SERMON TITLE: Real Victory
SERMON TEXT: Philippians 4:11-13
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Date: August 8, 2004
Written By: Louis Bartet
Email: lou2247@bayou.com
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11 I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.
12 I know how to get along with humble means.
12 I know how to live in prosperity.
12 I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry.
12 I have learned the secret of having abundance and suffering need.
13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
It’s Wednesday night, time for prayer requests and it goes something like this…
• Please ask God to heal me. My doctor says I have severe emphysema.
• Please pray that God will help us with a financial miracle so we can purchase much needed school supplies and clothes for our children.
• Please agree with me that God will help me get the promotion I’m up for.
• Please pray that I make a good grade on my history exam tomorrow.
I don’t think any of those requests would make the members of a Charismatic/Pentecostal congregation uncomfortable. If there’s any place where we can turn for answers to such needs, it is to God. He can heal
• emphysema,
• provide finances for school supplies and clothes,
• help us get the promotion and
• enable us to remember the information we studied in preparation for the history exam.
The issue isn’t a matter of what is said, rather it deals with what is unstated and with what that implies.
In a room of 20 people, we are more likely to hear prayer requests in which someone admits a need for healing or asks for help with a financial need, than we are to hear someone admit a need for help with
• poor eating habits,
• illicit desires or
• poor stewardship?
One category of needs deals with what’s happening to me, while the other deals with what’s happening in me. You can be sure that both categories exist in each of our lives.
It is unlikely that the person making an open appeal for financial assistance, will also make a public confession that their financial problems are the result of poor financial practices. These same people will become and angry if someone suggests that the problem isn’t lack of money but improper money management. Insufficient funds is about what’s happening to me, but poor stewardship is about who I am and I don’t want to talk about my irresponsible behavior or my greed or my poor judgment.
Admitting one’s need for healing or a financial miracle doesn’t deal with who we are. We don’t risk much when we ask people to pray with us about a job promotion or a passing grade on a mid-term exam. Even Christ like people experience physical and financial needs.
Public prayer requests that deal with…
• addiction to pornography or
• poor stewardship or
• alcohol abuse or
• unforgiveness or
• bitterness or
• a violent temper
…expose something about who we are. Admitting that we are struggling with desires for the forbidden makes us vulnerable to being judged and rejected by our hearers. Who wants to risk that?
Public testimonies tend to major on victories over external circumstances to the neglect of much needed victories over our carnal self. We talk about physical healings, financial blessings or positional advancements, but we rarely hear testimonies that reveal the transformation of flawed character.
• I was caught in the bondage of homosexuality, but God set me free.
• I was fired for stealing money from my company, but God forgave me and gave me my job back.
• I was a habitual liar, but God delivered me from my need to build my image by stretching the truth.
We seem to be more interested in maintaining our image and eliminating inconvenience and discomfort than we are in searching out and eliminating those flaws in us that are causing our problem.
We resist exposure and the agent designed to bring it about, because we fail to realize that our transformation is dependent upon our vulnerability and malleability. Our primary goal is to triumph over the storm, to make it go away, but God’s primary objective is to use the storm to transform us.
• Our eyes are on our financial need, but God is focused on changing us in the area where the financial need was created.
• Our primary desire is to be healed, but God wants to deal with the beliefs, attitudes and practices that may be causing our physical problem.
What good are riches if we are void of true riches? What good is the healing of our body if our soul is left sick, emaciated and weak?
When Paul sought God for the removal of his much debated “thorn in the flesh,” God’s answer was “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness” (2Cor. 12:9).
While Paul was seeking relief, God encouraged reliance. Paul’s prayer was “take it away,” but God’s response was “trust Me.”
Instead of changing Paul’s circumstances, God changed Paul. The radical nature of that transformation is reflected in Paul’s response to God’s reply.
“…I entreated the Lord three times that it [the thorn] might depart from me. And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected [or made complete] in weakness.” [Instead of bemoaning my condition and seeking relief] I will more gladly boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”
--2Corinthians 12:8-10
God’s way in Paul’s life wasn’t the eradication of adversity or the removal of the adversary, but the empowering of the man going through the difficulty—“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”
Listen carefully to the words of Romans 8:26-39 and notice that the emphasis isn’t on deliverance from, but victory in the midst of.
Rom. 8:26-39 (NLT)
26And the Holy Spirit helps us in our distress. For we don’t even know what we should pray for, nor how we should pray. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. 27And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will. 28And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. 29For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn, with many brothers and sisters. 30And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And he gave them right standing with himself, and he promised them his glory.
31What can we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? 32Since God did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t God, who gave us Christ, also give us everything else?
33Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? Will God? No! He is the one who has given us right standing with himself. 34Who then will condemn us? Will Christ Jesus? No, for he is the one who died for us and was raised to life for us and is sitting at the place of highest honor next to God, pleading for us.
35Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death? 36(Even the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) 37No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
38And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels can’t, and the demons can’t. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can’t keep God’s love away. 39Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Please note that the victory of verse 37 isn’t deliverance from trouble, but victory in spite of and in the midst of trouble.
Which is the greater miracle, for a hearing person to write beautiful music or for a deaf person to compose musical masterpieces?
Widely regarded as the greatest composer ever, Beethoven began losing his hearing at age 31 and was completely deaf 16 years later.
Even so, Beethoven persisted. He felt called to produce his art, and he would not quit. As his prison of silence grew quieter, he had to rely on his "inner ear"—his memory of sounds. All the odds were against him, and so it would have turned out, had it not been for something inside Beethoven that would not bend. He would not quit.
In the midst of his affliction, he wrote: "There is no greater joy for me than to pursue and produce my art. Oh, if I were only rid of this affliction I could embrace the world!…But I will seize it by the throat; most assuredly it shall not get me wholly down."
Beethoven continued to compose even after he became completely deaf. The most enduring and beautiful works Beethoven ever conceived, and some of the greatest musical works of all time, were entirely created during this period—including the monumental Ninth Symphony, Missa Solemnis, his last five piano sonatas, and his last five string quartets.
Daniel’s victory didn’t come when the king lifted him out of the lion’s den. No! To the contrary, he was victorious in the lion’s den.
The three Hebrew boys weren’t kept from the fiery furnace, rather they were sustained in the midst of the furnace.
God didn’t stop the storm when Paul prayed. Instead, he sustained him in a storm so severe that it destroyed the ship.
Which is the greater evidence of God’s sustaining grace…
• living a joyful peace filled Christian life in the midst of opulence or
• exuding joyful contentment in spite of life threatening adversity?
Some of us have exhausted ourselves in our attempts to engineer life to meet our specifications. We’ve tried to manipulate God, our spouse, our children and our friends. Our focus has been on victory over our circumstances; a life free from problems and imperfect children and … All the while God has been focused on inner victory—victory over self; the construction of Christ within.
• Are you focused on what’s happening to you or what’s happening in you?
• Are you more interested in improving your circumstances or your character?
• Are you asking God to make everything in your life right or to make you right?
• Are you focused on personal happiness or holiness?
• Are you asking God to remove the thorn in your life or to make you thorn proof?
Perhaps we are looking to God to still the storm around us when we ought to be asking Him to still the storm in us. Maybe we’re asking God for right things for the wrong reasons. Maybe it’s time we quit telling God how to run His business and just trust Him.
This is more than optimism or a positive mental attitude. It is the product of real faith and unconditional trust. It is God’s way to consistent peace and abundant joy. It is God’s way to _real victory_.
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(C)2004 Louis Bartet, may be used for non-profit purposes.
