Defined By God 6/16/2019

We got you surrounded! These words are meant to strike fear into any person caught perpetrating a crime. Surrender cause you are surrounded.

I remember watching old westerns of which I am fond of. Often there would be a waggon train circled up as Natives swirled around the outside and some character would say to another “They have us surrounded.”

A wartime tactic has been to circle the enemy. Getting them surrounded.

You and I today. We are surrounded.

Surrounded by hyper sexualized culture.

Surrounded by selfishness.

Surrounded by materialism and the unquenchable desire for more.

Surrounded by constant messages that promote Godlessness.

“If it feels good do it.”

Placing self first above all else.

The acquisition of stuff makes you important.

Personal responsibility is minimized. Accountability non-existent. Commitment never expected.

While we are in this world but not of this world. We struggle with the pressures of conformity that seem to have hit a level never before seen.

The non stop message that you are wrong… believe in God, you are wrong. You don’t drink, you are wrong. You give money to a church, you are wrong. You see abortion as murder, you are wrong. You think homosexuality is a sin, you are wrong. You dress simply and modestly, you are wrong. You believe God created the world, you are wrong. You believe men should be men and women should be women, unique and distinct, you are wrong.

The danger lies in being changed to look like, sound like, and act like what God has delivered us from.

In 1511, a Spaniard, Gonzalo Guerrero was sailing with 15 others on a small ship traveling from Panama to Santo Domingo. The ship wrecked. The men managed to board the ship’s single life boat. When the fifteen men reached land they were captured by the local Maya.

Mayans killed some of the ship’s crew immediately. Guerrero and the rest were put into cages. They managed to escape but were soon captured by other Mayan leaders. By 1519, the year Cortes began his conquest of Mexico, only two men remained alive.

Gonzalo Guerrero had actually become famous among the Mayans. He was a war leader for Nachan Can, one of the Mayan lords. He married one of Nachan Can’s daughters and had several children. Guerrero had suggested war strategies that resulted in the defeat of some spanish expeditions.

When Cortes arrived in Mexico he sent a letter asking Guerrero and the other Spaniard to join him. Guerrero did not respond for a long time. After additional requests were made he responded “I am married, have three children, and they look on me as a lord here and a captain in time of war. My face is tattooed, and my ears are pierced. What would the Spaniards say about me if they saw me like this?

Guerrero having been surrounded by the Mayan culture eventually became more Mayan than Spanish.

The anti-christ culture that surrounds us wants to conform us and define us. Paul warned us.

Romans 12:2 NKJV

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

The answer to conformity is being transformed by the renewing of the mind.

2 Corinthians 10:4–5 NKJV

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,

Control your thought life and bring it into the obedience of Christ.

Your surroundings do not determine who you are. God determines who you are.

But it is too easy to be persuaded that the external defines us.

Peter walking on the water to Jesus - saw the waves, felt the wind. Begins to sink. Doubt. Allowed the surroundings to determine the outcome.

In Chapter 6 of 2 Kings the Syrians besiege the city of Samaria. They surround them and kill anything coming or going from the city. Soon with no trade happening a famine hits the city. They run out of food. It is so bad that people are eating donkey heads and dove poop. Even worse they were eating their own children.

It was terrible. It appeared that Samaria would be forced to surrender and become slaves to the Syrians. But God had other plans.

Elisha told the King that God was about to turn the situation around.

2 Kings 7:1 NKJV

Then Elisha said, “Hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord: ‘Tomorrow about this time a seah of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.’ ”

One of the officer of the King did not believe. He could only see what surrounded them. He was defined by his surroundings.

2 Kings 7:2 NKJV

So an officer on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God and said, “Look, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, could this thing be?” And he said, “In fact, you shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it.”

Four lepers - sit here and die or go over to the Syrians camp. Worse that can happen there is that we die.

Altar Music

2 Kings 7:5–7 NKJV

And they rose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians; and when they had come to the outskirts of the Syrian camp, to their surprise no one was there. For the Lord had caused the army of the Syrians to hear the noise of chariots and the noise of horses—the noise of a great army; so they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to attack us!” Therefore they arose and fled at twilight, and left the camp intact—their tents, their horses, and their donkeys—and they fled for their lives.

You are not defined by your surroundings. You are defined by your obedience and by what God says that you are.