Pastor Erwin McManus: The Way of the Warrior | VIVE Church

have a seat [Applause] so one of the primary things new my life is is I'm a writer and I love writing and and one of the things you're not really supposed to do when your writers tell people where your ideas come from or how they emerge in your head and and especially I've been married for 35 years to my amazing wife Kim and and she tries you can apply that all right you know and and so she's always nervous when I started talking about my process because it makes me less trustworthy but uh but I didn't know I was gonna write this book called the way of the warrior it was not an expected activity on my life schedule and I was driving with Kim through Hollywood we're going down vine to our house and and we've been married for a long time so now sometimes we'll drive but we won't talk you know I mean we've talked a lot for 35 years yeah sometimes we just drive and then I'm actually an extreme introvert and so I can go a long time without talking and and and drives her crazy and and as we're driving down vine I hear this voice now that's not unusual for me yeah but but I I hear a voice it was so clear and in the voice side the Warriors not ready for battle until they've come to no peace and I I didn't know where that came from it was just it just dropped inside of my soul and and I didn't remember it breaking the silence I leaned over to my wife Kim and I said I know what my next book is it's called the way of the warrior and I know the first sentence I don't know anything else but I know the first sentence and and so I knew was gonna write a book about peace but I didn't know where it was going to take me I had no idea in the process that I was going to be dealing with some of the deeper darker issues and the human spirit and and there was gonna force me to go to places I did not necessarily want to go now whenever you have a moment of of inspiration when you have an epiphany you realized at that moment is really connected to so many other moments in your life you know so I am I love old Asian films Japanese films Chinese films and I mean my favorite movies are like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon that I was the only non Chinese speaker in the theater when it was released watching that film and and I mean III love hero I I took my daughter to see it and she was miserable and but I saw it like five times and and I just loved that film and my original favorite film was probably the Seven Samurai and and then the Magnificent Seven was just an American take off with the southern Samurai and and and and i was actually compulsive about it when remember when there was blockbusters and you're older than you look that and or you've checked it on Wikipedia I'm not sure but but I would always go in the blog question I would buy a copy of either the Sam seven samurai or the the Magnificent Seven and my wife would say you already have that movie and I said I don't I think I do I don't think I do and I would buy it and I would have like twenty thirty of them in our house and and then when people would come from out of the world I said I have a gift for you and I I would give them these movies and so just I could buy another one and so I've always been attracted to Asian films and and even The Last Samurai which you know even though it has Tom Cruise in it and it I didn't mean it like that but oh yeah yes I did and but but it also has Ken Watanabe in it who played an amazing role and and so when I heard that voice I knew it was Ken Watanabe whose voice and I could recognize you know the Warriors not ready for battle I want these come you know piece and yeah and I also knew that had been in LA for 30 years and mosaic our community of faith the average age of our church is probably like 26 years old and probably 80% of our congregations under 32 and so it's it's a massively young community and and and cities have magnetism and so if you if you are drawn to certain things you go to certain cities like Paris or New York or San Francisco and so if you're a tech genius you probably come here and it doesn't and people Palo Alto they have all the tech geniuses you don't raise them and you just steal them and some of them were actually born in Iowa and there's no explanation for that happen but but they didn't stay in Iowa they came here and so the brightest minds in the world come here and so you have a culture of genius here but but you know that that culture of genius is actually global because the geniuses came from everywhere well la has this disproportionate culture of creativity and beauty and sometimes when you're in LA you forget the rest of the world doesn't look like that you know they look like me and you know and but I'm in LA and and you see such extraordinary superficial expressions of Awesomeness and some of the most talented gifted creative attractive people in the world but we also have one of the highest rates of depression and autism mental illness and we have a city that's incredibly fragmented so I think in that moment I was processing not only all the great Chinese and Japanese films I've ever seen but I was also really dealing with all the brokenness and despair that was inside of so many people and and and then also just really coming back to my own personal journey I mean I turned 61 this summer and and there's some things in my life I thought I would ready to be past but they're still with me and you can't see that I struggle with them because I've learned how to function well which stuff that still cripples me inside of my soul and and I started wondering how if and I'm a person people go he's really whole and I go wow I'm really a whole five the measure of wholeness we have a really broken world and if and and I I you ever had like panic attacks or anxiety attacks or I I mean I I've had those and ever struggle with depression or just feeling a sense of disconnection and see when I was 12 years old I was in a psychiatric chair and I spent months in and out of a hospital and and when I was 12 years old they're trying to diagnose me and figure out what was wrong with me and I was a straight D student 1st through 12th grade and and I was extremely reclusive I lived in an inner world and I had nightmares for five six years every single night in a row and and even to this day I still I'm in danger of having these extreme paralyzing nightmares where I'm fully awake while my imagination is still fully operating and my family's had to learn how to help me through those because even though I'm not trapped in my past I still carry some of the phantom memory of that and so I wrote this book because I felt like in the same way that one out of every three people who struggle with depression never go public and share with anyone what they're going through I think we have a disproportionate number of people who believe in Jesus who never talk about what's really going on inside of them because we don't feel permission to because if you say you're depressed or if you say you're stressed if you say you're anxious or if you say you're struggling with something now you don't really believe you don't really have faith what's wrong with you and and someone will give you the same verse you already knew and that you've been given a thousand times and just memorizes hurts just believe in it you're gonna be okay and and so we treat the inner world as if it's less significant than our physical body and so somebody lost the leg at war we wouldn't say to them just believe and it'll come back and you'll be fine stop limping stop acting like you don't have a leg and so we actually treat our physical bodies as more essential to our humanity than our emotional and spiritual health so I started thinking about how in the scriptures there are so many places where we can actually find ourselves in our worst moments have you ever had anybody say I wish I could be like David you know or Joshua or Esther and yeah I wish I could be like you know Elijah and and the moment someone says that I knew what they've never read the Bible because if you read their stories you go yeah oh I don't want that life I'm good I'm good I have enough of that life I don't need that life because the problem is that if you only have a nominal superficial understanding of the people in the Bible you will measure their highlights against your real life and so then you can't figure out how to do this thing called life and and it feels like God's always letting you down because you're not like them you're still human so there's this moment in the scriptures that I want to just highlight just for a few moments and it's in the life of Elijah and one reason I want to go to Elijah is Elijah is almost like beyond belief like Elijah existed before x-men you know Elijah was around before Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel and Superman and Batman before DC and Marvel there was Elijah and he prayed and brought fire down from heaven II prayed and shut down the skies and it didn't rain for three and a half years and he picks up his robe and runs faster than chariots I'm I mean this guy is like superhuman right you know and and and and he has this epic moment which probably most of us know about he's in this conflict with around and a thousand priests who are worshipping false gods and the people of Israel are being drawn into this destructive belief system and and by the way people say all religious are the same they oughta just pause for a moment you know cause like you know a part of like I have I'm a mutt and so I have a little bit of my in in me and the Mayans we actually cut people's chests open while they were alive pull out their hearts and I call that an unhealthy religion and I just say I don't want to be non-pc and say everything's the same just saying that's not okay and I could leave my heart inside me and break my heart but don't rip it out and and and so there is a conflict between an incredibly destructive unhealthy view of God and gods and so I just said look let's do this let's build two altars let's pray to our God and gods and who's ever God sends fire from heaven that's the guide we shall worship every thought that's kind of epic so I mean you're doing that next Sunday right you know it's like it's simple it's like if you're not sure if there's a god just pray for fire and it just fixes everything but it doesn't it doesn't that's the strange thing see because what happens is that the other prophets pray and pray and pray and their gods never respond and because it's really hard for gods that do not exist to respond and you know it's expecting way to much of them and the whole time Elijah he's not really kind or gracious he's like mocking them he is the Howard Stern of the Old Testament and you know he says he's he's mocking maybe your God can't hear maybe you should talk louder there's one sex that's translated in a very cautious way but it's basically like I think your God is constipated I think he's in the John and I think he has the runs and I think that it's an awkward this awkward aisle you ever had somebody I mean I've been there I've been there have you ever been there where you're like you know you're you're busy and your wife's like where are you know like well it's like it's like maybe those gods just need a minute and something didn't settle well and and so he's just absolutely just tearing them up and so they start cutting themselves because the darkness of their religion led them to self-destruction and we need to be careful because whenever we move towards self-destruction we know we're moving away from God's intentions for us and so in the middle of that then it's his turn and then he you know he's kind of showing you know a little flamboyant he says let's let's drench it with water you know let's do it again do it again yeah yeah yeah seven times they're drenching you at the water was the thing come on like it you know you've really got to make a point right you know and then he prays a prayer is something like okay you got it and so God sends fire consumes the altar all the water other altar a few people details and and and then they actually go to war and it wipe out those prophets which is a pretty dark moment but for Elijah is a huge moment of success yeah you ever thought to yourself if you could just have one awesome moment you'd be okay for life you know if you could have one miraculous moment you'd never doubt God again have you ever had that thought you know like look I just if I could just have fire from heaven once right and I don't mean like in a private moment I want people there I want people I want to have some fire reputation I want fire rep I want you know I want fire cred I want that's the fire guy I think you know and I don't want you'll play this I was alone in Iowa you know and that was in Wyoming and boom fire and no one's gonna believe that I want it public and and like like Elijah and then that would be set for a life I would never doubt God again I've never go God why are you doing this God what's the deal God why are you messing with my life aren't you giving me my dreams God why are you sending me through struggles and and I realized a huge part of it you ever prayed and asked God do something great in your life I mean probably everybody even if you don't believe in God would want God to do something great in your life you know if there's a guy that like that and and the problem is whenever we pray for God's you've been great in our life usually what happens if something horrible happens and we get mad at God going you've misunderstood my prayer and I didn't say ruin my life I said so you know do something awesome but but how in the world can actually can God actually do something miraculous if he doesn't give you a challenge that needs a miracle and so whenever if you want God to upgrade his presence in your life his proof in your that means that you're asking God for greater persecution greater trials greater challenges in your life so here he has this moment and what does he do after fire comes down I mean you kind of set for life you're Elijah fire call her and here we go to chapter 19 this is what happens next now a have told Jezebel you you may not know who a happy Jezebel or maybe you do yeah that mosaic most people have never read the Bible so we have to introduce some to all the characters and and you don't have to know much about Ahab adjustable they're the king and the queen they were evil their malevolent you know and and the way you can know that is well one is anyone here named Jezebel okay no and and your mom wasn't named Jezebel and you're not gonna name your kid Jezebel okay that's how you know just what was a bad person because I you know no one names their kid Jezebel and there's some a Habs but not that many and says now a had told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword which were her henchmen so Jezebel sent the messenger to Elijah to say may the gods deal with me be it ever so severely if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like one of them III have to be careful here but but Elijah just stood against almost a thousand men and was fearless now one girl sends a threat through a messenger that's gonna have an effect on him that's not going to happen effect on me if I just prayed fire down from heaven and I hear I'm coming to get you I go come on if we're gonna have a barbecue come on let's go let's go bring it on but he doesn't do that it says Elijah was afraid to ran for his life that's how I know the Bible is actually legit because that should not be there right it's not the way the story would be written if you're writing it to show how awesome God is all the time and how how our lives are forever changed isn't that we would say you meet God and you're better for life you meet God and you never circle again you meet God and you're never afraid again right because we have the expert of fear and faith okay and but you can't even get to the faith part until you work through your way through the fear part but the problem is that if you were to sequal to have to be fear faith fear goes after the faith the fear comes back it's like it's it's messy isn't it and Elijah runs for his life when that doesn't match anything he's experienced which lets me know something when you're struggling in your inner world it's not really connected to reality well let me just go a little further and then we'll come back and says Elijah was afraid to ran for his life where he came to Bathsheba and Judah he left a servant there and he went a day's journey into the wilderness he came to a broom bush sat down under it and prayed that he might die I've had enough Lord he said take my life I'm no better than my ancestors now it's odd how very little we talk about suicide except to build false views of people who take their life but here Elijah struggles with suicide he's not the only one by the way Jonah was another one some of our key people in the scriptures come to a place in their life that they have no hope for tomorrow and I don't know if you hear and you've ever struggle with the inner voices in your head just telling you it's not worth the fight your life's never gonna change you're never gonna get better you have that little voice that just is why I just end it I want you to know that you're just like people in the Bible you're not different than them and they're not different than you Elijah runs for his life and he prays god I just want to die he doesn't even have enough initiative to do it himself he's saying God kill me he's at the end of himself and this strikes me is really odd because if Li Jie was good at anything it was praying in fact in the book of James around chapter 5 verse 17 or so it tells us that Elijah was a per a man just a person just like us but he prayed and then it did not rain for three and a half years and then he prayed again and they did right I mean it's a short summary where I was four years of your life right you know but what they're basically saying is and he says and the the desperate prayers of a righteous person has great power so they're using Elijah as an example for great praying so you think a guy that creative I mean who thinks of fire so pretty like what can we do here I think fire alright yeah that's that's pretty creative I wouldn't have thought of that and you know who thinks I'm gonna stop the rain I mean the universe is going to bow to my will who does that anybody hear anybody lightly anything like that you know and so you think a guy who is this creative and this confident in his prayer life would have a better prayer than God kill me that's the best prairie to think of I could think of a few I'm if you're afraid of Jezebel God kill someone I'm not really saying who I'm just starts with a J yeah and she's Mary they have no you decide that's a prayer humming you know his baby got the right prayer but it's a prayer or about God change her heart God reached Jezebel and turned her heart towards you like there's a lot of prayers you could pray God send my wife kick her butt I know I was thinking of you is the only prayer he could pray as God kill me see that the and there several dynamic sure I want you to see what when you when you come to the end of yourself it's not because it's actually the end of the road well one of the things that happens with all of us is that is that we were not aware that the most important battle we're ever going to fight is the battle for in the world because why and I just thought back I started looking at this from an overarching landscape I started thinking and I said this again to my wife this week actually yesterday last night when I was walking the streets of Palo Alto and I was looking at the architecture the lights on the trees and I started walking in and out of restaurants and cafes and I said humans are such an incredible species guy I talk about you as the species and and and and I said humans are just so amazing as a species I mean look at what they do with why didn't with stone and with Madeleine with with electricity they harnessed all this and and they create these incredible cafes and restaurants and the architecture and I mean just from a purely humanistic perspective humans are amazing as a species I mean I've never seen a raccoon do what we do and I mean I'm not trying to act arrogant in comparison to other species but you know I'd like to see like a water buffalo do what we do and they just you know we're kind of awesome as a species and you were the only species that invented that learned how to harness fire and light means think about this we learned how to master like commanded to do what we wanted to do by a switch light obeys her commands we're the only species that invented the television and the telephone we invented the Internet we're the species that learned how to travel under the sea and travel into space where the where the species that invented pizza no other species did that and we're the only species that invented Donuts and across the world we put them in pink boxes and how did that happen it's like it's like a god moment right you know and and yeah I know you're thinking why is this guy on the platform today but with everything the human species has be able to do we haven't been able to create world peace why is that you see it's because you could only create it out of your essence see that the reason we have a history of wars because we have hearts of for the reason that wars waged all around us is that there are wasn't wage within us and the only way we're ever gonna have world peace is if we couldn't find inner peace and this is why this battle is so important for your life because it's not just a battle for you it's the battle for us and Elijah was losing the war within him when he had already worn the war around him but it didn't secure the battle with him and and I want you to know that there's no level of success that will ever make you immune to feeling like a failure and it's one of the great human paradoxes that you can have so much success and other people can be actually championing you and celebrating you and even envying you and all you want to do is end it all I've just known so many people who have carried the weight of success and they feel so hollow an empty vacuous inside and so people can't see it because they see what they always aspire to in and you want to scream at them and tell them this still leaves you empty Elijah had all success that he could have possibly imagined and yet his inner world was in turmoil and then the odd thing was that he felt completely alone in fact later we won't have time to go there but he has a conversation with God and says there's no one but me here felt that way if we say it a different way when you want through pain you say no one can understand what I'm going through and someone tries to empathize but you don't know how I feel because no one has ever felt like you feel right and what's interesting is Elijah ran into the wilderness when ran to the desert and left his most faithful companion behind and so I noticed he did two interesting things there was a desert within him so he ran to the desert put it around him he felt completely alone in the world so he abandoned his own friend to be completely alone in the world see what happens so oftentimes is that where a self-fulfilling prophecy is you're saying pastor that when we feel alone we disconnect everyone so that we can be alone well we feel as if God has abandoned us we abandoned God so that we can say he abandoned us when we feel like we're in a desert we make sure we get to a desert and we actually create the life that we fear so he's alone in the world and he thinks it's the consequence of what others have done but actually his being alone in the world was the consequence of what he had done he chose this place he chose this moment and then he says I just want to die I yeah I I've had moments about ten years ago I ended up with this tinnitus or tinnitus I had a moment and my brain erupted and I heard these loud sounds in my ears so loud that they were paralyzing and I thought it would last for a moment and it lasted all day then all week then all month then all year and I couldn't have one waking moment without this screaming sound inside my head and I kept seeing images of me taking a gun putting it to my head and just blowing my brains out and I remember I finally share with my wife because she could see what's happening there's something wrong with me and yeah I've started going to doctors see if there's any way fixing us but there wasn't and and then they gave me some medication and I said what's this and they and they they said well they're antidepressants said I'm not depressed I have a blaring loud ringing in my head that won't stop and I can't sleep and they said I know but this is where the highest causes for suicide and so they the presents are just to keep you from making a bad choice and I said I appreciate the concern but know if this is the challenge I'm going to face that I'm gonna take it and one of the interesting things that I began to discover is that one I wish God had gotten rid of it but he did not I believe he had the power to do it but he didn't know but he didn't but it gave me a level of focus that I'd never had before he was the only way I can blare out the ringing is to be so focused on what I'm doing that it makes it irrelevant in my life see III understand the moment when Elijah says the god I just got just kill me I'm just tired you just prayed that he might die and he says I've had enough and I think you've had enough you got to see fire cutting up from heaven you pray the rain stuff I wish I had enough like you know you ever hear people complain oh my life is so hard I don't know if I should get the Bugatti or the you know a Lamborghini I'm like yeah I know I know your life is so hard and we could make it easier you buy one for you one for me and you know yeah I say I tell a lot of people you have rich people problems you have white people problems you know it's like you just you don't have any problems you know and it is I've had enough take my life I'm no better than my answers what Elijah's saying is I thought I could start a new pattern than my past but my past is becoming my future and then God slaps him around kicks him in the gut says get up you faithless worthless millennial [Applause] get your butt out of the dirt and get back to work that's what we do that's how we heal people hi suck it up and but that would actually happens in case some of you hadn't read it Wow God did that here's what God did he says then he laid down under the bush and fell asleep oh by the way what do you do when you're stressed out I bet you a lot of you sleep all right some of you have a hard time for just a hard time waking up sometimes people who are stressed out how many eat when you're stressed out yeah how many of you like Dhoni when you're stressed out how many both you don't eat and you eat yeah heads like they're all right coz that's me like I'll tell you that's me it's like when I'm stressed out I don't eat all the right things and I eat all the wrong they said in fact right when the book came out I had like a like like a panic attack just wrote a book up eats and I'm I'm in New York I'm like freaking out and I'm calling my wife but I don't know it's gone I feel and and and I got home and I said so go get pizza okay cuz I'm not I'm fairly a healthy guy you know she was okay let's good she had a slice and I eat the rest that I wouldn't I ordered the largest feats are they add she's like anybody joining us no just you and me babe you have your slice and then i IA that whole pizza and then right after I said hey let's go next door get some ice cream cheese oh okay and I realize I in after I said you want to go over you know it gets and because I was a little stressed a little stress you know and um and what's interesting is logic goes asleep and I think it's because he didn't want to wake up cuz say I remember this I remember being 12 years old and thinking to myself I'd rather live in my imaginary world and face the real world and it says all at once an angel touched him that's not slapped him that means caressed him and said get up and eat he looked around there by his head with some baked bread over hot coals at a jar of water wow this is so kind oh wow I thought that I thought I was hearing that in my head look at that you're like you're so good I'm like I feel like sighs like I'm feeling moody I'm feeling like it's so good and yeah I think there's like a deeper significance of that like get offstage but he gets up and there's baked bread right by his head over hot coals did you know that God's a chef I love this because a lot of times when a person is struggling well we just don't believe in God believe in God you know just get yourself together have faith and we forget sometimes that the most spiritual thing you can do for a person is cooking a meal just you know invite him into your life let him sleep on your sofa you know you know play some video games together watch Netflix and then have a great meal and say hey how you doing okay go back to sleep cuz that's it he eats it he goes back to sleep he doesn't get up go home better now he's like okay thanks any of you and goes back to sleep angel has the Crescent began and take his time I love how patient God is oh and by the way just a thought but hot coals bread flatten that bread out little marinara sauce no cheese it's like pizza it's like right now it's like I think it's in the Bible I'm pretty sure and then it happens twice main course dessert hot bread little cinnamon little Holden mill doughnuts right yeah and so don't let anyone tell you that God does not use carbs to bring you back to hell [Applause] but I love what God says to him and what will close here cuz I'm feeling it I don't know what things I actually don't have ends to my talks I just run out of time it says this angels of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said get up and he for the journey is too much for you and then he got up in the eighth he drank and he strains in by that food he traveled forty days and forty nights in sleary tour of the mountain of God as I this is interesting when he was running from God he had the straight to written one day Boni was walking with God he had strength walk forty days and just just be careful that when you're running for your life that you're not running from your life I love how God was kind and compassionate but he still pressed him into a future he said eat because you're gonna need the strength because the journey is too much for you that's not really what twenty here when you're down the journey is too much for you the way we coach each other's you're enough you're stronger than the journey the journeys not too hard it's like you made a heat because life is not going to get easier for you Elijah so you're gonna be on a journey and it's gonna be harder than you think harder than you know but you're still gonna go there and people ask me all the time does it ever get easier that's why I'm here to give you the answer to that does it ever get easier the answer's no life never gets easier you get stronger [Applause] [Music]

Channel: VIVE Church

Views: 2,447

Rating: 4.9215684 out of 5

Keywords: church service, ADAM SMALLCOMBE, ERWIN MCMANUS, CHURCH, JESUS, VIVE CHURCH, C3 CHURCH GLOBAL, BAY AREA, MOSAIC CHURCH, C3 CHURCH HUB, vive church, jesus, church, christianity, MSC, worship, THE WAY OF THE WARRIOR

Id: 8r4pN46ythg

Length: 35min 27sec (2127 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 11 2019