How To Keep Focused On The Victory

Well, for a month before the Passover, we had sermons and sermonettes about preparing for the Passover, and the bread, and the wine, and just every aspect of the Passover, the days of 11 bread. And we've tried to cover that in great detail this year, preparing for this. And, of course, two nights ago, we kept the Passover ceremony and profoundly understood that we were partaking of the body and the blood of Jesus Christ and understanding what that meant.

Last night, we celebrated. We got together with a fairly large group of people, and there was a lot of discussion about what it meant that night and going back into the Exodus and forward into Christ and our lives today. And I thought, in an outstanding evening, and now here we are keeping the days of 11 bread. But you and I both know that this energy that's created and God creates it through the Holy Days, as we draw close to Him and it becomes real to us and we begin to really grasp it.

And it's so hard to maintain that. You know, we all know that a month or two from now, right now we feel this, yes, God's with us. We're moving forward. My life can change. As I talked about last night, I said, or on Passover night, two nights ago, I said, when we leave, when we leave that ceremony, leave all the sin behind, because there's enough sin waiting for us tomorrow.

There's plenty of waiting for us. So leave all the other behind, and now let's move forward and fight the battle. Let's continue to move forward. That's one of the reasons we're brought together once a year is to remind us, leave it behind. We're coming out of Egypt, so leave Egypt behind and move forward.

But that gets a little cloudy as we move beyond the Passover and the Days of 11 Bread. It's easy over time to start to get caught up in the stresses of life. The fact that, you know, there's a lot of pain in this life, a lot of things don't work out.

And the fact that, you know, we come out of the Days of 11 Bread, I'm going to conquer sin this year, and then pretty soon you're fighting sin again. We're back into the battle again. And it's easy to come out and say, well, wait a minute. You know, I received this help. I was sort of on this high, but we began to feel hopeless and defeated. What this season, in fact, all the Holy Day seasons, when we get into the Pentecost, there's a message there that says, do not feel hopeless, because you're not defeated unless you decide to be defeated.

There's a message in the Feast of Tabernacles, in the Feast of Trumpets, in the Day of Atonement, that there is a victory. We don't have to feel defeated. There is a final victory at the end of this. In the middle of the battle, it may feel like you're losing, but we are already told the outcome of the battle as long as we keep fighting.

We're told that. We're told the outcome if you will keep fighting, if you'll keep going on. When we go back to ancient Israel, when they left Egypt, it was a sense of victory that God had conquered Pharaoh, a man who was considered in his society to be a living God. He had conquered all the gods of Egypt. He had destroyed an entire people. He had brought them victory.

Let's look at Exodus 12. Let's look at some of the words that are used here, and then we'll tie it into the New Testament. And then I want to talk about how to keep focused on the victory and not the defeats and the struggles we go through between now and the victory, to keep us focused on where God is taking us.

Exodus 12.21. Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, pick out and take lambs from yourselves according to their families and kill the paths over them. You should take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood and in the basin, and strike the lint on the two-door posts and the door that is in the basin, and none of you should go out of the door in the house until morning.

Now, we've read through this a couple times over the last month, but I want to stress here that God was telling them, and you win. You do these things and you win over a power that they had no way to defeat. For the Lord, verse 23, will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when He sees the blood on the lint on the two-door posts, the Lord will pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to strike you.

And you shall observe this thing as an ordinance for you and for your sons forever. He didn't just say, I'm going to strike the Egyptians. He says, you follow me and you will not be stricken. It's not just a matter of what I'm going to do to these people. It's what I won't do to you. And how God was going to deliver them. He goes on and tells them that as they observed this throughout their generations, they were to remind their children that this is how God delivered them.

Verse 42 says, it is the night of solemn observance to the Lord for bringing them out of the land of Egypt. Solemn observance because God delivered them.

They had a victory because of what God had done. Exodus 13 verse 3, Moses said to the people, Remember, this is the day in which you went out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. For by the strength of the hand of the Lord brought you out of this place, though leavened bread shall be eaten. Now, I want to stress, what he says is, it is by God's strength you are going to make it. I'm sure there were some Israelites that didn't make it. There was someone who didn't put blood on their door, or there's someone who said, I'm not leaving Egypt, and they stayed. We do know that some of them were forced out and really didn't want to leave because it was long after they were out that they kept saying, we want to go back, we want to go back. We never wanted to leave anyways. That was part of argument amongst some Israelites where we didn't want to leave anyways.

You made them force us out, Moses. There are some people who just don't want to leave.

But all those who wanted to leave and did what they were told, left. Everyone who wanted freedom from slavery was given freedom from slavery as long as they did what God told them to do. The same message is for you and us today. This slavery that we're in, we are promised deliverance, promised from God. Just do what he says. Just follow along, just follow along and he will give us deliverance. It's interesting when we get to Exodus 15.

This is actually after they crossed the Red Sea and the water closed in.

And Moses wrote a song to be sung by everyone praising God because he had given them a victory over this great power. Verse 1, Moses and the children of Israel sang this song to the Lord and spoke, saying, I will sing to the Lord, he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and its rider, he has thrown them into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, he has become my salvation. He is my God, I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war, the Lord is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his army has been cast into the sea. The chosen captains are also drowned in the sea. The depths have covered them. They sank to the bottom like a stone. And this is a very long song. It goes clearer on to verse 18, where they sing this song saying, God gave us a victory. We couldn't have done this. We couldn't stop chariots with swords. We couldn't fight trained soldiers. We didn't know how to do that. They would have run over our women and our children, and we would have had to stop them just with masses of bodies. There was no way to stop what was going to happen, except God did it. And God brought them out of Egypt. And they sang, We have been given a victory. We have been given a victory. You have been given a victory. Now, we still have to fight the battle. You still have to fight the battle. It's interesting to read of men who are in actual combat. And when they know they're going to win, how they're motivated, how they're driven, and men who know they're going to lose, it's a totally different motivation. They may die, but it's a fatalism. Where men who know they're going to win have a different motivation. You and I are to know we are going to win if we continue the battle. Now, you can lose it. We bring that message out quite clearly all the time. You and I can lose our salvation by turning away from God. It's not a matter of, well, once saved, always saved. That's not what the Scripture says. But in saying that sometimes, we get to this extreme that says, well, I'm just hanging on by my fingernails, barely trying to make myself survive, barely trying to hang in there so that I can receive salvation at the end. And we forget the story. What God tells us is, I've already won the war. You just have to fight your battles. You have to fight your battles. I have to fight my battles. But fight your battles, and you keep fighting the battles, and you win the war. Because you and I don't have to win this war. God wins it, and we follow. God wins it, and we participate. So we have to participate. We have to follow. We can't stay in Egypt. We can't refuse to put the blood on the doorpost. We can't refuse to go through the Red Sea. We can't get through the Red Sea and then say, oh, I want to go back. You look at Korah. You look at people who just refused once they got out. God killed them. You read that whole story of people keep trying to go back, and God killed them. They didn't make it to the Promised Land. Those are lessons for us. And we look at all those negative lessons. But I'm going to look at the positive lesson today.

And that is, the victory is just waiting for us. We just have to go there. It's not easy to go there. It's difficult to go there, but it's there. The war is won. We just have to keep fighting.

We just have to not give up, and we will participate in that.

Look at Romans 6. Let's go to Romans 6.

Every year around the days of Unleavened Bread, or during the days of Unleavened Bread, I find myself driven, or not driven, but pulled towards Romans 6, 7, and 8. And so, there's always a sermon someplace around this time of year. Why, quote, a little bit for Romans 6, 7, and 8.

Romans 6, verse 1, What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? We just celebrate to the grace of God in sacrificing His Son for us to get us out of something we cannot get out of. You can't dance fast enough. You can't obey enough to make up for our corrupted human nature. So, God had to do what God did. Now, of course, Paul's argument is, does that mean now, since we've been given this grace, it's okay to sin? It's the exact opposite. Because we've been given this grace, we must be driven not to sin. We must be driven to keep leavening out of us. These are the days of unleavened bread. We will spend a week trying to avoid leavening at all costs. Right? We will spend this week eating unleavened bread. I had unleavened bread this morning, but it was so good I kept telling my wife, somehow this isn't the bread of affliction. She makes this really good unleavened bread. So, she explained to me, she has a whole theology on that. It's very interesting. And I really enjoyed that unleavened bread. But we are to be taking in Christ and taking out sin. So, Paul is saying here, do we think now, because of this grace, we have freedom to sin? No. If we take that approach, we will be taken out of the victory. We will be put into a place where we will lose. We will be defeated. Satan will win. So, we continue in this struggle. But it is not an uncertain future. If you continue in the struggle, the future is set because of what Christ has done, and what God has done through him. He says, verse 2, certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore, we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection. You see the positive looking forward here. If we have been united with God and with Christ through baptism, through receiving the Holy Spirit, He says then that resurrection is waiting for us. God isn't saying, well, I'll give you my spirit. I don't really think you'll make it, but I'll give it to you. Oh, well, I know I'm going to lose all of them. Maybe one or two will make it.

You know, I think if we read on the Passover night where Jesus said, Father, I kept every one of them. There's an excitement there. Was it easy for Christ to keep them all? No, He had to work hard. He says, accept the one, and you knew that one wouldn't make it. But the rest of them, I got them there. They're here. They're waiting to receive your spirit.

It's a very positive statement He makes. The same way as we look ahead.

We can't look at all the troubles and possibilities and defeats. We can't look at the world around us. This world won't survive. That's reality. Oh, we're worried about the economy. The economy of the United States won't survive. It might get better and worse and better and rarest, but eventually it will collapse. But the United States won't be a world power anymore. No country has stayed to be a world power forever. I mean, the Roman Empire lasted longer than any other world power in history, almost a thousand years. I've seen some of the ruins in Italy. It's just ruins. The only God's kingdom, when it's brought back on this earth, has any longevity as far as eternity.

We live in a temporary world, in a decaying society, that's only going to get worse and worse before Christ comes back. We can see all. I'm just overwhelmed by that. I don't know what to do. You know, the United States might collapse. It's going to.

We're children of another family. We're children of another kingdom. We're citizens of another world.

We were told it's going to collapse. And then he said, well, don't have any fear, because I'm going to fix this. Just keep moving forward. Keep going where we have to go. This is about victory, not defeat. But Satan in the world and your own human nature is going to keep telling you you're defeated.

He says, verse 6, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

That's slavery in the past. Now, you and I still struggle with that. You and I still carry the chains of slavery. They are chains without locks.

You see, we were brought out of sin. God took all those chains off of us. And here's the problem is, those chains are so comfortable that we pick them up and we take them with us. So we're dragging those chains out of Egypt. It's like, oh no, I'm going to put the shackles back on.

We're all shackled by the way we think, the way we feel, and we're carrying our chains out of Egypt.

What we don't realize is, wait a minute, there's no locks on these chains.

God unlocked it. God says, well, I'll help you. I'll give you the power. It'll struggle you. So then we take one chain off and it's like, boy, do I feel naked. I got that chain off. I don't know.

So we pick it back up and we sort of drag it along behind us. And pretty soon we're dragging all the chains with us. But they have no locks, folks. The power of God is there to break it.

Now, either we have that or we don't. If you and I aren't given the power of God to break the chains, then we might as well give up.

Because you and I can't do it alone. Either He gives it to us or He doesn't and He gave it to you.

He gave you His Spirit. He gave you His truth. Why are you here today? Nobody else is keeping this. I mean, there's a few pockets of people. I doubt if there's more than half a dozen groups in all of San Antonio getting together on this day. They keep it in the context of Jesus Christ. There's Jewish groups doing it, but they don't keep it in the context of Jesus Christ. There's a few Messianic Jewish groups that might be doing it, so there might be ten or maybe a dozen. An entire city this size. You're here because God brought you here. It's not an accident.

And He's telling you, come out of Egypt. And why didn't you leave the chains behind? Why are you bringing the chains with you, the shackles with you? Why do we continue to carry it forward?

Look at Romans 8. Romans 8, verse 31. This was my dad's favorite section of Scripture.

And I have to admit, as I get older, it's becoming my favorite section of Scripture.

Romans 8, verse 31.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? But, you know, the reason this wasn't my favorite section of Scripture for a long time? I really didn't believe it. And I'm too worthless for God to be for me. I mean, God really doesn't care that much, does He? I was 12 years old when my dad sat down and read this Scripture to me. I'll never forget it. And He says, I understand this. And at 12 years old, I thought, what is this old man talking about? Of course, he was only in his 30s.

What's he talking about?

Verse 32.

He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all. How shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Paul kept going back to it. He never talked about the Second Coming without talking about the First Coming. Because he says, how if he did this, if he didn't spare his own son, what else do you think he'll hold back from you? Now, let's just think about that.

If he gave his son for you, his eternal Word that was with him, and he gave him for you, what else do you think God's holding back from you?

What's he holding back from us?

Paul says nothing.

He says, verse 33, who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.

Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen. Who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us?

Every day he's doing that. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

We don't believe that. You and I believe that our job separates us from the love of Christ.

We believe that society separates us from the love of Christ. Your husband, your wife, your children.

The fact that you can't be honest and make money. The fact that you really want to commit adultery. The fact that your fornication is what you really want to do. The fact that you really don't want to keep the Sabbath. These all keep us from the love. We believe those things are more important than the love of Christ. Let's be honest. When we sin, we say the love of Christ isn't that important to me. When we sin, what we're saying is that the love of Christ can't apply to me. Well, for whatever reason. Maybe I'm just not worth it. But what can separate you from the love of Christ?

Now, this is the same context of, you know, Romans 6, 7, 8 fit together in the context. In the first statement, in the context is, does this mean we can go sin? Of course not!

We can't. We have to struggle. We have that battle to fight. But he says, okay, as you fight that battle and you feel like you're losing all the time, ask yourself, what can separate you from the love of Christ? Giving up can separate you from the love of Christ. That's what will separate from you, from Christ. Giving in will separate you from God and Christ. But he says, shall tribulation, shall the battle that you and I fight, the troubles we go through, because all of us may, we all go into the kingdom of God through great tribulation. That is what we're told.

Shall tribulation separate you from the love of Christ? Distress? Shall the stresses of the world, trying to make money, trying to go to school, just all the inundation with entertainment, and video games, and movies, and shall that separate you from the love of Christ? Or persecution separate you from the love of Christ? Or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Question learned. Do any of those things, will we allow any of those things to separate us from Jesus Christ crying out, take my spirit, that Passover lay on? What will separate us from that? What will separate you from that? Because when we go back there, we are driven toward where He's taken us. But we have to go back there when we're in tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, or we're fighting that battle with sin, and we say, I'm losing, I'm losing, I'm losing, we go back there. Verse 36, that is written, For your sake we are killed all day alone, we are counted as sheep for the slaughter, yet in all things, now I want you to know this what verse 37 says, yet in all these things, what things? Good times, lots of money, good food, a nice place to meet, nice hall, beautiful hall, lots of people to fellowship with. No, He says, in tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword. You know, when you're naked, you're pretty poor.

He says, in those things, in all these things, we are what? Defeated? He says, no, we are more than conquerors through Him who loves us. I don't know what it is to be more than a conqueror.

We're more than victorious. We do more than wind. I don't even know what that means.

We're more than conquerors. Verse 38, Pray and persuade it in neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come. That's a mouthful, isn't it? Death or life, the struggles of life, even angels or principalities or powers, governments. You know, we fear the government all the time. Why? You don't think the government that you're a citizen of is bigger than this one? We fear all the time. We worry all the time. Why? Paul says, Ryan, persuade it. None of these things, verse 39, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I understand now. I had to live long enough. Why, that was my dad's favorite passage. And he knew this book. And that was his thing. I understand now. It takes a while to get there. It takes us a while to get there. But eventually, we have to all get there. We have to go here. We are here today not just because, well, God said to go keep it. That's why we start doing it. We discover it. And we say, well, we understand the plan of God through doing it. That's part of what we do. Eventually, we get here. We're doing this because it's part of our relationship with God. We worship God on this day. We are taught by God on this day. We fellowship with other children on this day, other children of God, members of the same family, brought together by the same spirit. And that spirit is a whole lot thicker than blood. It's supposed to be, anyways. Why can't we do this? Why do we lose sight that we are more than conquerors? I'm going to give you five simple points, ways to keep in sight the victory, to keep our minds on the victory, because there's times in the battles when it feels like we're losing.

And when you find out the doctor says, oh yeah, you're really sick, or you lose your job, or you have to decide if I tithe, I'm going to have financial problems, or if I actually submit to my husband, it's not going to be what I want, or if I don't keep Christmas, my family's going to turn against me, or I, and we put in there, whatever it is that will separate you from the love of Christ.

Well, yes, that will separate me from the love of Christ. No, it will not, because you won't do those things. You will get through it if we're right with God.

The first thing to keep your eyes set on that victory in your life, no matter what happens, is you have to believe in it. You have to believe that victory's there. You have to believe it's going to happen. It's going to happen.

From World War II, there was an interesting ... At the end of the war, the German army, of course, was just being crushed by huge numbers of Allied soldiers, and something very strange happened.

American soldiers and English soldiers stopped fighting as hard, because it was like, we're going to win. I don't want to be the last guy to die. The Russians, on the other hand, were driven to destroy Germany. They were just violently trying to destroy Germany.

The German soldiers on the Eastern Front, of course, they all knew they'd lost. There's no way they could win. German soldiers on the Eastern Front, entire divisions, started fighting in action that they kept retreating and holding the Russians off until they got to the American lines, and then they surrendered. There's one case where an entire panzer division surrendered to four Americans in a jeep that were lost.

I mean, they marched up in perfect order. Their tanks were in perfect order. I mean, they could have killed thousands of soldiers, and the American got out of the jeep like, oh no, we're dead. An officer walked up and started talking to him, and said, how far is the American army? Well, it's about ten miles down the road. He says, okay, we just fought three hundred miles across the Russian army to get here.

I guess we'll just surrender to you. This general surrendered to some sergeant.

They didn't believe in victory anymore, and they didn't want to die.

So they tried to find people to surrender to that wouldn't kill them. And it is fascinating. There were German soldiers, entire units that retreated to their own homes, picked up their wife and kids. There's pictures of German soldiers, you know, carrying their weapons, because they're still fighting, and their wife and kids are behind them. Truckloads of children, and they're fighting to hold off the Russians. Because, like, we can't win anymore, but at least trying to save our kids. You know, that's, you know you're defeated. We're not defeated. We think at times we are. We're not. This is going to be one.

At the end, it's one. It's not, you say, well, this is winnable. No, it's one. You just have to go there. You and I just have to keep doing it.

First John 5 verse 1, First John 5, 1.

1. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ who is born of God, now I'm not going to get into what it means to be born of God. You and I, of course, are begotten. We will be totally born of God in the future when we are resurrected.

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ who is born of God, and everyone who loves Him, who God also loves Him, who is begotten of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. By this we know we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments.

That's an amazing statement because it ties together obedience of the commandments, the love of God, and the loving of each other in the church together into one compact sentence. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. But this is the love of God that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. In other words, you must believe in this victory. You must believe God's going to do what He says He's going to do, enough to keep His instructions, enough to obey Him, and enough to love each other. This kind of faith produces something. We must believe it that much. You want to be here next year when we keep the Passover? Believe that God's going to get you there, and then live your life because you believe it. Live your life because you know it. Live your life because you know that victory's there. You're not defeated. It is knocked down.

Because if we're defeated, it's because we've given up. Because the reality is, the only way we could truly be defeated is to believe that God can be defeated. Can God be defeated? If you say no, then hang on to God and you'll win. It's that simple. Do it on your own and you'll lose.

If I do it on my own, I lose.

But God will make it. But notice it produces something. This kind of belief produces commandment keeping and love of the brethren. That's what it produces, and love towards God. It's not just saying, oh yeah, I believe. This is not belief. This is absolute faith in that victory.

The second is, you've got to believe in the victory. You've got to prepare for the victory.

You've got to...okay, I'm going to win, so I've got to prepare to win. That means you've got to prepare for the fight. I read this someplace. I wish I could remember who wrote it. It's some little statement in some book years ago. Remember, it was not raining when Noah built the ark.

If he would have waited until it started to rain and say, oh, I'd better get that ark built, I guarantee you God would have had somebody else build the ark.

It's not like we say, well, I've got to prepare for the victory, you know, when the parade starts. When I hear the victory parade start, then I've got to prepare for the victory. We prepare for the victory by fighting now. We prepare now. Every day of your life and my life is preparation for the victory. Every day is preparation for the resurrection. But we're in the family of God. We see God as He is. We see Christ as He is. That's what we're living for. We have to prepare.

It's interesting that at the time of Ezra—let's go to Ezra 6. Ezra 6.

Verse 19. They start to find out that they have not been obeying God properly. In Ezra 6.19 it says, Notice the second part of chapter 22.

They're in their hands of the work of the house of God, the God of Israel.

God gave them a victory. They got help from their own enemy.

This is about victory. And if you look over just in the next chapter, chapter 7 verse 8, we have an interesting statement made about—I'm sorry, verse 10—about Ezra. I gave a whole sermon on this verse one time.

For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel.

Ezra was on the spot, the right man at the right time, because he had prepared his heart.

We have to prepare for that victory that's ahead. Our hearts and minds must be prepared daily in seeking the law of God, the way of God, the teachings of God, a right relationship with God.

So we have to believe in the victory. We have to prepare for the victory. And the third point is, don't allow the unimportant distractions of life to become so important to you that the faith and preparation of the victory just slips away as far as your everyday life. You should remember it on the Sabbath and remember it on the holy days, but the rest of life is spent just doing your routine. Every day is to be a day of faith and preparation for the victory you know is waiting for you at the end of this battle.

You may be scarred and beaten when you get there, but you get healed when you get there.

See, we're scarred and beaten to get there, but when we get there, we are healed when we get there.

And it's a fight. What you and I want is a good time and easy time now, but we're in the middle of a battle, a spiritual warfare. It's not good and it's not easy, but the victory is good and easy, and it's waiting.

How many times do we get like the ancient Israelites, oh, I just had some leeks and onions.

And see, we get upset with him because we think, is it an onion, a little thing? I mean, that's so unimportant in life. But how much time you and I get distracted from where God is taking us because of some little thing, some little thing, like an onion?

We say, well, no, I was distracted because my little thing was my wife. She just wasn't a good woman. Or my little thing was my job. Or my little thing was my health. Or my little thing was I didn't get to play football on the Sabbath. I'm going to bring that up because I know a man who gave up the truth after living it for 35 years because he said I had to give up playing football on the Sabbath and he hated it. And yet his life had been nothing but blessings from God.

And he couldn't see the muscles. That's an onion.

I'll give up the victory for an onion. I'll give us a victory for an onion.

1 Corinthians chapter 9. Paul talks about it here in a way that brings it into focus because he uses a sports analogy. He lives in a world where, of course, you had a lot of sporting events, as far as what the Romans had, which the gladiatorial games and so forth, but they had more than that. They absorbed from the Greeks the idea of the Olympics. And they had a lot of sporting events, you know, javelin throwing and discus throwing and wrestling.

They had regular sporting events all over the Roman Empire that were the non-violent type, that you would see like the gladiators and that type of thing. So this would have made a great impact on his people. They knew what he was talking about when he wrote this. I mean, these people lived in Corinth, right in the middle of Greece. The Olympics weren't the only games in Greece. You know, that was every four years because it was huge. The Olympic games were so huge that by law every Greek city-state had to stop. If they had a war with each other, they had to stop it during the Olympics. If they didn't, all the other, all of Greece would come against them and destroy them. So all wars stopped every four years in Greece to hold the Olympics. But there were games every single year, multiple times throughout the years, throughout Greece, as people prepared for the Olympics, like we do today. You know, they would, all these different games are going on and the best would go to the Olympics.

So he says here in verse 24, Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize?

Run in such a way that you may obtain it. On a personal level, we're running a race, but each one of us wins this race. It's just so personal, we forget we're all running the race.

So his point is, you know, you watch people run a race and not everybody finishes that race.

And everyone who competes for the prize is tempered in all things. They train, and the training for events, sporting events then, was just as difficult and hard as it is today. It's just today because of science. We do things that they weren't able to do, but they had very strict regiments on how to prepare for sporting events.

Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we do it for an imperishable crown.

Therefore I run thus, not with uncertainty. He says, I don't run because I believe I will fail. He says, I run because I believe I will win.

I fight not as one who beats against the air. He says, I'm not a shadow boxer.

Boxing shadows. He says, I fight. See, it's a battle he's talking about. He says, I fight because I know I will win. You and I don't fight with this defeatist attitude. I just have to keep retreating until I survive. This isn't about retreating until we survive. It's about winning.

It's about God taking us where He's going to take us. It's about God winning in us. Verse 27, But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection. Lest when I preach to others, I myself should become disqualified. Paul said, you know what? I know in all this. I know that victory is waiting for me. And he says, and yet I also realize I take that for granted and I may lose it. He said, I could become disqualified. So I fight as one who knows I will win. Because if I stop fighting, I will lose.

You can't, we can't stop fighting. We can't stop this. We have to keep going on. You see, but if I keep going on, that means there's more pain in my life. If I keep going on, that means I struggle because of my friends or my family outside the church. Or I struggle because of my friends and my family in the church. Yeah, we do. Right? If it's not our friends and family outside the church giving us troubles, it's our friends and family inside the church giving us trouble. That's life. But we keep fighting. We keep going where we're supposed to go.

Because if we give up, we could become disqualified. But you notice Paul didn't dwell on being disqualified. Paul kept saying, so I just keep running. I just keep fighting because I know what's at the end if I do so. God has promised you something. Don't let the little distractions of everyday life keep you from going where you're supposed to go. Take time to be spiritually removed. That's what the Holy Days does. Dude, that's what the Sabbath is supposed to do.

I read a story about a man one time that was literally working himself to death, and the doctor told him he had to take a vacation or he was going to die. And he took a vacation, and he went to Alaska, and he went salmon fishing. And he said, everything his doctor told him didn't make sense to him to eat salmon fishing. He was watching these salmon struggle upstream, and he was watching the ones who made it and the ones who didn't. He said the ones who were made it were the fish that would struggle and rest, and struggle and rest. Some of the bigger strong ones had just decided they were just going to go upstream, got exhausted before they got all the way up the street. And they didn't make it. Then he said, I finally got what my doctor was saying. You and I have to stop in those quiet times of life and let God, like, God give us a renewal. This is what fasting is about. This is what praying is about. This is why daily Bible study is so important. You know, we get, oh no, I didn't get my Bible study in today. We're all stressed out. I didn't get my Bible study in today. I didn't get my prayer in today. Oh, why even try? You know, I'm worthless. I'm not going to make it. I didn't get my Bible study in prayer in today, and God's probably fed up with me. We forget what you're doing and what I'm doing when we're like that. We're struggling upstream on our own power. To stop and let God renew who we are, renew our spirit, renew by His Spirit in us.

And all of a sudden we start to believe in the victory again. We start to prepare for the victory again. We stop allowing these unimportant distractions that keep us from the victory, and we don't let this fatigue overwhelm us. We get renewed on a regular basis.

That fourth point is to don't allow fatigue to overwhelm you. Take those quiet times.

When you say, I don't have time, then your priorities are all wrong.

If we don't have time to be renewed by God on a regular basis, our priorities are all wrong.

The fifth point, I'll use another World War II analogy here. That other one wasn't in my notes. I don't even know why I brought that up. But this is what I find interesting, because the Japanese army, all through the 30s and early 40s, had never lost a battle.

They defeated much larger Chinese armies. They defeated an Australian army. They defeated the British army. They defeated the French army, and they defeated the American army. And they never lost a battle for years. Now, because of that, they became extremely rigid in their tactics.

If it worked for eight straight years, why change it?

Now, of course, the allies, especially the Western allies, changed their tactics. They studied Japanese tactics and prepared tactics specifically to defeat them.

And the Japanese never changed their tactics.

Japanese officers, after the war, they said they were defeated by victory disease. That's what they called it when you translate it into English. It's victory disease. These men tried to say, we have to change our tactics.

You know, this is evolving. There's new equipment coming along, and they're being trained to fight a different way. We have to change it, and nobody would listen to them. And they were defeated by victory disease. God's way doesn't change. But you and I also have to understand that, as we face life, there's a great danger that we become locked into this victory disease. It worked exactly this way, so we have to do everything exactly the same way over and over and over again. The chairs have to be set up at church exactly the same way. Everything has to be administrative the same way. Everything has to happen the exact same way. Every problem has the exact same solution. But you know, life isn't that way, is it? We have new problems all the time. As the Japanese Army got presented with new problems, they never adapted to a single new problem the rest of the war, except in Iwo Jima, they tried. And many of the soldiers disobeyed their officers. Iwo Jima scared the American Army because the amount of casualties we took. And it's because they started finally to change their tactics. But they didn't do it on a massive scale. They could only get little groups of guys to change their tactics because this mindset set in.

New problems are presented to the church of God all the time. New problems are presented in your life all the time. Go to the Bible to find the solutions. Don't always assume that it's the same problems who all apply the same answer. Except we're not talking about the validity of God's way and law and teaching. I'm talking about becoming locked into victory disease, where we produce a culture that never changes and can't change. So, if we have special music one time and it's a country song and not a classical music piece, we will say, see, God's way is being changed. I don't mean singing about my dog got killed and my wife left me and my truck blew up.

But you know what I mean. I mean style. Okay, I'm not talking about that in church. But, okay, a style of music. Well, you see what I mean? We can't take certain things that aren't wrong, they're not wrong, and make them so hardened into our culture that, and I mean I can't think of anything right now because I don't think anything specific. I'm just trying to give a principle, that what happens is we get this victory disease and we can't change to help new people. And I tell you how that really breaks down is when new people walk through that door. First of all, they're scared to death, and this is one of the weirdest churches they've ever been to.

Well, we teach is strange, our service is strange, which is fine. I'm not. We shouldn't change our service. But how do we interact with them? We walk up, we start talking about, well, I hope you're prepared to fast on the day of atonement.

Are you keeping second tide yet?

They have no idea what we're talking about.

We have to be prepared to adapt, to bring people in, to teach them, to bring them along.

And they don't know everything at once, and sometimes we have to keep our mouths shut and say, okay, they'll have to learn that. Let's get through this step first and then to the next step.

Right? I mean, you didn't come along because one day you woke up and you knew everything about the Bible in 30 seconds. It's a process. And we have to help people through the process, not have a culture that's so rigid that, oh, I'm sorry, you didn't know about second tide, you're not keeping second tide, you'll have to leave. As teach and courage grow.

Galatians 6, the last scripture here, Galatians 6.9.

I'm not saying that we should change everything in our church culture.

I'm just saying we can't live by victory disease.

I mean, I want you to think how silly this would be.

I'm going to go on television and I'm going to preach just like Herbert Armstrong.

I would look like a fool. That's where victory disease takes you.

We're not Herbert Armstrong's.

God didn't give us what He gave him. Okay, we work with what God gave us. If we try to reproduce the exact same thing, we'll look like fools.

We acknowledge the greatness of what God has done. But, I mean, what if we say, well, I'm going to be the Apostle Paul? Well, wait a minute, there was only one Apostle Paul. So, I guess, you know, it's really not good for any of us to think that we're going to go out and be exactly like the Apostle Paul. We have to be what God wants us to be and adapt to what God wants us to be. That's what I mean by victory disease. We try to, well, we're going to recreate the Radio Church of God 1955. We've grown since then. The core is just right. But we can't go back to 1955 and reproduce everything, or we'll reproduce victory disease.

Galatians 6, verse 9, And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Now, the power of this little verse sums up everything I've been talking about today. Don't grow weary in this struggle to do good.

Don't grow weary in this. Don't wear out. Let God give you some strength. Keep moving forward, because in due season we will reap. In other words, the harvest is going to be harvested because God said it would. There will be people to harvest. And then the last is if we do not lose heart. The only way you and I won't be there is if you and I give up.

And if you and I give up, then we won't allow God to do His work. That's what will happen. The victory is there. Don't lose heart. We won't lose heart. If we believe in the victory or are preparing for the victory, don't allow an important distraction to let the victory slip away. Set aside time for spiritual renewal, and don't become complacent in our calling.

And simply go through the motions instead of dealing with the reality of the world we live in. The Passover is not a time of what ifs. It is a time to take stock of the chains that you and I are carrying around, and they are chains without locks because God already unlocked them.

It is time to get rid of them. It is a time to celebrate, because God has already told us Egypt is falling. You are going to be taken out, and if you do not lose heart, you will receive victory.