INCREASE: Victory Is Ours Pt.2

I'm excited. I feel like God showed me something last night. I've been studying this for a while. My wife came in and she's like, what are you doing?

I was like, I'm finishing preparing. She's like, well, I thought you were just finishing from last week. Oh, I said I am. But he added a little more to it.

So I'm excited. I don't know if you're excited to be here. But victory. Say it.

Just say it one time. Victory. Doesn't that feel good? Man.

And that's only from our human perspective. We can say victory and what we think of. But I'm telling you, when you see what he did, the victory from his perspective, it's going to help you live in a continually. I'm going to say it again.

Guys, you're going to continually try on over adversities, overall things. And do you realize what happens in that, though, in the process when we continually try on things? We grow. Man, I'm going to have to wake you up.

I love this one. We didn't have drums. We didn't have drums today. So now you're the.

It's all right. So we're going to go on. God's word will get you guys stirred up because that's the only thing that can. Right?

So we're just going to go with victory is ours part two. Say victory is ours. Victory is ours. Yeah.

If y'all really grab a hold of that the way you just said it, leave it here today, God's really going to show up in your life. So I want to start off by saying the key to all this is shifting our focus from temporary to eternally. That's when we're able to experience a victorious life in Christ. We heard me launch last week and talking about just victory in different ways.

But I said a temporary strength will leave you what? A temporary focus mindset will leave you with what? Temporary strength. How many knows that's no good?

That'll leave you at all. You'll defeat one thing and then the next thing will just knock you right out and then you're back to square one. So a temporary mindset is not going to cut it. But we learned we started to learn that eternal mindset will help you to live to overcome all things, all things.

Like I don't know how to help get you guys excited that all things means everything you could ever think of. That's happened in the past or that's going to happen in the future. All things. And if that doesn't excite you, nothing will.

That's what it can. It's all things. It's summed up in that. So what is victory?

It's a great question. And I didn't get time to talk about it last week. So I want to touch on it before we dive in. And I want to talk about victory from God's perspective.

If we're talking about it from God's perspective, what does that look like? I talked about what we think victory looks like. We sum it up to the pretty much the after fact of something. We go through something and boom.

Yeah, we have victory. We win. We get a prize. We don't act like you guys don't want prizes when you win something.

Like we're looking for something. That's our form of what victory is. And I believe with such a low, a really low perspective of victory is what leaves us like some victories are like mountain top and others are just like, it is what it is. You know what I mean?

Just another day. But God's perspective is living in the fullness of what Jesus has accomplished. Embracing a relationship with God that is free from the barriers of fear, unbelief, and sin. Free from the barriers of fear, unbelief, and sin.

It means overcoming these obstacles so that they no longer come in between us and God. See, I hope you're starting to pick it up, Church. All these things, what do they do? They get in between us and God.

And I don't know if you're noticing any of these things in your life, but as soon as they start to get in between that relationship, all the other ones fall apart. Everything else actually falls apart. Why? Because he holds it all together, right?

Amen? So it's the obstacles. It's overcoming the obstacles so they no longer getting between us and God. Victory isn't just about winning battles or achieving goals.

Victory is about the journey and the state of being where we continuously say triumph. Say triumph. Church, wake up. Help me out this morning.

Over adversity. So we... Yeah, that's it one more time. Wake up.

Oh yeah. Now we're getting in there. Continually. Don't forget.

Keep that up here because we're going to talk about that. And it's the ongoing process. Everybody say ongoing. Trust the process.

Right? We like to say those things, Church. What I'm going to do today is God brought a lot of things to me that we like to say. But you can't find them on us.

You can find them just floating out there occasionally. But you can't find them on us as we walk our life to see what we're examining. And it really, you know what he showed me today? He showed me that it showed that's where we live from.

And I'm really... I've noticed that God started... I was like, God help me with the gray areas. He started erasing all of them.

Now, my mind is like, wow, we can... Oh, we really can see this. Because people were like, how can you tell where someone like... We don't get to say where people are really at.

I don't know. I'm just going to help you. Help you read that. My Bible, it's really good.

I'm going to help you. We should be able to see... There should be fruit in our lives, right? Even though Apostle Paul says, bear fruit in your repentance.

You know what that means? You should be able to see where you... When you're repented, you should be able to see from that fruit should be shown from your repentance. All right, that's not what we're talking about today.

I got excited. It said, it is the ongoing process of aligning with God's will, growing in faith and walking in the freedom and the power that Jesus has provided. And I just want to pray on that real quick. Father, thank you for your word.

God, we're so thankful for Jesus and the power and everything that He gives us access to Father so we can walk and just reveal who you are through our lives, Father, and that we have freedom and we can walk in that. We can walk in the victory that you ultimately set in place for us to walk in. So we thank you for all that you're doing in Jesus' name. Amen.

All right, so the first point I'm going to talk about today is the eternal mindset. If you have your Bibles with me, turn to Colossians 3, 1 and 2. It's in the basics of our popular scriptures that we read that we miss. Because I always ask God, I'm like, give me something new.

I want to show him in a fresh way and he keeps bringing me back to these basic scriptures that I'm like, all right, that's what we're going to run with. I'm going to read out of the message translation and say, so if you are serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don't shuffle along.

Eyes to the ground. Are you guys reading with me? Don't shuffle along. Eyes to the ground.

Absorb with the things right in front of you. Look up. I think what he was trying to get us to do, like it was a prophetic act. Everybody look up and be alert to what is going on around Christ.

That's where the action is. See things from his perspective. I just want to talk about that for two seconds because this just became one of my favorite verses in the Bible through studying this. And it's so like profound, so simple.

We've read it so many times. But internal mindset means to prioritize what God prioritizes, value what he values, and focus on what is lasting rather than what is temporal. Church, like we really got to get to a place where we're walking out our lives from an eternal mindset because what we're saying and walking and doing is saying that we're focused on what God wants. God, I just want your will to be done.

He gives us simple plain directions on what his will is and what he calls us to do. But there's a disconnect in it. It's because I think we're so fixated on what we see and he wants us to tear those things down so we can start seeing what he sees to live from his perspective. To bring him to the situation if you can't see what he sees.

If you're only seeing what you can see and what you've experienced, then you are limited to what you can bring. Amen? And this is where people are going to be like, we're humans. If you miss the past couple of weeks, we keep talking about what lives inside of you.

Who lives in you? You didn't know you're now hidden in Christ if you're a believer. If you believe in him, you're now hidden in him. You have access to all of these things.

But if we're going to live from a place to where we're limited, then I think that's probably why we're not seeing the things happen that we want to ultimately see happen because we're living from a temporal, limited perspective when God says you have access to one that is the highest, most high. You ever go somewhere when you want to see something? Where you go? The highest spot.

So why, when we're approachable situations, do we not try to get to the highest place to see from there before we respond or react? Right? And I'm asking God, God help me because I believe a lot of us know that. But for some reason, we're not doing that.

We'll attack it down here. We'll wonder why things keep happening. Keep happening. And God's like, I need you.

Hey, come up here. And then should you step up, you're like, oh, I didn't see that. And then you respond differently, right? Come on church, help me this morning.

Like we have access to something that we aren't even entertaining. We are so focused on what we can see, what we can control. And then we'll trust you, God. I think I don't have enough on this yet because he just hit me with this this morning.

But I'm sitting here and I'm like, God, what's this trust thing we have going on? And because ultimately we trust in something we can't see, right? But you ever know just like us as humans, we're big on trust in other people. But why we struggle so much with that when we can see them?

All right, I'm going to go. Like I said, we're going to talk to them that later. That's just a little nugget thought for you. But what I want us to see is that we have to, God's we have to.

If we're going to read the Word, we're going to follow it. It's simple, it's right in front of us. If you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Like that's pretty simple, isn't it?

Pursue the things over which Christ. Like God, what do you want? God, I know, but you don't understand. This is this is this is that.

But all right, what do you want, God? Like, come on, guys, we all do it. We all sit down and we say, what do you want? And you know how God knows we don't want it and why he probably doesn't release us to us?

Because this is what we're at when we're saying it. He said, oh, if you want, if you're going to be serious about it, at least stand up where you can see and ask for it. Because where you're sitting at, you don't really want it, but you're saying you want it, but you don't want to do nothing about it. And what I need you to do is at least first access what you have access to, to then see so I can show you where you need to go.

Who you need to talk to, what you need to do. But I can't, if you're going to sit down there. See, first we got to get on the level that we have access to church. We got to get up to where he's raised us up to, what he's given us the ability to live to so then we can see and then he can guide us.

We're trying to be down there. He can't guide you down there. And I know you're going to be talking to do anything. Listen, a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while, right?

We don't know that that's him though because then you say, you ever notice it and you don't it your way, you find, you'll find something. You'll be like, maybe I do, and you know why he don't operate there? Because if there's any thought of anything that's happening in your life currently right now that you think you may play a part in, you are in a wrong ballpark. But when you're standing in something that you can only be like, that's only God.

That's what he does. That's what he wants to get you to see. When he's directing your life, you're going to know and give all glory to the only one. Amen church?

Amen. None of this is in my notes. I got to get back on track. The temporal nature of earthly things.

Go to 2 Corinthians 4, 18 with me. Starting in 18 it says, so we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. Since what is seen is temporary. But what is unseen is eternal.

Listen, everything you're going to set your eyes on in this world is temporary. When you even look at the human life is a very short time. Very short. I like some translations that says it's here today, gone tomorrow.

Temporary. Temporary. Which, it makes sense on why we get so focused on it, right? It's what we see, it's right in front of us.

But it says, we fix our eyes. You know it's a choice to fix your eyes on those things? And it can be challenging. Because once you fix your eyes on, you see something, I'm starting to challenge these things.

Have you ever said this with me? You'll never be able to convince me. Because I've seen it with my own eyes. Have you said that?

Anybody? Yeah, only four of you? Yeah, right. We operate like that.

Now here's what I do want to challenge you with. That's going to be very hard to get into some of this stuff that we read about. Because I don't know about y'all, but I ain't never seen a burning bush. Well I burn a bush.

I ain't never seen it not burn all the way up, right? I've never seen some of the stuff we've seen. So think about how we get so fixated on some of this stuff that like, I've seen it. You're not going to convince me otherwise, right?

I just want to start to plant a seed of maybe some of the things we say. Maybe they start to interfere with some of the things we believe. And it keeps us from being able to see it the perspective of what God wants us to see from because we're so set on our limited perspective, which I'm not saying is all wrong because you've seen certain things. But how many know if you want to see something that you ain't never seen before, you're going to have to get out of the place of where you've seen something here in the mindset of where it's only that's the only way it can work.

That's the only way that I thought of. I did all my calculations. I ran it through chat GBT and it gave me every outcome that could ever imagine it's not possible. That's going to conflict with a God that you serve that does the impossible.

And so this is going to require this level of faith is going to require a trust like you ain't never had before. A trust that no human you're probably God uses people, but no human you're going to go to is probably going to be able to give you some solutions. You're going to have to trust in him with everything that you have to look at him. And remember what I said?

It says it's constantly aligning with his will. So don't run out of here and start doing your own thing and then saying, well, you said pastor that I said, yeah, but it will align with his will. Guys we seriously this we have to start fixing our eyes on the unseen, the spiritual realm, getting to a place where we can actually now operate and move and do things and bring him to that situation. Sometimes when we have a limited perspective, we bring ourselves and we do more damage than we do good in church.

I'm going to help us and I hope help you position you in front of him to where those sayings become the reality of the life that we live, not just something that so easily flows, but no goes. It flows out, but there's no evidence behind it that we live that way. Because that's that's I mean, in a sense, that's what Paul is saying that things are here today gone tomorrow. And then I look at Paul's life who was persecuted for his belief.

We're persecuted for our dumb decisions. He's persecuted for his belief and he's sitting in prison. And what's happening? He still gets to like he lives free in prison.

You can only do that if you're seeing from God's perspective of things because you don't see a way about have a way out. Have a way out none of that stuff. But how many of you know when you see, starting from his perspective, the things that you're limited perspective can't see, he'll start to reveal to you to be able to see to live from his perspective to bring his perspective to the situation to then live out what he ultimately has called you to live the way he created you to live. That's the goal we're trying to achieve.

We're trying to live the way he created us to be church. And he helps us do that. Go to next time. We must reduce our trust in what we see so that we can live from what God sees.

I don't know if I'll leave this spot. I'm going to try to. If you want to, you can turn to judges seven. You don't have to.

But in studying God showed me this. Like God showed me something in the scripture of what you're trying to show to me. And Gideon's victory over the Midianites. We've all heard about it.

We've all read it. But he showed me something. Let's just read the background together, church. The Israelites were oppressed by the Midianites and God called Gideon to deliver Israel.

Okay? We all, some of us know that if you don't. You're welcome. Now you do.

There is some adversity, right? Gideon initially doubted. Anybody in here doubted their ability and asked for multiple signs for God to do what? Come on.

Confirm his calling. Didn't we just learn about that? Confirming our call? Look at God's strategy.

God reduced Gideon's army from 32,000 to 300. He reduced his army from 32,000 to 300. 32,300. Oh, to ensure that the victory would be what?

Seen by his doing and not human doing. Before I get to his trial in church, I, listen, I don't know what it is today. I just really feel right now to just share some of my closing that I feel that God is stripping. I don't know if you know this or not, but what he had to do with Gideon is he said, he gave him different tasks to get rid of him, right?

Anyone that's afraid, 20,000 of them went running. Then he did, take him down to the water, see how he drank the water. And how they drank the water. That's how he picked the, it's interesting.

But what God was showing me and all of that, that he was stripping away what Gideon could see. Gideon saw 32,000. Yeah. Right?

When things are going our way church, we're great with things. We're like, oh, it's lining up. Look at God move. Look at God move.

What I tell you today is I believe that God will strip away. So if you're in a stripper way time in your life right now, it may look a certain way, but God's saying, no, I'm taking it away. You started relying on the wrong things. I'm taking them away.

It isn't the amount that means more. It's not the amount. It is, I got to strip some of this away. So you get back to the place of being able to, you're getting down here and you're getting crowded.

I got to strip this away so you can get back on top so you can start to see that it's all about me. I'll do something with 300 men that you thought it took 32,000 men. I don't know how to personalize this in your life right now, but you probably think that you need a whole lot of something that God says all you need is me. I need to strip you down to where you get to a place to where you can't see that the only thing you can do is rely on me.

32,000 church. This blew my mind. I didn't run around the church this time. I fell on my chair because I'm like, oh my God.

I have this idea of church and what I can see that God's moving in my life when things look great or they're moving well. But he started to show me that I have victory and triumph in adversity and times that it don't look good. I'm just wondering what am I looking at? Right?

That's what we do. We even judge other people's life by what we see. I'm like, God help us because this says fix our eyes on the unseen. The unseen is what's going to help us see him because we're going to think we had something to do with it.

He went about it with 32,000 men. How do you feel like he has a victory? You have more than enough. God said there's too many people.

He said there's too many people. We're out here thinking I just think church seriously our perspective is a little distorted. We get so used to what we see. We start to lean on it and we don't even realize it and guess what we do?

Oh, that's God. Favour. Blessed and highly favored. How about I'm busted and blessed, right?

It don't look good, but I'm blessed. See, I'm telling you church, there's a victory that we are not walking in because we have a wrong perspective of it. He wants to refocus that. I really encourage you if he's stripping you down right now, let him strip you all the way down because the one lives inside of you.

That's the only one you need too, by the way. He used what? He used a little David. You know why I think he used just him?

Just show the rest of them. It's just one. I can still do it. Guys, come on.

I hope you're seeing what God's showing me that it's not about what we see because I've seen some things and I thought it looked a certain way. It turned out to be totally different. I'm just saying church, things can be super deceiving. But guess who can't be deceived?

Our God. We serve a powerful God. We serve a God that's so about us. I mean so about us.

I am so overwhelmed with how much he cares about me. I am telling you the things that he'll strip away, the things that he'll do, the things that he goes out of his way just to remind me how special I am. It blows me away because that's the God that paid for victory wants us to live in it. We get to celebrate a victory we didn't even have to fight.

We can't even do that. He tries to tell us how to do that. He said hey, it's one. You just need to do the spray, the champagne bottles.

He said you just need to have the victory lap. So the triumph was just 300 men getting defeated, the vast Midianite army using a clever strategy. You ready for this? Involving trumpets, jars, and torches.

What did the victory demonstrate? The reliance on God. Even when it seems impossible, it led to trial. Come on somebody.

And that's such a great example of what God can do and just another way that he shows us. Like his strategy will always be best. I am so learning to be open, to be open that God's going to move how he wants to move. We want to figure it out so we can bring out to every situation.

But I'm learning that he's like hey, you know what, this requires something different. And you know what I'm noticing why we get so stuck because every single time we walk in from this perspective, it's temporal. We've seen it before. It's comfortable.

It's all familiar. So it's easy to stay down here. But if you would start climbing, God can start showing you to work through you from his perspective. It's better for you.

It grows you. Every time you try on, it grows you. It's impossible for it to not. Like every time you come out of something, haven't you been like, yeah, right?

Why do we stop church? Help me. Why do we live defeated? I'm just going to get, I'm going to run through a couple of these examples real quick of some adversities and triumphs.

Oh, yeah, we can go there. Is that right now? Go back one side. All right, go up two sides.

Yeah, just go back. We'll go there. There it is. All right.

I don't know if you guys know who that is. Barry Sanders. So I'm a huge fan of Barry Sanders. My wife makes fun of me because we'll go places.

I even think when we went on our anniversary to California, we stopped in this little town. It was hot. There was nothing there. But you know, there's a little card shop in every town.

So I'm like, hey, I got to stop in here, babe. He's like, why? What are you, 10? Pardon me, still is.

Yeah. I love to collect Barry Sanders cards everywhere I go. I have like 400 of them. I try to collect all of his cards.

But so I stop in there. This is one of my favorite ones. And it's called the key. And there's two different ones.

The top where it says the key, there's just a regular silver one and there's one that's like a shiny silver one. You got to have the pair. That's just a little trading card effect. It has nothing to do with the sermon.

You're welcome. But as I was starting to read through some of this, I wanted to see like what is the, like the trading card, what is the, what's cool about the trading card? It shows you stats, right? Good stats.

I mean, they might all be good, but it shows you stats. And then there's, there's different cards and it has different pictures that if you know when you watch the game, you'll catch like the glimpse of certain games that it was in. It's super cool. But I'm like, man, this is cool.

So there's trading cards and then on the back there's stats. I'm like, what does this have to do anything with God? I'm like, God, like show me. And he's like, you know, everything that you do, things are being recorded.

Why are you, why are you collect his cards? And I'm like, because he's awesome. Like, he's one of the best to watch. And I look this up and feel search the best NFL running backs of all time.

His picture comes up first. You know, it's really cool. He has never been to a Super Bowl. He's never played in the biggest game of where they go to play.

Never. How in the world is he one of the best if he's never played in the, in the soul goal that you go to the NFL to play? And I'm like, man, this is interesting. And you know what else he did?

I don't know if you watched his documentary, but it's on prime. That's a plug. Send us a kickback Amazon if you get some new subscribers. But you know, it's super cool.

He exited the game before he got the greatest, like, the all-time rushing record. They could, he actually would have broke it in the game. He took himself out, didn't want it. He's like, I don't want that.

It's not, I don't do this for that. It's not about the achievement of having the record for the most rushing yards. I mean, I tell you, I didn't know that until I watched this. Because I'm like, why did he leave so early?

Everyone's like, I'm just Smith. I'm like, he, no. No, no, but, but it really, it really did something for me. I'm like, wow.

A man that played the game and gave everything to the game and loved it, but he didn't do it for the reward. And he's still notable and recognizes one of the best running backs ever. Doesn't have a Super Bowl ring, doesn't have the rushing record, doesn't have nothing. And everyone that talked about the man said he's one of the best guys I've ever met.

And then I came to realize that he has God in the center of his life. And it's like, oh my goodness. But I got thinking about the cards more. And like, what, what would your card read?

You know, it shows your stats. It shows things that were good. And on the back of this one, you're going to see it in a little bit. It's going to show things about him.

It's going to tell you about him. But what it got me thinking more was regardless, we're not living for the things here. But while you're living here, how many knows you have a purpose? And your impact is great.

And it can be great. But what, what, what, what footstep or stamp or whatever you want to call it? Are you leaving on the world? Are they, are they, are they saying, man, he's the greatest running back ever.

And up there at the best of them, and he has none of the, none of the awards. None of the, I don't know how, let me help you guys because some of you guys aren't sports man. He doesn't have the big house. He doesn't have all the money.

He doesn't have all the, do you see what I'm saying? Are you guys just consumed with what you can see? Like what you can see in the people's life. Are you more consumed with what you have, keeping up with the judges?

Let me help you. Or about Christ being revealed. What's your focus? Like church, I want to help us leave here today that we walk this walk for him to be revealed.

For the love of it. Not for the accolades, not for I broke the rushing record. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did this.

Like what would the back of your playing card say? That's a super weird thing to ask, isn't it? But I'm telling you, he speaks to me through sports. And I'm like, God, thank you for showing me that.

Because it's not just all about the stats. It's not all about the things that everybody else looks at. It's about how are you going to carry yourself? Who are you doing it for?

It's the better question. Who are you walking this walk for? And what do others see when they talk about you? All right, let's talk about some of this triumph over adversity.

Go to the next slide. We have Joseph, sold into slavery like most of you know by his brothers, falsely accused of attempted rape and imprisoned. What did he do in prison? Interpreted dreams.

Can we say triumph? Someone say triumph. Like, I want to help you today. He was imprisoned.

That's not good. But he triumphed in prison. Why did he triumphed in prison? Different perspective.

Right? Not what he could see, but where he was seeing from. He says, which led to his rise to the power as a second in command in Egypt. He ultimately saved Egypt and his family from famine.

Moses, face pharaohs wrath, letter rebellious and complaining people. Do you remember Moses? Right? How did he triumphed?

Oh yeah, I can't leave out the wonder that everyone's favorite. How'd I forget that? I've been in a wilderness for 40 years. He didn't have to be.

I want to point that out there too. But what do you do? Delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Receive the Ten Commandments.

It's me, God. Thank you for this message. He received the Ten Commandments, y'all. Do you see in the midst of some of these adversities that are facing the greatest things that happen through them?

Maybe. In the times where it seems so bad and that you lose. Maybe the greatest thing is about to be birthed from that. Maybe with a different perspective, God is saying, oh, I'm going to show you what this is really about.

Who you serve and what I'm capable to do if you will just fix your eyes on me. Right? We're going to feed it, guys, because in the midst of adversity, we stay defeated. We lay around in the ground and roll around and cry about how bad things are.

But if we would learn that we can try on in adversity and difficulties, we have the one and only God that has overcome all things inside of us that gives us the ability to rise up, to see a different perspective, to respond a different way. Go to the next one. There's a lot of them, guys. David bought Goliath as a young shepherd and was pursued by King Saul, who sought to kill him.

He's an Italian from his son and dealt with personal moral failures. These are going to start getting a little interesting. He dealt with personal moral failures. Guys, there's a reality to the world we live in and the things that we go through.

I'm not diminishing that. What I'm saying is the worst of things is trying. We must eliminate this defeated mindset of a temporal mindset that we live as we're going through things or that there's things that have been messed up that we cannot come back from. That doesn't align up with the God that I serve.

I'm sorry. He said there's nothing. I don't know if you think there's something that goes above nothing, but today you need to understand that nothing. I don't know what you're walking in or what has started to come into your life that has you feeling the feeder that you can't get back up from.

You think you're not worthy to walk in, you don't deserve it, you don't any of those things. But God says today, if you'll stand from my perspective, there'll be triumph over that thing that's going to bring even greater things because when you stand up to the thing that's defeated you and that builds up inside of you, then the growth, that will start a momentum. That make you be able to walk through any situation and know that there's victory. There's victory no matter what it looks like.

We got Daniel, go to the next slide. Apostle Peter, Apostle Paul, guys, I had to cut it. I have so many, I'm just going to run through the list of them. You only have, I think, go to the next slide.

Yeah, there's Stephen, there's John the Apostle. Like if you'll read your word, guys, I'm telling you, you'll go and see all the adversity that everyone faced and you'll see triumph in their lives. And I'm wondering, man, how many of us aren't having the triumphal stories to tell, the testimonies to share, because the adversity has eaten us up because we have a perspective that's temporary. It's blocking our blessings.

Actually, I'm going to go another step. It's blocking somebody else's blessings because there's people that don't know Christ that needs a secret, but they can't see Christ because the thing that you're supposed to triumph over, you're not trying to open over to where you can get to a place to stand and say, but God. And then that's when they're like, oh, wow, I'm not alone. I can relate and you in triumphing.

I don't know if you're noticing it yet, but walking in victory, people see that and it draws them to that. And what are they being drawn to? The one that lifts them up and says, let me let me help raise you to the point where you can see. And I'm telling you guys, we're going to walk in a different way church.

We're going to walk in such a way that it's it's going to change. It's going to change the people around us, but it's going to change our community. Everyone talks about me. I want to see this eliminated.

I want to see that eliminated. Well, guess what it takes to see those things eliminated for a group, a unity of a church body to walk in victory to show that it's possible to overcome that stuff without them being able to see. Right. They won't get to a place to trust in the unseen because the ones that are supposed to fix their eyes on the unseen.

They're only looking on what scene. I'd say not. Come on. Come on, church.

Do you trust me? If you trust me, then follow me. If you follow me, do you read what it said? Act like it.

You can't follow something not act like it because then that's what everyone's like. I don't know what he's confused. What is it confusing to believers? How are we not confused, but lived confused?

Some people know who we serve. Some people know that, oh, hey, Christ died on the Christ died on the cross and now you have victory to overcome all things. And they got to encourage you. How they going to see the victory if the one that you're claiming has victory is defeated all the time.

And church, listen, I'm not diminishing what anybody's walking through. What I'm trying to do is to help you see that you have victory, not from your perspective of victory. Oh, you won yesterday. Great.

Well, even if you lose today, you still win because you can try them over all things. We have to live to where we're example in a better perspective of victory, a perspective of victory that surpasses our level of understanding to where we can help people see. Like, isn't that the purpose of our lives to advance the kingdom? How do you advance it?

You got to be able to see where it's going. You can't see where the kingdom's going. How do you help advance it? That's where we got to stand together, church.

We got to stand up. There's so many of these examples. I was blown away by how many I found of the people we read about, but we just overlooked. We focused so much.

I noticed this. We always talk about the things that they went through. They did wrong. I'm like, what?

What is wrong with what we see? Why do we see the bad in the same thing? All the time. First, they face challenges.

They face challenges just like we do today. All of these people. I want you to hear this. The victory that these people that we're talking about, we just read some about what they showed it.

It's not about the outward success for these people. The triumph over temporary challenges. It's rooted in the relationship with God. If you will go back and read some of these, God will show you where it is rooted in and it's in the relationship with God.

It's what every believer like where everything should be at is rooted in our relationship with Christ. That's what's going to help us really. I'm telling you guys, that's what's going to help us really start to advance into this place of walking in the victory that we've been provided for. But staying through to his plans, not ours.

His plan, not ours. Here's another one. The victory we have isn't just about failing your fresh spiritually. Hold on a second.

Or powering through tough times. I don't want you to get so confused that that's what it's only about. Because that's not what it's only about. Can you hear me now?

Good? Alright. So it's about showing others. And I just feel like I have to share this guys because you can have victory.

I feel like sometimes we focus on the goosebumps. I'm feeling good. And you can have victory just because you don't feel it. I know we may make a joke with Fred say like my power is out.

I'm like, well, you don't have to like, you don't feel it this morning. But I think that goes like can be put into if we feel a certain way. Well, then things are great. Guys, listen, I don't care how you feel.

I don't listen anything you can think of. It doesn't matter. You have victory. You stand in victory.

Even when you get the worst news, you stand in victory. This is this is what I'm trying to get us to understand. It's not about a feeling. It's not about what you see.

It's not about if things go your way. It's not about that. It's about you have victory because what Christ did and you can live in that. And that's whether you choose to or you don't.

But too often we only live in it when we feel good or we only crazy when things are going good. But when they're not, all it takes is for you to step up from his place and say, I trust you guys. He will show you what direction to go. I don't know if I said this to the hundra who I said it to, but I'm not a believer anymore that God doesn't answer us.

Some people like, well, years and years and years. I think that it's more that we don't listen. It's more that we want to see things our way. I can't I can't believe scripture to say ask and you will receive, but yet.

Well, why am I not receiving? It's not a problem on his end. I'm telling you, church, you don't have to believe me, not his end. But why would it tell me to ask and I'll receive and I'm asking.

I'm not receiving. That doesn't make sense. So I can't get behind that anymore. I used to be, well, you know, to God's time.

That's true. But it also tells me that he's such a good God. Like he ain't holding things from me. Like so what are we doing to ourselves?

And I think a lot of it comes down to the spiritual reality of things that we're just so like we're basing things off a certain thing. And I want to help us today. It's just it's solely all about our God and believe in how good he is. He's entirely good church.

I don't know if anyone's not ever told you this, but he's entirely good. It's never bad with him. And if we start to focus on things from his perspective and grab a hold of those things and not leave it in our hands to tell how things are or this is gauging, this is good or this is bad and have a mindset that it's all good. Because I don't think he created anything and called it bad.

Did he? Okay. Then I don't think we can either. So I'm going to start to wrap up here shortly.

I just got a couple more. Go to the next slide. I had to put some of these up there because as I'm studying, he started to bring things to my mind. Let your will be done.

Who said that in here? Anybody raise a hand? Amen. He said, your promises are yes and amen.

God is my strength. Yeah, I can do all things and listen, all of them are true, but all of them can just be a cool cliche saying to if you don't believe it and live your life by it. He was showing me that we have access to that for it to become our reality because that's how he does see things. But church, we're saying them from down here.

I wonder why we're saying that. Like, let your will be done, Father. He's like, it's done. I'm doing it.

If you'll get up here, you'll see it. But you want to stay there. The church, you really put this on me. I didn't plan to do this.

He really started to just really impress this on me to try to help us see that like adversities are a normal thing. They all went through them. What are some of the adversities today? We have this is just some popular ones that popped up.

We have the secular world secularism. And moral flexibility. The adversity is being in the world. That's all about you ready?

Do what feels good. And everybody's truth is cool. And I can class with what we believe as believers. But let me show you something how we try them.

We can win by staying connected to the word and prayer. His perspective. Talking about faith and what's right. Church.

Listen, I know these are questions that some of you have because I hear all the time. Well, how does the secular world listen to like all this stuff comes into play. But how we as believers, how do we try on that's the question that adversities are there. How do we try on as believers?