Paul Daugherty - Death to Maybe
Revelation 3, Jesus was speaking to his church, and he was speaking specifically to a couple different churches, and he had a word to say. There was one church, and they were, they were kind of riding the fence with their lives with God. You know, they would sing the worship songs, they would show up for the service, um... but they weren't living for God completely all in. And Jesus said, "I know your deeds, and I know that you're neither cold nor hot. I wish you were one or the other," he says, "I wish you either loved me or hated me, but because you're stuck in the middle somewhere, you're stuck".
You're not a yes and you're not a no. You're somewhere, you're in the maybe land, you're in the maybe center, you're in the maybe world. And he said, "Because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I'm about to spit you out of my mouth". Listen, so Jesus says, I want you all in, because the abundant life I have for you requires total surrender. A partial surrender is gonna lead to a partial abundant life. And if you want all of the promises of God. See, a lot of people want all the benefits of a relationship, but they aren't willing to put in the commitment to that relationship. And Jesus was saying, if you want the promises, if you want the peace, the joy, the incredible health in your life and relationships, and your mental health, emotional health, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to fully surrender anxiety.
You're gonna have to fully surrender addictions. You're gonna have to fully surrender sinful habits, dysfunctional things that have been grabbing onto your life. You can't just be a Sunday Christian. You can't just be a worshiping, you know, singing lip service Christian. I'm looking for your life to be all in. I wanna look at one more passage, James 1:8. James 1:8. And we're gonna get in the word today. This is a word church. We love the word of God. It teaches us, changes us, transforms us. So James, who was a half-brother to Jesus, also a follower of Jesus, one of the sons of thunder, and that's what he was called in the Bible, a son of thunder. Come on, thunder and lightning. And James, he said, "An indecisive man is unstable in all of his ways". Someone who can't make up his mind on a constant basis.
Now, I'm not talking about can't make up your mind on what you're gonna wear to church, so don't feel condemned. But he was saying an indecisive man about major decisions in life, who's always, oh, I don't know what to do, is unstable in all of his ways. One other version says, a soul split man, or a soul split woman, a woman who's like, half of my soul wants it, but half of my soul doesn't, I'm torn, I'm somewhere in between, is unstable in all of their ways. And so I want to title this sermon, "Death To Maybe". Death to maybe. Turn to that person next to you and say, "It's time to put maybe to death".
Lord, I pray that you would speak to us, God, on this word today. Help us to make decisions on things that we have been dragging our feet on, that you have called us to say yes to, and that you have called us to say no to.
You know, there was this song I wrote over a year ago called, You Have My Yes. And I was thinking, imagine if I wrote that song with the words, you have my maybe. And we're all singing together, and we're like, "You have my maybe", and we're all looking at each other, and we're kind of laughing. We're like, we probably shouldn't be saying this to God. And so we say, we say, and we sing, you have my yes. But the reality is, oftentimes we live as if he has our maybe, maybe. You have my yes on Sundays, but does he have your yes on Mondays? You have my yes when it comes to this area of my life, but you have my maybe. Maybe I'll pray this week. Maybe I'll read my Bible today. Maybe I'll give in the offering this week. Depends on how I'm feeling. Depends on, you know, maybe I'll quit this habit. Maybe I'll give up smoking this year. Maybe I'll give up this stuff this year. Maybe I'll lay down this addiction that I know is bad for me and my marriage, and my family.
Maybe, maybe. And we get stuck in maybe world. We get stuck in maybe sin. And this is where I believe God's calling us to make a decision. Somebody say, "make a decision". My kids are always trying to get me to move from maybe to yes about things they're asking from me. And, and so, you know, they'll send one kid in at a time. Liam comes in, he's like, daddy. He's like, can we get donuts today? And I say, maybe. Or first off, I might start off with no. Then Benny comes in, he's like, daddy, donuts, dun duns really good. You like them too, don't you want to get these? And then I move from a no to a maybe. And then Ellie comes in and Mack, and Ellie's eyes, she's just so sweet puppy dog face.
It's hard for me to say no to Ellie. She's like, please, please some glazed donuts from Daylight Donuts, please. You know, and so they're trying to get me to move from maybe to yes. And in some cases, God is trying to get some of you in the room to move from a maybe about some things he's been asking you to say yes to, to move to that place of yes, yes. And the reason why is not because he's trying to rob you of joy and happiness, and peace. He's actually trying to supply to you the joy and the peace, and you won't find it if you're in an unstable, indecisive place. So I've got one question for you, right here off the bat, what have you settled for maybe in that God is asking you to say yes to? What have you settled for maybe in, when God wants you to say yes, yes.
And then here's my second question for you, where have you stayed at maybe when God is wanting you to say no? Where have you settled from maybe where God is wanting you to say no? Do you guys remember that song that came out like 10 years ago called, Call Me Maybe. Here's my number, so call me maybe. Okay, I hated that song got stuck in my head, but it was all about, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe call me, maybe maybe call me, call me. Maybe, maybe, maybe. And there's this place of, we get stuck in an indecisive spot where God's saying, no, don't go back to the devil. Don't go back to that old lifestyle. Don't go back to the addictions that were robbing you, and your marriage and your family of all that God had for you.
Where have you settled for a maybe? Where have you teetered on a maybe when God has absolutely spelled it out in scripture, it's time to say no. It's time to flee that old lifestyle. You've been set free. You've been delivered out of darkness and into light. This is what Peter said in 1 Peter 4. Peter was an all-in guy. Like Peter was the kind of guy he was never a maybe guy. He was like he was hot or cold. He was either gonna step outta the boat, walk on the water to Jesus, or he was gonna cut a dude's ear off if they messed with his friend. Peter was just excited. He was passionate. He was an action guy.
1 Peter 4:1 he says, "Since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude," in 2023. Aim yourself with the same attitude this year. "Because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin". It's gonna be hard, you're gonna have withdrawals, your body's gonna suffer a little bit, but on the other side of saying no to all of that dysfunctional stuff is freedom, and victory and deliverance, and purpose and significance, and fulfillment and peace! Okay, Paul, it sounds good, but my flesh is still craving the sin.
And Jesus gets it. He understands, he goes, temptation's hard. He faced it in the wilderness. The devil will always come to tempt you. Flesh will always. Paul the apostle wrestled with it. Romans 7 he says, "I wanna do the right thing. I wanna say yes to God, but my flesh still wants what my flesh wants". And if Paul the apostle, who wrote half the New Testament, struggled with sin, chances are there's a good percentage of you in this room that struggle with sin, and you may not see it as a sin. For some of you, it's just compromise.
You know, this year to get healthy, you're gonna have to give up some sweets. You're like, don't come for that, Paul, don't come for that. And you're driving down the road and you know, you know what? God asked me to fast this year. God asked me to give up some stuff for the next week, next 21 days. When Jesus was fasting, the devil came knocking. And if the devil knocked on Jesus' door, he's gonna come knocking on your door. So you got Daylight Donuts, you got Krispy Kreme, the red light's on. You're like, no, don't look over there. It's time to say no to anything that's holding you back from what God has for you.
Last week when I was preaching about leaving behind the past, I threw this challenge out. I said, some of you have some stuff you just need to get rid of this year. And I said, bring all the stuff that you need to get rid of. And you know, people were like, what are you gonna do with it? I was like, we're not gonna sell it, we're not giving it away, we're not drug dealers, we're hope dealers and not dope dealers. Come on. But someone took me seriously, and I love it when you take me seriously, and there was a wife that was listening to the sermon. She told her husband, she said, you know what you need to leave behind. He said, I know. And he went home and he found all the hard liquor in his house, all the secret stashes that he had been hiding, places where he had it.
And he said, it's time for me to fully surrender, to say no to the things that have been wrecking areas in my life that I want to see victory in. And so he gathered it all together in two massive cardboard boxes, showed up to the church this week, during the middle of the day. He said, where's Pastor Paul? They said, he's in a meeting. So one of our other staff members stepped out. He said, can I help you? He said, yeah, I'm ready to be done with the past. He said, come on, let's pray. And he goes, no, no, no. Let's go out to my car, we're gonna get it all out. He goes, what is it? He goes out there, there's two big boxes full of all kinds of expensive liquor bottles. And he said, I am ready to get rid of this, it's been holding me back.
So they went out to the trashcan behind the church, just started breaking the bottles, throwing it in the. Come on, this is your year. Death to maybe. Death to maybe. Well, maybe I'll change, how about yes. How about yes this year? How about yes to God's will, and no to the flesh this year? Paul, it's just, I don't know. I'm just, I'm in between. When my father passed away, people would tell me stories right after he passed. And to this day, every week I get a story. They go, "Man, let me tell you this story about your dad".
And there's been some funny stories. One of them that stands out to me, this staff member, he said, "When I first came on to work for Victory, I had used to work for another church in Tulsa, and I had been coming to Victory. I'd stepped down from that role there, and I'd been coming to Victory for about a year, but I still had all my old gear, and clothes and stuff from that church that I worked at". And he said, "One day I came to work, and I wasn't thinking about it". He said, "I was wearing that church's brand on the front". And he said, "Your dad saw me in the hallway and said, 'Come with me.'"
And he walked him to the Victory Bookstore, and looked at the bookstore manager and said, "Get this man one of our Victory shirts". And the bookstore manager was like, "Okay, pastor Billy Joe". And he hands it to him, he goes, "Here you go". And he goes, "Thanks pastor". And he goes, "Put it on". And he was like, "Right now". And my dad goes, "Right now," and he goes, "right here". And my dad said, "If you're on my team, you wear my jersey". And he said, "No more riding the fence". This man was telling me, he's like, your dad was intense, bro. I was like, I know he was, trust me, I grew up with him. Like, I know my dad was like, you're either all in with me or you're not. He like, he was very.
And I wonder if God's saying that to some of us, if you're on my team, it's time you wear my jersey. If you're gonna be a follower of Christ, don't just sing on Sunday, walk it out. It's time to make some decisions this year. It's D-day, it's decision time. It's time to say yes or no. It's time to get hot or cold. It's time to make in your mind, what is it that you're going to give up this year to become the healthiest man of God that God's called you to be the healthiest woman of God. What is it that he's asking you to stop riding the fence on, death to maybe, it's time to go all in with a yes.
Nehemiah was someone that God was speaking to in a very unique way. He was giving him a vision through a problem. There's problems all over the world, and how you see those problems will determine whether or not you live with a conviction in your heart to make a difference about those problems, or whether you stand by in a place of maybe, and you watch other people make a difference. Nehemiah, in chapter one, he was in a job. He was working for a palace. He was a cup bearer. And yet he wasn't from this land. He was in a time of exile, and he was living in the citadel of Susa. This was right after Esther. And so the Israelites, they didn't own their own country, they weren't ruling or leading. They were under another domain, another dominion.
"And Hanani, one of my brothers," he said, "he came from Judah with some other men. And I asked them, 'What's going on with the Jewish remnant? Who's left? How many people are still alive? Who has survived the exile, and what's going on with our city, Jerusalem?'" So this was a time where things weren't in a good place, and Nehemiah needed to know what is the institutional reality of what's happening out there. By the way, faith is not afraid to face the facts. Faith is willing to ask the hard question, where do I need to change, what's going on here, how is this affecting me? Faith is not afraid to face the doctor's diagnosis. Faith listens to it and says, okay, that's the reality.
The reality is my health is in a bad place, the reality is the cigarettes have been hurting my lungs. The reality is alcohol's been messing with my marriage. The reality is the pornography is really bad right now. The reality is, I've not been reading my Bible. You've gotta be able to face the institutional reality to go, man, things are not where they need to be. I've been screaming, I've been cussing, I've been emotionally and mentally confused and exhausted. Face the facts. Nehemiah faced the facts. He goes, things are not good. Watch what he says in verse three. They said, look, there are survivors, but they're in great trouble. Disgrace has come upon our people. The walls have been broken down, there's no more boundaries. People have been living with no boundaries.
And so anything and everything is getting into our house, every kind of trouble and disturbance has come into Jerusalem. The gates have been burned with fire. Our marriage is in shambles and our families are messed up. And some of you are like, man, I'm doing good. Like, that doesn't describe me. Paul, I'm good. But maybe God's asking you to get involved in a family that's not doing good. Maybe God's saying, yeah, but you need to start a connect group for 10 dudes you know that are struggling right now. For some ladies you know that really need some help right now. Because it's not just about you, Nehemiah, it's about your nation. It's about your neighborhood, it's about the Tulsa Dream Center, it's about north Tulsa, west Tulsa, south Tulsa. It's about these young married couples in Victory Church. It's about these teenagers coming to church.
Don't you see there's a cause? Is there not a cause, is there not a burden to bear? I remember this story, this movie that came out several years ago called, "The Freedom Writers". And I was watching this movie, and it was about this true story. This girl, when she was like 19 or 20, she's studying in college, and she's studying to become a teacher. And she feels this calling to go and teach in a very, very bad area, bad neighborhood. And what they called this school was the throwaway teens. The throwaway teens. And people said, you never want to teach there. That's the place you don't want to end up teaching in. Well, she felt this cause, almost like Nehemiah, that because she grew up with a house, and a life that was good, she felt like she had a compassion to go and help other people that were in a bad place.
And as she was there, she's teaching, and you know, they're cussing her out, they're pushing her against the wall, all kinds of stuff. And one night she's crying, and she's talking to her dad. And her dad says, "You've been blessed with a burden". You've been blessed with a burden. Nehemiah is listening to this reality, and all of a sudden this burden starts growing on the inside of him, I've gotta do something about this. Well watch this, in verse four he says, "When I heard the condition of my flock," when I heard the condition of my nation, when I heard how the boundaries had been broken down, the walls were torn down, the gates were burned. When I realized the reality of what I was in, "I sat down and I wept".
How do I murder maybe? Y'all are like, whoa, this got intense. How do I put maybe to death? I allow the reality to become so real, I internalize it. If I don't say yes to the things God's asking me to say yes to, things will get worse. And if I don't say no to the things God's asking me to say no to, things will get worse. So he sits and he weeps. He internalizes the situation. And then the Bible says he begin to fast and pray. Look at this, in verse four he says, "I'm mourned and I fasted and I prayed". And so here Nehemiah, he's praying and he's fasting and he's asking God, "God, what is your will? What do you want me to do about the current condition of Israel"?
Here's what prayer and fasting does, here's what it did for Nehemiah, here's what it can do for us. It clears the spiritual and the mental and emotional fog. Anytime you're driving in Oklahoma and there's a fog, it gets bad sometimes here. If you're new to Oklahoma, the fog is rough sometimes. So much so that I've driven up to the church, and I can't even see the parking lot, or the marquis sign outside or lights, or the building. The fog covers the praying hands, covers the CityPlex Towers. You can't see 10 feet in front of your car. Then there's times where it's not just a natural fog, there's a spiritual fog in your life where you don't know how to see what's going on. You're not sure how to discern a certain situation.
How do I clear the fog? How do I cut through the fog? How do I get the fog to disperse? Prayer and fasting. Prayer and fasting helps me to release unnecessary baggage, helps me to let go of stuff that I'm holding onto. Prayer and fasting produces courage. When Nehemiah got done praying, guess what he does? In Nehemiah 2 he walks into the palace with courage, and he says to the king, he says, "There's something I gotta do. There's a nation I've gotta help. There's a group of people that I've gotta serve, and I need you to pay me while I'm off work". Yo, it takes courage to ask the king to pay you. And the king listens to him and says, "Done, I'll pay you while you're gone". And he says, "I also need protection, because not everybody wants to see boundaries in our life".
And here's the deal about prayer and fasting, prayer and fasting is more about longing for the power and the presence of Jesus, than it is about restricting our appetites. It's not about restricting, it's about stirring up a greater power, and presence in our life through the power of God. Replacing normal activities with a focused time of prayer and fasting, allows us to get our hearts and our minds ready for what God wants to do. This last week I was watching sports with my kids, and we're in the house and Monday night football was on, Bills verse Bengals. And so I'm watching the game, and as we're getting ready to lay the kids down, it's bedtime, I noticed the game just paused for a second, and I didn't think much of it, so I keep laying the kids down, and then I walk past it, and the game's still paused for like 15, 20 minutes.
And I was like, interesting, someone must have gotten injured. And then I get a text message from a church member. They said, "Hey, pray for this guy, Damar Hamlin. He just got injured". And I was like, okay, I never get text messages to pray for an NFL player, but I was like, okay. So then I turned the volume up on the TV, and they start showing this replay of a Bill's, Buffalo Bills football player. He had just got done tackling a guy when he stood up, he had a cardiac arrest live on television, and fell back and stopped breathing on the field. When it happened, they started showing the replay. ESPN didn't know what to do, and the game had now been paused. As I'm watching this, it had now been paused for 30, 40 minutes.
And so I'm watching as football players, these grown men, multimillionaire, professional, famous athletes are in tears, and they're walking out, and cameras are spanning across the field trying to find out what's going on. The first thing these guys do as they're walking out there, you just start seeing them praying. They're praying. The ESPN guys are going, "What's going on here? It looks like he's praying". And you got guys going like this, and the guys crying, and then they blocked the paparazzi from seeing what's going on over here. They start standing around Damar Hamlin, as the ambulance comes out, CPR guys are trying to get this guy. They don't want anyone seen what's going on with their brother. They're protecting a man down.
What if the church was like that by the way? They won't let anyone see this guy's life is on the line, and we don't want cameras up in his face, and ESPN doesn't know what to do. They're talking about, they're like, "What do we do right now"? NFL's trying to start the game after five or 10 minutes, and the coach is like, "No, this man's life is more important than a football game". I've never seen this in the history of my, like I've been watching sports since I was a kid, grew up with a dad that loved watching football, basketball. And I was like, "Ashley, you gotta see this".
I've never seen a game suspended this long, they ended up canceling the game. They didn't even continue it, because everyone was distraught and overwhelmed. But one of the most powerful moments on the field as this is all happening, the Bills, once the man gets in the ambulance truck, the Bills get on one knee together. The whole team, coaches, players. Watch this picture, they all begin praying together. They begin praying together. Prayer was their first response in a crisis. Revival is coming, church, and I'm okay if the NFL wants to spark it in America, why not? They're down there, they're praying together, and they're weeping over the condition of their fellow teammate. When's the last time you allowed tears to form, not about you, but about your brother?