Unlocking Your Victory

Summer 2004

Dakota Community Church

Unlocking Your Victory

Introduction:

As you will have discovered by now, salvation is not a ticket to the easy life.

John 15: 20-21

20Remember the words I spoke to you: ’No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.

Ephesians 6:11

11Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.

John 16:33

33"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

In this world you will face opposition.

Three sources of opposition:

a.) Circumstantial Opposition. (A lock-out at work, Car breakdown)

b.) Spiritual Opposition. (An attack of the enemy)

c.) Human Opposition. (Those rotten people sitting in your pew.)

- All of these can be overcome!

- Hard things become easy when you have the keys. (Like being locked out of the car.)

Six keys that unlock your victory:

1. Key No. 1: Maintain faith.

All the great men and women of God had to fight to maintain faith in the face of opposition.

Think about:

- Joseph in the well and in the prison.

- David at Ziglag and during Absolom’s rebellion.

- Nehemiah against Sanballat and Tobiah.

- Abraham and Sarah waiting for Isaac.

- Mary telling Joseph she is pregnant with the Son of God.

Joshua 14: 6-14

6 Now the men of Judah approached Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, "You know what the LORD said to Moses the man of God at Kadesh Barnea about you and me. 7 I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land. And I brought him back a report according to my convictions, 8 but my brothers who went up with me made the hearts of the people melt with fear. I, however, followed the LORD my God wholeheartedly. 9 So on that day Moses swore to me, ’The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the LORD my God wholeheartedly.’

10 "Now then, just as the LORD promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the desert. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! 11 I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. 12 Now give me this hill country that the LORD promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the LORD helping me, I will drive them out just as he said."

13 Then Joshua blessed Caleb son of Jephunneh and gave him Hebron as his inheritance. 14 So Hebron has belonged to Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite ever since, because he followed the LORD, the God of Israel, wholeheartedly.

Caleb maintained faith for forty years saying, “I have the mountain now.”

2. Key No. 2: Recall your previous victories.

Take your focus off the problem, off your own inability, and put it on God by reminding yourself of the victories He has brought you before.

Revelation 12: 10-11

10Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:

"Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ.

For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. 11They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.

What is the word of your testimony?

- God provided for me for three years of Bible School, books and all through an anonymous donor.

- Everything worked out great when I packed up a U-Haul, left my secure paying church job and move to a hotel in this city 4000 Kms. from home.

Stir yourself up with your own tales of victory. Do some singing and shouting and praising God for the things you have already beaten in life!

3. Key No. 3: Decide.

A great many battles are lost because we stand at the fork in the road and refuse to pick a direction.

The root cause of indecision is fear. Fear is never the path to overcoming.