The World’s Strongest Man
I don’t know if you know this but the winner of this year’s World’s Strongest Man competition is a man by the name of Martins Licis.
Martins is 28 years old and he’s only the sixth American to win the World’s Strongest Man competition in its 42 year history! Martins, who goes by the nickname, “The Dragon,” is 6’2” and weighs 355 lbs!
Last year he broke a nearly 100-year-old record with a 560 LB Steinborn Rockover Squat! I didn’t know what that was until I looked it up. Watch this!
There’s a barbell loaded with weights on a mat in front of you. You have to pick up one end of it and stand it straight up. Then you have to get yourself under it, put the barbell on your shoulders, stand up, and then do a squat!
He did that with 560 lbs!!
We gravitate towards strength
Have you ever noticed this? We see this all the time in the world around us.
When our team who was losing for a long time finally starts winning we make sure people know that we aren’t bandwagon fans. There’s a reason we have a name for those kinds of fans. They jump on the bandwagon only because the team started winning. How many of you are SMU fans today but you haven’t watched them play a football game since the last time they were ranked 30 years ago! Why now? Because people are drawn to people who win. We gravitate toward strength.
If a celebrity were to walk in the room this morning, someone famous who you’ve always wanted to meet, you would probably do whatever you had to do to get to that person, to meet that person, to be near that person and get a selfie! Why? Because people are drawn to people who have power and fame. We gravitate toward strength.
If the richest man or woman were to come to church here today and you knew as soon as they walked in the room that they had money you would find a way to meet them or shake hands with that person and introduce yourself. Why? Because people are drawn to wealth. We gravitate towards strength.
We move away from weakness
We know this is true because the opposite is true. People don’t jump on the bandwagon for losing teams. People don’t fall all over themselves to meet ordinary people and get a selfie with them. And if someone were to walk in the room today who was not wealthy but noticeably poor, there wouldn’t be a long line of people wanting to meet them.
Why? Because we gravitate towards strength.
So not only do we gravitate toward strength, we move away from weakness.
And not only do we move away from weakness, we hide and cover up the weaknesses or perceived weaknesses we have so others can’t see them.
We do this for the same reasons. We know people gravitate towards strength so we try to be strong so we’ll have friends. So we’ll be accepted. So we’ll feel like we belong.
We hide our weaknesses so no one will know all the reasons we think they should stay away from us.
So we flex our muscles constantly around people. And this is a real problem for us and it’s a tragedy when we participate in the cover-up and we flex our muscles to look strong, especially in the church.
I think we do this in at least 2 ways. I’m sure you could name many more. But consider this…
1// I’m Fine.
When people ask us how we’re doing we always have the same answer: “I’m fine!” We say that when we’re fine but we also say that when we’re not fine. We participate in the cover-up. We hide our weakness. And this is NORMAL!?
We do this to protect ourselves. We do this to hide our weaknesses and pretend that we’re strong. We do this because we believe that this is true, that it is weak to show weakness. So we spend our time and money covering up the parts of our lives that aren’t perfect and we boast about all the ways we are winning in life. How are you doing today? Fine. Really?
2// I’m Right.
The other way we flex our muscle is by proudly announcing that we’re right. That we are in the right. That our way is right. That everyone else is wrong. That if everyone would just do what we say and played by our rules then the world would be a better place.
So we flex our muscles, we announce our opinions as fact, we exaggerate stories and inflate examples to make our point. We make sure people remember how long we’ve been here, how much we’ve done, how much we’ve given. And we don’t say this but we think we deserve to have things the way we want them. We think we’re entitled. So we keep on flexing, showing off our power and strength. Even when it’s hurtful to our brothers and sisters in Christ.
The problem
The real problem is that this kind of behavior in no way follows the example of Jesus. But for some 2000 years people have tried to leverage personal power to get their way in the world and even in the church. For 2000 years people have worked hard to cover up their weakness and put up the front of strength.
But what would happen if we had the humility and the courage to follow the way of Christ?
What if we were brave enough to allow the example and teaching of Jesus to be our guide?
What does that look like? Read the NEXT POST to learn more.
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