PURSUIT / Q2 2024 / “The Weights We Carry”

From Fighting Shadows by Jon Tyson & Jeff Bethke:

“A low-grade angst seems to have settled over the hearts of men today. You probably know exactly what I’m talking about. This angst is not new. Writing in the mid-1840s, Henry David Thoreau identified it this way: ‘The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. Unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.’ This unconscious despair is not so much a direct threat as a kind of fog that has rolled in, blocking our vision and leaving us confused about how to function as men in the modern world…We just don’t know how to live from full hearts and hold our heads high as men in the modern world…We are torn about our ambition and how to use it in a way that doesn’t hurt others. We are tempted and confused at the sexualization of our world and often feel paralyzed by shame. We feel isolated and don’t know how to express our loneliness and vulnerability. Yet we go to church each week, handle our responsibilities the best we can, and we keep gutting it out. The angst lies below the surface and we are not sure how to get it out.”

Some of the things weighing down men’s hearts and the lies we believe about them:

• Despair – There is nothing worth living for.
• Loneliness – Loneliness is part of being a man.
• Shame – I need to do everything possible to prevent people from seeing my failures & weaknesses.
• Lust – I am a slave to my sexual desires.
• Ambition – Ambition is fuel for personal success.
• Futility – My work doesn’t matter.
• Apathy – There is nothing worth giving yourself for.

3 problematic reactions to the weights we’re carrying:

1. Overcompensate – Doubling-down on traditional gender roles, not just lead but control, dominate, fight.
2. Shut down – Stop taking risks, replace passion with passivity, stay quiet when we should speak up, don’t ruffle any feathers
3. Medicate – Grab ahold of anything that distracts from frustrations and mutes the pain of disappointment (porn, hobbies, food, entertainment) – “passive consumers of comforting or entertaining illusions that help us escape the hostility outside”

The right reaction is what we’re doing tonight: bringing our weights, our sin, to the cross.

“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” – Romans 7:15-25

What are you carrying?

James 5:16 – “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

The Hope of the Gospel

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” — Romans 8:1-4

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” — Romans 8:31-39

“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.” — Colossians 2:13-15

“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” — Hebrews 10:19-25

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? ‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.’ It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.” — Hebrews 12:1-13