Against All Odds - Mike Lyons

• 31/05/2018
• SLC Stuart Price

 

 

 Against All Odds

 

Faith can be an amazing journey. It is possibly the easiest subject to talk about, sing songs about, read about, or even give examples of. Nevertheless when things start to go seriously wrong it can become one of the hardest things to actually live under the pressure and duress of prevailing circumstances.

Mary understood that when she met Jesus outside Bethany when Lazarus died.

Others understood that when Jesus said, “Roll the stone away.”

Jonah certainly understood it when God said, “Go to Nineveh.’

 

It helps to understand what is actually ours. We live under a Covenant of grace whereby our provision is on the basis of what Jesus has done, not by self qualification.

Romans 8:32  He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? 

2 Peter 1:3  According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: 

 

But then of course there is always opposition

 

John 10:10  The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. 

Ephesians 6:12  For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. 

 

Faith is essentially a battle between the Soul and the Spirit. The Soul will scream logic, reason, experience, rationality, commonsense, doubt, fear, uncertainty. Yet somehow the Spirit requires something else, a willingness to take God at his word despite everything else.

I have personally experienced the mountain tops, and the valleys, as well as most places in between.

A few years ago my wife was extremely sick and I was not totally confident of her survival. Just before she fell ill a good friend had died of cancer, at the time she was battling for survival another good friend died, and yet another was pronounced terminally ill.

I started to lose hope, vision, and practically everything else. But I needed to go back to basics and draw a line in the sand from which there was no retreat. One night I tearfully declared before the Lord, “I believe you are who you say you are, your word says what is means and there is no shadow or potential for failure in you or your word.”

It was a starting point and although it took time and much battling today my wife is well. She has been through a few more battles, but remains healthy and strong.

Sometimes faith takes us to the edge of catastrophe then asks us to believe something ridiculous.

Remember in 2 Chronicles 20 Jehoshaphat sent in the worship team instead of the army to confront an advancing superior enemy.

When a king and an army hid from a giant, a kid showed up with slingshot, and when a walled city stood in the path of destiny the best plan was to go for a walk and blow some trumpets.

Jehoshaphat believed the word of God rather than a huge force of invaders, the kid believed a Covenant rather than a giant, and God’s people saw the Ark rather than the walls.

It’s always a choice.

Happy days.

Mike

Have an awesome week.

Pastor Stuart & Colleen