My Mother Taught Me - Battle Lines pt. 2

Thank you, Worship team. Let's come on, give it up for our worship team.

I don't know. We might have to drop a CD. This this is real stuff right here. And I know we have some writers on our worship team, in our musicians. I think we can do it. I gonna put my wife on notice.

Hey, man, can we touch and agree? Button their marquee dojo for later? Oh, God. Happy Mother's Day to all our mothers, man. Let's just give it up for our moms. Were quick. Yes. Happy Mother's Day, man. I am. I wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be here without our mothers. Amen. You know, Mother's Day, it is tangibly the second and the third most celebrated holiday known throughout history.

I did the study. I Googled it. You know, if it says it on Google, it means it's right. But the stats are there. That Mother's Day is the most celebrated third, most celebrated day throughout the year. I'm kind of jealous because Father's Day, we don't get the credence. The Mother's Day gift. We don't get the shopping now. We don't get the, you know, the bath and body only have like one row right here.

Come on, guys. You know what I'm talking about, right? You walk in a bath and body, you know, we want at least get a release. I'll say that sermon for June, you know, for Father's Day, man. But today is Mother's Day. And so it's all the moms who birth children, those who stepped in place, who was a surrogate mother to those mothers who passed or mothers were absent.

You know, thank you for placing that role in and raising young men and young women to the father. Answer they and his enemies and eggs and all of the other in between. We give it up to you. You know, many of you don't know. I'm not from the Carolinas. I actually grew up in a different country called Texas.

Actually, I grew up in the south side of Waco, Texas. There you go. Okay. Keep it down on security. And growing up in the country, Texas, you know, we grew up in a generation from generation where we grew up, where we stayed outside all day long. This generation don't know what they don't know how to play our right.

You know, we we drank out of the water spigot. Y'all remember that? You know, you turn your little water hose, we go like this, You know, y'all know what I'm talking about. And if you have a water hose. Yeah, yeah, know. Okay, so we grew up in a different generation then kids these days where there Xboxes and PlayStations.

That's $600 for a unit. No. Amen. Not in my house. And Jesus name. But, you know, we stayed outside all day long. We play games like, you know, hide and seek and freeze tag. Mother, may I? Yeah, I remember that. But that's that's how we you know, we know we grew up in a generation. And in that time frame, you know, I grew up, you know, in a hood.

And so we didn't have a baseball and a bat. We play stickball. That's because we got a tennis ball and a broom handle stick. And that's how we played, because we just we that's how we played. We just had the economics to pay for a ball and a bat. But, you know, we play stickball and football and basketball, but grown up in that generation, which I think is kind of crossover to this generation.

So I'm learning how to play ball. You had to learn how to talk junk. Yeah, Yeah, I know what I'm talking about. You can't play ball without talking junk. They go hand in hand, right? It's like peanut butter and jelly pickle. No. See, talk of junk is all a part of the game. So you talking junk was where you had to get into the headspace of your opponent to kind of throw them off the game just a little bit and see talking junk.

You had to learn how to talk junk because this is viral about living in the hood. So you lived in a hood, You had to learn how to talk smack, man, and you had to learn how to back it up and see. We talked about everything. You know, We talked about, you know, someone's game, We talked about someone shoes.

We talked about somebody's outfit, we talked about somebody's brother, sister, cousins and fathers. It's not your down. Hold on now. Hold on. My kids, these are basic survival skills of how to live in the hood. So if you if you ever go down a hood and you play in a course like we tell my story, but you just just know that basic survival skills is learning how to talk junk.

But if you want the game to end quick, if you want the game to be shut down, you put two words together will shut everything down. If you ever say these two words, I promise you, I promise you the game is over. There's something about these two words that you never, ever, ever, ever, ever want to come out your mouth while talking about playing some type of game.

If you're playing a game and you're in the streets and you're in the hood and you put two words together, it's a rap. These two words is, Yo, Mama, I promise you, if you say your mama, are you playing balls around like you? Look, we shut anything down. We've got to go. We've got a scrap. I'm sorry. You talking about Mom?

Don't know about it. Talk about my mama. Yes. Okay. You know, we're. Don't talk about my mama. These are fighting words. I promise you. These are basic survival skills. Basic survival skills. There's something about a mother and how they shake the lives of their children. There's something about a mom who carries their children from place to place. And just in my wife sings a song.

I carried you for nine months. That's when they won. I'm not going to sing it. Nine months. I carried you. Hey, man, there's something about a mother and the nurturing spirit of a mom that many of us are indebted for. It doesn't matter if it was your aunt, your grandmother, your Mimi, or even somebody that raised you, that wasn't a biological mom.

It's just that an investment of a mother, The nurturing aspect of a mom, that embrace of a hug from your mother is so much more different from anyone else was bring me to a point of passage of Scripture. Second, Timothy, Chapter one. If you have your Bibles, you can turn a second Timothy Chapter one. It is in the New Testament, and I'll be reading from the new King James version.

And in my Bible it says that it's Timothy, Faith and Heritage. So this is the subtitle to Second Timothy Chapter one verses three through seven, and it says this I think God, whom I serve with a pure conscience, as my forefathers did, as without ceasing. I remember you in my prayers, night and day, greatly desiring to see you be mindful of your tears, that I may be filled with joy when I call to remember is the genuine faith that is in you which dwell first in your grandmother.

Louise, and your mother, Eunice, and I am persuaded, is also in you. Therefore, I remind you to serve the gift of God, which is in you through the lane of the lane of my hands. For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind. Let me just go back to verse number five when I call to remember is the genuine faith that is in you, Timothy, the faith that dwelt first in your grandmother and now it is in your mother.

Eunice in the same faith that was in your grandmother and your mother is now in you. Timothy. And so today, mothers, we say thank you for the faith that you carry from generation to generation. It is the faith of mothers that has nurtured the faith of us. Today, some grateful for the mothers who stood in the gap for their children.

The faith that I begin to lean into, where I know that now as I go to church Sunday after Sunday, that is why I'm here today. It is a faith that was modem shaped by so many mothers. And so today, as we continue our summer series call Spiritual Warfare, I am grateful that our moms have taught us how to fight the good fight of faith.

John Williams last week talked about the spirit you saw him in and what he was talking about. He talked about how we fight battles that is not of this world. It's not against flesh and blood is not, I guess, against principalities and rulers of darkness. He talked about where we fight this spiritual warfare. It is in close proximity with one another.

He brought out a good point that many times when we see this this this picture of Ephesians chapter six, we think about a source of it where he pulls out a big sword. But no, he John talked about last week that the sword that that was written in Ephesians is really a small dagger, which means is close in proximity.

That means you have to have hand-to-hand combat. So we fought a war between good and evil. We fight a war that is against light and darkness, that we are called to be encouraged by the Lord, our God, our Savior. We are called to fight the good fight of faith. We are called to endure the hardness because we are more than conquerors.

So you can believe in the redemption of the cross, and I believe in the purpose of the cross. They go hand in hand, see the redemption of the cross and the purpose of the cross, the purpose of the cross before us. They have to defeat the enemy. When Christ gave up his life on that, he'll call a Calvary.

The enemy lost. So today we're drawing a line. We're drawing a line in a saying to say, You know what? We are more than conquerors. If you go back into the very end of the Bible, there's a book called Revelation and the Book of Revelation. If you go back to the 20th chapter and it tells us that we win.

So I want to remind you today with this in mind, any spiritual fire of any spiritual battle that you are fighting right now, we win. I want you to know that. So let's start with the with the end in mind. Knowing that we win regardless of what our situations may be, we win. So it doesn't matter where you're at right now.

It doesn't matter if you're up against the ropes of life. Just know that in the end we win. And I was thinking about the spiritual warfare. I said, let me go back into a study in the book of Judges where we're going to have most of our actually the home, the home scripture of our scripture reading for today and is talking about a battle that is very popular in Scripture.

So judges, Chapter seven, I'll be lifting up verses one through nine, and this is what the Word of God reads. So derivable, that is Gideon and his army got up early and went as far as the spring of Herod. The armies of the Midian were camped north of them in the valley near the hill on the Lord said to get in, You have too many warriors with you.

If I let all of if I let all of you fight the midnight, the Israelites were both to me that they saved themselves by their own strength. Therefore, tell the people, whoever is timid or afraid, that they may leave this mountain and go home. So 22,000 of them went home, leaving only 10,000 who are willing to fight. Let me just paint a picture.

A quick Gideon's about to get into a battle. He's about to get into a war. And God speaks to me, says Gideon. You have too many people with you. I'm like our hero. I'm about to get into a fight. I have too many people. And you want to send some of my soldiers home? I'm like, Am I hearing from God correctly?

Because I'm calling everybody like, you know, when we were growing up, you know, you going to fight, you go home, get your brother, your sisters, your cousins, and be coming out the house right now. You know what I'm talking about. I'm gonna grab my cat and everything else right? There's no way that I'm stepping to a fight. They're just going Gaza's.

You know, I need you to get rid of some people I know got injured. As I'm walking, you multiply this for me, God tells getting you have too many people with you. Let's see what he says in verse number, Verse number four. But the Lord told Gideon, there are still too many. Bring them down to the spring and I will test them to determine who will go with you and who will not.

God. Forget Plan A, Plan B, Plan C now, where he planned. When Gideon took his warriors down to the water, the Lord told him, Divide the men into two groups in one group, put all those who cupped the water in their hands and lap it up, like with their tongues, like dogs and the other group with those who kneel down and drink with their mouths from the string in the stream.

Only three hunter of the men drank from their hands. All the others got down on their knees and drank with their mouths in the stream. The lower toe. Gideon With these 300 men, our rescue you and give you victory over the midnight sin. All the others home. So Gideon collected the provisions and Ram's horns and the other warriors and sent them home, but kept the 300 men with them.

The nice camp in the valley just below Gideon. That night, the lower said, Get up, go down into the midnight camp for I have given you victory over them. God is telling you to get up, get down. And He has given you victory over your trial and your situation. So if I had a title, my message for today is that my mother taught me.

My mama taught me how to fight. My mother taught me that we have to begin to be beaten, begin to look at what we see here. Scripture, for many of us as we're going through this spiritual warfare, I believe that many of us are battling our faith. Right? Because if your question about whether or not you make it through this next season of your life, then you are questioning your faith about what God is doing in the midst of your trials and your situation.

The faith is the most important thing that we possess as believers and our faith is what brought us to Christ. Our faith is what keeps us in Christ. And our faith is what's going to continue to go before us as we walk it out with Christ. I believe this that we need faith the most. When fear is the loudest, somebody's faith the most, when fear is the loudest, when we begin to see that that that that fear is telling us that we can't do this or we're not supposed to do this, or my golly, that you you're not equipped or not qualified this this is fear telling you that you're navigators.

Hey, my child. Yes, you are. God is saying, Do you know who you are? Do you know who you represent? That I am with you? That I have never left you? We need faith the most when everything else is running against us. Durable in verse one and two says this This is Gideon. And all the troops who were with them got up early and camped beside the spring of Herod.

The camp of the Midian was north of them, the hill, the Marai in the Valley. This is the spring of Herod. I like to look at words, and as I was studying, I'm like, God, why in the world did you call Gideon to camp by a spring of Harry? And if you look up the spring up here and what it means, it means trembling.

It means fear, right? And so Gideon is walking, and he he sets camp in a place that is called fear. I want you to get there. His whole army is camped at a place called fear. Sea camp means that you are abiding, that your dwelling there, that you are you are residing in that in that place. Let me make it plain.

Many of us are living in a in a posture, in a place of fear that we are not just visiting and leaving, know that we are there, that we are stagnant, that we are in a posture of fear, that we are abiding, that we're growing, that we're walking every single day back to a place called fear. How can an army of 300 begin to take what God has told him to take camping in a place called fear?

So the many nights with north of them below the hill, a mirror in a valley. And if you go back into the hill of Mora, this the name by itself. Mora means teacher. So Gideon, his army is camping at a place called Fear, and his adversary is at a hill called Teacher. Let me pull it together. God has placed you before your enemies to teach you some things.

God has placed you in a place where He wants to teach you some things, and the person who's going to teach you may not look like the person that you think who should be teaching you. Come on. There's some lessons that God wants us to receive from those who are less than who may now look like who you think they need to look like, who may not have the degrees on the wall.

See? Come on down, church man. God is sending you to a place to be taught. And what he's teaching and who's teaching is not the person that you think needs to be teaching. Need to see that the school that God got to sending to you is not is not found on a mountaintop. It's not in a place where you thought it was going to be.

It's in a valley. The things that God wants you to learn and to draw out of you in such a way is not learned on top of a mountain. Mountain is in those valleys. The lessons that God has for you and I will be developed and discovered in the Valley. So, God, why? Why am I going through this?

Why am I going through this in my job? Why am I going through this in my relationship? Why am I going through this with my kids? Why am I experiencing this this trouble in my finances? God, why am I going through this situation? You may say, God, I can't catch a break Like, my God, like we just. Something just happened last week.

Something just happened yesterday. But God is something still sitting at my doorstep today. What is the lesson that God is trying to teach you? I believe this. The God was seeing you victory with sin. You got we're seeing you. And we were phrases that God will send you in a valley to teach you victory. You get that the guy was sent you in a valley to teach you victory.

Let's see. Verse two says this The Lord God said to Gideon, You have too many trips for me to hand, hand the mighty Knights over to them. Or as Israel might elevate themselves over me and say, My own strength have saved me. Guys, don't rob God of His glory. Too many of us rob God of His glory. This is this now announced to the troops.

Whosoever is fearful and trembling may turn back and leave the Mount Gilead. So 22,000 of the troops turned back and yet 10,000 remain. See, growing close to God may require that you may have to be willing to lose some things. Drawing close to God may require you to lose. Some people growing close to God may require you to lose some friends growing close to God may even require you to lose your career.

Right now, because about four years ago I was working in a hotel company, a manager that was kind of subpar, you know, company or whatever. Let me recant that. The manager that I work for is just a phenomenal leader. She's just one of the greatest leaders that I had ever seen to work with. And we give her proper name is Pinky.

She's sitting right over here and God call me to lead and start planting a church now. My God, why are you calling me to plant a church at 43? It's like I'm almost out of my prime. Like who plants the church at 43? Right? And God said, No, there's some things I need you to do because the things I have for you to do is greater than what you're doing right now.

And I was, you know, wasn't comfortable in my career, but, you know, I was in a place where I was trying to really just fast track and what God was calling me to walk away from. Like God had everything mapped out. I was going to come out to be a reason I will do this and do that. God says no, you do take a walk of faith.

How did you begin to start pulling away Some things that I'm going do things differently and I may not look like what you think it's going to look like, but in that there's power in your obedience, you planting and growing closer to God requires a release of something right? You can't plant something if you're not releasing something, right?

Yeah. So we have to release something to do what God has called us to do. So we release control of ourselves and give it to God. God is asking for you to let go and let God see. God proves that we can grow. He proves that way. We can grow. We can grow in him. That we can grow in godly relationships, that we can grow.

And the things that God has called us to do. Verse force, as is the law say, to get in. There are too many troops, take them down to the water in our test them If we're for you, you are there. If I say to you this one can go with you and he can go, but if I say to this one, he cannot go.

He cannot go. Verse five says that. So he brought the troops to the water and the Lord said to get in separate everyone who laps water with his tongue like a dog, and do the same with everyone who kneels to drink. The number of those who lap with their hands and in their mouths was 300 men, and the rest of them troops knelt down to drink water.

And what happened? Got to begin to prune away for Gideon, the things that he was kind of just relying on so many things that we are relying for God on. But he said, you have he begin to prune, you have begin to clean house. So I'm trying to give you increase, but you need to go back and get rid of some things that I told you to let go a long time ago.

Come good. I began asking, My God, why did God choose this one over the other? Like, why did he choose the one that was lapping water or why the one kneeling down? But then God showed me this, and this is a lesson that I've been living now for the past several months. I had to learn to listen to his voice over strategy.

I want you to get that. For those who know me, I'm typing all day long is no. I had to learn to begin to listen to God's voice over strategy. I'm trying to strategize growth, make, you know, growth matrix for the church. I'm trying to strategize. You know, Chris, I Ryan, if I hear of growth matrix one more time, brother, the elders in our elders meeting would be sitting down like Ryan stopped talking about growth matrix and what guys you know I'm like just trust God.

I'm like, I am trusting God in my growth strategy. You pray for me, you can't strategize what God is going to do in your life. It's coffee. Yeah. God wants us to walk out everything in our lives by faith. So I don't know where you're at with your walk with Christ, but there's always going to be some testing points that God is asking you to do.

There's going to be some things that God is going to test you to see if you're going to walk out of faith in such a way that you're going to believe what he's going to do. Gideon went from 35,000 to 10000 to 300 men. Why do guys in 22,000 people away that was either afraid or just drinking water the improper way?

And God, show me this. There's two type of people. The first person in the people who walk in fear and leave their, like, crippled. But then there's another person who may be fearful but still move forward. See, whatever. We have a force that got us in that God. You know, you just have to trust me. Even though things don't look like you think they need to look like we need faith to follow Jesus, even when the numbers don't add up, even when our faith is camped at a place called fear.

See, we need to rely on grass so much in a way that when numbers don't add up, when people don't add up, when your bank account don't look like they need to do, when your children may be acting crazy, when your spouse is acting crazy, you still need to move forward and and I believe this. You might want to write this one down.

We are called to be faithful in the same direction, even if the results don't look like what we want. Let me say that one more time. We are called to be faithful in the same direction, even if the results don't look like what we want. So many people leave their post prematurely. God is saying just wait. Even when things don't look like they need to look, God is saying just wait.

Even giddy and struggle with faith. If we were to go back and chapter six, we imagine begin to see what Gideon was worried about and we look at chapter six and we begin to see that Gideon, his enemies, we're talking about him, even the people that Gideon was going to come back against, the enemies we're fighting, that he is going to fight against the enemies.

We're already talking about them. Sometimes the enemy is saying something about you is greater than what you see in yourself. That person in your job who's fearful, they know your. They know your potential. That's why they're saying things about you. That's why they may be solitary. That's why they want your job. That's why they know who you are.

If the enemy can see greatness in you, why can't you see greatness in yourself? If our adversary can see greatness in us, why can't you see greatness within your self? Watch this. Verse 17 says this Watch me sit and do what I do when I come to the outpost of the camp. Do as I do When I when I and everyone else blow your trumpets and you're all set to blow your trumpets around the camp, then you are safe for the Lord and for Gideon.

Gideon, tell his troops you do what I do and you say what I say. So Gideon and his troops, they begin to mount up and begin to fight this battle. They did what he did. They clap your hands. When I clap, we pray. When we pray, we react in the way that we react. And that's what God is calling us to do.

As believers. See, this Bible tells us that we're supposed to be in his word daily, that we should meditate on his word day and night. But Gideon gets to a place in verse 19, and I love this Gideon and the hundred men who were with them went to the outpost of the camp. They blew their trumpets and they broke the pictures that were in their hands.

The three companies blew their trumpets and shattered the pictures. They held their torches in the left hand. And the trump is in a right here and shout a saw for the Lord and for Gideon. Each Israelite took his position around the camp and the entire midnight army began to run. They cried out and they fled. When Gideon's men bloom there.

300. Trump is the lure cause the men in the whole army to turn on each other with their own swords. See, God's math does not add up at all. Gideon's praise confuse the enemy. Your praise confuse the enemy. So instead, we begin to look at this whole series about spiritual warfare. I want you to realize this. I want you to start with the end in mind.

I want you to begin to realize that we win. Go back into the Book of Revelation. You will see specifically that he tells us that if your book is not written in the Book of Life, that you are not a part of price and everyone else be put into the lake of fire because we have received Christ blood upon our lives, we win.

So if you start with that in mind, knowing that you win, you are more than conquerors. And even in our posture, when you go down to fight the enemy that you are fighting, the enemy that you carry a torch, which is the light of God in one hand, and then you carry your praise in the other. And you, even through the mist, going through the fighting, that you have to do that you're going to praise God anyhow.

Then when you are standing before your enemy, your adversary, whatever the battle that you are facing, they just know that you are praising God and yet you're still fighting versus lonely souls of this, for the Lord Himself would descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel voice and with the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then those who are still alive or left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. This is such a beautiful picture to know that we will be caught up one day with Christ Jesus. And so as we wrap up this mother's Day Sunday, I want to remind you today that you must have a posture of worship even while you are facing your adversary, even in the midst that you are camped at a place called fear that your enemies may be teaching you something, that you have victory in the valley.

And lastly, that God is calling you to a place called safety. We're safe in our masters arms. We are safe when we know that we are leaning in the Scriptures in such a way that God can do great things with broken people. So as our worship team make their way up to the stage today, I am reminded that we have to speak victory in every situation and as we speak, victory Psalms one Awake tells us this verse 13 With God we gain the victory and He will trample down our enemies.

Colossians chapter two tells us that in having disarmed the powers of the authorities, he had made public spectacle of them triumphing over them by the cross. See Christ on the cross, we gain victory even in where we are. God is calling us to do great and mighty things for Him that we have to speak victory as we fight our battles.

First, John, Chapter five verse four says this For everyone born of God overcomes this world. This is the victory that has overcome the world even through our faith. And so today I'm asking you to be faithful in the same direction that God has led you, regardless of what the results is, not what you think is going to look like.

So as we stand today, this is week two of our Spiritual Warfare series. Next week we'll be talking about the power of the Holy Spirit and what it does to us. The week after that. We'll talk about spiritual warfare through generational curses. And so that way you can fully know what you have to do to begin to have victory over those generational curses.

And so today, mothers, we want to celebrate you and all that you have done for us, that you have taught us how to remain faithful in the moments where we wanted to be faithless, that our grandmothers and our moms and our aunts has walked with us in such a way. They taught us how to become victorious. And so, moms, today, we thank you.

We salute you for doing what you only can do. So let me pray as we begin to speak, victory in those areas that you may be dealing with, just know that we win.