How To Have Victory - On Guard Wk 2

Well, we are in a new series today. This is our second week in our series that is focused on if you can't tell by the theme, our banter of our music, as it's called, spiritual warfare. So we desire to not only equip you, but teach you, walk with you as we begin to walk in battle. Last week we talked about Just be ready. Right now, many of us, as we're walking in throughout the days of our lives, that we're not ready for the battle before us. And we talked about last week that your opposition is the opportunity that got for you got to use you, that the opposition that you may face, the opposition that you may find yourself in, is an opportunity for God to use you right where you are at.

We also talked about last week that the greater the attack, that the greater the call that God has in your life. Because we just believe that you are proclaim who Christ is, that you should be having some type of an attack or some type of resistance from the enemy man. Because if you're not, then you maybe you want to check what team you're playing on. If you're covered by the blood, you should have some type of opposition from the enemy. Come on in. The time to be ready is not the time to get ready. Hey, man, you getting ready when it's raining and you don't have your umbrella? Is this. It's a tad bit too late. I got my. In the fight that you're in today.

The very fight that you're in today is developing the faith that you're going to need for tomorrow. That's what we talked about last year. So if you missed last week's message, I would encourage you to go back on our website. Just really just just pull it up and see what God can kind of just speak to you in that message. And so we are called to be on guard. We're called to be on guard to be ready, to be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding with God. A man in We've made it this far only because of God, the old saints, the big mommas in the church, big mamas back in my church, you know, it's like that grandmother, that that hallmark person who was like the cornerstone of the church.

She could correct anybody, right? Even the pastor. So, Miss Lillian? Yeah, she's definitely a cornerstone of our church. And back in the day, they used to say if it had not been come on church for the Lord on my side, I don't know where I would be right. And that's that's my testimony. If I if it had not been for the Lord to be on my side, I don't know where I would be, especially dealing with the battles or or the trials, the situations that we may face that we may find ourselves in. Right? Right. Sometimes if you're in a battle, you may you may even feel inadequate. You may feel insecure. You may even feel like, you know, am I even equipped to be or fight this battle? Have you ever been in a situation have you been in a place where you begin to question like, am I am I even, you know, the way that I feel right now?

I feel like I'm about to go down. Do I have what it takes to win? Do I have the skills necessary? Do I have the ability? Do I have the endurance and even the capacity to fight this fight? But I'm reminded that we have an enemy who's one whose primary focus is to steal and to kill and to destroy every challenge, every obstacle the enemy puts before us. Let me let me rephrase it. Because not every challenge and every obstacle the enemy puts before sometimes God places those challenges and those obstacles before us. So that way we can begin to grow in Christ. If we only knew our potential in our possible lives. If you knew your potential that God has for your possibilities are endless. And it saddens me when we see opportunities knocking at our door, we let it pass us by. And at all times when we embrace that, we don't embrace those opportunities in one place and before us. And God places those opportunities in those possibilities before. So that way we can grow in His likeliness. So what do you do when God presents you with an opportunity to go deeper, but you let it go? For many of you, I guess that's maybe here for today.

God gives the word that really kind of shapes the the fashion of our church. And so this year, God gave us the word to go deeper. And you can't go deeper without going deeper in Christ and sometimes go deeper in God. And what God wants you to do means that you will have some opposition, you may have some setbacks, you may have some things in your life where God has designed specifically for you to grow deeper. Him Yeah. So what do you do when God presents those opportunities to go deeper? But you let it go. And sometimes deeper may be in the form of a trial, sometimes deeper, maybe package in conflict, sometimes going deeper. They come with a price. They are called bankruptcy. You try and teach you how to steward how to become a steward of what God has blessed you with.

A sometime going deeper means that you have to sit right in the middle of tension. Intention is not pretty, but tension is there so that where you can kind of grow, where God wants to stretch your faith in such a way that you can know Him to go deeper, see the expectation with God creates an opportunity to grow closer to him. And we take you because I'm reminded by James chapter four verse, right, Jonathan to me and I would draw and to you. So if you draw closer to God, He would draw closer to you. We serve a God of all opportunities and we serve a God of all our possibilities. The enemy knows what God says about us, right?

He know everything that God says about us. Let me let me just remind you what Jeremiah 2911 says. He tells us that I know the plans that I have for you. Right? If you don't like Jeremiah, let me let me go to the prophet Isaiah. The prophet Isaiah says no weapons formed against me. Shell, prosper. Oh, if you don't like the prophet Isaiah or Jeremiah, let me go to Bishop Paul. Right. The apostle beside Paul. He says that for all things work together for the good that we are more than conquerors. And if God is for me, who can be against me? And who is even the enemies, the devil himself. So if God is for you, if God is on your side, who can be against you? See, the enemy knows all these things. But what he does, he takes the Word of God and he he twisted. So he twist that when he when you believe that the Lord is my rock in my forties, like, well, the Lord is your Plato and sometimes your home, he's not your fortress, he's not even your Savior. Because if he were to save you today, you won't be in the situation that you're in.

And these are the things that the enemy begin to try to play and kind of placate in your mind. If we only knew our potential and our possibilities, this book, all 66 of them, are filled with potential and possibilities. The only thing you have to do is open it up and begin to read and begin to digest and begin to take it all in. And so today we're just going to take a look at four practices, maybe actually three practices that will help you to win your battle. Can I get in here? Y'all want to know what those three those three practices are? Okay. I'm just want to make sure we're going to go to one of the most famous battles in the Bible. If you have your Bible, go to judges chapter seven. We'll be lifting up verses nine through 18 judges. Chapter seven versus nine through 18, you have to say, man All right, judges seven. Chapter nine, verses 18 says this now in a same night it came about, the Lord said to him, Arise and go down against the camp, for I've handed it over to you.

But if you are afraid to go down, go and go with your servant down to the camp so that you will hear what they are saying about you. Let me just pause right there. Did you see that the Lord God says, go down to the camp so you can hear what your enemy is saying about you sometime? The enemy may not always be saying some positive about you, but sometimes the enemy may see some things that may be to your benefit. It says this In after work you will go and have the courage to go against the camp so he went down with fear and his servant to the outpost of the army that was in the camp. Now the midnight, the malachite and the light. Yeah, miss that one. That was a generation gap right there. So the Lights was a group back in the day.

And my mama. So now the meeting nice and the black eyes and all the people of the east were lying in the valley is as numerous as the locusts and their camels were without number, as numerous as the sand on the seashore. That's a lot of people. When Guinea came, behold, a man was relating a dream to his friend and he said, Behold, I had a dream. A loaf of barley bread was tumbling into the camp of mid-year and it came to the tent and struck it so that it would fill in. It turned upside down so that the tent clap and his fray replied, This is nothing other than the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel, God has handed over to him Midian in all the camp.

Bless you. When getting heard the account of the dream and his interpretation, he bowed in worship. Then he returned to the camp of Israel, said, Arise for the Lord has handed over to you the camp of Median, and he had divided the 300 men into three units and you put trumpets and empty pictures into the hands of all of them with torches inside of the pictures. Then he said to them, Look, look at me as I do. Likewise. And behold, when I come to the outskirts of the camp, do as I do when I, when I and all of you are with me, blow the trumpet. Then you also blow the trumpets around the entire camp and say, For the Lord and for Gideon today my message is simple.

It is how to win the battle. How to win your battle. You know, one thing that I've always wonder, you know, sometimes as a as a pastor, a preacher teacher, I get tired of here like this. Don't tell me how to how to do something. I just don't tell me to put on the breastplate of righteousness to the helmet of salvation, you know, the sword of the the truth. And, you know, just. That's all fine and dandy, but give me some practical ways outside of gearing up for battle, right? Have you ever felt like that before as passages kind of just give you the scriptures? But I want to give you something a little bit more as you're booted up and suited up for with your armor of God, which is, you know, that's biblical, right?

Why don't we tell you how you can win your battle by taking some lessons from Gideon? Gideon said this in verse of Teen when you heard the account of the dream and his interpretation, he bowed in worship. Point number one You have to make an adjustment to your worship and you have to make an adjustment to your worship. See, worship is our weapon. If you go guitar to worship in this, you may not want to go to heaven. But once we get up there, 24 seven, we're going to be singing to God, worshiping him, crying. Now, holy, holy, holy, wow. And so if you're not a fan of worship, you might want to make some adjustments. I mean, see, we can't stop worship when we are at war.

We see Gideon when he encounters the media night camp, he go down to the camp, get a word, and he what I call ear hustling, eavesdropping. He's eavesdropping to these people. And he heard them talk about himself and he said that they have handed themselves over to God and they, Gideon, worship in the midst of a battle. And I want you to see that Gideon went down to the camp that he was going to go and take a battle to. And right then and there he worship. He didn't go back to his camp. The scripture says this when Gideon heard the account of the dream and his interpretation, he bowed in worship. That means he was in enemy territory. Whatever you're battling with right now, whatever you're fighting, worship, God. He didn't allow his situation to stop him from worshiping God.

He did allow the presence of his enemy to stop worship, worshiping God. Scripture tells us that He will set a table for your enemy. So God is going to set a table with you having to seat in front of your enemy. Why can't you worship him anyways? Come. All right. He did not allow the presence of thousands of enemies before him to stop him from worshiping Shadrach. Meshach, it had been to go, right? What happened? They went into the fire. Even in the presence of his enemy, even being thrown into a fire. They worship God. So many of us are paralyzed by our situation that you forgot to worship God, Gideon. Worship God before he knew how he will fight the battle. Gideon Worship God before he knew what God was going to do to fight His battle.

Gideon worship God even before He knew that the problem was going to be fixed. Good. So even before your problem gets fixed, even if it does, it will worship him anyhow, right? That's what God has called us to do, right? Think about your problem is that you may be faced with most of us worship God after he fixes the problem. God doesn't want your sloppy seconds. Play God once your first fruit. He wants our first fruits. He wants our first worship. Now he'll take your worship even know that you will worship him after the fact. But what? God wants you to grow. He wants to grow you to the point where you will worship him anyhow.

The worship is not only on our knees, but is also about prayer. We worship in song, we worship in giving, we worship in dancing, we worship in flags, we worship in fellowship, right? Gideon Worship even in the face of adversity, danger and even the unknown. Are you willing to worship God in your unknown? Whatever the unknown may be, are you willing to worship God in that space, that space of not knowing what God is going to do? I'm remember some time back policing that we were in. I was in transition of work and jobs. And, you know, we we fell on hard times and things got tight. Things got super tight. I'm talking about red beans, rice and cornbread to tie. Amen. So you know about that meal. Come on. The house. I was on a Texas beat.

Everything. That's what. And even though there was lack in our house, we still worship God. Even when I wasn't getting a paycheck every week or every two weeks. We still worship God. Even when we are not on I, we still worship God. Sometimes you got to fake it till you make it a second point. I got. We need to adjust our walk. What do you mean, Pastor Ray? We need to adjust our walk sizes. Then he returned to camp of Israel and set a rise for the Lord. Has handed over to you the camp of media. Gideon walked back into the camp indifferently. That joking got a word from the Lord. Sarah, walking with Lilly chest out like this, you know. Philip now these are like words, my son one day down would get like him getting had a revelation, getting had a revelation to know that he was walking back in a posture of victory. He went down possibly in a positive timidity, but he left coming back with a posture of victory. We have to begin to adjust our walk, our language, our talk, the people that we surround ourself with to make sure there were walking in victory.

Right. There's an individual that's here today. He's he's definitely a cornerstone of our church as well. We can call him a big mama because he's a man. But, um, Coach Brown has been, he's definitely one of our cornerstones of our, our church is one of our elders. Of our church is when I say elders, just a senior person with that wisdom in coach is just a bundle of joy. Coach, you've been dealing with cancer for quite some time, but you will never know that he's dealing with it. Coach is walking around like he still owns everything that he has a daddy that has a cat on a thousand hills that he is walking in victory day. It doesn't matter how sick he may be that he is walking towards where God has called him to June.

And that's the type of adjustment we have to make as believers. Some of us walk around with the little sniffly nose. You act like my life is about to go all over. Right. Suck it up, buttercup. Let's go. Come on. Right. If Coach is walking around with cancer and God is healing his body and he may not see the healing take place on his earth, but he know that healing is taking place at the right hand of God. Right coach is walking in victory. If he can do it, why can't I and Gideon begin to walk back to the castle with a different attitude? And I believe this. I learned this a long time ago that the spirit of the leader is a spirit of the followers. That the spirit of the leader is a spirit of the followers.

Right. If Gideon were to win back to the king, woe is me. Y'all seen all those people down here? Everybody just pack up and go home. You know what Gideon would have done his whole. His whole army. We've been packing up and leaving. Getting in there by himself. Deuces. I'm out. How do you think his followers felt when they saw Gideon walk back to the camp? There was a shift that took place. There was a morale change that took place there. They walked back in with a little bit more confidence. They begin to know that the power of one person can change the minds of millions. More importantly, the blood of one can change the livelihood of generations to come. The Lord told Gideon that he has that he has already handed over the Kim.

The Lord told me he has already won, not that He will win or that it might be done. He said that it was done even in the midst of sitting before the thousands of the army of that supportive media, knights Numbers 2319 says this God is not a man, that he would lie nor a son of man, that he would change his mind. As he said, and it will he not do it right or he has spoken and he will not make it good. Behold, I've received the command to bless and when he has bless I cannot revoke it. In other words, whatever God says is going to happen. So Gideon knew that God has said that He has handed over this entire camp that is going to be done. He didn't question it. He didn't say, God, just give me another chance. He knew that it was done. So he went back into a situation declaring victory. Your situation may not change, but your mindset should. Your situation may never change. But the way that your thought process and the way that you process it, that your mind should change even if I don't have victory here, I know that we win, even though I don't see what I want to see in this earth in the natural.

I know that in the supernatural we have already won. Right now, victory belongs to Jesus. Jesus first John. Five forces is for whoever has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome that. We have that faith. We have that faith that God has given us. My last point is this, that we have to adjust our thinking and we have to adjust our worship. We have to adjust our walk. And then lastly, we have to adjust our thinking. Why is that, Pastor? Right. Let me let me just let me break this down to your request. Verse 16 of judges says this, that Gideon had divided the 300 men into three units. He gave them trumpets and empty pictures into the heads of all of them with torches inside the pictures.

I want you to see that now. We have to trust the process that God has for us, that we have to place our trust in God and God alone, that God's promises is connected to God's process, that his promises and His process is what God wants for us. That His promises. This is connected to His process. What do you mean? Pastor Ryan? God tells Gideon to take his army of 300 men and to carry a trumpet an empty pitcher and a torch. Let me say that again. A trumpet. An empty pitcher and a torch. We're going into battle. God, there's something wrong here. You want me to carry a trumpet? I empty pitcher and a torch. God, I need a Uzi, a grenade launcher and my wife's meat loaf.

Amen. That's all I need. I need a Uzi, a grenade launcher, and my wife's meat loaf. If they don't know about my wife's meat loaf, I'm. I tell you right now, boy, made you want to slap your grandma. But the point is this I'm trying to make God is asking Gideon to go into battle with an instrument, an empty pitcher in a torch. What is it God desires to use you as an instrument, an empty vessel in the light of God. That's it. Where God wants you to go. He is calling you to be his instrument, to empty yourself, and to carry the light of hope, the life of resurrection, the hope of Jesus Christ is what God wants us to be.

Often, too many times we go into battle full of ourselves, full of the way that we're thinking, carrion, even darkness, because we're not repented. Our posture before God means everything. So God is asking us to be an instrument, to empty ourself and to carry the light of Christ, to be that hope, to give that hope. When someone asks you who Christ is to give an answer for that hope. So we have to begin to change, adjust our thinking because Isaiah 55 says this for my thoughts are not your thoughts. Normal ways are your ways. So what God wants for me, maybe not was what I'm thinking, but the way that God prescribes it may be completely different. And Gideon should have saw this coming. Gideon started with 32,000 men possibly wanting and God told giddiness, you have too many people that you're going to take into battle.

What do you mean? God, I need more than 32,000. Do you see what's before me? God says no. Because my ways are not your ways. So gotchas Gideon to make an announcement. Anybody who's fearful go home. I give you a pass. So what does God do? He cuts the army down to 10,000 people. Get it? All right, let's go. Go. We ready to go? Let's. We can fight this battle. God says no. Getting used to have too much. You still have too many people. He said this is what I want you to tell your men. Tell them to go down to the brook, the stream and whoever laps the water like a dog to take them. Those who take a cup God cuts down his army to 300 people get you know that was a setup.

God's plans for you and I is atypical we're called to be atypical because we've been made new, because the breath of God, the imago day, the image of God is in you. Now I'm here to remind you today that God wants to to gesture worship, to adjust your walk and adjust your thinking as our worship team comes, we're going to close out with two songs.

This first song is called Stones and it comes from Scripture. Scripture tells us that we should not allow the rocks cry out for us. In other words, that we should not allow the rocks to worship for us. The God is giving you the breath of God that He is giving you the life that you have and that you should worship with your lips. And I love how this song goes. It says this You may find me in a valley Standing with my hands held high The valley would never take my soul Come on, church And what this song is saying, that I will not allow the valley to take my worship. I will not allow my circumstances to take my worship.

Because truth be told, we are all dealing in faces of the other, coming out, going in, or leaving a battle. No matter where you are in this cycle, be ready that I'm holding on to you for life. The desert would never take my soul. It says, I will praise you, I will praise you. I will not allow the stones to cry out. So church today, Isaiah one hit you with the three point Baptist sermon. Real quick and easy. Just to remind you today that God is calling us to just our worship. And worship is the postures, the position of posture. Right. It's how you position yourself before Christ that we should adjust our walk. If you don't know already today, know what God has for, you know the opportunities and possibilities that God wants for you.

So after adjusting our worship, adjusting our walk and adjusting our thinking, God has called us to be victorious. So Church let us stand. I want you guys, ladies and guys to sing this loud, sing proud. And then we're going to close with another song. This is how I Fight My Battles, because I just want to remind you that you don't have no fight in you. I need you to square up, get ready, get a little lean or bouncing your step and get ready to be steadfast and unmovable. So you're ready to fight the battles that God has for you, because those battles are prescribed to grow you closer, to grow you deeper in Christ. And this is the last thing if you don't know who crisis in your life, if you have an image of who you think he may be, your life.

I encourage you just to come before the altar today. Our deacons, our elders, our pastors are here to pray with you today. If you want to rededicate your life to God, maybe you have drifted away. You said, God, you know what? I want to give you my life back because you would give me your life. You lay down your life for me. This is an opportunity just to be reminded today that God loves you right where you're at, even in your mess. He loves you anyhow. He loves you anyhow. Worshiping God.