“Boot Camp” 2 – Prayer – James 5:16

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwnymjMUFp8 (You Tube video) “You just need to know how to use the tools that you have!” That’s what the man said and how true that is for us as we go into week two of spiritual boot camp. We must know how to use the tools that we have and the greatest tool we have is this weapon here. I’ve shown you this cutting edge, state of the art, weapons system before (really, just a “Bug-a-Salt” gun). Do you remember what it is called? It is the Patriots Right and Your Every Responsibility weapon, better known as the P.R.A.Y.E.R gun.

It is the most powerful weapon in the world. It has the power to kill and destroy but also the power to heal and create. It can make one uncomfortable or bring great comfort. It can bring chaos to the enemy or wisdom to the user. It has been used with great effect for thousands of years and while almost everybody says they use it, very few use it to its effectiveness.

My dear family, we are literally in the battle of our lives; a spiritual battle that has spiritual consequences but also physical, mental, financial, emotional and every other kind of consequence as well. We have consecrated ourselves in preparation for this battle. We understand why we have to fight since we as believers have been changed by God and want our lives to bring Him glory in everything that we do. We have a long legacy to follow; footsteps to follow of people like Peter, Paul, Abraham and Jesus Himself, not to mention we don’t want to let our fellow soldiers down.

If we are going to combat Satan and his demons and keep them from ruining our lives and even killing us dead, then we must learn to use the weapon of prayer as it was intended. There is no winning the battle without it, in fact, and to do it right is actually very simple but very difficult at the same time. It’s not complicated but it’s not easy. You’ll see what I mean as we go along.

I read an article (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5267485/A-quarter-non-believers-pray-faced-crisis.html) just this past week that said one in four non-believers pray when confronted by tough times - despite insisting they are not religious. For atheists and agnostics, personal crisis or tragedy is the most common reason for them to resort to prayer, with a quarter admitting they pray for comfort or to feel less lonely. 

Isn’t that fascinating? 25% of people who say they don’t believe in God are praying to God for help when they need it. Do you know what that is like? That is like grabbing the P.R.A.Y.E.R. gun but not loading it with ammo, not cocking it and not taking the safety off then going “Pew! Pew! Pew!” to the enemy. You might get lucky and accidently poke somebody in the eye but it is not an effective weapon like that.

I find it interesting that the article also says that a third of people pray in the morning or before they go to sleep. People are also increasingly likely to solicit support from God while cooking or exercising. Now, I understand that!  When I cook and when I exercise are good times for me to be praying because I don’t want to do either one nor am I good at either one and one of them is probably gonna kill me.

But the real problem is that too many true believers treat prayer like those atheists do. They have no belief, no faith, no passion and no results. So, let’s see what scripture says about this weapon and how to use it effectively. Turn in your Bibles to the beautiful and powerful little book of James in the New Testament.  James is between Hebrews and Peter way in the back nearly to Revelation.

In preparing for this message, my challenge was to find the one passage on prayer that would really sum it all up; the passage that would explain things the best and it was hard to find just one. There are so many good passages. There are great examples of prayer from Genesis to Revelation. I love to read Daniel’s prayers. Abraham and Moses both talked to God very intimately and powerfully.

Samson had probably one good prayer in his life that we know of but it killed thousands of the enemy. Samuel prayed when he was a little boy and didn’t even know he was praying. (1 Sam. 3) Nehemiah could give a clinic on powerful and effective prayer. Job prayed quite a bit and some of it was good and some of it I wouldn’t recommend copying at all.

As for modeling prayer, nobody did it better than Jesus, of course, but in the book of James, James tells us some vital information about prayer; info I hope that will change the way all of us pray. Turn to James 5, verse 16. Last week we read a whole chapter. Today it’s just one verse. James 5:16 says…hang on just a minute.

Normally I am pretty content reading from the New International Version but today I’m blowing the dust off my King James. I think it better conveys the true meaning and it is important to know exactly what James was saying. I looked at half a dozen different versions and none of them are wrong necessarily, but I believe KJV is closest to the original.

It says, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” I like the NIV because it is easier to understand without all the “thous” and “thees” and “availeths” but the two words in front of the word “prayer” are too important to leave out and the NIV does and some of the others do too. But I do like the words that the NIV uses to replace “availeth”. It says that prayer is powerful and effective.

So, I’ll tell you what. With your permission, or without it, I’m going to mash these two versions up to what I think is the most correct and easiest to understand. I’m also going to leave off the first sentence although it is important and I hope to discuss it tonight. But if you combine the KJV and the NIV in the last sentence of James 5:16 it says, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” Oh, that’s good and that makes me happy. That’s the TBV we are using today; the Todd Blair Version.

I say the two words (effectual and fervent) in front of “prayer” are important because what is prayer? What’s the definition of prayer that we have all been taught since little kids in Sunday School? Prayer is talking to God, right? That’s a good definition. Nothing wrong with that but we can talk to each other and hardly use any words.  A wife can talk to a husband with a look and a shrug, one word and a frown and they would say they are talking to each other.

But an effectual fervent conversation is different and it is the effectual and fervent part of prayer that makes it powerful and effective. See, those two words are just one word in the original Greek and the word is “energeo”. Does anybody want to take a wild guess as to what word we get from “energeo”? We get the word “energy” from it and it means to work at it, to put out some energy and effort, to be active. It also means to be stretched out. All of that is a lot different than having a casual conversation.

It has the picture of a horse jumping over a fence or a baseball player making a diving catch; using all effort to accomplish the goal. There is nothing wrong with having a casual conversation with God. In fact, 1 Thessalonians 5 says to pray without ceasing and you can’t always be praying with such effort. We ought to be continually talking and listening to God; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path (Prov. 3:6).

But when you are in the heat of the battle and the bombs are falling and Satan is chomping on your leg and your world is falling apart, that is not the time for, “Now I lay me down to sleep”! Now is the time for effectual fervent prayer.

One of my all-time favorite preachers was Adrian Rogers. He told the story of getting a call late one night from a church member asking if he would come pray for this man’s wife who had a malignancy. The man was known to be a drunk and he lived with his mother but the young pastor was happy to go over and pray with them.

He said he got there and the three of them gathered around the kitchen table to pray, the man, who was drunk, his mother and Dr. Rogers. He said he began to pray the best he knew how and thought he was doing a fine job of it but after a minute or two the drunk man interrupted. “Pray, preacher! You ain’t praying!”

He said he was a little offended at that but he cranked it up a notch, praying louder and more pastoral than before and that went on for a minute or so and the man said it again with Rogers mid-sentence. “Pray, preacher! You ain’t praying!” He said that was just too much. A guy can’t pray while he’s being hollered at like that so he just stopped.

But when he did stop praying he opened his eyes and noticed the little old mother wasn’t there but he could hear her talking. So he got up from the table and followed the sound until he found the woman in another room, stretched out on the floor with her face on the rug.

Now, if you’ve never heard Adrian Rogers preach, well, nobody does it like him. Let me read it in his words. “I listened as she ascended the ladder to heaven. I listened as she pushed back the gates of pearl. I listened as she walked down the golden streets. I listened as she went through the curtain into the Holy of Holies. I listened as she applied the blood there on the altar and pled with God, as she got hold of Him. I listened as she groaned and agonized in prayer, stretched out there on the floor. Then I knew what the son meant when he said, “Pray preacher, you ain’t praying.” He had heard his mama pray.”

Now, we know that our physical position while in prayer is not the most important aspect of our prayers. In scripture we see people praying while standing, walking, kneeling, with arms up, head up, eyes up or laying on the ground. Jonah even prayed a powerful and effective prayer in the fetal position in the belly of a fish but there is something powerful, something humbling, something respectful about being on your knees or even on your face.

It’s hard to be proud in that position and prideful prayer never did anybody any good. In all the paintings of Jesus praying in the garden, how do you see Him praying? It seems like in every picture it shows Jesus as a brown-haired handsome man, kneeling with holy hands clasped in front of Him with angelic face upturned to Heaven.

The problem with those pictures, well, one of the problems, is that Matthew 26 is where we find this story and it says, “38Then he said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me." 39Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed.”

Now, the wrong thing to take away from this is that if you lay on the ground, God has to answer your prayer. We all know that’s not the case. 1 Samuel 16:7 says, “The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." God doesn’t care your physical position but He looks at your heart and if your heart is tender toward God and humble and desperate for His grace and mercy, then that prayer becomes more powerful and effective.

I love to hear my Mama pray. Just this past week I heard her say the blessing for the meal we were about to eat and she wasn’t two sentences in before her voice cracked and she started to cry. In fact, I don’t think I have ever heard my mom pray that she didn’t cry. It’s not fake or ginned up. She honestly has such a respect and fear of God and I think she has an understanding of Who she is talking to.

She is talking to the Creator of the universe, the great I AM, the King of kings and Lord of lords, the One who gives and the One who takes away. She has known Him for years and is still moved when she goes into His presence as we all should be. This is God we are talking to, not your buddy at Walmart. It ought to be a fearful and wonderful, amazing thing to come into His presence for anything…even just lunch.

There is more to say on that subject but I have to get to the other part of this verse that makes prayer powerful and effective. Going back to James 5:16, it says that the effectual, fervent prayer of a RIGHTEOUS man is powerful and effective. That word “righteous” is vitally important but it is a problem, isn’t it? We have no ability to achieve righteousness in and of ourselves. But Christians possess the righteousness of Christ, because “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). This is an amazing truth. On the cross, Jesus exchanged our sin for His perfect righteousness so that we can one day stand before God and He will see not our sin, but the holy righteousness of the Lord Jesus. (gotquestions.org)

We call that imputed righteousness when God looks at us with the righteousness of Jesus but there is also imparted righteousness which is different. Don’t worry. You don’t necessarily have to know the difference. Just know that you want both imputed and imparted righteousness. Simply put, imputed comes the moment you accept Jesus to be Lord of your life and trust in Him for forgiveness and eternal life in Heaven. Imparted righteousness is what we get day by day as we ask God to forgive our sins and we remain in “right” standing with Him. Right standing is imparted righteousness.

I say all of that to say that one of the biggest hold-ups to powerful and effective prayer is not being in right standing with God. Remember, sin always puts a barrier between us and God. I read the verse 2 weeks ago when we talked about consecrating ourselves but it deserves to be repeated. Isaiah 59:2 says, “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.” That’s pretty plain.

Sin takes all the power and effectiveness out of our prayer. Yes, God is merciful and gracious and is oftentimes very generous but without the power of God in your prayer through righteousness…you are going into a gunfight with an unloaded gun. This is just another example of why sin is the very worst thing that can happen to us. There are benefits of obedience and consequences of disobedience. (BOOCOD)

Now, I hear all the Joel Osteen lovers out there. “Oh dear, he’s talking about sin again and that makes me uncomfortable. Why doesn’t he just talk about God’s grace and love and rainbows and unicorns? Maybe show some puppy and kitten videos every now and then? I want to feel good when I go to church, not feel like I need to repent.”

Dear ones, there are plenty of places to go if that is how you feel but Christ Fellowship is where you come to hear truth, especially during boot camp and the truth is that if you want to be victorious over our enemy Satan; if you want to overcome temptation; if you want to have peace and joy when difficulties come then you will pray fervently and effectually and you will see its power and effectiveness if you are the righteous man James talks about.

Today, of all days, is when you need to come to the front to pray if you feel God leading you to. You can turn around and use the pew as an altar if you want. Come to the front. Stand up, lay down. Nothing done for show or for others to notice. You don’t worry about what other people are doing. They won’t worry about you. This time of prayer is between you and holy God.

There are some here at the front to pray with you if you want but now is the time to do business with God. Speak to Him. Listen to Him. Be still before Him and know He is God. Maybe you need to repent for the daily sins you have committed. Maybe you need to truly repent for the very first time and ask God to be Lord of your life and forgive you of all your sins and let Him change your life. Do that right now.

“Boot Camp #1” – John 9

Why are you here?  That question can be taken several ways.  You might take it as, “Why are you here at church?” or “Why are you at THIS church?” or “What do you want to get out of church today?” It could also be taken to have a deeper meaning as in, “For what purpose are we born?” or “Why were we created?” Do you ever think that deep?

Socrates once said, “An unexamined life is not worth living.” All through history, people have wondered what the big picture was.  For what reason did God create, not just me, but all of mankind? It seems like a lot of trouble to me, but what do I know? Do you think He was bored?  Maybe He was lonely. Maybe He just needed a friend. Ya think?

Thankfully, scripture is very clear on this.  There are at least two verses that specifically tell us why we are created.  Colossians 1:16 says, “All things were created by him and for him.” I like the verse in Revelation better though. Revelation 4:11 says, “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.” You created us, so we give you glory and honor.  That’s what it boils down to. 

Have you ever tried to use the wrong tool for the job? We’ve probably all been there.  We need a hammer but all we have is a screwdriver and so we bang on the nail the best we can but it just doesn’t work very well. Or maybe you run out of laundry soap and try using dish soap. That could be a big problem. Well, when we live our lives for ourselves and make the decisions we think are best for us and do things that only benefit us individually, it’s sort of like using the wrong tool for the job. You might have some semblance of success but it just doesn’t work as well as it should.

But when we live our lives for the glory and honor of God, then we have that full and abundant life that John 10:10 says we can have. It’s why we are here. It’s what we are made for. Now, how do you think the enemy feels about that? Do you think Satan wants you to live a full and abundant life that glorifies God? No. I say it all the time that Satan prowls around looking to kill you dead (sorta 1 Peter 5:8) and if God won’t allow him to kill you, he will settle for making you miserable.

Satan has a plan for your life. Did you know that? He wants it to be as short and as miserable as possible and he works hard with all of his demons every day to accomplish that goal. He has been doing it for thousands of years and he is extremely powerful. So, do you want to go up against that kind of power and experience by yourself? No sane person would want that.

The good news is that we don’t have to. We have a job to do and a battle to fight but ultimately, as it says in 2 Chronicles 20, the battle is not ours but the Lord’s. Now, the reason we have come to boot camp is to know what our jobs are and what is required of us.  We want to know how to fight and what to fight with so that God fights the battle through us without hindrance.

The first thing we need to learn is why we fight. What is it that is going to inspire you to fight when the battle starts to rage? Who and what is going to be your inspiration to battle on when it seems like you are the only one? When everyone around you is being picked off by the enemy, why are you going to reach down and suck up that last bit of inspiration to do what God calls you to do?

Let’s start with John chapter 9. In the days of Jesus, some people thought that everything bad that happened was caused by sin. We know that sin does have bad consequences but sometimes bad things happen for other reasons and many times we don’t know why. We may never know this side of Heaven. It’s interesting, though, how sometimes sickness, pain or problems of an individual in the Bible are representative of a nation’s problem.

Here we read of a man born physically blind in a nation full of spiritually blind leaders. Leave it to Jesus to bring that point out in this story.  Let’s read John 9:1-41, the whole chapter. It’s an easy read so follow along with me.

As he (Jesus) went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 7 “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing. 8 His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, “Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some claimed that he was. Others said, “No, he only looks like him.” But he himself insisted, “I am the man.” 10 “How then were your eyes opened?” they asked. 11 He replied, “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.” 12 “Where is this man?” they asked him. “I don’t know,” he said. 13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. 14 Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. 15 Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.” 16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others asked, “How can a sinner perform such signs?” So they were divided. 17 Then they turned again to the blind man, “What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” The man replied, “He is a prophet.” 18 They still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents. 19 “Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?” 20 “We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind. 21 But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.” 22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. 23 That was why his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” 24 A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God by telling the truth,” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.” 25 He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!” 26 Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” 27 He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?” 28 Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! 29 We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.” 30 The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. 32 Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” 34 To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.

35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36 “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.” 37 Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.” 38 Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. 39 Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” 40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?” 41 Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.

I can’t imagine being born blind. I can’t comprehend how difficult it must be not to be able to see your way around nor ever to see the beauty of a sunset or a waterfall or a perfect Blue Heeler like Sara! I can’t understand how hard it must have been to find his way around or to make any money even begging like he had to do.

I know we take our sight for granted. I don’t think I know how not to take it for granted except to be thankful for it. We take a lot of blessings for granted, I’m sure. The older I get, the more I realize how important it is to be thankful for what we have because it’s not always going to be there. You know it’s going to happen to you at some point, don’t you? You will lose what you have, some how, some way.

Maybe you go broke or maybe you die rich but you will suffer loss in your life and the question is, what are you going to do when it happens? How are you going to react? When your doctor gives you a bad diagnosis, when your spouse says, “I don’t love you anymore”, when your boss lays you off or maybe you are born blind, what are you going to do?

You have some options.  You can do like the disciples did and ask “Why?” and then blame somebody. That’s pretty common, even today. It happens every time there is any kind of mass shooting.  They search and search for motives and then blame everybody and everything. It’s the gun’s fault, his daddy’s fault, society’s fault, whatever. If you have done that and everybody has, at one time or another, asked why and then blamed somebody else, how has that worked out for you in the past?

Did you got all the answers you wanted and then got great peace from that knowledge that led to a full and abundant life or was it a waste of time that led to frustration? I’ve said before that I believe God is fine with us asking respectfully why we are going through something.  There may be a lesson to be learned and He might even tell you and, then again, He might not.

But at some point, you have to decide it doesn’t really matter why. There’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t fix it. You can’t solve it. You just have to accept that this is life and you have to deal with it. Now, here’s where it gets good. Here is why we are in boot camp. This is what will inspire you to keep going when it gets difficult and dark and when Satan hammers on you and lies to you and breaks out the big guns against you.

Look at verse 3. Jesus tells us why this man was born blind. He also tells us why the doctor gives bad news, your spouse leaves and the boss fires you. Look at it. 3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Do you ever wonder why God does everything He does? Everything God does is for His glory. Everything He allows is for His glory. Everything He causes is for His glory.

No, sin is not for His glory but His allowance of us to have free will is for His glory. I think it was John Wayne that said, “Life is hard. It’s harder when you’re stupid.” Sometimes we are stupid and we make bad choices and God allows us to and it causes unnecessary problems but in everything that happens to us, there is the opportunity to glorify God. We were created to make God look good. That is our purpose on this earth and when we live our lives looking for every chance to do that, then our lives start to become full and abundant.

When you make the decision to consecrate yourself and make yourself filled up and overflowing with the things of God and you spend your time at work, school, play, in your marriage and in your health making God look good, then watch out, you will be a soldier to contend with! Your life will be hitting on all 12 cylinders, full of peace and joy – and yes, difficulties – but peace and joy never-the-less.

You will be using the right tool for the job because you are the tool doing what you are intended to do, making God look good with the bonus of storing up treasure in Heaven, but that’s another sermon. Sounds pretty good, right? Let me tell you how you start. You can start today, even right now. Go back to verse 25. Your homework this week is to memorize verse 25 but don’t worry. It’s easy.

The Pharisees were peppering the man with questions about how, when and where Jesus healed him, asking him over and over again and finally the man just says, “I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind and now I see.” That’s all you need to memorize. “I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind and now I see.”

We talked last Sunday night about what we believe and our sense of purpose and how that was our inspiration for going through boot camp. What do we as Christians believe above all things? We believe that God changed us. He created us then He changed us and therefore we will give Him glory. So, when people ask you why God would allow you to go through such difficulty - “I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind and now I see.”

Why would God allow a man to be born blind? Why would God allow babies to suffer? Why would He allow poverty or war or the dinosaurs to become extinct? “I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind and now I see.” Then you tell them how God has changed you.

I used to be full of hatred but God changed me. I used to be a gossip. I used to be addicted. I used to be a drunk. I used to be a big ol’ fat meany-head, whatever it is and then tell them how God has changed you.  You don’t have to go into all the gory details.  You don’t have to know all the answers. That’s why I love this verse. I say, “I don’t know” a lot. It’s okay because God gets the glory and that is why I am here.  That’s why you are here.

In Psalm 22 it says that God inhabits praise (Ps. 22:3 KJV) and if God is here when we give Him glory, then do you know where your enemy Satan is? Somewhere else! Oh, he’s waiting on you and he is patient to a fault but when you are giving God glory and honor, he can’t stand that. Resist him today and be a good and successful soldier by making God look good in your life no matter what is happening.

As the music plays, I want to invite you to come down to the front if you need prayer for anything in your life. Maybe you don’t have a relationship with God through His Son Jesus and you want to.  All you have to do is believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life and that no man gets to the Father but through Him (John 14:6). Then allow God to change you like we have talked about this morning. Ask Him to forgive you of your sins and repent of those sins and accept His forgiveness. Maybe you need to rededicate your life or join this church. I would love to pray with you right now.

“Preparing to Prepare for Battle” – Joshua 3-4

Well, it’s the last day of 2017.  Are you glad it’s gone or was it pretty good for you?  How many of you would say that 2017 was a great year overall? In John 10:10, Jesus said He came to give us abundant lives; full lives.  How many of you lived full and abundant lives in 2017?

 How many of you are pleased with yourself in 2017? You lived a pure and holy life.  You weren’t sinless, necessarily, but you feel like you are closer to God today than you were last year? How many of you saw God answer your prayers this year like never before?

Maybe you feel like Satan took more away from you than God gave you.  Maybe you feel like you got hammered by the devil this year and you hope 2018 will be better. I know a lot of you probably feel that way.  The question is, how bad do you want it?

The new year is a big time for making resolutions.  People resolve to lose weight, save money, be better people in some way and most of the time it lasts a few months and then we say, “Well, maybe next year.” I’ve tried real hard for a long time to eat better.  I’ve tried to stop eating when I feel satisfied, not wait until I’m full and miserable.  I’ve also tried to stop snacking between meals and to eat more vegetables.

I seriously have and I think I’ve lost 5-10 pounds this year but do you know how bad I want to be slim?  This bad (hands on fat belly). This is how bad I really want it.  I can dress in vertical stripes and wear dark colors and suck my stomach in all I want but at the end of the day and at the end of the year, this proves how bad I want it.

That’s a shame because I know being overweight is not healthy and will ultimately take years off of my life but do you know what is worse than being out of shape physically? Being out of shape spiritually is way worse because the consequences are eternal and don’t just affect you but everyone around you. Paul told Timothy in Timothy 4, “For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”

So, the question is, how bad do you want to be in good spiritual shape? Are you in better shape spiritually than you were last year? Are you closer to God? Have you seen your prayers answered? Have you memorized helpful scripture verses? Have you brought anybody else to Christ this year? Would you call yourself a disciple – one who learns from Jesus and then tells others what you have learned?

Lord willing, I am going to ask you those same questions in January 2019 and if you stick with us through this year, you will be able to answer, “Oh, yes! I have a much more abundant life. I am closer to God than ever before and let me tell you what God has shown me and done for me and how He has used me!” You will be able to see victory over that old liar Satan because we are about to go to battle this next year and so today we are going to prepare to prepare for it.

Yes, you heard me right. We are preparing to prepare for battle today and I would ask you to turn to Joshua chapter 3 as we prepare to prepare. Joshua is the sixth book in the Old Testament or as the politically correct would say, the Older Testament. It’s not old.  I don’t want it to get its feelings hurt.

Starting next Sunday, we are going to prepare for battle by first going to boot camp.  I would encourage you to wear your best Sunday-go-to-meeting camouflage.  For some, that might not be any different than any other Sunday and that’s good. Next Sunday we will not have Christmas decorations up any longer, but it will look way different.  Trust me. But today, we are going to prepare to prepare for battle and by that, I mean we are going to prepare our hearts and minds to prepare ourselves for the tests ahead.

If you were going to Marine boot camp next week, you would hopefully understand that they are probably going to dramatically transform you physically.  Your exercise regimen and your diet are about to change and you will too and so probably, the week before that, you would prepare yourself mentally for what you are about to go through. You would prepare to prepare for battle. Now, I have not been in the military but I am so grateful and appreciative for those who have served and are serving. You have my undying gratitude and I don’t take it lightly. I have seen YouTube videos of boot camp and it looks horrible. I watched some while Trey Pittman was in boot camp to see what he was going through and I wrote him and told him to tell his drill instructor that I said he needed to be sweet and not scream so much. So, I’m sure that helped.

Well, when we get to boot camp next week I promise not to scream as much as they do.  I also promise not to give you any “win one for the Gipper” motivational speeches, nor will I think any less of you if you fail. But I will stand here with scripture in hand to tell you, not what I think you should do or what is best for you, but what God commands and the first thing we must do to prepare to prepare for battle, according to the Word of God, is to consecrate ourselves.

Look at Joshua chapter 3, please. There we see the nation of Israel about to go into the Promised Land but they are going to have to fight for it every step of the way and they are still fighting to stay there even today. Their first official battle was in Jericho on the other side of the Jordan River but they first had to cross the Jordan. So they had to prepare to prepare to go to battle.  Your bulletin says Joshua chapters 3 and 4 but I’m only going to read a few verses.  But you need to read all of chapters 3 and 4 and you need to do it every day this week.  That’s your homework.  That’s part of preparing to prepare.  Every day, read Joshua 3 and 4 until you really understand and have allowed it to sink in what was really going on, okay?

For today, I only want to read one verse.  Joshua 3:5 says, “Joshua told the people, "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you."  Does that verse sound familiar to anybody? It should if you have been here for a while.  Five years ago, we read this and, more importantly, did this.  We consecrated ourselves in preparation for what God would do. Then, just a few weeks ago, we celebrated our 5^th anniversary as Christ Fellowship by just telling stories about this journey and how God really has done amazing things among us.

That was so much fun, wasn’t it? I laughed for days thinking about some of those stories and to tell you the truth, it would be real easy to just coast from now on, telling about what God has done in the past; how he brought us “angels unaware” in old vans, protected us from crazy women with cell phones and got us over the flooded Jordan River - which for us was Hwy 380 -  twice (and we have the pebbles on the pulpit to remember it by).

It would be easy, in five more years, to tell those same stories and laugh at them and praise God for them and we will but I want new stories; not just so we can sit around and talk about them and laugh but, if you think about it, every one of those stories is testimony to how God provided for us and protected us from the evil one and I don’t know how you feel but I am sick and tired of this church being hammered by Satan and watching person after person being picked off and I’m not going to sit idly by and just allow it! We are in a battle - every one of us, whether you want to be or not – and it is time we put on our armor, faced the enemy, and allowed God to fight the battle through us but to do so means we MUST consecrate ourselves.

No, Joshua was not talking to us when he gave his command to the Israelites to consecrate themselves, but scripture is full of similar commands that we can and should take. My concordance tells me the word is used 172 times in the Bible about things or people that should be set apart for God’s work. The word “holy” and “consecrated” are used almost interchangeably all through scripture and we know that “holy” means to be set apart, different, sanctified, purified or hallowed.

But as I studied the word “consecrate” a little further I found that it differed from “holy” in that it also means to be full or filled up and running over.  Look at Joshua 3:15. It says the Jordan was at flood stage during the harvest. The original word used for flood stage is the word “qadash” (kaw-dash). Qadash is the word from which we get “consecrate”.  Same word. That’s fascinating to me. I hear people sometimes complain about how bad their lives are. Sometimes they are good Christian people and they are not exaggerating about how bad they have it.  Maybe they struggle physically or financially or spiritually or any other way.  Sometimes they struggle with how God would allow them to go through such difficulties and I don’t know the answer to that most of the time.  We know that the rain falls on the just and the unjust as it says in Matthew 5.

But sometimes, because we are not completely sold out to God and His plan and His will for our lives we allow ourselves to go unprotected. In Isaiah 59:2 it says, “But your iniquities (your sins) have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.” Our sin, even the small and so-called insignificant sins put a barrier between us and God and allow Satan to attack us.

We studied Ephesians 6 in depth this year and we know what armor we have available to us to protect us from the devil but he is way stronger than we are and without God’s mighty right hand to protect us, we don’t stand a chance. We have to put on that armor and stand behind God – completely abiding in Him and behind Him, filled with Him until He starts to overflow in our lives.

Ninety percent of Him isn’t going to cut out. If we give 90% of ourselves to God, we can expect to have unnecessary problems. Don’t expect God to bless your life if you are not completely sold out to Him. I’m always surprised at how merciful God is to us when we are not living completely for Him. We can’t expect the storehouses of Heaven to open up onto our lives when there are places in our lives where Jesus is not Lord.

To consecrate ourselves, we have to get every aspect of our lives right with Him. We have to be right with God in our prayer life, our Bible study, our finances, our sex lives, the music we listen to, the shows we watch on TV and the web sites we click on. Where we go, what we read, what we put in our mouths and what comes out of our mouths all needs to be radically different than the world and filled up and overflowing with the things of God.

Now, I know that sounds like a bunch of rules and a bunch of “don’t do this” and “don’t do that” and don’t have any fun and act like good old Baptist fogies who don’t approve of smiling and only enjoy a few rounds of the “Quiet Game” or Bible trivia for entertainment. Because that’s what we do at this church, right? That’s funny!

We say all the time that we don’t have any rules around here and do you know why? Do you know that Jesus didn’t have a lot of rules? He was a rule-breaker! Do you know what Jesus’ rules were? Love God and love your neighbor.  That’s pretty much it.  That’s what He said in Matthew 22. When you truly love God and truly love your neighbor, your fellow-man, you will consecrate yourself.  You will want more and more God and less and less of this world until pretty soon, you are overflowing with God’s love.

But, do you know what?  You don’t have to do all of this.  You don’t really have to consecrate yourself or love your neighbor or any of that.  You really don’t. You don’t have to fight in the battle against the evil one.  You don’t have to go to boot camp or study or pray or any of that.

You just keep doing what you are doing but you will continue to get the responses you have gotten. You will continue to lose out on God’s protection but don’t worry, He’s very gracious and merciful and you probably won’t die tomorrow. The problem is, you will continue to live without living a full and abundant life.  You will continue to live with the heartaches and unnecessary pains that God’s mighty right hand could save you from. And you’ll still be in the battle. You just don’t stand a chance at winning.

Let’s pray right now as the music plays.  I usually invite you to come to the front if you want but for a few minutes, I just want you to ask God what areas of your life you need to turn over to Him today.  Ask Him, as David did, to search you and try you and to reveal any wicked way in you. Then, if you want to, you can come down and I would love to pray with you.  Maybe you need to rededicate your life to Him.  Maybe you want to join this church.

Maybe you don’t have a relationship with God through His Son Jesus today.  All you have to do is believe that Jesus died for your sins, ask Him to forgive your sins and then allow God to change you and start to consecrate you and make you more like Him as He fills you up with Himself.