-The high school that I went to was a big football, track and wrestling school
-All of the best athletes played football
-The coach of the team highly encouraged his best players to not play basketball anymore but to concentrate during the winter on lifting weights instead of shooting a basketball
-It’s no surprise that our boys basketball team was never very good. Our girls team was awesome but the boys team stunk.
-I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of an organization called Bigger, Faster, Stronger. They specialize in helping amateur athletes naturally become bigger, faster and stronger through strength and speed training. They go around the country and do clinics to help coaches and athletes.
-One came to a community nearby so we took a bunch of football players and checked it out.
-One of the things that the leader does is dare somebody to come up and try to take a quarter out of his hand. They have to put their hands at their sides and he place his open hand, palm up near the person’s belly button. This gentleman alleged that no student athlete has ever had anyone get the quarter from him.
-A good friend of mine, the star running back from our team and an extraordinary athlete volunteered. If anyone could do it, this kid could. He set school and state records for the pole vault. He set school and state records in the 100 meters and the 4x100 meter relay team. He was an all-state 1st team football player who went on to play division 1 college football at the University of Minnesota and is now an assistant coach with the St. Louis Rams and he had a huge ego to boot.
-He was probably the only kid that ever went up against this strength coach who ever thought that he was up against someone inferior to them.
-To him it was like a dare.
-The coach might as well have said, “You wanna bet?”
-My friend took his place, shook his arms and rolled his neck around to relax, placed his arms by his sides and focused as the older man placed his open hand out in front of him. The stage was set. We just waited for my friend, Matt to make a move and then his hand struck like a cobra. We couldn’t believe our eyes. He actually got four of his fingers inside the man’s palm before he was able to close on top of the quarter but the older man’s grip clamped down like a bear trap.
-They wrestled over the coin for several minutes, each trying to get a better grip than the other.
-Finally, Matt’s hand emerged like a man set free from prison WITH the coin.
-The strength coach swallowed his pride and congratulated this extraordinary young man for breaking his upbeaten streak {PAUSE}.
-This is sort of what takes place every day. Obviously, it doesn’t always take place in a gym but also in offices and homes and factories and out on the street
-There is a battle going on
-However, this battle of strength and quickness is fought, unlike in the case of Matt and the strength coach, between unequal foes.
-And this battle is difficult to perceive with the naked eye.
-The battle that wages is between God and Satan
-You can disagree with me on this one but I believe Satan already knows that he’s defeated but, as they say, misery loves company.
-If you were going to sentenced to everlasting torment, wouldn’t you want someone there to accompany you. You wouldn’t want to endure it alone.
-Peter in his first epistle states that the devil is a roaring lion, prowling around looking for someone to devour
-We make God’s job difficult because we are like the sheep in Jesus’ illustration that wander off
-We have a tendency to let ourselves get too busy
-We let ourselves put God on the back burner
-We don’t attend worship as often as we should
-We let dust collect on our bibles and devotionals
-We don’t turn to God in prayer, when we need him
-In Martin Luther’s explanation of the second commandment. Oh, by the way, Lutherans and Catholics don’t number the commandments that same way other Protestants do. We skip the graven images commandment since that is really rolled up into the 1st commandment. So, as I was saying in Luther’s explanation of the second commandment, Luther encourages us to “call upon God’s name in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks.”
-I think Luther’s explanation of the third commandment is instructive as well. He writes, “We should fear and love God that we may not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred, and gladly hear and learn it.”
-But we get silly sometimes
-When we haven’t been to church in awhile or haven’t picked up our bibles to read, we feel like to go back is hypocritical
-I was talking to someone awhile back that got hit with a 365 day deployment and wanted some advice about how to best take care of their family while they were gone.
-When I suggested they get plugged into a church, they asked whether I thought that they were being hypocritical
-Is it hypocritical to get a drink when are thirsty?
-Is it hypocritical to get some food when you are hungry?
-Why is it all of a sudden hypocritical to go to church when you haven’t for awhile and you realize your need to?
-I went so far as to say that God, at least, allowed them to get hit with the 365 so that they’d come back
-Ultimately, God isn’t so much interested in our happiness and comfort as in our personal growth and having and keeping our attention {PAUSE}
-Guys, what happens when you ignore your wife?
-She’s going to do just about anything to try to get your attention. Right?
-When I get obsessed with something and can’t get my mind or attention off of it, Linda finds fun and interesting ways of getting my attention. My wife is amazing.
-Just a helpful hint ladies. If you want to get your husband’s attention – get creative.
-Does a relationship work if you ignore one another?
-Can a relationship succeed if you don’t communicate or spend time together?
-God is rather creative in getting our attention when we blow him off.
-He allows struggles to come our way so that we’ll be put into a position where we can’t get through it on our own so that we have to turn to Him {PAUSE}
-Sometimes I think we have it too easy in our country
- Why is the faith of so many Christians in other parts of the world so great?
-It’s because they are always teetering on the edge.
-It’s because they never know what is going to happen to them next because they are believers in Jesus
-They never know when they will be jailed or beaten or killed or have their house burned to the ground because they follow Christ
-They have to trust in Him
-We have the “luxury”, if you want to call it that, of not having to trust in Him all the time
- We really are like sheep that are easily snatched away from the shepherd{PAUSE}
-The cool thing is that unlike Matt ripping the coin out of the strength coach’s hand, unlike the wild animal snatching the sheep away from the shepherd, no one will be able to wrench, God’s chosen from Jesus’ hand
-Why?
-Because Jesus’ was seized for us
-The guards of the chief priest came, laid hands and Him and seized Him for us
-He was arrested in our place for our crimes
-He soldiers seized Him, beat him, mocked him, wrenched His belongings from Him, even His very clothes
-After an unjust trial, Jesus was hung up by the hands and feet
-Jesus did all that for you and for me, willingly
-As He says in our text, “the reason God loves me is that I lay down my life – only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.”
-Jesus raised Himself to new life again
-Now, those nail scarred hands hold you and me and prevent us from stumbling so badly that we fall.
-Just like we allow our children to stumble. We also prevent them from falling that they might hurt themselves so badly that they aren’t able to get back up again.
-How much more so does God prevent us from stumbling permanently?
-If He has the power to raise Himself from the dead, how much more does He have the power to keep us in the true faith by the power of the Holy Spirit?
-I love Martin Luther’s explanation of the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed
-He writes, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith; even as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith; in which Christian Church He forgives daily and richly all sins to me and all believers, and at the last day will raise up me and all the dead, and will give to me and to all believers in Christ everlasting life. This is most certainly true.”
-If someone said to me, “I believe the devil can snatch us out of Jesus’ hand.” I’d say, “You wanna bet?”
