Fight for Victory

Hello.

Can you hear me?

Put the mic next to my mouth.

That helps.

Can you hear me then?

That's the first round, the first thing they teach you.

Put the mic next to your mouth.

Well, good morning, CCW.

Good morning.

Hope you've had a good weekend.

I want you to get your Bibles and turn them to 2 Samuel.

And just hope that things have been good.

Maybe some of you seen us last night.

We had the youth group running amok through the town.

And if you want to come make a bid on some used stuff, we've got a building full of grills and weed eaters, and I can't even tell you.

But we were out in town.

We play a game called the Bigger Better Game with our students.

They start with a paper clip, and whoever has the most valuable item at the end wins.

And I don't even know.

I can't even tell you what was the most valuable.

But we had a lot of fun.

And one year previous we did this and we got a car engine.

So people have some stuff.

If you're willing to go knock and ask, you might, who knows what you might get.

But that was we were able that year to get$600 for the youth ministry.

So we sold that engine.

But had a good time and wanted to ask you to continue in prayer for Keisha Glass, Josh Glass, their family.

Keisha's mourning over the passing of her mother with the funeral coming up this week.

So keep them in your prayer.

A couple of things coming that I wanted just to tell you before we got in the message.

Don't forget lunch next week, right after the service.

And we we said we'd be doing that starting the new year once a month at the end of the month.

So don't forget about that.

And then everybody asked me that visits or that's been in, what does CCW do for small groups?

So I want to let you know that the week after May 8th, we are going to be kicking off our small groups.

And so be looking for that information.

We're going to have our leaders come out in a few weeks so that you can see who's going to be leading, and there are going to be all different uh times of the week.

And we are so excited about the opportunity in Galatians 6.2 to bear one another's burdens and get deeper as a church.

So be looking for that.

And that's enough commercials.

2 Samuel chapter 22.

2 Samuel 22 · chapter mention

And you've been riding on this roller coaster with us through the life of David.

And hasn't it been good to see David's life and the ups and downs, hills and valleys, the mountaintops?

And uh, you know, as I started that series of tagline, he went from shepherd boy to giant slayer to army captain to on the run from the king to become the king, to become an adulterer and murderer.

Well, how will we, after this is over, remember David?

In Acts chapter 13, Paul remembered him by saying he was a man after God's own heart.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

And so even after David's great fall, which we looked at in the last few weeks, um, in 2 Samuel 11 was his fall around age 50 with Bathsheba was that fall.

And then he messed up after that as a parent.

He confessed, um, but he messed up as a parent.

We saw that, but David dies at age 70.

Yes, we know.

And so from 61, his son Absalom passes.

There's about a nine-year gap where it looks like he closes his life focused on God.

And he closes his life with his eyes and his heart on the Lord.

So we get that phrase, a man after God's own heart.

Well, David in 1 or 2 Samuel chapter 22 is kind of a strange, if you're looking through the history here, we're seeing historic things happen.

2 Samuel 22 · chapter mention

Chapter 23 is sort of his last words.

That's some of your Bibles would be headed that way.

And then right in the middle of 21, the end of a battle, and 23 is a song.

Seems strange because David wrote many songs, so this must be an important song, and he could have picked any, but he reflects back on an old song.

Moore said this about the song.

I believe the words comprise the testimony of an aging man with a fresh passion.

Aren't you excited that you're never too old to experience a young passion?

This is what might be called his victory song.

And so, you know, songs matter.

Colossians 3 19 tells us that we should admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

How many of you remember?

I know y'all are looking at these people behind me.

It's coming, okay?

How many of you remember Casey Kasum?

This is gonna age some people.

All right?

You remember America's top 40 before the internet uh broke?

And listen, that he had an unforgettable voice, and this was how you kept up with music.

You couldn't just hit on repeat an internet song like you used to.

So there was anxiousness about who was gonna be the top five or whatever it was, but Casey Kaysom was the guy.

And with that voice, what made him popular, he had this unforgettable voice, but he would give an informational line about the song or the group.

And so, based on 2 Samuel 22 today, what I want to give today is David's top five countdown.

He gives his victory song, but we're gonna give songs within the song.

And this week on the chart by E.M.

Bartlett, he penned the song after having a stroke.

E.M.

Bartlett penned this song.

It made him have a partial paralysis, but and he was unable to travel any longer and perform.

But this song became his most beloved song.

So, number five on David's top five countdown.

Everybody stand up with us.

What else can I do?

Woo! Man, I thought that went good in my mind, but it went a lot better than I had it in my mind.

Man.

Wow.

Well, if we're gonna we're gonna talk about David's fight for victory and his victory song, we had to sing the victory song.

So, amen.

Well, let's pray and then we're gonna look at what happens in the Bible here.

Father, oh, we thank you, Jesus, for the victory we have in you.

And God, nothing that Satan or this life can throw at us, Lord, has a chance because we are your children.

And so, God, we thank you for that.

We thank you for the victory have, knowing one day when this is all over, we get to spend eternity with you in worship.

So, God, I pray that you would fill this message.

Lord, you speak, uh, get me out of the way and just do your work.

We love you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So, David's victory song here, 2 Samuel 22, look at verse 2.

It says, And he said, The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer.

So, point number one this morning is this the Lord is my security.

The Lord is my security.

Um, I know my window is closing, but my boys try to come at me and push me.

They try to move me, and I get in a position, we play this sort of game, and I stand firm, and they try as best they can to move me.

And I I said I know my window is closing, but what I love right now is this that I know, you know, that they are weak.

By comparison, they are weak.

And I love that.

I don't boast too much about it, but right now I know that, and it's just mathematics.

I mean, I'm 185 pounds and they're not.

But I want my kids to know that I'm solid, not just in a physical sense, I want them to know that I'm here, I want them to know that I'm not moving.

Two of my children right now are going through a roller coaster like David.

It's called junior high and senior high.

Okay?

And their world is changing rapidly.

But I have not.

And I want them to know even if you move, I'm not moving.

I'm here, I'm stable.

You might mess up, guess what?

I'm still here.

You might hurt me, I'm still here.

You might fail me, I'm still here.

Guess what?

I'm not moving.

David likes stability.

You know, Romans 8 tells us that no matter what we do, we can't impact the love of God for us.

Nothing that we do against him or for him changes it.

You know what?

He chose to love us.

And Romans 5 says, not even when we were lovely, while we were yet sinners, he sent Christ to die for us.

He loves you, and it's not because of something that you heap up or do.

And I want my kids to understand as a rock in their life, I chose with my wife to have them.

They didn't chose to have me, choose to have me.

And so I love them.

Now, sometimes I don't always like things.

I won't say I don't like them, but sometimes I don't like things, and but I love them.

And I'm not moving off of that.

That's my choice.

I choose to love them no matter what they do.

And so when I was thinking about that, number four on David's top five countdown, there's a song that I love.

And the song is called this The Rock Won't Move.

Have you heard this worship song by the vertical worship man?

There's a line in the rock won't move, and it says this I'm holding fast to the promise of the truth that you are holding tighter still to me.

I want to say that again.

I'm holding fast to the promise of the truth that you, the rock, are holding tighter still to me.

If my hope resides in me, church, I'm hopeless.

But my hope resides in God who doesn't change.

I've got a chart I want you to see.

There's a reason this is important.

If you guys would put that first picture up.

Alright, so as you see this, you learn this in psychology, Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

And I'm not saying everything that he puts out is good material, but number two on that chart, do you see what it says?

Safety.

At the very fundamental level of all of our needs of life, we have needs for security and safety.

So why is it important that we have stability?

It's at a very fundamental level for us.

And so when we say that God is a rock, it's really important.

I want you to see another verse here, verse 32 in chapter 22.

Look at what it says.

For who is God except the Lord?

And who is a rock except our God?

In verse 47, it's the chorus of this song.

It says, The Lord lives, and blessed be my rock.

So letter A this morning is this that He, we are stabilized by Him.

It's where we get our stability.

He's our security and He's our stability.

He says, David here says the Lord.

Now listen to this.

It's important.

Think about who is saying these things.

The Lord is my rock.

He says, Who is rock except God?

Who can be a rock except for him?

Blessed be my rock.

Rocks we know don't move.

They're strong, they're durable, they're solid on their own.

Rocks handle all kinds of climate and weather.

And David knew something about rocks.

Are you with me, church?

When David called God his rock, don't you think at 61, as he's recounting stories and thinking, he might have said, maybe there was a time David got the grandchildren all around.

And David said, Look at this rock.

And he said, Oh, I gotta tell you a story, kids, about rocks.

Man, one time I grabbed a rock and I put it in a little weapon.

Oh.

And he tears up, probably, and says, There's just always, there's just always been something about rocks for me.

And he said, The Lord is my rock.

I want you to turn your Bibles to Matthew.

Matthew chapter 7.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

I want you to see what Scripture has to say here about how we build our lives.

You know this, you've heard it.

If you've been in Sunday school as a little kid, you might have sung about it.

But it says, verse 24 through 27, Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock.

Rain descended, the floods came, the winds blew and beat on that house, and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.

But everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand, and the rains and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it fell, and great was its fall.

If you're held up today by shifting sand, at best, shifting sand is continuous change.

The economy changes, politics change, finances change, the market changes, popularity changes, gas prices change.

Are you with me?

Toilet paper supply changes, job changes.

Some of you this year, raise your hand if you've had a home change, right?

We have life changes, and at best, sometimes it's like shifting sand.

How do I keep up?

How many of you this year, if you were honest, you've gone through some sort of change?

Right?

Change is happening all around us.

But Hebrews 13 8 says this that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

That's as solid as a rock.

You can lean on that.

People will fail you because people change.

But Jesus never ever changes.

In his character, it says that he's immutable.

That's stability.

There's no change in that.

Um, I was reading this week.

Um it said the Niagara River drops.

There's a drop at it that goes 180 feet.

And at the American and Horseshoe Falls, above the falls, there's this violent rapid.

And before reaching that rapid, there's a place where boats can still navigate through.

And right about that place, there's a bridge for people to walk across.

And on that bridge, it said that there was a sign mounted to the bridge.

And it says, Do you have an anchor?

And then right next to that sign, it has a second question.

Do you know how to use your anchor?

Not the original author of this song, but number three on David's chart.

The best version of this song that I've ever heard in a small rural town in Indiana called Connorsville.

A man that Heather and I, uh, their family we grew to love, named Doug McDaniel, sang this over and over and over.

Number three on the chart today is a song called The Anchor Holds.

The anchor holds, listen to the words of this song.

You want to talk about stability.

The anchor holds, though the ship is tattered.

The anchor holds, though sails are torn.

It says, I've fallen on my knees as I face the raging sea.

But the anchor holds in spite of the storm.

And church, when life throws everything at you, let me tell you something.

The anchor holds.

He's still as solid as a rock, and that takes us this morning to letter B.

We're stabilizing him, but letter B is we are shielded by him.

Look at verse 3 in 2 Samuel 22.

It says, The God of my strength in whom I will trust, my shield, and the horn of my salvation.

I want you to look, pass over to verse 31.

As for God, his way is perfect, the word of the Lord is proven.

He is a shield to all who trust in him.

And then verse 36, you have also given me the shield of your salvation.

It says he's my shield, a shield to those who trust.

You know, the Bible says that the enemy throws darts, that he throws fiery darts, and he's got arrows with your name on it.

And in battle, the shield has one purpose is to deflect the harm that the enemy is trying to impose.

And so it deflects so that the darts and the arrows do not make their mark.

In a sense, though, I want you to understand something that they still hit you.

But because the shield is an extension of yourself, that shield takes the damage that was coming for you rather than your body.

And so I want you to know what God does for you.

The attack doesn't stop.

I was when we were early in youth ministry a couple of years in, I thought it'd be a great idea to get students together for a uh game of paintball.

Never played paintball up to this point.

I thought this would be awesome.

And what was funny is I had about 40 students signed up, uh, about half guys, half girls.

When we got to the leaving of the event, none of the girls showed.

We had all guys, and we go, I was cold out, so I layered up and I'm thinking through this.

How do I not get hurt?

Right?

I don't know what the pain is like, but people have sort of tried to explain it to me, and it doesn't sound good.

None of it's like it's pretty good pain.

No, it's not anything like that.

So I I put on, I got like car heart, I've got thick clothes on, and I go out and I feel like I'm ready because there's nothing gonna penetrate all the clothes I have on, right?

And so we get ready, and of course, the most fun thing to do in paintball with your youth pastor is go on all out attack, everyone against him.

So there I am, poised, ready to start, and here came the onslaught.

I'm telling you, they came at me, and for a minute, nothing just hitting me.

And then one of the worst pains I felt in my whole life.

You know, one area was unguarded?

One area, my gun hand, and I have my hand on my gun, and let me tell you what happened.

I had a paintball come piercing through, hit my thumb, and I thought, I thought when I look down, I'm gonna see a missing thumb.

This is it.

I got shot in that thing immediately.

It was like I couldn't even tell you the type of pain that I felt.

It was cold, that thing was like frozen, boom, and it just throbbed.

I could barely shoot the rest of the time.

Oh, it was terrible.

It was terrible.

Church, I want you to understand something.

Satan is a master at finding the unshielded spots of your life.

Yeah.

Unguarded spaces.

Satan knows when you're tired, he knows when you're irritable, he knows when it's late at night, and you're right on the verge of that bad choice.

He knows when no one is around and you don't have accountability in that moment.

And so Ephesians 6 says, then you better take up the shield of faith.

Take up the shield of faith.

It's a shield to those.

This scripture said what David said, it's a shield.

To those who trust.

That's important.

To those who trust.

What is trust?

Those with faith.

What is it that David has more than anybody up to this point that we know?

The guy that faced the biggest giant in history?

He's got abundant faith.

He said to all of Israel, What do you mean?

This guy comes out and he's spitting all this stuff at us?

There's no way that our God can let us lose.

That's faith.

And so David has this great abundance of faith.

The great shield for his life.

He had all kinds of battles.

We're going to see about that.

But what did he have?

He had faith.

Scripture says faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Hebrews 11 1.

And let me tell you, Christian, Hebrews 11 6 says, without faith, it's impossible for you to please God.

And so we have to have this trust in him.

And he says, as a byproduct, guess what?

If you trust in me, I'm going to shield you from attacks.

But you have to have faith.

In fact, 1 John 5 4 says, Whoever is born of God overcomes the world.

And the victory that overcomes the world, the attack, the arrows, the victory is faith.

He says, the victory is faith.

Well, that takes us to our next song on the charts.

Before we get to that song, I want you to look at your neighbor right now, and I want you to say this.

Have more faith.

Look at your second choice and say, have more faith.

I'm sorry, you were second choice.

John Yates began to write and publish, and his poetry was posted in local New York papers, posted in the Harper's Bazaar.

In 1891, John Yates was signed to write with world-renowned Ira Sankey, who was going and traveling with the evangelistic campaigns of D.

L.

Moody.

And so when Yates wrote the lines of this song that became his most popular, I believe this number two on David's top five, these lines, faith is the victory.

Faith is the victory.

Oh, glorious victory that overcomes the world.

He said, Faith is the victory.

This is what shields me.

The world has its darts aim, but oh, glorious victory.

Faith overcomes all of this.

So we're shielded by him.

That takes us to our second point this morning is this.

The Lord is my sustainer.

He's my sustainer.

The word sustain means to keep in existence, to maintain, to continue, to prolong, to give the necessities for your life.

Look at verse five and six.

The Lord is my sustainer.

When the waves of death surrounded me, the floods of ungodliness made me afraid.

The sorrows of Sheol surrounded me.

The snares of death confronted me, he says.

I want you to look over verse 17 through 20.

He sent from above.

He took me, he drew me out of many waters.

That's sustainment, church.

He delivered me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me, for they were too strong for me.

They confronted me in the day of my calamity.

They were too strong, but guess what?

The Lord was my support in verse 19.

He also brought me out into a broad place.

He delivered me because he delighted in me.

You see, David understood that the Lord was his sustainer.

We get some sort of mythological idea that we're somehow in control of this life and this flesh and this breath, and we have no control.

It's a great mirage for us to believe somehow that we are in control when he is the sustainer.

And David, when he writes about this, if anybody had a picture of what sustainment meant, letter A is this through trials he sustained.

I want you guys to put up that second picture, the map of David's fights.

If anyone knew about fighting, as you see this map, there's little orange arrows, and they depict all of the places where David went into battle.

David had experienced about every type of warfare, church.

Not only combat, but at one point he was on the run from King Saul, in which he would not fight.

No soldier, listen, I was looking this up this week, there's been no soldier in history that ever fought in World War I, II, and the Korean War.

There's never been somebody, a soldier, that fought in those three.

There have been a few soldiers that fought in World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam.

Okay?

And so there's been a few that fought in three huge wars.

2 Samuel 8 begins to list David's wars.

He had a war against the Philistines, a war against the Edomites, a war against the Moabites, a war against Syrians, a war against the Ammonites, a war against Arabian armies.

And that did not include his battles with the 400 men when he was cast away from Saul, and it did not include his battle against Saul.

So when David says the waves of death were on me, church, it meant something.

We say, Well, I hadn't had my coffee yet today.

What a trial.

Well, it's been rough.

Traffic was sure bad today.

And David says, the waves of death.

Then he said, after that, floods of ungodly men were all around me.

He said, the sorrows of Sheol, the sorrows of hell.

Now, he's not just trying to exaggerate here.

He's been in death's path over and over and over and uses an important description to confer that he was often a place of fear for his life.

And he says, When I felt down like that, God sustained me.

He continued to sustain me.

He continued to provide.

Psalms 3, verse 3 through 5.

Psalms 3:3–5

It says, O Lord, you are a shield about me.

And David, who wrote this in verse 5, said, I laid down, I slept, and when I woke up again, I knew that the Lord sustained me.

David goes as far as to say, I went to sleep, and because I woke up, I knew I'd been sustained.

That's the type of life that David was living.

If I wake up another day, I know that God gave me breath again.

And so he understood the sustainment of the Lord.

That takes us to letter B.

It's not only through trials, but through talking.

He sustained.

What does that mean, Pastor?

Through talking.

Look at verse 4.

He says, I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised.

So, listen, conjunction, so I will call, so shall I be saved from mine enemies?

Look at verse 7.

In my distress, what did he do?

I called upon the Lord and cried out to my God.

He heard my voice from his temple, and my cry entered his ears.

And if you got over the verse 42, it says, They looked, listen to this.

They looked, talking about his enemy, but there was none to save them.

Even to the Lord, he did not answer them.

I called on him, he answered.

The enemy called on him, he wasn't there.

And so he says, Through talking, I will call upon the Lord.

David had a battle secret.

It was the same secret that he displayed before that big rock, sunk through Goliath's forehead.

He spoke with the Lord.

Ephesians 6 18, when it talks to us about the warfare, the armor that we're supposed to put on, at the end of the armor, it says this.

This is our caveat at the end of putting on all the armor, the shield of faith, the sword of the spirit, the breastplate of righteousness, all of it, he says, now, praying always, with all perseverance and supplication.

After you get all that done, after you're ready to armor up, what you gotta do is you gotta speak to the Lord.

You gotta continuously, church, speak to the Lord.

And so this quote, William Cowper said this, and I love it.

Satan trembles when he sees the weakest of saints upon their knees.

Listen, church, I started thinking back in the last few months just of some prayers.

And I want you to know, I want you to hear some of them.

We prayed for God to hear heal Mr.

Billy of his cancer, and guess what God did?

He heard our prayers.

And we prayed together with Mr.

Day for Upward Soccer.

We had 26 people lined up, and he said, I'm really hoping that God will double this.

So we said, Double?

What's that?

52.

Let's pray for 52.

The day registration's in.

Guess how many kids are signed up for upward soccer that day?

52! Tell me my God doesn't hear prayer.

And since it's added more.

And so we've prayed.

We have prayed that the parking lot would get paid, and God paid the parking lot.

We pray for Erimenya to get here from Honduras.

And guess who's here?

Arimenya.

We have prayed that the church should be unanimous in the vote.

And I'm praising God that that happened.

We have prayed.

We have prayed for sick, we have prayed for salvations, we've prayed for marriages, we've prayed for prodigals, we have prayed, and guess what?

God keeps answering.

But you know what he doesn't answer?

The prayer that doesn't get prayed.

Church, he answers.

My favorite quote on prayer, John Piper said this things happen when we pray that would have never happened had we not prayed.

I don't know why it's God's activation button.

He could do it anyway, but it is.

And so if we don't get involved in prayer, we're gonna miss out on things.

Psalms 55, 22 says, Cast your burden on the Lord, and here's that word again, and he will sustain you.

He will never permit the righteous to be moved.

How many of you have heard Pastor Tony Evans before?

I love Tony Evans.

I wish I could preach like Tony Evans, but Tony Evans said this things in your house work because of electricity.

He said, electricity is an invisible power that gives you visible privileges.

It turns the light on, it turns the TV on, it turns the griddle on, it turns the oven on.

All of this stuff is working in your house because you've got one invisible power shooting through called electricity.

But he says, none of those things work, even though they have access to electricity until you flip the switch.

You've got to make a connection before any of the stuff that's there works.

So I want you to look at your neighbor right now and say this flip the switch.

Every believer in Jesus Christ has stuff that works.

But not everybody activates it.

Hear me, church.

Not every saint is praying on their knees.

Not every saint is a prayer warrior.

It's there, it's available.

But you gotta flip the switch.

If you're looking at your life and you're saying, there's some stuff, Pastor, it's just not working.

Can I submit to you an old fill formula?

Can you pray?

It's not magical.

This Christian walk, this thing that we call Christianity, I say this to new believers.

Look, the formula is not magic.

You gotta pray and you gotta read this book.

But let me tell you how many people in this room maybe don't do that.

I I don't know.

There's a lot of churches filled with people who know the formula, but they are so busy.

Oh, that excuse.

That's our that's our world, right?

We're so busy.

I just don't I don't have time.

I know this about time.

You make time for what you want to.

That hurts.

Look, I'm I confess, Lord, I need to make better time, but so do we.

And so we have access to the power of God, but we have to flip that switch.

That takes us to the third point this morning.

This David shares through his song, if I could tell you anything, and my one last favorite song, in the last line of my favorite song of all time, he says this the Lord is my success.

The Lord is my success.

Look at verse 38 through 45.

He says, I pursued my enemies and destroyed them.

Neither did I turn back again till they were destroyed.

And I have destroyed them and wounded them.

They could not rise, they've fallen under my feet.

For you have armed me with strength for battle.

You've subdued under me those who rose against me.

Said to the Lord, I have sinned greatly in what I have done, but now I pray.

Oop, I skipped a whole page.

That wasn't making sense.

You verse 41, let me try again.

You have also given me the necks of my enemies, so that I destroyed those who hated me.

They looked, but there was none to save, even to the Lord, but he did not answer them.

Then I beat them.

Look at David here.

I beat them as fine dust of the earth.

I trod them like dirt in the streets and spread them out.

You have delivered me from the strivings even of my people.

You have kept me as the head of nations, a people I have not known serve me.

The foreigners submit to me.

As soon as they hear, they obey me.

And this is what he's saying.

Listen to me, the Lord is my success.

The reason all these things happen is because the Lord decided they'd happen.

Letter A this morning is this My enemies are disappointed.

He goes on at the beginning, on the onset of that line, and he says, The enemies on the outside, they were disappointed.

They were destroyed, they were consumed, they were subdued.

Verse 42, he even says that line.

They tried to turn to the Lord in the midst of the battle, and God said, No, I'm not hearing from you.

God is loyal to his children.

He would not even answer them.

And then David, I think he gets a little like, I think he gets a little smack talk in, right?

I believe in this part of the song, he started to rap.

Y'all with me?

He said, I beat them, I defeat them, I stamped them, I trampled them, I spread them like butter.

David might even have quoted the great philosopher L.L.

Cool Jay.

He said, Mama said, knock you out, so I'm gonna knock you out.

David got on a roll there.

I'm gonna knock you out, boy.

Verse 44, look at there.

He said, Enemies on the outside, but then he says this, and I want as a church, we need to hear it.

Verse 44, he said, You've also delivered me from the strivings of my own people.

The enemies within.

This unity church is a great killer of a multitude of churches today.

And what that is, is it's selfishness from within.

There's always, always, anybody here that's been in church a long time could tell you there's always been church disruptors.

How many know today that the enemy wants to disrupt?

And disruptors come in all forms.

They come from gossip, they come from a critical spirit with a smile.

Oh, okay.

You said it with a smile, so it was okay.

Selfish preferences?

I'm talking it ain't in this book.

It's just how I feel, Pastor.

Well, I think.

Guess what?

Here at CCW, we don't do that.

We believe in chapter, verse, and book.

If it's there, then that's what we're gonna do.

And the enemy, you know what he thinks about that?

It always disappoints the enemy.

Because he can't break through this.

He can break through in some other ways, but he can't break through that.

And a real church that stands on that, guess what the Bible says?

Oh, he can bring the gates of hell against that church, but he will not prevail.

Because listen, here, I've been asked some things about our vision moving forward.

I I just gotta be honest.

Our success here is not measured in numbers.

Our success here is not about buildings or likes or follows or clicks or how many ministries or how much staff or what's in the bank account or the last greatest event.

Success here, listen to me, church, is measured by how much Jesus we have.

It's measured in its presence.

And you can't, let me tell you how many guests come in this place and we visit with them on Monday or Tuesday, and they say, When I walked into the place, it was like I felt something different.

That church is success.

This place can be filled, and I don't I don't have the answer.

I don't know if we're gonna have 800 people or a thousand people.

All the vision God's given me is that the people that are here, that's victory right there, and we're gonna push into the people that we see, and that will be success.

And as much Jesus as we can give in this place, that's gonna be success.

And so that's the message.

And so when we say that, oh I said I started getting in this in my own heart, and I said, Yes, this is it.

Yes, and Pastor, I've never had a running spell, but I started to think about one.

I started to think about it, but I'm not, I'm not, I'm not ready yet.

I don't know if the church is ready for that.

I didn't grow up Pentecostal like Pastor Danny.

But when you think about what success is, church, that's what it is.

It's the presence of God.

And we are so honored when God decides to bring his presence.

When God decides to work on a heart.

It's nothing that a man can conjure up.

We can't play the right song.

I can't even say the right word.

It is God's choice to bring himself in this place.

And so we try to follow him so he'll do that.

Amen.

Amen.

That takes us to letter B.

The enemies were disappointed.

Letter B is this.

Thy exaltation is deserved.

I want you to look at verse 4.

He said, I will call upon the Lord who is worthy.

He is worthy to be praised.

Verse 31, I want you to pass over there.

It says, As for God, his way, why is he worthy?

His way is perfect, and the word of the Lord is proven.

Verse 47, when you sing that old song, the Lord lives, blessed be my rock.

Let God be exalted.

Well, that's good.

He is to be exalted.

Blessed be the rock of our salvation.

That word exalt, I can't even pronounce this, I'm gonna try.

The word exalt is naromenea.

And what it means is not only exalting to lift up, but it means to exalt to the highest possible height, the highest level.

In other words, no one can achieve an exaltation higher than this position in your life.

He says, that type of exaltation is what's deserved.

And I was thinking back about some places in Scripture.

Um, I was thinking about the story of Moses.

Moses went into the tent of meeting, and what happened?

Moses made a mistake.

It ain't always on the mountaintop that you get to meet with God, but Moses made a mistake.

He got angry, God told him to speak to a rock, he struck the rock, and water came out for the Israelites.

But when he did that, God told him, You are not going to be permitted to go into the promised land.

They've been wondering and wondering, and Moses had been leading, and he'd been faithful in leading.

And God tells him at this point, you will not get to go to the great big goal.

And I thought about that and I wondered what Moses felt like, but I want you to look in Exodus chapter 33.

Exodus 33 · chapter mention

Keep your place, but look at what happens here.

Exodus 33.

I want you to see verse, we'll try to read quickly, verse 7 through 11.

Moses took his tent and pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of meeting.

And it came to pass, listen to this, that everyone who sought the Lord went out to the tabernacle of meeting, which was outside the camp.

So it was whenever Moses went out to the tabernacle that all the people, listen to this, rose.

And each man stood at his tent door and watched Moses until he had gone into the tabernacle.

And it came to pass when Moses entered the tabernacle that the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses.

And all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose and they worshiped, each man at his tent, because the presence of the Lord was close.

And so the Lord spoke to Moses, hear this face to face.

Can you imagine, church?

As a man speaks to his friend, and he will return to the camp, listen to This, but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle.

Moses with the goal ahead was to get into the promised land.

And with that goal out of the picture, you know what he started doing?

He spent as much time as he could on his journey getting to the tabernacle.

What filled Moses more than anything else was in that tent of meeting, in the pathway to the big goal.

What he found was it wasn't even the goal, it was the presence of God along the way.

It was God's presence, and he found worship, not in the promised land, but right there in the quietness of the tent.

He worshipped God.

And the people, when Moses would go worship of God, he'd say, He's going, he's going to the tent.

And they would get up out of their tent and they would stand at the corner of the tent, the pillar of cloud and go, oh, I can tell the worship is good over there.

And they just wanted to hear the sights that was happening over there with Moses and God.

And because Moses got close to God, other people got a residual effect.

And so if you would just get close to God, let me tell you, it's going to impact some people.

He saw the glory of God face to face, and I love this part because Moses got so close to him when Joshua went with him.

Moses left and said Joshua's like, uh-uh.

Uh uh-uh, I don't want to leave.

Go ahead, Moses.

Whatever it is here, says, Let me stay.

Let me stay in his presence.

And this one didn't make the charts, folks, because I only had five and six is not a good number.

But I think if David had another one, we've been singing this song week after week, nothing else.

And in the song it says, I'm caught up in your presence.

I just want to stay right here at your feet.

Isaiah said in the presence of God, Woe is me, for I'm weak and undone, I'm a man of unclean lips.

All he could do when the presence of God came near was to confess his inability to be God.

He said, I got this sin.

And we have had.

Heather and I have had the beautiful opportunity in many camps to sit with students who have gotten vulnerable.

I get like this because for some reason in church we just keep up our guard.

And I've been with teenagers who are willing to naively, or whatever you want to call it, just get real and raw.

And in the presence of God, we'd sit and we'd have this share group time, and students begin to weep and confess before all their peers, this is my sin.

And I'm so sorry to God.

And I think for whatever reason we get so adult and we're so afraid of what somebody else thinks, and we gotta be proper and we gotta keep up appearances, and I wish we'd just get real.

We've seen kids, we because in the presence of God they couldn't do anything but say, Oh God, write me in this way.

God, make me better.

And as I was thinking about that, one more example came to my mind.

In Revelations, Revelations 4, verse 8, it says this.

Revelation 4:8

John is trying to explain this vision that we probably in our minds just couldn't come to words with, but he says there's these four living creatures, each of them having wings full of eyes, and within those wings they do not rest day or night.

And this is what they sing.

In all of the heavens, day and night, they sing holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.

And John has this vision and he's trying to explain it, and he goes even deeper in Revelation chapter 5.

Revelation 5 · chapter mention

Listen to what he says, verse 11 through 14.

Then I looked around and heard the voice of many angels around the throne.

Picture this living creatures, elders, the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands.

And they sung with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing forever.

You want to talk about a church service?

Listen, if you don't like to sing, church, you're not gonna like heaven.

If you ever said, I wish I could sing, one day I believe you're gonna be a part of the greatest choir that there will ever be.

And this is what I want to say to wrap that up.

Listen to me.

I believe David declares and understands the real success was the Lord Himself.

This world's gonna tempt you and offer you a whole lot of ways to success.

And Matthew 6 basically says it all turns to nothing, it all rusts, it all corrupts, it all fades.

One time, one day you're gonna get older, it's all gonna be gone, you're gonna go from a life where you try to pack it all in, get a bigger house, to you now you're gonna start packing it all down, get a smaller house, and it all is going to dissipate.

And Moses found it in the tent.

David found it.

The world tries to tell us all types of measures of victory, but I want to submit to you today the real measure of victory is found in the answer to this question.

How close are you to God?

How close, right now, church?

Let's do a gut check.

Do you talk to him?

If you talk to him, he listens.

Do you listen to him?

Because if you listen to him, he'll speak to you.

He'll be your security, your shield, and your success.

So, number one on today's countdown of day, top five, and we're gonna sing together.

I want to ask you to stand to your feet, and we're gonna sing the song of heaven.

And I want to ask you while you sing it, will you look for and listen for the presence of God in it?

Benji, you