Weekday Warrior | Week 4

Not like Super Bowl, Pro Bowl, it's it's 10 pin bowling. I know. I know. I picked it up as a kid from my dad when I was young and and I did it. I I quit for a number of years, but I fell off the wagon and I went back. And now I bowl again with some friends and I've been bowling my whole life.

And I'm kinda half joking. And so I like to tell baseball stories and all that, but I was, I do bowl and and and I never really share I never really share stories of of me being a hero or doing something good. I'm gonna share that how that I was a good bowler because I figured that cancels it out. It's bowling. So what does it matter? And people are like, that's not even a sport, is it? Is it a sport? If you the more you drink, the better you get. Does that does that count?

That's bowling, but but I love it. It was fun. And and I actually was a better bowler as a teenager even than a baseball player. And I was nationally ranked when I was a teenager. I got to number two. Couldn't beat that stupid guy from the Midwest to be number one. But but I got to be in a tournament in 1986

that that they were trying to determine. In 1988, I don't if you know this happened, you probably weren't paying any attention, but bowling was an exhibition sport in the eighty eight Olympics. They were testing it out, and it was gonna be in that so they had to decide how to pick a team.

And back in the eighties, they still had very strong on the amateur rule, so they had a problem with what could adult league bowlers try out for the Olympics because you win money. So they had set up this qualifier match for to be that you can make the Olympic team.

And it was just collegiate bowlers and junior bowlers, so high schoolers and college age. And and you had a bowling tournament to get into the tournament, and I got into that. And I went to Vegas where they had it, and I'm bowling, and I started out,

and the lanes were horribly difficult. I think they try to wanted to challenge us to see who could really bowl, and and of all the things, it was really weird. There was, a 100 of us in this tournament, and I was the only one that had figured out what to do on these lanes. And and so I was bowling really good,

and everyone else was bowling really bad. And so it's not like I bowled national setting records for scoring. It was just good scores. And so I was running away with the tournament, but more like they were running away from me. Everyone just kept bowling bad. And so it was 36 game format.

And you you talk about bowling. It doesn't seem like it's that athletic. Well, if you go to these level of sports,

there's one person on a lane, you bowl really fast in six game blocks, then you have, like, an hour or so break, you pull another six game block, and you get really sweaty, you get really tired, and it is a hand eye coordination that muscle things have to be very perfect if you're gonna do it well. And you get exhausted, get tired, and one of the things that can get beat up in the sweaty and all that near near the way we throw the ball is your hand. It's kinda like being a knuckleball pitcher. They can't pitch if they have a hurt nail.

And you think, oh, what a wimp. Try to throw a knuckleball with a nail that's that's hurting. And and so what happened is about 26 games into this, I had about ten, twelve games left. I was so far ahead that I knew I had won this tournament. There nobody would be able to catch me. I all I had to do was don't die

and don't quit. The problem is I'd been having a problem before I got there with my thumb right here from all the games I've been pulling, and I was getting this little, like, it was cracking open. And by the twenty fifth the game, it had split open.

I mean, to the point of like, I didn't tell this at the other service computer, how heavy that could be. I ended up having to get stitches in it after the tournament. And it was split open so bad it was bleeding and it hurt. And and it's that thing that

holding the ball, excruciating. It sat right on it. Extending and letting the ball swing, pulling on it, pulled it apart, excruciating. And then the worst part is when you came to let go of the ball, what I had to do to crank the ball,

I knew this is gonna hurt even worse than everything else every time I threw the ball. And it kept getting worse. They have this stuff, this Nu Skin stuff. It's like this liquid skin

with patches. You put like this little mesh patch. You fold it over there. And I was doing that as much as I could, but it was splitting open. It was I had to sit there and put ice with it to to stop the bleeding between shots. And it hurt so bad. So bad.

And the reality is there's been times if you're hurting that bad. There's been I've been in tournaments where it's like, it's hurting so bad, I'm bowling bad. I'm like, this ain't worth it. I just withdraw from the tournament. But I didn't because I was winning. And so I was able to go through the most excruciating

pain. That actually hurt worse than when I blew my knee out playing baseball. And that was every single shot. And maybe that motivated me to get more strikes because that means I only had to throw one instead of two times. But I ended up sticking it out and I won. And the only reason

I didn't quit was because I already knew I won. If if if I wasn't doing well and didn't know that I would won, I there's no way I would have kept going. Now a lot of you are gonna go look it up, so you were in the Olympics? No.

Because in nineteen early nineteen eighty eight, they determined, no. Adult bowlers winning money doesn't count as not being an amateur, so they reformatted and did another qualifier. But by then, I'd already blown my knee out playing baseball, so I couldn't go to it. So my Olympic hopes were crushed. And and

but the but the point there is think about it. I had to face that wound. I had to deal with it. I had to do the best I could. Otherwise, it would have gotten worse. I had to at least do what I could. But the only way I made it through that was knowing I'd won.

That's what I wanna talk about today, this end of this series, Weekday Warrior.

And what we've been talking about is how do we go from coming to church on the weekend, we're Christians, we worship, but how do we go out there and stay in the fight of living out the life that Jesus died to give us. Being a disciple, trusting him with our lives,

and being able to go out there and consistently do that, and do it in a way that says we just trust him more and more. Not do it because we're living for his love, because we're living from it. It said in our first week, I talked about how Paul in Colossians said, we are new creations. If you have accepted Christ

as your Lord,

then you do know that there's, you know, there's part of you that really wants to trust God with everything. There's maybe you read the word of God or I'll preach a sermon that hits up against something. You know, I'm not doing that. I I haven't been doing that. And and you feel like, I know I should. I know I want to, but for some reason you can't. You think that the you that doesn't wanna do it is who you are.

And you think the goal is, I have to use my own strength and psych that person up to go do this. What we learned the first week of the series is if you know Christ, it says we are a new creation, we still have that old self. We took off the old clothes, put on the new self, but that old self's still kind of floating around, a remnant in there.

But that's not who we are. The part of you that wants to trust God is who you are. If Jesus came back and took you home right now, that's what goes. All that thing that you think is you that gives you the fear, the guilt, the shame, the wanna pull back or wanna not listen, that stays. That's not who you are anymore.

And we need to embrace that. And what we need to do is, so how do I go live that life when life is hard? That's what I wanna talk about. How do I stay in the fight? How do I I I trust the Lord? How do I live free in Jesus, as we said week one, when there's a lot of wounds, when it seems hard, when you wanna quit.

And the big idea is the same thing that that, like, in a spiritual version of of what I did in that bowling tournament is we need to face the wounds while embracing the win. We need to do them both at the same time. Because if I don't embrace the win and understand that I've already won,

that I don't follow the Lord, I don't do any of this to get something from him, and if I don't do it, he doesn't take it away, he doesn't take his love away. If I have put my faith in him, you and I are already winners. We've already won,

and we need to embrace that, but also face the wounds. We gotta face them both, and here's what we're gonna see. It's all through scripture,

and especially in the writings of Paul. And if you don't know who Paul is, he's a guy that that that persecuted the church before he became a Christian. Then he became this church planter. This guy, Paul, actually wrote about two thirds of the New Testament.

And all most of those letters, these books like second Corinthians. What that means, second Corinthians, it's the second letter that Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, the church he started.

And so he went out and started these churches, established leadership, moved on, and then he would write back to them and hear what's going on and mentor the leaders from afar.

And and and so he's writing. Second Corinthians is considered his most personal because of what the content was about. You see, he wrote first Corinthians, they were growing really fast. And then in between first and second Corinthians, he wrote another Corinthians. So technically, you could call this third Corinthians,

but the the the second letter never got in scripture. And we don't know what it said. We know that he mentions it, and he said it was a severe letter. And and that means a lot because Paul was a throat puncher. He's very honest.

But and if he's saying, I'm I'm I'm glad you received it well because I was a little bit worried that it was a little bit harsh, You can only imagine. I'm pretty sure that's why God didn't put it in the Bible.

He's probably like, Paul, there's some good stuff in there, but that was too much profanity. You can't put this in the Bible. No, no, no. But he wrote it, and the reason he had to write it was because he's addressing these issues. There was these guys that he mockingly called the super apostles.

They basically would go around, almost follow Paul, and they'd go to the churches that he started. They'd come in and say, you know what? You're not doing this exactly right. You need to listen to us. They came in really impressive. They dressed really nice. They acted. They were really successful.

And they kinda remind me of guys that you would see on an infomercial, you know, like and and and and they're coming out there and and and they would come in and be really high powered, get eloquent speaking, they talk about how they haven't had failures, they're so successful,

and God blesses you. It's almost like the prosperity

gospel ish a little bit. And they would tell them that you can't listen to this guy Paul, you need to trust us, you need to do things different. Because look at Paul, man. That guy's a loser. Look at all the problems he's has. Look at the problems he's admits his ass. Look at his weaknesses. Look how he's had he's been shipwrecked. He's been beaten up. He's been arrested. He's caused riots. He's like, God's not with him.

Because if God was really with him, he wouldn't have these wounds. He wouldn't have these issues. So he had the right to address that.

And most of the people listened when he wrote the letter we haven't seen. Then he writes this one and he re explains some of this try to encourage them, those who now have turned back and and understand. And in chapter four, he really starts unpacking why if Jesus loves us and we have the fullness of the life right now,

why do we still have wounds? And and especially even the self inflicted ones that the bible calls sin. Why do we still go back to the old self? Why do we still have fears and not trust God? And also why does bad things and we just get overwhelmed?

Because that's some of us are struggling with our faith right now because you're confused because life's hard. It might be a physical thing, a financial thing, a relational thing, but it could be this moment. It's just, I can't be a weekday warrior

because of all of this, and I have to get past all of this before I can do this. And that's not true. And Paul writes about it, he answers. So chapter four starts off with him talking about, here's the thing. We have the glory in us, this glory in us. And he's talking about Christ and the Holy Spirit,

and we are a new creation, and we are absolutely loved by him. He has redeemed us. We have his power. We have eternal life, and eternal life isn't something that you get once you die. All of that life and power is 100% here and in us now. Right now. The problem is we are fragile jars of clay, is what he says.

So you have all this power, this new life, but we still live in the body that's decaying, in a world that still has sin, and so it's fragile and things break our jar. We break our own jar, and that's the struggle.

And but we had to stay in the fight. And it comes to crescendo in these three verses that that that we've already read, and I wanna reread them here to to land this idea because we gotta face the wounds while embracing the wind. And I have two points. I split that in half. We gotta face the wounds. But look, verse 16.

Is why we never give up. He described how we have this glory of the eternal life and Jesus died to redeem us and give us real life. And but even though we're in fragile jars of clay. And he says, but that is why we never give up. And then he says how? He goes, though our bodies are dying,

our spirits are being renewed every day. See what he said? Our bodies are dying. We have death, we have problems, we have wounds, we have struggles,

but we also are being renewed in that love and the power of the glory every day. And what most people, when you read that, and what most of us when we hear a sermon about trust God and how we have eternal life, we really subdivide. We make them separate things. We says, yes, this life's hard, but if you hang in there, eventually when Jesus comes back or we go to him,

then then all of a sudden, we're gonna get the good stuff. The full life, fullness of eternal life will will come, and then we'll have that real power in the eternal life. You realize when Jesus returns or we return to him, we don't add any more life or spirit or power.

Just something's removed. Something doesn't come with.

And that's the death and the pain and even our old self, the reflection of our old self. It stays behind. So the part of you that you've been trying to reform, that you've been trying to say, but I have that, but I have that, That's not even you. And if Jesus came and called you home, that ain't going anywhere.

Does that make sense? That's what we have to embrace and understand.

That we're fighting the wrong fight. He says, but we're being renewed every day. This is written in Greek. Really important. Don't wanna bore us with that. But the truth is it has a tense that it's in. And that sentence, that phrase, both statements are in the present tense. So it's not, yes, you're dying,

but eventually you get renewed. It's saying right now, if you know Jesus, we are dying and we are hurting and we have problems. We caused some of them ourselves. That's happening right now. And the power of the love of Christ is also renewing us at the same exact moment. The win is there. We are winning right now. Right now.

But our perspective, if we don't see that and embrace that, and you're going through hard times, your perspective is you're losing.

And so when we have these these both of them, they both go hand in hand. We have to embrace them both at the same time, and we have to choose that and understand that. And there's two people. We do one or the other sometimes. And some of us in this room who won't face our wounds, won't confess sin,

or we just won't admit that this isn't working well or it's hard, it's I'm hurting.

And and you come to church all the time. Those are the ones like they're like the super apostles. They came in and like they had it all together. But I we know for a fact that we're fragile jars of clay. We have sin. We have hurts. We have stuff. They just act like they have it all together. That's what they do. Infamous. All these people. And and social

media. We wanna present all of our good and not reveal any of this. And the reality is some of us are sitting here and you're in denial or you're about to give up because you're white knuckling your faith. You think it's in my strength,

I just white knuckle, so you won't admit. You won't won't confess. You just, like, you just keep going and going and going and going. You show up, and and it's and in the funny version, it's like you got your family in the car right when you pull in the parking lot. Hey. The second we step out of the car, we're the Brady bunch.

We're not married with children anymore. Got it? We'll go back to that when we get back in the car and try to decide what we're doing for lunch. But right now, don't embarrass ourselves.

You know, it's it's it's that's kinda funny, but it's also kinda real. We do that. We're like, okay, I gotta go get ready for church. I gotta go. And and and we become the weekend warrior because we're in denial. We we don't know what to do. We won't face the wounds.

We we we won't face the wounds. In recovery ministries, the number the first step is you got to admit you actually have a problem. You have to admit there's a problem.

And that's the thing that we don't do. And we get stuck because if we won't face it, we just white knuckle. It's all a game. It's all an act. We feel like we're performing.

And the problem of that is I go, why? Why do we do that? I don't know if I can answer for all of I know for me, and I'm pretty sure it's what I've seen around, I think the number one reason why we do that is a fear thing. For some reason, we keep believing the lie that wounds cancel out wins.

That if if life's not working for me, if it's hard, or if I'm sinning, I have to ignore I have to white knuckle past it because if you see the wounds, then somehow I'm not I don't have the win. If I if I'm struggling with a sin, then I I can't let it show because it shows that, you know,

God's not gonna love me. I just have to white knuckle it and do better till he loves me. That's not true. He already loves you. Or if people see that I'm having failures.

So we keep going on, going on. I mean, we probably have some moms in this room that you are like super moms. You come to church, you bring your kids, you do activities. You're the ones that, like, makes every other mom mad because your summer was structured with what you did with your kids.

Your kids went back smarter. The rest of our kids went back dumber. You know, and and and and you look like you have it all together, and then you drop your kids off at school this last week, and you had a panic attack.

Because you can't stop thinking about everything. There's probably some men in this room that that that you're like, hey. I I I take care of my family. I'm I'm the strong I'm the man. I I'm the one that's you know, I I I'm the one that's gonna lead my family and try to lead them well.

You act so confident, your family has a nice life, and you know that at work right now, you're probably gonna lose everything. And you just dutifully carry that all by yourself.

Or maybe it's your self inflicted wound. You're carrying about a chronic sin, a a sin that's maybe it's a hurt habit, a habit, or hang up. Or maybe it's just that chronic sin is there is something you know God wants you to do as a disciple. That he's called us to be a disciple, to be a part of a follower, to be a part of the church.

That not just attend a church, we're called to be a part of this body. And you just won't do it. You just won't do it.

And inside, it's either a fear, a frustration, or you're so overwhelmed that you think, I can't add one more thing. That's how it plays out. We have to face those wounds, not hide it. Not hide it. Because you know what? Because oftentimes

those wounds that you kind of hide and then you get frustrated saying, hey, I'm white knuckled. God, I'm doing everything I can here. Why have you not taken this away? Or why have you not given me this? Or why did that hurt happen? Or why did that? And you know, in the book of Romans, God says God works all things together for good for those who love him and are called according to His purpose. He didn't say all things are good, but He says He is working. The renewal in us is He'll use the wounds and the hurt on the outside

that we think this isn't right, this isn't fair, this is overwhelming, I can't do this, to actually turn it into something good. But you have to be called according to His purpose. Meaning, am I being a weekday warrior? Am I choosing to stay in this fight? Am I choosing to trust Him?

And if you do, I guarantee everything that you think God hates me because He's allowing this life will turn into something that'll open a door to something to bring you to the next phase. It'll change someone else's life. It's gonna do something. But you won't see it.

Back in World War II, a woman named Corrie Ten Boom, anybody ever heard of her story? Great Jewish, but a believer, her and her sister Betsy, they ended up in a concentration camp. And one of the things that they were talking about, they were able to have secret Bible studies in their

barracks, which were filthy and disgusting. And they were blessed by the fact that they knew if they got caught, they'd probably kill them for this. But they never got caught. And as they had their bible studies and stuff, Corey was complaining about, of all the horrible things, why the fleas? God, why the fleas?

We're flea ridden causing they have scabs and itches and it's just disgusting and they couldn't stand it. And, his her sister said, you know, we just read that we give thanks in all situations and all things. It doesn't mean we're thankful, but we just gotta

understand that we're gonna God's not bad. God knows where we're at. He knows what's going on. So we just need to trust him and do what we're supposed to do and be faithful. And she was kinda mad at her sister at first, but then they realized at the end of the war, she found out her sister was right because the reason they never got caught and put to death and able to have their bible studies, which by the way led other of the people in the camp to Jesus,

was was the fact that the the guards would never go in their barracks because they were afraid of the fleas. The fleas protected them.

So we need to face the wounds. But like it says, while embracing the wind. At the exact same time, our spirits are being renewed every day. Because he goes on to say, For our present troubles are small, in verse 17,

and won't last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever. He's not downsizing. It sounds like he's saying, Here's why you don't have to worry about it. Your problems are small.

He's not going, Well, back in my day, we had to go to the temple uphill both ways in the snow and 120 degree heat. He's not saying, did you die? Well, get over it. He's actually doing a wordplay because he says they're very small, and the word there means light, in comparison to what produced for us the problems themselves,

getting struggling through, what they produce for us is a glory. That's that weight, that life, the thing that God gave us, the ability that far outweighs. That's a word for glory there is a play on with a Hebrew word that means very heavy. It's not trying to

downplay and say, Get over it. Your hurts and wounds are not significant. It's saying they are.

And that's what makes God's love so incredible of what He'll do with those hurts and what He'll do when you trust Him with life. And what you do when He happens when you trust the life and the power and the fact that you already won, when you embrace that,

it goes that the real peace, the real joy, the real contentment, the purpose in life, the fact that you know your life will matter, all the things that that will accomplish is massively heavy in comparison to the weight of the wound. But once again, you will never experience it if you're not in the fight

and embracing the wind. If you think fighting through this, white knuckling it, and not embracing the wind is the way you get to the love, you get to the glory, you get to the power, you've missed the point. We're not there trying to get it. We already have it. And so on the other end, if you can't embrace the win,

all you look at is the wounds all the time.

And that we got a lot of us in there. That's where you're at. If one's more in denial, this other group, you're more in despair. And it's sad because you're like, I get it, but apparently this Christianity thing doesn't work for me. You know, it's funny. I I think I've become an old man like my dad.

He used to sit there and read the newspaper, and I just hear this voice behind the paper. What the hell is wrong with people these days?

My wife has heard me as I read it on my phone now, the news, because getting a newspaper delivered got ridiculously expensive. They're like, we're just gonna make it so expensive that you're an idiot and you'll stop doing it this way. I think I was the last human that got a newspaper delivered.

And I find myself saying, what the hell's wrong with people these days? And I was reading an article about how people are quiet quitting. You guys know what quiet quitting is? Half of you all probably doing it right now.

It's where you're in a job, you don't like the job, you don't care, you're the company you feel like your company undervalues and doesn't take care of you, but you don't actually quit. You stay going to work. You just do as little work as possible.

You just you just don't care. You're you're you're you're just, I will do as little as possible, and I'll quietly look for another job. I quiet quit. And I'm like, really? It's like, now now that I explained it, you're like, oh, yeah. That's what I do all the time. That's been every job I've ever had.

And and and and but it's a true thing, quiet quitting. My I think some of us in this room right now, that's what you've done with your faith. You've quiet quit. You still show up here. Exactly. You still show up here. You won't leave the 10AM service. Kids are like, I don't really care. I'm gonna go to the one I wanna go to.

People can go to hell. I don't care.

We laugh because that's kinda true.

But in a serious vein, we you're struggling because you're like, this doesn't work for me. And it's either there's something wrong with me or there's something wrong with God's love for me

because we're seeing it wrong. You can have both of these at the same time. That's what Paul talks about. In chapter six, he goes on and and says in chapter six verse 10, he walked he actually leaned into all the things these guys ripped on and said,

Paul's weakness is his problem. He goes, no, it's not. Of course it was weak. But it was the reason I went through all of this was because that's what I had to go through to bring you the gospel.

I I got uncomfortable. A lot of this happened because I chose to serve God, because I became a weekday warrior, because I stayed faithful. And then he says, and then the weird thing happened. That renewal, that love, that glory that outweighs, he started to say, you know what? They treated me this, had that. I was beaten. I was he said all these things. I've yeah. You're right. I've been shipwrecked trying to get here. I've been beaten. I've been arrested. He goes, I've been stoned twice and not the good kind with brownies involved. It was just rocks thrown at my head. And and and and he's like saying all this stuff. And then he gets near the end and I love what he says in verse 10.

Oh, it's the wrong page. He says, Our hearts ache, but we always have joy.

See, if you don't understand that we face wounds

while embracing the wind, if you think it's, I get through the problems and then I can trust God and then I can get to a win because I'm either earning it or I just have to I don't have time to trust God. If you look at it the wrong way, that statement confuses you to no end because you've linked circumstances

to contentment, joy, peace, and winning. Because he says, Our hearts ache but are filled with joy. That's the peace that surpasses all understanding. When we embrace this, you can go through it. He goes, We are poor, but we give spiritual riches to others. We own nothing and yet we have everything.

And then he gets it. He gets it. In chapter 12, he goes even deeper and gets more personal because he he's an expert at going, I know what people are gonna say this but it doesn't work for me.

Is he starts talking about how he himself is one of those guys that says, get what you're thinking. Well, you know what? It's true. But if God really wanted me to trust him with this time, I wouldn't be so overwhelmed with everything. If you want me to trust him with my money, he'd give me more money. If you wanted me to not have this, he would take away this problem. He'd take away this health issue. He'd give me that. It's always you get frustrated going, if God really loved me, then I would either get this, get rid of that, or experience this feeling first.

And here's how he learned a lesson. He says, I myself, in chapter 12, was given a thorn in the flesh. He calls it a tormentor. We don't know what it was. It was maybe a physical ailment. But whatever it was, he felt like, God, I have absolutely served you and followed you. And if you would take this away,

I could serve you more. He actually had a valid reason. And he said he passed three times. And if you look down into verse nine, verse eight first, he says, Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness. What he was saying is,

you keep thinking that you're having to do all of this in your strength. It was never about your strength. It was never about our strength. When you hear a message like this, I don't have the strength to do it. Exactly. That's the point. The point that God asks us to do stuff that you and I are stinking afraid of.

Because there is no way I have the ability, the time, or the lack of fear. I can't trust God with that. I can't go that direction. I'm not strong enough. That's when you see the life and the power. Because when you go that way anyways and something happens,

you found out it wasn't about you or me and our strength anyway. It was about the win we already have.

And that's why he finishes it with say, so now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ can work through me. That's why I take pleasure in my weakness and in the insults, the hardships, the persecutions, the troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Guys,

we are gonna suffer pain, insults, hardships, fears, brokenness. Whether you trust and serve and follow God or not. The difference is when you go God's way, there's meaning, there's purpose, there's power, and there's life in it. So suffer for no reason

or suffer and be renewed at the same time. That's the choice. And in your mind, you think the way it should be is there's a way I can go and everything works great and there's no suffering, that's what's holding you back. Because if you ignore God's way, you're still gonna suffer.

You still have the financial problems. You still have the health problems. You still have the marriage problems. You still have the fears. You still have your kid living in your basement. You still have all of these things. And you have no weighted glory of the win of the love of the God who created you.

Be a weekday warrior. Don't give up. Stay in the fight. And we can hold these things together at the same time. Counselors have caught up with it. After this sitting here in the bible two thousand years, I'm always amazed at this. They call it holding space.

Some of this is what a counselor told me last week. I need to hold space for those this and this. You can have things that are seemingly contradictory, but they can both be true, and that's how you can work through these things. Like like like like like like, for example, a a husband, you can both love

providing for family and hate your job right now. Moms, you can both love your kids and be a great mom and also be super excited they went back to school. Or every day go, I am so glad it's bedtime. You you're not a terrible mom. That's true. I can both love the Arizona Cardinals and and love the Super Bowl.

Seemingly complete opposites. I but you know what? Seriously? I can love the Arizona Cardinals and also admit that the Seattle Seahawks have a better run organization. I can admit that because it's true. It's what makes me hate them more and be disappointed in my own team.

It's it's true. I I can admit those things. But you know what else I can admit? I can hold the fact that I love preaching and hate preaching at the same time. And a lot of you are thinking, yeah, you know, it's hard. You get up five times. It's gotta be exhausting. Then, like, don't get me started on Christmas and Easter.

I don't even believe what I'm saying at the end of Christmas and Easter anymore. I tell personal stories. By the end, I go, did that really happen?

But that's not the part I hate. That's not the part that bothers me. I have no problem getting up front and doing it. One of the struggles I have is the preparing part. When I was in school, I hated writing papers. Oh, I hated book reports. We have these books. You gotta do a book report.

Part of the problem was you had to read the book. But and and and and I was like, I was so glad to get out of school. I'm never writing a paper. I never have to do a book report again. And for the last thirty six years, I have done a book report on the same book every six days.

God has a sense of humor. The oral presentation part's fine. It's writing it down and studying that can be difficult. But that's not really the thing that makes me both love and hate preaching at the same time. That's an inconvenience. I'm a disciplined person. I do it. The part that really gets me

is the reality that just because I'm a pastor, I'm just like you guys. I'm a fragile jar of clay. I have wounds, and I do self caused wounds, self inflicted. And there is nothing worse than having to wake up on Wednesday morning when I start studying to prepare my book report.

And I feel like I've been a little bit distant from God for a few days, over a few weeks,

or I'm carrying around to something that's like, you know better, Bill. Why are you doing this? Why is your attitude this way? Why have you struggled with this? And I, for some reason, I get it. I'm like, I should run right back to time with the Lord because He's the one that loves me. And if I would just sit with Him and confess and repent,

instantly I feel fine. I know that, guys. I've done it a thousand times, a million times. And yet you get to that mood, it's like, Oh, but I just don't have time. This guy's so there's that fear that still comes in that I am such a disappointment, and I gotta get up in front of everybody else

and tell them biblically how to not feel that way. Talk about hating a moment. I don't feel good enough. I don't feel strong enough. I don't feel qualified enough. I never feel like I have the right words. I can't seem to finish on time.

People don't listen to me and leave the 10AM service.

When I start to get really personal, sometimes I throw a joke in It's to keep me from crying. But I feel that. I get it. But you know why I'm still doing this after thirty six years? And I have a ton of friends that quit long before me for this very reason.

I know I won this tournament.

I know I won. I know that it's not my strength or my wisdom or my wit or my incredible good looks that makes me be able to do this job. It's none of that. It's simply surrendering the love of Christ and saying, here am I, send me. The only reason I'm able to do what I've done is because of what I just preached.

And it's not an action on a list. It's an embracing an attitude, an embracing reality, an embracing truth. And don't let yourself get overwhelmed with the fears of all the lies,

and don't give up and stay in the fight. How? You have to look at both of them at the same time, and we know that that seems impossible. It's like two sides of a quarter, heads and tails. Two sides of a quarter. There's both heads and tails. Have you ever tried to look at them both at the same time?

Have you ever taken a quarter? Hello, please. Alright. I'm look at them both the same head.

Alright. Gotta get faster.

That was actually my brain bouncing back and forth because I got a big skull and a brain about that big. Now I think I can see both sides of the coin at the same time. I gotta quit doing that. I've done this. This is my third, fourth time. I'm be concussed. You can't do it.

And I know this is some of us are. I've heard this. I get it. I get what you're saying, but it's impossible. You can't do it. And you're right, you can't. You're not fast enough. We don't have the power to do it. It is impossible to look at both sides of a quarter at the same time. Absolutely impossible.

Unless you have a mirror. Hold the mirror up. You're looking at tails. Man, there's my problems. And then you just slightly look up like this, and I'm looking right at the wind. There's the heads. I'm seeing them both at the same time. Jesus is the mirror. The cross is the mirror.

It's why Jesus established this thing for us to do together called communion. It's not some ritual that makes Jesus, God love us anymore. It's not taking in his literal body to get some supernatural power of grace from that. We already have the grace. It's a moment to look in the mirror. It's a moment to hold up the wounds

while reflecting off the cross to see the win that we already have. That's what that moment is. That's what it is. And here's what's cool about what Jesus did at the moment at the cross. You ever had anyone did you ever play did you ever flip a coin for hey. We'll flip you for it. And have you ever

had this happen or maybe you're the one that did it? You're just, alright. Let's flip for it. Heads, I win. Tails, you lose.

Do you guys understand do you not understand what I just said? Because if you didn't, meet me outside. I wanna flip for your car. It's a joke. It's kinda, I'll flip for you and if heads I win, tails you lose. Either way, I'm winning. Right?

And that's funny as a joke, but you realize when Jesus went to the cross, that's exactly what he did to death? That's what exactly what he did to the devil, Satan, who is as for that wanted wanted him to die? He thought Jesus dying would thwart him. You're weak. You got beat up. You lost. You died. You're weak.

And Jesus said, oh, yeah? Heads, I win. Tails, you lose. And that's what he did for us. And now we have that same life that if you know Christ, your life is heads, you win. Tails, death loses.

When you go through the dust, you know that's the weight. The weight of that is so light compared to what God will do with that hurt and what he'll do with that. And when we sin, we don't even have to let that hold us back. That's what we do at the cross. We take communion. Remember, wait, Jesus already took care of it. They're right there. He loves me. He forgives me. He redeems me. All I gotta do is bring it back to him and confess it and repent. Here you go, Jesus. I am so sorry. Help take this again. Help me see the win again. Help me live in the win again. And as long as I do that, I'm fine.

Heads, you win. We've won. And even when it's tails, out there loses. We still win. That's what we need to do. That's what communion is. And that's why we're gonna take a moment right now.

Because communion was the night before Jesus died. He broke bread, said, This is my body broken for you. He took the cup and said, This is my blood spilled for you. And then he asked us to do this in remembrance of him. Why did he want us to do this together frequently?

Why is that the thing he wants us to remember? Because that's where the win is. That's where he proved. You know what the Bible says? By his wounds we were healed. Jesus is the perfect example. Wounds and win went together. And that's what we get to do.

So I'm gonna give us I'm gonna do something that's a Christmas miracle. I'm gonna stop talking for sixty seconds. That's gonna be hard. Pray for me. And I just want us to take a minute, and I want you to reflect because that's what communion is, a chance to reflect before the cross.

Hold up that coin, you know, and as you're looking through so you can see the wind, talk to him about the wound. Is there a sin you need to repent from? Is there a thing that the bible calls sin too? It's not just what you did. It's what you won't do. Is there something that he's called us to be as a disciple,

as a follower of Christ that you've just been afraid to do? Or maybe you've just been angry. Maybe you've just had that wrong view, and you've been mad about it. Give it to the Lord right now. Take a minute.

Took the bread and broke it. So this is my body. Take and eat.

He then took a cup. This is my blood spilled for the forgiveness of sins. Take and drink.

Lord, I thank you that your love is so far beyond our understanding. So for me and everyone in this room, my prayer is simply this. May we face our wounds while embracing the wind that you gave us. May we go out there today and may the mantra in our heart be, heads, I win, and tails, death loses. Amen.

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