When I started my doctoral program at The Master's Seminary, there was a ritual. It was all hush-hush.

They walked the first years into a dark room with red lights.

And our professor stood up and handed us a red tie as a gift and said, "Up until now, you were just boys. But now, with this red tie, you are men — to preach expository sermons."

All in fun, of course.

But what I remember most is what we were wearing before that night.

Every man wore his own tie.

And friend, every one of us walks into God's presence wearing one too.

Ask most people what makes a person righteous, and you will get some version of the same answer:

Doing the right thing.

Be honest. Work hard. Treat people well. Go to church.

But here is the problem. The Pharisees did the right thing all day long. And Jesus said it was not enough.

So what is righteousness, really? And where would a person ever get it?

Today we go to a chapter where God looks over His people for the answer and cannot find one single man who has it.

If you were planning to bring a man down, how would you begin?

Most of us will begin with a frontal attack. A sudden blow.

But the most dangerous attack in human history did not begin with a sword.

It began with a question.

And that same question is still being whispered in our kitchens, bedrooms, workplaces, and in the quiet places of your own mind. If you learn to recognize it, you will understand why God hands His soldiers a belt of truth before He hands them anything else.

You have heard it a hundred times this year. Maybe this week.

"Look within." "Follow your heart." "Speak your truth." "If it feels right to you, it must be true."

It sounds so good, doesn't it. It sounds like freedom.

But here is the problem. When the battle comes, when the diagnosis lands, when the marriage cracks, when the accusation whispers gossip against you, you cannot stand on something like your feelings, for it changes every time your mood does.

Instead, God hands His soldiers a belt of truth. And the first thing you need to know about that truth is this: it did not come from within you.

Some of you have walked the floor of your living room at midnight, binding the darkness over your home.

You bound Satan over your child's bed. You bound it over you marriage, your work and many other things. And you were told that if you said it loud enough and long enough, the marriage would mend and the prodigal would walk through the front door.

And some of those prayers did not end the way you hoped.

So you did what faithful people often do. You turned the knife inward. You proclaimed: "I didn't have enough faith. I didn't say the right words. I failed."

Today, God wants to lift something off your shoulders.

Most of us have a plan for when life gets hard.

Some of us plan to out-think it. We read the right book, we find the right strategy, and we manage the problem.

Some of us plan to out-behave it. We keep our vows, pay our taxes, and trust our good name to hold.

And some of us plan to out-feel it. We wait for a strong enough song, a warm enough Sunday, a surge of determination to carry us through the week.

And for a while, it works.

Until it doesn't. Until you are on your back in the dirt, wondering why nothing you brought is working.

In August of 1943, thousands of soldiers stormed a fog-covered island in the North Pacific, Japan Kiska. For days they fired into the mist. Men were wounded. Men were killed.

And then they found out the enemy had left the island almost three weeks earlier. They had been firing at shadows and at one another.

Now think about the face you have been firing at. The partner who broke the deal. The sibling who stopped calling. The relative who said something at the dinner table ten years ago that you still replay in your head.

What if you have spent years exhausting yourself out in the wrong war?

We have all been there, praying about the same thing for years. The temper. The marriage. The son. The habit you thought you would have beaten by now. And you have watched other people testify about breakthroughs while you kept coming back to the same altar with the same sentence.

So you drew the only conclusion available to you: that God has not answered, and the problem must be you.

I want to tell you this morning that you may have been standing at the wrong door. Not because God is stingy but because you were watching for Him to come in the one way He never promised.