How to Win: Winners say what?

Joshua comes across an armed man and asks him "Are you for us or against us?"  He is then told by the man, "No.  I am the commander of the Lord's Army and I have come."  He is then told to take off his sandals because he is on Holy Ground.

I find this to be a very interesting interaction because Joshua expected a certain answer.  Either, "I am for you" or "I am against you."  It was not a yes/no question.  The answer, "No."

The issue that Joshua dealt with that day is one we must deal with every day if we are going to live victorious in life as followers of Jesus Christ.  It is the issue of having the right question for wrong person.  It is not yours to ask God, "Are you for me or against me?"  It is God's to ask you, "Are you for me or against me?"

I know Scripture teaches us "If God is for us then who can be against us."  The problem is that we assume that if in every decision we make.  Is God for your decision to sin against him?  No.  He is not in your divorce decision because your spouse is a difficult person.  He is not for that because he told you He is not for that in His Word.  No he is not for your plan to get rich by tithing to the church that says you will get rich by tithing to that church.  "The Son of Man had no place to lay his head."  He said come follow him.

Winners quit expecting exact blessings and accept the ones extended to them.

Joshua did not get the blessing he wanted.  Yes, I am here for you.  He got the blessing of, "I am here."
(I failed to blog on the previous week's message about the crossing of Jordan River, but the priests had to step into the flooding waters before God did anything.)  The truth is that God is often telling us, "No, this is not all going away.  But neither am I."  Yet, we want a different blessing.  An exact one.  A life of our choosing...not His.  Yet we still confess him Lord, while all the while lording over his lordship.

Winners quit seeking the victory and seek the Victor.

Jesus won.  Walk with him and win.

How to Win: The Price of Success

In the beginning of Joshua 5, we learn that the people that live in the land the Israelites have just entered are in great fear of them because God parted the Jordan River.  There was an expectation of greatness and victory.

The price of victory is success.  Success is both a reward and a price.

The more you win the more you are expected to win.  The more you do the more you are expected to do.  It affects jobs, marriages, churches, faith, and friendship.  This is a fact of life.  My wife, my children, my church, and my staff expect a great deal from me.  This expectation is not just built on who I should be; it is the result of who I have been.  You either keep paying the price or quit experiencing the rewards.  Success is costly.

The story continues on from my last blog post and the people of Israel celebrate Passover.  This festival reminds them of God's work to deliver them from slavery in Egypt.  As a result of this obedient act of celebration, they lose their food source, manna.  Manna is literally bread from heaven that God has miraculously supplied his people for 40 years.  Now, however, they are in the land promised to them.  A land that flows with milk and honey and has plenty of produce.  They no longer need the manna.  

Winning means no longer receiving what you no longer need.

Walking in God's promises today often means abandoning yesterday's provisions.

We live in a day and age when people often begrudge no longer getting what they never deserved.  Whether it is a government subsidy or a personal pleasure in life, people learn to expect more than they appreciate the things that are often theirs by grace.  Be willing to let go of what you no longer need.  God has more for you.  It might mean it is time to work the land instead of pick up easy bread, but in the end, it is a much greater promise he has for you.

Winners stop seeking the emotions of past successes and seek the provision for current ones.

Quit trying to re-create the experiences of your past.  Do you really want a marriage like day one?  You want the same salary and housing that came with that season of life?  Find fresh love and new connection with your spouse in life as it is now.  

Quit trying to re-create spiritual experiences of when you got saved by jumping from church to church looking for a new or fresh experience.  Live out your faith where God has you and seek Him.

Winners stop seeking the victory and start seeking the Victor.

Jesus has already won.  Seek him, not just the benefits you desire from him.

How to Win: Are you marked?

Have you ever found God doing something different than you expected on the backside of something great?  It is not that life is bad, it is just not what you expected.  Often in these seasons, God is doing so much more than we can see.  In Joshua 5 we find the nation of Israel (the people of God) having just miraculously crossed the Jordan River.  Here they are now in the Promised Land...just barely.  They are there though.  After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, they are standing on the land promised to their forefathers generations back.

So what does God do next?  He commands them to be circumcised.  Then after they obediently observe the Passover he takes away the manna he has graciously fed them with for 40 years.  Then to top it off the commander of the Lord's Army shows up and when asked if he is for them or agains them he answers a not "yes or no" with a no.  What in the world is God up to now?

God often puts us in a position of vulnerability before he puts us in a place of victory.  Think about what happened when all the men of Israel were circumcised.  (This was done because they had not been obedient in this command during the 40 years in the wilderness.)  They were vulnerable.  If they had done this on the other side of the Jordan at least they would not have been open to attack, but here they were in the wide open and easy to defeat.  This act of obedience was commanded of Abraham and is the mark of God upon his nation.  It is often during our seasons of vulnerability that God marks us as his own.

For brevity sake, I will not teach all of this chapter in one post, but I will encourage you to read more from it at my blog this week.  Why did the manna stop coming at this point in the story?  Why was God not "for them"?

The thought I want you to end with today is are you willing and ready to stop avoiding vulnerability and start finding security in God's ownership?  Are you ready to stop living by your own plans and purposes and trust him.  Will you allow this season of pain, pressure, stress, disillusionment, discouragement, loneliness, or whatever tough time you may be in to be a season where you allow God to mark you as his own?  Will you allow your vulnerability to verify you as a child of the King?

That is what it takes to win at the things that matter in life.

How to Win: Strength and Courage

God tells Joshua to be “strong and very courageous” as he leads God’s people to conquer the Promised Land.  He then instructs him to not stray from the commands he had given Moses.  God says, “Do not even turn to the right or to the left.”  Be faithful.

Winning is found in the strength to stand the courage to obey.

Let me be clear.  Salvation is not something one wins.  Salvation has already been won.  Salvation comes by grace alone through faith.  Yet, faith without works is dead.

This topic is about the works that come in and by faith.  If we want to experience the victories that Christ has for us we must live in obedience to Him. 

That is the greatest battle.  The battle of settling for own standard of excellence instead of God’s standard of obedience.  We lose the battle because we never even fight for what is right.  Often what is excellent to us is good enough and we simply never know God has so much more to bless us with. 

Your marriage is okay, but not all it could be, but you do not know better because you have never accepted the call of obedience in it.  You never really experience full victory over that addiction, but you never really accept God’s standard of holiness either, but your own version of better than life was.

So here are few keys to winning in the battles that matter in life.

1.    The strength to stand is found in the Word of God.
Eat the Word.  Know the Word.  Do the Word.
You will never know the success God desires you to experience if you will not accept the standards of that success. 

2.    The courage to obey is found on the road.
Get out and go.
You will never know what you can do by the power of Christ until you are out doing by the power of Christ.

So, get in the Word and get on the road.  God has great things for you.

How to Win: The Real Battle

Joshua is the leader of the people of God as they win the most important battles in their history.  In the book that carries his name we hear the stories of victory. The Israelites win time after time…in battle after battle.  We all desire to win in the battles that matter in life…over and over again.  “How to Win?” is the question.

Winning comes from the strength to stand the courage to obey.

God commands Joshua to lead his people to conquer the Promised Land.  He promises to be with him wherever he goes, yet he also tells him where to go.  He promises to be with Joshua as he was with Moses, yet he tells him do everything I commanded Moses to command to you.  He tells him he will never leave him nor forsake, yet he also tells him what to do with his life.

Victory is not only possible it is promised.  Often we lose because we are trying to win wrong battles.  The battle that most of us, as Christ-followers, struggle with is the not the battle between absolute rebellion and absolute obedience.  It is the battle between excellence and obedience.  Excellence can be defined as winning by our definition.  Obedience is winning by God’s definition.  Excellence is our attempt to create the perception of obedience. 

Are you willing to accept God’s absolute standard of obedience or are you okay with the perception of obedience?  Are you a man living without the “hint of sexual immorality” or are you living by the world’s view of excellence that you can “look but not touch”?  Are you a lady living by God’s Word commanding “modesty” or are you accepting the world’s view of excellence that being “proud” of your body means showing that body?

Excellent standards typically are half-truths.  It is excellent to not touch, but it is obedient to not lust.  It is excellent to be confident in who and how God created you physically, but it is obedient to “not cause another to stumble.”

Obviously these are two simple examples of what excellence vs. obedience looks like in real life.

What are you striving for?  Winning at things that do not matter in life does not matter in life.