everyone encouraging everyone to love on you. And just to remind you that you're not alone. It's today. We want you to walk away knowing that you are blessed and highly favored.