Real Men - Why Men Can't Let "It" Go

really good to have you guys with us and if you're new you're in the right place with the best guys welcome to real men thanks for joining us live thanks to those who give us the honor of joining us uh on the uh on the internet uh we're glad to have you and uh let me just start by saying that next week is our final week of real men's for the semester and we're going to take a little break for the summer but as was stated at least here not online we're going to do date night starting on january 9th how many of you guys are married you got a wife right okay great great great this is going to be really good if you've never been into bible study song of solomon is a good place to start okay and i'm gonna i'm gonna tell you it's the most romantic erotic explicit incredible book of the bible so i want you to all practice what i preached so we're gonna go through the song of solomon my wife and i have really short little about 30-minute talks or so and then what we're going to do on wednesday night starting june 9th over the course of the summer we're going to then send you out on a date night and we're going to watch your kids for free anybody like free babysitting okay free babysitting that's what we're doing how many of you guys are engaged we'd love to have you join us how many of you guys are single okay you may want to join us you may not it depends on your pain threshold so we'd love to have you nonetheless uh maybe if nothing else you could volunteer in kids ministry find a wife and join us next summer nonetheless that's what we are doing and uh what i'm going to talk about tonight is in romans chapter 12 and the uh the topic is why men can't let it go let me start with an analogy an illustration so i recently found one of the weirdest television uh programs these guys go in and people will have defaulted bankrupted on their plane so these guys will come in they'll break into a private airport they'll find a plane that they've never seen and then they will hijack it and repossess it these guys i can't even imagine this you're in a plane that you know nothing about what could possibly go wrong and so these guys are just taking planes out of the hangar and then immediately repossessing them hoping that they fly and work in one particular episode there was a guy and he had a great plane and he got it on the runway and he had a really hard time getting it off the ground barely made it over uh the trees in the elevation and then as he's trying to climb he's like man there's just something wrong with this plane all of the gauges seem fine the motor seemed fine nothing was on fire and so eventually they pulled over at a regional airport because they didn't have the ability to actually go over some mountain ranges that were set before them they they were incapable of elevating to the correct altitude so they pulled over to a regional airport come to find there is a massive load of very heavy weighty cargo in the plane that they didn't know because it's not their plane and they just repossessed it they didn't take time to fully investigate it as soon as they got all of this really heavy weighty cargo out what do you think happened well exactly what's supposed to the plane goes up really easily it then goes to the appropriate flight level immediately it gets really good gas mileage everything is fine the point is there was nothing wrong with the plane but it was just carrying a load that it shouldn't have been carrying the moral of the story is this that i think many men are like that god's got you on the right runway you're on the right plane you're going the right direction god has a good destiny for you for some of you it's hard to get the plane up off the runway for some of you it's hard to get it to the appropriate altitude or to get good gas mileage and it may not be because you're doing the wrong thing you're going the wrong direction or there's anything wrong with you it may simply be that the load that you're carrying the weight that you're bearing is not intended for you and what i am hoping and praying for us as men in our time together is that if we're carrying weights loads and burdens that we should and guess what we do we're pulling over tonight and what we're going to do we're going to dump those loads so you guys can get back up with the future that god has for you and a lot of the times for men what this is this weight this burden this load is something that i'm going to call your it um and don't add to it just let it be it but it's your it and what happens with your it is it's something that you just can't let go of you can't drop it's a weight it's a load that you can't dump sometimes this is a catastrophic thing from your past your dad walked out when you were little and you have a father wound and a bitterness ever since maybe it is your parents got divorced when you were young and your whole family kind of imploded and exploded and as a result life was difficult for some of you your first wife cheated on you and you got divorced for some of you a business partner betrayed you for some of you kids just sort of disowned and abandoned you whatever the case may be if you're a man and you go through life you're going to have some stuff that is going to come on you and you're going to need to have the ability to get it off of you because it's too much of a wait for you to bear sometimes it's a big thing a really big thing it may have been a betrayal a sin an abandonment an abuse sometimes it's not necessarily a big thing but the person is a big deal some years ago i learned a painful lesson through my sinning against a young man and he was going out to plant a church and i thought i'd been a good pastor to him and loved him and served him and i thought i did a good job and so we're meeting and i just wanted to bless him and pray for him and send him to what god had for him and uh and i said is there anything i've said or done that has hurt you or anything i need to own or anything i can unburden you for and i thought he'd say no you and jesus i can hardly tell you apart that's what i was anticipating it's like it's you know twinsies and so i thought you know this be a good time for you to compliment me i've done such a good job and instead he started getting very emotional and i was sort of surprised because i thought i'd done a good job being good to him and he said well on this day he literally named the the year the month the day the time i mean he literally nailed it and when we were in this place he named the place he said you said these words and he quoted me word for word now that oh my gosh this guy has been living in that moment ever since he's not left that moment he's literally frozen in that experience and i remember looking at him and he says do you remember that honestly i didn't i said i'm not gonna lie to you i'm sorry i could tell that i really hurt you and i i sinned against you and i said but i'll be totally honest with you i don't even remember saying that okay how many of us have said or done something and somebody comes back later and they're like you said or did this you're like i i don't even remember that that was the worst day of your life that was just another day in my life i don't remember and uh i said i'm sorry i didn't know that was a big deal and what he said really really taught me something significant he said what you said wasn't a big deal but you're a big deal and i said oh okay and it dawned on me in that moment with certain people you're not carrying a hammer you're carrying a thor hammer every every time you hit something it's like it was a big deal and it's not because the issue was a big deal but because the relationship was so a lot of times for men it could either be a big thing or it wasn't necessarily a big thing but it was somebody that you had big expectations and hopes for this could have been your business partner this could have been your dad your mom this could have been your spouse this could have been your girlfriend you were going to marry her and then you go to boot camp and you come back and she's pregnant it's not yours and i mean these are the things that happen to men through the course of life and so what he's talking about here in uh romans chapter 12 we're in romans and i do leadership talks for men and i want to talk a little bit about the text that i'll be in this weekend i want to look at five reasons why men can't let it go and i would just ask you what is your it what is the thing that is the weight the cargo the burden in your plane you're like you're having a hard time getting your life off the ground or getting it to the altitude and elevation that god intends for you what is that thing and usually it's some sort of hurt frustration disappointment and if you're a man injustice from your past okay so we're gonna look through these number one we have always lived our life in the fight from school to sports to family military and business true or false as men many of us our whole life has just been kind of a battle you go to school you fight you go to recess you fight you come home to a rough neighborhood you fight you join a sports team you fight you graduate you join the military you fight you join a fraternity you fight you go into business you fight you've been in the fight your whole life any men relate to that that's where i was born i was born in a rough neighborhood you had to fight your way through it here's what he says repay no one romans 12 17 what evil for evil how hard is it for a man not to counter punch and return fire this is going to take a supernatural miracle right if you're a man there's something in there that says if you hit me i hid you back if you attack me i attack you back how many of you are just counter punchers by nature it's almost second nature it's unconscious somebody says something you're like here we go somebody comes at you oh this is going to happen all right how many of you guys fight or flight you've never even prayed about flight you're like i'm in let's just ding ding find me bruce buffer let's just do this okay he says don't return evil for evil but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all what happens when someone does evil against you it is a provocation to a conflict a fight in a battle now how many of you there's someone in your life that they just know immediately how to get you to enter the ring we've all got those people right how many of you it's your kid right now in your mind you're seeing your teenager you're like oh my gosh some of you it's your wife some of you it's your mom your dad it's your co-worker it's your boss there's somebody who when they say something when they do something they incite in you a fight response you want to respond and you want to respond to their evil with what with evil more evil now let me just tell you this evil plus evil doesn't equal honorable okay and what he says is you want the equation to come out equals honorable and what he says is honorable in the sight of all you can win your fight and lose your character you can win your fight and lose your reputation you can win your fight and lose your marriage you can win your fight and lose your kids you could win your fight and lose your family you could lose you could win your fight and you could lose everything and how many of us know guys that they just keep fighting and they don't understand that they think that they're winning but they don't see everyone and everything that they're losing and so what he says is do what is honorable in the sight of all okay and what happens is when men have conflict true or false men have conflict we just do so men have conflict one cesar does something evil the immediate knee-jerk response to the other man is to return fire to engage to counter punch to return evil for evil but the problem is who's watching a lot of people and what could happen is you get so fixated on the person that frustrated you or angered you or annoyed you or provoked you or disappointed you or sinned against you or committed a crime against you that you lose sight of everyone else you don't realize people are watching i'm teaching my kids how to behave right they're going to see what i say and do and that's going to be a lesson for them do i want my kids to grow up being like this i'm training my wife if she is watching this how to respond uh co-workers fellow church members brothers friends people are watching how many of you have gotten how many let's just be honest every man at some point has done this we just lost it and then we look around and we realized that other people were there and they were just like that's okay that's when the holy spirit showed up right and all of a sudden you realize oh my gosh the way i'm conducting myself the way i'm presenting myself the way i'm responding it's not honorable this doesn't honor god and this doesn't honor the person that god has made me to be and this doesn't honor the people that is a man i have a leadership influence over and the way i'm conducting myself is actually discipling them because a lot of discipleship is caught not taught it's through observation not just hearing it's watching and doing okay another thing that he says number two we get addicted to the adrenal height of the high high of the fight here's what happens when a man gets angry when he engages the fight when he's in battle this can be military this can be sports this can be an argument this can be business often times it is business this could be ministry what happens is a man feels very powerful and strong all of a sudden all the endorphins fire all the adrenaline fires and a guy feels really strong and on how many of you guys were in the military or you were in sports and you were able to actually fight through a tremendous or significant injury and you didn't even really feel it until it was over and then you had the adrenaline dump and you're like oh my gosh i didn't know i was that injured or that that that's sick until the adrenaline dumped and then you really felt it but it can mask a lot of pain it can mask a lot of suffering and all of a sudden what happens for many men we get so used to the adrenaline high of the fight and so he goes on to say this if possible so far as it depends on you live peaceably with all okay is it sometimes impossible to live peaceably with some people yeah there are some people they just are all about the war they're never about the peace they're about the conflict not the resolution they like gas on the fire they don't like water on the fire some people are that way what he's saying is insofar as it's possible with who you you and i will not stand before god and give an account for people that we're having conflicts with we'll give an account for ourselves they'll give an account for themselves what he says is try your best do your part what i always like to say is for things to be worked out it takes the person who was wrong to apologize or repent and it takes the person who was wronged or sinned against to forgive i mean that's ultimately what it takes what he's saying here is whatever your part is do your part if you were wrong say i'm sorry i was wrong if they were wrong say i love you and i forgive you and what he's saying is you can only do your part you can't do both parts because two parties are involved but what he's saying is insofar as is possible with you what he's saying is try your best to live how peaceably and what happens is for some men the living peaceably is a foreign experience we get so used to going to work to fight and coming home to the fight and just living in the fight that for us peace peace is odd some of you are soldiers some of you have been in the military some of you've been in combat we love you we're honored to have you we we believe in law and order and enforcement and military service but sometimes what i uh what i hear from soldiers and brothers is that if they're deployed for a really long time and they're used to constant shelling and living on the edge and adrenal adrenaline flowing in the fight when they come home it's what it's hard to adjust to peace time all of a sudden peace time seems abnormal and wartime seems normal all of a sudden conflict seems normal and uh and peace seems awkward that there are some who have a very hard time transitioning to civilian life it's because they've lived in the fight for so long that they struggled to make the transition to peace and i'm saying this to some of you men what he says is insofar as this possible with you seek to live peaceably with all people let me say this this is not avoiding this is not denying and this is not a coward some cowards run from the battle he's not talking about that think of it in this way um i was thinking about it as i was praying for you today so jesus christ god and savior greatest man has ever walked the earth he's being crucified on the cross could he have returned evil for evil reviling for reviling yeah think about it in that moment there literally lying about jesus they're attacking him they're maligning him they're shaming him they have falsely tried him accused him arrested him they have destroyed his reputation in front of his own mother you want to pick a fight with a guy pick a fight in front of his mom now in that moment if jesus would have returned evil for evil what could he have said and done can you imagine that jesus actually knew everyone who was there and everything they had ever done if he wanted to return evil for evil he could have he could have eviscerated people hey tom i know your wife's there tell her about your girlfriend sally all right i mean he could have just went through the crowd uh tony i know you're there with your boss you're both cussing me out you don't understand that he's been stealing from you last year he stole this number of dollars check this account at chase bank i mean he literally knew it all and he could have just sat there and said okay we're going to do you're going to talk about me i'm going to talk about you you're going to attack me i'm going to attack you you're going to trash me i'm going to trash you who would have won that fight jesus nobody ever picked a verbal argument with jesus and walked away unscathed unless he just chose to live peaceably now when jesus did that do you think he was being weak or strong it takes a lot of strength how many of you have had that kid in school that just keeps flicking you hoping that you hit them so that they can tell the teacher that you hit them and if you were that kid knock it off okay spank yourself when you get home you're a naughty kid there are always those guys like that and now the guy who can endure that the guy can he can bear up under that and seek to not return with evil and not to in any way um escalate but de-escalate through seeking peace that's a guy with a lot of self-control let me tell you this the bible talks about this is meekness meekness and weakness are totally different things and most men don't know this weakness is a guy who doesn't like conflict and he doesn't like the fight and he's scared and he just he just doesn't like to have any conflict or difficulty meekness is i could wreck you and i'm not going to because i'm going to love you now i could wreck you but i'm not going to because i love you and what jesus christ demonstrates throughout his life and on the cross is not weakness but meekness weakness literally means power under control power under control and so what he's saying here is seek to live peaceably so let me ask you this who or what is your it who or what is your it you're like that's the load in my plane that's the burden that's the frustration that's the bur under my saddle that thing drives me crazy that person is just on my last nerve seek to live peaceably sometimes living peaceably is literally just enduring insult as jesus did sometimes it's just choosing to walk away rather than engage the fight sometimes it is deciding that i'm gonna treat you the way god treats me i'm not going to treat you the way you treat me that's the mark of meekness the mark of meekness is when you treat me a certain way i'm not going to react to you i'm going to respond to him and i'm going to treat you the way he treats me and i'm going to let him deal with you i'm not going to deal with you i'm going to let him deal with you and that's where he's going here number three um we all have inner vows about losing rather than trusting um a covenant is a promise between us and god an inner vow is a demonic counterfeit of that and it is a covenant with ourselves god excluded and for men these inner vows are thing like things like i will always or i will never these are promises and vows that are made not between us and god but between us and ourselves many men have these unspoken inner vows sometimes even past from generation to generation so let's just do a little experiment how many of you your dad your grandpa are the men in your family they had some sort of rules some truisms some i would call them legalisms or inner vows right what would examples of those be never ever ever disrespect your mother or your father okay now honoring your mother and father is good but at some point at some point if you disagree with your mother or father is that disrespecting your mother and father no but sometimes if they have an inner vow you will never disrespect me sometimes that becomes you're not even allowed to disagree with me we're not allowed to debate or discuss things and if you ever disagree with us you're going to come up against the inner vow other inner vows that men have and or we put on our kids and they become generational curses never let them see you cry they'll be like well jesus the shortest verses in the whole bible jesus wept so like so jesus is not a man like you know jesus if jesus wept guess what men do now don't do it all the time right like if you're if you're like i just watched lifetime and that's all i do all weekend i just i just water my beard i just water my beard like you you need you need to find some other hobby okay but you know like um there are times the bible says in fact there is a time to weep your wife miscarries a kid you better shed some tears right your kid has a hard day they're really broken maybe something devastating or catastrophic happens to your wife or kids right you need to have your face show god's heart which means there there might be some tears but we make these vows we make these inner vows other inner vows that men make and or we pass on to our children don't drink in the morning that's just good advice by the way never back down from a fight you can't be a good christian and true to that inner vow there are times in the bible that it says that people came to pick a fight with jesus and it says that he withdrew quietly right there are times that jesus would engage the conflict and there are times that jesus would disengage the conflict the point is when there's potential conflict you need to be led by the spirit not your inner vow your inner vow is always never back down from a fight let's just well what if the holy spirit's saying this ain't your fight or this ain't your time to fight or this ain't the way to fight or actually the holy spirit shows up and says this is my fight you go home right i'll take care of this and i'll take care of you and so what sometimes happens is men especially when we're in conflict or we're under duress or being stressed or opposed or pressed what happens is we can default to the inner vows right other things that happen for example with men some men literally the inner vow passed to them by their father is you never say you're never say you're sorry never say you're wrong never do like well then you can't be a good christian because the bible says that we're a sinner which means on occasion we need to say we're sorry because we were wrong that's just christianity 101. so back to the text um we have inner vows about losing rather than trusting and the inner vow is i will never lose i will never back down here's what he says romans 12 19 beloved here's the first thing god loves you right he loves you like a father loves a son and when he's talking to you this is like a dad pulling his son aside and saying son listen to me right you need to get this this is super important never what avenge yourself see there's a difference between defending women children a police officer stepping in to protect someone and just always fighting for yourself it's not a problem to fight the question is if you're always fighting for yourself you may be wasting a lot of your time and energy never avenge yourselves but leave it to the way the wrath of god you know what's better than your vengeance is god's wrath okay right amen like i love all those vengeance movies i'll be honest they're cathartic like when covid hit the only guy making movies was liam neeson so i appreciate that all right for it is written and he quotes the old testament vengeance is mine i will repay says the lord what god says is if it ain't your fight stay out of it if it's my fight trust me to get in it now as men true or false we really we struggle to believe that and what god is saying is son you got to trust me if it ain't your fight you stay out of it if it is my fight i will get into it and vengeance is not yours wrath is mine okay vengeance is one level wrath is next level that's what god says okay now the way that god gets his wrath is one of two ways either somebody comes to know the lord jesus and the wrath of god is poured on the son of god and as a result jesus christ pays their debt of wrath to god okay when jesus said on the cross my god my god why have you forsaken me the wrath of god was poured out on the son of god as a substitute for sinners so how many of you we we know as christians that we should endure the wrath of god and instead jesus did so the wrath of god was taken care of by jesus so the first way that god pours out his wrath is someone comes to saving faith in jesus and the wrath is poured out on jesus not them and they get saved and forgiven just like you if you're a christian now you know your heart is bitter when your enemy gets saved and you're bombed you're like they were going to hell next thing you know they rerouted the flight now they're going to be with me forever you know your heart's in a bad place right so you want your enemies to meet jesus and stop being god's enemies the other way that god gets his wrath is not at the cross but where it's hell hell is the place of god's wrath and what that means is that god is saying i'm going to deal with them in this life but if they don't repent and come to my son jesus they're going to have wrath for eternal life let me say this there's nothing that you can do to anyone that is even in the same league or category as hell and so how many of you are justice guys you just justice got your engineers your accountants right your your air traffic controllers your cops your former soldiers right your your gun carrying arizonans you're just the justice people right if you're a justice person and you see or experience injustice there's something in that just feels out of order it's not concluded it's not resolved it's not right it's not fixed and the point is they're not getting away with it that god is going to involve himself in it and that ultimately god will take care of it now god does so perfectly let me ask you this our vengeance is it always right correct true accurate and appropriately measured no because we're men and so what happens is we'll get partial information and rush to a conclusion that may be unjust vengeance we could be wrong or partially informed and partially misinformed sometimes our vengeance is they hurt us and we're seeking to hurt them and we think that we're doing an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth but we're doing both eyes and all their teeth we've sort of just escalated all of that conflict how many of you have thought that you were done wrong so then you return evil for evil and it was vengeance and they felt like they you went too far so then they came back at you to make it even and to sort of settle the score and the weight of justice and you're like no that's not fair so then you go back at them how many of you have had these relationships okay how does it end everybody loses and it's it's not doing what is honorable in the sight of all starting with god and sometimes guys will get so fixated on the hurt they'll get so fixated on the offense they'll get so fixated on the person they lose sight of everything else and all of a sudden your best time and your best energy it's not going to jesus your spouse your kids it's going to that co-worker it's going to that betraying business partner it's going toward that ex spouse who lawyered up it's going toward that extended family member who just won't shut up and all of a sudden you are engaged in something that is going to be a fight for the rest of your life but what you don't see is all the collateral damage around you the people that you're supposed to be loving and protecting meanwhile they're caught in the crossfire he then goes on uh we are counter punchers by nature okay men by nature healthy men now now broken men are not counterpunchers by nature but a healthy man is a counter puncher by nature and he says this romans 12 20 to the contrary if you're what enemy that is important do you as a man do you have real enemies yeah and this isn't pretending oh they're a nice person they got a good heart you just misjudged them he says they're what they're an enemy they're acting like an enemy they're acting like an enemy if your enemy is hungry feed him if he's thirsty give him something to drink but by doing so you will keep burning coals on his head now the reason that we don't believe this is we've never tried it amen we've never tried it he told us earlier in romans that there's this guy named pharaoh who's got this really hard heart toward god so god's like hey pharaoh your heart's hard he's like oh it's it's harder now oh wait hey pharaoh you know what some bad things are going to happen if you don't change your heart oh you think you can boss me around no pharaoh look i'll forgive you i forgive people that's my thing um i've done this before this can work between us um there is actually an opportunity for grace for you but you just need to understand it your heart's in a pretty dark place and you're you're pretty you're pretty sick in your soul right now oh you think you could tell me what to do you want to pick a fight with me you got another think what happens is pharaoh just keeps hardening his heart and the way that god does that is that god literally is sort of heaping burning calls on his head meaning that he is being gracious and loving and merciful and kind and all pharaoh is doing he's just escalating the fight he's just living for the fight and he wants to fight with god nobody's ever want to fight with god what he's saying here is this if you want to do what is honorable in the sight of all don't repay evil for evil don't don't return fire for fire when you're in a relationship with someone what he's saying is instead do return fire but fire what fire grace do punch back a punch grace that's what he's saying and a lot of guys are just like well i just can't say nothing i can't do nothing no you're supposed to say something and do something take evil and give what grace how did god treat you and me we gave him evil he gave us grace that's how he treated us and what will happen for those people that you have that conflict with these people who are your it these people these things in your present or your past or you're fearful of in your future that are just they're a burden they're a weight they're a frustration like i'm just tired of carrying this it's weighing me down what you're doing at that moment you're giving them grace and then what you're doing is you're sort of leaving the fight saying you know what i'm gonna treat you like jesus treated me and then i'm gonna let jesus deal with you okay now the problem is here this is an incredible act of faith okay as men because what we think is if i take this out of my hands will god put it in his hands that's faith it's like lord i'm transferring this person person i'm transferring this conflict i'm transferring this problem i am not going to act like i'm god and judge so guess what i'm going to give it to you okay sometimes what happens in the judicial system there's a case that's tried and then it gets bumped to a higher court what you're doing here is you're literally bumping this case to a higher court you say you know what i'm not going to serve as judge jury and executioner i'm going to give grace i'm going to put grace on you i'm going to bless you and bless you sometimes literally means i'm not going to say anything because if someone is saying or doing evil against you you can't lie and i wouldn't encourage you to lie don't pretend like they're great he said you can identify them as an enemy but sometimes blessing them is literally just not talking about it okay some of you guys have got an ex-wife you know exactly what i'm talking about right kids are like tell me what happened um no because i don't want to return evil for evil and i do want to put grace on it and i hope they meet the lord jesus and if they don't it's going to be a really bad day when they stand before the lord jesus and i want to treat them the way that jesus treated me and at the end of the day i want to do what's honorable in the sight of all because if i trash her i'm discipling you to eventually trash who me and this is what we lose sight of his men and his leaders we set examples and in the moment we get emotional we don't realize i i'm training the people around me to react and respond and someday are they going to treat me the way i'm teaching them by treating others okay and then he concludes with this here's the big idea we don't believe that moving on is moving up when you can't let it go when you won't disengage the fight when you have to set the record straight when you have to win the war you can't move on because you won't move up you're not going to get above it you're going to get drugged down into it and stuck in it some of you've been in the same fights for a long time some of you have been in the same battles the same conflicts with the same people for a very long time and here's what he says do not overcome do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good question can evil ever defeat evil no no some of you grew up in those homes mom or dad did evil so what did the uh what did the other one do evil you know who lost everybody i'm telling you this right now our whole country is just a bunch of people wearing suicide vests they're just walking around saying i'm okay blowing you up and if that means i need to blow myself up i'm okay blowing myself up as long as i blow you up and what i would say is a whole nation and generation of suicide vest wearers is not a good way to live your life and raise your family okay because there are people who are literally willing to blow themselves up as long as you are close enough that you get caught in the shrapnel and what he's saying is this don't be overcome by evil and don't respond to evil with evil overcome evil with what good let me tell you this guys this is one of the hardest thing that a man will ever do um let me tell you a story i had a meeting recently i won't tell you too many details because i don't want to betray this man's confidence i love him very much but a man that i i know and love and respect quite frankly and um and he's he's gotten in this just sort of rough season where he's just in it fighting conflict who's gonna win who's gonna win who's gonna win and i met with him i was like how are you doing he's he literally looked at me he said i'm not doing good i said what's going on he said i can't sleep i'm just depressed and angry all the time i'm just grumpy i got a short fuse he said i feel like my whole life has a migraine and everything just sort of gets me and i said well when's it going to end he said well i've got a couple more years of these legal battles and these conflicts and i was like so i said are you gonna are you gonna live long enough to make it through this like you've decided i'm gonna fight everybody and everything to the bitter end and he said that's what i decided and i said are you gonna are you gonna live through it like you're you're not like physically emotionally spiritually all the check engine lights are on and maybe at the beginning you'd wake up and the adrenaline would fire and you'd get angry but you know after a few years the body just starts to misfire and the soul is no longer well and he looked at me he was very honest he said he said i don't know if i'll live through it i said why don't you just get out of the ring why don't you just stop fighting and arguing and declaring war and he said he said he said i made a promise to myself that i would never back down from a fight i said well you should make a promise to god that you'll do what he wants see the problem is we make promises to ourselves we don't make promises to our father i said i said does the father want you in the fight he said i don't know i said you ever even asked him like you you put your whole life in the fight and you haven't even asked him if he wants you in the fight i said if you're going to die in the fight i don't think dad wants you in the fight he said he said but i think i can win i literally asked him i said okay i said be honest with me i love you i was trying to be very gracious because he's he's fragile he's in the fight he feels like everyone and everything is against him he's very defensive and i love him so i asked him i said i said so you think you can win i said yeah i said what are you going to win he talks about the money and the legal and i looked at him and i said okay tell me this what are you going to lose if you win if you fight all the way through and you win what do you lose and this man started crying one of the strongest men i know he said i've lost my health i'm not doing good he said he said i'm starting to lose my wife she just can't live with the man who's just like this all the time he said i've started to lose my kids he said they're not calling talking to me because every time they get on the phone he said i just always talk about me not them and i'm just trying to drag them into my fight and they don't want to they don't want to hear it anymore i said when's the last time that you went out with your grandkids and just had fun and weren't checking your phone about the fight and he got pretty emotional he said he said my grandkids really don't know me i have not had much time for them i looked at him i said so so you're gonna win he's like yeah i said no you're gonna you're gonna lose everything to win nothing the point is this man at some point in your life someone or something is just going to come upon you like a weight a load or a burden you're going to carry it as long as you can you're going to fight through it as long as you can you're going to lose perspective of everyone and everything and all of a sudden you're no longer going to hear from god and you're just going to continue to be broken and to continue forward and what i would just beg you because i love you and i love your wives and i love your kids and i know that sometimes the most successful businessmen are the worst husbands and fathers because they just can't stop fighting and go home i know that some guys are really incredibly wonderfully successful in certain areas of life and abject failures in other areas of life because they sacrifice everything for the fight whether it be business whether it be ministry whether it be setting the record straight whether it be defeating foe an enemy and i'm here because i love you and i just want you so much to ask the father is this my fight or your fight and if it's your fight forgive them as god has forgiven you take it out of your hands put it into his hands trust that the father who made you is the trust is the father who will vindicate you and at the end of the day i looked at my friend who i loved very very very very much and i said i said you know i said i i've had more than a few fights in my life and i'm a counter puncher by nature i said uh i said i've decided something different than you i said what do you want okay this is a really important question i said what do you want he said i want to win he said what do you want i said i want to be healthy i want to be healthy i want to be healthy so i can enjoy jesus because i actually really like him i want to be healthy so that i can be a good son of the father and do whatever dad asked me to do i said i want to be really healthy so that my wife has the best version of me i said i really love my wife i mean she's amazing the fact she's still there is a miracle right i just want i want to come home and i want her to have the best version of me i said i want my kids to have the healthiest version of me i said i don't know what kind of dad i am but i i do love these kids and it's an honor to be their dad and i i want to i want to come home and i want to be the healthiest version of me that i can be for my kids and i said someday my grandkids are going to show up we're not there yet but i'm prophesying it and it looks awesome and i said i said i i don't want to be at war i want to be at peace and i want when my grandkids are around their grandpa i don't want them to feel like they're headed off to battle but i want them to feel like they're in a place of peace and the only way for that to happen is to just live peaceably to create an environment of peace where you can be healthy and the healthiest version of you so i just ask you guys who do you got to forgive uh what do you just need to let go of you know what can't fix that won't set the record straight just gonna let that go one thing in your past is just a moment that you continually revisit that you just need to say you know what i'm gonna spend some time in prayer and i'm going to grieve that and mourn that and have the heart funeral and just leave that with the lord who do you need to get some time writing a processing letter for just you and god alone for the day just writing it out and saying man these are the offenses these are the hurts these are the battles these are the things i'd like to say but i'm not going to say them these are the things i'd like to do but i'm not going to do them and then just pray blessing over them and then just bury it or set it on fire and just be done with it and free yourself and move on sometimes the reason that men aren't healthy in the present is they have not healed from the past and i love you so much and i'm so proud of what you have become as a group of men and i'm so proud of what we're accomplishing as a as a small army of men and a band of brothers but before we end our semester next weekend i would just ask you is it time to just let it go is it time to just put it down is it time to just forgive is it time to just walk away is it time to just bless and not curse is it time to load grace when you want to load law is it time to just seek peace even though you've spent a lot of time at war because i want the best version of you i want the healthiest most spirit-filled most christ-like most unburdened most freed up most joyful hopeful version of you and i want the world to see that you and i want your wife to live with that you and i want your kids to enjoy that you and i want your grandkids to one day when you're gone tell stories about that you a couple of questions for your group real simple tonight who or what do you need to let go or keep letting go of and then how can we pray for you father thanks for an opportunity to teach and god we confess as men uh the world is filled with a lot of injustice abandonment abuse betrayal lies stealing conniving manipulating taking advantage and as men we oftentimes experience a lot of that we do so at work uh sometimes we do so with our wife or our kids or our extended families but god i don't i don't want these men to win i want them to worship i don't want them to just live for the fight i want them to live for the lord and lord i would just ask that you father would speak to your sons and tell them what is it that they are carrying what is the load that they are bearing what is the burden that they are sustaining what is the weight that is crushing them who or what do they need to walk away from who or what do they need to forgive who or what that they need to put grace on and what does it mean for them insofar as is possible with them to seek to live peaceably with all people and holy spirit we invite you we see nothing good in the bible from vengeance or bitterness or the wrath of man or anger or busybodying or gossiping or slandering there's no anointing on any of that so holy spirit we want to live anointed lives and so we ask that you would come to give us the character of christ so we could be good sons in jesus name amen you

Channel: Real Faith by Mark Driscoll

Views: 3,481

Rating: 4.8202248 out of 5

Keywords: Mark, Driscoll, ministry, thetrinitychurch, scottsdale, arizona, bible, teaching, gospel, theology, jesus, biblestudy, faith, bibleverse, hope, hug, help, love, christianity, christian

Id: bd42miGn7TM

Length: 48min 22sec (2902 seconds)

Published: Thu May 20 2021