(Extensive inspiration for this message, and this series taken from Francis Frangipane’s "This Day We Fight".)
Here we go. 2 minute drill. A high speed recap of where we left off two.
Okay. . .Joshua is hanging out, looks up, and sees standing before him a being with a sword drawn, ready for battle. I believe this being is Jehovah-Sabbaoth. The Lord of Hosts. The God of Armies. The one that we read in Isaiah 49:25 contends with those who contend with us. Week #1 key, we don’t have to fight the battles of our life alone. We have a God that as it says in Revelation 19:16 is the “king of kings and lord of lords.”
Week #2. The moment of truth for King Joash. He shoots the arrow through the window, and what prophet is prepared to declare victory over the Syrians? (Elisha) So with Elisha’s hand of blessing upon him, Joash is given the command to pick-up the arrows, and strike the ground with them. And he takes them and administers how many half-hearted, wimpy blows? (Three) And how many times does he end up experiencing partial victory over the Syrians? (Three) That’s right. Never fully conquers them because he lacked the passion and will to completely turn and defeat his enemy.
And our key for week #2 was to look at Psalm 18, look at an early model of King David, and see those times when we need to lock arms with the Lord of Hosts, face our enemy, and take an offensive approach towards victory until the enemy has been consumed. Remember the words of King David in Psalm 18:36 (through 38) -
“You gave a wide place for my steps under me, and my feet did not slip. I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and did not turn back till they were consumed. I thrust them through, so that they were not able to rise; they fell under my feet.”
Then, two weeks ago we examined another option. We examined another option that at a different point in his life King David. In II Samuel 11, at the time to go to battle, we find King David sending out his armies and generals, and rather than leading the way as the anointed man of God, instead he is stuck in bed. Sleeping through the day. Overcome by a spirit of passivity. And the results are devastating: adultery, murder, deceit, the death of his infant child.
The week #3 key was simple. If you don’t want to fight the enemy. If you don’t want to rise up and face the demons of your life that have plagued you for years: emotional, mental, physical, spiritual road blocks to true victory and freedom in your life. You do have the option of not getting engaged in the fight. But the consequences will be devastating.
So instead of option B, this year we win. This year we are going to rise up and face those places that we identify in our lives and say, “No more. I will no longer be held captive to fear. Or guilt. Or discouragement. Or a given area of temptation and addiction. Maybe alcohol, drugs, pornography. No more. This year, with the power of the Lord of Hosts, I am going to achieve true victory!” Amen?
That’s the recap. Maybe a bit more than 2 minutes. Now, over the next few weeks we are going to begin looking at some Biblical examples of road blocks to this quest for true freedom in our lives.
Many of us have ventured out on this journey towards victory before, only to be set back by one or more of the challenges we are going to explore over the next few weeks.
So I want us to pray for open hearts, open ears, open spiritual eyes to see the application of God’s word to our individual and corporate search for authentic, enduring, life lasting freedom.
(Pray)
Debbie has shared with us today about the AA Pregnancy Help Center’s ministry here in Lexington, KY. The ministry of this organization and ministries such as Step-by-Step lead us perfectly into this first challenge we are going to explore.
Listen to some of these statistics and facts about women who find themselves trying to navigate through the bondage of a post-abortion life. First and foremost, it is a bondage to a life of negative cycles. Did you know that 43 percent of the women to have an abortion in America have had at least one previous abortion? Trapped in a cycle.
Studies have revealed that women who have abortions are three times more likely to commit suicide than the general population, and seven times more likely than women who have given birth to a child.
Women who are struggling with the past of an abortion are five times more likely to report substance abuse than women who carry their pregnancy to term. Studies have revealed that they suffer from a higher rate of depression, mental illness, and miscarriages.
You have heard of post-traumatic stress syndrome. Well post abortive syndrome includes incredibly high rates of guilt, anger, anxiety, anniversary grief, flashbacks of the actual abortion, sexual dysfunctions, eating disorders and long term relationships problems.
One decision. One moment in time that can become a point of captivity and loss in the life of a woman. And while the consequences may not be as devastating, or the long term ramifications as radical. There probably is not a one of us that can’t look back at a moment of our life, a moment that we see marked with defeat or failure, and we look at that moment and wonder if we can ever get past it.
To us, it will probably seem to be a much lighter moment. But to Francis Ouiment, it was a life changing moment. Francis was a teenage caddy at an elite golf club. He was from a working class, immigrant family with no rights or claims to the life of those served by Francis day in and day out on the links. The local private golf course. But as the 1913 U.S. Open approached, hosted just up the street from Francis childhood home, the unheard of was about to take place. Francis was about to actually qualify for the U.S. Open. One of golf’s greatest prizes.
His father doesn’t think he can do it. Those who populate the elitist golf world don’t think he has any right to be competing on their course. The world is against him. But success was on his doorstep. And then this happened.
(Movie Clip from – The Greatest Game, available at ScreenVue.com)
Failure. It can end dreams. Cut off visions. And it can consume our focus until we find ourselves debilitated in our journey towards a life of victory and freedom. Some people. Some companies. Some churches operate in an environment and paradigm that is totally locked in and focused on past failures. For them, what was defines what is and what will be.
Grab a Bible and turn with me to II Samuel 5:1-5 (read).
Here’s the setting. David has become king, but king of a land filled with unconquered enemies. In other words, he has experienced a significant level of victory in his life, but there are still battles to fight. In the language of the 2007 Christian, he has been saved, but is not completely free. And there are still nagging enemies that if not completely conquered will grow stronger, and stronger, and eventually once again bring defeat upon God’s people.
At the time David becomes king, there is a group of people called the Jebusites who occupy an area which we now know as Jerusalem. These Jebusites were a fierce mountain people. They have been on God’s list of nations to be dispossessed by Israel, but they have never been conquered.
Look at this promise from God as early as Exodus 3:7, “Then the LORD said, ‘I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and” the. . .who? “Jebusites.’”
Now, scroll forward to Exodus 33, and look at God’s word spoken directly to Moses, “The LORD said to Moses, ‘Depart; go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ’To your offspring I will give it.’ I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the”. . .who? “Jebusites.’” (v. 1-2)
See, these Jebusite dudes are supposed to be long gone. However, Israel’s greatest heroes from Joshua to and through the great judges have tried to take out the Jebusites and failed repeatedly.
Look at the first chapter of Judges. Judges 1:21, “But the people of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem, so the Jebusites have lived with the people of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.”
In fact, with its location in the hill country between the tribes of Benjamin and Judah, the Jebusites actually experienced, and endured attacks from both sides. A two front battle. And still, no one had managed to drive these turkeys out.
So imagine what the Jebusites must have thought when they heard of David’s plan to posses their city. Not only do they not believe it will happen. They are so confident that history is on their side that they scoff at King David.
II Samuel 5:6 (read).
Let’s jump to today for a minute. Have you ever been facing a battle in your life? Maybe it’s a physical battle. Maybe it’s an emotional battle (my early life battles with depression and suicide).
Ever faced a battle that your personal and collective history would suggest you have no business fighting? A battle that past failures make clear that victory is not possible. Ever been there?
It is at that moment that you have to choose whether you will focus on your past failures, or have faith in God’s future deliverance. Because it is often at that moment that we make choices that determine whether nor not this will be our year for victory.
What did King David do? Verse 7 (read through verse 10).
Two simple lessons for today.
1. IF YOU WANT TO SEE GOD’S VICTORY IN YOUR LIFE. . .
DON’T BE CONDITIONED BY THE PAST.
You have probably heard the cliché, “failure is not final.” But do we believe it and applied it to our lives? Or do we still live the here and now, based on the was and then.
Listen to this quote, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my professional career and have lost over 300 games. 27 times my team trusted me to make the game winning shot -- and I missed. I have lost count of all the mistakes I’ve made on a basketball court.”
Who said that? None other than possibly the greatest basketball player who ever lived - Michael Jordan. 27 times he failed to make the game winning shot. But when the next game came down to the wire, who do you think demanded the ball.
How could he? He wasn’t conditioned by the past.
Brennan Manning writes in his Christian classic “The Ragamuffin Gospel,” “The mature Christians I have met along the way are those who have failed and have learned to live gracefully with their failure. Faithfulness requires the courage to risk everything on Jesus, the willingness to keep growing, and the readiness to risk failure throughout our lives.”
You see, some of us have selected option B. We are frozen in bed. We are unable to arise and face the enemy when it is time to go to war in the spiritual battles of our life because we can only see our past failures. We can only see those places in our lives where we tried and failed. Our thought processes, our mindsets, our entire approach to life is conditioned by the past.
But God wants to do a new thing in your life. Not an old thing. Not the same thing. A new thing. And if you want to experience the newness of victory and freedom, you can’t be conditioned by your past failures.
I bet you have heard his story before. At the age of seven, he and his family were forced out of their home, and the he was forced to go to work. When he was nine, his mother passed away. He had a job as a store clerk, but lost it when he was twenty. He wanted to go to law school, but had no education. He went into debt when he was twenty-three, to become a partner in a small store. It was only three years later that his business partner died, and left him with a debt that took years for him to repay.
He dated a girl for four years and, at the age of twenty-eight, decided to ask her to marry him. She turned him down. Thirty-seven years into his life, he was elected to Congress, on his THIRD try. He then failed to be re-elected. His son died when he was only four years old. At age forty-five, he ran for the Senate, and lost.
He persisted at politics and ran for the vice-presidency at age forty-seven, and again lost. Finally, at the age of fifty-one, this man was elected President of the United States.
You know who I’m talking about? (Abraham Lincoln) That’s right, Abraham Lincoln.
Don’t be conditioned by the past. Don’t be focused on your past failures rather than guided by your faith in the future. Second lesson. . .
2. IF YOU WANT TO SEE GOD’S VICTORY IN YOUR LIFE. . . DON’T BE DEFEATED BY THE “BLIND AND THE LAME.”
Did you see what it said in verse 6 (read)? So join me in 2007. Who are the blind? Well. . .what ability do blind people lack? (the ability to see) So who are the blind people in our circles of influence? They are those people who are unable to see the vision, the plan, the victory that God has in store for us.
You with me? Can you make the shift with me from physical blindness, to a much more comprehensive blindness?
You see, it is often not the devil himself who will defeat us. It is often not even the forces and armies of Satan. It can most often be those people in our circle of influence who are blind to God’s plan for our lives. Blind to the works and miracles God desires to do for us. Blind to the spiritual awakening that is awaiting us.
The blind don’t have to be Satan’s. They might be sitting right next to us in a pew, or Connection Group, or at the dinner table. They are simply those who can not see the transition from past failures to future faith. They simply cannot see the possibilities of victory that awaits those who are engaging life with the Lord of Hosts as their general.
What about the lame? What ability do lame people lack? (the ability to walk) So who are the lame people in our circles of influence? They are those people who are unable to move forward. They are stuck. Maybe captive to the spirit of passivity that we talked about two weeks go. Unable to move from the bed. Sleeping in the middle of the day while soldiers and generals are off to war. We looked at a time in King David’s life when he was lame. Unable to move. The consequences were devastating.
Lame people can be. . .well, lame. They can bring defeat into our minds. They can keep us from moving forward in a number of ways. Such as. . .
A. They can suggest forward movement is impossible.
(Have someone come to the front and demo: whispering negativity in someone’s ear)
Especially when seeking victory in the spiritual realm!
B. They can latch on to us, and weigh us down.
(Demo: hold them around the waist and encourage them to cross the platform)
i.e. People demanding our attention or care when we are ready to act and engage.
C. They can block our path.
(Demo: have volunteer attempt to go back to their seat, but don’t let them by)
I’ve heard of women whose husbands won’t give them the keys to the car to drive to church. Children whose parents won’t help them get to a church event or ministry. Employers, who always seem to be demanding overtime or extra work just at the time that you are about to head out for a Bible study, family time, or a spiritually significant time. Right?
The blind and the lame. People that can’t see where God is taking you, or don’t have the gumption themselves to move. So they block our victory. They impede our freedom.
And again. I hope you are making the transference of all this from the physical, to the spiritual. The blind and lame are spiritually disabled. They can do all these things in a spiritual, emotional, and mental way if we let them.
Okay. . .so let’s wrap this up for today. Might not apply to everyone. But let me ask you. . .is there an area in your life where you desire victory, but you can now see that the major blockage to that victory has been a focus on past failures, rather than a faith in God’s future deliverance? If so, I hope you will pray this prayer of victory with me.
In fact, if it is your desire to live a life that is free from past failures, just repeat out loud after me as we pray together.
(Pray)
I like this quote from Philip Yancey, “Faith is trusting in advance what will only makes sense in reverse.” Life a life of future faith. Get victory over past failures. This year. . .win!
Next week we are going to look at an emotion that can fill our past, present and future. Discouragement. And how we can defeat it. I hope you will be here.
