The Disease of Insecurity | Marcus Mecum | 7 Hills Church

second chronicles chapter 21 and let's look at verse four i want to talk to you about the disease of insecurity the disease of insecurity then joram established himself firmly over his father's kingdom and he put all his brothers to the sword along with some other officials in israel so just kind of get a picture here this young king has just been given the throne in judah and the first thing that he does is he takes his sword and he starts to go and destroy lives he goes and murders people and the bible says that because of this the prophet elijah in verse 12 writes him a letter and he says this is what the lord would say to you king that you young king don't know how to deal with some of these insecurities you got that the god of your father david says you have not followed the ways of your father jehoshaphat king of judah but you followed the ways of the kings of israel and you've led judah and the people of jerusalem to prostitute themselves just as the house of ahab did you've murdered your own brothers members of your own family watch this and men who were better than you i would underline that phrase men or women people that you think are better than you so now the lord is going to strike you your sons your wives everything that is yours with a heavy blow you yourself will become very ill with a lingering disease of the bowels until the disease causes your bowels to come out everybody say nasty we all wish i would have done an illustrated sermon on this scripture today after all this the lord affected afflicted joram with an incurable disease of the bowels in the course of time at the end of the second year the bowels came out because of the disease and he died in great pain watch this this is just staggering to me but his people made no funeral in his honor as they had for his predecessors he was 32 years old when he became king reigned for eight years he passed away watch this to no one's regret it was buried in jerusalem but not in the tombs of the kings to understand a little bit about this young king the bible introduces us first to his father jehoshaphat jehoshaphat we know is one of the greatest kings in israel's history he had a great respect for god he wasn't a perfect king but he did have a desire to seek god with his life as a result the bible says that god gave jehoshaphat peace on every side one of the few times that judah or israel um i guess you know you have the southern kingdom the northern other sermon but but in judah he had peace god gave him peace on every side so when he's passing on the throne to his son joram he was passing on a kingdom that was at peace some of the greatest victories god gave judah were under the leadership of king jehoshaphat he was an incredible incredible leader and god gave him some profound victories well the bible says of course that this is joram or jehoshaphat is in the lineage of david so you go back six generations from joram to king david so king david the giant slayer cuts off goliath's head that that david is the great great great great granddaddy six generations back of joram so so this young king would have been raised hearing about the great victories of his father david he would have been raised hearing about even the early stages of david's life about how his brothers had rejected him and how his father even jesse had rejected david he would have he would have been raised hearing about king saul david's mentor and how insecure saul was and how he tried to destroy david because david had strengths that saul did not have and giftings that saul did not have and so he would have been raised hearing about those types of stories he would have then also been raised reading the psalms of king david the the psalms that of worship that david wrote psalms of god's faithfulness psalms of how you can put your confidence in god psalms about how god has got your back and you you can walk in great confidence that god will see you through anything that you're up against now because of that we would have also known that saul's son is solomon the solomon wrote the proverbs this king solomon wrote ecclesiastes so not only would joram have been raised hearing about king david and not only would he have been inherited a peaceful kingdom from jehoshaphat he would have had the sentence of sermons as what i like to call proverbs just the little sound bites just the little thoughts just a few words that are just power packed with a sermon how many all wish i could just do a sermon in a sentence wouldn't that be awesome just one sentence and we're done god bless you but proverbs is just packed with wisdom and so this young king would have been raised reading the proverbs reading about ecclesiastes he takes the throne he does not pull on the history and the faithfulness of god that god showed david he doesn't pull on the wisdom of solomon he doesn't pull on the peace that his father jehoshaphat gave him the bible says when he took the throne he was so insecure so eaten up with that inferiority that the moment he becomes king he takes a sword kills his brothers and murders anyone he believed was better than him and so his insecurity targeted those he perceived to be a threat his insecurity targeted anyone that in his mind was better than he was had a gift that he didn't have had a strength that he didn't have had something going for them that he didn't have going in his life and he would look at them and he would perceive them as a threat and so it teaches us in the story that insecurity is a killer insecurity insecurity is a murdering spirit and it ended up killing not only his brothers and his family but the bible says it caused a disease that killed this king insecurity is something we all deal with no one in here is someone that's outside of the bounds of dealing with moments where you feel insecure where there are times when you feel like you don't measure up and you don't have what it takes and you don't have enough to face something that's coming at you or you don't have enough to seize the opportunity or the dream that's in your life something happened along the way and it just it just begins to grab a hold of you and get a grip on you and say you can't do that because of something that you're not and that's what insecurity is i can't because i'm not remember moses god comes in and says i want to use you to be a voice to your generation what does he say i can't why because i i have a stutter i'm slow of speech he would say i can't because of something i'm not god came to jeremiah the prophet before he had ever spoken one word in the name of the lord and he said i'm going to use you raise you up to be a prophet to the nations and jeremiah said i can't because i'm not able to speak because i'm not old enough or i'm too young he would say i can't because i'm not jeremiah would go on to become one of the few major prophets in the bible major not meaning greater than major just meaning he had more to say than the minor prophets prophets like habakkuk or malachi or zechariah those are the minor prophets and it's not that they were less than it's they were entrusted with less to say so here you have jeremiah begins in his life saying i can't because i'm not but yet when he was able to overcome that because what did god say god was saying hey listen i'm not asking you to be something because of who you are i'm asking you to be confident in what you can be because of who i am so confidence is not i am because of something i am or something i've got no confidence is i can i am because of who god is that's what paul the apostle said he said i can watch this do all things not through who i am but i can do all things through who through him through christ who gives me strength so godly confidence says i am able because of the god i serve greater is he that is in me not because i'm great but because i can become great because my god is great there might be a church that wants to hear this somewhere [Applause] and so this king is so eaten up with insecurity the bible says that this disease gets down into his bowels now bowels in the bible speak of your inner life its symbolic bowels are symbolic of your heart your lungs your kidneys your intestines your guts it says that this disease was a lingering disease it says that it was an incurable disease it says that this disease caused joram to die in great pain that it was fatal that it had a horrible ending listen to it that his guts came out one commentary i read said that he died from a fatal case of hemorrhoids we all think that's the nastiest thing you've ever heard and when i read that i said god that isn't completely unnecessary thing to put in the bible like we could we can get a lot of imagery about a lot of things we don't need that image i'm trying to read the bible and go to bed and i read that and i said to god i said that is the nastiest grossest most disgusting thing i've ever heard it made me throw up in my mouth i said give me a barf back god and i felt like the lord said good you're finally getting a small glimpse of how i feel and how i see insecurity in your life it is nasty in the eyes of god we're not designed to be filled with insecurity we're not designed by god to live in constant comparison in this king's life his inner being his inner life was so diseased it rotted out his insides it was agonizing the bible says and that's what insecurity is it's an agonizing way to live it destroyed his life and that's what insecurity does it erodes away at your relationships it erodes away at your confidence it erodes away at your self-image it erodes away at your your ability to get up in the morning and say i want life i want to i want to take life on i don't want life to take me i want to take it on it erodes away at you studying the gut i found out that it's incredibly sensitive to emotion especially insecurity it causes anxiety it causes sadness and anger so watch what starts in the mind triggers symptoms in the gut we all know the cliches i feel like i got kicked in the gut nothing physically happened just a thought in the mind triggers an emotion and in your gut you feel like someone kicks you my stomach is in knots that's gut-wrenching we say i have butterflies what happens in the mind can negatively impact and influence my gut there's a hundred million nerves that connect your brain to your stomach they call your gut its nickname is the second brain or the small brain because it shares many of the neurotransmitters as your brain and the brain and the gut are in constant communication they're constantly talking to one another and so this young king joram in his mind he thought they're better than i am they got strengths i don't have they have gifts that they don't have that they haven't gone through a divorce their kids aren't going crazy but you know they got the promotion at work they got the new car they got the nicer house they got the this they got that i don't have what they have i don't have what they've got and immediately because he thought that it rotted out his insides the moment he felt insecure watch how you can tell this is the first symptom that you can maybe see if insecurities got a grip on you is the moment he felt insecure what happened his sword came out so this disease tells us if i cut people out that i perceive are better than me i'll be better all i have to do is eliminate anybody that is a perceived threat from my life i just eliminate them how do i eliminate them i pull my sword out i come out i feel less than so i pull my sword out and i go to swinging and i cut you out or i cut you down and i do whatever i have to do i'll de-demonize you i'll villainize you i'll unfollow you i'll unfriend you i'll cancel culture you i'll do whatever i need to do and all of us have felt the strong painful cut of insecurities blade come on think about it you've been cut down someone thought it was their responsibility to cut you down to size someone felt it was their responsibility to to let you know what you're not and what you can't do and who you can't be what about being cut out thinking what did i do wrong to be why wasn't i invited in why was i included i don't understand what what's wrong with me that that i can't fit into that world or that circle or those relationships and in this story imagine being the people that are looking up to the throne they're looking up to this king they're looking up to someone that's to be admired and this king who has everything going for him he has he's young he's powerful he's got a kingdom at his disposal everything you could ever imagine wanting he's got it they would never imagine a king would cut them someone they admire would cut them have you ever had that happen where you looked up to someone you admired them you you you looked up to who they were maybe the position that god gave maybe it was a parent you didn't think ah there's no way a parent would cut me there's no way a boss would cut me what about this one there's no way a pastor would cut there's no way that that that friend would cut me there's no way that that person in that position that teacher that coach and maybe you're in a place where you thought man i didn't think they would ever cut me i didn't think i'd ever be attacked by them accused or blamed i brought a towel to the relationship i i brought a desire to serve a desire to to to bring something positive to the relationship i had no idea that they were gonna pull out a sword and go to swinging you see insecurity doesn't show up as insecurity it shows up as a sword hypersensitivity negativity jealousy anger violence backbiting being territorial jumping from one relationship to another why because the second that you don't feel something or the relationship you cut them down and you cut them out and a lot of people are living there addiction most the time isn't addiction think about it it's i'm done feeling like i can't because i'm not and i don't want to face what i'm not so i got to do everything i can to numb myself so i so i don't have to face these things jumping from relationship to relationship is just simply a form of just i'm insecure and so you cut others thinking that that's going to make you better thinking that's going to make your life better but we find in this story it's impossible to cut others and not hurt your own life in the process so i came to church on sunday to tell you someone needs to start a movement called the drop your swords movement just go ahead and put that in the chat right there go ahead and put that in the thing online just drop your swords stop the cutting cutting everyone down cutting everyone out in church i thought about handing you a barf bag right when you walked walked in today because there is nothing grosser nothing nastier nothing more disgusting nothing that should make you want to throw up in your mouth more than a spirit of insecurity not just being in your mind but taking over and eating up all of your life all uh who you are everything about your inner life being consumed by insecurity is completely nasty to me and really forget me to god so elijah sees this and he says i'm going to send a letter to the king and because this king can't put down his sword i'm going to let him know that it's going to destroy his life and in the end insecurity killed a king insecurity is torture while you're alive and it's an agonizing way to get to the end of your life and look back and say my whole life was given to a spirit of insecurity the bible says it causes king to die in great pain and this to me is the worst part joram was the only king we read it in judah's history they held no funeral in his honor they couldn't even think about how to put a funeral on for this guy because his life was so filled with insecurity so filled with swords and cutting down and cutting out they couldn't even hold a funeral for him and then the bible said that they refused to bury him with the other kings they tried to wipe his memory his out of their their history they wanted nothing to do with this guy and then the bible says in verse 20 he died to no one's regret no one even cared that he died because no one mourns the death of an insecure leader and this is the deal we all compare ourselves with people we all look at someone else and conclude they're probably better than me at this better than me at that have this strength have that thing going for them they didn't do that they don't have that failure they don't have that issue they don't have that problem they don't have that history you know 96 percent of women don't consider themselves as beautiful most of us say there's something wrong with me that makes me unlovable no one can really relate to me no one really cares really they don't care if people really knew who i was they'd never accept me so insecurity is a disease that everyone deals with and if we just if what's in our mind gets into our hands gets into a sword of swords and cutting everybody out and it gets into our gut into our inner life and it begins to consume us it destroys us but there is a secure there is a cure think about the word insecure the word cure is in the word and it's not a sword it's not cutting people down and cutting people out the bible says if you live by the sword you die by the sword there is a cure to insecurity and i want to show you what it is genesis chapter 43 and verse 30. speaking of joseph it says he was deeply moved if you have the king james bible it will actually say his bowels yearned within him so anytime you see in the bible someone was deeply moved or they were moved with compassion the literal translation is their bowels were moved they were moved on the and it's again a reference to their in there wasn't one part one fiber of who they were that was not being moved by that particular thing so so in the life of joram it was his insecurity completely ate up and consumed his inner life and in this story the bible says joseph was deeply moved or his vows yearned within him at the sight of his brothers joseph hurried out and looked for a place listen to this to weep he went into his private room and he wept there when you look at the life of joseph of course you know the background his his brothers threw him in the pit they were going to murder him they sold him into slaveries follow his life constantly being faced with challenges because of what his brothers did to him his prison his false accusations just constantly facing difficulty of course god protected him and preserved him and raised him up to be the second in command and really gave him a dream that would provide for nations that would not be dying of hunger in seven years after he became the second in command in this nation and so now here joseph is decades have gone by he's in a place of influence and his brothers are in a nation because of this famine and they're starving to death and when they walk into his presence he recognizes them they don't recognize him and if you follow the story of joseph three different times what happened in this story happened to joseph he had to leave their presence and look for a private place to go and weep and joseph would come out of these private times after weeping and he would go talk to his brothers because he was conflicted he would look at them and he would remember what they did to him and he would remember how they treated him and he would remember their rejection and their hatred and he would remember what they put him through and in his so so initially i thought these would be tears of anger these would be tears of like intense hatred this would these would be tears where joseph said i want to get them back and then he would have to go get with god but as i read it what i found out was they were tears of compassion and that he had to actually go into retreat in private places because he was conflicted everything in his bowels everything inside of him yearned and was moved with compassion for them but his mind said no they deserve the sword they deserve for me to cut them out and cut them down they deserve the sword and he would come back and he would give them steps that they would need to take because his mind would say they're not deserving of compassion you need to test them you need to test them you need to test them but in his heart he had nothing in him that wanted to revenge nothing in him that wanted to pull out his sword and cut them down and cut them it wasn't that wasn't happening in his spirit and so the story here says that his brothers come into this room in the palace they're invited into the inner dinner chambers of joseph and the spread that's on the table is a massive feast that joseph prepared for them and this massive feast the portions that are at the table are so unreal that when his brothers walk in they don't know who he is still but when they walk in and they are starving to death they're they're dying of hunger and they come into this room and the bible says when they saw the portions they looked at one another and they're like can you believe this can you can you believe how much food can you believe what he's doing for us can you believe the treatment that we're experiencing and when his brothers start to eat joseph the bible says begins to weep and he he's so tore up he starts to try to find a place to go and weep and he goes into a private chamber and there he weeps because he remembers the last time he had a meal with his brothers he can read it in genesis 37. the last time joseph was in the presence of his brothers during a meal was when they were outside of the pit they had just thrown him in and they're eating a meal together and they're discussing his murder they're negotiating what to do with him how to do it exactly how to kill him and joseph from the bottom of that pit is crying out to his brothers please you don't have to do this please you don't have to there's there's got to be another way he's begging them he's pleading with them for his life and for mercy and compassion and they show him none their act of compassion is selling him off into slavery and now he's in their presence again and instead of a revenge he gives them a feast instead of the sword he gives them a seat at his table instead of this moment where he should have absolutely did everything that he could to cut them down and cut them out instead he invited them in [Music] and he teaches us the cure to insecurity is compassion the cure because one of those two things are going to eat you alive on the inside insecurity is going to move you or compassion is going to move you comparing my life to somebody else that has strengths that i don't have talents that i don't have gifts that i don't have that's going to move me or looking at someone else and saying no matter what their strengths are no matter what their gifts are no matter what they have no matter what they they've got there's an area of their life that if i'll be moved with compassion instead of comparison it will bring a cure it will bring harmony it will bring uni if i bring if i bring insecurity into the marriage it's going to disease the marriage if i bring in security into the family insecurity into my job insecurity into my church it's gonna it's gonna eat that thing and wrap that thing up and give us the nastiest grossest possible image of what that relationship turns into but if we'll bring compassion if we'll bring mercy listen if we'll put down the sword and prepare a feast god can cure any hurt and any insecurity the cure for i can't and i'm not is compassion the cure for they're better than me is compassion one of the things that was commonly said about jesus was he was moved with compassion again look it up if you want to study it in the greek that word move with compassion speaks of his bowels it's it's a reference to the entirety of who jesus was every organ his heart his lungs his guts every fiber of jesus's being was never moved with insecurity he was always moved with compassion for people and think about what they did they took that cross and they put it on his back and the journey he would have to go on would be down a street like a parade was what they were preparing for him and on both sides of the road they would mock him and spit on him and laugh at him everything that they were doing on that journey was to make him feel like less than like not enough like he was a nobody they put him up on the cross and they put the sign up there which was common in roman through crucifixion they put a sign that signified the crime of the criminal that was being crucified and so they put up there what his crime was is they said he claimed to be the king of the jews in other words they were mocking him if you're such a king then get off this cross if you're such a king then call down angels if you're such a king then do some they didn't have a loincloth cloth on him by the way that's for the pictures he was stripped naked all surrounding the cross was designed to expose and bring out the insecurities in any person but jesus even on a cross was consumed with compassion he didn't pull out the sword he said hey you're gonna have a seat in paradise today he moved with compassion father forgive him they don't know what they're doing they don't know what's going on and he had a he had the confidence on the inside i am i can because he knew who his father in heaven was and he was moved with compassion every time jesus moved with compassion a miracle took place if you want to set the stage for a miracle in your marriage a miracle in your relationships a miracle at the workplace a miracle in church what sets that miracle in motion is being moved not with insecurity but with compassion [Music] people say all the time i wonder where the miracles are today and god says i wonder where the compassion is we say i wonder where the miracles are and god says much insecurity so much comparison striving and competing so much sword swinging cutting people out cutting people down cutting people down to size just constantly doing what we can do because we think if i do that it'll make me better and the truth is it shuts down miracles in our life it shuts down miracles in our world it shuts down the chance for a miracle to happen in our relationships so i want us all right now all across this room you know what jesus set the table for us didn't he he set that table of compassion for it didn't if we look at one another right now and think about the portions at the table think about the portion of his grace the poor portion of his mercy the portions of his forgiveness towards you come on the portions are pretty incredible huh [Music] do you ever just look at people around you and think my god i can't believe he's letting me hang out at his table who i am what i've done where i've been and yet he gives me a seat instead of the sword [Applause] [Music] and isn't it amazing how that level of compassion does a miracle in your heart it is amazing how because he's moved with compassion towards us it really does set emotion miracles for us there is no way i am who i am because of anything i've been i can and i am simply because he's given me a seat at his table and because of his grace can we sing this song together all across this room come on they've done such a good job with it come on just say you're [Music] available [Music] i am [Music] here i am here i am here i am [Music] oh [Music] come on have you thrown within come on jesus let our hearts be consumed and move with compassion insecurity is reigned there too long anxiety and fear and anger father that feeling in our minds those thoughts in our minds have found its way it's beginning to eat up our inner life today god we lay all that down and we set the table we put our swords down and we we allow there to be seats in our life for people [Music] we give the same portion to others that you gave to us an overwhelming over-the-top undeserving completely crazy ridiculous portions we give to others out of a response of the portion of your grace and compassion you showed us let us be moved with compassion move with compassion with compassion every fiber of our being let us be moved with compassion we need you god to do it we need your spirit to do it we need your help to do it we can't do it without you jesus we can't do it in our own strength we can't do it in our own might but we can through your spirit god in jesus name come on can we give his word a good hand clap [Applause] [Music]

Channel: 7 Hills Church with Marcus Mecum

Views: 8,788

Keywords: Church, Religion, love, jesus, God, bible

Id: RYgdcTsEXpU

Length: 40min 15sec (2415 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 10 2020