Excerpt: In the pride and presumptuousness of our humanity, we all feel like that there must be some way to tame the evil that both surrounds and permeates us. We all cling to the hope that there must be some method, if not to avoid suffering entirely, then at least to get the upper hand on it. Thats just the way we think; surely as intelligent human beings we can figure this thing out and overcome it.
From time to time we believe that we have found it – this master key to victorious living. We think we have some secret, the answer to the riddle of life, some formula that can solve our problems. We find it in some book or video… and we say “That’s it. We have found the secret to overcoming evil in our life.” And it works! Our life turns around! We are happy and successful and have a mountain-top experience… and then all of a sudden it stops working. Such is the pattern of our lives.
We Christians have the worse time with this: We don’t like losing. Our religion, our faith has instilled us with the mindset that we aren’t losers; we are over-comers! So when things go bad in our life we go into a tailspin. We hate losing. We pray, crying out to God for help… And we expect Him to answer us exactly like we are asking Him to. Yet God says to us what He told Job in Job 41:9, “Any hope of subduing Leviathan is false.” (That is not the answer we were hoping to get.)
And it’s like God says, “You little silly human with all of your theology, with all of your faith, with all the spiritual secrets, still you cannot lead the Devil around by the nose.” Not only that He says in Job 41:8- “Lay your hands on him; remember the battle, and you will not do it again!” You go ahead and try to fight the Devil in your strength, try it once and when he gets done with you, you will never want to touch him again! You will not be so haughty and proud and arrogant next time. You will not say to God, “God, I can handle my own life.” You will not say to your parents, “Don’t warn be about the world.” You will not say to your spouse, “I want to leave and go my own way and live my own life.” Because if you ever meet the Devil in all of his power and evil, you will never want to meet him again!
Most of the world’s religious and philosophical systems are advanced by people who, in one way or another, appear to be on top of life’s problems. For a brief while, someone may seem to have discovered the “secret.” Someone finds something that works, then he writes a book, goes on Oprah and starts a movement. He’s on top and is preaching to all the low-lifers still on bottom.
But this is not the Christian way. No the message of Christianity is not preached by someone who is on top. Rather it is preached by someone who is at the very bottom = hanging on a Cross. The cross is the pulpit in which God stood to preach His greatest sermon, and it is also the only pulpit where anyone else may stand and rightfully preach to others. As disciples of Christ we have true victory as we are crucified in the spirit. Christianity views humanity as corrupt, condemned and as worthless. False theologies try to do humanize God to distract from our depravity. Other religious exalt humanity. Other faiths prop up the deadness of humanity and try to put a smiley face on it. But Christianity has the proper view of depraved humanity and nails it to a cross. A life is good for nothing except spiritual crucifixion and resurrection in the Christ life.
This is why true faith is not something that runs along smoothly and efficiently. Rather, it has a built-in tendency to fall apart at the seams. According to the Apostle Paul faith regularly finds itself “hard-pressed, “perplexed”, “struck down” (2Corinthians 4:8-9). The very fact that faith looks to a power beyond itself means that it is continually subject to loss of control.
So if you’re hoping to get control of all your problems –Christianity is not for you. If you are looking for success, happiness, or freedom from pain – Christianity is not for you. If you are looking to make yourself FEEL better, appease your flesh, and have fun and be care-free – RUN, RUN, RUN from Biblical Christianity – run and catch an episode of Joel Osteen or Oprah or someone like that because that’s what you are looking for — not Biblical Christianity.
But the way of Christ is the way of the Cross! This is the door at which Jesus knocks. If you want to follow Jesus, give up any idea of controlling Leviathan! If you want to follow Jesus, get it through your mind that you are going to suffer unspeakably at the hands of evil! But…
But our Lord is the God of Leviathan.
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Jason Robertson is a husband and a father and a pastor. He is dedicated to leading and equipping his the Church with God’s word and biblical theology for life ministry, using a combination of pastoral, church planting and evangelism experience. He holds a Master of Divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He is experienced in church planting, evangelism, missions, and the training of pastors and Bible teachers.
Jason has been preaching the gospel since 1985, serving the first ten years of ministry as a Southern Baptist itinerant evangelist out of Milldale Baptist Church in Zachary, LA which ordained him in 1993. He has preached in hundreds of churches in over 30 States and 4 countries. He planted churches in Siberia, Russia in the summers of 1993 and 1994. He founded Murrieta Valley Church in California, which he planted in cooperation with the SBC NAMB in 2001. He also teaches ministry students at California Baptist University.
You can hear his sermons and read his manuscripts on sermonaudio.com. Just follow the link to "sermons" at the top of this page.
That was good, yup it was!
Having had to deal with an SBC pastor or two who had this idea that God is a goodie bag full of treats for what ails ya, it never failed that that they tended to the legalistic side. Performers like to get paid a profit for singing a song or dancing, but what comes from God is an inheritance and is ours simply for being who he made us to be, or so that is what Job learned of the grace of God.
From Promise Keepers to Rick Warren I have had to explain to brothers that the best view of heaven is from the valley of the shadow of death. There is no falling from a position of humility and pleading for mercy. I like to do this: Read Psalms 22-24 as a whole. You can go on from there. In Psalms 31 is the famous passage, “Into your hands I commend my Spirit.” We remember that it was at that point that Christ lifted his voice toward heaven. The view from the mountain looks down from the throne, but the view from the valley looks to Him who sits on it atop the mountain of the Lord.
When people ask for relief from the tribulations of this world perhaps the greatest gift we can offer them is bigger nails so that they might stay attached more firmly to the Cross. It was there and not here that we were made more than conquerors through him who loves us. What then shall we say to these things, if God is for us, who can be against us seeing that there is now no condemnation; what a feast has been prepared for us in the presence of fearce enemies, strong bulls of Bashan. Let us then eat and drink of his free offer for it is the Lord who fights for us.