Six
Battles Every Man Must Win
Part
4: Fight Through
Pain
Pastor
Darrin Wright – February 17, 2008
I.
·
Key Text: 2 Samuel 23:9-10(NASB) – “and after him was Eleazar the son of Dodo the Ahohite,
one of the three mighty men with David when they defied the Philistines who
were gathered there to battle and the men of Israel had withdrawn. He arose and struck the Philistines until his
hand was weary and clung to the sword; and the Lord brought about a great victory
that day; and the people returned after him only to strip the slain.”
·
Key Person: Eleazar
·
Within each
public person we see is another private person we can’t see. The outer shell isn’t the true person – only
a covering behind which the true person lives.
We assume the two correspond, but sometimes they don’t.
·
There are men
hooked on all sorts of sinful behaviors and they don’t know how to get
free. What’s more, they are afraid to
mention their struggle for fear of rejection.
As a result, their inner person lives behind a façade of spirituality
that hides their true identity.
Appearing whole and free, they live in the grip of a secret life that
gives them all the power of a skeleton in knights
armor.
·
If we’re
going to be mighty men who fight for our heart and those of our family, its imperative that we learn how to guard our hearts from
sinful appetites.
·
Truth: We are most vulnerable to sin
during periods of emotional or physical pain.
·
If you’re
bored, depressed, discouraged, or just tired, you’ll likely look for something
to create a mood swing – something to make you feel better. It’s at such times that the spiritual battle
is intense and you need a strategy that will enable
you to fight through the pain.
·
The
Israelites and Philistines were fighting each other. Sensing the tied turning against them, the
Israelites retreated. But one man
refused to run. Gripping his sword he
fought the enemy until his hand froze to his sword. His courage and strength rallied the rest of
the people, who followed him and gathered plunder from the fallen enemy.
·
Unlike the
rest of the men engaged in the battle, Eleazar didn’t
retreat. He refused to listen to his
fear and pain. Instead, he fought
through them.
1.
As we go
through life, we are bound to face numerous crisis.
2.
When a
crisis hits, we must enter into a deeper relationship with ourselves and God.
3.
When a
crisis hits, we’re tempted to ignore the pain, stuff it, or deaden it. Instead, we must face the pain, and
understand it, and fight through it.
Three Areas Of Pain
1.
Lost Opportunities – Some of the opportunities we miss change the
course of our lives. Others are mere
bumps in the road. But they create
pain. (Esau – birthright; Moses –
striking the rock)
2.
Lost relationships – Causes pain, depression, and sometimes
anger. The pain often lingers for years,
if not a lifetime.
3.
Lost Significance – One of man’s greatest needs is
significance. We strive for
significance. When we realize we may
never achieve all that we once dreamed of accomplishing we feel an unrelenting
pain. We feel invisible, and sense the
world is walking right past without seeing us.
4.
What makes
life difficult isn’t that we experience pain.
It’s made difficult by our passivity, which undermines our willingness
to fight through pain. It prompts us to
run away or try to deaden the pain in harmful ways.
5.
The faster we
run away and the harder we work at killing the pain, the more our problems
grow.
6.
Like Eleazar we must fight through the pain, instead of avoiding
it.
1.
Philippians 3:13-14(MSG) – “Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in
all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward
– to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.”
2.
This is
what Eleazar did, everyone turned back, but he stayed
and fought.
3.
We need a
way to fight through the pain that will enable us to avoid sinning and making
things worse.
4.
We need a
strategy that will be consistent with our identity as a warrior, our
relationship with a Holy God, and our role as defender of our family.
5.
This
battle we are in is spiritual.
6.
Galatians
7.
God can
and will bring us the victory.
8.
2 Samuel 23:10b(NASB) – “and the Lord brought about a great victory
that day.”
9.
Eleazar experienced
victory because of his faith in God – not because of the strength of his armor
or the edge of his sword.
10. Satan works in conjunction with our flesh(the sinful desires that reside in us) to prompt us to
cope with pain by gratifying our evil desires.
11. The process by which we’re tempted always follows
the same cycle. We’re fighting an enemy
who may customize the specifics of his approach but who never varies his basic
attack.
12. Warning: David, the
leader of the mighty men fell.
13. Insight: James 1:14-15(NASB) – “But each
one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth
to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.”
14. Temptation: enticement
to do wrong by promise of pleasure or gain.
15. Our temptation to sin is born out of our own
desires (lust), as we try to satisfy those desires in ways that are outside of
God’s parameters.
16. carried away
– inner desire, often used as a hunting term to refer to a baited trap designed
to lure an unsuspecting animal into it, the animal in the forest is unaware
that a trap has been set in order to catch him.
Something in the trap attracts his attention and he is drawn aside. When he takes the bait, he is caught.
17. Proverbs
5:21-22(NASB) – “For the ways
of a man are before the eyes of the Lord, And He
watches all his paths. His own
iniquities will capture the wicked, And he will be
held with the cords of his sin.”
The Temptation Cycle
1.
Enticement – to bait a hook; to be deceived.
a.
During a time of pain our flesh will seek
relief and remind us of a past pleasureable experience. We will begin thinking about something that
will promise relief and a positive mood swing.
The more we think about the temptation, the more we want to act. It’s crucial that we break the cycle at the
first stage – before desire can take root in our hearts.
b.
How Enticement Happens:
i.
Our
desires lead us from our place of shelter and security and leave us vulnerable
to sin.
ii.
When
temptation passes by, we are drawn to it, and we go after the bait.
iii.
Sin never
starts with the bait, it always starts with the desire.
iv.
It is not
a sin to see the hook. It is not a sin
to be tempted. Sin is born when we take
the bait.
v.
The bait
keeps us from seeing the hook, or the consequences of the sin.
c.
Deitrich Bonhoffer: “With irresistible power desire seizes
mastery over the flesh…It makes no difference whether it is sexual desire, or
ambition, or vanity, or desire for revenge, or love of fame and power, or greed
for money…Joy in God is extinguished in us and we seek all our joy in the
creature. At this moment, God is quite
unreal to us, He loses all reality, and only desire for the creature is real;
Satan does not here fill us with hatred of God, but the forgetfulness of
God…The lust thus aroused envelopes the mind and will of man in deepest
darkness. The powers of clear discrimination
and of decision are taken from us.”
2.
Conception – Our minds begin to rationalize a justification for getting our
desires.
a.
We often
surrender to the thoughts from the flesh.
The more we think about the pleasure it promises, the more we want to act. But instead of leaping from the thought to
the act in a single big step, we take a small step, or a series of small steps.
b.
We are
one small step away from the first step in a series of steps that could lead to
our ruin.
c.
It is never a blow out, but instead a slow leak.
3.
Birth
– to bring forth as fruit from a seed.
a.
Point: evil desires cannot stay
hidden forever.
b.
If we allow ourselves to get to stage two, the
act that has been dreamed about and planned is finally carried out.
c.
We make a
conscious decision to pursue our desires until they are satisfied.
d.
What has
been longed for and rationalized is now consciously pursued as a matter of
choice.
e.
The truth
of God which activates the conscience, the soul’s warning system is ignored.
4.
Death
– separation (dreams, relationships, ambitions, reputations, etc.)
a.
Our
relationship with God and others is lost.
(example of David and his consequences). While there is forgiveness, there are still
consequences.
b.
Truth: Sin’s advertised price is
always lower than its actual cost. (ex. Of stores advertising a big sale to get you in the door)
c.
Truth: Sin plays for keeps. “Sin will take you further than you wanted to
go, keep you longer than you wanted to stay, and cost you more than you wanted
to pay. Sin is never discounted.”
d.
Galatians 6:7(NASB) – “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for
whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.”
13.
We don’t have
to allow our pain to defeat us. We can
be like Eleazar and find our victory in God.
14.
Illustration: Fishing
Tackle