So how would you like to work in a profession where it is your job to stand in front of people and tell them how they ought to behave? Behave, all the while knowing that you so often fail to live up to the very principles you preach. How would you like my job? We're almost every weekend I stand in front of saints like all of you.

And I say things like, guys, you need to be kind tenderhearted toward your spouse. No way. I'm not always that way toward my wife. She'll tell you, oh, one time we were having this major disagreement. I got so angry. I took the cordless pole and slammed it on the carpet. It bounced back up at the height of its ascent.

It rang. So here we are. You picture the saying, if you would done one no. If you would done that, including Pastor Carl.

Inevitably it was a church member wanting marriage council. I just wanted to say, I can't help you. I got all the issues. I can stand myself. I dunno. I'll be honest. Many times I have felt very uncomfortable in this role because I know my shadow side. I know my twisted moments. My unpure thoughts.

I know all of them. Bye bye. Today, I stand here with great confidence because I am going to teach on a topic that I know something about. I am going to teach all of us how to be a spiritual fluky, and because I have spiritually failed so often, I know what I'm talking about here. Now the principles blow out of an Old Testament story, a love story really.

Taking us back to the time after the Nation of Israel had split into two countries, so on the north you had Israel, and then on the South. You had Judah, the king of Judah was King. Jaha found, and our story begins as his son Horam comes to him with the news. Dad, I'm in love, love my son. There is a pause because Horam knows this is not going to go well.

Yeah, no just. Keep an open mind. My daughters always say that before they dad, keep an open mind. Have you seen a Elia? Oh no, son. You can't be in love with a lion but dad, she is explicit in her beauty of you have. Have you noticed her? No, but why not? Now you know why? No. Because aide is the daughter of King Ahab, king of Israel, and if you were to get married, that would create an alliance between the countries that you know is not God's will.

Johor Kes pestering his father until eventually he wears down. He gives his blessing on the marriage. Not long after that, he recedes an invitation from King Ahab. Up in Israel. Up come. Let's celebrate the newly formed alliance between our country's alliance, Josh, that says, I know that it would come to this yet.

He goes, anyway. Point number one. Want to be a spiritual fluky. I'll tell you how to do it first. Just go where you know you don't belong. I don't know what your temptation is. If it's alcohol, then just go to a party where you know they'll be serving alcohol. Nope. If it's pornography, just refuse to put on proper safeguards on your computer so that you can, spend a lot of time alone.

Just go where you know you're going to be tempted, and it's just a matter of time.

Shows up in some area there. They look out over this resing. Floor. Normally this space is used at harvest time where they will take grains of wheat or something, throw it on the floor, and then horses would gallop over it, and then when the wind was just right, they would take these huge trays. And they would scoop it up and throw it in the air, and the wind would carry away the shaft, and they would be left with the weed.

But on this occasion, no horses, no harvest as far as the eye can see. Just exquisite carpets covering the floor, and then tables loaded. With food. Food, incidentally, that has already been offered to idols and different gods. On the other side of the tables, you have six thrones. On the one side, a throne reserved for King Ahab, meaning Jezebel.

On the other side, king Pha and his queen. But in the middle, the couple of the evening, the couple to be celebrated. Horrible, this beautiful bride f i there is dancing and partying, lots of food, and while they are carrying on eventually Ahab corners, jaha fat to get to the real agenda of the whole evening.

Ah. He says, Josh, we are so proud of your son. We loved harm. He, what a great, you've done a fabulous job raising that kid. We are so proud to call him part of the family now. You are a great king. On and on he goes, and to, until he gets to his real agenda. But by the way, Josh, if that do you remember the land of Raymont gi?

Yeah. That's the territory that the Syrians took from you, right? Yes. What about it? I want it back. It's mine, and I don't have the military strength to take on the Syrians, but I. Maybe if we could combine our armies, then we would have enough strength to take back the land that rightfully belongs to me.

What do you say? Point number two, you want to be a spiritual failure. Just listen to the devil's flat means and just entertain the thought. You don't have to do it. Just entertain the thought of compromise. Just convince yourself, oh no. I'll handle it this time. This time it's going to be different.

I'm in a different place in my life now. I'll be okay. Just listen to the devil's flattering. Just think about compromise because spiritual life really. It takes place in the mind. So just listen to what he has to say. All the while, of course, Josh, pat knows no. This is not God's will.

So he says to Ahab look, do you have any profits of whom we could inquire whether or not this is God's will for us to combine our RVs together? And of course, Ahab is ready for that objection. He not only has one profit, he has 400 prophets, Reddick, he calls the chief of the prophets Z forward. He says, could you consult your colleagues, your fellow prophets to see whether or not it is God's will?

That we would combine our armies and reclaim the land of Rayma Gilead. And so Zecha calls all of his false prophets together and they huddle there in the middle of the threshing floor. I can imagine in that huddle, some rookie prophet asks the question, so what are we gonna say to the kings? Siah Barts, what are you talking about?

We're gonna tell 'em exactly what they're telling us. We need to tell them and just make it look as if we are inquiring of God. It's interesting because scripture tells us that siah not only prophesied in the name of every God need to think of, but also of course conveniently in the name of Yahweh as well.

Whatever you want this prophet. Would share. And so then this dramatic scene described in the Bible where Zica gets this ox head and he puts it on his head, protruding from it, long iron horns. Then he approaches the thrones and he starts dancing around singing and shouting. Go and be victorious. God will gore the enemy for you.

Go. And reclaim your land. God says it is. With his blessing, go. He have excitedly glances over to Josh. I guess 400 prophets can't be wrong, right?

That knows nose.

Do you have any other prophets? Now it is Ahab who starts swarming. He admits why. Yeah. There, there's one more, but I don't like the guy. Why not? Because he's always prophesying against. That's the one I want to talk to. Ah, there you go. So Abraham signs a servant, gives him instructions to go and fetch the prophet.

Mikey, I, he goes to Mikey i's home. Knocks on the door. When Mikey I answers, the servant says the king would see you, sir. Oh, and by the way, this is what's going on and this is what you are supposed to say to King Ahab. Mike ias stands tall in scripture. He says, I will say to the king, whatever God tells me to say to the king, thank you very much.

And he marches onto the threshing floor and he sees the whole sham for what it is. He sees jeha that knows he's no business being in this country. He sees the dancing and the drinking, and he sees all of the food that has been offered to idols. And he approaches the Thrones and Ahab asks, and so is it God's will?

Will you give us his blessing? Combine our armies? Everybody knows the answer. And so Mike Iah like a cat, tway with a mouse just before the kill. Says, sure. Yeah. Go ahead. Send me postcard. Let me know how that works out for you. Because everybody knows this is not God's will. Yeah. Yeah. Go see what happens.

Ahab is in sense, and it's like this movie from an old classic Hollywood blockbuster where Ahab demands tell me the truth. Prophet and Mikey Ira responds the truth. You can't handle the truth of it. He says, here's the truth, king. You combine your armies and you go into battle against Assyrians, and sure is there is a living God in heaven.

You will not return a lie. Yes is zakiah. The false prophet was so incensed in that moment. Scripture records this. Then Zakiah went up and slapped Mikea in the face. Which way did the spirit of the Lord go when he went from me to speak to you? He asks that Ahab is angry as well and commands his soldiers to arrest Mike Aya and to throw him into solitary confinement.

He said, give him nothing but bread and water until I return safely. And I can just imagine King a Abraham pointing his finger in the nose of that prophet and saying, you mark my words prophet. I will return safely.

And after all of this, if you can even imagine,

a hand looks over to Josh that and says, so what do you think? And PHA says, I'll have my army ready. To fight with you first thing in the blank.

Point number three, you want to be a spiritual flunky. I'll tell you how to do it. Go where you don't belong, where you know you'll be tempted. And then listen to the devil's flattery. Just think about compromise number three, just go against the clearly revealed will of God. This was not a case where Jeha Shaphat was wondering what does God want me to do now?

I spent over 20 years on campus at universities and during that time as a university church pastor, I saw a steady stream of young people parade through my office. Many of them asking a variation of the question, how can I know God's will? And often as part of that conversation I would talk about how, maybe the better question is how can I know God?

And then sharing personally, just say, most of scripture is fairly clear. You know what I struggle with? Not the 90 plus percent of the Bible that not the, 5% of the Bible that maybe I don't understand with nuances and all of this, but it's just the 90 plus percent that I know what God wants me to do.

I just struggle with actually doing it. Now, this is not a case where Josh that didn't know God's will was just, he didn't want to obey. So next morning he arrives with his army. When he sees King Ahab, he is confused. Hey, what's with the threads? Marks, Ahab explains, oh yeah, hey look. I decided last night to dress like this today like a servant, because then they won't recognize me.

I knew that you would show up in your royal your royal cape and gals and your crowd and all of this, and your regal chariot. You look great, Joshua. You look great. Now, I was thinking when the enemy sees you, we can out flank them and surprise them from the south. Catch them off guard. So Jeha that goes along with this crazy battle plan.

Not knowing as scripture tells us that actually the King of Syria had given stripped orders to all of his generals. It says this now, the King of Syria had ordered his chariot commanders. Do not fight with anyone small or great except the king. Of Israel. In other words, he told all of his military commanders, look, if we ever get into a military Squamish with Israel, I want you to ignore all of the soldiers on the battlefield.

Save for King Ahab. You go after him. So as soon as they even get close to the battlefield, All of the Syrian soldiers immediately saw the royal chariot, and they surrounded Josh at that so that he had a 360 degree view. Everybody. Bowes pulled back arrows pointing right at his head.

It was one of those Southwest airline commercials. Need to get away

and PHA has no way out except to turn toward heaven and to say, oh my God,

oh God,

what am I gonna do now? My God, I am so sorry. I went. To see Ahab in Israel, I knew I should have never gone, and then I defiantly disobeyed you.

God, if you could somehow say Syrian soldiers breathes dropping on this, and they became very confused and said, oh wait. That's not a him. He's praying to Yahweh. That's that. We've got the wrong God, that's not him. And then scripture says one of the soldiers drew his blow at random and hit the King of Israel between the sections.

Of his armor. So you had some soldier just randomly firing off an arrow, and it lands between the sections of King Ahab's. Armor, they prop him up so that he can watch the battle then unfold. And Ahab witnesses one of the most horrific massacres in the history of Israel. They were slaughtered and at the end of the day, Ahab died.

Just as Mikey I of the prophet, had 14.

What a lesson. And you gotta wonder did Jeha without learn from any of this, what happens next for Jeha? It's interesting, just a couple chapters later. We read this chapter 20 of Second Chronicles. We read this story, Moabites and the Ammonites were some of the meteorites came to make war on Jeha.

Some men came and told Jeha, A vast army is coming against you now instead of scheming some crazy military plan or whatever. Like dressing like a servant. Hoping to disguise himself or a, anything like that. We read alarmed. Notice this jeha that resolved to inquire of the Lord and he proclaimed a fast for all of Judah.

The people came together to seek help from the Lord. Indeed, they came from every town in Judah to seek help. So here, Jeh, pat says oh. Before we get into any other battle timeout, we're having a massive prayer meeting. Amen. And we're gonna fast. Now we're gonna prorate ourselves before our God, and we are going to ask God, what do you want us to do?

What should we do? We're not gonna overreact all of these enemies coming against us to attack us. Instead, we are going to just commit ourselves to hearing the voice of God. Amen. And after this massive All Nation prayer meeting, the word of the Lord. Came to jeha that through the prophet Sia. He said, listen, king Jehoshaphat, verse 15 and all who live in Jew, that and Jerusalem.

This is what the Lord says.

Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. And then one of my favorite verses in the whole, The key to spiritual life with God

for the battle is not yours by God's amen. Amen.

Don't you worry about this vast army coming against you because the battle is not yours. It belongs to God. Just trust him. And so the battle preparation is very interesting. They decide rather than, concocting some crazy battle plan like Ahab had tried to do. They were just going to go into the battle, practicing the spiritual disciplines.

Praying and trusting and fasting and worshiping together. It's really interesting. They come toward the battlefield. And they are all singing together. Give thanks to the Lord for His love endures forever. And while they are worshiping together, they come to the bluff overlooking the valley below, and they see that the enemy has already turned on itself.

They have already destroyed each other. And the victory that day was so great that scripture tells us it took three days. To gather up all of the plunder left there on the field, gold and military equipment and food, and every, in fact, even the textiles us, they didn't even get it all in three days. It was a great victory.

All they did was to trust in God and to believe that in fact, The battle is not ours to fight. The battle belongs to the Lord. Amen. Amen. So what do we do? That we simply trust God. We participate in the spiritual disciplines of prayer. And fasting and corporate worship like this, and serving and doing those activities, those spiritual training activities that allow us to live in the presence of God and to trust him and to allow God's spirit then to work in us so we don't have to fight the battles.

Amen. Our effort must always be focused, nurturing that relationship with Jesus. Paul put it this way, interesting phrase, one Corinthians nine verse 24. He says, run in such a way as to get the prize. So he's using a running metaphor here, and he says, everyone who competes in the games goes into strict.

Training. See, it's not about trying really hard, it's about engaging in the spiritual disciplines. It's about going into training, and this is true in pretty much any realm of life, right? Not just the spiritual realm, although that's how Paul uses it here, but he's also talking about the physical realm. So for example, you think about professional body builders, right?

They're, for the most part, not born. With these bodies, you know who I'm talking about, right? These guys that have bulging biceps and triceps and fingernail stepss and just, like they have muscles on their breath. I remember on our honeymoon my wife re and I, we were just amazed at how many channels.

We got in the honeymoon suite, this TV had like hundreds of channels. We had never seen so many channels and like this was the morning after. And so I had the remote control and I stopped and I was, I. Started watching Divorce Court, which I've never seen the show before, and I was just interested and she took the remote and she started to scroll through all of the channels.

And then she stalked on one of the e s PN channels that was broadcasting this bodybuilding contest from the beach beaches of Miami. And these guys and Yeah, she just stays on this channel and then she is watching them and then she looks at me,

did I say something funny? And she looks back at them. Looks back at me. And she says, I just don't find well-built men to be attractive,

which I think was a compliment, but I was way too insecure to ask her what she meant by that. Here's the deal with those well built men. In the words of Kent Mars, a professional bodybuilder, Mr. Missouri, the guys on TV that have that look is what they do for a living. The maintenance of that look is what their entire lives are based on.

It is a lifestyle. It's 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We are such a now society guys come in thinking that in three months or by swimsuit season, guys can become ripped and hard, and that's very unrealistic. Now, if you are serious about looking ripped and hard, you must enter into a life of training.

That means that you arrange your life around those activities that will enable you to do by training. What you cannot now do by trying spiritual life is not about just trying harder. No. It's about orienting your life. Around those activities, prayer, bible study, service, fasting, so on, orienting your life around those activities that will allow you to do by training what you can now do by trying Amen.

Thomas Kelly. Put it this way, don't grit your teeth and clench your fists and say, I will. I will. Relax, take hands off, submit yourself to God. I love this phrase, and I'll come back to it tomorrow morning, but learn to live in the passive voice and let God's life be willed through you. Amen. Amen. The battle is not yours.

The battle belongs to God. So live in the passive voice and let His will be willed through you. Amen. So often PE people think about spiritual life, like it's a really difficult assignment. As if you're plopped out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean against 10 foot swells with the assignment of keeping 100 beach balls submerged all underwater at the same time.

Now, if you're a really good swimmer, maybe you can keep this one under and that one under a couple more using your legs and so on. But eventually they just keep popping up to the surface and it's a recipe for feeling defeated and exhausted every time. And see many people approach spiritual life like that because we know our shadowed motives and our twisted thoughts, and we know our own struggles.

We all do. And so we think, all right if I can at least look holy, that maybe people will think I'm holy. So if I can just keep all of these sins that I struggle with so mightily under the surface so you don't see them in me, then maybe at least you'll think that I've got it figured out spiritually, right?

So if I can just work on and through sheer willpower, keep lost and gluttony and pride and all of these things I struggle with under the surface, but. The problem is it's a recipe for feeling defeated and exhausted every time to where you just want to give up. So what? What's the answer? Get out of the water and into the boat with Jesus.

Amen. And live in the presence of the Father. Live in. Christ. Give you a picture of this. When our youngest daughter, Claire, was at that potty training age. We had worked up a little reward system so that she would get one Skittle if you know she didn't, one, two Skittles if she did something else, which is more detailed than you really need.

But suffice it to say that she was just tall enough at this point, that if she stood on a chair and got in our pantry and stood on her tippy toes, she could reach into that Skittle school. So I was watching with some amusement one afternoon. She didn't know I was there. I was watching the great controversy raging in her little spirit because her spirit was creating a sugar head.

And she or her flesh was craving the sugar head, but she knew that she hadn't deserved, she hadn't earned any of the scales. And so she didn't see me watching this, but finally she just could not resist temptation. She had to have some s Skittles. So she dragged this chair into the pantry and she stood on it, and she got her little fist into that ball, and just then I cleared my throat and Skittles flying everywhere.

Then a little munchkin had the nerve to come to me with. Palms wide open, of course Polka dotted with different colors from the Skittles. And she said, wow, what? I don't have anything. Do you see any Skittles in my car? I don't see any Skittles. Why are you humming me? What was amazing to me, and again, I know all illustrations, like I mentioned last night, they break down at certain levels, but you, the part of this story that I want you to get that was amazing to me is how is it.

That in one moment she could not resist temptation, and in the next moment she wasn't tempted at all. What was it? The presence of the father live in the presence. Of your father,

do those things that catapult you into his presence. Go into strict training, as Paul says, so that you can do through training, through time with God, through his word prayer and so on. You can do things through training that you can't do just by trying a little harder. It's not about mustering up more willpower.

It's all about trusting that it, it's God's power. Amen. And trusting the battle is not mine to fight. The battle belongs to the Lord. A key text on this that I love, second Corinthians 5 21, he who knew no sin became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God, so that we can have rights standing before our God so that we can become the holiness.

Of God in him. That's the key. It's a relationship living in him. Amen. A while back, I got this email from a young woman I had never met, but I do share this with her permission. She wrote me. Dear Mr. H, I heard you speak at an early team meeting. At Florida camp meeting in May of 1995. So that was a long time ago.

So I was immediately impressed that she could remember that far back. Me, I have a photographic memory. I just can't figure out how to get that lens cap off.

I right away liked this girl that she can remember a message I preached in 95. I still remember your message. You talked about Zss and your conclusion was that, quote, people change just by being in the presence of Jesus. That was a profound truth that has shaped my spiritual life ever since. I tend to drift toward legalism, trying to muster enough spiritual muscle to be good.

But I always get brought back to the gracious truth, but my only job is to stay in God's presence and he will change. Amen. Father, we're just trusting this to be true.

The battle is not our deflate our only. Job is to live in your presence. And to trust that because you have began this good work in us, you will be faithful and you will complete it. And for this, we are grateful. And Jesus we pray. Amen.