Genesis 14 - Beginning To See God’s Victory

Main Idea: Recognize the fact that every victory you experience is from God.

• You should reject pride in self.

• You should remember who your God is.

• Your should revere God openly and consistently.

Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

We are going to be back in our series New Beginnings, and we are going through Genesis 12 through 25, looking at the life of Abraham.

And for those of you that maybe are new today, or you've missed a couple of the weeks this year, just by way of review, we're walking through the life of a man named Abram, also known as Abraham, for reasons we'll get into in a couple of weeks.

He was a man that was called by God to go almost a thousand miles from his hometown in modern-day Iran, Iraq, to the land that we would know today as Israel, a brand new land he'd never seen before, where God promised that Abram and his wife, Sarai,

they would have descendants and would become a great nation, even though they were well past childbearing age and were childless. God said, leave behind your hometown, leave behind your extended family and come to the place that I'm going to show

you. Well, Abraham did like two out of those three things. He left his hometown, he went to the land that God showed him, but he brought along his brother's son, Lot.

And last week we saw that Abram and Lot, they had to part ways when there was conflict between their herdsmen because of insufficient grazing territory.

And we learned last week that though it might be boring, most of you don't come to church like, man, I really hope I can hear about like 4,000 year old grazing territory disputes.

But we learned last week that Abram was beginning to see his life, beginning to see his actions in the way that God wanted him to. And thankfully, this week, he continues in that pattern.

As we continue through the series, there will be several weeks where we all have to do just like a collective groan of, Abram, like you had it, where did you go wrong? But today, thankfully, is not one of those days.

This week, we zoom back out to the same semi-global scale we encountered for most of Genesis up to this point. So if you remember Genesis 1 through 11, it was all like, hey, here's national things going on. Here's gigantic cities.

Here's worldwide events. And then we zoomed into this one elderly couple that he was 75 when he left Canaan, or when he left Ur of the Chaldees to go to the land of Canaan. And today we see like a little mini world war take place.

So I know some of you guys, your ears perked up a little bit. That's what you watch on the History Channel. You're like, yes, world war.

I'm in it for the fighting. If we have, I see we've got a few kids that are left in here. You guys are like, yes, battles.

This is what I came to the Bible for. And you're going to get your money's worth today for all of the kids that are paying money to hear Bible war stories. But there is one main takeaway that I want us to look at for today.

And it is this. It's the lesson that Abram learns, and it's the fact that we need to learn. It's that we must recognize the fact that every victory that we experience is from God.

We need to recognize the fact that every victory we experience is from God. It's the title of today's message, beginning to experience God's victory.

For many of us, day in and day out, victorious winning is not how we would describe most of our weeks. I know it's not how most of my weeks go. I'm certain it's not for many of you.

But I want to experience the victory of God. And thankfully, it's not reliant on my prowess. It's not reliant on my ability to do everything correctly.

It's reliant on how great my God is. And once I recognize what he's doing, what he wants to do in me, what he wants to do in the lives of those around me, I can experience God's victory. And so can you.

Let's pray this morning and ask for God to speak. Dear Lord, thank you for today. God, thank you for everyone that is here this morning, for everyone that was not able to be here, but that wishes they could be here.

And God, we pray that you would be glorified in your church this morning. God, I pray that you would help me to only say what you want me to. And Lord, we ask that you would speak to our hearts directly.

Lord, that we would hear your voice, Lord, speaking through your word. And God, however you talk to people today, I ask that they would be responsive to it, that they would obey and love and follow you.

And Lord, if there is someone here this morning that does not know Christ is Savior, Lord, we ask that today they would experience that victory that you bought for us on Calvary. Lord, that they would know you as their Savior.

We love you and we pray all this in the name of Jesus. Amen. So, we're going to walk through the verses of the passage first.

And it is, it's a fun one. You got to stay with me because as we start off, some of your eyes will glaze over. I know it, I know you guys, I know me.

See, very first slide, I saw it. Some of you just went into nap mode.

In those days, King Amraphel of Shinar, King Ariac of Alasar, King Kerdalmer of Elam, and King Tidal of Goyim waged war against King Berah of Sodom, King Bersha of Gomorrah, King Shinab of Adma, and King Shemeber of Zaboyim, as well as the King of

Bela that is Zohar. I know you guys are like, oh yes, this is what I needed, Lord. Okay, I'll keep on reading because it'll give a few more details for us. All of these came as allies to the Sidum Valley that is the Dead Sea.

They're in those parentheses that's like letting the readers know because the Sidum Valley was no longer there by the time in history that all of this was being like written and passed down. So they had to let them know.

It's like where in the world is the Sidum Valley? It's the Dead Sea. So they were subject to Kedolimur for 12 years, but in the 13th year, they rebelled.

And man, I can look at some of the parents in the room and you identify with this verse more than you will any other verse today. In the 13th year, they rebelled.

In the 14th year, Kedolimur and the kings were with him, came and defeated the Refahim in Ashdoroth, Karnaim, the Zuzim in Ham, the Amim in Shavak, Keratheim, and the Horites in the mountains of Ser as far as El-Puran by the wilderness.

Then they came back to invade and Mishpat, that is Kadesh, and they defeated the whole territory of the Amalekites as well as the Amorites who lived in Hazazon Timar.

Then the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Adma, the king of Zaboyim, and the king of Bela, that is Zohar, went out and lined up for battle in the Sidum valley.

Against King Kedolimur of Elam, king Tidal of Goyim, king Amraphel of Shinar, and king Ariyak of Elisar, four kings against five. Okay, I want to stop right there just so we can get a little bit of the lay of the land.

The Hebrew in this portion of scripture is built, if you will, kind of like a pyramid. It's all building towards one central point that you're supposed to be looking at. So all of the sides of the pyramid are the same.

And that's the list of the Mesopotamian kings on one side, the list of the Canaanite kings on the other side.

And right in the middle, we see verses that don't really mean anything to us right now, but would have meant an incredible amount to any Israelites that would have been reading this.

And especially as Moses is recounting these events to the children of Israel, as they're wandering through the wilderness because they did not believe that God could enable them to defeat their enemies in the land of Canaan.

This is like 400, 480 years after all of this. They didn't think that God could help them to defeat the giants that were in the land. Here, the Rephaim, the Zuzim, the Amim, the Horites, these were all groups that we encountered back in Genesis 6.

The Nephilim, the mighty warriors, the ones that were from both the fallen angels that commingled with the daughters of mankind. The Bible says that they existed before the flood and then also after the flood. These are the same groups of people.

And so these are ones that they would be fearsome warriors. As you read through Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, will be the only other time in the Bible that you see these particular people groups mentioned.

And here what's being stated is these Mesopotamian kings, though they are currently outnumbered, there's only four of them versus five of the Canaanite kings, they come into the land and they are defeating these superior forces.

So even though they're outnumbered, they're victorious. They defeat all of these Nephilim tribes that is those larger than life. Think like Lebron James, but add a couple of feet on to it.

These are not the people that you want to go up against in hand to hand combat. Now I'm going to jump back into Genesis 14 and verse 10.

So all of it builds into, look at this highlight, the amazing big groups that you guys were so afraid of, even just these regular Mesopotamian kings outnumbered, defeated them.

So on the one hand, it's like a chide to the Israelites, like, why didn't you believe? Don't you remember your own family history of what happened prior to? So now in Genesis 14, verse number 10, now, the Sidum Valley contained many asphalt pits.

And as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, oh, no, okay, it doesn't directly state it. That's why I went, oh, wait a second, where did the verse go?

So you have all of the kings, they went out, they line up for battle in the Sidum Valley against the Mesopotamian kings, four kings against five.

Now, the Sidum Valley contained many asphalt pits, and as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, some fell into them, but the rest fled to the mountains. The four kings took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their food and went on.

So here there's an absolute defeat. They win, hands down, they take all of the goods from Sodom and Gomorrah, which were very affluent cities in that region of the world.

And then Genesis 14, 12 tells us, okay, Moses, thanks for this history lesson and these battles, but why are you telling us any of this? They also took Abram's nephew Lot and his possessions, for he was living in Sodom, and they went on.

So, last week, when we ended in chapter 13, like Lot was living near the cities of Sodom, even though the whole reason that he had separated from Abram was because there wasn't enough grazing territory.

And when you think about grazing territory, you don't normally think, I need to be around a bunch of cities. But this is where Lot went.

And instead of just being around Sodom, now he was actually living in Sodom, which the author took great pains to tell us multiple times in chapter 13. These were incredibly wicked, evil people.

And so now Lot living within that city, he's taken, he wasn't one of the soldiers, he wasn't out fighting, but they took everything from Sodom and Gomorrah, and including Lot.

Verse number 13, one of the survivors came and told Abram the Hebrew, who lived near the oaks belonging to Mamre the Amorite, the brother of Escal and the brother of Anir.

They were bound by a treaty with Abram, that is, they were in covenant with Abram. When Abram heard that his relative had been taken prisoner, he assembled his 318 trained men born in his household, and they went in pursuit as far as Dan.

Now, a couple of things for us to remember. Number one, this is kind of Abram's fault still.

If he hadn't invited Lot to come with him down to where God said, like, hey, leave your extended family behind and come to the land, he brought Lot with him, and then there was contention, there was conflict, there was fighting in part because Abram

again had gone down to Egypt where God had not told him to go. He left the place that God wanted him to be, and he got many sheep and cattle and camels and all sorts of things through kind of manipulating the circumstances.

You remember that from about three weeks ago. And then last week, with the conflict that there was, then he says, okay, well, pick whatever part of land you want. There Abram has a generous heart.

He's doing right. But this does kind of boil back down to, okay Abram, he wouldn't be in this spot if it wasn't for you. So now Abram goes full Mission Impossible rescue mission.

Because as we're looking at the story, even greater hosts, the armies of the giants, the armies of the larger than life evil individuals, these kings of Mesopotamia and their coalition, they defeated all of them.

And so then it says Abram's got 318 guys born in his household. Now, I don't know about you guys. I look around the room.

I don't know if as I look at you guys, if I see many people that you just raise killers, like you're just a one family version of, what was it, Task Force Six, Seal Team Six. Like, I don't really know.

Certainly this one shepherd guy, though these are trained men, I don't know that it's necessarily that they were trained profusely in the art of war, let alone going up against a four king coalition.

And yet he takes these 318 men, they're all from his house, and they went in pursuit as far as Dan. This is the very northern tip of Israel. This would be about 150, 160 mile trip from where Abram was.

I do want to mention just one thing before we get to kind of the battle scene here. It is amazing that right here, Abram is right near the oaks belonging to Mamre the Amorite.

So this is back in that place where he was worshiping God, where he was offering offerings on the altar to the Lord, where he was talking with him. And as a result of this, it says he actually is in relationship.

He has a covenant, a treaty with these Amorites, Mamre and Escol and Iner. Here you have an Abram that he is finally like starting to be a little bit of a blessing to the nations. Like God said, I'm going to bless you.

I'm going to make your name great. You're going to become a great nation. And all the peoples, all the nations of the earth will be blessed through you.

So Abram now still on kind of a good streak of following the Lord and seeing things God's way. Here he is in covenant with others. So now he's approaching.

He goes 160 miles. You know, if you're really booking it and you're doing, you know, 20 miles a day, this is days of following and just hoping like, Lord, I really hope that they haven't killed Lot. Lord, I really hope that Lot's family is okay.

Days upon days where all Abram could do is pursue and to pray. Sometimes I feel like that's where I'm at in my life, where I just say, God, I'm not seeing the answers yet. I'm continuing to pray.

I'm continuing to hope, but I don't have the answer yet. And all I can do is believe in faith. And can I tell you that's an okay place to be?

It's an okay place to be where there is still some fear. There's still some trepidation, but I want to encourage you, like Abram, keep on pursuing.

So verse number 15, he and his servants deployed against them by night, defeated them and pursued them as far as Hobah to the north of Damascus.

So by night you have almost heard some people mention it as like, you've got ninjas coming in the night, these shepherds that they come through. And especially for this coalition, that they would not have been expecting any attacks.

All of their enemies had either died or booked it into the mountains to hide away from them. They were not expecting an attack. And so as a result of this surprise from only 318 individuals, they end up going from Dan all the way north of Damascus.

So this would be like a 30, 40 mile stretch that they are trying to book it out away from danger. The implication of the passage is almost like, yes, the Nephilim, all of these groups, the Rephaim, the Amim, all of those, they're very powerful.

And you have, you know, a coalition of five Canaanite kings and their armies and they're powerful. And then you have the coalition of the Mesopotamian kings and their might and they're powerful. But who comes out victorious?

Who ends up winning at the end? Well, it's Abram. It's this, you know, 80 year old shepherd and his 318, you know, herdsmen that were just fighting with his nephew's herdsmen in the chapter previous.

So we notice like, okay, well, yeah, Abram won, but this isn't because Abram is, you know, some John Wick character, or I'm trying to think of what an older one would be, James Bond or something. He's not one of those. This is because of God.

This isn't because of Abram. Verse number 16 says, he brought back all the goods, and also his relative lot and his goods, as well as the women and the other people. So this isn't just like a defeat.

This isn't just a route. This was also a completely successful rescue.

Some other times in scripture that we would see this would be when David and his mighty men, when the Amalekites come and they take all of David's stuff while he and his men are away at war.

They even take the wives of the men, of the fighting men, and they take all the stuff and they're going away. And David and his men come back. His men go, great, now we got to kill David because he got us into this mess.

And David and the men ended up pursuing, and they were able to rescue everything. I think of Jesus as well, the one that he went into death itself and died on our behalf, that he would rescue everyone that would turn to him.

I love that verse in the song Victory in Jesus that we sang even this morning. This promise that all who will believe him by faith can still receive him and share in that redemption song, Christ won the victory.

So here there's a total rescue and victory. Verse 17, after Abram returned from defeating Kedurlimur and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him in the Shaveh Valley. That is the king's valley.

OK, we know about Sodom, like literally one thing so far, and that's what the author has told us, which is they were wicked. So this wicked king, he comes out, he's going to talk to Abram.

And this is like a nail biting moment of, OK, I really hope Abram doesn't mess it up. I hope he doesn't say something that he shouldn't. I hope he doesn't do something that he shouldn't.

And someone intercepts, like right as the king of Sodom is approaching, it says Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was a priest to God most high. OK, well, where in the world did this king come from?

There were, you know, the five Canaanite kings and the four Mesopotamian kings. And where in the world did this guy come from? Well, the king of Salem, that's Jerusalem, would be its later name in Jewish history.

So you have this person, his king of Salem means peace. His name, Melchizedek, means my king is righteous. So my king is righteousness, the king of peace.

He brings out bread and wine, and he was a priest to God most high. And we're meant to go like, huh. Well, normally, when we think about priests in the Old Testament, they're all descendants of Levi.

It's Aaron and all of his descendants. So this is a different kind of priest than even the Israelites reading this would have been familiar with. They notice there's a different priesthood.

There's a different king, and he's one that brings bread and wine to Abram. He blessed him and said, Abram is blessed by God Most High, creator of heaven and earth. And blessed be God Most High, who has handed over your enemies to you.

And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

So Mochisedec comes into the story, and he lets Abram know, like reminds him, even though he's coming in this victory parade, where now he's traveled, you know, at least over a hundred miles from north of Damascus, now down to where Jerusalem is at.

And he's going to be lauded by this king of Sodom and congratulated and all sorts of things that we'll read about in a moment. But God sends someone to step in and remind him, you are not blessed because of you.

You're not blessed because of some earthly king. You are blessed because God loves you. You are blessed because God, the creator of heaven and earth, he has handed over your enemies to you.

And Abram in this moment, he realizes something about this guy. He says, this person is speaking to me on, if you will, on behalf of God, who Abram had heard from many times before as we've read. And he does something weird.

He gives them a tenth of everything. This is the origin, if you will, in the Old Testament of what would come later to be known as the tithe. A tithe is not just like a generic giving thing.

It literally means a tenth.

And for the children of Israel, every single time that they would reap a harvest, every single time that they would, you know, make a sale of farm animals or of land, they would take one-tenth of what they had harvested or what they had gotten from

the sale, and they would bring it to the tabernacle and then later the temple, and they would give it to the Lord. And it would be called a thanksgiving offering.

This would be one of those things, a grain offering, something that would say, God, I recognize that this good thing in my life did not come about because of me. It came because you enabled me to be able to do it.

You gave me the breath to be able to breathe. You gave me the strength to be able to work my field. You gave me the connections that I was able to make this sale.

And so I am going to respond in gratitude to you. And so here, Moses, the writer of Genesis, highlights for the children of Israel. When we're talking about the tenth, this isn't something that we came up with.

This is something that our family has been doing for generations.

You can read about that even in the Book of Hebrews, where the writer of Hebrews would tell us like, yeah, basically, the descendant of Abram, Levi, who his family, his descendants would include Aaron and all of the priests of Israel.

He says, in Abram, Levi basically tithed to Melchizedek. Now, we do not have time to go into everything about Melchizedek.

I will say this, who would be the person that is the king of Jerusalem, the king of peace, the one whose name is my God is righteous, the one who would bring bread and wine, the one who is a priest not in the line of Aaron, but has his own

priesthood, who the book of Hebrews would tell us did not have father or mother, but is everlasting. OK, at least Hebrews wants us to see like, hey, this is Jesus popping into the story. The Book of Hebrews, I did a Tabernacle Talk Sermon Podcast.

I think I ended up doing like 21, 23 different episodes walking through the whole Book of Hebrews. If you want to learn anything more about this character, Melchizedek, please watch through, listen through those.

Those are available wherever you listen to podcasts. If you go to our church website, you can learn more about that. Or if you just want to like talk to a real person about it, I would love to talk with you about it.

But time would absolutely fail us if I continued on with Melchizedek. But the important part is this. He helps Abram realize all of this, your victory, all of your possessions, all of the joy that you have right now.

It comes from God because God loves you and he has blessed you and he enabled you. And so Abram, his response to God blessing him was to respond and worship. That is always the place that we ought to find ourselves.

When we recognize what God has done for us, it ought to be worship. It ought to be God, you have been good to me, and so I'm gonna tell other people about how good you are. God, you have blessed me, and so I want to bless others.

I want to bless your work. It ought to be God, you have so filled my heart and my life with joy and with peace and with forgiveness that I have no choice but to pass that on to other people. What is your response to God's goodness in your life?

So now we come back. Of course, we know Melchizedek kind of like inserts himself between where Abram is going to meet the king of Sodom. And the king of Sodom said to Abram, give me the people, but take the possessions for yourself.

But Abram said to the king of Sodom, I've raised my hand in oath to Yahweh, God most high, creator of heaven and earth, that I will not take a thread or sandal strap or anything that belongs to you, so you can never say, I made Abram rich.

Here Abram knows what's going on. It's not just out of like the goodness of the king of Sodom's heart, that he says, hey, you know, take all the possessions for yourself. If you will, then Abram owes a gigantic debt to the king of Sodom.

And so Abram sees through this and he says, I want to be clear, I'm not taking anything of yours so that you won't be able to say I'm the one that made Abram rich. He says, I'll take nothing except what the servants have eaten.

But as for the share of the men who came with me, Anur, Escol, and Mamri, they can take their share. And again, this is one little reminder, Anur, Escol, and Mamri, they weren't from Abram's family. They were actually Amorites.

They were one of the people groups that, as the Israelites would be thinking through like, okay, these are our friends, and these are our enemies. They would think about the Amorites as their enemies.

But here Abram is finally fulfilling his goal that God had for him, of you will be a blessing to the peoples. You will bless the nations through his obedience.

And if you will, him teaming up with God, that he would follow in God's way and as a result would bless others. And so that is what he does. Here Abram gives, he doesn't take.

He blesses others, he exalts God, and he worships through personal generosity. So that's the story. That's the account of what happened with Abram.

But how do we experience God's victory today? The goal is not that you would find 318 guys and go ninja mode on some other people group. That's not the point.

How do we experience God's victory today? Well, as we've learned in the passage, you should reject pride in self. That's right.

Reject pride in me, in Bryon Self. No, no, no. Reject pride in yourself.

To recognize your victories as coming from God, you must start by realizing that your victories don't come from you. Your accomplishments, your finances, your spiritual walk, your family, none of it is because of you.

As Jesus told his disciples, without me, you can do nothing.

As Jesus told us in Luke 17 10, when you have done all that you are commanded, if you manage to accomplish everything in your life that God has told you to do, he says, you should say, we are worthless servants. We have only done our duty.

If we accomplish everything that God has set out for us, then we've just hit the bottom line. And what a comfort to us that even in our failures, when we don't do everything that God has outlined for us, that he still loves us and he forgives us.

And he continues to bless us with his Holy Spirit and with his word and with his family, his people. We need to realize none of this stuff comes from me. If I've got a job that I work at, that I'm good at, that's because God has enabled me to do it.

It's not because I'm smarter than anyone else. It's not because I have more ability than anyone else.

If you're like, man, I've walked with the Lord for 70 years, it is not because you are so righteous, but because your God is so righteous and he has loved you and carried you every single step of the way.

This completely repudiates any boasting on our part that we would say along with James in James chapter four, God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. That we say, God, if anything good happens in my life, it comes from you.

I think of James 1 17, every good and every perfect gift comes from above, down from the father of lights with whom there is no turning at all. I think of Psalm 146 and verse three that says, do not trust in nobles, in a son of man who cannot save.

If even the most powerful people in this world are powerless when it comes to financial crashes, when it comes to their own health, when it comes to controlling all the other people in their life or public perception of them, when even the most

powerful in our world realize that they are helpless, may we realize, God, nothing in my life comes about by accident and none of it comes about from my own greatness. It only comes from you. Do you brag?

Do you take pride in your job, your salary, what you do for your family, or what you do at church? Or do you brag about your God? He is the one that we ought to take pride in.

I think of Pastor Ron preached message a couple of months ago now from Galatians 6, that he says, I will boast in the cross of Jesus Christ. And that's the only thing that matters to me. Is that the thing that matters most to you?

Secondly, if we're going to experience God's victory, not only should we reject pride in ourselves, but we should remember who our God is. If we want to experience God's victory, then we need to recognize what real victories are.

That is the things that God accomplishes in our lives, which are the only things that actually matter. Jesus would phrase it this way. What does it benefit a person if they gain the whole world and lose their own soul?

Or what will a person give in exchange for their soul? We ought to realize, okay, who is God and what should I be pursuing? If I want to find like God's victories, then I need to be looking for the things that God considers victories, not just me.

Our God is the Savior. We can read in the Book of Luke that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

When we accept the Lord as our Savior, that is a victory from the Lord, that we are no longer on the path to condemnation and no more life and no forgiveness, but he saved us and he brought us back into relationship with himself. That's a victory.

When we help to lead others so that they would accept the Lord, that they would know Christ as their Savior, that is a victory. God is the Lord. He is the sovereign.

He is the one in control. And when we give our lives to him, as Romans 12 and verse 1 tells us, when we offer our lives to him as a living sacrifice, that is, God, my very existence is going to praise and exalt and tell other people who you are.

When we yield to Jesus as our Lord, that is a victory from God. God is the creator. He is the one that initially created our cosmos and our world.

And as Psalm 139 would tell us, he created each of us individually, intentionally. That many times people can wonder like, okay, is who I am in this body with all of my health difficulties or all of my physical flaws, do I have worth?

Is there any point in me looking and being like this? And scripture says, before we existed in our mother's wounds, that God knew us and he intentionally crafted us. Who you are is the intentional creation of Almighty God.

So don't doubt who God created you to be. And when we recognize God as the creator, when we recognize him as the giver of life, that is a victory. God is the sustainer of life.

He is the one, Colossians 1 would tell us, that upholds everything by his powerful word. And frankly, when we get through a day, we can rejoice and say, okay, God, thanks for giving me the strength to get through that.

You don't know, well, you do know my kids, and I barely made it out of that one. We ought to thank God for sustaining us. We ought to remember that God is our provider.

Well, here in just a couple of weeks about God as Jaira, our provider, the one who gives you the clothes on your back, the food that you have, the home that you have.

For some of you, the cars or trucks or boats that you have, God has provided all of it. We ought to have gratitude for God's provision. God is our sacrificial substitute, that Jesus died in our place on the cross.

And when we recognize that, that is a victory of the Lord. So we should reject pride in self if we're gonna see God's victory. We should remember who God is, what his types of victory actually look like.

And we should revere God openly and consistently. Even as Abram did that, like right after he hears from Melchizedek, the first things out of his mouth are, listen, I made promises to God, this most high God, the one that I have a relationship with.

And for you, if you're going to experience God's victory, consistently and openly talk about your God, praise him, say good things about him. Psalm 145 says, I will bless you every day. I will praise your name forever and ever.

Yahweh is great and highly praised. His greatness is unsearchable. One generation will declare your works to the next and will proclaim your mighty acts.

We often talk about everything but the Lord. I think of, there's an old song written by Bill Gaither, I think from the 60s, that said this, you talk about people, you talk about things that really aren't important at all.

You talk about weather, you talk about problems we have here at home and abroad. But friend, I'm excited about a solution for the world. I'm going to shout and sing it's Jesus Christ is still the King of Kings.

That is a worthwhile thing for us to spend our time talking about. Psalm 107 says, give thanks to the Lord for he is good. His faithful love endures forever.

Let the redeemed of Yahweh proclaim that he has redeemed them from the power of the foe. We're going to experience God's victory. We got to reject pride and self.

We need to realize it's not for me. It's all what God has done. We ought to remember who our God is.

That way we can actually see legitimate victories. If you got friends that do not know the Lord, they might think about victories in a certain light. They might think that certain things are our wins in their life that God would not view as a win.

But when we recognize who God is and what he views as victories in our lives, then we can be thankful for those victories. And then we ought to revere God openly and consistently.

That we continually praise God that other people would know, oh yeah, I know Roy, and he doesn't say a whole lot, but I know that he really thinks this Jesus person is important. He thinks that Jesus is someone that he needs to be talking about.

Today, will you recognize the fact that every victory you experience is from God? Will you praise him for it? Will you tell others about it?