THEME: BECOMING BY BEHOLDING - Cultivating A Community of Christ-Centered Worshipers

TEXT

SERMON: AWESTRUCK: THE LORD WHO IS OUR WARRIOR

Genesis 1:1 ESV

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 1:2 ESV

The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

Genesis 1:3 ESV

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

I. THE LORD WARS IN YOU

EGYPT WAS FAVORABLE

GOSHEN, THE BEST LAND

Exodus 1:8 ESV

Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.

He Wars in you: He has to disrupt your earthly comfort

He will make Egypt look detestable: how- by making your comfort your difficulty and this he does by suffering.

He wars in us.

Hebrews 12:5 ESV

And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.

Hebrews 12:6 ESV

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”

Add to this point that the Lord chastises those whom he loves. He chastise us because he wants to get out of us that which is not good for us, and sometimes this means disrupting our comfort which that with that to which we have come to comfortable

II. THE LORD WARS FOR YOU

Exodus 3:7 ESV

Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings,

Exodus 3:8 ESV

and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

Exodus 3:9 ESV

And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.

IN THE MIDST OF SEEING HE WILL WAR

Exodus 4:21 ESV

And the Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.

III. THE LORD HAS WON YOUR WAR

Exodus 4:22–23 ESV

Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.” If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’ ”

Romans 8:36 ESV

As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

Romans 8:37 ESV

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

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HE WARS FOR YOU

Those who cause you trouble will be dealt with

HE HAS WARRED FOR YOU

He stated the last plague first: why. Because He knows how this will end.

He knows how your suffering will end too. It not only has an ending; it has a glorious ending (maybe not the suffering now, but glory- 2 Cor 4:18)

WHAT SHALL WE DON IN RESPONSE?

BELIEVERS: War like God for others.

Know the Warrior Motif

God as warrior

Christ as warrior

Matthew 1:23 ESV

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).

The church as warriors

Conquerors: Now the Lord is warring for others through us. He is fighting darkness through us who are now, in Christ, the light of the world

Bondage is not merely physical: spiritual so that bondage does not look like bondage

- fortune teller in Acts (astrology etc). It’s real and people do it and have results BUT IT IS A DIFFERENT SOIRIT

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We fight the enemy but not him; his philosophies (2Cor 10:3-5)

2 Corinthians 10:3 ESV

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.

2 Corinthians 10:4 ESV

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.

2 Corinthians 10:5 ESV

We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

We wrestle not… but you are it fighting principalities powers per se but their philosophies

Those who are awestruck, strike awe in others by the gospel

UNBEKIEVERS

- CHANGE IDENTITIES