What are You Willing to Fight For?
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At the beginning of this year, I had the privilege of going to Passion. And Passion, for those who don’t know, is a Christian conference for young adults, held in Atlanta, Georgia. The event hosts roughly 30,000 young adults in one space where we get to worship God and hear from some of the most well-known speakers in the country.
It’s truly a one of a kind event, and one that has been so transformative for me, because I have felt the presence of God so strongly at that conference. Different from any place else. I mean it really is impossible not to when everyone around you has their hands raised and lives surrendered to the Lord. Even more so when it’s just the vocals, you know, for worship, and you can hear the 30,000 people singing praises to God. It gives me chills just talking about it.
Anyways, I mention all of this because at Passion this year my man Tim Tebow spoke. And if you know anything about Tim Tebow, you know that man is full of passion.
And sure enough, that’s what he preached on.
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He explained in his sermon that the word passion means ‘the extent to which one is willing to suffer…’. He said it is the degree of difficulty you are willing to endure for something or someone. And what Tebow did is he painted a picture of ‘passion’ in the light of endurance and suffering, which wasn’t something I had heard before. And what was interesting is Tebow didn’t question our willingness as people to endure or suffer. He acknowledged our willingness to put our bodies through great pain and suffering, whether that be in the gym working out or in childbirth. Tebow knew we as people are very willing to endure and suffer for what we care about - for what we are passionate about.
So he didn’t question our willingness to endure or suffer in general, rather, he questioned our willingness to endure and suffer for what matters. He questioned our willingness to be passionate about what, or should I say who, matters most - to be passionate about Christ.
In fact, I went back last night to rewatch his sermon and the exact question he posed was:
‘What will be the greatest passion of your life?’
In other words, what are you willing to fight for? And how much are you willing to endure and suffer for it? I think these questions build off what I talked about on Friday in my podcast on persecution and godliness. Because in that podcast, I talked about how persecution is a product of godliness.
And that means that if you seek to live a godly life in Christ Jesus, guess what? You’re going to be persecuted (2 Timothy 3:12) . You’re going to have to endure. You’re going to have to suffer. Now I bring all this up and I pose these questions because I don’t think we as believers are presently fighting for the right things. And even if we are, I don’t think we exhibit nearly as much passion as we should. We’re not willing to endure and suffer for Christ as much as we are other things, like weightlifting and childbirth.
Tebow touched on this, admitting that he feels like the greatest passion of his life until this point has been sports rather than Jesus. He admitted that he felt like he had been fighting for the wrong things at times in his life, fighting harder for roster spots on football teams than for souls in the kingdom. And that hit me hard, because like I said I see Tebow as one of the most passionate guys for Christ in the world, and so when he said he’s not passionate enough, then I thought I have EXPONENTIAL room for growth in that area.
Now there’s a short story in Scripture that embodies Tebow’s talk perfectly…A story of someone full of passion for God, who was willing to suffer and endure for what matters most. And that story is of a man named Shammah, found in 2 Samuel 23. His story only takes up two verses, verses 11 and 12, but I find them to be incredibly powerful, and hopefully you will too.
In those verses we’re told that
‘The Philistines gathered together at Lehi, where there was a plot of ground full of lentils, and the men (the men being the army of Israel) fled from the Philistines. 12 But Shammah took his stand in the midst of the plot and defended it and struck down the Philistines, and the Lord worked a great victory.’
You want to know why I love this story? I love it because Shammah was a man who was willing to fight for what mattered, and he was willing to go so far as to die for it. And you know what that was? A stinking bean patch. Lentils (in those verses) are beans, people. BEANS! For some reason this man Shammah, though all his fellow soldiers in the Israelite army fled, was willing to take a stand in the middle, hear that, the MIDDLE of a bean patch, a BEAN PATCH, by himself, against a whole army and defend it.
Now you ask: why defend a bean patch? Why risk your life for that? Why did that matter? Why was it important?
Because it was God’s!!!! That’s why!!! It was God’s!
See Shammah wasn’t fighting for the beans in the patch, He was fighting for the owner of the beans. He was fighting for the Lord’s land. That’s what mattered most at that moment. It didn’t matter how small or unimportant the land may have seemed, Shammah was willing to fight and die for a stinking bean patch.
And he was willing to do so because it was God’s.
Now I’m sure his fellow soldiers felt like he was foolish. Like he was on a suicide mission. I mean this guy took on a whole army over a bean patch people! Like I’m sorry but you’re crazy!
…Or should I say passionate.
See, Shammah was passionate about the right things. He was passionate about the Lord and defending His Kingdom, no matter what it was and what it cost. If it was important to God, it was important to Shammah. We ought to emulate that passion. See I just imagine Shammah taking his stand in the middle of that bean patch, all by himself, and looking that Philistine army in the face, and saying ‘this land doesn’t belong to you’.
‘These are the Lord’s beans baby HAHAHA’
Someone needs to hear that today. Just because the times are different doesn’t mean an enemy doesn’t exist, attacking you, seeking to take the land the Lord has given you. And you need to look the enemy dead in the eye, and tell him": ‘Look, you have no authority here. This land doesn’t belong to you.’ You know one thing I’ve realized here recently is a scheme of the devil. I put myself in his shoes and I thought, ‘If I wanted to destroy society (which he does), I’d go after the biggest institutions of it’. I’d go after governments and education systems, which you are seeing him do.
And biggest and most important of all, at least to me, I’d go after family.
And aren’t we seeing that right now? The enemy attacking families? Families are broken everywhere. Marriages are just awful, so many ending in divorce. And since marriages are so weak, families are so weak, which has resulted in the most lost and rebellious generation of kids we’ve ever seen. And since there’s no one walking with them encouraging and reminding them who they are in Christ, we are seeing more and more kids choose to change their identity and God-given sexuality altogether, because they’re lost and broken and they’re parents are lost and broken.
Point is, the institution of the family is just so so broken and lost. It’s being destroyed as I speak. That’s because the enemy has done his due diligence in seeking to destroy the institution of family, but I’ll tell you that’s something I will fight for and am fighting for right now. I will stand in the midst of the bean patch of family and tell the enemy: ‘Look, this land doesn’t belong to you’.
That’s my bean patch right now. What could it be for you?
Some of you married folks listening need to stand together in the midst of the marriage bean patch and tell the enemy that your marriage doesn’t belong to him. You need to stop fighting against each other and resume fighting for each other. Somebody else needs to take their stand in the midst of the education bean patch and tell the enemy ‘this land doesn’t belong to you…No longer am I going to tolerate you encouraging these 4 and 5 year old kids to change their God-given sexuality and engage in sinful acts’.
Absolutely not. This land does not belong to you. And somebody else needs to take their stand in the midst of their job, their friendships, whatever it might be, and declare today that this land is God’s. It’s His. and because it is, I will fight for that.
That’s why I’m so passionate about people and about family, because that’s God’s creation. We’re all made in His image. So I will fight for that. I will fight for Him. I will endure and suffer great lengths for God’s people. God has a specific design for us, for family, for relationship, and I will fight for that. Again, right now I’d say that’s my bean patch. Fighting for people and for family. Yours might be different, but we all have a bean patch to fight for. The enemy is far too active in America for you to not have one.
So I ask you again what are you willing to fight for? And how much are you willing to endure and suffer for it?
Let’s fight for what matters. Let’s fight for the name of Jesus. Let’s take our stand in the middle of the bean patch and watch the LORD work great victory.
And let us pray for greater courage and strength to endure and suffer far more than we are right now for His sake.
The enemy has a firm grip on the culture here in the US. He is quickly destroying every major institution of society.
It is time that we as believers take our stance in the middle of that bean patch, the bean patch of culture, just like Shammah, and fight for Christ.
Fight for the institution of family.
Fight for the institution of marriage.
Fight for the institution of education and of government.
Fight for the people made in God’s image.
For those who God wants a relationship with.
Fight for God’s glory.
That’s what matters most.
So let’s be passionate about that. Let’s endure and suffer greatly for that.
No matter the cost.
Be encouraged because God delights in vindicating the confidence of His people, just like he did Shammah. For His sake He will work great victory when you choose to stand for Him. So stand up!
Darkness cannot remain dark when exposed to the light.
So expose the darkness of culture with the light of Christ.
I love you all. God bless.
