Hit Me With Your Best Shot Series

“Hit Me with Your Best Shot”

Rom. 1: 16-17

October 30, 2011

Intro: There was a boxing video game a # of years ago called “Mike Tyson’s Punch Out.” And in the game the 1st fighter you faced was a French boxer named “Glass Joe.” He had one win and 99 losses. He was easy to beat b/c he had the classic “glass jaw,” which means he couldn’t take a punch. Hit him a couple of times in the face and he’d go down for the count.

-If you’re going to be in a fight, you want to be able to w/stand punishment so you can push forward and win. B/c any time you step in a ring you ought to assume that you’re going to get hit. Now you might be thinking, “That’s true but I don’t need to worry @ that b/c I’m not a boxer.” But the fact is each one of us is involved in a spiritual war. There is a battle going on for our very soul.

-That’s why Paul wrote in Eph. 6: 10-12, “be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

-If we’re going to have victory over the schemes of Satan, then we better be tough. We better be able to handle adversity when it comes our way. And that’s the question I want you to think @. When trials come my way, when things aren’t going how I planned, how am I going to respond? Will I have enough confidence in who I am and who my God is, to not give up and quit but to keep battling?

-Today we’re concluding our series “Classic Rock.” The past several weeks we’ve taken some songs from the 80’s and put a spiritual twist on them. And the song we’re putting a twist on today is Pat Benetar’s song “Hit Me with Your Best Shot.” You see, I believe Xians have the ability to live w/confidence and boldness in the face of an evil world and say, “You can hit me w/the best you’ve got, but in the end I’m going to be okay. I’m going to be fine b/c of whom I believe in.”

Sermon Idea: Today in our passage of Scripture we’re going to see a man named Paul writing a letter to the church in Rome. And he wanted to encourage them not to be timid in their faith; not to be timid in allowing their belief in Jesus and His teachings to dictate how they lived.

-And there’s no doubt in my mind the same kind of encouragement is needed for today. We are in desperate need of followers of Christ to be firm in their stance of living lives for God. We need to live confidently and I believe we can once we understand that we can w/stand the best shots the world can throw at us.

TEXT: ROMANS 1: 16-17

Bckgrd: Paul called for the Xians in Rome not to be ashamed of the gospel; of the good news of Jesus. And that doesn’t seem like it would be that hard but you have to remember the day in which this was written. Rome was the basically the capital of the world. It was home to the one world superpower at the time. And the Romans weren’t exactly friendly towards those who placed their allegiance to anything above the Roman government.

-And this included religion. I’m sure you’re all familiar w/the stories of Xians being placed in arenas w/wild animals as a form of entertaining executions. So it’s in this kind of environment where Paul challenges believers to boldly live for God! Sounds a little crazy but there was a reason for it. Paul knew that we could handle the best shot the world could take on us and our faith and still come out victorious.

-How so? We’re going to examine some reasons we don’t need to be fearful of what the world throws our way. The 1st reason we don’t need to be fearful in life is b/c:

DIV. 1: OUR FAITH HAS POWER (v. 16)

Exp: Fear swings a heavy punch and can absolutely immobilize people. And unfortunately this also happens concerning our faith in Christ. Sometimes Xianity can make us feel outdated; it can make us feel intellectually inferior.

A. Again, Paul was writing this letter to Roman Xians. And Rome was the pagan capital of the world. They didn’t just worship one god. It was the more the merrier. So if you only worshiped one god you were considered to be a weirdo.