When God Fights For You - Part 4
080416w When God Fights For You
Tim Franklin
II Chron 20:17
Introduction:
· We are in a new series on Wednesday nights—When God Fights for You. Tonights is part 4.
· I want to begin to position us for the upcoming children’s conference as we begin praying into it and our future.
· I want to also equip you to fight your own personal battles. We are all involved in the big picture but I think we forget as believes following the main directive that we have our personal hand to hand battles getting to the thing the Commander in Chief calls the objective.
· The battles I like the best are the ones that the Lord is fighting for me!
· In II Chron 20:15 Jahaziel prophesies “Do not be afraid nor dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours but God’s.” vs. 17, “You will not need to fight in this battle.”
· Jahaziel gives us three things we must do to see the Lord fight for us.—Postion Yourselves, Stand Firm, Believe!
· We began with three directives: Position yourself, stand firm and believe. Lets go deeper.
· Believe and Be Established
1. Now the Hard Part
a. Three Key Parts for letting God fight for us. And they get consecutively harder.
b. Position Yourself—That always sounds so easy. Ie. Football practice. Having to stop running back from coming through your spot. He is running you are standing still.
c. Stand Firm— This is your conviction. Now when you say this after you say position yourself, the threat level goes up. The stress level goes up, and the fear factor begins to increase. Ie. The commander says: This is your position! Hold this spot at all costs. At all costs. At all costs. It begins to resonate in your head. At all costs!
d. Believe –If you can do this last one after doing the other two the battle is over. It is not yours, it is now God’s.
i. Joshua and I hiking the Appalachian Trail. My knees were hurting really bad. We came over a hill and saw a herd of cattle standing on our trail. At the same time we met some Chiropractic students on a hike. They told us that the farmer said the bull was mean and that they needed to go around. My knees hurt so I did not want to. I told Josh: 1. Position Yourself with me between the bull and you. 2. Be absolutely quiet/ no noises and no talking. 3. Trust me. “Dad, I have red shorts on!”
2. What so hard about Faith?
a. It requires us to jump where we cannot see. “The African impala can jump to a height of over 10 feet and cover a distance of greater than 30 feet. Yet these magnificent creatures can be kept in an enclosure in any zoo with a 3-foot wall. Why? The animals will not jump if they cannot see where their feet will fall. Faith is the ability to trust what we cannot see, and with faith we are freed from the flimsy enclosures of life that only fear allows to entrap us.
b. What is faith?
i. Hebrew word for believe is: aman from which we get our word Amen. It is what we hear Jesus saying quite often is scripture. “So be it” “It is so”
ii. At the heart of the meaning of the root is the idea of certainty. And this is borne out by the NT definition of faith found in Heb 11:1. Heb 11:1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. NIV I like verse two from the Message Bible: Heb 11:2 The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd. If you are going to rise above the crowd you have to act in faith.
1. The basic root idea is firmness or certainty. It expresses the basic concept of support and is used in the sense of the strong arms of the parent supporting the helpless infant. The verbal idea expressed continued existence.
2. In the Hiphil (causative), it basically means "to cause to be certain, sure" or "to be certain about," "to be assured." In this sense the word in the Hiphil conjugation is the biblical word for "to believe" and shows that biblical faith is an assurance, a certainty, in contrast with modern concepts of faith as something possible, hopefully true, but not certain. (from Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Copyright © 1980 by The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago. All rights reserved. Used by permission.)
c. What does it mean to be established?
i. The word for ‘to be established’ is the same word for believe—Hebrew-aman. But in the tense form it is used in it means: one who is established.
ii. Following from this we find the word in the passive Qal participle used with a passive meaning "one who is established" or "one who is confirmed," i.e. "faithful one" (from Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Copyright © 1980 by The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago. All rights reserved. Used by permission.)
d. Note the correlation between believing and being established. You can’t be established without the believing. Peter walking on water then looking at the waves.
e. How do I know if I am in faith?
i. Perfect Peace--Isa 26:3 “You will keep him in perfect peace,Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You.” NKJV
f. So what is so hard about faith? If you don’t have it you won’t get established.
i. Isaiah to Ahaz--Isa 7:9 If you will not believe, Surely you shall not be established."' NKJV If you don’t take a stand in faith you wont have a leg to stand on. Message
ii. One interesting illustration of the relationship between "belief" and "being established" i.e. without faith he has no stability. (from Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Copyright © 1980 by The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago. All rights reserved. Used by permission.)
3. It’s Not So Hard
a. In April 1988 the evening news reported on a photographer who was a skydiver. He had jumped from a plane along with numerous other skydivers and filmed the group as they fell and opened their parachutes. On the film shown on the telecast, as the final skydiver opened his chute, the picture went berserk. The announcer reported that the cameraman had fallen to his death, having jumped out of the plane without his parachute. It wasn't until he reached for the absent ripcord that he realized he was freefalling without a parachute. Until that point, the jump probably seemed exciting and fun. But tragically, he had acted with thoughtless haste and deadly foolishness. Nothing could save him, for his faith was in a parachute never buckled on. Faith in anything but an all-sufficient God can be just as tragic spiritually. Only with faith in Jesus Christ dare we step into the dangerous excitement of life. Unknown.
i. Faith is hard because when we need it we find we have not bucked on the promises/truth.
ii. We can move with zeal. We can watch all the other jumpers and even jump with them. But if we have not prepared to jump prepare for a sudden stop.
b. Rom 10:17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. NKJV
i. You have to listen to God.
1. Mt of Transfiguration. Matt 17:5 "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!" NKJV
ii. You have to trust he knows what He is doing.
iii. John 6:63 …my words are Spirit and they are life.
c. You have to cultivate your faith. The Bible speaks of little faith, a measure of faith, great faith.
i. Mk 4 the parable of the sower is all about growing your faith.
ii. It is about overcoming:
1. Drought-when you don’t feel God
2. Temptations—when other things begin to replace God in your life
3. and letting the Word slip away-when the Word looses value to us.
d. By living a life that simply obeys God, and doing this on a consistent basis your faith will grow because you are learning His voice.
e. Remember He wants to be famous in our lives! He can only be famous when live life on the edge.
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