FEB 24 2019 | The Crown: David as King S1E6 | Faith & Victory

Sea Change Church · The Crown: David as King · "Faith & Victory" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · February 24, 2019
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Thank you, my son. He always saves mom. It's about time. This is from 2 Samuel, chapter 5, verses 17 through 25. When the Philistines heard that David had been anointed king over Israel, they went up in full force to search for him. But David heard about it and went down to the stronghold. Now the Philistines had come and spread out in the valley of Rephim. So David inquired of the Lord, Shall I go and attack the Philistines?

Will you deliver them into my hands? The Lord answered him, Go, for I will surely deliver the Philistines into your hands. So David went to Baal for Azim, and there he defeated them. He said, As waters break out, the Lord has broken out against my enemies before me. So that place was called Baal for Azim. The Philistines abandoned their idols there, and David and his men carried them off. Once more, the Philistines came up and spread out in the valley of Rephim.

So David inquired of the Lord, and he answered, Do not go straight up, but circle around behind them and attack them in front of the poplar trees. As soon as you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the poplar trees, move quickly, because that will mean the Lord has gone out in front of you to strike the Philistine army. So David did, as the Lord commanded him, and he struck down the Philistines all the way from Gibeon to Gezer.

Praise the Lord, the Word of God. Thanks, Mom. She likes her Bible. She always liked her Bible. So, I've been in this line of work, if you would call it, for, I don't know, 25 years or so. And what I have learned after being and doing this for a long time is that I very rarely meet people who want to be truly free. I mean, let me rephrase that. I meet a lot of people that want a modicum of freedom, and they don't want to be told what to do, but they're willing to be in bondage to certain things in their life.

Let's say it's an addiction. Let's say it's a relationship. Because of the benefits that that slave master affords them. And the scripture says that it is for freedom that you've been set free. And so often, instead of being truly free, we choose to become slaves. Now, Rousseau, the French philosopher, who I've been reading a lot of French philosophers lately, especially Enlightenment era, to kind of see how that plays into our own theology and the different times of our days that we live in.

Rousseau says on your notes, and I don't want to butcher this quote, but it says, man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains. And I would say that that is true, that there is a fair amount of slavery. And I don't want to talk about slavery that is put upon people, although in Rousseau's social contract, he does talk about slavery. And he makes an argument that slavery is a choice, which is really an interesting concept, that you could choose death.

And I don't want to get into that whole idea because it's an interesting thought. But I will say this and take it to a different level, that spiritual slavery is definitely a choice. That if you are going to be in spiritual slavery, whether it be to, you know, an addiction to anger, you can be addicted to the rush of anger, or you can be, you know, addicted to a chemical substance, or you can be addicted to having to fill a need for loneliness with relationships that you know are broke.

I will again say that I have met very few people who are not willing to be in some form of slavery because of what it affords them. And so we choose our slavery because of what we get from it. That's an interesting concept. And you have to ask yourself the question of the things that have overtaken your life, the different thoughts or loves or things. Are you, what are you a slave to, if anything? Now, David was not willing to be a slave to any man save God.

We do know that he had some, we'll talk later in the next time we come around on this series, we're going to take a little bit of a break after next week and we're going to come back and look at David and some of his addictions he had. He had some issues with women, obviously, even at the end of his life when he's an old man, his advisors know that, you know, where David was. And so in order to keep him warm, they went and found a young virgin who he didn't have any, you know, sexual relationships, relationship with.

But they definitely knew that that's how David rolled. That David obviously had an issue with women for most of his life and he never overcame that even until the end of his days. But David was not willing to be a slave of any man or any group that would come against him. And he created a, he really, not more than a plan, David had a lifestyle of victory. And this is interesting because you can create lifestyles of bondage and you can create a lifestyle of victory.

victory. And one of the things that you'll see in your notes here in a moment that we underestimate is the ability for victory to become overwhelming. And if you know one thing about victory is when a enemy is on their heels, whether it be the Germans in World War II, you know, whatever you look at, just, you know, modern victories and warfare, one of the things you'll learn is once the enemy starts retreating, one of the best things that you can do is continue to take ground and actually vanquish the enemy.

Very few wars have been won because you stopped pursuing the enemy. But in our own spiritual life, and let me just use myself because I like using myself as a, the model probably, of a person who has oftentimes been willing to be satisfied or sated with one victory. You get one little victory and you get your head above water again and you feel pretty good and then all of a sudden you go back to your old habits, whether it be your spending habits, whether it be relationally in your marriage, you have these different things where all of a sudden you feel like you're underwater and you get one victory and then you become satisfied.

And one of the things we know about victory is once you take a victory, the next victory is easier to take. The next victory, and as the enemy begins to stumble, it begins to open up many doors of victory and I feel that so many times, once again in my own life, there have been times where I've had a major victory where then God says, because of this victory and you taking this stronghold, and you just study any war, you've taken this stronghold and because you've taken it, now you can take the rest of that countryside.

You can take the rest of this country and you can put the things that subjected you into your own subjection where all of a sudden the things that were your master, you become master over. I know when I got sober 30 years ago, it was on September 9th, it'll be 30 years, and when I got sober, getting sober opened up a lot more victories for me. The reason I believe that I have the marriage and the family that I have now is because of that one victory.

And that victory afforded me other victories. And one of the things that I have found is that once I have, I want to press in, that there was a lot more open ground. And so one of the questions is that I would ask is, you know, when was the last victory you had and what did you do after the victory? I had this incredible habit in my early days of Christianity of celebrating a victory with sin. Oh, so you know what I'm talking about, right?

Is that just me? Woo! God's so good! Let's drink! Or whatever. I was sober, but... Satan knows this. I wonder how many times you've had him on the ropes and Satan's like, you know, because once again, if he can't steal from you, he'll give to you, right? In order to make you a slave again to the thing he's giving you. I wonder how many times we've been this close to a massive, multiple decades of victory in a certain area, but we just didn't take it.

I wonder. Where the armies of heaven are waiting to rush into the popular trees, but we've decided to not inquire of God, not to stay in the stronghold. And the reason David had this second attempt to attack the Philistines is because he inquired, as we'll see, in this culture of victory in his life to inquire of the Lord to take the next victory. I encourage you to continue to take the next victory and to look at it.

We're going to look at this culture in his life. David's run of victories came after... Okay, so what we're moving into now, and hopefully you're reading with me, is in 2 Samuel, after this victory, David has a run of victories where he actually clears out a huge portion of this land. And by the time his son is born, Solomon moves into 40 years of peace. Completely 40 years of peace. Now this is interesting because I want you to read with me and read through these different victories.

You'll see that David got the enemy on the ropes and opened up decades of peace. I think so often the enemy has convinced many of us that long periods of peace and not financial prosperity, maybe that's it, but peace and prosperity are not available to you in long seasons. That it's always going to be a struggle from one thing to the next, one thing to the next, but there hasn't, there will never be an extended season in your life where you just live in victory.

I want to say, I think one of the reasons that happens is because we get, we settle for one victory. And once we have a victory, we either stop or we regress. Because living in victory means subjecting yourself to a mortification of your flesh often. And that you have to give up the benefits you get from being in a dance with the thing that oppresses you. And if you are, I'm reading right now the history of the fall of the dynasties of China and how it moved from, then it went under oppression and then after that became the People's Republic of China.

And they say that the number one reason that China fell, according to the book that I'm reading, was the opium trade. That they became so addicted that it ruined their entire society. As a matter of fact, Britain knew this and Britain was supplying the opium from India because they over, they ruled India and so they began, one of the ways to conquer the nation was just to keep giving a drug trade. And then, the richest country in silver in the world, and we won't go too deep into this, but it's really interesting, the richest country in the world, one of the richest countries, if not the richest, was China.

And the government was on a silver system. Well, the British said, well, we can suck all the silver out of China if we only accept silver for opium. And so, they began to only accept silver and all of a sudden, before they know it, there was no silver left in the country. And then, instead of taking 100 pieces of copper, because they had two metals that they traded with, to buy a piece of silver, it went up to 1,650.

Collapsed the economy, because they were slaves to opium. Very interesting, that entire, before this, before the opium trade, they had dynasties that would last like 400 years. You know, there's only like five nations in the world right now that have the same political system, America being one of them, that's over 200 years old. But they had dynastic systems that would go forever. They became a slave, and that was the interesting thing, and not to go much more into your history, but finding that they became a slave to this, and for the benefits that it gave them.

And we all, oftentimes, dance with the thing that enslaves us. Moving on, it says, David was not willing to be a slave of anyone other than God. David was not willing to be a slave of anyone other than God. Dave was not willing to be a slave of anyone other than God. And here's a biblical truth. And this is, I mean, I would circle the word peace here. Because so few of us actually live in peace. You might have quiet, but there's a difference between peace and quiet.

And let me read this. You will never have peace without victory. Let me say that again. You will never have peace without victory. You might have quiet, but you will never have peace because victory is the thing that brings peace in your life. And if you don't have peace in your life, it could possibly mean that you have not worked hard enough to go for victory. Because victory is the thing that brings peace to a land.

And this is what we see with David. David was willing to fight every giant that he came into his life and vanquish the foe. Go down in your notes a little bit. From observations from life. Few are willing to totally vanquish a foe. And maybe that's you. But I don't know about you, but I have always found that I want just enough freedom so I can still enjoy myself. David was not willing to let a foe survive. He did whatever it took to vanquish the foe in his life.

And I have to say, myself included, that I meet very few believers. Let's just talk about believers. Let's talk about the church. I meet very few believers that are willing to give up unwilling, excuse me, that are willing to give up the benefits of sin for the cost of complete freedom. We want just enough freedom where we think we're the master, but you are never the master of a force greater than yourself. And without Christ, if you are submitting to sin, trust me, sin leads to death and you can't beat it.

Sin leads to death and you can't beat it. The question is, are you willing to do whatever it takes to vanquish the foe? When I got sober after 30 years, I knew, excuse me, 30 years ago, I knew that I had to stop hanging out with the people I was hanging out with. And I was new at Point Loma Nazarene and I was in the Christian bubble. Thank God for the bubble. Somebody said to me, well, aren't you living in a Christian bubble out there?

Yes, thank God I was in the Christian bubble because I was going to be in the non-Christian coffin. Had already had a heart attack, had a congestive heart failure, had already OD'd multiple times. I needed the Christian bubble. Somebody said to me, you know, and I called my best friends. I said, we're not hanging out anymore. And I know I've told this story multiple times, but it's a good story. So I'm going to keep telling it.

I called my buddy, Tori, and I said, Tori, dude, I'm not going to Mexico this weekend. Yeah, you'll be there. I'll see you on Friday. I said, dude, I'm getting sober, dude. I'm out. I'm tapping out. Called my other friend, Nick, my two best friends, who I ended up doing both of their weddings when I became a pastor multiple years later and they're now married and following God and it's awesome. But yeah, it's cool. That's how God redeems stuff.

You know, I never knew in that phone call I'd be doing their weddings. Which is pretty cool. That's victory, right? That's when you like take a lot of victory. And somebody said, you know, well, you're just going to leave all your other non-Christian friends out to the wolves. Yes, I am. Because I can't hang out with them no more. And I got all these really nerdy Christian friends and I mean, actually life was pretty good.

I just surfed and do whatever it takes. Do you want to do whatever it takes? I, you know, I said in the last sermon, some of you probably need to go to rehab. Go. Go. Do whatever it takes. Some of you need to call, you know, on your burn phone to the chick that's on the side and say, we're done. Or the dude, like done. Like end it. Cut off the enemy's head. Or do you want to? Because I got to tell you what, the fall is coming.

And I'm just tired of going to funerals where people lie at the funeral. Like they go, oh, that was amazing. And you didn't know it wasn't amazing. Cheated on his wife, didn't hang out with his kids because he wasn't willing to have victory. I'm tired of going to funerals like that. And I'm sitting there thinking, that's not true. That's not true. Maybe you've been to that. Is that going to be you? Or one day, you know, we're all going to die.

Are the stuff that they say at your funeral going to be true? Because you were willing to take a stand. I even looked at, you know, I was talking to Kimberly who runs our women's morning and evening study doing a great job with it. I'm hearing amazing things, Kimberly. And I love what she said the other day. She goes, you know, I just, I feel like I'm in a season where I don't want anything between me and God. He doesn't want anything between me and him.

Nothing. And I thought, that was such a good word. And I just began to take a little inventory because there is enough things. Like if you could take an inventory of the things that are between you and God, then it's too much. But it's going to cost you because slavery isn't free. And you're not going to have peace without a fight. Let's look at the culture of David's life. Final thing I'll say on those notes before we turn the page is, when you make a truce with your enemy, you risk becoming their slave.

When you make a truce with your enemy, you risk becoming their slave. And I will say, I didn't read the verse yet, but 2 Samuel 7, 1, after the king was settled in his palace, the Lord had given him rest from all sides and his enemies around him. And David has this huge season of peace where he's fighting enemies. You know when David fell again? When he stopped fighting enemies. Because it says that there comes a season.

He hadn't cleared the whole land out yet. And his son Solomon had a land cleared out of enemies. But it says David didn't go, all the kings go to war to fight. And there were still fights to be had. But it said David stayed home. And he met this woman named Bathsheba. Because he stayed home and stopped fighting. And he broke the culture of victory. Do you have a culture of victory in your life? Or do you have a culture of slavery?

Just admit it. I mean, a lot of us were lying to ourselves. Just look yourself in the mirror and say, I love my sin. Look in the mirror. Go stand. This is a practical step. I do this myself. Look in the mirror and look at myself and say, I love it. God, I love sin. Love it. And I don't want, I've done this about five years ago. I was like, I don't want to change this or whatever. And you're going to have to get me to a place that I want to change it.

But just be honest with yourself. You know anyways and so does God. Problem is, when you lie to yourself so much, you believe the lie. I got to say, being able to look in the mirror and tell yourself, I'm a sinner, I'm a mess, I love my sin and God, I don't know what to do about it and I need some change. That is a spiritual weapon. When you get to the point where you no longer have any idea what you're doing anymore, then you're a mess.

You don't want to get to that point. Threefold plan of victory that you can easily emulate in the life of David. First is this, David knew where to go. David knew where to go when the chips were down, when he was being attacked. Two, David knew whom to consult and who would ultimately win the battle for him. He believed that God would win the battle. And the third one, which I think is a really interesting point we'll get to, is David never abandoned faith.

I'm going to go through the first two points quickly and then get to this idea of faith. I love that David knew where to go. As we learned in the Fugitive series, whenever David was on the run, he would go find a place that made him stronger when he went. Let me say, your spiritual life has a lot to do with your geographical life. When I told my friends, I'm not going to Mexico anymore on Friday night, I got a lot more sober.

I got sober because I wasn't willing to go there anymore. I began to go places that made me stronger. Your spiritual life, whether it even be on your remote control, is a geographical territory in your life. What you listen to on your radio, what comes out of your mouth, where you actually physically go, the friends that you hang out with, they will oftentimes, and those places you go, dictate whether you live in victory or whether you live in bondage.

And so the places that you go, David would go to a stronghold. A stronghold was a place where 10 men could fight like 100, where 100 men could fight like 1,000, where 1,000 could fight like 10,000, and 10,000 could fight like 100,000. It was a place where there was victory, where you would have to go. And I know CP and others that are in the military here and have been in war understand the importance of having a strategic stronghold where all of a sudden you become mightier.

I talked about Eddie's group, Healthy Fridays. If you are an addict or if you're lonely or whatever it is, he is just one group at this church that you can attach yourself to. Where on a Friday night, I can imagine before I was married in my mid to late 20s, Friday night, I was like, man, we didn't have Netflix back then. I did have Sega, Ken Griffey Baseball Jr. And I did. The Lord told me to take a year off of dating.

So I took a year off of dating. Ended up being two years and I would just stay at home at night by myself. Man, the phone started ringing. My little flip phone would ring. No girl ever called me. And then all of a sudden, as soon as I tell the enemy I'm not going out, I become Brad Pitt. You know, what happened? What happened? I went to Panikin' one day. Like, chicks never talk to me, you know? I went to Panikin' and there was this really cute little girl.

She was 5'1", or 4'11", or something like, real tiny. But she was a hand-and-face model for Budweiser. And she said to me, whatever, I mean, with the beer, I don't know. But she goes, I'm there and I order my things. She goes, oh, what's your name? I met her. And she goes, hey, you know, you want to come to my house tonight and watch some movies? And I'm thinking, yes! Absolutely! Come this afternoon if you want! I'm like, I'm a youth pastor at this time.

I'm like, no! Went home and played Ken Griffey baseball. Goodness gracious. Dated one, I finally, God broke that habit of dating people I shouldn't date. I dated one guy I had a great spiritual relationship. Held hands is the most we ever did. Never kissed or anything. We dated for four months. She actually came to the wedding. By the way, if you do your relationships right, if you break up with somebody, they can actually come to your wedding and enjoy themselves.

Like, I found that out, you know? The next guy I met was my wife. And I felt like that was just something, and it had to do with decisions, it had to do with geography, and going to places that are stronger. So back to this idea, I remember on those Friday nights, I'd be like, you know, there was nowhere to go, and I was white-knuckling it, you know what I mean? Like, I was lonely, you know? White-knuckling it. Having something like Healthy Fridays, or having one of the small groups, or a ski trip, or calling, you know, Cam over there and saying, let's go hang out, or finding that group of people, that's a stronghold.

Geographically, if you want to be spiritually strong, develop strongholds in your life. Find people. People are a stronghold. God is a stronghold. Find the right people, and do the right things. You know, the problem is, is when we start getting lonely, we trigger out, and we start calling the wrong people, looking for the wrong solutions. Heard something this week, that if you're doing the same thing six months from now that you're doing now, you're going to be in the same place.

If you're doing the same things 15 years from now that you're doing now, you're going to be in the same place. You will never progress. Find a stronghold. This church is full of strongholds. We are providing them. Whether it be the Jolises group in Encinitas that are there, find a group of strongholds. The Joshua Project group, the worship ministry, all these are strongholds. Find yourself and make yourself exponentially stronger.

Because I know that when I did do that, I would leave those groups and have multiple days sometimes of peace and freedom from going that other direction. Never found out what happened to the Budweiser model. She moved on. No dates. I don't think 411 would have worked. No. Tiny. I do remember those details. Yeah, I know. It was a lonely time. I didn't have much else in my life. She said, I'm surprised you remember all those details.

Oh, I'm a sinner. Yeah. Number two. David knew, I'm just going to move on. David knew whom to consult and who would ultimately win the victory. Will you edit that and check that for me? I think I got the whom's and the who right. I've always struggled with that. David knew whom to consult. Yeah. And who would ultimately win the victory or the battle. Verse 20. So David inquired of the Lord. Circle inquired. So David inquired of the Lord.

Shall I go attack the Philistines? Will you deliver them into my hands? The Lord answered him. Go, for I surely will deliver the Philistines into your hands. What is interesting is David had already defeated the enemy once and instead of just defeating them again and assuming that he was going to get the victory, he inquires again of the Lord. Inquiry. Inquisition is one of the most spiritual, strong spiritual weapons that you can have.

Inquiring of the Lord will bring victory in your life. And inquiry of the Lord means you are just making part of the culture of your life doing what David said. Shall I? There's another scripture down here where he says shall I do this. If you just write shall I in your wallet or up on your screensaver or on your refrigerator to regularly be inquiring of the Lord. Here's the lie the enemy wants to give you. That if God doesn't regularly show up in a theophany with three angels and a host of glory behind him that says, yes, yes, you must go left and then go order a cheeseburger and an In-N-Out burger but don't get the double-double.

Just make the plain cheeseburger, okay, with just cheese, no onion. He's not going to oftentimes answer like that but what he will do is begin to enter into the peace because you asked him. Inquiry is a weapon of faith and what I have often done is once I inquire I bookend inquiry with God's word. This is a great tool. It's so easy and it can do with anything important. I'm not asking you to become neurotic. Like, God, when I go out here should I go left or should I not have the salmon?

You know, I'm asking that you just say, God, with this relationship what do you want me to do? With this job do you want me to leave this job? With inquiring of the Lord and then bookend it with reading the scripture. One of the best ways to hear from God. Recently I was, I had some meetings that were coming up and I didn't quite know what to do and so I said to the Lord, I sat and I said, Lord, I don't know what to do.

Would you show me how to conduct myself in this meeting? And then I started reading the word and the word in the scripture that kept coming up was discretion. I thought that's a key word. That has not been a component of my life the whole life. So I don't know about you. Maybe you're great with discretion. But discretion is a key word. It's powerful. You can be so discreet that you know you're actually non-transparent and people don't like that.

But a modicum of discretion is key. And so I kept thinking about that and I went into the meeting and there was a couple times where I would have said something. Because I like to keep it real. And I think some people appreciate that. You know what I mean? They're just like, you know where you stand. Pretty much know where you stand. There's probably not, with me, there's not a lot of hidden. I'll tell you. And I've kind of just found that people appreciate that.

And then we can work it out if there's an issue. And I was in the meeting and twice in the meeting I thought to myself, I was going to say something and I thought, discretion. And after the meeting I thought to myself, just because it's right doesn't mean that that person at that season can handle what you need to tell them. And what was so interesting is the word discretion came up 20 more times over the last two or three weeks.

And there's been at least 20. I'm just, you know, hyperbolically. There's probably 20 times where I've gone to do something or say something or post something, whatever it is. And all of a sudden that word came. And it was so interesting that that one inquiry followed up by the word of God and then actually using it because discretion's hard. And one of the things people like to do, they like to come to the pastor and talk about somebody to get your take on it.

I don't know if you know that. People like to do that. So they'll come and they'll kind of like lay out a little bit of bait for you, you know, and then they kind of want to know where you stand with this person as well. So that's a regular pastoral thing. I don't know if you're ever aware of that. And so one of the things that is really a great answer is go, wow, well, I'll just take that under consideration. Thank you so much.

Yeah, let me think through that or, you know, or whatever. What I have found is multiple times after that, I had, I felt victories in conversations and not victories isn't the right word. I just felt like I had peace come because of that. What I'm saying is inquiring of the Lord, asking of him, having one victory where you didn't say or you didn't have that drink will lead to multiple victories. When was the last time you had a victory?

And when you had that victory, were you able to, to parlay that victory into taking an entire land in your life? When I look at when I got sober, some of you, if you got sober, there is a, an entire land that you can have. The question is, do you want it? So David here had an inquiry of the Lord. He knew where to go to the stronghold we talked about. David knew whom to consult. Inquiry is a powerful tool of victory. Shall I go?

I encourage you, go home, make a list of shall I's and just ask God and see what happens. I find that when I ask God, I start getting coincidences, coincidences in my life. All of a sudden, the movie I'm watching goes along with the book that I'm reading, goes along with the scripture I read, goes along with the conversation I had with Dave, goes along with this. And then all of a sudden, I just get overwhelmed that the decision seems so obvious to me to not make that decision seems like it would be disobedience.

I just get overwhelmed as God begins to speak to me. Make a list of shall I's. It's one of the easiest ways to move in your Christian life. And you know, and then just watch, then just keep your eyes open. And the final thing is this. David never abandoned faith. This is so weird, right? Because God would always do these different type of victories with David. It was never the same. The first one, he's like, go out into the plains.

Go take him out. And David goes out there and he does what he does best and chops him down. He's like, yeah. And then next time, God's like, no, no, no, no, no. Wait, wait, wait, wait. You're going to go around the backside of these poplar trees and then you're going to hear this wind and it's going to sound like the marching. And then at that point, go quickly. Don't go, don't go slow. Go quickly. And it's like, are you serious?

And then there's like another time where he's like, bring the Ark of the Covenant out and like, it's always different. I'm like, God, why do you do that? I was actually inquired and I felt like God gave me the answer. I said, God, why do you do that? Why don't you just tell him to go into battle? And I realized that you can never have ultimate victory in your life. And you can look in the notes there and circle the word ultimate.

You will never have ultimate. That means where every loose end that you are unaware of is actually tied up. Ultimate victory. In your flesh, you can have partial victories. But if God is in the peace, he can give you victory in areas and things that you don't even know or see. And so you can never have ultimate victory unless God is in the decision making or in the victory or in the, that you were trying to win. Let me just read through this.

I just want to read from the page. I made some pretty long little paragraphs, but I think they're important. God can't let you ultimately win a battle without faith. If you can ultimately win a battle, without faith, you don't need God. If God could let you ultimately win a battle without him, it would prove that you don't need God. God cannot allow that. Not only can he not allow it, it is impossible because it would go against God's character.

Because if you can do it on your own, it means that you could also have gotten righteousness through the law, which is a work of your flesh. The Bible goes on to say in Galatians, now look at this, I know it's theological. It says, thus God would be made a liar. This is why every spiritual victory in your life will have a moment of uncertainty. A study of scripture, as you'll see in the notes, will show you why this is.

If we cannot win the ultimate battle of complete righteousness before God. Okay? So stick with me here. The ultimate battle that we're all fighting is we want eternal life, we want righteousness before God. There is no way to do that on your own. No matter how good you are, you can be Mother Teresa, you can be whoever you want, you will never reach that without faith in Jesus. Thus, the greatest victory has to be won through faith.

Meaning, every other victory in your life, whether it be overcoming your addiction to food, has to be modeled upon the original victory. Or else it would prove that you can do it on your own. Which would disprove the fact that you could become righteous on your own. Does that make sense? Now, Paul says this in Galatians. And this is really, I know this is interesting. You're probably going to have to go home and chew on this.

But in Galatians 2, 21, he says, I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness could be gained through the law, which means through the flesh, through your works, then Christ died for nothing. The reason I tell you this is because if you were going to have an ultimate victory in your life, there will come a moment, whether it be in your marriage, whether it be in your relationship with your kid, whether it be with your addiction, whatever it is, there will be a moment where you don't know how this is going to pencil out.

And when you're in that place, it's where you're supposed to be. And the lie is that you should have figured it out. You should have known it. You can do it on your own. And you should be terrified. When you get to that place where you don't know how it's going to work, you are employing faith and actually moving in to the archetype of the ultimate faith battle that was won for your salvation. Because the ultimate faith battle requires faith.

And so every time you win an ultimate spiritual victory, because you can have partial spiritual victories, your wife can move back into the house after you've been separated, but you can still have a horrible marriage. She's under the roof. We have a victory. She's there. I'm not embarrassed with my friends anymore or whatever the thing is, but you have a horrible relationship. But if you're going to have an ultimate victory, then you're going to have to have moments where you don't know how this is going to work out, where God can begin to take you to that next level.

Because he will give you victories that are beyond your flesh. And so every victory, let me just tell you, every victory, I want to make you comfortable with the unknown. Comfortable with that scene from the last crusade of, maybe you've seen that, with Raiders of the Lost Ark, the last crusade. Remember where the guy comes at the end, the knight, and he has to like jump, or Indiana Jones has to jump across the void to get to the other side, and all of a sudden the bridge appears once he takes the step off of it.

There will always be that moment of your life. And to be comfortable with the unknown, the wind and the popular trees. And so the whole reason I tell you this point, if you're in a place right now and you don't know how victory is going to come, you're in despair, you're worried, that there is a plan of victory that God wants you to have. One, put yourself in a stronghold. Two, inquire of the Lord. And three, become comfortable waiting for the peace of God.

And I gotta say, when the movement of God comes, you will know and move quickly. That's how victory begins to happen, and it's how a culture of victory begins in our life. Amen?