True Strength - Travis Kropf

Good morning, greetings to each one of you in Jesus' name.

This morning, I want to build just a little bit

on what Brother Dan shared. It lends itself. So we're

in the middle of harvest and very pertinent observation there

on the increases in the yields. It's hard to give

blanket statements, but in a general way, I think my

Rye grass fields, I think I did everything pretty much

the same this year as last year, but I think

there's probably at least twenty percent less seed, and that's

the part where God comes in. Last year was a

perfect year for growing ryegrass in as far as I'm concerned.

We had very good weather and that's from God. And

I realize there's a lot of variables. But what I

want to take that too, though, is my message is

this morning of entitled true strength. And I don't want

to leave an impression here that if we do everything

just right in the right order, that we get a

certain result, because God enters into that equation and God,

it's not what we can do, it's what God blesses

us with. It's what God can do in our lives

when we open our lives to Him. So I want

that to be kind of the backdrop. We find physical

strength very intriguing people, animals, machines that can lift, can

pull a big load, the longest black mark, the most smoke,

whatever it is that in your mind represents strength and power.

I'm not much of an athlete, and someone who who

can run a mile in four minutes, to me is

just amazing. We respect strength. It's a it's a tool.

It's an advantage, especially on this side of the house,

and probably the wing over there, particularly the arm wrestling champion,

want to raise their hand. I thought about it this morning. Well,

I was sitting here and Leland's not here to defend himself,

So I'm gonna tell the story in he might have

to pick up the pieces if I have it a

little wrong. But my memory is a probably a thirteen

year old or eleven year old was hearing these stories

come back from Bible School and at a cousin about

Leland's age, kind of in the same group. But what

I remember hearing is that Leland was the arm wrestling

champion that year at Bible School. And the thing that

I have found more interesting though over the years, many

of you know Melvin Bond trigger he was probably a

sixty year old man. I didn't do the math in

his fifties, sixty year old man at that point. And

I think what I remember hearing is that he gave

him the most trouble. What is strength? Quickly, who's the

strongest man in world history that we know of? Samson?

Thank you? Who's the wisest man? Solomon? Think a little

bit about those two men in their lives. Both of

those men were spiritual weaklings. The strongest man who ever

lived physically, the wisest man who ever lived, the man

with the most brains, if you want to call it that,

we're both spiritual weaklings. And why is that? And if

you go back and you look at their lives, there's

two things that will stand out, and one is a

lack of self control and the other one is a

lack of obedience to God and his laws. Those are

kind of the two things that define those men in

their spiritual weakness. You remember Samson as he went down

to the Philistines and Delilah's lady he loved, was enthralled

with Delilah, was trying to figure out for the Philistines

what the secret was. He said, what's the secret of

your strength. Tell me what that secret is. And that's

a very pertinent question for each one of us here

this morning. What is the secret of your strength? Is

having a well developed self controls at the secret of

your strength is surrounding yourself with good people, people who

build you up. Is that the secret of your strength?

Maybe you're good at avoiding situations that tempt you. Is

that the secret of your strength. We'll come back to

that a little more later, but I want you to

think about what really gives you strength, what makes you

a strong person. So we all have our areas of strength,

we all have our areas of weakness. But thinking in

the spiritual sense gives what gives me strength. I'd like

to leave that. We'll come back to it. But what

about weakness? What are your weaknesses? If you had to

write them down, what would you what's your ten second

answer to that? What's my weakness? My next question is

why are you weak in that area of your life?

And the third question is what are you doing about it?

In the natural world the animal kingdom, what do pray animals?

Animals that prey on other animals, what do those animals

look for? Classic lion stalking a herd of gazelle's. What

are they looking for? They're looking for the weak, the old,

the sick, the young. In the natural world, weakness arouses evil.

That attracts evil, It attracts that attack. Think about in

the criminal world, who does the thug in the parking

lot try to steal from. Does he go for the

ex marine, the bodybuilder guy that's walking around with muscles

shown everywhere. No, he looks for the little old lady.

He's seeking the vulnerable, those who are we those who

don't have as much physical strength, those who appear weak.

Weakness arouses evil. So as you think of that in

a spiritual sense, my weakness makes me vulnerable, and so

if I can recognize where I'm weak, it gives me

an opportunity to build that, to strengthen that part. I

want to further define weakness into two different categories because

I think it's important. And the first one is a

weakness of laziness, an unwillingness to work, an unwillingness to

practice self denial, an unwillingness to just do the right

thing regardless of what's going on in the periphery. So

weakness of laziness and the other weakness is what I

would call the weakness of our humanity, and it's really

a recognition of the limitations that we have. And I said,

we're all weak in a different area. I don't think

that brother Dan necessarily struggles is spiritually weak in the

same area that I am. But he probably has another

area that he's weak in. But we need to recognize

those limitations that we have in the need for God's

grace in our lives. And maybe should just turn to

two Corinthians twelve. It's a familiar passage. The apostle Paul

talked about his thorn in the flesh. I'm going to

read verses seven through ten. Unlest I should be exalted

above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was

given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger

of Satan to buffet me. Lest I should be exalted

above measure. For this thing, I've besought to the Lord

thrice that it might depart from me. And he said,

unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee, for my

strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will

I rather glory in my affirmities, that the power of

Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure and

infirmities in reproaches, and necessities and persecutions in distresses for

Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then am I

strong the weakness of our humanity. The apostle Paul said,

I'm willing to be weak this way so that God

can work through me. And notice in verse ten, it

says for Christ's sake, these are things I suffer for

Christ's sake. It's a weakness for Christ's sake. It's not

because I chose to put myself over here in a

bad place. He said, no, it's it's because I'm suffering

for Christ's sake. And then that's when the strength is available.

Thinking back to the weakness of laziness, think about sam again.

So Samson was born as a special child. He was

parents were given instructions how to raise him and two things.

Mainly wasn't to cut his hair, and he wasn't to

drink strong drink, sort of the two things. But if

you look at his life, so he's a judge of Israel,

he's supposed to be kind of the leader who's delivering

them from the Philistines. Samson does not seem to be

very serious about following God's plan for his life. His

fighting with the Philistines were most primarily either self defense

because they were coming after him, or revenge. And the

self defense was because he was down there making being

a pain, killing them, bothering them, whatever it was, and

so they would come after him, so he'd kill a

bunch of them. Or when they couldn't get him, they

they killed his wife. I believe it was. So then

he goes for revenge. But there wasn't a ever. It

doesn't there's no record of Samson having a plan. You know, God,

what do you want me to do? How do you

want me to deliver your people? It's just this haphazard

tit for tat revenge. Let's go see what we can get.

Just he was lazy. He knew what he wanted. He

wanted women, and then he wanted revenge. It was just

a cycle back and forth. What does it take to

build strength? Exercise? Thank you? I can bench press three

hundred pounds. Anyone believe me? Me declaring it means nothing.

I can't. By the way, me saying that means nothing.

So just saying that I'm strong, just saying I can

do this. It means nothing. Takes a lot of work.

Think about Peter. Peter was a strong personality, and he

was a spokesman. He he he exuded confidence and strength. Lord,

tell me to walk on, tell me to come on

the water. This looks great. I'd like to do that too.

He didn't have what it took. He didn't have what

it took inside to walk on the water. Lord, I'll

do anything for you. I'll even go and die with

you twelve hours, twenty four hours later or whatever it was.

I don't even know who this man is. You can't

just say I'm strong and be strong. It takes work,

It takes effort. The other side of Peter is after Pentecost,

and he was a very strong man because the Holy

Spirit was working in his life. Turn to Matthew, chapter fifteen.

I want to go back to this thought of what

makes you strong? Can I just develop enough self control?

Can I surround myself with the right people? Really think

through that? Well, boy, I'm not going to go over

here and I'm not going to go over there, and

I'm just really going to protect myself that way. Is

that what makes you strong? And I'm gonna take some

of these verses a little out of context that they're

given here, But I believe there I want to look

at the opposite side of it verse fifteen. Then answered Peter,

so let me back up verse ten. Jesus called them multitude,

and said, unto them here and understand. Not that which

goeth into the mouth defile with the man, But that

which cometh out of the mouth that defile, this defile

of the man. Men jump down to verse sixteen, and

Jesus said, he's explaining the parable. Are ye also without understanding?

Do not ye? Do not ye yet understand that whatsoever

entereth in at the mouth goeth out in the belly

and is cast out into the draft. But those things

which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart,

and they defile the man. For out of the heart

proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemes.

These are the things which defile a man. But to

eat with unwashed hands defileth not a man. It's easy

to look at our actions and say I'm bad because

I did this, And Jesus said, you're bad because your

heart's bad. These things are coming from a bad heart,

and so I'd like to take that and think about

that from the aspect of strength and weakness. We can

try to surround ourselves with the best things. We can

try to develop self control, we can surround ourselves with

good people. We can make sure we read our Bible

for at least fifteen minutes every morning. That's the outside.

Those are the things that are coming from the outside.

That's not what's coming from the inside. So we need God,

We need that spiritual life on the inside first of all.

And could look at John, the Gospel of John chapter fifteen,

and Jesus talks about the vine. He says, abide in

me and I in you. That's where the strength comes from,

is from abiding in him and him abiding in us.

So that's the starting point. And once we have that part,

then there's some other things that we do to develop strength.

And one of those that things is to recognize our

weakness and then taking definite steps to strengthen those areas

of weakness. But don't try to do it before you

have the abiding part. We can live good moral lives,

it's possible. There's many people that do. But the goal

is not just to live a good moral life, it's

healthy for society. It's not there's a benefit to it.

But what we're really looking for here is the abiding.

First of all, I think some of those definite steps

we can take to strengthen ourselves when we see an

area of weakness, and I think prayer. We have access

to power. We have access to a God who loves

us and who wants to see us grow. The Sunday

School lesson, I thought about it. I appreciated the discussion there.

I believe God's heart in church. Discipline is restoration. God's

desire for us personally is a restored relation with Him

in a strong relation. And prayer is the alignment of

our will with God's will. It's not simply the nine

to one one call, but it's aligning our will with

God's will. It's not just asking God to bail me

out when I've made a foolish choice. The alignment of

my will with God's will. I believe choosing to do right,

and I know that's very simple. There's a lot of

choices we make that we know are soft choices, and

we know they're not the right choice often, but they're

the easy one. I believe it's good to avoid situation

to make us vulnerable. And remember one brother who was

an alcoholic for many years. He said, he don't walk

down the wine aisle at the grocery store. He just

he can. He's an alcoholic. I'm sure probably most of

us wouldn't think twice. It's the shortest way from point

A to point B. And but where I'm weak, I

need to avoid if I want to grow, if I

want to strengthen, And I believe allowing other people to

help us to acknowledge those weaknesses. Remember when we allow

areas of weakness in our life, when we are okay

with being weak, we make ourselves vulnerable. Maybe this is

a little bit of a strong statement, but weakness is

not wrong. But to be okay with weakness is wrong.

And I realize it sounds very I can't think the

word I want but idealistic. But I believe it's true.

And I think we could all probably all of us

can do with a little meditation on that. Like to think. Now,

I'm going to switch gears and think about faith or

sorry is think about what is true strength and some

of the characteristics that go with strength, godly strength, And

the first one I have is faith. And we have

the example of Abraham. Although a very flawed man in

some respects, he is still held up as the epitome

of faith, the shining example of faith, and he exhibited

a lot of faith. It's not I don't want to

take away from that, but I believe faith. One way,

we can think of it as God is in control

and I am willing to follow God. You know, my

life has taken some twists and turns that I would

have never imagined twenty years ago, but you know, God's

been the same. In looking back, it seems very obvious

that God was leading and directing, but I didn't see

that at the time. And you think of Abraham. Essentially

he was told, leave your home, your family, the place

that you're comfortable in and just start heading west. And

when you get to where I think I want you,

then I'll tell you our spiritual journey should look like that.

Just start following. So faith is it's just taking the

next step and the next step after that second one.

I have his integrity. True strength is integrity doing what

is right even when no one is looking. It's often

one way we used to define that. Think of Daniel

Shadrack me Shack in a bed and you go, young man,

no accountability to their larger religious church people. He said, no,

I'll eat what I know God has commanded my people

to eat. Think of Joseph willing to go to prison

as an innocent man rather than compromise that. Integrity. Number

three is contentment, choosing to be satisfied with what God

has given us. Choosing to be satisfied with what God

has given me, the circumstances He's allowed in my life,

happy when others do well, when someone else passes me up,

Can I say, God, bless you. Number four humility, recognizing

our own weaknesses and our dependence on God, that without

God I'm nothing. It's think of Gideon. Remember how Gideon

led the children of Israel, well, led three hundred men

rather had this amazing victory, the probably one of the

most amazing military victories in human history. And when the

dust had all settled, the people said, hey, you be

the king, you and just keep it in the family,

your sons, let's create a dynasty here, and Gideon said, no,

God's your king. How many men are willing to say

no to position like that, an opportunity like that? Think

of meekness. Number five. We often define that as power

under control. It says of Moses that he was the

meekest man. There's never been another man as meek as

Moses leading the children of Israel. The people who did

not understand God did not do well that following God.

There's many times God said I'm just ready to be done.

I'm just gonna wipe everyone out. We're gonna start over.

And Moses said, no, God, this isn't good for your reputation.

If you do this, how many how many people? If

you're if you're the leader and you're trying to corral

a rebellious, selfish group of people, and your your wits end.

And God said, you know what, it's pretty bad. I'm

willing to just get rid of this group of people.

And Moses said, no, for your sake, you can't. And

I'm willing to keep dealing with these people because of

this meekness. Victory starts with choice. Strength starts with choice,

the choosing to look to God and what he has promised,

choosing to act, choosing to be a victor not a victim,

choosing to be strong so that we can help others.

Strong men are not necessarily the ones who can win

the arm wrestling contest. But strong men are the ones

who are willing to do what's right even when it's unpopular,

or and they're willing to admit when they're wrong. There's

a verse in Daniel chapter eleven, and probably if you

forget everything else, I want you to remember this verse,

to think about it, spend some time meditating on it

this week. And this is in the context. Probably turn

to it. The context of Daniel eleven is prophecy. I

didn't try to decipher it all. Some of it seems

like probably in the well, I better not even try

to define what it is. So I'm pulling it out

of context a little bit because it's speaking in the

context of prophecy. But I believe that encapsulates what I

want you to remember this morning. Says in verse thirty two,

and such as do wickedly, shall against the covenant shall

be shall he corrupt with flatteries. But this is the

part here, the last part of the verse. But the

people that do know their God shall be strong and

do exploits. The people that do know their God, the

people that abide in Jesus, and that Jesus abides in them,

shall be strong, and she'll do exploits. They shall do

great things. I have a little more here to share,

and it's directed especially at fathers, grandfathers, fathers. We need

to be strong, We need to be there for our children,

not just your physical presence, but your emotional presence. Many

of the ills of our society today are the result

the fathers who are missing, whether literally or figuratively. I

think that the suicides, the mass shootings, drugs, gang violence,

so much of that you can trace back to absent fathers.

Be strong for your children, tell them no when you should,

teach them to be strong and to take responsibility for

their actions, and teach them not to be victims. And

most importantly, remember we teach by example. Our society has

said that women are equal with man, can do anything

a man can do, that men and masculinity are the problem,

but if the men would get out of the way,

the women could fix it. That's the general feeling in

our society. We know that God created both men and

women in unique and complementary ways, and he also created

them to fill specific roles. In any time we step

outside of those roles, it creates chaos, and we see

that today in our society. How much pain and chaos

come from that mixing of roles. Fathers, be strong. I

have a few verses here I would like to read

and closing. First one's in First Samuel four nine. And

it's interesting that it's a verse that the enemies of

the Israelites said, this is them talking. Maybe I'll just

give you the context, so this isn't that when Eli

was the high priest and the children of Israel took

the Ark of the Covenant out to the battlefield, they

I guess they felt they needed an extra edge that day.

And when the Ark of the Covenant came to the battlefield,

they all shouted, and the Philistines were like, what's going on?

And they said, well, they brought their God, the Ark

of the Covenant, out to the battlefield. And this is

what the Philistine said. Be strong and quit yourselves like men.

Oe you Philistines, that ye be not the servants under

the Hebrews, as they have been to you. Quit yourselves

like men and fight, Be strong, fight Ephesian six'. Ten,

finally my, brethren be strong in The lord and in

the power of his. Might and Tewod timothy tow to

one Thou, therefore my, son be strong in the grace

that is In Christ. Jesus we have a source of.

Strength we have access to, power and it's up to

us to choose to use that power and to choose

that abiding in our. Hearts god bless. You that's all