We're on page 157 in the ABCs of Christian growth. Letter V, number three, or the third study on victory here. We've already talked about God wanting victory in our life, how he provided for that victory, and then he gives us steps to take hold of that victory. We identify our enemy, understand the enemy, realize God's provision for victory, and then translate that victory into our own experience. We looked at the three enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil, and talked about how we identified each of them. We talked about them so that we could understand each of them. We realized God's provision for victory over each of them, looked at the explanation of how to translate that victory into our lives. And hopefully each of us have translated that victory into our lives in each of those areas. So now we're going to kind of wrap this together. The last segments here that we're going to deal with are the promise of victory, the person of victory, and the path of victory. So the three P's of victory here. So first, we'll look at the promise of victory. Letter A here says, Romans 8, 37 says that in all these things, we are more than conquerors. And it actually says in the passage, nay, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. And then 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 57 says, but thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. And in 2 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 14 says, now thanks be unto God which always causeth us to triumph. Very good. And then we'll look at this last one here and then we'll talk about this segment just a little bit. Philippians chapter 4 verse 13 says, can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me. Out of place here. There we go. All right. So he gives us the promise of victory. That's the something that we want to, he basically gave us four points here as to, you know, or, or examples in the scripture where God promises us victory. He says that we can, that in all things we are more than conquerors. He says that, not he, but the Lord. The Lord says that in all things we're more than conquerors. We can give thanks to God because he gives us the victory, or he's given us the victory. And we can also give thanks to God because he always causes us to triumph. And then we can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth us. So we have a promise in the word of God that we can have that victory. And when we look at the enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil. And we look at the issues in our lives that we may struggle with, the things that we may have difficulty with. One thing that he didn't mention in this passage is 1 Corinthians 10.13, which says, how does it start? Now I've got to remember it, see? It says, Let's see, there are no temptation taken you but such as is common to man. But God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you're able, but will with the temptation also make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it. And that other promise or that along with these promises, he tells us that there's nothing in our life that we're not going to be able to bear, that we're not going to be able to handle. There may be times when we feel like we can't handle it, or we feel like we can't take it anymore, or we can't hold on, or we can't have the victory in an area. But if we just look to God for that escape, He will make it. It's really neat how that passage works, if you look at the way it's worded. It's not that we look for a way of escape. No, we look to God, and He will make a way of escape. What that tells me is there is no escape until you look to God, and then He makes it. You may be in a lion's den where there's lions all around you, and you're looking for the door, you're looking for the hatch, you're trying to get out somehow, but what you realize is the escape is right there. You look to the Lord, He'll shut the mouths of the lions. He will keep you from danger in that situation. It may be that you have to endure for a night, as Daniel did in the lion's den. But in the morning, well, the king comes and lets you out. Well, you're sitting in there all night long with those hungry lions, and they don't do anything to you because God made a way of escape. And so just the same, he does that for us in all manner of temptation. If we're tempted in the area of Greed or lust or pride or any of those areas? any other areas whether it's selfishness or whether it's whether it's You know, I mean that pretty much sums it up really I mean all sin is rooted in either pride or selfishness and pride itself is rooted in selfishness So if there's some sin that I have in my life, it's generally because I feel like I need something that God says I don't or I feel like or I want something that God doesn't allow for. So when I sin, it's always, I believe it's pretty much always rooted in selfishness, whether it's ignorance or selfishness, when you really come down to it and you're faced with the decision, am I going to, now it's been revealed to me. If it was ignorance and I was doing something wrong and I didn't know that it was wrong, and then it's revealed to me, okay, you're doing this, it's wrong. Okay, now I have a decision to either be selfish and keep doing it or yield, crucify the flesh and say, okay, God, I see that I'm not supposed to be doing this or I'm not supposed to allow this in my life, but this isn't the way that I'm supposed to act in this area. I humble myself, which is the opposite of selfishness and pride. And I say, okay, You've given me the victory. You've promised the victory. Now I can take a hold of it and give that thing up. Even though it might be something that I felt like was really important, it really isn't that important. Sometimes the things that you and I think are important, if we don't have scripture to back up why it's important, sometimes if we do have scripture to back up why it's important, sometimes we're still wrong. You know, it's easy sometimes to say, well, we're supposed to do this, or we're supposed to do that according to the scripture, and we'll take a principle and use it to justify something that we're doing that's actually wrong. When one principle of the Bible that we take and use, we might be able to use a certain principle of the Bible to justify, or not to justify, but to, basically give us reasoning behind what we're doing. It might take one principle of the Bible to give us reasoning behind what we're doing, but if it violates another principle of the Bible, then it's not right. Those two things have to come together. So how do you do one thing and not violate the other? For example, I think about when I was working over at the Mission, and the Mission over here that I worked at, Good News Mission, they had this philosophy of ministry when it comes to homeless people and people that have need. And their philosophy is, if you don't work, you don't eat. And their philosophy was, if you don't, if you're not willing to produce some sort of value here, then you can't be here. So you can't stay the night, you can't have a bed, you can't have clothes, you can't have food. But if you're willing to produce some sort of value, then you can. They had a work crew over there. And they said, if you're going to live here, you will work 40 hours a week here. And that's what they did. They would clean the place, they would work on this, work on that. Whatever maybe their specialty might be, they would do it. Now, somebody would come in and say, well, I'm disabled, and I don't have disability checks, so I can't pay. They would either work or pay rent. And the rent was like so low, and it was a really good deal. But they would either work or pay rent. Well, if they say, well, I'm working on getting my disability, but I can't, you know, I don't have it yet, and I can't work." I said, OK. You know what they had them do? They gave them a stack of hymnals. If they could lift hymnals, they wouldn't have them lift the stack, but they would have other guys that would bring a big, huge stack of hymnals. Like in Seattle, you'd bring a stack of hymnals and sit them on the table, and they'd tell them to go through it page by page and make sure that all the pages are there. That's something to do, right? They produced value. They made sure that all the pages were in the handles. And if they were missing a page or a page was torn or something was written in it, they'd set it aside one way. And if it was in good shape, they'd set it aside the other way. You see, they did not use the principle of taking care of the poor to violate the principle of, if you don't work, you don't eat. They did take care of the poor, but they coupled that with the principle of, diligence and not slothfulness. So they made them work. They said, these are the conditions upon which we will provide for you. We'll provide food, clothing, shelter, shower, all that stuff, and we'll give you a day off. One day a week, after you've worked seven days, we'll give you one day a week to go out and look for a job. Okay? And they had some other requirements as well, you know, with it being a home environment. You know, they say, well, you'll either be in chapel or you'll be in a local church somewhere. But they didn't violate the principle of diligence and working for your livelihood to fulfill the principle of taking care of the poor. So it's like, you know, you have somebody on, you know, sometimes people ask you for money on the side of the road a lot. You know, I generally don't, I mean, call me mean or whatever, but I, I generally don't throw dollar bills out the window to somebody. I don't, it's, I don't think it's right. Um, and I, I don't say that it's wrong to help someone absolutely fine to help someone. In fact, if somebody comes to me personally, like if I'm downtown walking around or doing something and if somebody comes to me and says, Hey, I need to buy, you know, this or that or whatever. You know, I'm really hungry. Sometimes I'll come to you and say, I'm really hungry. Um, I just need some money for food. Say, all right, no problem. And I used to not carry cash that I could just say, well, I don't carry cash. But then I felt like that wasn't the right thing to do. So it doesn't matter if I'm carrying cash or not. I say, my policy is I don't give you money. If you want food, we'll go over here to this food place and I'll buy you food. No problem. Now I'm not going to do that every day for someone. I see the same guy the next week and he's like, hey, where's my cheeseburger? I'm gonna say, yeah, I'm gonna say, hey, I've got a job this week. I've got to go to you want to meet me? I'll take you there and I'll buy you lunch that day. You know, I would give them some sort of value so that they don't just get something for nothing. And of course, you know, something for nothing does take place from time to time. But, but I can't violate the scripture of the responsibility of man to care for himself, to help someone that's in a hard spot. Of course, I'll help people that are in a hard spot. I do all the time, but I, I'm not going to violate another principle to do it. So just the same, you know, like over at the mission, they would say, you don't work, you don't eat. And, you know, if they couldn't lift hemals, you know what they had them do? They gave them empty toilet paper rolls. And they gave them the big toilet paper rolls, the big, wide, commercial-sized rolls. And they would have them roll the toilet paper onto the empty roll the size of a regular household toilet paper thing. And that's what they would do for eight hours a day. Sit there and do that. So they'd have something to do. And then if they can work, then they would do something else. Or sometimes they would give them filing to do or something simple. They're not trying to like work them to death. They're just trying to make sure that that person is taught, because a lot of times people are in that situation because they either spend their money unwisely, or they, sometimes it's purely just because they lost their job and they had a real tough, hard time finding a new one. That does happen. A lot of times, though, the majority of people that I see in there, it's because they have some sort of addiction, or because they don't want to work, They're lazy. And in that case, they usually don't last the first week there. They're usually gone unless they get saved or, or if they're already saved, they get their heart right. And they're, and they're like, okay, I understand I'm supposed to work for my livelihood. So, um, that concept, some people look at that and they're like, oh, they're mean. And I say, no, they're not mean. They just expect you to, to, to not violate one principle in order to fulfill another. And so, Not saying that they do everything right over there. But at the same time, I say that that one, that thing that they do, they do right. And where some will say, well, God is love. And because God is love, he's not going to judge us. Well, that's absolutely wrong. God's not gonna violate his justice because of his love. Rather, he'll provide an answer through his mercy by sending his own son to die for us. And so he proves his love. by giving himself a sacrifice. And so the principle's not violated, it's fulfilled. And so when we look at victory in our lives, if there's a certain area that we deal with, if God's dealing with us in one area, or if we feel that God would have us to do something, actually, this is a real life example, but I won't mention any of the details, but if a man believes that God has called him to preach, Well, then he needs to prepare himself in such a way as to be usable in that area. So, you know, if a man wants to be a pastor, there are various things that qualify him to be a pastor. And he needs to qualify himself in that area. If there's something in his life that he knows is going to be a violation of the principles, laid forth in the word of God on what a pastor ought to be, then he needs to correct that before it's time to go become a pastor. You can't just say, I'm going to become a pastor, then I'll correct that. No, the principles all have to line out together. Um, and you know, you can, you can apply this to any area in your life, but the fact is God has given us the promise of victory that no matter the situation, we can have the victory. We can overcome. not in our own strength, but in his strength, because he's given us that. Now, where does that victory come from? The person of victory is the next point here. And Romans chapter eight, verse 37, as we've already looked at there, it's interesting. It's the same verses. They're all the same verses. That's why I didn't have them on there twice. They're all just typed up once. So in all things, And all these things were more than conquerors and then the rest of the verse says through Him that loved us and then 1st Corinthians chapter 15 verse 57 I don't know why I forgot that that was that way but 1st Corinthians 15 57 says but thanks be to God which giveth us the victory and then the rest of the verse through our Lord Jesus Christ And then 2 Corinthians 2.14 says, Now thanks be to God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ. And then Philippians 4.13, I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me. Amen. So this victory is promised. but it's promised through him. You know, I, I, uh, I like some of the things that I see or that I hear when I, you know, when I was, um, when I was in sales business, you hear a lot of like, you know, love pep talks and you know, you listen to people like, uh, Zig Ziglar and you know, a lot of those people that, and, and, uh, what's that one real successful sales guy, uh, Tom something or another. I don't know. What's that? Barack Obama. No, there's there's a Tony Robbins, I think, or somebody. I don't know. There's there's these guys that they give these like you can, you know, and and, you know, then you've got, you know, Dale Carnegie, who wrote How to Win Friends and Influence People. And there's all this, like, all this, like, you know, I can and, you know, you can and whatever you set your mind to, you can do. And the whole Disney philosophy is, you know, When you wished upon a star, you know all that kind of thing, right? and and and all this like Follow your heart and you know set your mind to it. You can do it. You can do it. Well You know, it is an amazing thing what God I'm studying in in school right now on creation and how God has created man and And well, God's created everything, but God's created man. And he's made us, as David said, we're fearfully and wonderfully made. And it's amazing how God has made the human body. And it's amazing the human mind and what the human mind can do, even though the body or even though the mind may think that the body can't do it. It's interesting that if you're going to run two miles and you think about this two mile run as you're running, and you're thinking about the distance, and you're thinking about your breathing, and you're thinking about the way your heart's thumping, and the way your knees feel, and the way that your shins feel, and the way that your feet feel hitting the ground, and you think about all of those things, and you think about the experience of the run, usually you don't make it two miles. Usually you make it a half mile, three quarters of a mile, maybe you'll make it one mile before you start walking, and then you'll You know then you start feeling bad because you're walking and then you go back to running again And then you wore out again, and then you go back to walking now usually what do you have to do? Think about something else That's why people usually when they're running I get headphones in or something. You know they get somebody in there It's it's the little engine that could you know and he's just they're just reading the book right to him It says I think I can I think I can and they're just going right? No, it's they're they're Instead of thinking about what they're doing to think about something else, but you just think about what you know when I was in basic training Man there were so many times And I think that was part of the purpose of basic training was to show you that you put limitations on yourself that are unrealistic you know that sometimes you you think I can't do that and I hate hearing that and even in gym class and stuff when the kids are like I can't do that like You're out of your mind. You can do that You absolutely can do that. And they're like, no, I can't. And I'm like, yes, you can. Yes, you can. There's so many things that we can do that we think we can't do. And we limit ourselves, self-limit ourselves, because either we're afraid of failure. And so because we're afraid of failure, we decide to fail. That's dumb. Or because we just have a view that we just can't do it. Well, in the spiritual realm, and even in the physical realm, You know, if we have an attitude that we serve a God that can do anything, well, if we are operating by His power and His strength, now, sure, the human person can do many things. God has enabled us. He's given us the ability. He's made our bodies capable of doing amazing things. I mean, things that the majority of people don't do, all of them could do. But he's made us capable of doing all those things. And it's not because of, hey, man is awesome. No, it's because God is awesome and he made us in such a way that we can do those things. However, if we begin to think that we are something by ourselves, that's when we begin to fail as well. It's a lot like when we're running and we're thinking, man, I can do this two mile run. You're just running along and you're like, this is, you know, I can do this. Well, sometimes, I can do this, brings you back to thinking about your feet hitting the ground and thinking about your breathing and thinking about, and you're like, I can do this. No, but if you, maybe like when I did the best on my two mile runs in the military, in fact, I never did really well, except when I was in basic training, I had one two mile run, I got down to like 14 minutes, um, which is, I mean, for me, my height and everything, that's ridiculous. I should be down to 12 or less really. But you know, I self limited and, and I still do, you know, but I need to work my knees a little bit more cause they hurt just standing up here. But, uh, but, uh, but usually when I would do well, I'd be, uh, I wouldn't be thinking about my breathing so much. I would be jogging along. at whatever, just have a decent pace, and I would be singing hymns, actually. Like, not loudly, but just kind of singing hymns, you know? I would be, you know, maybe five, six hymns, and next thing you know, I'm done. Like, wow, that was quick, you know? Then sometimes the run is tearing me down so much, because I'm thinking more about it, and I can't think about the hymns, and I can't remember. I'm like, what hymn did I want to sing? You know, so I would have to think ahead, OK, I'm going to sing these four hymns and then, you know, go through it. And so it's it's it's a matter of keeping your mind on the right thing. And I believe that when it comes to when it comes to victory in spiritual matters, you know, I know a lot of men have struggles with their thoughts and and the things that they think about. And I've had men ask me, well, what do you what do you do? I mean, how do you not think about it? I said, don't think about not thinking about it. Like, you know, when, when, when the thought comes to your mind, don't immediately say, Oh man, I need to not think about that. What are you doing? You're thinking about not thinking about what you're not supposed to be thinking about. Therefore you're thinking about it. I know that sounds confusing, but it's actually what happens. I said, use it as a trigger when that thought comes up. I mean, you just, have something written down that it reminds you of. That thought pops in and you think, okay, that's my trigger to think about praying for Brother Jim. Or that's my trigger to think about, you know, quoting this memory verse. And then instead of thinking about that thing that you're not supposed to be thinking about, you think about the thing that you should be thinking about. Because you allow that thing to trigger your mind to think, hey, Whenever I'm concerned about this, and you know what? For ladies, worry sometimes. And I say worry, but sometimes there's things in our lives that just bug us. And if we allow those things to bug us, and then we allow them to bug us a little more, and then the next thing we know, we're stressed out over it. By the way, that happens to men too, all the time. Uh, that probably happens to men more. We just don't talk about it that much because we're, you know, we're men. We talk about being stressed out. We get stressed out. Um, but if there's this issue that's stressing you out, if you allow, if you think about, well, man, I really shouldn't be worried about that. And then you're like, you know, I should, I should really not be worried about that. And then you try to think of reasons why you shouldn't worry about it. But as you're thinking of reasons why you shouldn't worry about it, you're thinking about it more. And you're like, well, you know, if this or that or whatever, and then the next thing you know, you're like, man, I don't know, man, this is stressing me out. And well, in all reality, if you just allow, when it pops into your head, you're like, you know, I really ought to pray for my spouse right now. There's something I could pray for for them not related to that issue. Something else. like maybe for you, he's at work. Pray that God would give him the wisdom to give people the right advice on what he's doing at work or that he would give him opportunities to witness to people. And while you're at work and something pops into your head and you're like, you pray for Courtney at home and be able to get rest and have sweet time with the baby and that the baby would be and not drive her crazy, and let her sleep sometimes, and all of that kind of thing. So if you let those things trigger other things that aren't related, then it takes your mind off of those things, and that victory is won through the Lord Jesus Christ, because you're now focusing on things that He would be pleased with. And as we talk about things that we think about, 2 Corinthians chapter 10, I believe it is, says that we're to take every thought to the obedience of Christ. We cast down strongholds and every imagination that exalted itself against the knowledge of Christ and take into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. And so as we're taking those thoughts into the obedience of Christ, we're taking our minds and moving it to the right subject or moving it to the right area of thought. And in doing so, he says in Philippians chapter four, if there be any, as we Did we write that out on this one? Or was it another one that we did? Here it is, right here on page 154. Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things. So those, you think about, and even this, this is an awesome verse to just put to practice. when you have a certain thing, if it's a thinking thing that pops in your head and you're thinking about this one thing or whatever, and you're like, oh, what's my trigger? Oh, what sort of things are true? What sort of things are honest? What sort of things are just? What sort of things are pure? Think about things that would apply to these things that you might be triggered to think about. And you say, okay, for this thing, I'm gonna think about, something that's true. And then I'm going to take an opportunity now. And you know what? One of the most amazing things that you can use as a, as a trigger when it comes to worry is praise. When it comes to concern is praise. So you think about what is true? What is true? Think about God's blessings. And you think about what God has given you, what God has, uh, you know, how, how, and you know what, I've been thinking again about creation because that's, that's what my class is right now. Um, think about what God has made. You just think about the, the amazing fact of, I was studying this week about how, how the light gets from the stars to the earth and you know, how is it possible that light that are the stars that are, that are billions of light years away, how is it that we can see the light with it only being 6,000 years old? That's an argument that many evolutionists try to use to say that we're wrong about the age of the Earth because of the light years. Light travels a certain distance in a year, at least according to our current understanding of light, and so then, therefore, if it's 14 billion light years away, then evidently the light started 14 billion years ago when it came to the place, right? Not necessarily. There's lots of, there's like at least three scientific explanations as to how the light, how we see the light without it taking 14 billion years to get here. We'll talk about that if you have any questions about that. We talked about that another time. I know you're like you're thinking It's like it's interesting there's there's gravitational time dilation there's and then there's the the concept of God stretching the heavens You know stretching them out. I'd like the canvas then there's Then there you know, there's I forget the third one. We can talk about it later But there's these different things though. Anyways, you think about the truth, and you think about just how amazing our creator is, we can think about how amazing the creation is, and then it reminds us how amazing the creator is. Right now, wonderful time to jump in the car, drive down the street, and look at the trees. Beautiful and all it is is like they're dying and leaves are falling off and we're like wow look at those beautiful trees dying You know going into dormancy for the winter and you know and all the stuff's falling down but that's That's to remind us though of the person of victory It's our Creator put all those things there. He said that all all things were made by him and and and and by him all things consist. And we know that everything, according to Revelation chapter four, everything was made for his pleasure. And he deserves that praise for that. And so it's a good thing when we think about, or when a thought comes under our mind that shouldn't be there or shouldn't be there very long, to think about the truth of who God is and to think about the truth of what God has done for us all in creation, and then even more important, think about the truth of what God has done for each of us individually in our salvation, and what he did to save us, not just what he did, of course what he did on the cross, of course what he did when he came into this world and his own received him, not of course all that, but then also think about what he did personally in your life to bring you to the point of salvation. what, who he used and all the various circumstances that God used to, to point you toward himself. It's, it's just, uh, it's an exciting thing. When you start thinking about those things, it's really hard to be concerned about other things going on, you know, and, uh, not to say that there are things that shouldn't, I mean, obviously there are things that, that bother us that should be corrected, that should be dealt with, that should be, um, this should be, uh, you know, addressed, but until they can be, we can't really dwell on. So, you know, if what I'm getting paid on the 15th is bothering me, I can't do anything about that. So don't think about it. I mean, I just look at what I'm getting paid, see what I can pay with it, you know, whatever the bills are, whatever. And then if I can't pay everything, think about how God made trees to turn brown or leaves turn brown and fall. You know, just enjoy what I can in life because I know that after the 15th, I don't have any bills to do that. You know, I'm not worried about that. I'm just using it as an example. But but instead of, you know, and realize, though, that like there was a 15th of. What is it, November, there's a 15th of November, you know, five years ago that I probably. But your birthday. So there's a 15th of November five years ago that I couldn't pay my bills and I'm still here, you know. So if that's, and that's something common that a lot of us deal with, you know, about, oh man, you know, how am I going to pay these bills? And praise the Lord, I don't worry about that as much as I used to, but, um, you know, it's coming winter time and work slows down. So I might be worried about it in the winter. So when I am, you guys remind me that, Hey, there's snow on the ground. Look at it. It's beautiful. Praise the Lord, we can go sledding. Don't worry about your bills. You'll get them paid. I probably won't share it with you when I'm worried about it though. But that victory is there when we think about, and I just mentioned true. Then we can think about things that are honest, things that are just, things that are pure, things that are lovely, things that have good rapport. If you have a moment, maybe this week, write that verse out, and then maybe take each of those words and write a list of things that would apply to that. What things are true? What things are honest? You can be creative. Write a list of things for each of those words, and then you can take those things and you can remind yourself of them. You can just write it on a little three by five card, stick it in your pocket, and then when you're thinking about something or your mind's you're getting depressed or you're worried about something or you're tempted to lust or whatever it is, you pull that thing out of your pocket and you start reading the list of things. You know, you think about the goodness of God. So the last thing here, the path of victory. Well, we're already like 10 minutes over, man. See, I thought this was going to go real fast. I just keep on going. The path of victory says, did you notice as you study the steps of victory over the world, the flesh and the devil? There was a common theme in translating victory into our own experience. God's word plus faith equals victory. So we believe God's word. We put it into practice in our lives and then we have victory. And I was just kind of I guess without. I mean, I was kind of elaborating on that process just now when we're talking about taking that verse and and, you know, maybe make a list and and then trust in God's word. Put it to practice in your life. and then you'll have that victory. So according to Psalm 119 verses 9 and 11, what will hiding God's word in your heart do for you? Keep you from sin. Amen. And then according to Matthew chapter 26 verse 41, what two things should we do to avoid falling into temptation? Watch and pray. And hey, that was our memory verse. I didn't even realize that. Our memory verse was 1 Corinthians 10, 13, and I have it typed out here now. I was trying to just quote it, but I think I had it right. There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted, above that you are able, but will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape. Is it to or of? Let me look here. To escape, yes, that you may be able to bear it. So that's, Encouraging any questions or comments very quickly On this subject of victory and then next week. We'll talk about witnessing Lord willing questions comments