Courageous – 5

Courageous – 5

Subject – Offense or Defense

By Rick Welborne

2 Samuel 23:20-23 (NLT2)
²⁰  There was also Benaiah son of Jehoiada, a valiant warrior from Kabzeel. He did many heroic deeds, which included killing two champions of Moab. Another time, on a snowy day, he chased a lion down into a pit and killed it.
²¹  Once, armed only with a club, he killed a great Egyptian warrior who was armed with a spear. Benaiah wrenched the spear from the Egyptian’s hand and killed him with it.
²²  Deeds like these made Benaiah as famous as the Three mightiest warriors.
²³  He was more honored than the other members of the Thirty, though he was not one of the Three. And David made him captain of his bodyguard.

--I shared with you from a previous sermon that we have two kinds of regret. We can have regrets of action or regrets of inaction.

--A regret of action is doing something you wish you hadn’t done. We all have those. A regret of inaction is not doing something you wish you had done. I have had my share of regrets of action for sure.

--When we moved to our new neighborhood we found out quickly that there were tensions between the people who lived up on the hill (us) and the people below. There was war. Literally!

--Between the hill people and the valley people was a creek. Stink Creek. A man made creek dug out by the paper mill to take all the waste water from the mill to a swamp. Wham Break!

--Because the creek was dug out there were hills beside it. This was the battle zone. We used BB guns and cherry bombs. Pretty serious. One day we were on opposing hills fighting it out.

--For the most part, no one ever got hurt. The valley people yell for a seize fire. We agree, sort of. We stop shooting momentarily. I said, if they stand up…I will shoot them…Daisy BB gun.

--I was laying on the ground with my gun aimed and ready. Someone stood up and I shot. Hit him right in the forehead. Needless to say that action got me in trouble and the war escalated.

--Bo Bo came on top of the hill with a shotgun and shot at me as I dove into an abandoned van. Fortunately, I was not hit (close) and he was arrested. My parents made sure I regretted my action.

--All of us have said things or done things we regret but I believe our deepest regrets will be missed opportunities. Actions taste bad for a while but inaction can hurt for a lifetime.

--Inaction can make us ask “What if?” What if I would have chased the lion into the pit instead of running away. Benaiah’s story could have ended quite different. 

2 Samuel 23:20-23 (NLT2)                                                                                                                                     ²⁰ There was also Benaiah…on a snowy day, he chased a lion down into a pit and killed it.

--I love telling you stories of sharing Christ with people and seeing wonderful results. Those are such “feel good” stories. But I have a story of inaction that happened years ago that I have struggled with.

--I had only been a Christian for a few months. I am driving out in the country and stop at a little store to get a soda. The family who owned the store were very kind. They had a special needs son.

--Holy Spirit said pray for him to be healed. That freaked me out. What will the parents think? What if nothing happens? What if they get angry and think I am making fun?

--I had a war going on inside of me. I got in my car and drove off. God said go back and I said “no!” That sin of omission or sin of inaction haunted me for years.

--My job was not to heal the little boy; my job was to pray but I didn’t. What guilt and shame. Of course, I have asked God to forgive me a hundred times.

2 Corinthians 7:9-10 (NCV)
⁹  Now I am happy, not because you were made sad, but because your sorrow made you change your lives. You became sad in the way God wanted you to, so you were not hurt by us in any way.
¹⁰  The kind of sorrow God wants makes people change their hearts and lives. This leads to salvation, and you cannot be sorry for that. But the kind of sorrow the world has brings death.

--I have determined, with God’s help, to listen to Holy Spirit and do what He says. We need to stop worrying about our reputation and start striving for God to be glorified.

--So what is your point? We won’t regret the mistakes we have made as much as we will regret the lions we did not chase into the pit. Make the most of your regrets and live more intentional.

1. Play to Win.

--There are two camps we can live in as Christians. We can either play to win or play not to lose. Guess which camp lion chasers are in. 

--Many of us are tentatively playing the game of life as if the goal of life is to arrive safely at death. We need to take our cues from the early church as they advanced the Kingdom of God.

Matthew 11:12 (NKJV)
¹²  And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.

--Following Christ should not be something we do passively. Some of us follow Christ as if the goal is to get to the end of our lives with as few mistakes as we can.

--It seems we are playing a “prevent defense” when we should be in a two-minute offense. Jesus said it best:

Matthew 24:34-36 (NIV)
³⁴  I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.
³⁵  Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
³⁶  "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 

--The truth is, none of us know when that trumpet will sound but we do know that the events (prophesies) are pointing toward the soon return of Christ. 

--Being faithful in these last days has nothing to do with maintaining a status quo or simply holding the fort until Jesus comes back. 

--It has everything to do with competing for the Kingdom of God and storming the gates of hell. That is not something you can do just sitting on a pew every now and then. 

--A few years ago I helped coach my daughter’s tennis team and it was exciting trying to get these young ladies ready to compete. Some had never played tennis until they walked on the court for try-outs. 

--Some of them were just interested in looking good on the court and, at least, looking a little bit like they knew what they were doing.

--You might not know this about me but I am competitive. I want to win whether it is at a game of cards, playing a sport, or the game of life from the Kingdom’s perspective. Play to win!

--The tennis team had winning seasons while I was coaching them and the second year they made it to the finals in their district. Let me just say it, winning is fun, losing, not so much.

--Why wouldn’t we have that attitude for the Kingdom of God as we compete with the devil for the souls of men, women, boys, and girls? Winning souls is contagious. 

--That’s why you will never see this pastor being happy with the number of missionaries or mission’s organizations we support. As long as people are lost, we still have more to do.

2. Offense not Defense.

Matthew 16:18 (NKJV) ¹⁸ …I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.

--I am sure you aware of this, gates are defensive measures. We need to see the church as a battering ram storming the gates of the devil and taking back captives from the kingdom of darkness.

--I just read a quote by Annie Dillard in her book, “Teaching a Stone to Talk.” Let me paraphrase what she said.

Dillard – As a whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the church, aware of what is going on in the world. Does anyone recognize the power available to us? Or as I suspect, does anyone believe a word of it? The church seems to be the children on the floor playing with a chemistry set trying to mix up something that will create a great Sunday morning service. We must be on the offense to reach the world because some day the Sleeping God may awake and send us out forcibly. By persecution.

--Is anybody else tired of the church playing defense? Why is it that the church is known more for what it is against than what we are for?

--Yes, it is great to defend the faith that we cling onto, but there comes a time that we have to put on our helmets, and get in the game on offense. Score a touchdown for God.

3. God is Raising Up a Generation of Lion Chasers.

--It is definitely good to distance ourselves from evil but it is never good to distance ourselves from sinners. How will we ever reach them if we never engage them?

Matthew 11:19 (NRSV)
¹⁹  the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds."

--God, please have people accuse us of being friends of sinners. Wisdom is proven right by the fruit that we bear. You can never pick the fruit until you go find the tree.

--Thank God for our pastors who are lion chasers but there are many others. They are young people on fire for God. They are adults working with Youth and Children.

--They are volunteers going to Bike Week and rubbing shoulders with the lost. They are people working at the House of Hope showing people that someone cares.

--Lion chasers have learned to stop criticizing the culture and start creating it. You may have to go into a pit with a lion but you always know God is with you.

Romans 8:31-32&37 (NIV)
³¹  What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?
³²  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
³⁷  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.