You are called to anchor yourself in who God is rather than relying on shifting emotions. Look to Jesus Christ as your banner and let His character define your reality. Today, choose to fight your battles based on His truth instead of your temporary feelings.
I'm excited today because we have an anointed man of God that's a part of the house. He's a part of our house. He's a pastor at heart, and he's full of Jesus, and God has given him a word to speak today. And remember when when we read scripture, and it says, the measure you use, it will be measured unto you. Okay?
And right before it, it said, be careful how you hear. Okay? So today, I want you to be careful how you hear, and I want you to measure the words that Chevy is saying, or Philipp Chevrier is saying today. And and I want you to measure them as if they matter to your life, so that it will be measured on you. You'll get the the the benefit of those words in your life, and his goodness, his kingdom will multiply in your life as a result of it.
Amen? So everybody say, I'm gonna be careful I hear. How I hear. I'm gonna honor *Jesus* and what is said. So, I can get a great kingdom effect.
In my life. Amen. Alright. Mister Philip Chevrolet. Amen.
Alright. I'm excited today, church. Amen. I'm excited. And I gotta, you know, I I gotta do my best pastor David impression.
My name is Philip Gregory. My friends call me Chevy, and we've been going to this church since 2019, me and my wife and our 3 kids. Real church is our home church, and there's no place we'd rather be. Amen? Amen.
Thank you, Jesus. Church, I got a word for you today. I was so excited and hyped for this word, I left my phone at home on accident. I always you would I take my phone everywhere, and I left my phone at home. God's God's and watch out.
Watch out. I think God God may have something a little more than you're expecting today. So let's pray. You're so good, Jesus. You're so good.
And we love you. We honor you today. We know that what you have done, we know what you're doing now, and we know what you're gonna do in the future. Take these words. Take my words, take your scripture, and pierce their hearts.
In your holy name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. The title of this sermon is Jehovah Nissi, the Lord is my banner.
Church, you will never be satisfied merely to know about God. Knowing God only comes through experience as he reveals himself to you. We know the phrase that when Jesus was tempted in the desert for 40 days, you know, Jesus said to the devil, he said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Amen. Okay?
So I will I will say this, man should not live by sermons alone. Okay? But by every word that comes from God when you speak to him and when you have a relationship with him.
That's right.
Because what I'm saying church is revealed to me, and now I'm giving it to you. *God* wants to reveal himself to you specifically as you grow a **personal relationship** with him. That's right. And so when Moses, okay, he was at the burning bush in in Exodus right here, verse 13, it says, Moses said to God, suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, what is his name? Then what shall I tell them?
God said to Moses, **I am who I am**. That is what you say to the Israelites. I am has sent you. God introduces himself with the names of Jehovah. Jehovah, the Latinized word of Yehua or Yahweh, meaning I am, beginning and end.
The 1 and only God. The root name means self existing, 1 who never came into being, 1 who will always be. When we see Yahweh and Jehovah in scripture, what he's saying, he's saying I'm beyond comprehension. And yet and yet, this grand amazing God that it's hard to wrap our mind around is speaking personally to Moses. And as we look in the Old Testament, God is talking to him face to face like a friend, and we can't overlook that, can we?
Because that is the same God that is still speaking to this very day. Are we listening? *Jesus*, that we would listen and hear the words that you have to say.
That's right.
And so in the Bible, *God* took the initiative to reveal himself to people by experience. Frequently, when God revealed himself to individuals, he enclosed a new name to them or described himself in a new way. Okay. To a Hebrew, a person's name represented his character and described his nature. This is why in the Bible, we frequently see new names of God or titles for God following an event in which someone has experienced God.
To know God by name requires a personal experience of his presence. Yeah. Names are important. Me and my wife, we named our 3 children, we wanted to go old school. Okay?
We wanted to go 18 hundreds type. Okay? So we went our first Lincoln, we know that guy. Okay? We went Vivian for number 2.
She's 3. Lincoln's 5. Then Vivian number 3, and then Harrison for number 3. Our boy, 6 months, he's 6 months old. Okay?
The the funny thing is people judge your names. They do. Okay? They do. Because every time I'm Puerto Rican, 100% Puerto Rican.
Okay? My parents grew up in the Bronx, and so then every time I would go to my father and my mom, and I'd say, alright, we're ready. We got a name for our child. First boy, Lincoln. They would go, okay.
Alright. Yeah. And then, next, Vivian. Oh, that's nice. And then and then the last 1, Harrison.
Good name. Good name. And the funny thing is I knew exactly what they were thinking. Okay? Because 1 of my cousins, I just saw my cousins, 1 of my cousins a couple weeks ago, they were talking with my father, and my dad said, yeah, they named their son Harrison.
That's such a white name. And I'm looking I'm looking I look at my cousin, I'm like, yeah, of course, my dad would say that. Okay? It's not my fault. I married a woman the complexion of the moon.
Okay? And so and so, and I said, dad, my real name is Philip, my brother, his name is Thaddeous, and my other brother is Samuel. They're not Javier, Juan, or, you know, whatever it is. So you you do you check that, dad. I'm not sending the sermon to my dad.
Okay? I'm not I'm not gonna love you, dad, if you send this, but we're not yeah. We're not doing that. *Names* are important church. They're powerful and they carry weight to them.
Yes. Okay? And so let's what we're gonna do right now, we're gonna look into where Jehovah Nissi, the Lord is my banner when that first comes into the scriptures right here. So we're gonna look at *Exodus-17:8*. The Amalekites came and attacked the *Israelites* at Rephidim.
Moses said to Joshua, choose some of our men to go out and fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow, I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands. So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses ordered, and Moses, Aaron, and her went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning. But whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning.
When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone, put it under him, and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held up his hands, 1 on 1 side, 1 on the other, so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword. Then the Lord said to Moses, write this down on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it because I will completely blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven. And so Moses built an altar and called it the lord is my banner.
He said because hands were lifted up against the throne of the lord, the lord will be at war against Amalek from generation to generation. Church, I wanna put on the record right now and set the record straight. This is the key to everything in this moment. When you're fighting your battles, whatever they may be, you do 2 things and not 1. You give your best in the valley while "holding up the banner" on the hill.
You get all the help you need to keep your hands high to overwhelm, which is overwhelming you. Jehovah Nissi, the Lord is your banner. And so if we look at the word in the in the Hebrew, the root word banner comes from the word to be high or raised above, and so a lot of the names of God, they they make sense, and they're very easy, but this 1 is interesting. Why does God wanna tell us that he is our banner? Okay.
Another word for a banner looking at it would be a flag. It's an item we hold and and raise above and let everyone know what we prioritize, what we belong to, what we fight for, and what we compete for. You all know that's that famous statue of the of The US soldiers, and they're holding the flag up. Okay? They did not want to let the flag fall to the ground because the flag is a rallying point.
It lets everybody know this is where we're at. Come here. Come together in this moment because we have a battle to fight. I mean, we think we think about the Olympics. The Olympics are coming up in 2024, and that is an awesome time where all the countries come together, and they they're they're playing all sorts of different things, but in the beginning, the opening stages, there is a procession of people walking out, and they are decked out in their flags.
They are always there caring, they're dressed up in the colors. K? They got the flags waving behind them, and they're smiling, and they're showing off to everyone. This is who I am. This is where I'm from.
Don't ever forget it. This is my country. All throughout human history, people have fashioned flags or banners because it actually goes beyond nations. Okay? We use this symbolize to a group whether what they belong to and what they're passionate about, any cause.
Think about the marches that are going on across this nation. You look at it is very distinguishable if someone holds up a flag waving Israel, everybody knows what they stand for. They know where they stand. And if somebody is marching in the streets with a Palestinian flag waving it, oh, I know what they believe in. I know whose side they're on.
1 of the first things people do when it comes to a cause, something they believe in, okay, they wanna say, here, who is this is who we are. This is what we're passionate about. Here's our flag. Here's our banner. There's something in human nature that shows we need to fly something.
We need to show everybody this this is what's important to me. And then we have the our Old Testament God right here, Jehovah in the Old Testament. We know he's not just an Old Testament God. Right? Right.
He is of the New Testament. He's the same. He hasn't changed at all. But the original flag, the original banner, Jehovah Nissi, okay, he says something completely different. He says, I am the 1 that you fight for and from.
I am the 1 you place your identity into. I am the only thing you should be anchored to. I am the 1 that gives you purpose. I am the cause above all causes. I am Jehovah Nissi.
And so if we're looking at this passage right here, we have to get a little bit of context of how the Israelites got to this point in Exodus-7. They're in rough shape, church. They really are because just a few verses before when they arrive into Rephidim, this valley, they don't have any water. They have just been liberated. Okay.
They've been liberated from slavery, and now they're marching through the desert, and you know what? I gotta read it right here. This is this is what it says right here because Moses called this place where the Israelites quarreled. They tested the Lord, and they said, is the Lord among us or not? You ever asked that question?
Is God really for me? Is God in my corner, or is he not? You see, but the Israelites, they they should know a little bit better because that's the end of the part, but they didn't have any water. So what happened? Moses went to God, and God said, you're gonna go to this rock.
You're gonna take the staff, and I'm gonna provide water for you. He provided a miracle for them so that they can survive. The Israelites could not survive without God. They were completely and solely dependent on him. Because even before, they were hungry.
They needed food to eat. So what happens? Manna from heaven just displayed each morning for them to have. They have this great snack, and then they said that's not enough. We need meat.
*God*, again, provides for them. He gives them the quail. He gives them meat. God has been providing for them. He has been in their corner every step of the way.
They cannot survive without him. Okay? And now, they come across the very first battle of many battles to get to the promised land, to get to where God has called them to meet. B, God was fighting all their battles for them before, wasn't he? He was fighting in Egypt.
He delivered them, all that stuff, and now he says, we're doing this together. We're gonna do this together. And so, the *Amalekites* come up against them. Who are the Amalekites? They're a group of people led by Amalek.
*Amalek* was a descendant of Esau, and we remember the story of Jacob and Esau. So this is they're fighting their cousins here, their relatives. They had completely turned their backs on God. They had been worshiping false gods and giving themselves over to evil for generations. Amalek is a clear picture right here of evil.
This is a clear picture of Satan advancing on the people of God, advancing and trying to destroy what God had said is the purpose and what they wanna do. There is an Amalek always fighting against us, church, and he wants to take away what God has given you. He wants to distract you, pull you away from the promises and the plans that God has for you. And so what does God do? What is what is the result?
The solution is that Moses, Joshua, you're gonna "fight the battle" down there in the valley. I'm gonna hold up the banner. I'm gonna hold up the staff of God. This is the same staff that he did the same motion when they parted the Red Sea. This is the same staff that Moses took and hit the rock with to give them water.
The same staff that he took that staff and he put it in to the Nile River to turn it to blood, so that he could show Pharaoh that God is king. And so I know Joshua had no doubt. He said, it's that staff, we got this. We got this. So the first point that I I wanna let you know of is church, we need to check our posture.
Do you think when Joshua was fighting, he's got his Israelites, his people there. Okay. First of all, the Israel, they were not they were not really an army yet. They weren't. They were just a nomadic people.
They didn't really have the the techniques to be in the battle, and now they gotta go up against a group of people that have already known that. And so Joshua, he's imagine they're fighting the battle, he says, oh, we're advancing. We're getting it ahead of them. We're oh, no. They're they're coming against us.
Now, they're they got us behind the ropes. Up. We're we're ahead now. Did he think that it was actually dependent on what he was doing? Because in reality, it was the posture of Moses on the mountain that was deciding the battle that was in place.
So many times in our life, we want to focus on the practical. We want to say, okay, if I'll just think good thoughts. Okay? Let me get the good vibes from everybody. Okay?
Let me get the self help thing. If I will it, then it can come to pass, but it's the posture of your heart. Hands lifted, praising, and seeking after God. That is the ultimate decision. Church, don't get me wrong.
You need to fight the battle. Okay? God didn't do it by himself. He had the Israelites fighting also, but the ultimate victory came from the Lord. And so church, I need your help in this moment right here.
I got a couple scriptures to read, and we we got a little battle to fight. So hands raised, hands up. Okay. We're we're not gonna hold it as long as Moses did. Okay?
*Psalms-63* verse 4. So I will bless you as long as I live. I will lift up my hands in your name. *Psalms-1:41* verse 2. May my prayer be counted as incense before you, the lifting of my hands as an evening offering.
Last 1. We're not losing, church. First Timothy second 8, therefore, want men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing. Alright. We're we're good.
We're good. You can leave them up if you want. No. I'm just kidding. Paul's saying right here, he's like, we lift our hands to heaven.
We therefore present everything we are, everything we've done, everything we have. When I lift, when you lift, when I lift our hands for worship, we're lifting up our families, our loved ones, our relationship, our work, our money, everything, it's going to him. The Greek word for holy hands in this moment, Paul used the Greek word, which describes something that is **consecrated or dedicated** to God. When you lift your hands up to heaven, what does God see? Does he see a life that is consecrated and dedicated?
Does he see sacrifice? Does he see commitment? Because when we present dedicated, consecrated, holy lives up to God. Because it's your posture that will determine the outcome to Jesus. But you see church, you got your hands up, you got your posture of your heart right, you're you're fighting.
It's a battle. Sometimes every day, it feels like there are things coming up against you. Right? But see, we have an enemy. *John-10:10* says, Jesus says, have come to give you "life to the full", but there is an enemy that is seeking to kill, steal, and destroy everything from you.
For every Jehovah Nissi plan that he has in your life, Satan and the enemy, the Amalekites, they have something completely completely different from you. He wants to keep you distracted. Okay? Our culture wants to make you make the insignificant seem significant.
That's right. That's good too.
They want they want to put a major on the minors. The things that don't really have an outcome, oh, we'll we'll put all our attention to that because they wanna keep us consumers. Right? This consumer mentality, and unfortunately, happens in the church, pastor David. Okay?
If I just consume enough sermons, if I just consume enough things, then I'll be fine because that's what our culture is. Everybody just consume television, music, social media. Okay? It's social media started as something to connect with your buddy who was in high school. Now, we're not even listening to them anymore.
We're listening to curated things from corporations to tell us this is where you go. Let's guide you to where you go. The enemy wants us distracted. Let's go back to the Amalekites real quick. *Deuteronomy-25:17* and 18.
Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and attacked all who were lagging behind. They had no fear of God. Church, you can have a great posture. Okay?
But we understand that what we are fighting against is not physical flesh and blood, but it is principalities. It is the spiritual. There is demons. There are things that are trying to infiltrate our minds and rip us away from what God has for us. Moses went to the mountaintop, but he didn't go alone.
He did not go alone, did he? His arms, he was in the right position. He had his hands exactly where he needed to be. His heart was in the right place. He knew exactly, but it got heavy.
His arms started to go down, and in that moment, he sees that as his hands are dropping below where they are, the battle is being lost. They are losing. Church, next point, who are you gonna call? Who are you gonna call? It's not the Ghostbusters.
Who
are you gonna call whenever your hands start to get heavy? Okay. You've been fighting the good fight, but there is a spiritual weight on your shoulders. Moses didn't do it alone. He had Aaron and her there to help him, to pick him up.
I don't think we understand how important small groups are. I don't I don't real I I really don't think that we understand that there is so much more than just showing up to church. Okay? Watching what's happening, and then going back home, and then nothing nothing else happens. Okay?
There is there is a life changing thing that happens when you hear the word, and then you go home, and you talk to other people about it. People who believe that God is real, and they're going through their own struggles. They're going through their own trials. Okay? And you can talk to each other and say, this is what God told me.
And they're like, well, this is what God told me. These are my prayer requests. My family is in need. I'm sick. They'll hold your hands up, and they'll say, we're praying for you.
We're we're with you no matter what. This is why we come to church. This is why we gather together. Okay? But if you just come on Sundays, and you don't engage in what's happening, you will put on a nice smile, and you'll say, yeah, everything's good.
Alright. Heading back to the car. But when you get into when you get into that setting, who is it that you can call that they can see past the smile, and they can say, what's really going on? Because *God* can speak through anything. He can even speak through the person sitting next to you.
He can speak to your small group leader. He can speak to the person praying for you. Who are you gonna call when the weight of the spiritual battle is heavy on your shoulders? Who is it gonna be that they see that you're standing, and it's tough, and they say, here's a rock to sit on. Let me get you a seat.
Moses, let me get you a seat to sit on. Your hands are air and her, gather around. We're we're we're praying for this right now. We're getting this up right now. We're we're we're gonna defeat the enemy.
It has no hold on you because we're in this together. And you know what it you know what it is? We love the phrase iron sharpens iron.
Yeah.
But people aren't ready for the sparks. They're not ready for the sparks because they don't want someone to see into their life and correct them and say, hey, I see this. I think God is telling you this. No. It's okay.
I'm just gonna come to church on Sundays. I'm just gonna come to church on Sundays where even though I can hear a challenging word, pastor's not gonna really talk to me about it later. Preach. Mic drop. We have so many Pastor David, you said this.
There are spiritual orphans in the in the in the body of Christ that don't wanna settle under a church because they don't wanna get their feelings hurt. They don't wanna share of themselves because they are afraid, and the Amalekites are overtaking them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
They are getting overwhelmed, and they don't they're taking l's left and right. You know, like the gamer kids, you know, they love that. They're they're losing, and they're wondering what's going on. They need someone to hold them up.
That's right. Come on.
Are you gonna call? Who's it gonna be? Church, for me and my family, Wheel Church is my home. Okay? This is our home, and we have formed relationships, and there are people I know that I trust, that I can share with them what's going on, and they'll hold me up Come on.
Amen. No matter what happens. And they're not judging because it's out of love. Fighting in the valley is necessary, but the victory is 1 holding up the banner. Holding up the banner.
Going into the our the the third, the final point, we gotta get rid of the Amalekites. We gotta "get rid of them". Okay? Let's let's let's take a look. Let's let's read again what God says.
He says, the Lord said to Moses, write this scroll down. Put it on the record. He says, make sure that Joshua hears it. Okay? Because I will completely blot out the Amalekites from under heaven.
The Amalekites are evil. The Amalekite is sin that wants to tear you to pieces and wants to stop you. And God is saying, I'm taking them out. He said, Amalekites, if you ever mess with my people, you're gonna be gone, and I'm gonna take a step ahead. I'm gonna wipe out everything, every sin, everything that is trying to stop you, trying to stop my people.
You mess with them, you mess with me. But you see, sometimes we're satisfied with **partial victories** when God says to wipe it out completely. There are things that God is telling you. You know, I pray right now that God starts revealing stuff to you. *Jesus, right now, I pray that as we speak, Lord*, there are things in each of our lives that you are calling us to get rid of and to destroy and to put aside Jesus that you would that you would use supernaturally your holy spirit to bring to mind all the stuff, the garbage that doesn't belong here, belong there for total victory over sin, over the things that are stopping us from what you want us to be, Jesus.
We're satisfied with partial victories, you know. You know, we're we say, oh, but the Amalekites, it's not all bad. Maybe I'll just keep this part of them. Okay? So instead of giving them part time rights, we'll give them a little, know, we'll just give them visitation rights to get into our life.
And then visitation rights end up coming back as squatters rights, and then we can't get rid of them. When you don't get rid of the root cause of the things that of the sin in our lives, it comes back with a vengeance.
That's right.
It keeps on coming back. Church, my God, cancer is is is terrible. It's destructive, and it kills so many people. When the doctors go in, they don't celebrate when they got almost all the cancer. They say, we did exactly what we wanted.
We got every single bit of the cancer. It's gone. That's right. That's when you get the relief off your shoulders in that moment. We need to take it out.
But you see, sometimes, we know exactly what it is, but we don't wanna give it up. You see, sometimes there are obvious things, and there's things that are not so obvious that it could be bad habits that we've created that are shutting things off from what God wants to do in your life. But it's been ingrained into us so much, I can't give that up. I can't give up that person. I've known him too long.
I can't give up this thing that I see, that I watch, that I read, this thing that I do every single day, and we don't even know that it's forming a rift between you and God. And so we have a staring contest with God to see who blinks first. Okay? They're like, okay. I think maybe I got him.
Got them. I'm a keep this. I got this. No. Everything else is fine.
But this, I will will do good with this. And God, he looks at us so lovingly, and he's like, I know you. He says, you know you. He says, you know that I know that you know you. He's like, it's time to give it up.
He's like, it's coming back when you least expect it. He says, it's gonna come back. He's like, but he's so loving. He's like, I'll be here again when it happens. Right?
I'll be here again, but can we get it now? Can we destroy it now? For those people who haven't had a relationship with Christ, this is the time you can say, God, wipe the slate clean. Take it all away, God, and I wanna live for you, and he'll do it. It'll be a process, but he'll do it.
And then for the people who have who have made that decision, made the choice to seek after God, and we say he is Lord, that means we're a new creation. We are brand new. Amen. Okay? But it doesn't mean that their temptations and sins are gonna be there.
And so we are in this new created awesome thing that God is propelling us to, and we're carrying around "dead weight". We're carrying around stuff that we've been released from, but we're still lugging it around. We gotta get rid of the Amalekites. So let's talk a little bit more of that because we said God said, I'm gonna get rid of them. I'm getting rid of them.
*1 Samuel-15*. Samuel said to Saul I don't have this scripture up there. Sorry, guys. But it says, I'm the 1 the Lord Samuel says, so I'm the 1 the Lord sent you to anoint you king over the people of Israel. So listen to the message of the Lord.
This is what the Lord Almighty says. I will punish the *Amalekites* for what they did to Israel when they were laid them when they came up from Egypt. See, God didn't forget. He didn't forget what they did, and he said, this is the vent. This is what's gonna happen.
We are gonna get them now. We're gonna take this out. Now, go back. Attack the Amalekites. Totally destroy them and all who belong to them.
Do not spare them. Put to death men, women, children, infants, cattle, sheep, donkeys. And this is where people are like, oh, woah, woah. Woah, God. This is too much.
That's too much. Well, what what are you doing? But isn't God the all seeing God, the omniscient, all powerful God, and he knows what happens when we let those things continue? And so Saul has his marching orders, but he doesn't kill all the Amalekites. He doesn't do it.
And then, what does he do? He has a partial victory. He keeps all the good sheep. He keeps all the good things, and he spares the king. He spares all those people, and he praises God, and he even sets up a sacrifice, and he says, I did it.
I did it. I got him. I did what you said. And Samuel, okay, verse 16, enough. Let me tell you what the Lord told me last night.
He says, let me tell you what the Lord told you. He says, you're no longer fit to be king. You didn't listen, and this is the this is the the parts where this is a powerful piece of scripture right here. He said, **to obey is better** than sacrifice. To obey is better than sacrifice.
What is God telling you to do? Because he's calling for our obedience. We gotta get rid of the Amalekites. So he does it. Right?
He doesn't get rid of them. Saul's like, oh, maybe, you know, he's like, oh, I've sinned. I messed up. Can we go back? Can I still be king?
Same as like, no. I'm gonna we're anointing another 1. Church, when we don't get rid of the stuff, the sin, the stuff that's pulling us apart, it affects everybody around us. Because later on in that chapter chapter, it's 1 Samuel-30, David gets attacked by the Amalekites, the next king, the the king, and they go in, and they raid his camp for all his men. They take all his women.
They they they take all the wives of the people. They take their cattle. Now David has to deal with the Amalekites. Saul was supposed to take care of him the first time, but he didn't. They came back with a vengeance, and the next generation has to deal with the sins of the previous 1.
Come on.
Let's deal with it now. Let's listen and obey now for what God has to do, and see the promise to the church, it gets worse. David defeats the Amalekites. Okay? And then Saul fights against the Philistines, and he loses bad, and he doesn't wanna get captured, he doesn't wanna get killed, so he falls on his own sword, and he kills himself.
Second Samuel, somebody comes up to David, okay, and he says, hey, I killed Saul. David says, who are you? He says, I'm an Amalekite. He said, Saul was begging for his life to kill him, and I killed him. What does David do?
He said, how dare you touch the anointed 1? And he kills him right there in the moment. The enemy is just waiting to dance on your grave, and he's gonna come back, and if you don't take him, the next generation is gonna have to deal with what's what what's left over. We gotta kill the Amalekites. We check our posture.
We invite people in to hold our arms up, and then we destroy the sin and destruction that wants to stop us. There's always gonna be an Amalek. There will always be war, but it doesn't mean it has to overwhelm you. It's tough, it's trying. Sometimes our vision gets blurred of what's where do I need to go?
What do I need to do? You know, I like movies. I like watching movies. I think we all kinda watch movies and things like that. 1 of my favorite movies, it's gotta be top 5, is the movie called Inception.
It's the director, Christopher Nolan, he's the guy who made Oppenheimer this year. Okay? He's an And the main character in this, Leonardo DiCaprio. Okay? Good looking man.
Okay. So Leonardo DiCaprio, he's the main character, and his job is an extractor of information. And so the main character is supposed to extract information, but he goes into their dreams to do it. So he would enter a dream. He then enters the dream's dream.
He goes into the dream's dream dream. We're not done. He then goes into the dream's dream's dream's dream. 4 levels of dreams to get this information. The only problem is when you go that deep, *reality* is distorted and get all confused.
So what he did, he created a totem. Okay? A spinning top. A totem is an instrument designed to guide you. So this is what he did.
Whenever he wanted to know which world he was in, he would "spin the top". If he spun the top and it kept spinning, didn't fall over, he knew that he was in the dream world. But if he spun the top and it fell over, that meant that he was in the real world. He established ahead of time what the standard would be. He established what he would operate under, and he would know that he was in the real world by virtue of what the top did.
Did it fall over or did it keep spinning? That is how he measured *reality*. Stuff can get so confusing sometimes. You know? We're "fighting these battles".
We we're we're trying to keep that posture. We're doing everything we have, but the Amalekites, they keep on pressing, and we're not sure. We're like the Israelites, okay, who the Israelites have seen everything that God has done. He has provided for them, and yet, they still ask the question, "is God really for us"? You're not sure if you're coming or going, you'd you're not sure what's and it gets crazy, so you need a standard **outside of yourself** to tell yourself about yourself.
You need something outside of you to measure you. It will determine reality and which decisions you will make that are tied to a standard, not tied to your emotions and how you feel and what you want. You need something outside of yourself to tell you reality. It's the standard. And some of us are operating with the enemy, thinking that we're operating with the Lord.
Some of us are operating under a falsehood, but we're thinking we're operating under the truth. It's a loaded word these days. Right? Whose truth? Your truth?
Their truth? My truth? What is the truth? There must be a standard in which we operate, and there is. His name is Jesus Christ.
Amen. And we filter this life. We filter everything through who Jesus Christ is and what he's done. Isaiah-9:6, for a child will be born to us, a son will be given, and the government will rest on his shoulders, and his name will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, eternal father, prince of peace. We operate by the reality of Jesus, not by what we see.
Just like the prophet Elijah, 2 Kings-6, he opened the eyes of the servant because they were surrounded, and what did Elisha say? There's more of us than there are of them. And when he opened the eyes of the servant, they were surrounded by "chariots of fire" and angels all around them. Jewish scholars, they say that the word of God is like a 70 faceted, 70 faceted diamond, that when you turn it, you find something new every single time. And so, for every situation that you fight, every every battle that you go through, God will reveal his character and reveal who he is to you.
You're fighting this battle, and you don't feel like God sees you. There's the name of God, Elroy, the God who sees. *Jehovah Jireh*. He's the provider. David, when he was fighting Goliath, you know what name he evoked?
Jehovah Sabbath, the God of the angel armies. And then you're not sure if in the midst of your struggles, if God is there, Jehovah Shammah, the Lord is there. *Jehovah Shalom*, the Lord is your peace. When the burden is heavy and it's chaotic, Jehovah shalom is your peace. *Jehovah Rapha* is the healer.
He will touch you. He will heal you because that is who he is. And then you make the mistake, and you you've been keeping around the Amalekites for too long, and you're like, God, I've messed up too much. I don't think I don't think you wanna take me back. Jehovah M.
Kadesh, the Lord who sanctifies. He's the Lord, our righteousness, Jehovah, he is the solid rock that we stand on, Jehovah Suri. And the banner that holds up everything, and that we look to, that we set the standard to, *Jehovah Nissi*. He's our God. Church, let's go ahead and stand up onto our feet.
I wanna pray for you today. Pray that God opens your hearts and eyes and that he has been speaking to you, and that you don't forget. Let's set our posture, praising and glorifying who he is. Let's not give up meeting together because we need someone to help when we get weary and our hands get heavy. *Jesus* right now, help us to get rid of the sin, the destruction.
Let's get rid of the *Amalekites* right now. *Jesus*, we honor you. We love you. Thank you for your word. Thank you for your power.
What a mighty God you are today. *Jesus*. Jesus, the name above all names. Help us. Guide us.
In your holy name, pray. Amen. Amen. Church. Would
you would you guys give a you a big old hand? Love you, brother. Man's full of Jesus. I wanna I wanna say this, you know, the the the thought about the movie inception, everything in the totem or the standard. Right?
Man, I was just getting that picture. I was thinking through as he was preaching that, when we're in the valley, we raise our hand based on the standard of who Jesus is, who the word who the word says God is, and who the word says we are in him. So we're we're praising him for that in the midst of the valley. As he said, when when we have trouble doing that, we need strong brothers and sisters around us to help us keep our hands up, to remind us of the standard of the word, and to remind us of who Christ is, and who we are in him, because sometimes we may forget on our own. Amen?
And that helps us to defeat the enemies and take out all the Amalekites. So we're gonna do something a little bit different right now. See, discipleship doesn't happen in rows. **discipleship happens** in circles. Circles around the table, around the dinner table, around lunch together, and when you're praying together, when you're when you're sitting in the word together, you're hanging out face to face.
That's how discipleship happens. And so, to to spur us on in point number 2, I want instead of having all of our leaders come to the forward and and some of you guys that need prayer coming, here's what I wanna do. And this this is your first time here, praise the Lord. It's an opportunity to meet somebody. I want you to get in circles of 5, and I want you
to
pray for each other.