Hold Fast | I'm Freaking Out (October 20th, 2019) - Mike Armstrong

Alright, well you can get your Bibles open to uh 2 Chronicles chapter 20 in the Old Testament as we continue uh in our Hold Fast series here.

2 Chronicles 20 · chapter mention

Now um I'm sure that we've all had you know those moments in life where something goes terribly wrong, right?

Something just goes awry, you know, there's some kind of crisis or trouble, and kind of the instinctive or natural response within us emotionally and all of that is to just hit the panic button, right?

It is to um freak out.

Right?

I was kind of thinking about this in my own life uh and and kind of thinking through some examples of this, maybe, and I think probably the one that kind of stands out the most, I have such an acute memory of, uh, came on my final day of Bible college.

All right, I was headed into uh my final exam ever, right?

And if you have you know just come through that, or you can even maybe remember that, that is like a glorious day, right?

That is an amazing day of finally, you know, being done with school and moving on to bigger and uh and better things, uh, hopefully.

And so I remember I was um the class that I was taking, the the exam that I had to write, um, I had been doing uh really well in the class.

The first semester, um, I felt like I was rocking it pretty well, but the second semester, uh, it was a little bit different story.

I wasn't doing very well at all.

And so there was some pressure on me uh to kind of ace this exam and uh and crush it.

And so I had put in a ton of work, I'd put in all this study and all of this, all of this effort, and you know, I'd had met with friends and stuff, and we'd worked together and study, and so I went into this, I felt studied up, and I got in there, and I don't know if you've ever gone through this, I don't think I had ever gone uh had a situation like this in my entire schooling ever.

But you ever go into an exam and you absolutely freeze?

That's exactly what happened to me.

It was a complete choke job, all right?

And I and I started kind of thinking, and and I just I went blank, and from like 10 minutes in, we had three hours to write this exam, okay?

Ten minutes in, I started to panic.

And I remember like starting to get kind of sweaty and super uncomfortable.

I'm like, come on, man, think.

And I kept putting more pressure on myself, which made it worse.

And I remember, you know, actually, we were actually given permission, like if you needed to, you could get up and you could go to the bathroom and that type of thing, and and and all of that.

And I actually did that first time ever, because I'm just trying to calm myself down and try and talk myself off the ledge here, and I went back in, it was it just got even worse.

Okay, and I remember we had the full three hours.

I'd never taken three hours to write an exam ever, okay?

But three hours the timer goes off, and I remember just defeatedly, I walk up to the front, my professor, I really like the guy, he had a big smile on his face, like, hey, you're done.

And I was like, not feeling it.

Right?

I left like, honestly, this is how bad it went.

I left pretty close to the last half of the of the exam, blank.

Like fully blank.

Okay, and I handed this in, and I just like kind of shuffled off.

And you know, I went to my friend's house, I used to crash on their couch there afterwards, and they're like, All right, man, you're done, right?

This is amazing.

And I was just like not having it.

Now, to give you kind of a better sense of some of the context here and to add some layers to this, you need to know that um our wedding at that point was happening in four days.

All right, and so I'm thinking, man, like I'm not gonna hear back about my grade for like weeks, maybe, and this is gonna be hanging over my head during the wedding, during the honeymoon.

I'm thinking, this is this is not good.

Now, to add another layer to it is that Angie and I, we had jobs all lined up in the US.

Right?

She'd already been down there, she had been working down there for a year, and and so I had been working on getting this uh a visa to work down there, and that's like an eight-month process.

Now, here's what you need to understand.

To get the visa, it was conditional on me graduating.

And so I'm thinking, man, I haven't even married this girl yet, and I have already ruined her life.

Right?

And I remember just walking, like, like so passionately praying and like you know, weeping before the Lord and crying out to him and absolutely freaking out.

I was absolutely losing my mind over all of this, and and so I just kind of sent this like hail Mary kind of last-ditch effort email to my professor and said, Hey man, here's the sob story of my life.

Would you be able to like just kind of grade my paper today if you can, and or my exam, and and let me know?

Because this is gonna be this is gonna be brutal for me.

I'm gonna have to change a lot of things in my life.

And so I ended up driving home from there, and by the time I got home, I checked my email, and sure enough, there's an email from him.

And I remember being in my parents' basement, kind of in the dark, checking the computer, and the and my professor was just wrote back, he's like, Hey, you passed.

And I remember I remember literally standing there by myself in the dark, like this, right?

Like just quietly exulting in the goodness uh of God, and and his the rest of his email said, Um, he struggled a bit on the last part of the exam.

But honestly, I don't even care.

He he said, you know, I he I passed, you know, it just kind of dawned on me yesterday as I was thinking this through.

He probably just mercy passed me, right?

It was probably that bad, honestly.

I think it uh I think it really was.

Um, maybe as you think about your own life here and kind of the diff different situations that you've gone through, maybe a similar type circumstance comes to mind for you.

Sure, your details are gonna be different.

Perhaps uh yours was more grave than this.

I can certainly think of worse situations and tragedies uh that a person can go through.

Uh, but whatever it was, you can kinda you can still you can remember what it felt like in that moment, right?

I can feel it.

I feel like I have PTSD from it still, right?

But maybe for you, you just remember how that panic gripped you, right?

And you were so sweaty and so stressed, right?

It's almost like you could taste the fear in that moment.

Like, I don't I don't know what I'm gonna do.

And and like everything inside of you was it was kind of you know screaming out, like, okay, God, like I am, I am freaking out here.

Right?

You ever been there?

I'm sure you have.

Well, 2 Chronicles chapter 20 is uh literally one of my favorite chapters uh in the entire Bible because it gives us uh this amazing glimpse into such a moment for Jehoshaphat, uh king of Judah.

2 Chronicles 20 · chapter mention

See, everything in Judah under his leadership had been going along uh really nicely.

See, Jehoshaphat, he took over for his father Asa, and for the most part, Asa uh was a pretty good king, but towards the end, he didn't end very well.

Right?

He got really proud and really kind of arrogant, and things weren't going really great, and and so Jehoshaphat takes over from him after Asa passes away, and and he gave his life to the Lord.

He gave his heart to the Lord.

He's like, I want, I want to worship him, I want to follow him.

And so he instituted, you can read about all of this in previous chapters, but he instituted all these reforms where he got the word of God out and he began to teach all the people throughout the land, and fear of the Lord came upon all of the people, and they began to worship, and he tore down the idols, the idolatry that was happening throughout the land there.

It says that he appointed Levites, priests, and judges, and he put some infrastructure in and just kind of being able to run as a society in a healthy and functioning way.

And so all of these really great things were happening uh for Jehoshaphat when all of a sudden, one day, we're gonna read about this in a sec, but one day, uh uh a few uh men in his kingdom came to him and said, Hey, listen, listen, something bad is happening.

We've got a massive army bearing down on us, and they mean to destroy us completely.

And so in an instant, everything threatens to come apart.

Right?

Disaster looms.

And Jehoshaphat, I mean, his his helplessness in this moment, it's just so obvious, right?

It's so it's so apparent than it was to him, and yet we'll see here in what was a total freakout-worthy situation, okay, we see such a phenomenal and godly example for you and I to follow.

Because in that very moment, in his fear, in his terror, he just takes all of that to the Lord, he gives all of it to God, and God does the incredible.

We're gonna read it here in just a second, but uh, first of all, I wanna pray.

And I want to pray for us that if we're in those moments, or maybe we've been in those moments before, or maybe we're kind of preparing for a future one, that we would we would learn from this.

And that we would see in those stressful situations in life, some of them might be more minor, uh, some of them might be uh very major.

We're gonna see uh what our response should be in this and how we can learn from God's word.

So why don't you join me as we pray?

God, we thank you for being such a great God who loves us, or a God who draws near to us in these in these really terrifying situations, Lord, where life just seems to fall apart in an instant, and we're gripped by fear, we're gripped by worry and anxiety, or we're gripped by terror, and and we're and and we often just want to you know run to other things other than you, or sometimes we don't even think about going to you.

And so, Lord, I pray that we would see how how awesome and how worthy you are of of bringing all of these problems and this pain and this difficulty to you.

Lord, we thank you for this this great story that we're about to look at and study.

God, I pray that you would draw near to your church here today as we hold fast to you, Lord.

We want to cling to you, we want to stay right with you, Lord, and walk with you in intimacy and follow Jesus Christ each and every day.

And so, God, help us in this by your spirit, Lord.

We know that we are weak, we know that we are frail.

We need you.

We need you to move and to work.

We thank you that you love us enough to work with us, Lord, to save us, to die for us.

We pray all this in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, here we go.

First thing.

Uh okay, Lord.

I'm freaking out here.

All right.

Now, I mean, we have these moments, right?

You've had them.

You can think about them and and rem and and remember that.

I mean, maybe you're even there right now.

I'm freaking out here.

But I will first thing look to you instead of being a hero or a coward.

Take a look with me, with uh, if you will, at verse one as we work our way through these 23 uh verses here.

It says in verse 1, after this, okay, so this is after uh Jehoshaphat's reforms.

Right?

Things are going really good.

It's mountaintop experience for him and and the nation of uh of Judah.

After this, the Moabites and the Ammonites, and with them some of the Munites came against Jehoshaphat for battle.

Right?

Some men came and told Jehoshaphat, remember I said that they they came in and warned him.

They say, A great multitude is coming against you from Edom, from beyond the sea, and behold, they're in Hizazon Tamar, that is, and Gedeah.

So they were on the western side of the Dead Sea.

They're on the other side of the Dead Sea from Judah, and they would have had to come around all of that, and so they catch wind of it, and uh they're aware now that this massive army's coming after them.

Now, just take a look here at the king's reaction to this devastating news.

Hey, take a look at how he responds to this.

Verse 3.

He says, Then Jehoshaphat was afraid.

Okay, he doesn't try to hide that.

And it says, and he set his face to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah, right?

So they decided we're gonna go without food.

We know that we need food, but a fast is to represent how much we actually we need God, right?

We need him uh as much or more, certainly, than we would even need food.

He's like, this is what we're gonna do as a nation.

It's fast time, we're gonna seek the Lord.

All right, keep going.

It says, and Judah, this is all the people now, the surrounding towns, they assembled to seek help from the Lord, from all the cities of Judah.

I love the repetition.

They came to seek the Lord.

You know, what an what an outstanding response.

Right?

And if you think about it, this is what quality leadership looks like, right?

It really is.

If you think about, you know, leadership within your own home, if you think about leadership in the in the church, you know, that type of thing, this is an amazing example of how to act and how to respond.

Okay, so whether you are a you know a husband or a wife, I mean, there are leadership roles built right into those, right?

Yeah, you know, as a as a husband and a wife, and you know, with your kids and all of that.

You know, if you are a if you're a small group leader, you know, in our church and you've got a number of people within our church who are under your care, who you're pouring into and discipling and encouraging, and they with you, if you know, if you're a ministry leader in our church and and running some part of the operation here, hey, if you think about that and and your leadership roles that you might be uh called to, if you think about it, we are not called to be heroes.

Right?

We're not.

Right?

God is the hero.

That's consistent throughout all the scriptures.

I know that, I know that as people, we often want to, you know, place the hero mantle on the men and the women of the scriptures, right?

We we like almost worship David.

We almost, we almost like we worship, you know, Paul the apostle in the New Testament.

We just we elevate these guys, and these guys would be like appalled by that.

They're like, no, it's it's it's about it's about God, it's about it's about Jesus Christ.

You and I, we're we're not called to be heroes, right?

We're called to be dependent on him, on the Lord.

Right?

We're we're to we're to look to him for for help in these kinds of moments.

We're to look to to him for uh for rescue.

Okay, let me just add this.

That is not soft.

Right?

That's that that's not soft.

I I think sometimes, and and and maybe this is, I don't know, a bit of a guy thing, and maybe that's true, but I think sometimes we might view what what Jehoshaphat and and the people do here in the face of their crisis as, I don't know, kind of soft.

Right?

Like maybe we picture leadership as, you know, real leadership, as, you know, putting on the tough front.

Come on, now's not the time to stop eating.

Right?

Now's not the time to gather an assembly.

Now, now the time is to be is to be tough, right?

Don't show any weakness.

Show them that you've got this, Jehoshaphat.

Right?

Don't let don't let people see any cracks in your armor.

That's that's the kind of leader that people want to follow.

Right?

I think we often think that.

It's about it's about figuring this out, a way forward, bringing my solutions, my my problem-solving savvy to the table.

That's what that's what real leadership is.

Can we just be honest about that?

I think so much of that type of mentality and that attitude and that bravado is it's just pride.

Sometimes isn't that just kind of some arrogance and foolishness, even maybe, more more than anything.

But sometimes when we're freaking out, you know, and you're going through some kind of crisis in your life, you you kind of engage in hero mode a little bit.

Do you do that?

Do you try and play that role and think that that is your role and that is your your responsibility?

Or, or maybe we go the other way with it.

And we kind of think that the only other option, I can't play the hero, I'm unable to do that.

And and so instead of doing that, we think our only other option is defeatism.

Right?

I'm just gonna I'm just gonna roll over and and quit and kind of give it, give up, and give in, and throw in the towel.

That can't be right either.

That's not that's not great leadership.

That's you know, a lot of that, anyways, is is just cowardice.

Right?

But Jehoshaphat and the people, they do neither of those things.

Right?

They're they're not trying to be heroes, okay, neither are they trying to be to be cowards either.

Back in chapter 17, verse 6, you can jot that down if you like.

It says there that Jehoshaphat's heart was courageous in the ways of the Lord.

And that's really what we're seeing happen here, right?

He was afraid, right?

We saw that in verse 3.

It uses that word.

He's not he's not trying to pretend like he's not afraid.

He's not trying to, you know, pretend that he's got this and I'm gonna bury that down.

I'm not gonna let I'm not gonna let any of that show.

No, he's really honest about it.

I love that.

He's like, I am kind of freaking out here.

This is this is a terrifying situation.

Okay, but he's also not a he's not a coward in this moment.

He's not like, oh, this is a lost cause, and woe is me, and oh, we're dead, we're toast.

Like, let's just pack it in.

No, instead, he takes courage and he sets his face to seek the Lord, right?

He resolves to turn his his face.

I love that's such a great picture.

Right?

I'm turning my face away from the fear and the terror and my circumstances and all the problems that I can so easily see and trying to figure all that out.

I can take my my eyes off of that, off of me, and on to the Lord.

Right?

That that's what my action is going to uh to be.

Right?

That's what that's that's that's how my my mind is made up.

That's what this suggests.

This is this is in his will, this is it, this is his heart here, meaning that he's determined to look to God for help, it says.

That takes courage.

Right?

It really does.

That takes boldness, that takes serious faith and and trust in a God that we can't see.

Right again, he's neither a hero nor is he a coward.

And do you notice here how it just galvanizes everybody?

Right?

They're like, we're in, man.

We're we're following you.

We're gonna we're gonna come out of our city here, we're gonna gather to Jerusalem, and we are gonna get our faces to the floor, and we are gonna seek the Lord, we're gonna seek his help.

Listen, as you face those freakout moments in your life, what is your tendency?

Right?

What which way do you tend to go?

Do you do you tend to, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna buckle down here and I'm gonna try and repair the problem myself?

And do you try to be like the hero type?

Or or do you do you tend towards cowardice?

Is that you?

Do you allow fear to crush you and and dominate you?

Church, let's remember here as as Jehoshaphat does, the awesome God that we have on our side.

Right?

Why do you think he prayed to him?

Why do you think he sought his face?

Because he knew what type of God he was dealing with.

Let's take a little courage here.

Let's let's learn from his example.

Let's let's put that kind of self-reliant, you know, I can fix anything, hero nonsense, to bed.

Right?

Or if again, if if cowardice and and and wilting in the moment in the face of a challenge tends to be your response, let's let's kind of let's stiffen our resolve here and and and get our eyes on him.

Let's look to the Lord.

Let's find strength, let's find wisdom, let's find our our help in him.

And as we do that, we begin to reorient ourselves when when we're freaking out.

Right?

And that really leads us here to the second thing.

By the way, five things here this morning.

So moving quickly through it.

But here it is.

Okay, Lord, I'm I'm freaking out here, but I will gain perspective from your promises.

And we see this play out starting in verse five.

It says, And Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah in Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord, before the new court, and said, All right, now here is his, here is his prayer.

I need to know this is like, this is one of the most legendary prayers in the entire Bible.

I I love this.

It is it is amazing.

And just watch as he as he prays and as he as he seeks the Lord, how his crisis, this very serious crisis, totally gets reframed for him as he finds perspective in in the truth.

He finds perspective in God's sovereignty and and in God's promises to save.

Look what he says here.

He says, O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven?

I love that.

You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations.

So he's reminding himself, even over these clowns who are coming after us.

He's like, you rule over them.

Right?

He says, In your hand are our power and might, so that none, none is able to withstand you.

Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham, your friend.

And they, talking about God's people, have lived in it and built for you in it a sanctuary for your name.

So he's talking about the very temple that they're standing in that that Solomon built.

Keep going saying, if disaster comes upon us, the sword, judgment, or pestilence.

Like disease or or famine.

We will stand before this house and before you, for your name is in this house, and cry out to you in our affliction, and you will hear and save.

Man, what a prayer.

Right?

Well, I just I absolutely love that.

What a moment of courage and faith and truth all aligning as he just goes all in.

Right?

He's just like, I'm pushing all my chips forward here.

And and he leans wholeheartedly into the promise God has made to protect and save his people as they cry out to him.

That's what he's doing.

When you and I are in the throes of panic and and freaking out because all of a sudden our lives have become a dumpster fire of sorts.

Well, it's so incredibly beneficial, I would say even crucial, even, that we gain some perspective in those moments.

Right?

When the pain and and and the confusion and the stress and that that terror just grips your soul and you can feel your heart in your throat, right?

What's typical in those moments is for right perspective to just evaporate like mist.

Right?

We've all experienced it before.

We all pant, we get we get angry, we you know, we we do we do all kinds of things.

We wilt, we we we crumble, we lose heart in those moments, sometimes or often, we make just awful, awful decisions, right?

And we forget who God is.

Right?

We forget what he's promised to do.

And so here, Jehoshaphat, he's reminding himself and and and he's reminding the people of God's covenant.

He's like uh remembering the the covenant to Abraham and to Moses and to David and to Solomon, and what he's doing here in this moment is he's like appropriately leveraging God, right, to act according to those promises.

He's like, come on, Lord, like you said, you know, this is what would happen if we if we saw your face, you said that you would you would protect, you said that you would save.

We're praying to you to do that very thing.

Now, considering that that you and I are under the new covenant, right?

The covenant in Christ's blood, right?

We're we're saved and and and we're sealed in the Holy Spirit, right?

We have the hope, we have we have the promise of eternal life in Christ, right?

Jesus, Jesus purchased our our freedom from sin's bondage, right?

This is all new covenant stuff.

Well, considering all of that, it is good and it is it is right, it's so beneficial that you and I gain fresh perspective from that whenever we're tempted to freak out.

Right?

Do you risk do you remind yourself of God's promises to you through Christ?

Do you do that?

Have you seen the despair?

Have you seen the panic?

Have you seen all of that stuff start to kind of dwindle a little bit?

The situation hasn't gotten better, but you but you're you're realizing, oh yeah, this is what the Lord promises.

This is this is what he says he will do, this is this is who I am in Christ, this is who my God is.

Do you lean into those promises?

Promises like like 1 John chapter 2, 24 and 25.

1 John 2 · chapter mention

It says, You too will abide in the Son and in the Father, and this is the promise that he made to us: eternal life.

Do you remind yourself that, hey, listen, like I've I've got eternal life guaranteed to me?

Right?

That that is amazing, as bad and as painful, and as confusing as this problem is, I've I've got a future that's secure and it's gonna be amazing.

Right?

Do you remind yourself of 2 uh Corinthians chapter 4, right?

In verses 17 and 18.

Again, and when that panic sets in and you're facing that crisis, here's what it says: it says, for this light momentary affliction.

Like, wait a second, my crisis, my stress, the cancer diagnosis, the tragedy, the death, that doesn't feel like a light momentary affliction.

This is actually quite serious.

Well, the Bible here isn't suggesting otherwise.

What it's getting us to realize is what's coming later is so great, it's so epic, and it's for so long, i.e., eternity, that it actually makes, no matter what we're going through, really appear to be in light of eternity, a light momentary affliction.

Take a look at the rest of this verse.

It's for this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen.

So the crisis is the thing that we can see, that's screaming at us right in the face.

Right?

Not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen.

That that's Jesus, that's his that's his promises.

For the things that are seen are are transient.

Remember that, transient, meaning, meaning short-lived, really.

But the things that are unseen are eternal.

Right?

Do you anchor into those?

Like just anchor deep into those in the in the middle of your freak out moment.

I feel like I would be remiss to not mention everybody's favorite, Romans 8.28.

Right?

Do you do you lock into this promise?

And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good.

Right?

For those who are called according to his purpose.

So as dark and as heavy and as excruciating as the crisis might be, the Lord can use that.

Do you know that?

The Lord can use that for good.

For those who are Christ followers.

Listen, when when circumstances derail us, what are the promises of God that you turn to?

What are they?

What are the verses that you naturally think about?

Where do you go in the scripture?

I mean, it's amazing that as our as our perspective gets rooted in these truths and and and in these promises, we can begin to face those freak out moments better.

With a clearer head and a better approach.

Third thing.

Okay, Lord, freaking out here.

But I will move forward by admitting that I can't move forward.

Did I did I read that right?

Yeah, you did.

Okay, Josh, he actually continues this prayer, picking it up in verse 10.

He says, And now behold, the men of Amon and Moab and Mount Seir, okay, that's the Munites mentioned in verse 1, whom you, God, would not let Israel invade when they came from the land of Egypt, and whom they avoided and did not destroy.

You can read all about that story in Numbers chapter 20.

Numbers 20 · chapter mention

Behold, they reward us now by coming to drive us out of your possession, which you have given us to inherit.

O our God, will you not execute judgment on them?

Lord, would you would you go to battle for us here?

For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us.

And this, this is like my favorite verse ever.

We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.

Right?

If that is not underlined in your Bibles, I swear that's a crime.

Right?

That that needs to be highlighted.

See, Jehoshaphat here, he was he was so well aware that that humanly speaking, they were completely powerless to do anything about this.

Right?

They were a small nation, right?

They they weren't all that mighty, and they've got all these all these other nations kind of ganging up and banding together and and and coming at them.

It calls them a great horde.

Right?

They knew that they they could not move forward in this in this scenario.

It says that they had no clue what to do.

Okay, but he knew that God did.

And so he hitches his wagon to him.

He's like, our eyes, our eyes are on you, right?

We're locked in there.

Okay, that is how you move forward in a freakout situation.

Okay, by readily admitting that, like, listen, on my own, I can move forward, right?

I I can do it, I don't got it.

Listen, I gotta tell you, church, this is one of like the most, the most freeing verses, I think, in all the Bible to learn to apply to your life.

Right?

It's kind of funny.

Every time our elders get together and we have a you know an elders' meeting and and we do that pretty much every week, it feels like one of us at some point about some situation as we pray, one of us prays this.

Right?

We we don't know what to do here.

Lord, would you lead us?

Would you give us wisdom?

Our eyes are on, our eyes are on you.

Lord, would you guide us forward?

Listen, when you do this in your life, it's such a power move.

Right?

It's like it's like the best thing that you can do because because it takes that that impossible burden that that we sometimes feel or think is uh is on us of you know of needing to solve the problem.

It takes it off of our shoulders, right?

Completely removes it off of our of our plate.

When when when you admit this, it removes the this this false sense and belief that you know I I can and should figure out the way forward here myself.

Right?

We can't.

It's actually freeing to admit that.

And also understanding that God can and he will.

So as a church, right, as a as a family, as an individual, let's get our eyes on him.

Right?

Let's seek him, let's ask him to move us forward and let's let's go.

Let's get moving with him, let's allow him to bring us through.

Right?

That is exactly how we we hold fast in these types of moments.

Fourth thing.

Okay, Lord, I'm freaking out here, but I will know that you will fight this battle for me.

Verse 13.

Take a look.

It says, Meanwhile, all Judah stood before the Lord with their little ones, their wives, and their children.

I love that.

They're just like they're super unified, right?

They're gathering together elsewhere in the scriptures.

It talks about a situation like that.

It says they assembled as one man, right?

That's that's kind of what we're seeing here, this amazing unity.

It says, and the spirit of the Lord came upon this guy named Jehaziel, the son of Zechariah, son of Beniah, son of Jael, son of Metaniah.

Yeah, you better believe I worked on that.

Right?

And so Jehaziel was a Levite of the sons of Asaph in the midst of the assembly.

Okay, so so the Spirit of God works with this guy named Jehaziel and shares this message with Jehoshaphat and the people.

And he said, he says, This listen, all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and King Jehoshaphat.

Thus says the Lord to you, do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours, but God's.

Tomorrow go down against them.

Behold, they will come up by the ascent of Ziz.

You will find them at the end of the valley, east of the wilderness of Jerul.

You will not need to fight in this battle.

Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem.

And then it repeats it again.

Do not be afraid, do not be dismayed.

Tomorrow go out against them, and the Lord will be with you.

Now, this is one of those just awesome instances in the Bible where the Lord promises to do all of the heavy lifting.

Right?

It's amazing.

I mean, he tells them it's just straight up, like, I'm gonna fight this battle for you.

Like you don't even need to sweat it.

Like, don't worry, it's it's gonna be fine.

Okay, and he does actually something very similar in Exodus chapter 14.

Exodus 14 · chapter mention

So the Israelites have just left Egypt and they they head up against the Red Sea, right?

And it looks like it's panic time at that point, and the Egyptian army is enclosing on them.

And so, of course, he opens up the sea.

And what does God do?

God completely trounces the Egyptian army.

All Israel needed to do is walk across.

Right?

They didn't have to like pick up a sword, right?

They didn't have to throw a punch, they didn't have to do any of that stuff.

The Lord just he just does it.

Right?

I I love that.

In other cases, the Lord strengthens the people to do the physical fighting themselves.

Okay, but even then, it's still the Lord.

Right?

He's the one that still does it, he gets the glory.

I think David and Goliath's a great example of all of this.

1 Samuel chapter 17, David says this to Saul.

1 Samuel 17 · chapter mention

He says, The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.

Okay, so even though David flung his rock, right, even though he went into battle and there was a showdown with Goliath, he gets it.

The Lord is the one really, truly giving the victory here.

Okay, all of this to say, okay, in those, in those freak-out moments of dread when we find ourselves in, they really serve as these amazing opportunities for God to just display his power.

He delights in fighting the battle for you, right?

He loves to showcase his greatness.

He loves to wow us with his total and absolute supremacy and domination over every so-called roadblock in our lives, every impossible situation that we come up against.

What you and I need to know and understand here in these terrifying moments is that is that God eats impossible situations for breakfast.

Right?

That's how he rolls, that's how he works, right?

Fighting battles, okay, that's that's in his wheelhouse.

Fighting battles is his is his fastball.

Okay, to do so, it does not deplete him of any power.

Right?

It doesn't exhaust him.

He's not like, well, you know, I gotta get a good night sleep first and you know, make sure I eat my green smoothie in the morning, and then we'll see how I feel.

It doesn't work like that.

It's not a hassle to him, right?

He's God Almighty.

Right?

He made the universe how?

By thinking it into existence.

Right?

He tears down entire empires without breaking a sweat.

He brought Christ back from the grave.

Right?

So guess what?

He can handle whatever it is that you are freaking out about right now.

Right?

He can handle it.

He doesn't even need to take a second and roll up his sleeves first.

He doesn't need to like draw up a battle plan.

No, he just he just wills it and it's done.

Know that, church.

Know it.

Get it.

Not just in your head, but but know it in your in your heart, right?

Be, you know, know this in your convictions.

Allow that to drive you uh to have faith, right?

Let that drive you deep in your bones.

I I know that the Lord will fight on my behalf.

I know that his power is what I need.

I'm gonna I'm gonna lock in, I'm gonna tap into him in all of this.

Now it doesn't mean, hear me carefully on this, that just because God fights our battles, that our move is to do nothing and be passive.

Right?

It's not saying here that we should be non-active in all of this and just go lay down on the couch and God will just work out your life for you.

No, there's there's plenty of action, right?

There's plenty of energy to exert here.

And all of this really leads us to our final thing.

Okay, Lord, I'm freaking out here.

But I will worship, trust, obey, and watch you work.

We see this in verse 18.

Take a look.

It says, Then Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground.

Man, what humility! Right, just amazing.

And it says, All and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem copied him, imitated him, followed his lead, fell down before the Lord.

Look what they did: worshiping the Lord.

And the Levites of the Kohathites and the Korahites stood up to praise the Lord, right?

There's worship, right?

The God of Israel, and it says, with a very loud voice, right?

They're not just like, yeah, la la la la la.

It's not like that for them.

They're given her here.

I mean, that that's the action right there.

Right?

One of the most incredible things I think that that I see in the in the whole Bible.

I think I see a lot of them in this sermon alone, right?

But it's it's when God's people worship him even before they get the answer they're looking for.

Have you seen that?

Have you noticed that that theme throughout the scriptures?

I mean, King David did it, right?

Draw it down Psalm 13.

How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever?

But I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me.

Right?

He's looking back at the experience that he's been able to accrue and gain by following him.

He knows, like, the Lord's got this.

I don't need to sweat.

I don't I don't need to stress.

It's not just David, the early church does it too.

You read through Acts, they're crying out to the Lord for help and Lord, give us courage and give us boldness.

They're not like, and then after you give it to us, then we'll sing a couple songs.

No, they they they sing, they praise, they they worship him immediately, even before they get the answers.

Right?

And Jehoshaphat and Judah, they continue to display, you know, these acts of uh of worship and and and trust in the Lord here as they go.

Take a look at verse 20.

It says, and they rose early in the morning and went.

Okay, remember God told them to go, right?

Go and watch.

So they're obeying, right?

They went out into the wilderness of Tokoah, which is just just south of Jerusalem, 12 miles.

It says, and when they went out, there's the obedience, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Believe, right?

There's that trust, right?

Have faith here.

Believe in the Lord your God, and you will be established.

Believe his prophets, and you will succeed.

And when he had taken counsel with the people, he appointed those who were to sing to the Lord and praise him in holy attire.

Right?

So they continue to worship, they continue to sing praise.

This is likely the Levitical priest, like leading the charge in all of this.

And so they did this.

It says, as they went before the army.

So again, they went, they were obeying.

And then they said this from Psalm 136 give thanks to the Lord, for his steadfast love endures forever.

Right?

That that's amazing faith.

It says, and when they began to sing and pray, so they're worshiping, here's what happens.

Okay?

As they do this, when they do this, it says, the Lord set an ambush against the man of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah, so that they were routed.

For the men of Ammon and Moab rose against the inhabitants of Mount Seir, devoting them to destruction.

And when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, they all helped to destroy one another.

Right?

So clearly the Lord throws them into a confusion.

It's like they got blindfolds on it, and they're just swinging swords however they want to against wherever they seem to think there's a sound coming from.

Right?

And so they completely destroy each other.

I mean, if you if you continue to read, and there's more to the story, even that we're not gonna get into today, but if you keep reading, you learn that that Judah gets there, they arrive on the scene, and it's just dead bodies everywhere.

Right?

The battle's over, right?

It's been it's been fought, God has already done it.

And then he just kind of like waltz in and take the spoils, more than they could carry, and take it back home.

They went back home and they continue to worship.

They rejoiced in the Lord and what he had done.

Look, church, I I don't know if some of you are facing uh you know a great horde type situation in your life right now.

Right?

And maybe that's you know got you up against the ropes and you're freaking out.

You know, or or maybe you're kind of thinking back to you know the kind of past situations that you've you've been through.

Maybe you're even starting to think through, you know what, there's gonna be another time, maybe soon, but maybe not.

Where I'm gonna go through something that's gonna test me and test what I've learned here this morning and what I've heard.

Regardless, which of these responses that you see here out of out of Judah and Jehoshaphat kind of jumps out at you personally, right, in terms of how of how you need to respond, either now or maybe next time.

Is it worship?

Is it worshiping the Lord?

Maybe for you, I I you're just reminding yourself, I need I need to praise him, I need to thank him, I need I need to glorify and honor him even before I get the answer.

I've seen what he's done in my life before.

I I need to sing.

I need to praise him, I need to thank him for his goodness.

Is it worship for you?

Is it trust?

I need to have more faith.

I need to believe in God's power.

I need to believe in what he is capable of doing.

I need to trust him.

I can't be faithless next time.

I can't just freak out and look to other things.

Maybe for you it's obedience.

And for you, you know, maybe your tendency is to go to idols when you're freaking out.

And I just want comfort.

I just want pleasure in this.

I feel so uncomfortable in this difficulty.

I'm not going to find my comfort enjoying the Lord.

I'm going to find it in foolish living, in sinful things.

Maybe you need to obey the Lord and hold on to Him.

Listen, when we don't do these things that we see Jehoshaphat and his people do here, sometimes we just miss out.

We miss out on seeing God work in our lives on our behalf.

Now listen, there are certainly times where we're incredibly faithless in those moments, right?

We don't handle ourselves very well.

We don't handle the crisis excellently.

We don't cling to the Lord.

We don't sing, we don't obey, and yet the Lord still works miraculously, anyways.

I'm sure we have those stories as well.

I mean, that's that's his grace, right?

That's his kindness and his love.

But as he uses your freak out moments to refine you and I and mature us and reveal his greatness to us, our heart should be to want to respond in the ways that we see here in this passage.

To worship him, to trust him, to obey him.

Right?

There's there's no question that he is great enough and and worthy to receive this type of response from us.