If you ask someone whether they want to be a winner or a loser at life – well, it’s a bit of a no-brainer isn’t it? The problem is though, in order to win, you need courage. And courage is a funny thing, it’s something we all want to have, but very few want to actually have to use. Because courage, well, it’s something you only ever need, it’s something you only ever deploy, when you’re afraid.

Courage is a funny thing. It’s something we all want to have but we never want to use. Think about it. Do you want to be a courageous person, someone with the resolve and the strength to make it through the difficult times; those dark and stormy days. Of course you do, so do I, we all do.

It’s just that we never ever want to travel through those difficult times. We want our lives to be pleasant and comfortable and happy. We want everyone around us to like us and to be kind to us. But of course, life’s just not like that.

Those dark and stormy days do come. In fact, sometimes they’re like seasons. They linger on like the winter that just doesn’t seem to want to end. And the longer the winter goes on, the longer it’s dark and scary, the harder it gets. The more we’re prone to feeling defeated, the more we become victims of our circumstances.

No, courage is definitely something we want to have but never ever want to have to use. Problem is the only place where we develop our courage, where we grow our courage, where we test our courage, is in those dark and difficult places. And that, my friend, is the truth of it. That’s what we’re going to be unpacking today on the program – courage.

When I look back on my life, the last decade and a half that I’ve been walking with Jesus instead of away from Him, there have been so many times when circumstances have wanted to overwhelm me.

Do you remember the story of the disciple Peter who saw Jesus walking towards his boat out on the Sea of Galilee? A great big storm happening, the disciples in the boat, they thought they were going to drown. They see Jesus walking on the water towards them and they thought they’d seen a ghost. But Peter says, “Lord, if it’s you I’m coming out”. So Jesus calls him and Peter jumps out of the boat and starts walking towards Jesus.

A pretty gutsy move. A great big storm blowing, he got out of the boat in the middle of the storm. What a mighty faith but listen to what happened to him along the way while he’s walking on the water, in the storm, towards Jesus. It comes from Matthew chapter 14, verse 30:

But when Peter noticed the strong wind he became frightened and began to sink and he cried, “Lord, save me.

To tell you the truth, it’s happened to me so many times. You sort of take this step out into the storm and you get out there and you’re doing what God’s called you to do. Whether it’s in ministry or previously when I had my own business or in my family or with friends. Believing that God is good, that He’s with me, He’ll help me to do all the good things for His glory. And then, all of a sudden, your eyes come off Him and you focus on the reality of your circumstances, like Peter. And you start sinking. You get that sinking feeling.

Last week and again this week on the program we’re just doing a little series called More Than Conquerors. The apostle Paul’s words are so powerful. It’s in a letter to the Roman Church in the New Testament. Romans chapter 8, verses 35 to 39. Have a listen:

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long, we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor present things nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

The issue is not that every time when we’re in trouble God will come and wave His magic wand and make it all perfect again. He doesn’t work that way. Often He lets those dark seasons linger on.

He lets us walk through the wildernesses of life. The issue is that while we’re in those dark places, as Paul had been many times as he writes in that passage we just read. I mean many times his life was threatened.

When we’re in those places this issue is that the circumstances won’t crush us. That we won’t be torn apart and cast asunder by the difficulties in life. And today and over the next couple of days we’re going to be exploring probably the most important ingredient in being a conqueror and that’s, well that’s courage.

The Old Testament, the first time it talks about having courage is when a man called Joshua is in an incredibly difficult place. The twelve tribes of Israel were, for many centuries, captives in Egypt and eventually God called Moses to get His people out of there, did some amazing miracles. Moses leads them through the Red Sea.

They spend forty years in the wilderness and they’re about to cross over into the Promised Land which they would have to take by fighting battle after battle with the people that already lived there. And their trusted and proven leader of forty years, Moses, has just dropped dead.

And God appoints Moses’ second in charge, Joshua, to take over at this critical time in Israel’s history. It must have been an incredibly scary place. Couldn’t God have done this earlier? Or couldn’t Moses have lasted long enough to lead them through at least the first couple of battles in the Promised Land until they got their confidence up?

No, right at this point, right on the threshold of all those battles, just before they cross over the Jordan into the Promised Land. At the single most inconvenient time God takes Moses and puts Joshua in charge.

Notice God’s timing. It’s so often the case. It’s so often the most inconvenient scary time. We’re going to read just three verses of what God says to Joshua right at the beginning of the book in the Old Testament called Joshua. Joshua chapter 1, verse 6. God says:

Be strong and courageous for you shall put this people in possession of the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them.

Joshua chapter 1, verse 7:

Only be strong and very courageous being careful to act according with all in the Law that my servant Moses commanded to you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left so that you may be successful wherever you go.

Joshua chapter 1, verse 9:

I hereby command you, be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened or dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

Three times. Three times God commands Joshua to be strong and courageous. Three times. Do you think that God thought it was important for Joshua to be courageous, to have courage? Do you think?

Get a grip here! We want to have courage but so often when things happen at the most inconvenient possible time. When things all of a sudden turn scary in our lives, we want to go and hide under a rock somewhere. And that’s a natural reaction, truly it is. We all have that reaction at sometime. I certainly do.

Courage is counter intuitive. Courage is stepping out and doing it anyway even though there’s danger and risk and even though we’re afraid. Let me tell you something, there can be no victory in those places unless we decide to have courage. Unless we decide to listen to God’s command, to get out there and do it anyway even when we’re afraid because we know that the Lord our God is with us wherever we go.

My friend, you and I, we live on a battlefield, and if we want to win the battle we need to get on a war footing. We need to take courage and be courageous.

We’re going to be exploring that some more over the next few days on the program because that’s easier said than done. But let me just finish up with this thought. God wants you and me to be more than conquerors. He wants us to experience His victory in every part of our lives. But if we want to lay hold of that victory, we need to obey His command. This is what it is:

I hereby command you, be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened or dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

Like it or not, we live on a spiritual battlefield. And when the gates of hell fling open and the devil throws everything at us including the kitchen sink. We have a choice. We can capitulate … or we can stand firm. And as it turns out, standing firm has everything to do with living in victory.

For ten years or so, between 1977 and 1987, I served in the Australian Army. One of the things they taught us while I was at the Officer Training Academy, The Royal Military College, was the role of every core in the army. We had to memorise these word for word. And I can tell you that the role of the infantry is to seek out and close with the enemy; to kill or to capture him. To seize and to hold ground; to repel attack by day or by night regardless of season, weather or terrain.

At the end of the day, fighting the battle is about seizing a piece of ground, capturing it and holding onto it. You win if you beat the other force that you’re fighting against, take the ground and hang onto it even when they counter attack. That’s what winning is in a war.

And strangely enough, that’s exactly what victory is when we’re fighting the battles of life; when the enemy, the devil, comes after us with a pick axe; when the circumstances of life counter attack and threaten to throw us off our game. It’s about taking the ground that God has given us, the parcel that He’s allotted to us in our lives, whatever that is, taking it and hanging onto it through thick and thin.

God wants us to be victorious. He wants us to be more than conquerors. And today on the program we’re going to discover how. Have a listen to what the apostle Paul writes. A great passage, you maybe familiar with it. It comes from Ephesians chapter 6, verses 10 to 13. Paul says to his friend in Ephesus:

Finally be strong in the Lord and the strength of His power. Put on the whole armour of God so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armour of God so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day and having done everything to stand firm.

See the devil, the devil comes to attack. Paul’s telling us to be strong in the strength of Gods power. Not in my power, not in your power, not our own but in God’s. “So that we may be able to withstand on the evil day and having done everything to stand firm.” It’s exactly what we talked about at the beginning of the program. Winning the war is about standing firm and holding the ground.

Now please, when I talk about being victorious and grabbing onto what Gods given us in life and hanging onto it, I am not talking about some selfish ‘blab it and grab it’ kind of faith, where it’s all about me; where it’s about having a bigger house and nicer car and finer clothes. All those things are nice but in the scheme of things they’re rubbish compared to the real thing.

Here’s what God has planned for us – His peace and His joy and His goodness and His power to live our lives in obedience to Him; His love that we can share with a lost and hurting world. God has such riches planned for you and me but they’re not the riches of this world. In fact, they’re the exact opposite. Jesus puts it this way. You can read it for yourself in Matthew chapter 13, verse 44. Jesus says:

The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field which someone found and hid. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

God’s riches are so good that we’d trade everything we have for them. I have to tell you, that’s so true. I have a joy and a peace and a quiet confidence in God today that I wouldn’t give up for all the tea in China. I don’t care what baubles, how much money you dangle under my nose. I am not interested. No way!

The world wants to rob us of the peace and the joy of God. The devil wants to rob us of those things. Do you want to have peace and joy today? We all do but along comes someone who’s nasty and unfair and talks behind our backs and threatens our jobs and our security. Happens, doesn’t it?

So many things and people and devils out there want to rob us of that which Jesus purchased for you and me at the price of His life on that cross on Calvary. We live on a battlefield and in the battle you can’t have victory without courage. Courage is about standing and fighting when every fibre in your being is screaming at you to run and hide.

See, it takes courage to stand secure when someone’s being nasty and undermining us and threatening us. It takes courage to love them and turn the other cheek when what we really want to do is run and hide in our old sinful ways. Where we give them back the same rubbish they’re dishing up to us. So the question is, how?

I want to share with you today a single passage, just two short verses from the Bible. It is so powerful. I believe that it’s going to breathe a mighty courage into your spirit. Are you ready? It comes from 1 Corinthians chapter 16, verses 13 and 14:

Keep alert. Stand firm in your faith. Be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.

This is the apostle Paul at the end of a pretty stern letter to his friends in the Church in Corinth. I want to unpack those words, just briefly, because there’s such power in them. The Bible is Gods word. It is the power to change.

Look how Paul starts off here. “Keep alert.” In other words, open your eyes. We expect life to be rosy and peaches and cream and comfortable and warm and pleasant. But it is not like that all the time. Tough things happen. Keep alert. Keep your eyes open. Expect some bad things to happen. Expect the devil to come after you with a pick axe.

This is powerful stuff. Instead of being surprised when some curve ball comes out of nowhere, we’re ready, we’re alert. One of the greatest weapons any enemy has in battle is the element of surprise. He attacks when we least expect him. And that’s what the devil does. But if we’re ready and alert, it has far less impact on us. Keep alert.

The next thing is, “Stand firm in your faith. Be courageous, be strong.” That’s what having courage means. That’s where courage comes from. Not from self confidence, not from self reliance or relying on our bank balance or our positional status or anything else. It comes from trusting in God.

When the devil comes after us with a meat cleaver, when the circumstances we face in life are so profoundly overwhelming, stand firm believing in God. He hasn’t fallen off His twig. He’s not surprised, not shocked, not frightened. Stand firm and believe in Him.

I hereby command you, be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened or dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. (Joshua chapter 1, verse 9)

That’s why we can stand firm because God is in this place with us. No matter what anyone hurls at us.

And finally, “Let all that you do be done in love.” See this is the important bit. We’re not fighting battles and winning victories for our own selfish ends. We’re winning the victory of faith, knowing that we can overcome, knowing that God is in that furnace with us. 1 John, chapter 5, verse 4 says this:

Whatever is born of God conquers the world and this is the victory that conquers the world – our faith.

I don’t care what you’re facing right now. What affliction. What toil. What rejection. What loss. What insecurity. Whatever it is, Gods plan, right smack bang in the middle of that calamity, for you and for me, if for us to be more than conquerors in Him who loves us. That’s the plan. That’s the victory. That’s the power. So here it is:

Keep alert. Stand firm in your faith. Be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.

Sometimes people will say to me – my life is such a mess, I can’t imagine that there can even be a God. But as it turns out – when life’s a mess, there’s something that God wants you to have. Something He wants you to experience more than anything else. His comfort. And that comfort, the comfort of God, is just one of the mightiest blessings He will ever pour out on you.

I wonder, have you ever been in a place in your life where you feel like, well, like you’re so utterly and unbearably crushed that life as you know it has come to an end? You know, when the darkness is so dark, when the pain is so bad, when nothing that anybody says or does to help makes even the slightest bit of difference.

I often receive emails from people who have been listening to one of these programs and they say to me, “Berni, how can you tell me that God is good? How can you believe that God wants me to be more than a conqueror, that He wants me to have victory?”

And that’s because people have been living life in defeat for so long they can’t even begin to imagine what victory looks like. And that’s not always their fault. I spoke with a woman recently who’s caring for her mother who has dementia and she’s had it for years. And it’s becoming utterly unbearable. She’s suffering so much physically and mentally and spiritually that she’s completely … well she’s completely lost sight of God.

When things are brutal and dark and lonely like that, we get to thinking, we get to imagining that there is no way out; that there is no solution. No way.

Today on the program I want to share something with you from God’s word that tells us the complete opposite. And my prayer is that as you receive God’s word, His spirit will bring the courage into your heart that you never thought was possible.

And what I want to share with you today comes from the Apostle Paul. I used to get the idea that because he has the title “Apostle” with a capital “A”, that this guy was somehow super human. That somehow because God had him write almost half the books in the New Testament and plant most of the Churches in the known world in the 1st Century AD that he was somehow immune from the trials and tribulations that you and I will face in life.

So let me read to you just a short passage from the beginning of his 2nd letter to the Church in Corinth. 2 Corinthians, chapter 1, verses 8 to 11. He writes:

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself. Indeed we felt that we had received the sentence of death so that we would not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He who rescued us from so deadly a peril will continue to rescue us. On Him we have set our hope that He will rescue us again as you also join in helping us by your prayers so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of men.

Pretty grim stuff – “utterly and unbearably crushed”. The picture here of the original Greek words that Paul is using is like grapes being crushed in a wine press, having the life completely squeezed out of them. That’s what he’s talking about here.

And a bit later on, in the same letter, he goes on to explain a bit more of what’s been going on and how they felt when they had to go out through these trials. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verses 8 to 10. He says:

We’re afflicted in everyway but not crushed. Perplexed but not driven to despair. Persecuted but not forsaken. Struck down but not destroyed. Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the light of Jesus may also be visible in our bodies.

Now if you’ve ever been stuck in such a dark and difficult place you will surely relate to what Paul is saying here. I certainly do. As I hear his words and close my eyes I can remember the pain of some of the darkest days of my life. And in those dark days there were times when I despaired for life itself.

There were times when I wondered whether I should end it. There were times when I couldn’t possibly see how I could even make it through to the end of today let alone tomorrow or the rest of my life. The darkness was so dark I’d forgotten completely what light looked like. Except for a small candle light that shone in my heart. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 6:

For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of the darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

But in his letter to his friends in Corinth Paul explains the source of this power. Paul explains why he hasn’t been crushed; why he hasn’t been driven to despair; why he hasn’t been forsaken and destroyed. And here, here is the nub of what I want to share with you today. It’s beautiful and wondrous. Have a listen. 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 3 to 5:

Blessed be the God and the Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. The Father of mercies and the God of all consolation who consoles us in all our afflictions so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us so also our consolation is abundant through Christ.

Paul’s talking about the fact that God consoles him in his afflictions. Other translations talk about God bringing comfort. And so what I did is I went back to look at the original Greek meaning of this word that’s been variously translated as “comfort” and “consoling” here in these few short verses. And blow me down, if it isn’t the very same word that Jesus uses for the Holy Spirit in John chapter 14, verses 16 to 18:

And I will ask the Father and He will give you another comforter, another one to console you, to be with you forever. This is the spirit of truth and the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him or knows Him but you know Him because He abides with you and He will be in you. I will not leave you orphaned, I am coming to you.

Now bring those two passages together and this is what Gods word is saying to us today. When we are so utterly and unbearably crushed that we despair of life itself, in our place of comfort is God Himself. The Spirit of God, who is a comforter just like Jesus, who dwells in us who believe in the Son of God.

That’s the light that shines in the darkness. That’s the peace and the joy. That’s the place where our courage comes from, where our hope comes from. God pours His Spirit in our heart and He brings hope in the middle of despair. That’s why elsewhere, in Romans chapter 5, verses 3 to 5, Paul writes:

We boast in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance. Endurance produces character and character produces hope and this hope doesn’t disappoint us because Gods love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

My friend, listen to me. No matter how dark it gets, no matter how difficult it gets, amidst the very affliction that would seem to squeeze the life out of us. Unbearable and impossible though it may seem Gods word says that right in the middle of that we are more than conquerors through Him who loves us. Do you get it?

The one who loves us is right here in our darkness with us and if we only get still before Him and stop and listen and look with the eyes of our soul, we will see that light shines in darkness. We will experience this comfort, just like Jesus, who dwells in us. God the Holy Spirit, God the comforter, the one who will encourage us, comfort us, console us.

And do you know what happens when we rely on Him above all others in our darkest afflictions? We discover that indeed we are more than conquerors. We can overcome anything and everything through Him who loves us, through Him who dwells in us, through Him who will never leave us or forsake us. This is the promise of God Himself.

For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us also our consolation is abundant through Christ.

I know many a Christian who’s followed hard after God, and seems to be in a place where they’ve lost it all. You know they put everything on the line – and now, they seem to have nothing. But God is a God who wants to make it up. In fact, He wants to give us double for our trouble.

Ever lost something that you’ve worked hard for? It appens a lot, more than we would think. A person who’s worked hard at their career, sacrificed so much for their employer, all of a sudden finds themselves retrenched in an economic slump. A couple that’s saved for their retirement sees their savings evaporate when the stock market crashes. A house that you’ve turned into a home – lovely memories, happy times and sad – is consumed by fire or destroyed by flood.

In fact it happens a whole bunch more often than we would imagine. You take a look around the world, 25,000 to 30,000 children die every day from poverty. That’s 25 or so in the time we’ve been together so far today. They have mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters who’ve lost a child.

There are so many who “lose” so much in this world and when the value of what we’ve lost – a loved one, a career, a home – when the value is high because we’ve invested so much of ourselves into that which we’ve now lost, it’s devastating.

And that devastation can leave us reeling; the loss of one whom we’ve loved; the loss of that which we’ve worked so hard for. The greater the investment is, the greater the value and the greater the value, the greater the loss. Somehow we want to mourn that loss over and over and over again.

It’s never nice to lose something of great value, ever. And so often it’s unfair. So often it’s not our fault. This “losing” business is something that robs so many people of the abundant life that Jesus promised them.

You may have heard me say this before but there are so many people who allow the past to spoil their present and rob them of their future. And even when we’re still right in the middle of losing whatever it is that we’ve lost, then it feels as though nothing can ever replace it.

That’s an untruth that many, many, many people hang on to. That’s a lie that the devil uses to suck the life out of many a person, even a person who believes in Jesus with all their heart.

Today, today I want to share with you that God is, in fact, in the business of restoring and replacing and blessing. In fact God has an amazing track record of giving as much better and much more than we had to start with. He is after all a God of grace and mercy and love.

The first step is letting go of the past. If it’s lost, it’s lost. Can’t change it, can’t undo it, can’t fix anything that we have done or failed to do which led to or contributed to the loss. The past is the past and we can’t change it.

That’s why God said to His people, Israel, who deserted Him and so He punished them by having the Babylonians take them into captivity for 70 years. He says to them, Isaiah chapter 43, verse 18:

Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old.

He tells them this right when He’s about to restore their fortunes and take them out of slavery and exile and return them to the Promised Land. He can’t do that if they’re still wallowing around in the past. Mirror’s exactly what He said to them the very first time Israel travelled into the Promised Land after the exodus, forty years in the wilderness. Joshua chapter 5, verse 9:

The Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace or Egypt.

Or the reproach of the past. You can’t live in the disgrace and the loss and the regret of the past and lay hold of the new things that God has for you. And those new things are invariably so much better than the old.

Now I know that can be difficult to imagine when you’ve lost a loved one, a wife or a husband. And at this point I feel to tell you about a friend of mine, an elderly lady who, many years ago, opened her home to me when I had nowhere to live. I boarded with her for about 3 months. She was a widow. She lived alone in this large house that she and her late husband had built. They’d brought up their children there and there were many happy years and memories.

One day, he went out to the letterbox and died on the front lawn of a heart attack. That had been 18 years earlier. Over the 3 months that I spent with her she shared much of her life story with me and it turns out that she still missed her husband terribly. But she said, “these days I have so much time to spend with the Lord. Some nights when I can’t sleep I lie in bed and pray and I have time to read and rest in God”, she would tell me.

That didn’t make a whole bunch of sense to me back then, a decade and a half ago when I had just come to faith in Jesus. She had so much joy about her. The joy just bubbled out of her. And actually, it was her joy that helped me come to the conclusion that I wanted what she had. And that’s why I’m here today with you. God restored to her a double blessing. And He’s got quite a track record of doing that. Have a listen to just a few times from His word.

Job. Job lost everything, possessions, family, children, health, status, everything. He kept asking God, “Why? I haven’t done anything wrong.” It’s a great and powerful story in the book of Job in the Old Testament. But after all the calamity and the loss and the pain, have a listen to what God does. Right at the end of the book, Job chapter 42, verse 10:

The Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.

And again, look at this promise from God after a calamity on His people, Israel. Zechariah chapter 9, verse 12:

Return to your stronghold O prisoners of hope. Today I declare that I will restore to you double.

Now, this is amazing. We feel like we’ve lost. We feel like it’s an incredible pain. We feel like there’s no tomorrow and God comes along and gives us something that’s so much better than what we had before. The same thing, Isaiah chapter 61, verse 7:

Because their shame was dull and dishonour was proclaimed as their lot, therefore they shall possess a double portion, everlasting joy shall be theirs.

My friend, God is a God of great blessing and sometimes, even double, isn’t enough to describe what He has in store for us. When we lose something or someone that we love, someone or something that we valued highly, we can live the rest of our lives in defeat but in Christ we are more than conquerors.

I want to encourage you. If you’ve lost someone you love or something you’d valued highly, to let go of the past and set your hope on the God of your future. The goodness that God will bring, well, it may be entirely different to that which you’ve lost. It may not be what you would have chosen for yourself. But let me finish today with some words from the late, great, 19th century preacher S D Gordon. He said:

If God were to say to me, ‘I want to give you something as a special love gift, an extra because I love you, what would you like to have?’ Do you know what I have thought I would say? ‘Dear God, You choose. I choose what You choose.

“See He’s thinking about me. He knows what I’m thinking of and what I most enjoy and He is such a lover, God, that He would choose something just a bit finer than I would think. I might be thinking of a dollar but He, likely, is not. He’s thinking of double. I’m thinking of black berries, big, juicy black berries but really I do not know what black berries are beside the sort He knows and He would choose for me.”

That is our God. Let me encourage you that no matter what you may have lost, you have lost nothing at all because in Christ, you have it all. You and I, we are more than conquerors through Him who loves us.

So many people in life – they face a hurdle or an obstacle or pressure here or pain there, and they start running around like a headless cook. Flapping, complaining. It’s so easy to lose sight of the end game. And the end game – is an eternity in the Presence of God.

You know something? In the heat of battle it’s so easy to lose sight of victory. I mean with everything that’s going on we can become so distracted with just dealing with the day to day. We completely lose sight of the fact that victory is possible and what victory might even look like.

Over these last few weeks on the program we’ve been trying to get a handle on the fact that, according to God, we are more than conquerors through Him because He loves us. Not just conquerors but more than conquerors. That means we just don’t somehow scrape by with a victory but we have an abundance of victory and joy and peace in our lives to share around with other people who don’t have any, an overflow of blessing if you like.

And yet, we ourselves, those who should be living in victory, those who should be overcoming and winning in the struggles of life, if someone came up to us and said, “You know, I’ve been reading the Bible. This thing you believe in, I’ve noticed it talks a lot about victory. I want you to tell me something, what does this victory look like for you? What does it look like? I want to know because, well, I want to decide if that’s what I want for my life.”

If someone came up and asked you that sort of question, what would you tell them?

I don’t know if you’ve been able to join me on some or even all of the programs over these last few weeks in this series, “More Than Conquerors”, but we’ve been talking about the fact that in Gods eyes no matter what’s been going on in our lives, He wants us to have more than enough victory in our lives to share around. Romans chapter 8, verses 35 to 39, says this:

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long. We are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

And notice that conquering is not necessarily about changing the negative circumstances. In fact Paul doesn’t talk about that at all. Conquering is having faith in this amazing God knowing that whatever happens, at the end of the day, his reward is in God. His reward is in heaven.

Most of what we’ve been talking about on the program these last couple of weeks has been about the rewards that we receive here on earth when we take courage, when we stand firm, when we put our trust in God. Let me say, those rewards are numerous.

They are about having peace and joy and confidence in the middle of whatever’s going on. They’re about walking quietly and confidently through every wilderness and every trial. They’re about God blessing us in new ways and abundant ways when we’ve lost someone we love or we’ve lost something we treasure.

When we lay hold of the truth, that we are meant to have victory here on earth, that we are more than conquerors here on earth, the rewards are indeed abundant. But whatever rewards me may have here on earth, in this life, they are nothing, nothing compared to the rewards that we will have, the prize that we will win for all eternity. If we just keep trusting in this Jesus.

Here’s why. It comes from the New Testament book of Hebrews. It’s called that because it was written to the Hebrew community in the 1st century AD. Have a listen to what the writer says. He’s talking about the life to come. Starting in Hebrews chapter 10, going from verse 31 to 38. He says:

It’s a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. But recall those earlier days when after you had been enlightened you endured hard struggle with sufferings. Sometimes being publicly exposed to abuse and persecution and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion for those who are in prison and you cheerfully accepted the plundering of your possessions knowing that you yourselves possess something better and more lasting.

Do not therefore abandon that confidence of yours, it brings a great reward. For you need endurance so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. For yet in a very little while the one who is coming will come and will not delay but my righteous one will live by faith.

He’s writing here to people who are being persecuted; people who have been persecuted and abused for their faith. People who’ve had their possessions plundered because they believe in Jesus. Because they said, “I’m a Christian.”

There’s a lot of persecution happening in this world still today. This is real stuff. And yet he talks about the fact that they accepted this cheerfully. They cheerfully accepted the plundering of their possessions knowing that they possess something better and more lasting.

See that’s the sort of topsy turvy thing that God talks about. Because they knew that they themselves possessed something much better and more lasting. You know what, truly? That’s what victory looks like in my life. Things come and go. Success comes and goes.

Once upon a time I was a consultant in the IT industry, earned lots of money, could buy whatever I wanted. Today, I’m a minister of the gospel. Let me tell you, I don’t have quite the same buying power but truly, it’s no loss at all. I’m much happier. Much more fulfilled in what I’m doing now, in what I have now – which is a dynamic and intimate and personal relationship with Jesus Christ – than I ever could have been back then when I earned all that I earned.

There is simply no comparison between the two. And it’s not just what I have now. You see that’s a shadow of what is to come. Let me tell you, one day, if we believe in Jesus, if we persevere, if we hang in there, you and I will stand before God and be judged. That’s why the writer of Hebrews says in chapter 10, verse 31:

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

But the righteous shall live by faith. What that means is that when I stand before the judgement seat of God on that great and terrible day, I will simply plead this. Lord God, I sinned against You. I rebelled against You. I deserve eternal separation from You, that thing they call hell. But when Jesus came to me I put my trust in Him. I believe that I have life eternal through the faith I have in Him and my reward will be in heaven.

It doesn’t matter what trials I’ve gone through. It doesn’t matter that I’ve made some blunders along the way. The great reward is the eternal reward, being with Jesus for all eternity to serve Him and worship Him and delight in Him. That’s the reward my friend. It’s an eternal reward. Revelations chapter 21, verses 3 and 4:

The home of God will be among mortals. He will dwell with us as our God and we will be His people and God Himself will be with us. He will wipe away every tear from our eyes. Death will be no more. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more. For those first things will have passed away.

Sometimes we don’t get all the rewards here on earth that somehow we think we’re entitled to. Sometimes we don’t get to see the fruit of the things that we’ve laboured for in God’s name. Sometimes things aren’t completely resolved, aren’t completely healed, aren’t completely set right here on this earth in our life times.

But there’s one thing, there’s one thing I know. That no matter what happens here, if we persevere and keep believing in Jesus our reward will truly be great in heaven. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. We are more than conquerors through Him who loves us.