Men’s Retreat Goes Online! (4/24/20)

1:  God Helps Us Overcome Temptation and to Grow From It

It’s not sinful to face temptation; even Jesus was tempted.  But unlike Jesus, we’re going to have our moments when we give into temptation.  We can’t avoid temptation, but we can have the victory over it:

1. Know your Bible– Jesus answered temptation with scripture.  Can we?
2. If you’re on a high, don’t get cocky!  Temptation is the most likely to strike when we feel we’re on top of things.  Always be on the lookout.
3. Jesus is really in charge.  He has power over the devil.  If you resist the temptation while hanging on to Jesus, the Devil will run away.

As we saw with the demon-posessed man, God likes to use people with checkered pasts.  We can look past our past and trust God to forgive and empower us.   God can use our distant times to bring us closer to Him. 

2:  We Have a Purpose!

We tend to drift along. We fight the fires that life throws at us and then try to enjoy ourselves during the easier stretches.  But we’re on a mission to be God’s witnesses in the world; to not “hide our light under a basket.”  Jesus had a passion for people.  He wasn’t afraid to confront evil.  Yeah, He is JESUS… but He promised that He will be with us and will help us.

We can have the same passion for God.  He wants to develop a faith in us that will allow Him to work through us.

We need to keep trying to remain focused on Him and on His purpose.  But Jesus is always focused on us!  His mission on earth was (and continues to be) to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10).  Even when we wander off and mess up, God seeks to restore us so that we can help Him build His Kingdom.  He’s gone through incredible lengths to restore our relationship with Him so that we can love Him and be His hands and feet in the world (John 3:16-18).

If God is so focused on us, then there must be a reason.  If He goes through so much to keep us in tune with Him, then we must have a role to play.

3:  Keep Sharpening Your Ax

When Jesus answered the Devil He KNEW His Bible!  Satan tried to twist things around, but Jesus could see through it.  And we saw that even He needed to keep praying.  Before just about every big event in His life, every difficult decision, the Gospels record that He went off by Himself to pray. 

Just like Peter walking on the water despite the waves, God gives us the freedom to focus on Him instead of focusing on earthly things.  He provides for our needs, He cares for us, He calms our fears.  We can look for God in the little things instead of always looking for an easy way out. 

Growing your faith prepares you for difficult times.  It’s like sharpening your ax in preparation for the next tree.  Ax sharpening takes effort; it goes against the flow of our lives.  But so is walking on water!  God is giving us opportunities to  keep our eyes on Him, to shut out the worries, and to stop being absorbed with ourselves.  When we step out with our eyes on God, He will strengthen our faith, love, and commitment.

4:  Our Future is in Heaven

We really do get worried about the little things in life.  We worry about what we’re going to wear, how we’re going to fix the lawn mower or dishwasher, or how we’ll ever find the time to put up the Christmas decorations.  But God has bigger plans for us.  Cars, lawn mowers and Christmas decorations are all going to fade into the past.  Jesus could risk (and give) His life, face temptation, fatigue, hunger, and physical pain because He knew His heavenly Father and He totally trusted Him.  He knew that His home was in heaven, not in Galilee. 

He kept His eyes on the Prize.  He wasn’t holding back or fighting against His Father’s plan. 

God has big things in store for us, both in this life and in the next.  We don’t have to keep looking around to earthly concerns.  Instead, we can look up for heaven’s eternal blessings.   Knowing our eternal destination, we can use our lives to fill our hearts and the world with love for our Creator.

5:  Use All the Strength You Have- Keep Looking at Jesus

The disciples did their best to row against the waves.  They were strong and experienced fishermen.  But even their strength wasn’t enough to save them from the waves.  Peter entered the water.  But when he began to look at the waves and measure the task at hand against his own abilities, he began to sink.  Jesus kept teaching His disciples to look towards Him and to trust in the power that God gives. 

We need to guard our focus too. Our intellect may tell us that we aren’t “limited to our limitations” and that we are “freed for joyful obedience.”  We may even remember that God’s “perfect love drives out fear.” 

But sometimes our hearts forget God’s truths.   We see our inability to go it alone and that just strengthens our bull-headedness to force things to work out with our own strength.  Like the boy trying to push that big rock out of his sandbox, sometimes we try to do things on our own instead of turning to the Father who’s standing right beside us.   We don’t need to be sinking in fear when Jesus is reaching out His hand to us. 

Instead of being mired down in our limitations, God wants us to become more and more connected with His unlimited power.

6:  God has Plans that are Better than Yours!

Back in January we started planning for this retreat.  We booked places at Black Rock, we put down deposits, we lined up our speaker…. but we never made it to Black Rock.

But the speaker we selected was kind enough to complete his preparation as if we were going to meet in person.  And when it was clear that we weren’t going to meet, he made the videos that are given above.  That’s not what we envisioned.  We sure didn’t plan on being stuck at home in the midst of a pandemic.

And yet God provides.  He provided Live Stream worship services.  He provided Zoom and the wherewithal to continue our team meetings online.  He gave us the imagination to teach online Sunday School lessons, to create curbside pantries, to congratulate our preschool graduates with lawn signs and drive by parades.

We might tend to think that these are all compromises or second choices. But we can trust God with this turn in events.  He’s used Live Stream worship services, Facebook Sunday Schools, and Devotional Emails to bring people to Him during this time.  

He can even use You Tube videos of a Men’s Retreat as a way to strengthen His disciples!   

God is faithful and committed to us, but are we committed to Him?  Are we on board with His plan or are we still trying to force things to go the way we thought they should go?