A Model For Failed Heroes

Well, good morning, everyone. It's great to see you all. Today is Father's Day, and, being Father's Day, we want to take the opportunity this morning to honor the dads that, that are with us. We hope you'll take the opportunity today to reach out to your dads, whether they, you live with them or, or not, and honor them on this special day, but we should be doing that every day.

here at Cornerstone, we'd like to say, if you are a father, welcome to the pastorate. our, mission as, a church and in our men's ministry here at Cornerstone is to train every man to be a pastor of the flock of God within the walls of his own, household. The best thing you as a man can do to serve the cornerstone church body is to shepherd the flock of God that he has placed within your household, to love your wife and to love. And to lead your children and to bring them up in the nurture and the discipline of the Lord.

So Paul giving that calling to men in Ephesians 6, verse 4 is giving to men. A very important calling. it is one of the most important roles of ministry in the church for a man to disciple his children and bring them up in the nurture and the instruction of the Lord. And I want you as dads to feel the honor.

being the one that God has picked. To disciple your children. Others do that. Your wife is heavily involved in that, your brothers and sisters in the church are heavily involved in that task of imprinting and impacting your children, but the primary responsibility and calling is given to you to oversee all of that, and I want you to feel the honor of that this morning, and we We wish to honor you as well, and we want to do that this morning.

We've got a gift for you. If you are a father or a grandfather or expectant father, could you please stand and remain standing until we get a gift into your hands. We have, we have, two things we'd like to give you. This is a book, Gospel Meditations for the Church that just, came out and we've been blessed by this series of books that have come out over the last few years, and we know that this book will be a blessing to you as, as men.

we are called in scripture, Paul tells Timothy to flee youthful lust and to pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, together with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Sin is best fled, and righteousness, faith, love, and peace are best pursued when doing so in the company and in relationship with other brothers and sisters who are doing the same thing. In the church. And this is a book that will provide helpful meditations for you to remind you of your vital place in the church and also to remind you of the vital place that the church has in your life as well.

Also, in the book is a men's ministry card that That just got printed out and this gives you an overview of Cornerstone's men's ministry. our mission is encouraging and equipping every man as a pastor and on the back of this card, you'll see, just a brief word about, two very important venues for our men's ministry are Man Forum that takes place Tuesdays at 6:00 a.m. over here in this alcove, area of our auditorium, and then also Thursday evenings at 6:30, and that's in the lobby area, and that actually provides a meal for those who attend.

but also we've got our men's leadership meetings that happen on Tuesdays at 9 o'clock as well as at 6 o'clock on Tuesday, evenings.

But our goal as a church is to honor the men, we want to encourage you, we want to resource you, we want to serve you well and equipping you and encouraging you to be the pastor that God has called you to be. So take advantage. Of these venues that are available for your ministry and for your encouragement. I'd like to take a moment, if I could, to just pray for Amen.

You are so important to the life of this church, and, and you need prayer. we all need prayer. So let's just pray together for our church and for the men that God has blessed us with. Father, we thank you and we praise you for the dads that are represented in this room this morning.

We thank you for all the work that these dads do and providing for their homes and also molding the lives of the children that are in their homes. Lord, some of these fathers are younger, some are older, some have younger children, some have older children. many have children in the home and others have children that are out of the home. Some of these dads have children that are walking with you.

And some of these dads and moms have hearts that are crying out to you in prayer, asking you to do a work in the heart of a child. Lord, many of our dads have wives by their sides who love you. Also, some of our dads have no wife by their side. or some have a wife.

By their side, but their wife does not yet believe in you. And so these dads must labor spiritually alone. In a variety of ways in pouring into their children the things of, of Christ. Lord, the needs of every dad that is here.

Some of these dads are just soaring and doing beautifully well in serving you and in pastoring their homes, and some of these dads in this room, Lord, no doubt, are, are stumbling badly. But we ask, Lord, that you would bless these fathers in a special way and that you would meet the need that they have at whatever point of life they're at and wherever they are in their, their journey, Lord, of walking with you and of leading their, their home. Help these dads to understand the power that they possess.

And how important their ministry is, how fraught with eternal significance their labor is from day to day.

How powerful just an encouraging word can be, or just a pat on the back. To one of their children. I pray, Lord, that you would give to these dads exactly the grace that they need to be exactly the father that their children most need for them to be right now. Help these dads to, to mirror your image to their children.

It is so sobering to ponder, Lord, that we as fathers, probably from a human standpoint, shape Our children's view of you on a gut level more than any other human influence. So help us to mirror your image well to our children, help us by the lives that we lead and by the example that we set, by the things that we do and the ways that we go about relating to our children, help us through all of these means, Lord, to show our children what you are truly like. To where when they read the Bible and they read descriptions of who you are and all of your grace and mercy and love, that they would read those things and have little trouble believing them because they've seen what that looks like in their dad.

And Lord, when we as fathers fail to do any of these things that we are pondering here in this prayer, Lord, give us The grace to give to our children the gift of a repentant father.

Help each of us as dads to be the biggest repenter that our children know. And may the children of Cornerstone know what it is like. To have a dad who says I'm sorry. I was wrong.

No excuses. Will you? Forgive me. May those Words be heard by the children of Cornerstone coming from the lips.

Of their dads. Use us as dads and as moms together, Lord, to bring up a godly generation of men and women who will be champions of the faith. In some very dark days that lie ahead for our country, may they know your truth, may they know who their God is, and may they stand firm in Him. And do great exploits in the name of Jesus.

For it's in his name. that we pray, and all God's people said. Amen. Yeah, just, a couple other things real quick.

first of all, I think we've got some slides here of Emily Howie's baptism. We showed this at the annual meeting, but many of you were not here. so, there we go. She was baptized just a few weeks ago, and we just wanted to share that with you and rejoice with her and her family in that.

Praise God. And then, men, if you guys can pull out this delicious looking, insert that is in your bulletin. That, this is advertising, the anniversary breakfast of our, the fifth anniversary of our Man Forum, that meets on, on Tuesday mornings. So this Tuesday, 2 days from now, is, we're, instead of the normal man Forum, that meets from 6 to 7:05, we will be having a, men's, breakfast and we'll be meeting up in room 103, 103.

So, you're welcome to come to that, even if you don't normally make it to the Man Forum. We'd love to see you, there, even if you can't stay the whole time, just stop by, grab some food, fellowship for a bit, and then you can get on your way, to work if you You need to. we're so blessed by what God has done, just a group of men, 25, 30 guys that meet on Tuesday mornings. Five years ago, at the end of a Father's Day sermon, I said to our men, I'm gonna be in my church office Tuesday morning at 6 a.m.

with a box of donuts and some freshly brewed coffee and any guy that wants to show up and talk about man stuff. is welcome to come. And so, 2 days later, I was sitting in my office and there were, a number of guys that showed up. We never could meet in our office because there wasn't room.

And we ended up finding a bigger room and that began our man forum 5 years ago. We were just gonna do it for 3 weeks and we've been doing it for 5 years. We've learned and we've grown a lot together and there's just much to celebrate. if you're free on Tuesday mornings or on Thursday nights, we would love to have you join us for, these M Forum, times, but there'll be a breakfast, Tuesday morning.

this week, and we would love to have all of our, men join us, for that, OK? All right, well, let me have you turn in your Bibles to 2 Chronicles 20. 2 Chronicles. Chapter 20.

I wanna try to present to you this morning, a synthesis of, of actually things that we have been learning in our man forums over the last, 5. Years, and it'll give you an idea of what our heartbeat is all about for the men of, of Cornerstone. And if you want to give a title to the message, it would be a model for failed heroes. A model for failed heroes.

When I was about 5 years old, living in Jacksonville, Florida, I remember being at a park, flying a kite with my dad and my two brothers. My dad had gotten the kite up into the air and he had settled into simply managing the kite as it was flying high in the air. and at one point, he let my older brother hold the kite, the spool handle that had the string on it, that the string was attached to. He let my older brother hold it and fly the kite for a bit.

And then he let me hold it for a little bit and fly the kite. My little brother was about 3 years old at the time, and he kept asking my dad if he could fly the kite. My dad said, no, I'm not gonna let you fly this kite because you're not gonna be able to hold on to it. My little brother kept pleading with my dad to let him fly the kite, so eventually my dad relented and, and said, you promise you won't let go of the kite.

My 3 year old brother said, I promise. So my dad lectured him on the need to hold on to the kite at all costs, and then he placed the handle. That had the string on it into my little brother's hands, and my dad was still holding on to it and he said, now don't let go of this. Whatever you do, do not let go of the string.

And my 3 year old brother said, I promise, Dad, I promise. So my dad let go and released the string into my brother's hand. About 3 seconds went by. And my little brother let go of the string, and the kite just took off in a flash.

If ever a kite was gone, That kite was gone. And we were crushed, we were angry. A perfect day at the park was ruined by my butterfingered little brother. But what happened next stands out in my memory, to this very day.

My dad took off running. After that kite. I still remember him in his tight white t-shirt. And his Marine Corps utility pants.

He raced the full distance of the park after the kite and then even disappeared into a wooded area that seems in my memory to have been about 250 yards away. A few minutes later, my dad emerged from the woods with the kite. It was a standout moment for me as a 5 year old. My dad was a superhero.

And his retrieval of that kite was yet another proof of his superhero powers. He had once again done the impossible. In my 5 year old brain, there was nothing that my dad could not do. Around that time, we used to have a little plastic football that we would play with as kids.

And I remember days when my dad would come out and our front yard when we were throwing the football around and he would take that football into his hand and he would heave it straight up into the air toward the sun, just throwing it as high as he could. And I and my brothers would watch that football soar into the sky and we would lose sight of the ball in the sunlight and to our little eyes, it looked to us like the ball went all the way up to the sun, went over the sun, and then it would reappear falling back to earth.

We were convinced that my dad literally had thrown that ball over the sun and we would yell and scream when the ball would land. We'd be like, Dad, you threw the ball over the sun.

Funny thing is, my dad never corrected us. He never said no, no, I didn't really do that. I can't throw a ball 96 million miles. That's impossible.

No, he never said that, he never corrected us, he just smiled and flexed his arm and grabbed the ball and threw it over the sun again. He was superhuman to us and he seemed to relish that reputation. One of my most startling thoughts that I had as a boy growing up was that I, being a boy, would one day get to grow up and be with my dad. had become.

I would one day be able to go off and fight wars like he did as a marine and throw footballs over the sun and retrieve irretrievable kites for my children. I went into marriage dreaming that I would be that hero to my wife and I went into fatherhood. Expecting To be a hero to my children. But I stand before you today as a failed hero.

Within the first year of mine and Donna's marriage, I was already well on my way to establishing a legacy of a failed. Hero to my wife. I had already seen her cry because of the hurts that I had inflicted on her with my sins and my immaturities. And I have hurt and disappointed her many times since then over the years.

I also know that I have failed to be the heroic father to my children that I wanted to be for The. Sometimes I can hardly look at a photograph of them. As little children, I look into their eyes as they look back at me in those pictures and I know that I was not fully the father that I should have been to them and that they were entitled to have in me. They comfort me, my children encourage me when I speak to them like I'm speaking to you now, but I know that they were entitled to a better father than what they've had from me.

What I'm saying about myself is true about virtually all of us men. Here at Cornerstone. We are all failed heroes. And here's what I want you all, all of you men to know this morning.

Cornerstone's men's ministry, is essentially a support group for failed heroes like me. Our men's ministry caters to failed heroes, and our burden is to communicate to the hearts of our men and to let them know that there is hope for failed heroes and that there is a certain manhood that is available. For failed heroes like me. There's 7 pillars of our men's ministry here at Cornerstone.

These pillars represent the 7 things that, that Cornerstone men have in common. We review these pillars once a month in our man forum meetings. These are the 7 things that we as men at Cornerstone rally around. They are the 7 things that unite us, and I will list off for you these 7 pillars and if you as a man can look at these pillars and say, yep, that's me, then you are qualified to be a part.

Of the Cornerstone Men's Ministry. So let's see if you qualify. Pillar number one is weakness. Weakness.

The 2nd pillar is ignorance. Left to ourselves, we men are dangerously ignorant, making us a danger to ourselves and a danger to others. And the third pillar of our men's ministry is failure. How are you doing so far, man?

Batting 100% so far. OK. The fourth pillar. is a humble willingness to confess.

The above 3 To admit a humble willingness to admit your weakness and your ignorance, and your failure. And the 5th pillar that makes all this possible is a great savior, Jesus Christ. In fact, it is because we have such a great God and Savior in Jesus Christ that we can have the courage as men to confess our weakness and our ignorance and our sin. And the 6th pillar is prayer.

We cry out to God in prayer, asking Him to be the strength in our weakness, to give us wisdom in place of our ignorance, and to give us atonement for our sins and the power to behave differently and to do what is right. And the final pillar is hope. Hope coming forth from crying out to Jesus and running to Him, pouring out our hearts to Him, asking Him to deliver us from our weakness and our ignorance and our failures and sins, we find in Him a hope for ourselves and for those that we lead.

Those are the seven pillars of our men's ministry.

And it is upon those pillars that any, I would recommend men, that if you are wanting to lead your wife and children, your leadership needs to be based upon These 7 pillars. It is our belief that if as a man, you embrace these 7 pillars and make them the foundation of your life and the foundation of your leadership of others, then you will have God's blessing on your life and you will be the man that in all likelihood, eventually, If not immediately, that your wife and your children would be delighted to follow.

But it's easy for us as men. To get things backwards.

Some men want their wife to follow them, so they think to themselves, I, I, I know what I will do. I will confess to her my strengths and my wisdom. And my righteousness. I will speak to her of these things about myself and then she will follow me.

Well, if you think that approach might be effective, give it a try and let me know how it goes. Some men want their wife to follow them, so they think, I know what I will do. I will sit my wife down and I will talk to my wife and tell her about her weaknesses. And her ignorance, and her failures.

And then I will let her know that I'm God's gift to help her onto a better path. Then she will follow me. If you think that approach might work, give it a shot. And let me know how it goes.

In fact, some of us men here at Cornerstone have the distinction of having tried both of those approaches in the same conversation with our wives. In one conversation, we have confessed our strengths and our wisdom and our righteousness, and we have confessed to our wives their weakness and ignorance and failures. And those conversations, every one of them did not go well. You see, as men, we don't like to confess our brokenness.

We don't like to do that. You might be thinking, Pastor Milton, I, I The thought of going to my wife, for example, and confessing my weakness and my ignorance and my failures to her, that's I, I can't imagine doing that. I can't confess those things to my wife. She will be devastated to find out that I'm weak.

And that I don't know everything. And that I'm not perfect. I don't know if she can handle the news of that. Well, listen, your wife is strong and she will be able to handle that news just fine.

The truth is she already knows. The only remaining question in her mind is, do? So trust me, she will survive your confessions just fine, but she will be comforted in the knowledge that you see your weakness and you see your need for God. What I have found is that any woman with even an ounce of godliness in her will ultimately be won over by a man who operates by these seven pillars that you see behind me.

I've never had a wife come to me and say, Pastor Milton, you gotta do something about my husband. He's just so humble. He's confessing his weaknesses to me, he's confessing his ignorance when he doesn't know something and, and he does so with brokenness and with hope, and he keeps looking to Christ and crying out to him in prayer. Pastor Milton, please talk to my husband and tell him to stop doing that.

I can't follow a man like that. That's never happened to me as a pastor. No woman has ever complained. To me about such things and her husband, and keep in mind the full balance of what I've just said.

We don't want our men walking around confessing their weakness, ignorance, and failures with a woe is me, hopeless attitude. We want them confessing such things with a robust hope in Jesus Christ. In fact, we as men should have the courage to confess such things with boldness because we know that we have a great God and a great savior that we can cry out to who leaves our hearts bursting with hope for ourselves and for those that we lead. This is manhood.

This is gospel clinging manhood. This is the manhood that is available for failed heroes. It's the manhood that God blesses and prospers. Now, I know this is all so counterintuitive.

It's hard to imagine that people will actually follow a leader who leads from a vantage point of brokenness and confession of his own weakness and ignorance and failure. So to help convince you that people actually will follow a leader like this. I want to have you look at 2 Chronicles 20, where we see a man who does exactly what we're talking about and a whole nation of people, amazingly, follows him. The man's name is Jehoshaphat.

And Jehoshaphat sits high on the pantheon of heroes that we look up to in our men's ministry at Cornerstone. His name comes up with some frequency. In fact, if someone made a t-shirt that said Jehoshaphat is my homeboy. Our men would happily wear that t-shirt.

And what I want to do this morning is I want to just point you to 5 things in 2 Chronicles 20 that Jehoshaphat does in our story that shows him to be A leader that God could bless and that people could follow. 5 things that he does, that shows him to be a leader that God could bless and that people could follow. Let's try to look at these with the time that we have. Number one, he recognizes his weakness, ignorance, and his failure.

He recognizes his weakness, his ignorance, and his failure. Says in verse one, now it came about after this that the sons of Moab and the sons of Ammon together with some of the Meunites came to make war against Jehoshaphat. Then some came and reported to Jehoshaphat saying, a great multitude is coming against you from beyond the sea. Out of Arim.

And behold, they are in has his own Tamar, that is on Gedi. Jehoshaphat was afraid and turned his attention to seek the Lord and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. So Judah gathered together to seek help from the Lord. They even came from all the cities of Judah to seek the Lord.

So the Moabites and the Ammonites and the Mayunites who were enemies of Judah, joined forces and come together to make war against Jehoshaphat. Those who bring the news of this looming attack describe the army as a great multitude in verse 2. Perhaps if it was just the Moabites. Or just the Ammonites, Jehoshaphat might have thought that the situation was manageable.

He might have been totally prepared for that attack, but he recognizes right away that in the face of this combined assault, he is too weak to handle this, and he doesn't know what to do as we're going to see. And that means he knows that he has failed as a king to prepare Judah for such. An attack. Perhaps when Jehoshaphat became king of Judah, he had dreams of being a hero to the people of Judah, impressing them with his wisdom and with his might and how he goes about executing his job as a king.

But whatever heroic visions he might have had coming into his rule as king of Judah, those are shattered instantly upon receiving this news. The text tells us in verse 3 that confronted by the news of this combined assault, Jehoshaphat is afraid. And he turned his attention to seek the Lord and he declares a fast. In verse 4, we learned that everyone joins him in coming together to seek help from the Lord.

Jehoshaphat is afraid. And that's a good thing. I've noticed that we men have two zones that we like to stay in. our comfort zones.

And our competence. zones, our comfort zones and our competence or adequacy zones. We do everything we can to never leave either of these zones. We don't like feeling inadequate or incompetent, so we try to structure our lives in such a way that we are always in situations that match our competency.

There have been times in my own life, in our home, for example, where I have found myself faced with a family situation that seems out of control and I am utterly inadequate, incompetent to handle. That's how I'm feeling in the moment. So what I've done in such moments at times? I've gone outside and mowed my yard.

why? Yeah, because I know how to mow. I'm a good mower. And as I'm mowing, I am admiring how straight the lines of my mowing are.

And when I, this has happened, when I get done mowing the lawn from one direction, I've started over and mowed again from another direction, mowing the yard twice. And I've done that because I know how to mow. I'm a mower, so I mow in the moment, it's just about the only thing that I feel competent in doing. Meanwhile, God is calling me back into the house to face a situation that is beyond my competency to handle.

I don't like being in situations where I feel helpless. Most men don't. We are like Paul Miller who once said, I, for one, am allergic to helplessness. I don't like it.

None of us likes helplessness, but men especially don't like being in situations that they feel incompetent. To handle that makes them feel helpless. Jehoshaphat is probably the same way. He has his competence zone, but God loves him too much to let him live his life.

Safely inside that zone. In 2 Chronicles 20, God is providentially allowing a circumstance into his life that is way beyond anything that Jehoshaphat feels adequate for. It might not have felt like it at the time, but God is loving Jehoshaphat. And pushing him out of his competence zone, which is exactly what God is trying to do to some of you men and giving you a wife to lay down your life for, and children.

To train up in the nurture. And the admonition of the Lord and dealing with all of the mess that goes along with that journey. Jehoshaphat has the good sense to realize that he's out of his league. He has the good sense to be afraid.

Motivated by that fear, he gives his attention to seeking the Lord, and this is a wonderful, even perhaps a miraculous development. Please don't read what the text says in verse 4. And think, OK, Jehoshaphat is seeking the Lord now. I wonder what miracle God might now end up doing in response to Jehoshaphat seeking the Lord.

The truth is God is already doing his first miracle in verse 4. In getting Jehoshaphat to seek Him. The first miracle in this chapter is this, God so reveals to Jehoshaphatat his own inadequacy that Jehoshaphat becomes afraid and turns his attention to seeking the Lord. That is God's first miracle.

And that leads to our next point, observe what Jehoshaphat does next. He sees and confesses the truth about his great God and Savior. He sees and confesses the truth about his great God and Savior. He doesn't just see the need before him and the circumstance, but he turns his eyes to seek the Lord, and he actually begins to speak out loud the things that he is seeing as he gazes at the Lord.

It says in verse 5, then Jehoshaphat stood. And the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem in the house of the Lord before the new court. And he said, oh Lord, the God of our fathers, are you not God in the heavens, and are you not ruler over all the kingdoms of the nations? Power and might are in your hands so that no one can stand against you.

Did you not, oh our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it to the descendants of Abraham? Your friend forever. They have lived in it and have built you a sanctuary there for your name, saying, should evil come upon us, the sword or judgment or pestilence or famine, we will stand before this house and before you, for your name is in this house and cry to you in our distress and you will hear and save us. Jehoshaphat In his moment of Weakness and vulnerability knows who his God is, and he confesses what he knows out loud about his God in front of everyone who is gathered here.

He knows that God is Jehovah, he knows that Jehovah is in the heavens. He knows that Jehovah is the ruler over all of the nations. He knows that power and might are in the hand of God and that nobody can stand. Against the might of this God.

He knows what God has done in Israel's history in driving out the Canaanites and giving the land to the people of Israel. He knows that these invading armies are trying to take from Judah, what God had given. To the people of Judah centuries earlier, Jehoshaphat knows that God has provided a temple in which his people can pray and that if they cry out to him in their distress, Jehovah God has promised to hear and to save. Jehoshaphat knows these things about his God and he confesses them out loud for all to hear.

And it is because he knows these things about Jehovah God that he feels the freedom to do the amazing thing he does next, which brings us to the next. Point, and that is that Jehoshaphat confesses his own weakness, ignorance, and failure. You say, didn't you already make that point? No, the first point is that he recognized.

His weakness, ignorance, and failure. it's one thing for us to recognize that, but then what do we do with that? Jehoshaphat recognizes those things about himself, but here in 0.3 we're going to observe that he actually opens his mouth and he confesses. He admits.

To such things in front of an audience of people. He says in verse 12, 0 our God, will you not judge them? Now look at this, for we are powerless before this great multitude who are coming against us, nor do we know what to do. What Jehoshaphat says in verse 12 is absolutely remarkable to me.

This is Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah. He gets paid to make sure that Judah is prepared for situations like this. He is supposed to have the military might to deal with attacks like this, and it's his job to know what to do in these situations, or at least to act like he knows what to do. Yet he lacks the might, he doesn't know what to do, which reveals the fact that he has failed to prepare sufficiently for such an attack.

And what's amazing here is that he admits this, not just before God, but in the presence of everyone that is assembled here. First of all, he says we are powerless. We are powerless before this multitude who are coming against us. He's admitting weakness, and he's admitting it publicly.

Secondly, he says, nor do we know what to do. This is Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, admitting before God and man that he as a king doesn't know what to do. And, and admitting these things publicly, I'm powerless and I don't know what to do. He's admitting that I've in front of everyone that I have failed to prepare.

For this type of event. All in all, Jehoshaphat publicly is admitting his weakness, his ignorance, and his failure. And by the way, notice who all are present in this assembly. In the very next verse, the text says, and all Judah was standing before the Lord with their infants, their wives, and their children.

The writer describes the assembly as all Judah, indicating that the whole nation is here, and we also learn here that this is a mixed assembly of men and women and children, older and younger. And in front of all of them, Jehoshaphat confesses his weakness, his ignorance, and his failure. Just imagine this. Imagine something happening to our nation and then imagine President Obama or any president for that matter, going before a national television audience in a time of crisis and praying to God in front of a whole nation and saying, God, we don't have the strength to handle this.

I don't have the strength to handle this, and neither do we know what to do. A president of the United States, a modern president of the United States would never do that. He gets paid To handle stuff. He gets paid to know what to do or at least to act like he knows what to do.

But Jehoshaphat publicly admits his weakness. He admits his ignorance, and he admits his failure. If I were Jehoshaphat, I, I could see myself admitting these things privately. In a prayer to God.

Or maybe admitting these things in front of my cabinet of advisors, and then going out and putting on a brave face in front of all the people of Judah. But to go before everybody. who have put their trust in you. To make sure there's sufficient might and knowledge to handle such things, and to admit to everyone, I have no might.

I don't know what to do. I've obviously failed. To prepare for this eventuality. That is truly remarkable, and you might read the story up to this point and be thinking, These are the worst things that a leader could ever say.

No one would ever follow a man who speaks this way. But what, Jehoshaphat feels free to make these admissions because he knows that he has a great God and Savior in Jehovah. The number one thing that gives him the freedom to confess his weakness, ignorance, and his failings is the fact that he has a God who is strong and mighty, who is wise and who is forgiving. It is only men who know that they have a big God like this who are man enough and courageous enough to face their frailty.

And confess it publicly. Notice a 4th thing that Jehoshaphat does. It takes a real man to ask for help, and Jehoshaphat does exactly that. Number 4, he makes prayerful requests of his great God and Savior.

Again, he says in verse 9, should evil come upon us, the sword or judgment or pestilence or famine, we will stand before this house and before you, for your name is in this house and cry to you in our distress, and you will hear and save us. And then he makes the request, verse 12, 0 our God, will you not judge them, for we're powerless before this great multitude who are coming against us, nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are on. You We've seen in verse 4 that he has turned his attention to seek the Lord.

We see in verse 9 that he's reminding himself of the promise of Jehovah that if people cry out to him, he will hear and he will save them.

And so he confesses his brokenness before God and prayer, and then he makes requests, oh God. Will you not judge them? Will you judge these invading armies for us? We're too powerless.

We cannot do this. Will you do this? And he's also saying, we don't know what to do. I'm asking you for direction here, Lord.

You're gonna have to tell us what to do in this situation. This is what real men do. They don't just confess their sin. They don't just confess their weakness.

And then stop there. Real men know that God is great and that he's able to save and moved by their vision of the greatness of God, they bring big requests to God and they reach out and they ask Him to move on their behalf. Real men. Pray Prayer is pleading helplessness before God.

A man does not like to plead helplessness. In front of other people. Real men pray to God and they pray in front of their wife and their children. This is why Paul in his letter to Timothy expresses only one desire for men.

He says, Timothy, As for the men, I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands without wrath and dissension. I am sure if you sat Paul down and said, is that all you want from the men, Paul would say, no, no, no, I, there's a lot of things I would want from the men, but Paul seems to know that if men get this one thing right, If they see their brokenness, their weakness, and their need for prayer, and if they're crying out to God in prayer in every place, such men will likely get everything else right.

Jehoshaphat is looking for a miracle from God. Here in these verses, he does not realize that it's already a miracle that he is coming before God in prayer.

One of God's mightiest signs and wonders is a man who sees his need and his weakness. And his helplessness, coming before God in humble and desperate prayer. Yes, hopefully God will do a miracle in response to that prayer, but it's already a miracle. If you are a man who sees your brokenness and you're coming to God and crying out to Him, enjoy the fact that you already are God's miracle.

There's a final thing that we see Jehoshaphat doing in this chapter which serves to explain why he was a man that God could bless and people could follow and that is he leads from a place of hope. He leads from a place of hope. We see Jehoshaphat's hope demonstrated in the fact that he said to God, our eyes are on you. He's saying by that, my eyes are not on me, they're not on my army, they're not even on my enemy right now.

My eyes are on you, Lord. My hope. is in you. We see his hope demonstrated in how he responds to God's revelation to him and to the people of Judah.

In fact, observe what happens next, verse 14. Then in the midst of the assembly, the spirit of the Lord came upon Jehaziel, the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jael, the son of Mattaniah, the Levite of the sons of Asaph. So he's prayed, and then there's a hushed moment. And everyone's waiting and their eyes are on the Lord, and then the spirit comes upon a prophet named Jehaziel.

And this prophet steps forward and he said, Listen, all Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and King Jehoshaphat thus says the Lord to you, do not fear or be dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God's. Tomorrow, go down against them. Behold, they will come up by the ascent of Ziz. And you will find them at the end of the valley in front.

Of the wilderness of Ja Ruel. You need not fight in this battle, station yourselves, stand and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf, oh Judah and Jerusalem. Do not fear or be dismayed. Tomorrow, go out to face them, for the Lord is with you.

So notice The hopefulness of what Jehoshaphat does next. Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell down before the Lord, worshiping the Lord and the Levites from the sons of the Kohathites and of the sons of the Korrahis stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with a very loud voice. What's fascinating to me is that the battle hasn't even been won yet. But under Jehoshaphat's lead, everyone now is worshiping God with a very loud voice.

You would think by the sound of their worship that the battle had already been won. They're demonstrating tremendous hope and they're already celebrating a victory that has not yet even been accomplished. So long story short, Observe what happens the next morning. They rose early in the morning and they went out to the wilderness of Tekoa, and when they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Listen to me, oh Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Put your trust in the Lord your God, and you will be established. Put your trust in His prophets and succeed. And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed those who sang to the Lord and those who praised him in holy attire. As they went out before the army and said, give thanks to the Lord for His loving kindness.

is everlasting Jehoshaphat speaks to the people and he's telling them. To trust in the Lord. It's interesting that command to trust, he uses the Hebrew word that we get our English word amen from. Literally, he says to them, Amen and the Lord and your God, the Lord your God, and you will be amen.

The idea is establish your confidence in the Lord your God, and you will be confidently established by God. And then he says, amen and his prophets or put your trust in His prophets. And succeed. Guys, if we just follow God and His word that he has spoken through his prophets, we will experience success.

You see, he's, he's a man who's willing to admit his brokenness and cry out to God in prayer, but he's also a man who knows he's got a great God, who has spoken, and he's leading now the people of Judah from a position of hope, a crazy hope. He demonstrates his hope by leading his people out to the place of battle with no weapons. The only thing he did by way of preparing them was, OK, who's gonna sing and what are we gonna sing? There's hints later in the chapter that some people took harps and lyres and instruments, musical instruments.

Imagine that. Here's this leader who moments the day before was confessing his weakness and ignorance and his failures, who's now leading a whole nation of people out to a place of battle where the enemy is supposed to be, and they're all following him and they have no weapon in their hand. They only have a song in their heart. And on their lips.

Anyone looking To Jehoshaphat for leadership in this moment would know that he's got a tremendous hope in the Lord, a crazy hope, and everyone follows him. Would you follow a man like this? Would God bless such a man? Well, as the story unfolds from here, God did bless.

We see that. In verse 22, it says, when they began singing, so they get in their place at this lookout point and we come to find out that singing and worship actually is a weapon. When they began singing and praising, the Lord set ambushes against the sons of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Cyer. Who had come against Judah, so they were routed for the sons of Ammon and Moab rose up against the inhabitants of Mount Cer, destroying them completely, and when they had finished with the inhabitants of Sier, they helped to destroy one another.

And when Judah came to the lookout of the wilderness, they looked toward the multitude and behold, they were corpses lying on the ground and no one had escaped. And when Jehoshaphat and his people came to take their spoil, they found much among them, including goods, garments, and valuable things. which they took for themselves more than they could carry, and they were 3 days taking the spoil because there was so much. God accomplishes the victory and he wins a battle for them.

He defeats their enemies by turning these enemies against one another, and he provides so much spoil that it was more than what the people of Judah could carry and it took 3 whole days to bring in the hall. Jehoshaphat had told the people, Trust in the Lord and we'll succeed, and that's exactly what is happening. And we see that the people followed him out to the battle. To witness and experience all of this.

And then such a beautiful picture as they returned from the scene, we see that the people are following Jehoshaphat. Let me just read this verse 26, then on the 4th day, they assembled. In the valley of Beraka, for there they bless the Lord. Therefore, they have named that place, the valley of Beraka until today, and every man of Judah and Jerusalem returned with Jehoshaphat at their head.

As they returned to Jerusalem with joy. For God had made them to rejoice. Over their enemies. Read the rest of the chapter.

We're out of time, but the story ends with The people following Jehoshaphat, who is leading them, who is at their head, a man who admitted his weakness, his ignorance, and his failures, but he put his confident hope in his big God and The people, God moves, God speaks, and they follow his lead and the people follow Jehoshaphat out to the battle. They follow him home, and they follow him in worshiping the great God who had come through for them. Above all, I am sure that Satan observed a powerful, painful truth in this instance.

Satan and the enemies of God learned.

Here that a humble man is a powerful weapon in the hand of God. A man willing to admit his failings and to cry out to God in prayer is a mighty force that the gates of hell cannot prevail against. And he's also a man. That people will follow.

So be encouraged, men. You might be a failed hero, but it's not too late to be a mighty weapon in the hand of God. You may have already blown the chance to be an example of a perfect father to your children, but you now have the chance to give to your wife and to give to your children an even greater gift than perfection. The gift of a humble man.

A gospel clinging man who prays to a big God. Many times in our culture today, people will try to tell men that, hey, you need to man up. Actually, God wants men to man down. To humble ourselves and to confess our brokenness.

He wants us as men to be better confessors of our own brokenness than we are at confessing the brokenness of other people. Confessing such things, knowing that we have a great savior, a great God, and a great savior who gives us hope for ourselves and for those that we lead. I ask you men, will you do that? Will you do that?

Ladies? This all works for you too. This is not just for men. Will you join the men of Cornerstone?

In being a humble woman also. Confessing your weakness, ignorance, and failings, and putting your confident hope in God. May God bring about in our marriages and in this church, a revival of humility. Let's pray together Lord, I know that.

In, in our midst. we're Our, our needs are great. Our brokenness is deep. We all are naturally very good at confessing the brokenness of other people, confessing the brokenness of our spouse, confessing the brokenness of people that we're in conflict with.

Make us good, Lord. At confessing our own brokenness. May we not wait for others to Give heed to this. May we take the first step.

And lead by example. Make us Lord. Repenters Give us humility. And I pray that for us as men that we would be the biggest repenters our children have ever known.

That we would lead from a place of brokenness and humility, but also filled with a confident hope in You, God. And may we love and lead our wives from that vantage point, and love and lead our children from that vantage point as well. And experience your blessing as Jehoshaphat did. We thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to give of our offerings to you.

We ask that you would receive these funds that we give and Multiply the usefulness of every penny that is given, Lord, for the glory of Jesus. We give ourselves to you in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said, Amen.