REAL POWER
05-26-13 Sermon
“Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.” Matthew 5:5 (NIV)
3 ways to live life:
__________________________ Control
__________________________ Control
__________________________ Control
Five “Real Power” exercises for this week:
1. WHEN
YOU ARE CONFRONTED… __________________________________
“A gentle answer turns away wrath,
but harsh words cause quarrels.” Proverbs 15:1 (TLB)
“A gentle word can get through to
the hard-headed.” Proverbs
25:15b (NCV)
“And don't sin by
letting anger gain control over you. Don't let the sun go down while you are
still angry.” Ephesians 4:26
(NLT)
“Lord, help me control my tongue; help me be
careful about what I say.”
Psalm 141:3 (NCV)
2. WHEN
YOU ARE INSULTED… _____________________________________
“If
someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other cheek also.”
Matthew 5:39 (NCV)
“Don't retaliate when people say unkind things about
you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God wants you
to do, and he will bless you for it.” 1 Peter 3:9 (NLT)
“Pray for those who insult you.” Luke 6:28 (GW)
3. WHEN
YOU ARE NEGLECTED… ___________________________________
“Encourage anyone who feels left out, help all who
are weak, and be patient with everyone.” 1 Thessalonians 5:14 (CEV)
“Think of ways to encourage one another to
outbursts of love and good deeds.” Hebrews 10:24 (NLT)
4. WHEN
YOU ARE REJECTED… _____________________________________
“You must make allowance for each other's faults and
forgive the person who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so
you must forgive others.” Colossians 3:13 (NLT)
“They called him every name in the book and he
said nothing back. He suffered in silence, content to let God set things
right.” 1
Peter 2:23 (MSG)
“Stop judging others, and you will not be
judged. Stop criticizing others, or it will all come back on you. If you
forgive others, you will be forgiven.” Luke 6:37 (NLT)
5. WHEN
YOU ARE APPLAUDED… ___________________________________
“Though a
man calls himself happy all through his life – and the world loudly applauds
success – yet in the end he dies like everyone else.” Psalm 49:18-19 (TLB)
“All athletes practice strict self-control.
They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal
prize.” 1
Corinthians 9:25 (NLT)
“Be especially careful when you are trying to
be good so that you don't make a performance out of it. It might be good
theater, but the God who made you won't be applauding.”
Matthew 6:1 (MSG)
“All that's left now is the shouting – God's
applause!” 2 Timothy 4:8 (MSG)
REAL POWER
05-26-13 Sermon
We’re going to be talking
today about Real Power. We’re going
to be talking about where to find real power especially when you’re frustrated. Where do you find the power to move ahead
when things don’t seem to be moving ahead? We are going to talk about how God can create real power in
our lives.
Jesus says this real power
comes from a quality called gentleness or meekness. That’s a totally different way of thinking. When we think of gentleness and
meekness we think of it differently than what Jesus was talking about. When we think of gentleness we think of
something small and little. We
think of gentle as gentle as a lamb – meek, small, like a little baby.
Jesus was talking about
something entirely different. This
first verse is familiar to a lot of us: Jesus said “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” That’s
an entirely different way of thinking.
The meek and the gentle. It’s
the same word used, interchangeably.
They shall inherit the earth?
When we think of meek that’s not how we think. When we think “meek” we think weak. We think geek. We think of weak geek. That’s what we think of when we think of
meek!
The dictionary definition ––
of gentleness or meekness has things in it like intentional mildness, carefulness,
caution, pliability, delicacy, pliancy, tameness. We look at that and think, was that what Jesus was talking
about? Was Jesus saying, Blessed
are the intentionally mild?
I don’t think so. I don’t think so based on Jesus and who
he is. You look at Jesus Christ:
he was unafraid to march up to the power structures of his day, the religious
leaders, and confront them time and time again. He was unafraid to go into the temple where they were
selling things in the temple and chase them out with a whip. Jesus Christ was the one who stood up
and calmed the storm with just a word.
So he’s not talking about being intentionally mild. He’s talking about an entirely
different way of thinking, a different way of living.
Obviously “meek” doesn’t just
mean “play nice.” Meek doesn’t
mean quiet. It doesn’t mean you
just swallow your anger. It
doesn’t mean you just don’t make waves.
It means “power under control.”
That’s what meekness means.
It’s power but it’s under control.
It’s under God’s control so that’s what makes all the difference in our
lives.
There’s basically three different ways to live life. The first way is the out of control life. That’s where your anger manages
everything. You’re exploding at
every situation. You are an
undisciplined person. Maybe you make
a lot of noise and you get a lot of notice. But there’s a lot of destruction too. Not really good things happening. That’s the explosive life.
More people are stuck in the
second kind of life, the in control life
where you’re keeping everything in control yourself. A lot of people who are followers of Christ try to live out
the Christian life that way. I keep
it all in control myself. I make
it all work myself. I hold it all
together. It’s all in my control.
The problem is it’s such a
big life you can’t control it all.
There’s so much stress you start to get tired trying to do it yourself. You start to look around at other
people and think they must be fake, they must be phonies because nobody can do
this kind of life by themselves. And
you get weary inside. Some of you,
you’re worn out, trying to be good. You’re worn out trying to be Christian. You’re worn out trying to be more like
Jesus. It’s all in your control,
but the stress is making it more and more wearisome. And you’re thinking there’s got to be a better way.
There is a better way. And the better way is the under God’s control life. Where all of a sudden God takes those
same things he’s put in your life and instead of me trying to control it all or
just letting it all explode, all of a sudden under his control he does
something in my life that I could never do on my own, under his control. God made us to live under his control,
under his direction, under his guidance.
That’s the meek life. That’s the gentle life. That’s the inherit the earth kind of
life.
The big question is what does
it look like? How does it work
itself out in our everyday lives? Because
to really see where the rubber meets the road on all this we have to see what
are some of the basic exercises, some of the things you do if you’re a meek
person, if you’re a gentle person.
We’re going to look at five specific exercises together that can make
all the difference in my life and in your life.
1.
The first exercise of meekness, of gentleness is: When
you’re confronted, you love.
When you’re confronted you
decide to love. Instead of just confronting
back – that’s the natural choice, that’s the destructive, that’s the I’m in
control or out of control choice. Instead
of doing that, you do the entirely opposite thing. Jesus says I want to turn your thinking upside down. So when you’re confronted, to be meek, to
be gentle, to inherit the earth you decide to love.
Do you want to see if you
have gentleness, if you have humility?
Just let somebody confront you.
Just let somebody get in your face. Just let somebody push your buttons and then you see what
happens.
And the question is what are
you going to do in that moment? The
Bible says this in Proverbs 17:14 – the picture of what often happens. “Starting
a quarrel is like opening a flood gate.
So stop before the argument gets out of control.”
The question is how do you stop
it? The question is where do you
find the power to stop arguing? If
you are caught up in an argument
cycle right now How do you get out of it?
It starts with you. How do you break the cycle? Proverbs 15:1 tell us “A gentle answer turns away wrath. But harsh words cause quarrels.” A gentle answer. You break the cycle by breaking things
up. It starts with you. You can have an effect on everyone
around you.
Gentle does not mean quiet. You can be ungentle in a very quiet voice.
You can say things very quietly
under your breath. That’s still not
gentle.
It means humble. It means admitting where you’re wrong. Which is tough! The one or two times a year I have to
do that is really tough – I’ve got to tell you – admitting where you’re wrong.
You have to realize what is
it in relationships, in conversations, that pushes each other’s buttons and
instead of pushing the button, how do I pull back from that and give the gentle
answer instead, a humble answer instead?
That has the power to change everything.
The Bible says even with the
hard headed it’s gentleness that works.
Proverbs 25:15 says “A gentle word
can get through to the hardheaded.” No elbowing the person you think is hardheaded right now. That’s not gentle. But this is a reminder that even with
the person who seems to be hard headed it takes gentleness to make the
difference. A gentle word changes
things. And it not only helps the
person that you love, it also helps you.
If you use a gentle word it keeps anger from getting control of your
life.
The Bible says in Ephesians
4:26 “Don’t sin by letting anger gain
control over you. [We’ve all
felt that happen and hate that happening.] Don’t let the sun go
down while you’re still angry.” So you say a gentle word instead and it changes everything.
Psalm 141:3, “Lord, help me control my tongue; help me be
careful about what I say.” That
is a great verse. We’re all taught
to count to ten when we get angry.
I want to encourage you to count to one– four–one–three when you get
angry. Psalms 141:3. It’s a great verse to memorize, a great
verse to put on a mirror or a refrigerator somewhere just as a reminder. “Lord,
help me to control my tongue; help me be careful about what I say.” God, I’m asking for your power in this situation. Because when you’re confronted and you
ask for God’s power and you love instead of confronting back, that can change
everything. That can change the
relationship; that can change you.
That’s what real power is all about. That’s the first real power exercise.
2.
The second real power exercise is this: When you are
insulted, you pray.
Jesus said a lot if things about
what to do in the difficult situations of life. A lot of them make us scratch our head when we first hear
them. Jesus said in Matthew 5:39, “If someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn
to him the other also.”
I wonder! If you had been there the first time
Jesus taught this, what would you have said to him? Would you have looked at him and said, “I’m really tracking with you Jesus. That’s awesome stuff.” Or would you have been honest enough to say, “Could you go over that slap on the cheek
part again? I wasn’t quite getting
that.”
It’s important for us to
understand that a slap on the cheek in that day was not an act of violence. It was an insult. It was a way of insulting somebody. We do it in blogs and tweets today. They did it on the cheek in that day. It was a way of saying, I’m insulting
you.
Jesus said if somebody
insults you, don’t insult them back.
Turn away from the opportunity to insult them back. Jesus said don’t play the game. When they insult you, instead of
insulting them back, ask for real power.
Do the gentle thing. Do the
meek thing. And look to God. Turn the other cheek. When you’re insulted refuse to insult
back. That has the power to make a
difference.
How do you do that? Because when I’m insulted it stings. It stings very deeply. So how in the world do you find the power
to do that kind of thing?
I think it begins by remembering
when some person insults you, by remembering what God says about you – the most
important person in the universe. God
says, “I love you. I have a
purpose and plan for your life. I
want to be at work in your life. I
want you to be my child. I will
accept you. I want to give you
gifts. I want to be at work in
your life.” So when they’re
insulting you’re remembering what God says about you. You put it in perspective. That gives you the power, the real power to turn the other
cheek.
The Bible is very specific
about what to do when we’re insulted.
It says in 1 Peter 3:9 “Don’t
retaliate when people say unkind things about you. Instead, pay them back [Wouldn’t it be great if the verse
ended there? Pay them back! But it goes on and says…] with a blessing. That is what God wants you
to do. And he will bless you for
it.”
This is saying, I’ve got a choice. When somebody insults me I can insult
them back and get nothing out of it except the fact that they just won. Or if I can pay them back with a
blessing, I can get God’s blessing in my life in that moment. Which would you rather have? That’s what this is asking. Which would you rather have? When you’re insulted you pay them back
with a blessing.
I probably shouldn’t tell you
this because it might mess with your motivations. But the secret of this is if you bless people when they’re
trying to insult you, it’s going to drive them up a wall. This is going to really make them crazy. The Bible says this in Romans 12:19-20,
“Never take your own revenge, but leave
room for the wrath of God, [Wouldn’t
you rather have God’s wrath get them than your wrath get them? Absolutely!] for it is written, ‘Vengeance
is mine. I will repay,’ says the Lord… ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if
he is thirsty, give him a drink. For
in so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head.’” I love that!
What’s this talking about? It’s saying if you do the unexpected
thing it’s like a fire. It’s going
to go in their mind, go into their heart.
All of a sudden there’s opportunity for change there that would not have
been there otherwise. That’s the
real power for life. We need to do
the unexpected thing with God’s power, God’s strength. So you pay them back. You pay them back with a blessing.
The Bible is even very
specific about exactly what kind of blessing to pay them back with. The next verse, Luke 6:28, “Pray for those who insult you.” You pray for people who insult you. So this week, what are you going to do
about it? Do the real power thing
and pray for them. “God, would you bless them?”
How do you do that? I think David, who wrote many of the Psalms,
is a great example for us. He had
many people insult him and attack him all of his life; and he prayed prayers
for them. Psalm 59:11-12 is the prayer
that David prayed for somebody who was attacking and insulting him. “Don’t make quick work of them God. Bring them down in slow motion. Take them apart piece by piece. Let all their mean mouth arrogance catch up with them. Finish them off in fine style. Finish them off for good.”
That’s in the Bible! I’m not making this up. That’s a Bible prayer you can pray. You can start there. And to be real about this, that’s what
you do. You start there. You start by telling God what you feel. This is what I’d like to have happen to
them. This is what they deserve
because of what they did to me. You
start with what you’re feeling. You
don’t skip that.
But then you get to what we just
talked about. You go from praying
this is how I feel, but you get to praying for a blessing in their lives. “In
spite of how I feel, God, I’m going to put faith in you instead of me. Would you bless them? Because I want your blessing more than
I want to get back at them. I want
your blessing more than I want revenge.
I need your blessing more than anything else.”
When you do that, the only
way to do that is under God’s control.
When you do that you’re showing real power in your life. So you start with how you feel in your
prayer and end with a prayer for God to bless.
When you are insulted you
pray. When you are confronted you
love.
3.
For real power there’s a third thing to do. When you’re neglected you encourage.
When you feel neglected you
make the choice to encourage. When
you feel neglected, when you feel overlooked in life, how do you usually
respond? It depends on your
personality.
Some of us, when
we’re neglected we tend to withdraw.
If you’re going to neglect me, I’m going to sort of withdraw into the
background. I’m going to disappear. I’m not really here.
Others of us, when
we’re neglected we tend to jump in the middle of the circle and say, you’re going
to notice me! But both of those choices
are all about me. Whether I withdraw or jump in, it’s all
about me. I’m still focusing on me.
Do you want to make a real
difference? Do you want to make
the real power choice? Instead of
focusing on you, focus on somebody else.
You begin to think, I’m feeling neglected. There’s probably somebody else in the room that’s feeling
the same way. How can I encourage
them? That’s real power. That’s the meek choice, the gentle choice,
the inherit-the-earth choice. That’s
the real power choice.
When you’re neglected you
encourage. Real power is when you
realize I’m not the only one feeling this way and there are other people who
need encouragement right now. Instead
of me thinking about myself and having a pity party I’m going to look for somebody
to encourage. In fact, I’m going
to look for somebody who might be the least likely to be encouraged.
It’s easy to encourage people
who are more powerful or positioned better than you are. It might get you something good. But how about the person no one else is
noticing? How about the kind of
people that 1 Thessalonians 5:14 talks about. “Encourage anyone who feels left out, help all who are weak, and be
patient with everyone.” Who is
there that’s feeling left out right now? You might fill in some names in your mind and take some time
this next week to encourage them.
How are you going to do that
this next week? That’s really the
question. How are we going to
exercise this kind of power? To be
an encourager I’ve got to be encouraged.
We’re not naturally encouragers.
We naturally tend to think of ourselves. So how do we get outside of ourselves?
We need someone to encourage
us to encourage. And the Bible does
that. Hebrews 10:24 says “Think of ways to encourage one another to outbursts
of love and good deeds.”
Let me encourage you right
now. Who can you encourage this
next week? Somebody at your school. Somebody in your office. Somebody in your neighborhood. Somebody you just come across in the store
from time to time. You just sense
they feel neglected, they feel left out.
How could you encourage them?
Especially if you’re feeling neglected and left out right now. I’m not saying you’re not. I’m not saying it’s fair that you’re
feeling neglected and left out. I’m
not saying it’s right. But instead
of you spending all of your time about yourself, how can you get outside of yourself
and encourage somebody else? That’s
the power of choice. When you’re
neglected you encourage.
4.
Power exercise number four is this: When you’re rejected, you forgive.
Colossians 3:13 “You must make allowance for each other’s faults
and forgive the person who offends you.
Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.”
Where do you find the
strength to forgive people who’ve hurt you? It’s in that word “remember”. The only way I’ve ever been able to find the strength to
forgive someone else is by remembering that Jesus Christ forgave me. Remembering what he’s done for me gives
me the strength to forgive someone else.
I think most of us realize
that unforgiveness hurts us much worse than it’s hurting the people we’re not
forgiving. They may not even know
that you’re not forgiving them, but it’s eating you up inside. You’re thinking about it all the time. It’s creating bitterness. Even though you know that, you find it’s
hard to forgive.
Where do you find the strength? It’s in this word “remember.” You remember Jesus Christ dying on a cross
for you. Every time you feel the
bitterness, you remember what Jesus did on the cross.
When you’re rejected, forgive. That’s what Jesus did. He was put on a cross, rejected. While he was on that cross they stood
below him and they hurled insults at him.
We all remember what Jesus did.
He looked at them and he said, “Father,
forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing.” While he was being rejected he decided to
forgive.
We see the meekness, the gentleness
in Jesus’ life nowhere else than like on the cross when he said I’m going to
give my life for you so you can be forgiven. And he said “Father forgive
them for they don’t know what they’re doing.”
That same strength, that same
power that he had to give himself for us, he wants to give that power to you in
order to forgive somebody else. The
Bible says “They called him, [Jesus] every name in the book and he said nothing
back. He suffered in silence, content
to let God set things right.”
When we talk about forgiveness
what are we talking about? Circle
in that verse the two words “let God.”
That’s what it’s all about.
That’s what it all comes down to.
You let God. Am I going to
keep this in my hands and control it?
Or am I going to let God set things right? Am I going to trust myself or am I going to trust him with
this?
So what does it mean to
forgive? It doesn’t mean you
forget about it. You might remember
it many times. It doesn’t mean that
you trust that person again. They
may be able to rebuild trust someday.
But they’re going to have to build it. It’s their responsibility. It means you let God, you let go, you let it go into his
hands. I’m not going to put the
retribution on me anymore. I’m not
going to take it into my heart to pay them back day after day, because it’s
taking it out on me and not on them.
I’m going to let it go and I’m going to let you. That’s what it means to forgive.
You pray, God, I let it go into your hands. As you pray that prayer that doesn’t
mean you’re going to forget it. And
praying that prayer right now, this is not the only time you’re going to have to
pray that prayer. Every time you remember
that sin against you, you’re going to have to let it go again. You may have to pray that prayer
seventy times a day the first few days.
God, once again, I let it go to you. It’s a process.
In that process you pray it maybe seventy times a day for a few days. Then the next week you pray it maybe
thirty times a day. Then ten times
a day the next week. Then all of a
sudden there comes a day when you realize, I haven’t thought about that for six
months. It’s not controlling my
thinking, my life, my direction any more.
Why is this so important? Because unforgiveness saps the energy
and the strength for life right out of you. It’s like a power drain on our lives. It saps us of energy. I do not know of an issue, the three
different ways of control we’re talking about – out of control, in control, or
under God’s control – that is as important as this one. It’s so clear.
The Bible says in Luke 6:37 “Stop judging others, and you won’t be
judged. Stop criticizing others, or
it will all come back on you. If you
forgive others, you will be forgiven.”
When confronted, love. When insulted, pray. When neglected, encourage. When you’re rejected, you forgive. Those are the real power choices. Then finally, a final choice for real
power in your life:
5.
When you’re applauded, when you’re praised, you hope.
That’s what creates real
power. A lot of times when we get
applauded, when we get praised, we let it become pride in our lives and that
takes the power right out of our lives and our relationships. But if instead you hope, you see real
power. We see real power in how we
choose to respond to the praise that comes into our lives.
Thinking about praise and
good things that happen, the Bible says in Psalms 49:18-19, “Though a man calls himself happy all through
his life – and the world loudly applauds
success – yet in the end he dies like
everyone else.”
Isn’t that encouraging? Isn’t that a great encouraging verse? It is
encouraging! Because if you think about
this, no matter how much applause you get or how little applause you get, in
the end it’s still short. We’re on
this earth for such a short time.
We’re all going to die like everyone else.
In this world the silliest of
things get the greatest applause sometimes. And the greatest acts of love get no applause at all on this
earth because no one notices. But
in the end, we’re all going to die and be with him forever. So if we’re looking to the end and not
what’s happening right now, when the applause comes, you decide to hope. Instead of the applause becoming pride,
the applause becomes praise. Praise
to him and for what he has done. The
applause becomes hope. That’s what
you do.
So the gentle thing to do, the
meek thing to do, the inheriting earth thing to do is to focus on what will
last; and that is our hope in him, our hope in God, our hope of spending
eternity with him, where he’s going to be praised forever.
The truth of the matter is,
if all you live for is the applause in the end all you’ve got is the applause
and it is not enough. Because God
didn’t make you or make me just to live just for the applause of people. A lot of times we applaud the wrong
thing. A lot of times people applaud
us for the wrong reasons. What we
really live for is God’s applause.
What we really live for is his praise in the end.
The Bible says this in 1
Corinthians 9:25, “All athletes practice
strict self-control. They do it to
win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize.” So you begin to look towards eternity
and what God’s going to do in eternity.
You realize if you live for the notice that’s all you’ve got. That applause is all you’ve got.
Jesus warns us in Matthew 6:1
“Be especially careful when you’re trying
to do good so that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God
who made you won’t be applauding.”
So instead of faking it before people, you look forward to that day
when you’re going to be with him.
The apostle Paul, one of the
greatest leaders of all times, talked about this. He lived his life and he had a lot of struggles; he had a
lot of criticism. He also had a
lot of praise, a lot of great things that happened. Towards the end of his life he realized what it was all about.
He was looking forward to that moment he was going to be with God. So he said in 2 Timothy 4:8, “All that’s left now is the shouting – God’s applause!” That’s what I’m looking forward to. That’s what I’m looking forward to for
you.
I know some of us are afraid
that we’re going to get to heaven and as God’s child we’re going to have to sit
with him and see all the terrible things we’ve ever done in a movie with him. We just sit there and we watch the
whole thing. Once you become his
child that’s not going to happen. That’s
for those who are not yet in faith with him, not his children. Once you become God’s child that movie
is thrown away. It’s incinerated. The movie you sit down and watch with
God, it’s of every act of faith, everything that you did because you trusted
him. Can you imagine God saying, get
some popcorn, sit down here for a couple thousand years. I want to watch together with all of
you all these acts of faith. And I
want to just applaud what I did through and in your life because of your love for
me.
What an incredible experience
that’s going to be. That’s what
you look forward to. That’s the
hope that you look forward to. As
you look forward to that hope it has the power to take the pride right out of
you and to build it into praise.
That’s what real power does. That’s what gentleness does. That’s what meekness does.
Prayer:
I
encourage you to just pray this simple prayer of faith. Father, I need your power. I need your power to love. I need your power to pray especially for
people who have hurt me. I need your
power to forgive. I need your power
to encourage. I need your power to
hope. And I ask for it right now. I humbly ask for your power. God, help me this next week to do something
different because of your power in the way that I speak, in the way that I act,
in the way that I think. I ask for
your power. Father, we ask for it
together. I pray that even though
people may not know why, that because we’re asking for your power right now, something
different would happen in our family this week, something different in our
school, in the places that we work.
And God, your power would make a difference. We ask this because we know that there’s nothing more powerful
than your love. So we ask this in
faith. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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