Victory as it turns out, is something entirely different to winning. When we talk about winning, we think about what we can win. What’s in if for us. When Jesus talks about victory, He’s talking about something entirely different. And it’s a victory that He would have us live out … for an eternity.

 

A Life that Really Counts

“From Vanity to Victory” – that’s what we have been talking about these last few weeks on the programme and that’s what we are going to be talking about again today. Because I know that so many people … people even who believe in Jesus, many of them are living real lives of vanity rather than lives of victory. Lives that feel more or less, on the empty side. Lives that feel as though they lack meaning and purpose and direction; lives that leave us asking, "Is this all there is? Is this really what life is about? There’s not more to life than … this?" Or as Solomon put it:

Vanity of vanities; vanity of vanities! Everything is a vanity. What do people gain from the toil at which they toil under the sun?

So, today we are going to kick off our look at what constitutes a life of victory. What does a life of meaning and purpose and victory actually look like? Because if we can find such a life; if we can discover how to live such a life amidst all the pressures; all the realities going on in my life, all the pressures and realities going on in your life, it strikes me that will be a really, really worthwhile thing to do. Do you think?

And there’s one life; one life above all other lives that brings this whole question of victory into sharper focus than any other. That’s the life that we are going to be looking at right now. It’s a life that began so well. Jesus born to Mary and Joseph in Nazareth in their ancestral home of Bethlehem. And then His awesome launch into public ministry – the baptism by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. Let’s read about it. Luke chapter 3, verse 21 and onwards:

Now when all the people were baptised, and when Jesus also had been baptised and was praying, the heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.

What an awesome start to His public ministry! Some people are blessed with an awesome start. The question is not so much how we start though, it’s how we finish that really counts all the more. And Jesus, right from the word go, had so much … I mean, so much to contend with – straight after His baptism, He is led out into the wilderness to starve for forty days and forty nights; to be tempted by the devil. And straight after that, He returns home to Nazareth to begin His public ministry as the Son of God and the people were so delighted that:

... all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, they drove Him out of town, they drove Him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built so that they might hurl Him off the cliff

Zippidy doodah! Welcome home Jesus! By now perhaps, you and I would be wondering, "Why am I doing this?" Perhaps you and I would have retreated to the relative safety of the carpenter’s shop where He grew up and consigned ourselves to living a life of meaninglessness, albeit a safe life. You know, there’s a thought, maybe that’s why so many people don’t have victory in their lives because they are not prepared to go into the dangerous places where we actually win victories. No battles, no victories, right?

Maybe in the face of attacks and opposition and setbacks and a lack of approval from other people as Jesus had, we would have withdrawn to a life that it wasn’t our calling to live; a life that God had never planned; a life of comfort and safety; a life of pursuing our own pleasures, rather than God’s plan. Life that would lead us, like Solomon, to conclude:

Vanity of Vanities … everything is a vanity. Everything is meaningless and empty.’ What benefit do I get from all this toil that I toil at under the sun?

What do you think? Am I being a bit harsh? I don’t know. I think sometimes we think that serving God is all about winning; serving God is about having success; maybe serving God for Jesus should have been having a successful carpenter’s business that prospered? Is serving God more about meeting our needs? But the more I see of Jesus’ life, the more I see that victory; His brand of victory had very, very little to do with any of those things.

The religious leaders came after Him with a meat cleaver; He was upsetting the status quo; He was preaching what they considered to be blasphemies; He was eating and drinking with tax collectors and prostitutes; He was healing people – can you believe this, on the Sabbath? I mean, how dare He? And then to top it all off, He declares Himself to be Lord of the Sabbath! "Something … something had to be done about this dangerous heretic," they murmured. "I know," says one of them, "Let’s have Him killed; let’s play the system with the Romans and get Him crucified. That will do it. Jesus loses, we win."

That’s an all too simplistic; all too common view of victory. The world’s view; the view that we often carry around in our heads – victory is when I win – right? Again, listen to Jesus on the subject of being crucified. John chapter 10, beginning at verse 17:

For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one is taking it away from me; I am laying it down of my own accord. I actually have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.

And what ensues – you can read it for yourself in the tenth Chapter of John’s Gospel – is how people hurl abuse at Him. They try to hurl stones at Him and then they try to have Him arrested! All because He claims to be the Messiah, the Son of God. All because He claims to be God. But when it comes to living a life of victory, the thing I want us to notice here is that victory for Jesus, was not about avoiding the Cross. Victory for Jesus was not about winning in the sense that you and I might think about winning. I mean, if we were in His shoes would we be trying pretty much save our own skin?

Victory for Jesus was doing what He came to do. Victory for Jesus was doing His Father’s bidding, laying down His life voluntarily, and then taking it up again. Victory, as it turns out, has little or nothing to do with winning. Victory has everything to do with living out the call of God on our lives. Can I say that again? This is so important.

Victory has nothing to do with winning. Victory has nothing to do with having a successful, prospering carpenter’s business in Nazareth – Victory has everything to do with living out the call of God on our lives.

In pursuing victory, Jesus puts no premium on His life whatsoever. On His needs, on His comforts. And even when, as any man or woman would have done, He prays to His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane. "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me". Obviously it concludes victoriously, yet, not I want, but yet your will be done. Victory was not to be found for Jesus huddled over His tools in the safety of Dad’s carpenter shop in Nazareth. That would have been pure vanity.

No, victory to be found on the Cross as He laid down His life for you and me, so that our sins could be forgiven. Victory was to be found in the empty tomb as God’s power raised His Son to bring you and me a new life. Victory for Jesus was all about – completely about – what He did for His Father in heaven and what He did for you and for me. It had nothing to do with what He did for Himself. That is an astounding insight from God’s Word, isn’t it? That’s the key to leaving behind a life of vanity in order to live a life of victory.

 

A Higher Purpose

What’s the calling on your life? What do you feel called to do? I believe passionately that this God who sent Jesus to die for you and for me on that Cross has a call – let’s call it a higher calling – for our lives. And it’s that higher calling that we’re going to chat about some more on the program. Because it’s living out that higher calling or a higher purpose in our own experience that’s the victory that Jesus came to give us in life.

Not the vanity, not the emptiness that so many people are about, but the victory that Jesus won for us on that Cross and through the empty tomb. As we saw before the break, winning, what we think winning is, and victory, the sort of victory that Jesus came to give us, are two entirely different things. Winning, nine times out of ten, is about us, saving our skin, getting what we want. Victory at least the victory that Jesus lived out, the sort of victory that Jesus taught us about, has nothing to do with self. It has everything to do with living out the calling, the purpose, that God has for our lives.

Okay, so back to my question: What’s the call on your life?

Now it doesn’t have to be anything big or grand. Higher calling doesn’t mean something impressive. Higher calling means the calling that God has on our lives. Higher calling doesn’t mean we all have to be Billy Graham’s and fill stadiums with millions of people over 50 years. Perhaps you’re a young mother sitting at home with a baby who’s teething and crying and keeping you awake at night, and you think, "Calling? Calling! I just want to make it through today and into tomorrow!" But a bringing up your child is an amazing calling. And have you noticed how much sacrifice is involved in that. There’s always sacrifice involved in following after our calling.

If we decide to follow Jesus and deal with some of the sin in our lives, the stuff we know is wrong, we know is robbing us of life, there’s going to be sacrifice involved. If we follow God’s calling to love other people and to serve them, you know what, there’s going to be sacrifice involved. Jesus’ calling was to reveal who God is and then to be crucified on a Cross. Do you reckon that involves sacrifice? Huge sacrifice! But that was His calling. As he put it, "To do the will of My Father who sent Me.| And that right there, in a nutshell, is what calling is all about. Doing the will of God.

And right here let me say, that that doesn’t mean that we’ll all end up in full-time ministry. I remember a few years ago interviewing a man on this program, who with his business partner started some coffee franchises here in Australia. Eventually they did a reverse take-over and bought the company out globally. Now to be frank, I don’t think either of these guys needed the extra money and doing something that big – they’ve been at it now for a good many years, is seriously hard work. For what? For coffee?

So I asked him in the interview, so why did you guys buy this global operation? Why are you doing this? And what he said was this, "So that we can generate funds to support God’s ministry around the world." And the things that that business through the heart of those two men and their wives are funding in God’s kingdom around the world, I have to tell you, is just mind-boggling. Are they following their calling? Absolutely they are.

The whole company functions under God and for God. Board meetings start with an hour or so of prayer. They have a full-time chaplain on board. And even though their financial turnover is now huge – the bigger the turnover in many respects, the more zeros on the end of their financial challenges. They look successful, they work so hard with their team, all to follow after God’s higher calling on their lives. All to use who they are and what God’s given them and their skills and their abilities and their resources and their hopes and their dreams and their time and their lives to do what? To do the will of the Father who sent them.

It’s in that place and only in that place, following after God’s specific calling for our lives, that in fact, for me for my life, that I’ve begun to discover what victory is. Vanity was something I lived out for the first 36 years of my life. It was about my needs, my career, my wants, my future, my reputation. And I came to the same conclusion, even though I would have used different words back then, to King Solomon. "This is a waste of time. Vanity of vanities, its all vanities. What do I gain from all the toil which I toil at under the sun."

Victory is something I have been discovering in trying to live my life for Jesus. Stumbling often, being picked up by Him, being forgiven by Him, being provided for by Him, but seeing breakthroughs because of Him. I’ve been doing what I’m doing now in this ministry of Christianityworks for just over 10 years. It’s been the toughest 10 years of my life. There’s a dimension of spiritual opposition that happens when we follow after God’s calling for our lives.

They’re without a doubt the toughest 10 years of my life but also without a shadow of any doubt, the most rewarding. Because as the oppositions come I have seen God’s victories – victories in me as He stretches me and makes me more like Jesus which is a very much a work in progress and victories in His calling as we see more and more people come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ through these very radio programs.

Ask me whether I’d swap my life of calling for a nice and safe and profitable but largely empty existence, back doing what I was doing in the IT industry and my answer would be an unequivocal "no!" Because victory is so much more than that. The only real place to find victory is out there on the battlefield following after God, doing what He wants us to do. Giving our lives to Him lock, stock and barrel to live out His higher calling for our lives. John Chapter 10 verses 17 & 18:

Jesus said, ‘For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down My life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have the power to lay it down, I have the power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.

And that’s the same calling on our lives, to lay our lives down for God’s calling for God’s purpose, to discover that victory is so much better than vanity. To discover that victory has nothing to do with saving our own skin. It has nothing to do with our comfort and our desires and everything to do with seeing God’s will and God’s purposes for our lives lived out and realised. However imperfectly, however painfully, for His glory nor for ours.

 

From This Day Forward

I saw an advert on the back of a taxi the other day for an investment company. It had the brand name with the by-line "Own the Future". The idea being I guess, that if you invested for your retirement with this particular company, that you’d end up owning your future. It’s a seductive concept, isn’t it. There’s nothing wrong with making sure you have the funds to support yourself when it comes to retiring, although retirement isn’t necessarily something I find so attractive. But the reality is that nobody can ever own their future because no one knows what tomorrow brings. Jesus taught us that through this parable. Luke Chapter 12 beginning at verse 16:

Then He told them a parable. The land of a rich man produced abundantly and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do for I have no place to store my crops’. Then he said,’ I’ll do this. I’ll pull down my barns and I’ll build larger ones and there I will store my grain and my goods and I will say to my soul, ‘Soul you have ample goods laid up for may years, relax, eat, drink, be merry.’

But God said to him, ‘You fool, this very night your life will be demanded of you, and the things that you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is for those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.

So owning tomorrow with any degree of certainty may well be out of the question. But let me ask you this, what are you going to do with tomorrow? That’s more of the point. Now these last few weeks we’ve been chatting about living in vanity or victory. Whether we live our lives for ourselves, serving ourselves, meeting our every desire, feathering our own nests, only to discover that there’s an emptiness in that place that nothing can fill. Or whether we’re going to live our lives out following God’s call and doing His will, pouring ourselves out for Him. To be filled a victory and a contentment that words can’t describe. That’s the choice that each one of us has. Jesus had that choice too, as we saw before the break, and it’s that choice that He lays before you and me, here and now.

Jesus said, ‘Look, not everyone who calls me “Lord, Lord” will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven’.

And so as our time together in this series of messages draws to a close, I believe that that’s the question that each one of us needs to ask and to answer. How are we spending our lives, and is the way we are spending our lives, our limited time here on this earth, in fact doing the will of our Father in heaven, or are we going our own way and wasting our lives? Well …? Do you have an answer to those questions, and if you do, are those answers pleasing to God or not?

Kind of makes you squirm in your seat a bit, doesn’t it? Now, I’m not here to make any of us feel guilty, it’s not about that. What this is about is asking ourselves whether we are in fact living out the lives that God has called has called us to live out or not. Whether we’ve figured out what God’s high calling for our lives looks like or not. Because Jesus made it clear again through a parable that when the end of our time here on this earth comes, how we spent that time is very important to Him. Luke Chapter 12 verse 37:

Blessed are those slaves who the master finds alert when he comes. Truly, I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down and eat and he will come and serve them.

And in 1 Corinthians Chapter 7 verse 29 we are told that our time has grown short. And in Colossians Chapter 4 verse 5 that we should make the most of our time. In other words, the reason that God has left you and me here on this planet is to live out His plans and His purposes and the time for us to do that is limited and growing shorter and shorter by the minute. If we happen to have wasted until this point, then there’s nothing we can do about that, except to ask God’s forgiveness through Jesus. What we can do however, is to choose what to do with the rest of our lives.

Earlier on we took a look at Jesus’ life and observed that with all the trials and the opposition and the sacrifice and everything that went on in His life, everything He faced, everything He was put on earth to be, the easiest options would surely have been to stay safe and sound in the His Dad’s carpenter shop in Nazareth rather than to confront the forces of evil, and to make a spectacle of them by defeating their power in our lives on that brutal Cross.

He made His choice. He made His choice to set His sights on Jerusalem, on the Passover, on that Cross, to do His Father’s bidding. I believe that there are some people listening today who have yet to make a similar choice. Matthew Chapter 7 verse 13:

Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who will take it. But the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life and there are few that find it.

The whole point of our discussion today is simply to put that before each one of us, me as much as you, and for us to honestly examine our hearts and our ways and if needs be, to go God and to choose the narrow gate. To go to God and to choose His calling. To go to God and say to Him, "Lord, whatever it takes, whatever the cost, I want to live out your victory in my life." In fact, we’re going to pray about that right now:

Father God,

as we just come to you in prayer, we think of Jesus, who when confronted with the huge cup of suffering there in the Garden of Gethsemane, said that if you couldn’t make that cup pass away from Him, then let Your will be done, not His. And so it was that He went to the Cross at the cost of His life to win a victory for us who didn’t deserve it. To win a victory that gives us eternal life.

And as we lay hold of that victory right now, by faith in Jesus, we are so awestruck by His choice. The choice or the dusty roads of Israel over His bed at home in Nazareth. The choice of the scorn and ridicule and criticism of so many instead of the love and the encouragement of His mother and father. The brutal nails of the Cross instead of the nails of the carpenters shop. And Lord we hear your call on our lives to come and to follow you.

So this day we choose the narrow gate, this day we choose to live the rest of our lives doing the will of our Father in heaven, this day we choose to live out of victory not our comfort. Forgive us for the time that we’ve wasted to this point.

Fill us with your Spirit. Empower us to live out Your higher calling on our lives whatever that may cost. We lay our lives down for you. In Jesus mighty name.

Amen