I've titled the message today the battle is not yours the battle is not yours today this message is for every person today that's in the middle of a great battle I want you to look with me if you would at second chronicles chapter 20 beginning in verse 1 after this the Moabites the ammonites together with some of the MU knights came to fight against Jehoshaphat and people came and told Jehoshaphat a vast number from beyond the Dead Sea and and from Edom has come to fight against you and they are already in Hazan tamar that
is in Getty and Jehoshaphat was afraid and he resolved to seek the Lord and then he proclaimed a fast for all of Judah who's gathered to seek the Lord they even came from all of the cities of Judah to seek Him amen you can be seated for just a moment today we're talking about a character by the name of Jehoshaphat everybody say Jehoshaphat what a name his name was originally jeho but he was kind of one of those chubby kids on the playground and everybody named him Jehoshaphat and Biggie and they called him the notorious
Jo P that's who he was Jehoshaphat Jehoshaphat was one of the great kings of Judah most of the kings didn't do so well Jehoshaphat was fat with a calling from God Jehoshaphat was fat with a big big problem his three arch-nemesis his three rivals were coming against him can you just imagine this I mean not just one bad guy but three bad guys three nations are now coming after Judah Judas the southern kingdom amongst the people of God and now they've got a big problem not one not two not three but enemies three enemies coming
against the people of God the battle is huge some of you today are in a battle you're in a battle you may be in a battle for your sanity you may be in a battle for your finances or for your family but you're in a battle and the enemy or the enemies are coming after you I want you to look with me if you will the way that this man Joseph the Denver Broncos were playing the Oakland Raiders the San Diego Chargers in the Kansas City Chiefs not individually but all three of the rival teams
right like playing the Broncos all at once this is like this but magnified even more Jehoshaphat is scared for his life he knows he's outnumbered sometimes you have to get to that point of desperation in your life for you to see your need for God Jehoshaphat realized I got such a big problem that if God does not intervene there's no hope have you ever been to that point in your life before so what does he do he he proclaims a fast and he has the people come to the capital city and to pray everybody's praying
I mean sometimes you get to that point where you're like there is nothing else to do except call on the name of the Lord I got no other sub I got I got no other I got no other resolutions I have no other options I have no tricks up my sleeve we have to call upon God and when we get to that point that's when God does some of his greatest work in our lives I want to look today at three aspects of three weapons if you will to take on this great battle that you
may be involved in if you're not in a battle today you'll probably be in one tomorrow you may want to take some notes today amen because because the battle is coming giant problems solved by first of all big bold prayers big bold prayers the first thing he did was to seek God sometimes we seek God as a last resort right like when we try everything else that we can do oh then I'll pray I guess there's nothing nothing else worked out I'll talk to God about this Jehoshaphat immediately goes to God he starts with God
and God should always be the starting place look with me well if you will at verse 5 then Jehoshaphat stood up in the Assembly of Judah and Jerusalem in the Lord's temple before the new courtyard and he said Laura God of our ancestors are you not the God who is in heaven and do you not rule over the kingdoms of the nation's power and might are in your hand and no one can stand against you notice his confidence in God in verses 5 and 6 I mean you know it's one thing just to tell God
your problems but it's another thing to begin to pray and to express your confidence in the Lord he basically just says God there's no one like you god you're amazing I mean yeah I'm freaking out a little bit but but but but but I want to remember how amazing that you really are Lord I mean you know you're the one who rules over the kingdoms and nations I mean you're the one who is in heaven I mean you know god you're incredible you're amazing man does that echo your prayers when you're in the middle of
a battle remember how great God is are you confident in God and then in verse 7 he says are you not the God who drove out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and who gave it forever that to the descendants of Abraham your friend he looks at the past to encourage the future so he looks back and he says you know what our ancestors beginning with father Abraham you gave this land to them you've protected them all throughout these subsequent generations of of the Jewish people I mean God you've been with us
and you've been so faithful and God you've been so amazing and he looks back so that he could look forward the greatest weight look forward into that battle in your life is remember the battles that God has already brought you through what has God already done in your life what has God are we're already how has he already directed you how has he already bless you how has he already provided for you look back so you can look forward and then he relies on the great promises of God and verse 9 he quotes verse from
the dedication of Solomon's Temple he said if disaster comes on us or sword of judgment or pestilence or famine we will stand before his temple and before you for your name is in this temple we will cry out to you because of our distress and you will hear and deliver and he's talking about solomon's temple that was dedicated where this is quoted from and so he quotes a promise that God made to the to the Hebrew people many years before and you know the promises of God have been given to us to give us confidence
in the future one of my favorite promises of God is Hebrews 13 5 and 6 where it says I will never leave you or forsake you in other words God is never one to run off on us people abandon us people hurt us but God is always faithful we did a message series a few months ago called solid the promises of God where we unpack some of the great promises of God and there's hundreds of them littered through Scripture but but the promises of God give us security and they give us confidence to face the
battle of today and tomorrow we need that we need a promise to stand on amen we do and then it gets even even better right here in verse 10 look at this look at this prayer now here are the ammonites the Moabites the inhabitants of mount seir and you did not let israel invade them when israel came out of the land of egypt but israel turned away from them and did not destroy them and you said you know god we could have taken them out a long time ago we didn't do it and now they're
coming after us and then in verse 11 look how they repay us by coming to drive us out of the possessions you gave us as this inheritance in other words God you gave us the Holy Land you gave us the land of promise now these guys are trying to come and take it from us our God will you not judge them for we are powerless before their vast number we are totally out manned we got-we we have nothing God if you don't intervene but look at this right here we do not know what to do
but we look to you another translation says we don't know what to do but our eyes are on you our eyes are on you see when you don't know what to do you can do one thing you can look to God and sometimes our eyes get fixated on other things sometimes our eyes are not on the Lord they're on our problems sometimes our eyes are on people sometimes our eyes are on the past sometimes our eyes can be on so many other things but when we begin to look to the Lord that's when God begins
to do amazing things in our myths and this should be the heartbeat behind our prayers Lord we don't know what to do but our eyes are on you Lord sometimes we feel like we've got the plan God here's the plan I need you to do this the Lord and I need you to start now Jehoshaphat says God we're so overwhelmed we don't even have a plan we don't know what to do but our eyes are on you Lord our eyes are on you we don't know what to do we got no solutions we're out of
answers if we would have had answers we had already tried it we're so overwhelmed and not numbered we have no chance we don't know what to do but Lord our eyes are on you we're toast if it doesn't come from you and there's a humble plea he just says our eyes are on you in other words God we need you when you're in the battle you need to be reminded you need God you need God you need him and don't let your eyes be distracted or taken off so giant problems are solved by big bold
prayers but check this out here's the second thing patient persistent waiting patient persistent waiting now the instruction that God is going to give it is going to be very unusual I mean this whole passage of scripture is truly one of the artists in the bye I think sometimes God uses odd passages to teach us powerful truths this is odd but check this out this is profound sometimes there can be profoundness in its peculiarities look at this then he says look with me what if you would in verse 15 and he said listen carefully all Judah
and you inhabitants of Jerusalem the king of King Jehoshaphat this is what the Lord says do not be afraid or discouraged because of the vast number of the battle is not yours but the Lord so this is the Prophet a jazel that begins to speak this and tomorrow go down against them and you will see them coming from ascent of ziz and you will find them in the end of the valley facing the wilderness of Giroux and you do not have to fight this battle position yourselves stand still and see the salvation of the Lord
okay now this is odd I mean the bad guys are coming right and you're expecting God to maybe drop some ninjas out of heaven you know to take on the bad guys and God says no no actually what I need you guys to do is I just need you to be still I just need you to get the army lined up and I need you guys to stand there oh okay Lord you know like and now we've really got a great chance I mean like think we never thought of that God thank you yeah you
did not have to fight this battle position yourselves stand still and see the salvation of the Lord in other words wait patiently your victory is not dependent upon you it's dependent on God and waiting is doing something it's not doing nothing now when you're waiting on God waiting on God does not mean being lethargic it doesn't mean being apathetic it doesn't mean that you're taking a nap you can wait on God and be very active you can wait on God and be praying a lot you can wait on God and be looking for opportunity you
can wait on God and be very active if you will but there's also a patience that has to be in our spirit when we realize I'm gonna have to wait until God intervenes I mean you know this is so hard for me I would rather stay up all night praying than wait for God I don't know about you I'm an activator I took one of those StrengthsFinder tests a few years ago and I came back as activator was one of my top little categories and it kind of drives my wife a little crazy sometimes because
I'm always activating you know like if there's a problem I start activating all over the place fixing things and go in different places and doing different crazy things and then on top of that I'm considered a Maximizer and maximizers like to make things that are mediocre better and so I'm a Maximizer and an activator it's a real nasty combination I know but that's kind of where I come from somebody had on a t-shirt I don't know if it was at church or at the mall or some other place and it said excuse me I'm activating
I thought that is the greatest shirt I have ever seen I wanted to buy that shirt from somebody I was like I love that because that is so much my mantra but you know what there's a time in your life where you cannot activate there's a time when you cannot maximize you have to wait for God and if you don't wait for God you will begin to kick down doors that he never intended to open for you then you got a big mess be still be still and wait for the hand of God God the
enemy is nasty they're coming for us I need you just to relax I need you guys just to to quit striving like quit working so hard you know the the bad guys are sharpening their swords and and the Israelites are just standing around I mean you know just if this is crazy but there's something so profound listen when you begin to wait for God God is the only one who can get the glory for what has just occurred right you have to look around and you're like oh that made no sense right there we stood
there and won the battle oh that was God sometimes when we're out swinging and doing our thing we can kind of in the back of our mind go yeah man I got it going on you know so the Lord tells them through this prophet you do not have to fight this battle position yourselves stand still and see the salvation of the Lord now in other great battles in the Old Testament I'm thinking of the Battle of Jericho at least the Israelites had to march around the city and if you know the story they marched one
time for six days and how many times on the seventh day seven times right now god won the day God pushed the walls down right but like at least at least they marched they got to make some kind of contribution what about the Battle of Gideon Gideon's army Gideon had a big army and he whittled it down to 300 and then 300 or taking on 135 thousand God says oh I got a battle plan for you here's what I need you guys to do you don't need any weapons you need like a trumpet and a
torch and a clay pot and I want you to break the clay pot at the designated time I want you to lift up the torch and say for the Lord and Gideon and blow the trumpets and the Bible tells us that all of the bad guys turned on each other and chaos and wiped each other out and it was a great victory that day but at least Gideon's army had to lift up a torch and scream jehosophat's army they're just standing there I mean that will truly make you crazy the bad guys are running right
at you and you're gonna just stand there sometimes you got a way for God sometimes you got to wait for why do we need to wait for God well sometimes we have to wait for God because God has us pausing for further instruction all right sometimes gods like you know I got a little message for you and you hadn't got it yet so just listen up if you'll slow down you can listen sometimes we're so busy doing right we're not listening we're doing so when we pause we're pausing for further instruction sometimes we need rest
you need some rest elite athletes have to rest if you're an Olympic athlete I've been told that they will monitor not only your your workouts and your athletic performance but they will also monitor your sleep and how much rest and did you take a day off God created us that way to have a little bit of rest we that's part of it right and if we're going and going and going and going we can't we can't rest I talked to somebody who is in their 20s a young married couple a few years ago and they
said we're gonna work our brains out and we're gonna retire at the age of 39 I was like that is so awesome I was like just for my curiosity because maybe I missed something but like how are you gonna do that we're like we're gonna work like 90 hours a week and you know for the next however many years and then we're just gonna retire and we're gonna make this money and we have it all figured out and all stuff and all that well you know what that sounds cool but God didn't make you that
way try having some children try having some kids you know try facing one of those unexpected curves that life may throw you you know it just it doesn't really work that way on paper that may sound good sometimes you have to rest sometimes in the spiritual realm you have to wait on God you have to waiting on God is a supreme act of faith it takes a lot of faith to say you know what I'm going to just wait I'm not trying to be lazy I'll do whatever you want me to do Lord but I'm
just gonna wait and I've already done everything that I can do I have found this in my own experience to come on the on the back side of me putting forth tremendous effort you know like in situations where I know that I have worked and worked and worked and worked and worked and the Lord has just said in my spirit okay right now it's time to take a deep breath let me just take it from here you're good okay Lord all right that's tough wait for the Lord wait for him God maybe also doing something
new in your life this is another reason to wait God may be redirecting you you know God God may be taking you someplace you're like wow I never expected that waiting also makes your faith grow because you know it wasn't you so there's a lot of great reasons to wait a lot of great reasons um many of us are goal setters how many goal setters do we have here some goal setting people type-a people it's okay you can raise your hand we're good yeah I love goal sitters I'm gonna you know I thought of a
new goal this week I wrote that thing down I'm so excited over the next year I'm gonna accomplish this goal it's great goals are great goals are great but sometimes you have to wait on God so sometimes that that goal may not happen again this is not this is not being lazy this is not being apathetic this is just simply realizing that there are times in moments where only God can take us places like there's no explanation but the Lord so in those times we have to pause if you're gonna be victorious over your battle
today there's a time to fight there's a time to rest there's a time to advance and push forward there's a time to pull back and all are true and in this particular instance God challenges the people to take a chill are you willing to submit your plans to God sometimes we get locked in on something in our head you know it's a goal I wrote it down I went to the seminar I'm I'm told someone's always gonna do it and we were like piranhas after the goal but but have we left God out of the
equation is God there sometimes God calls audibles at the line of scrimmage we have to stay flexible right sometimes God changes the play amen maybe you've been through a time in your life where you thought the play was going here and God said no go over here that's part of it when I was 18 years old I felt called to be a senior pastor it was weird I mean I know most 18 year-olds don't probably know what they're gonna do with their life at that point I've had people tell me that when I was 18
I knew everything I've done since I was 18 has been focused on being a pastor you know I can't help it that's the only job I've ever had before it's all that in all that I know and all that I've done but at the same time I wasn't ready to be a senior pastor when I was 18 years old I was literally going in the chapel at our college preaching to the walls I would go out and preach to the trees and the squirrels and anything that moved that would listen to me that's how you
know you're really called to be a preacher right when you can preached when nobody's listening that's you right sermons for nobody but yourself and maybe the Lord and maybe the birds you know you're like okay this is in me but it was until I was 31 years old that I became a senior pastor and God had to get me ready and I had to wait and if I would have jumped off the boat at 22 or 25 or whatever I just wouldn't have been ready for that that was God's timing God orchestrated that I had
to wait I had to be patient this is what's so hard in our spiritual experience is that sometimes we know where God is taking us but we don't know the timing of it you may know God may have spoken to your heart you're going there you're going to be about that but but the opportunity has not arisen yet that's not because God has forgotten you it's because God's preparing you right there has to be preparation now can you imagine the faith of these people and Judah after this battle okay I'm kind of spoiling where this
thing is about to go but you can just imagine if you can learn to wait on God your faith will skyrocket so big bold prayers are a huge thing with God there's also patient persistent waiting and thirdly there is enthusiastic energetic praise now praise is simply thanking God for who he is and for what he's done that's praise praise thanking God for who he is and for what he's done praise look at this in verse 18 then Jehoshaphat knelt low with his face to the ground and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell down
before the Lord to worship him and the Levites and the sons of the Khoa fights and the kora kora thights stood up to praise the Lord the God of Israel shouting loudly then he consulted with the people and appointed some to sing for the Lord and some to praise the splendor of His Holiness wait a second and when they went on in front of the armed forces they kept singing give thanks to the Lord for his faithful love endures forever and the moment they began their shouts and praises the Lord set an ambush against the
ammonites the Moabites and the inhabitants of the mount of seer who came to fight in it against Judah and they were defeated now did you pick up on that I mean this is an unlikely strategy God says get the choir together oh you got a you got a big battle get the singers together now I don't know about you but when I was in high school if I was ever gonna be in a fight I would not want the choir to be leading the way they put the singers man the worship leaders in their skinny
jeans and their strategically placed tattoos they put those guys on the front line and put the army behind them that's messed up isn't it and they begin to sing what they begin to give praise to God praising God we're about to get wiped out come on Lord they dropped the beat it might have been like this if thanks to the Lord for his love endures forever ever ever ever ever the worship team is leading the way I don't know it perhaps if the enemy was distracted by the singing and the absurdity of meeting a choir
in battle or maybe it was the hand of God but the scripture tells us that when the praises of God began to be echoed that the people the enemy began to turn on each other and they wiped each other out I mean that's crazy could you imagine what snapchat or what the gram had to say about this battle strategy we're going into battle with the choir the choir is leading the way we have four-part harmony wow this is going to be awesome crazy did you imagine what the blog said about this silliness but it was
it was the hand of God was the hand of God now here's what's beautiful the people begin to praise God even before the victory had had been won I mean I think most of us would say oh yeah after the battle whoa we will praise God but can you praise God while the battle is being waged can you praise God before the victory has come can you praise God but when you cannot see the victory how can we do that well the the praise that was being lifted up was related to the divine character in
nature of God God's love and doers forever how can I praise God when I'm in the middle of a battle how can I praise God when it feels like I'm about to lose the battle you remember the character of God you remember the heart of God you remember the goodness of God you remember all the things that God has brought you through and what God has brought you out of that's how you begin to praise Him and listen if you'll begin to praise Him in the middle of the battle you'll be victorious in the battle
victory will come yeah well well worship gives us strength and hope and peace that's why we come to church you know that's why you're here today worship is rest worship is like getting a refuel we can worship privately and publicly but when we come together as the people of God at church we come to get recharged like reignited in our spirit so we can do the work and the plan of God that's what we do the battle is not yours the battles God's spiritual power is also released through praise see if you can begin to
praise God even when you feel like you're losing if you can praise God even when you're hurting if you can praise God even when you're scared your faith is going to go to a new level and the power of God is going to be released in your battle in your circumstance that's why we need more praise in the people of God we need more praise we need more praise at church acts 16 Paul and Silas are in prison and they begin praying and singing hymns and what happens on earthquake and they're delivered we need praise
the power the power of praise praise also reminds us how big God really is sometimes we know that but we need to be reminded of that don't we the longer I'm a Christian the less that I hear new things about that I've never heard of but the more I need to be reminded of the old things and the more I need to do the old things that I have forgotten about that's what praises praise just takes us back and helps us remember the great God that we say that we serve well this story wraps up
in verse 24 and 25 look at this when Judah came to the place overlooking the wilderness they looked for the large army but there were only corpses lying on the ground and nobody had escaped and then Jehoshaphat and his people went together to plunder they found among them an abundance of goods and on the bodies and valuable items they stripped them until nobody could carry any more and they were gathering plunder for three days because there was so much the armies never even fully engaged the enemy began to turn on each other they began to
fight each other this place was called Barak Baraka and they named it the place of blessing why would they name it the place of blessing because there was so much plunder that was there but let me remind us before Baraka the valley was the place of blessing it was the place of the battle it was the place of fear it was the place of anxiety it was the place of uncertainty it was the place of pain it was the place of whatever else it could be but as God intervened and fought this battle on behalf
of his people the place of the battle Baraka became the place of blessing and I say that to you today Church because I want you to know today the places that you're fighting battles today will be the places of blessing tomorrow if you fought a battle today for your job or you fought a battle today for your family or for your marriage or for your church the blessing is coming because the place of the battle will become the place of blessing and that's why they called it the valley of the blessing the battle is not
yours it belongs to the Lord that's why we offer him passionate praise that's where while we're waiting on him to intervene and that's why we echo prayers of passionate petition to him and when we do that we can walk in victory over the battles that are before us would you back bow with me for a word of Prayer
