Cameron: 00:07

Hey. Welcome, everyone. My name is Cameron. I'm here to deliver the sermon for you this morning. We've been in the book of Exodus for a number of weeks now.

Cameron: 00:21

I don't even know how many weeks that's been, but we're in the seventeenth chapter of Exodus. So if you have a Bible, take it out, open it. Exodus chapter 17. If you have a Bible in front of you and you're like, I want to follow along. I'm new to this faith thing.

Cameron: 00:37

I don't know where Exodus is. This is a really easy one for you. Okay? Exodus is the second book in your Bible. Okay?

Cameron: 00:46

So if you open it up and you're going to hit Genesis first, and there's 50 chapters in Genesis, and then you're going to hit Exodus. Bible, Bible or books of the Bible are broken up by chapter and verse. And so we're in chapter 17 of the book of Exodus this morning, verse eight through verse 16. I'm gonna read that for you this morning, and then we'll jump right in. If you remember last week and where we are in the continuation of the story up until this point, is that Moses has led the Israelites through the power and presence of God out of captivity in Egypt, through the Red Sea, destroyed Pharaoh's army on the other side of the Red Sea now, going through the wilderness or the desert.

Cameron: 01:41

They complained to Moses, We have no food and we have nothing to drink. We are starving and we are thirsty. And so Moses cried out to the Lord. Remember we talked about what crying out to the Lord means. It's this deep, guttural spirit, spirit level prayer where it's like the situation is so desperate and we are so out of our depth of being able to solve it on our own, that a prayer comes like from the core of who we are.

Cameron: 02:15

Lord, where are you? Are you going to show up and help me and save me or not? Because you are my only hope. And so Moses cries out to the Lord and the Lord answers. He says, I'm going to send you quail and I'm going to send you manna.

Cameron: 02:34

And what does manna mean? Who remembers from last week? What is it? Right? It was the provision of the Lord was so mysterious to the people that they didn't even have a name for it.

Cameron: 02:44

So they just called said it's like, is it? And the name stuck. Manna means what is it? The first part of chapter 17, we did not talk about last week. We're not going to talk about it this week, but the Reader's Digest condensed version of those first seven chapters is that they were also needing something to drink, a fresh source of water.

Cameron: 03:08

And so Moses was instructed to take the staff that the Lord had entrusted to him and march up to the base of Mount Horeb, which is also Mount Sinai, and strike the rock with a staff and water would flow from it. And it would be out of that spring that the Israelites would be able to drink fresh water. And so they had just gone through a season of being delivered from the hand of the Egyptians and from Pharaoh and his army. Now they have been delivered seemingly from their own heart of distrust that the Lord would provide for their needs as they traveled to the promised land. You see, it took a little while to get the Israelites out of Egypt.

Cameron: 04:01

It took some doing, but they're finally out of Egypt. The rest of the book of Exodus is really about getting Egypt out of the Israelites. Getting this sense of like slavery, getting this sense of desperation, getting this sense of hopelessness out from their memory and replacing it with God's faithfulness. God's saying, Look, I've provided for you in the past. This way, this way, this way, this way.

Cameron: 04:34

I'm going to provide for you in the future. And I'm going to provide for you in the future. And I'm going to provide for you in the future. And so now they've been delivered out of Egypt. God is now like delivering Egypt out of them.

Cameron: 04:48

We got we all got a little bit of Egypt in us. And they come to an experience in verse eight that is the first their first kind of real experience with warfare, like actual warfare. They were on the brink of it when Pharaoh's army was chasing them and they backed him up to the Red Sea. They kind of turned around, saw Pharaoh's army coming and thought, Well, I guess we're going to have to fight, even though we're not a fighting nation. And the Lord was like, No, I will make a way.

Cameron: 05:21

So they started going through the sea and the Lord took care of it. But now, chapter 17, verse eight, they're now faced with the first circumstance where they're actually going to have to fight in order to ensure their survival. So let's read Exodus 17 verses eight through 16. The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites.

Cameron: 06:10

Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands. So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered. And Moses, Aaron, and Hur 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.

Cameron: 06:36

When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up, one on one side and one on the other, so that his hands remained steady until sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with a sword. Then the Lord said to Moses, write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it because I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Moses built an altar and called it the Lord is my banner.

Cameron: 07:14

He said, for hands were lifted up to the throne of the Lord. The Lord will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation. Man, the Amalekites, mean, there's no other way to say it. The Amalekites kind of ticked the Lord off because he was clear in the word that his intent was to wipe them off like the history pages. To be at war with them from generation to generation.

Cameron: 07:52

We're gonna talk about this morning, my intent is to use this passage of scripture to talk about three key factors in being victorious in the midst of a battle that you are facing. I don't really know anyone in life right now that doesn't feel like they are facing or fighting some sort of battle. Sometimes the battle is really, really practical in their life and it's named and it's very, very clear. Sometimes the battles maybe seem a little bit more veiled or vague or difficult for us to put our finger on. I mean, I'm just continuing to fight this battle internally with my thoughts.

Cameron: 08:57

I don't really know how to like explain that. I don't know how to articulate that. But it's like my thought world, my inner life, my mental and emotional processes, they just always feel that turmoil. I always feel dysregulated or unbalanced. I'd have no sense of peace.

Cameron: 09:15

I have no sense of joy. I have no sense of hope. And while that is a very, very, very real battle that many of us face, it's sometimes difficult to articulate that to others or to kind of like pin it down and know what to do about it. Some of us are facing battles that are much more practical and that are right in front of us. We have, maybe it may be a battle, it may be a medical battle.

Cameron: 09:47

I am very sick. My friend is very sick. My loved one is very sick. We know what the future holds. We don't know what is next.

Cameron: 09:58

We don't know how to move forward. Feel lost. I we feel have already lost. Sometimes it's a battle that we're facing in relationship. We feel like a relationship that we have is a constant battle, right?

Cameron: 10:14

Just never on the same page, always one step forward or one step back, never synced up, never in unity, feeling like there's just this sense of we can't get it right and I am so sick of fighting it. We all face battles and maybe a battle that you're facing is not one that I listed there, but I am trusting that the Holy Spirit of God is witnessing to your spirit right now, to bring to mind immediately the battle that you're facing. Because we all are facing them. Now, this is not in itself a prescription to win every battle. But what we can say is that there are factors involved in the battle that Moses and the Israelites fought with the Amalekites that can help us to understand what it is that we need to do in order to make space for the Lord to show up and fight for us.

Cameron: 11:23

Okay? The first thing that pops out in this set of verses here, verses seven through 16 in Exodus 17 is the enemy that they're facing. This is the first time we've heard about the Amalekites. You're going hear about them a lot through the rest of the Old Testament. And while the focus of the message today is not on who the Amalekites are.

Cameron: 11:51

Maybe a little bit of context for reference would be helpful. People groups were always named after their, in some ways named after their forefather, like the primary descendant of that people group. So like the Israelites, well, who was the person Israel? Jacob was renamed Israel. Right?

Cameron: 12:15

Thus being the Israelites. They came from the lineage of Jacob. Okay? The Amalekites came from a guy named Amalek, who was the son of Eliphaz, who was Esau's oldest boy. Right?

Cameron: 12:36

So Esau was the twin brother of who? Jacob, right? So the Amalekites were in, like by the way that we understand family connections, they were cousins to the Israelites, but they came as kind of like separate lineage. One from Jacob who became the chosen one of God, right? And the Israelites came from him.

Cameron: 13:03

And Esau who had Eliphaz and then Amalek, it went the other way. They were the first nation or the first people group in the Old Testament to kind of outright attack the Israelite people, the people of God. They were the first ones to come and wage war. We don't have really any information about why they did, although in most cases in the ancient Near East, and especially in that time, wars were fought over land and resources. A very large group of people like the Israelites traveling through the desert would have been a possible issue for the Amalekites who were a nomadic people traveling to wherever the resources took them so that they could survive.

Cameron: 13:56

Certainly the Amalekites could have seen the Israelites as a danger or as a threat to their ability to have resources for their people. We don't know much about the fight that happened here or the attack that happened here in the book of Exodus, But in the book of Deuteronomy, the author of Deuteronomy recounts the battle or the circumstances around which the Amalekites attacked the Israelites. And so we have a little bit more information there. He says in Deuteronomy chapter 25 verses seventeen and nineteen, it says, Hey, remember when the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt? When you were weary and you were worn out, they met you on your journey and cut off all who were lagging behind.

Cameron: 14:52

They had no fear of God. When the Lord your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land he is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget. So what were the Amalekites doing? Essentially, if you imagine this crowd of Israelite people, and when we say a crowd, we're like, well, how big were the Israelite people at this time?

Cameron: 15:22

Conservative estimates around 2,000,000. It's a pretty large group of people. So people in the front of the group, not really aware of what was happening in the back of the group. And it said that there was when the Israelites were weary and worn out from the journey and that there were some that were lagging behind. We would typically think these were people who were elderly, who were sick, maybe even children.

Cameron: 15:52

They just could not keep up with the rest of the crowd. That the Amalekites would come and pick off those who were most vulnerable from the back. They were attacking the Israelites at their weakest and most vulnerable and indefensible positions. And this was obviously an affront to the Lord himself. They did not recognize the Lord or fear the Lord as God.

Cameron: 16:20

And so God's judgment upon them for this was that at some point they would be wiped out completely. Now this isn't really a point of the sermon this morning, but I think it may be a little bit appropriate to us, is that just very similar to the Amalekites, it seems who were the enemy of the Israelites in this case, it does seem a lot to me in my own experience that the enemy often attacks me in my places of greatest weakness and vulnerability. These are usually the places where I'm not paying much attention. Can't see to the back of the proverbial crowd of my life and things begin to lag behind. Maybe these are character issues.

Cameron: 17:12

Maybe these are issues internally. Maybe these are toxic or ungodly patterns of thought that I have allowed to continue to ruminate, and now they've taken root in my life. But it does seem to me that in my experience that the enemy always is attacking where we are most weak. Now there is, that's not something that we should be afraid of or even disconcerted about or discouraged about. It's actually what is, I don't want to say it's interesting about that, but that's a classic technique of war, right?

Cameron: 17:57

You attack at the vulnerability, you attack where things are weak. But remember, we as followers of Jesus Christ, we are citizens of the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. That is the nation to which we belong. That is our inheritance. That is our heritage.

Cameron: 18:19

That is where our citizenship is. Right? It says that, first Peter says that our citizenship is in where? Is in heaven. We belong there.

Cameron: 18:31

And if there's anything to know about the kingdom of heaven and the values of the kingdom of heaven is that they are kind of upside down from the rest of the world. I mean, like the worldly values is like, well, yeah, you have weaknesses. You need to make those weaknesses. Like you need to really bolster the defenses at your weaknesses. This is true in like, if I say it like the kingdom values of heaven different, are upside down from the kingdom values of the world.

Cameron: 19:03

We all know this to be true, right? What did Jesus say? Like, The first will be where in the kingdom of heaven? Last, right? And the last will be where in the kingdom of heaven?

Cameron: 19:16

First. And in the kingdom of heaven, right? The rich will be what? Poor and the poor will be rich. And in the kingdom of heaven, right?

Cameron: 19:25

We don't strike our enemies. What do we do with them? We love them and we pray for them, right? We pray for those who persecute you. And so like kingdom values seem to be upside down from worldly values a little bit.

Cameron: 19:40

And they distinguish us from the world around us. When you forgive someone who has harmed you significantly, you're displaying that, hey listen, I don't operate in the kingdom of this world, I operate with values of the kingdom of which I belong. And I forgive because Christ, because in Christ, God has forgiven me first. And so even if Satan, our enemy has this strategy of attacking us at our weak points, thinking that, Oh yeah, that's the Of course I'm going to attack them where they're weak. He has overplayed his hand according to the scripture.

Cameron: 20:25

Meaning that he has just attached himself to a strategy and to a position that is easily defensible by remaining a citizen of heaven. Because one of the like, if you look no further than the Apostle Paul, where he said like, Hey, listen, I will boast all the more in my weaknesses. Because it is in the very place of my weakness that God displays his most significant strength. When I am weak, it is then and it is there that God's spirit floods me with power. And so even in this place of like the Amalekites taking this type of strategy, the Lord's like, It's it's good.

Cameron: 21:21

It's good. Like, yes, you're going to get attacked at the place of your weakness. Right? But when you are weak, I am strong on your behalf. We read here, we know who the Amalekites are now.

Cameron: 21:39

We know God's plan for them. In verse nine, it says, Moses said to Joshua, when he recognized the Amalekites were attacking them, Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with a staff of God in my hands. Well, I'm gonna be honest with you. If I was Joshua, I'd be like, seems a little avoidant, Moses.

Cameron: 22:08

You're going to be where? Say that again. I'm a trifle deaf in my right ear. Moses is like, Yeah, take some of our men, go down there in the valley and go and go fight the Amalekites. I'm a peace out.

Cameron: 22:25

I'll be on the top of the hill up there. Got my staff and good luck. Right? The conversation between Moses and Joshua, although for us it may seem from this perspective of, what do you mean you're going to be on the top of the hill and Joshua and the army is going to be fighting? Why don't you pick up a sword instead, Moses, and go down into the valley and actually do something about this problem that we have?

Cameron: 22:59

That's the way I would respond. But that's because I have this, like, classic inability to circumnavigate the spiritual component of fighting the battles of my life and instead just kind of go straight to like, Well, what are the practical ways that Cameron Linehart can put his hands to fixing this thing. I don't need God's help. I don't need any friends' help. I don't need any wisdom or wise counsel.

Cameron: 23:36

I don't need any advice. I am good enough. I am smart enough. And gosh darn it, there's like five people that like me. Like that's the way that I go.

Cameron: 23:55

And so when Moses was like, Yeah, we're going to go to the top of the hill. You went down there and fight. I'd have been like, Well, why are you avoiding the battle? Why are you not jumping into the war? But what we see from the rest of the story is that the conversation between Moses and Joshua displays what is often necessary as an approach to defeat enemies and win battles.

Cameron: 24:27

A staff in one hand, a sword in another hand, and friends that are born for times of adversity. So three things here. Moses was going to the top of the mountain and he was taking his staff in his hand. He says, I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand. What was the significance of the staff of God in Moses' hands?

Cameron: 25:01

And why would he feel like his place in the midst of the battle was best at the top of the hill rather than in a valley with a sword? The whole conversation about the staff in Moses' hand begins back in Exodus chapter four, where God calls Moses to him and says, This is what I want you to do. This is how you're going to go to Pharaoh. You're going to demand the release of the Israelite people from captivity. You're going to lead them into the promised land.

Cameron: 25:36

If you look at Exodus chapter four, verses two through five, you'll see that here. Moses had just been approached by God at the burning bush. God had told Moses, I want you to lead my people into the promised land out of slavery. Go to Israel and tell them, Hey, this is what we're going to do. Go to Pharaoh and tell them, Hey, this is what we're going to do.

Cameron: 26:11

And then Moses just like full throttle into the excuses. Moses answered, Well, what if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, the Lord did not appear to you? Then the Lord said to him, what is that in your hand, Moses? Staff, he replied. The Lord said, throw it on the ground.

Cameron: 26:41

And Moses threw it on the ground, it became a snake, and he ran from it. Then the Lord said to him, reach out your hand and take it by the tail. So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. This said the Lord, is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has appeared to you. The staff was a Moses was kind of in this process of cataloging to God all of the reasons why he wasn't the man that was best for the job of leading the Israelites out of slavery.

Cameron: 27:24

I can't speak well. They won't listen to me. They won't believe me. They'll question everything. Can you please find someone else?

Cameron: 27:32

And God's response was not to agree with Moses or dis God didn't even God didn't disagree with Moses. He was like, no, no, no, no, no, bro. Like, you actually do speak really well. Like, no, no, no. They they actually probably will listen to you.

Cameron: 27:52

He didn't disagree with him at all. He just said, no, I'm going to be with you here. I'm going to go with you. God's response in this situation was to point out something that was already naturally part of Moses' life. Because you remember at that time, Moses was tending the flocks of his father-in-law Jethro in the land of Midian as a shepherd.

Cameron: 28:19

And what is the most ubiquitous part of a shepherd's stock and trade? Staff. And so God was about to use something very natural, something Moses already had, fill it with divine power for the sake of the battles that were coming up. The staff had become indicative of God's divine intervention and God's divine power with Moses. He was able to do literal miraculous things with it.

Cameron: 29:01

It turned into a snake, and he picked it back up and it turned back into a staff. That was the first demonstration that the Lord gave to him about it. But it also This was not the last time that Moses would use this staff. Throughout the Exodus story so far, starting in chapter four, all the way up into where we are right now, we see that the staff of Moses, the staff of God really in the hands of Moses, was used for many, many things. In chapter seven verse 20, he raised his staff in the presence of Pharaoh and his officials and struck the water of the Nile, and the water was changed to blood.

Cameron: 29:48

One of the plagues. He says in chapter eight verse five that he stretched his hand and his staff over the streams and canals and ponds of Egypt. And that's when all of the frogs came up in the plague. In chapter eight verse 16, he stretched out and struck the dust of the ground, and throughout the land of Egypt, all of the dust became gnats, says. In chapter nine verse 23, it's when Moses lifted his staff to the sky that the Lord opened the heavens and sent hail and lightning down to the ground, the plague of hail.

Cameron: 30:35

It's when Moses took his staff in chapter 10 verse 13, stretched it over Egypt, and the Lord made an east wind blow across that land all day and night. It was in chapter 14 verse 16 that he was instructed to raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can walk through. In chapter 17 verses five and six, Moses used the staff of God to strike the rock so that water would flow from it and provide for their needs. The staff was indicative of God's power, his divine intervention, and the sovereignty and power of God in the hands of Moses in this case. And so for Moses to go to the top of the hill to overlook the battle with the staff of God wasn't an indication that he was trying to escape the real battle, but that he had another dynamic of fighting on his mind.

Cameron: 31:45

Look here, verse 10. So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered and Moses, Aaron, and Hur 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. This is a pretty, a pretty simple concept to understand.

Cameron: 32:20

When Moses stood above the battle and with the staff of God in his hand had his hands raised, the Israelites were winning the battle. When he presumably got tired or lazy or just didn't want to do it anymore, thought it was over, he lowered his hands and the Amalekites began to overtake the Israelites. Now I did a lot of study this week on what raised hands indicate or communicate in scripture all the way from Old Testament all the way into New. And there's three primary things that raised hands in the scripture seem to communicate or indicate. The first is a posture that we all probably understand.

Cameron: 33:06

It would look not so much like hands raised in worship, but it would look a little bit more like this. Hands raised in what? Surrender, right? I give up. All right, put your hands up.

Cameron: 33:21

I give up. Hands raised to the sky, raised to the sky was a sign of spiritual surrender. I get I have nothing. I surrender. Okay?

Cameron: 33:44

The second, we will also probably be familiar with that raised hands. This is a little bit more familiar to us. Raised hands were a sign of what? Mean, yes. Worship.

Cameron: 33:58

And you might look at some of us who raise our hands during worship and be like, man, what are these people doing? This is kind of feels what are they doing? And it's not associated with any type of like religious or like faith tradition or denomination or anywhere on the spectrum of conservative or evangelical or charismatic or traditional. Hands raised to the sky has always been in the context of worship has been an expression of surrender and praise. In fact, Psalm chapter 63 verses one through four, a Psalm of David again, just one example.

Cameron: 34:47

O God, you are my God. Earnestly I seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My body longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and I have beheld your great power and your glory.

Cameron: 35:03

Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name, I will lift my hands. That the lifting of hands was not just the disposition of a heart and soul that was surrendered to God, but of a heart and soul that was raising in worship. The third way in which hands raised to the sky is used and communicated in scripture is that hands raised to the sky is a posture of prayer. Almost always a posture of prayer over a community, over a people, over a congregation, over a crowd.

Cameron: 36:03

That's why you often see pastors, ministry leaders when they pray over a crowd of people or over a congregation, right? Not here, right? But here. Bless you in the name of the Lord. Right?

Cameron: 36:21

As a way in which or a posture through which we are in prayer. And so hands raised to the sky were indicative of three things spiritually in scripture. A heart of surrender to the Lord, a heart of praise to the Lord, and a heart of prayer to the Lord. It was all about the Lord. It was all about the Lord.

Cameron: 36:47

See, Moses knew that only God's intervention in this fight would secure him the victory. And so rather than going down into the valley with a sword and a shield, he went up on the top of the hill with hands raised, knowing that the same God that had delivered them in the past needed to deliver them now in the present. The Israelites were at this point weak and incapable on their own, despite what would become their very good military leader, Joshua. And so Moses lifted hands were a sign, not that Moses was leading the people into a fight under their own strength, but by the strength of the same God that delivered them from the hand of the Egyptians and provided for them in the desert. Listen, you need to know this, hear this, and understand this about the battle that you are facing.

Cameron: 37:46

Prayer changes the dynamic of the battlefield that you are on. Prayer changes the dynamics of the battlefield that you are on. It changes the fight. It turns the spiritual, it turns the trajectory of victory in our favor. When Moses' hands were up in a posture of prayer, man, like, were they still in a fight?

Cameron: 38:18

They were still in a fight, but the battle was trending towards victory. And as soon as prayer and praise and surrender stopped, The battle was trending towards defeat. But this didn't mean that Joshua could stop fighting. He still needed to fight. And you might be asking, well, pastor, didn't you say like two or three weeks ago, four weeks ago or so when you preached, preaching out of Exodus chapter 14, when the Lord was like, I will fight for you.

Cameron: 39:02

You need only be still. Like, so, all right, Joshua was fighting. So like, but you're telling me to be still. How do we bring these things together? Remember being still is not a Sometimes it can be, and sometimes you all need to chill.

Cameron: 39:26

All right? And just sit still for a minute. Seriously. But being still as it's like, as we communicate it in scripture, it's not about like the busy body, it's about the busy mind and the busy heart. That constantly and consistently wants to wrestle control of life away from the Lord and white knuckle it ourselves, rather than saying, I will be still and allow the Lord to fight.

Cameron: 39:59

Let the Lord fight for me. Being still is an inner disposition of the heart that trusts fully in God for all things. So our hearts are at peace. We fully trust that God is good, has our best interests in view, and is for us in the battle. And we also, like Joshua did and needed to do, pick up our sword and fight.

Cameron: 40:39

See, there was three things really that led to the victory of the Israelites here. It was a person that was willing to persevere in prayer. It was a person who was willing to also pick up a sword and fight. Joshua needed to lead the people into the actual practical swinging swords and blocking the shields type of fight. The battle was to be won in this case through the partnership of man's action and God's divine intervention.

Cameron: 41:19

It says in verse 13, So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword. See, was a spiritual component to the victory that God produced. It was Moses' prayer and praise and surrender. And that there was a and there was also a practical practical component that came at the hands of Joshua that was necessary in order to see victory over the battle. See, many times the way that God comes through in victory over an enemy is through the hard work of those he sent to accomplish it.

Cameron: 42:09

If we take some of those examples from earlier, we maybe try to apply this to it. We talk like, take a, say a family member or a loved one or yourself going through a medical issue. Okay. And something that you're up against that you don't really know what the future holds or like, but you're like, man, you're fully immersed in a battle, feeling in the midst of like this guttural need to cry out to God. Lord, we need You And so if we take these two components of there's a spiritual component to winning battles and there's a practical component to winning battles, how do we bring these two things together?

Cameron: 42:56

It would look a little bit like, Lord, like we're praying for healing. We are praying that my body works the way that it is. Like, Lord, heal me. Heal me. Bring healing to my life.

Cameron: 43:11

Lord, I know that You are the only one that can bring healing to my life. Right? But so walking in spiritual faith that God and God alone can bring healing and restoration to my body. But we also need to walk into practical awareness that there are things that I can do to produce or maintain good positive body health for myself. Right?

Cameron: 43:41

So this would be like the person who gets lung cancer, prays for the Lord to heal them, but doesn't quit smoking. And do we understand the dynamic there now of we pray for healing, but we also have responsibility ourselves to practically pursue and walk in the faith that the healing, the divine intervention of God, and the practical component of my lifestyle will crash into each other for a better hope and a better future. If you're in the midst of a financial battle in your life, it's appropriate. And of course, we want to pray for provision. We also want to be willing to work hard to get a second job, to take over time, to whatever it would take.

Cameron: 44:44

Maybe we are in the midst of a relational battle and we're praying for peace, and we're praying for reconciliation, and we're praying for a better future. And it also requires that we take ownership for why the for our parts of why the relationship failed. We work through our internal issues that contributed to this. We are willing to step forward and extend mercy and forgiveness in order to come behind and around the divine intervention of God to bring peace and reconciliation. Winning battles is there's a spiritual component where we must persevere in surrender, prayer, and praise, but we must also not forsake that we have responsibility and that God has given us agency and free will to pursue the areas and accomplish those things.

Cameron: 45:53

Now the third and kind of final thing that we're going to talk about this morning in winning spiritual battles is what happens with Moses at verse 12. You know, when hands are up, Israelites are winning. Hands are down, Israelites are losing. And when Moses' hands grew tired, in verse 12, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron on one side and Hur on the other side.

Cameron: 46:27

They held up his hands so that they remained steady until sunset. That's a pretty, seems like a pretty simple equation. Moses, just keep your hands up, man. Just keep them up. You keep them up here, we're going win.

Cameron: 46:48

Just keep them up. But what happens? You ever try to like if I told you to keep your hands raised from the entirety of my sermon, I know it seems like a long battle, right? To make it through one of my sermons, I get it, right? But if I told you to hold your hands up for the entirety of the sermon, your hands would get tired.

Cameron: 47:11

Your arms would become weary. And if I said, Listen, this sermon ending is dependent upon you keeping your hands up, you might say like, Man, I do not have the strength to do this. This is difficult. I need some help. I need an Aaron and I need a her so that when my hands become weary and I become weak in the middle of the fight, I have a brother, I have a sister who is willing to be like, I know it's hard.

Cameron: 47:54

I know you're tired. I know the battle has waged inside of you and around you for longer than you wanted and longer than you thought was necessary. I am here to make sure you don't give up. Let me keep your hand up to the sky. Let me come alongside of you in prayer.

Cameron: 48:23

Let me come alongside of you in surrender. Let me come alongside of you in praise. I will be your Aaron. I will be your her. Think we've all maybe, maybe not, maybe this is just personal testimony and confession time for me, but, started out kind of full steam ahead on a house project.

Cameron: 48:51

You ever been there? Like, man, I'm getting this done. Right? Full steam ahead on a house project, got a lot done when you first begin and then lost steam as you went on. Last 25% of the project remains undone for a long, long time.

Cameron: 49:09

You got tired. You lost motivation. You ran out of money. So this is the same thing that happens with us in prayer. It does.

Cameron: 49:17

Let's be honest. I can attest that this happens in my life with prayer. Start out with something, with passion, praying with fervency, praying without ceasing. God is building in me a heart of prayer. I am praying and I'm praying and I'm praying and I'm praying and I'm And the battle's waging on and it's going longer than I thought.

Cameron: 49:42

And we're not like, it's not happening yet and it's not happening yet and it's not happening yet. And then I get tired and you get discouraged and you get weary and the hands begin to drop. And then days and weeks pass by and prayer, that prayer thing becomes more fleeting, but the battle no less intense. Moses got tired in the midst of the battle. But listen, it's almost like he anticipated that the battle would be difficult, because when he told Joshua that he was going up to the top of the mountain, he said nothing about Aaron and her.

Cameron: 50:17

But when it was time for him to actually go up and do the thing that he was called to do, he had the foresight to be like, I need you guys. You're coming with me. Moses did not go into the spiritual battle alone. Before he knew what he would need, he knew that he would need others. One of the most critical things we need in the spiritual battles of our lives is other people to support us.

Cameron: 50:51

What typically stops us from having other people around us is, well, number one, even with people that we are really close to, we don't want to be perceived as not having it all figured out and needing help. If I ask someone for help, they're going to know that I just kind of like don't have it all together. They're going know my financial life is a mess. They're going to know that my relational, that like this relationship is faltering or falling apart. They're going to know my mental health is struggling.

Cameron: 51:28

They're going to know this and they're going to know all of my weaknesses. I can't, I can't let someone know me for who I really am. Right? That would be something like authenticity and integrity and honesty. Right?

Cameron: 51:42

And that's scary. Yes, it is. Many of us, don't have those types of people in our lives because we feel like asking someone to be our Erin or to be our her would be like the imposition of a burden on someone. Well, know they're really busy. They got a lot going on.

Cameron: 52:04

And I'm just mean. And why would they want to help? Listen, Moses could have gone up by himself in an effort to show how strong he was and what a good leader he was. But if anything, he was keenly aware of his weaknesses and knew he needed these two people around him if the battle was to be won. I guess the primary question in that is like, in the battle that you are facing and that you are fighting, who do you surround yourself with?

Cameron: 52:45

Who are the people that are on your right and on your left? Who do you surround yourself with? Typically when we feel alone, we maybe have a hard time like, Well, how do I Okay, I don't have anyone around us. How do I know who the Aaron is and who the her is? How do I know who I can ask?

Cameron: 53:15

How do I ask? What who who am I looking for even? Some maybe some general recommendations here is It's important that when we are looking for people to join us and support us in the midst of our spiritual battles that we, of course, first off and foremost, are looking for someone who is committed to the life and the pathway of following Jesus. I have got some fantastic, fantastic friends who do not know Jesus. And it would be foolish of me to ask them or to spend or to like pour like have that.

Cameron: 54:05

Like, Oh no, I got my friend over here. Like he's a good source of support. But yeah, there's no gospel foundation to any wisdom or support that's offered there. So the best that they can offer is, the very best that they can offer is from the bank of worldly values. But if you, like say the spiritual battle that you're in or the battle that you're in right now is the a relationship that is broken and what you need is for someone to tell you, Hey, listen, core to the gospel and core to healthy relationships is the willingness and ability to extend and live in forgiveness even before you don't feel like it.

Cameron: 55:06

Because our forgiveness of others is a direct reflection of God's forgiveness of us in Jesus Christ. And the scriptures are really, really clear. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So as an example, right, like it is going to be very, very difficult to you for you to live according to kingdom values if the people you get all your wisdom for living from do not live by kingdom values. They're like, Oh yeah, man, that person did you dirty, did you wrong.

Cameron: 55:56

Like, how, like can get them back somehow or no, no, no. You deserve to be mad and angry for the rest of your life about that. You don't have to forgive them until they say they're sorry. You don't have to forgive them because that's going to help you heal, is to keep ruminating on all of that pain. Listen, these things are so antithetical to the gospel of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness that's offered to us through God, that if you take situations or battles that you're in and look for someone who can bring you with or can speak wisdom into your life or hold your arms up when the battle is getting weary and you need prayer support and praise support and surrender type of support.

Cameron: 56:43

But the only the only well that you are drawing off of is the wisdom of this world. You will forever be in perpetual defeat. When I'm looking for someone support in my life, right, I I want to be able to know that I've seen them in many seasons of life as well, in good and in bad. Do you have people that can hold up your hands in prayer when the battle has you weary? Now listen, these are things, like I said, the battles that we face.

Cameron: 57:26

Your battle is different than mine. My battle is different from yours. I don't presume to know what it is that you're experiencing in life right now, but what I do know is you're experiencing something. And that even like the Lord, by His grace, even in these moments of saying like, yeah, like putting a spotlight on that battle for you this morning. And my prayer is that the word of God this morning would help to be a guiding light for your feet and for your path to say, Okay, have I grown weary in praying, praising, and surrendering in the midst of this battle?

Cameron: 58:15

Or have I not even started? Maybe it's not, have I become weary? Maybe it's like, no, I actually have been trying to fight this thing all on my own without even considering asking the Lord to show up on my behalf. This is a good start. To stand on the top of the proverbial hill above the battle and be like, Lord, I need you to show up here in this moment for like, where I without you, father, we are I am doomed.

Cameron: 58:46

Lord, please come. Please help. Please show up. And in the midst of getting weary, would you please come and pray for me to help me to help me through this? Would you please come and pray for me to help me through this?

Cameron: 59:07

Alright. And then to not ignore also that there are that that just being like, well, I I prayed about it. I don't gotta do anything else. I prayed about it. I got other people praying about it.

Cameron: 59:22

Listen, I'm not downplaying the power of prayer. I'm not downplaying the sovereignty of God. I'm not downplaying God's divine intervention and His ability to snap the fingers and change the situation. What I'm saying is that the consistent witness of scripture is that God works through the actual action of people to fulfill His purposes. Could God have just looked at the Amalekites and been like, You're gone.

Cameron: 59:56

Yes. Very in a very similar fashion to how he did with the Egyptians underneath the Red Sea. But that's not the way it happened. Joshua had to go down and fight, and the Lord was in the victory with them in the midst of the battle. And even the destruction of the Egyptians.

Cameron: 01:00:14

The seas parted, right? But God didn't like pick the Israelites up and carry them to the other side of the sea. What did they have to do? They had to walk through it. You still got to move forward.

Cameron: 01:00:30

It still requires you to move, to have some action, right? Like, the His Lord divine working miracle power is catalyzed by our faith. And miracle working power is drawn like a magnet to those who express faith, and faith looks a lot like action. It is in fact a burden. Let me pray for us and over us this morning as the worship team comes forward.

Cameron: 01:01:18

Heavenly Father, we pray Lord that Your blessing would be upon these people. That they would see and that they would know. That you are with them in the battle. Lord, we pray that these next few moments would be maybe the first time that we've stepped into a pattern of or a posture of praise, prayer, and surrender. Lord, help us to see you.

Cameron: 01:01:58

Help us to know your hope in Jesus' name.