"Victory that Lasts a Lifetime" By Brother Parrish Lee February
8th,
2015
It
is wonderful to be in the House
of the Lord today. All
you have to do is
not be in the House of the
Lord for a
little while, let you miss it for a little while, then you kind of
store it up,
and say, “You know what? I
would kind of
like to get back to that.” I
could
worship on my own—and I do worship on my own.
If my car could talk, it would say, “We need him to
shut up
sometimes.” And
prayer—I have prayer on
my own; you’ve got to have prayer on your own.
And, Lord knows, we have to read His Word; we have
to do that; you can’t
just wait for church to do it. But
there
is something about the blessing that God commanded when we gather
together. He said
where two or three are
gathered together therein, he will be there in the midst. We have to gather in His
name. He also said,
“How good and pleasant it is
for them to dwell together in unity, for there God commanded the
blessing.”
(Psalms 133) There
God commanded the blessing. It’s
wonderful to be in the House
of the Lord today. We’ve
taken as a
thought for this month: Victory
that
lasts a lifetime. Our
scripture for the
month is: 1 Corinthians 15:57
But
thanks be
to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. If
you could just bow your heads
with me for just a moment. Lord,
we
thank you at this time. Lord,
who is
there that is liken unto You? That
does
for us what You do? We
thank You for the
blessings that You’ve bestowed on us this morning; that You put the sun
in the
sky. You clothed us
in our right mind,
You allowed us to walk across the floor, open our eyes, and know that
this is
the day that You have made. It’s
before
You that we come, our Savior, our Maker, our Creator, our Lover of our
souls,
the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, our Daystar, the Bright and
Morning
Star. We come to
You, the Giver of all
good and perfect gifts, and we bring a thanks; we bring a thanks to
you, first,
and we ask, we ask, God, that You look over us.
We thank You for those that have gone on before us,
Lord, that You have
prepared Your Word all down through the ages.
We thank You for those over this ministry, from our
founding pastor, and
his family, to our pastor, and his family.
We thank You for all that have been able to make it
here today, and we
ask, God, we ask that, as we have spent time in worship, we ask now
that we
spend time with Your Word, and that You would do exactly as You have
said in
the Book of Isaiah, that Your Word would not return unto You void, but,
accordingly, Lord, that it would do what You sent it to do; to
accomplish that
which You sent it to do. So,
therefore,
we come and present ourselves to You and thank You for all that You’ve
done for
us. This we do pray
and claim in Jesus’
name, and everyone said amen. Amen. Amen. What
a wonderful opportunity. What
a challenge; what a challenge. We
said we’re going to talk about the victory
that last a lifetime, and, wouldn’t you know it?
Our place of worship—this building—closed for
the first Sunday of that. Whenever
you
talk about—you ever notice that whenever you go, and you try and get
bold about
doing something right, something for God, somewhere along the line you
meet
opposition? Somewhere
along the line,
something tries to stop you or sway you, throttle you back, try and
make you
compromise that? It
is the truth; it is
the truth. So,
here we talk from: 1 Corinthians 15:57
But
thanks be
to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. What
a concept. What a
marvelous idea—to obtain victory; to
obtain victory. Victory
is defined as --- 1.
a success or triumph over an enemy in battle or war. 2.
an engagement ending in such triumph: 3.
to utterly vanquish But
if victory is the destination,
then what is the journey? What
is the
procedure? What
precedes us in obtaining
our victory? And,
how do we hold on to
it? How do we hold
on to that
victory? I’m
going to ask a few young
people to read; I notice that Brother Jose Armando went to class,
didn’t
he? No, that’s all
right; dad, you’re
going to have to fill in for your son.
Yeah. And,
also, Miss Savannah,
if she would come, and Jose, if you would come.
And, I need an usher up here, please, to help. I needed some help with
this first part, and
what they’re going to do is, they’re going to read something for us. If
we’re going to talk about
something like victory, we don’t want to belittle it.
We really want to—because, let’s face it,
when God shows the victory, it’s a big deal; it’s a big thing. It’s lasted from creation,
from the fall of
man; it’s lasted. So
we want to
definitely, definitely highlight it as important as we can. I pray that the blessing
of God, that has
been just pushing my life, is able to be flowed out and even bigger;
even
bigger than the blessing that God gave me—the blessing that he will
give to all
of us. SAVANNAH:
Holocaust survivor salutes his liberator, an
89-year-old WWII
veteran. JOSE:
WWII
veteran Daniel Gillespie received an honorary salute from Holocaust
survivor
Joshua Kaufman during a reunion planned by a German documentary crew. SAVANNAH:
The two men who met in Huntington Beach, California,
lived only
an hour away from each other. JOSE:
Kaufman
and Gillespie exchanged salutes, SAVANNAH:
then Kaufman paid an unexpected thanks to the WWII
vet. He took
his hand, kissed it JOSE:
and
fell to Gillespie’s feet. He said, “I have wanted to do this for 70
years. I
love you, I love you so much….” SAVANNAH:
Kaufman, 87, was a prisoner at the Dachau
concentration camp,
where over 35,000 people were killed before it was liberated. SAVANNAH:
Gillespie, 89, was a machine gunner with 42nd
Rainbow Division
when he and fellow WWII soldiers marched into the camp. JOSE:
The
first person Daniel Gillespie saw when he walked into block 11 of the
Nazi
concentration camp was Joshua Kaufman, a Hungarian Jew.
Kaufman and several others were hiding in the
latrine, not knowing if the boot steps they heard belonged to Nazi
guards or
American soldiers. SAVANNAH:
“We were confined to barracks by the guards. This meant most of us were
marked for
death. Then I saw
the white flag flying
from the watchtower and I realized then that the torture was at an end. When the Americans smashed
in the door, my
heart did somersaults,” [Kaufman] said. Thank
you, my sister. Thank
you, my brother. So,
the story goes—it is the story
of a concentration camp survivor; a concentration camp survivor. And he said, “Sixty-nine
years ago I was
rescued from the concentration camp, and I’ve been waiting, those
sixty-nine
years, to salute the man that I saw come in and save me.” So, in the first picture,
we see he salutes
him, sixty-nine years after his rescue.
But
he didn’t stop at a salute; he
kissed the hand of the man that rescued him, that liberated him, that
saved
him.
He
didn’t stop at kissing his
hand. The next
picture, he bows down to
kiss the feet of the man, and kiss the ground that he walked on.
Can
you imagine, can you imagine
being so thankful for something that somebody has done for you that
sixty-nine
years later, you say, “I’ve been waiting for this opportunity to come
and show
you how thankful I am to my rescuer, to my liberator, to my savior, the
one who
saved me?” Sixty-nine
years, “Yes, I’ve
gone on to have children; I have grandchildren.
I’ve worked jobs.
I’ve had a
house, a car, and whatever. I’ve
done
all of that, but I’ve waited to thank him, because this truly is my
victory.” You might
say, “You know what?
the Holocaust was such a long time ago…”
“I got saved such a long time ago; why, why, why
should I be so thankful
today?” Because, to
this man, it wasn’t
that long ago. To
this man, none of
those sixty-nine years would have existed had not his rescuer, his
liberator,
his savior come into the picture.
This
is a victory that has lasted his lifetime, but we’re talking about a
victory
that will last our lifetime. Even
bigger,
and, as decimating as the holocaust was, our Savior came and saved us
with even
a greater victory. Part 1:
Victory Is Preceded by Conflict One
thing that always precedes us
in our victory is going to be opposition, or conflict. I’ve heard it
said that,
that is why you need enemies, because if God is going to prepare a
table before
you in the presence of your enemies, the more enemies you got, the
bigger the
table. I’ve heard
that said. If
you’ve got some enemies, you ought to be
saying, “Thank You, Lord, that means You’re going to be making a big
table for
me, a great feast, a wonderful time of victorious triumph!” You could have a victory
over something and
you might be standing next to somebody that it doesn’t mean a thing to. Your victory might only
mean something to
you. I had the
opportunity, about three
years ago, I was over at Brother Chris’s house, and we were watching a
football
game. Welcome back,
Brother Chris Ulrich.
We were
watching his New England
Patriots—congratulations, I say that—we were watching his New England
Patriots
play my Baltimore Ravens—yeah!—and seventeen seconds to go, the pass
was
thrown, a receiver on the Ravens caught the ball in the end zone; I
immediately
jumped up, “Yeeeah-eh-eh-eh!” while Chris went, “No-o-o-o-o!” Unbeknownst to the receiver,
a defender comes along
and breaks up the pass. My exultation went from “Yeah-eh-eh-eh!” to
“No-o-o-o-o!”
while his went from “No-o-o-o-o!” to “Yeah-eh-eh-eh!”
So, my victory meant nothing to him, and
vice-versa. You
could be standing next
to somebody whose victory doesn’t mean anything to you and that is
going to be
my only football reference this morning.
Amen; amen. But
it can also—our victory can
also be misunderstood. We
aren’t given
this victory from the Lord for us to be slack. We
aren’t given this victory for us to forget even
the battle that we’ve come through, for as it is said, those who forget
history
are doomed to repeat it. They
are doomed
to repeat it. So,
it is mindful, it is
necessary for us to remember the battles and the deliverance, so that
we are
mindful that we were victorious over that through the Lord Jesus Christ. John 16:33
These things I have
spoken unto you, that in Me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall
have
tribulation: but be
of good cheer; I
have overcome the world. I
have overcome the world; I have
conquered the world. I
have prevailed
against the world! I
have subdued the
world. The victory
the Lord gives us, it
says, makes us to overcome. We have to keep ourselves in the mindset
that when
the Lord rose, those things of the world didn't have power over His
victory
anymore. They still
existed. There was
still debt in the world; there was
still sickness in the world, there was still false friends in the
world, and
there was still death in the world. They
no longer had power over Him. Though
they existed, they didn’t have the power.
After all, we have to ask ourselves, which is
greater, never to get
sick, never to have an issue, never to be in debt, never to have a
problem… Which is
greater, never to face something
that you just don't know what the outcome is going to be, you just
don’t know
how you’re going to be delivered, or to have to go through it and to be
victorious, to be able to look back and say, “You know what? though you
came at me, you could not prevail
against me?” Yeah,
a false friend can make you feel bad,
but you can overcome that through the Lord Jesus Christ, with a greater
love. Yeah, that
can make you just swell
up your mind, but when you receive the victory, you’re like, “Thank
You, Lord!!
Thank You, thank You, thank You, and I know God is going to supply all
my need,
according to His riches and glory.”
So, it
is better to face everything and know that, through anything that comes
along,
God will give the victory. Part 2:
The Lord’s
Victory Is Not the World’s Victory The
Lord’s victory is not as the
world gives. It’s
not as the world
gives; you can’t compare the two.
There
is also a difference between worldly victory, and Godly victory. One is temporal, temporary,
you know? You could
win something, and the exultation
will last for a while, and then, later, you’re looking for something
else to
give you that euphoria. But
when God
gives you victory, it kind of settles into your soul, and you are free
to
remember it, and call back, and, as the lord said, it is like a well of
water
springing up within you constantly giving you life.
Worldly victory is more surface, whereas a Godly
victory is more internal and over-encompassing.
And the things that our Lord vanquished never had
power over Him again. Think
about the Lord rising from the dead—you
think—can you imagine, can it enter in that He might have been afraid
of death anymore? He
conquered it; now death itself has no more
power. How great is
that? Those things
no longer have the power unless
he chooses to give them the power. It
is important to realize that this
victory that the Lord gives us, yes, it is a lifetime victory, but it
is lived
one day at a time. It
is lived one day
at a time. We
cannot allow ourselves to
get caught up in the trap of trying to live our whole lives today. We can’t allow ourselves
to get caught up in
thinking, “Well, I don’t know how we’re going to fix everything that’s
going on
out there!” when today, the Lord said, take no thought for all that
stuff;
sufficient is the evil of the day (Matthew 6:31-34).
Seek ye the Lord while he may be found and
call on Him today while He is near (Isaiah 55:6).
He will take care of you today; He will take
care of you tomorrow; He will take care of you next week, one day at a
time. Have you ever
found yourself in a place where
you didn’t know, and maybe it even came up to the very second, you
didn’t know,
and you thought you were facing the music, and it just seems like God
sent a
messenger to answer, right there, right on the spot.
It would be easy to forget that.
It would be easy to move past that, and say, “Wow,
that was kind of neat the way that whole thing worked out,” rather than
saying,
“God, I thank You! Look
what You did,
and I realize now that You will always be able to do that if I only
believe.” Sometimes
we can notice a great triumph,
also, being given. Sometimes
we can
notice a great victory being given.
Yes,
we’ve seen it before, where, maybe somebody has been on the receiving
end of
receiving that job that was wonderful, or receiving that family being
restored
together, or receiving the bill that they didn’t know, and it was going
to be
paid—they didn’t know how, and, from nowhere at all it seems—they never
even had
it in their mind—God comes through with an answer.
I have to say, I have to say I’ve seen so
much of that. I’m
in a ministry, I’m in
a church where there’s people with beautiful hearts, and I’ve seen them
cry out
to God; I’ve seen them ask, and I’ve seen God answer.
I’ve seen Him answer many times!
I’ve seen Hi answer miraculous ways.
And every now and then, every now and then, I
see them forget that God brought them the whole victory in the first
place. Every now
and then, I see them turn from it, they
all of the sudden no longer seek God with that same fervency; He
doesn’t mean
as much to them as He meant in the middle of tribulation. “What is God to me?” I’ve seen it happen! And,
Saints, I would have to say,
if I’m honest—if I’m honest—I’ve been there.
I’ve been to the place where I might have thought my
victory was in
something else. God
would bring that
great victory, and I would think, “Aw, man, that was great! It was great to have it,
but, it’s a little
empty, because I haven’t put as much God in it as I should have. God fulfilled His end of
the bargain; I need
to fulfil mine.” Yes,
I’ve been there,
where I thought my victory would be in more money, and, in fact, if I
were to
listen to my family, they would say, “Parrish, you want to know what
your
victory’s in? I’ll tell you where your victory is:
Your victory is going to be in that you can get
a couple of million dollars; that will make you safe.
Finish your college degree; that will make
you smart. And, you
know what? you need
to have a better job and a bigger house.
That will make you happy.
And you
need to have a better car…” Maybe
an
F-150… “But you
need to have a better
car; that will make you look a little better.”
Yeah. Yeah,
I’ve been there. “You
know what else you need, Parrish? you
need some more suits.” That’s
what my
family would say. If
I were to listen to
my doctor, my doctor would say, “Parrish, you know what you need to be
successful, and to be victorious? You need to lose some weight! If you lose some weight,
lose forty pounds,
and then be able to bench-press over two hundred pounds, yeah, that
will help your
muscle structure. And
then, you need to
be able to run about four miles without getting too winded; that will
help your
respiratory system. Yeah,
and then, you
know what else you need? You need to lose about seven inches off your
waist;
that will help your whole frame. And
then, you know what else you need? You need to drop your blood
pressure,
because, you know how it is when you reach a certain age; that’s your
danger.” So, if I
were to listen to my doctor, he
would tell me that. If
I were to listen
to society, they’d say, “Yeah, Parrish, you know what you need? you
need that
wife that everybody can talk about.
And you
know what else you need? You need that nice house with the 2.5 kids,
and you
need a better, more prestigious job.
That would be your victory.
That
would be your success.” Depending
on who
I ask, that’s what they would tell me.
But, if I ask God, “God, where’s my victory?” He’ll say, “Rejoice not,
Parrish, rejoice not
that everything down here can be subject to you.
Don’t even rejoice that the devils are
subject to you. Rejoice
that your name
is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, because that’s a victory that
the world
don’t know nothing about. That’s
a
victory that lasts a lifetime.” Part 3: God Already Gave Us this
Victory God
already gave us this victory. John 17:22
And the glory which Thou
gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one: Our Lord speaking, “And the victory, the victory which Thou gavest Me,” He says, “I have given them.” So, we want to present a quick question, here: Moses—and we know the story, Moses and the Red Sea—but the question would be: Did Moses get the victory after he crossed the Red Sea, or before? Or, we could ask about David—and we know about David and Goliath—Did David have this victory after he slew Goliath, or did he actually have that victory before? Or the Hebrew children, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, did they have the victory after they came out of the fiery furnace, or did they actually have the victory before they went in? the truth of the matter is, no matter what we're up against, saints of God, believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, the victory is yours no matter what the battle is, no matter what the opposition is, no matter what we are facing. What
shall we say? If
God be for us, who, what, where, when can
be against us, if God be for us? That’s
enough, right there. If
I’ve got God on
my side, amen, no matter what the issue is… Romans 8: 35-39
Who
shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or
distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy
sake we are killed
all the day long: we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things
we are more than
conguerors through him that loved us.
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor
principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor
height,
nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from
the love
of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. “Nay,
in all these things we are
more than conquerors…” “For
I am
persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth,
nor any
other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God,
which is in
Christ Jesus our Lord.” So,
yes, Saints,
our Lord has overcome the world, all day, every day. All
day, every day, He has overcome the world.
That doesn't
mean the world won't try and
come—you ever see somebody small try to take on somebody big? Did you ever see that? And it’s like, “Are you
crazy? What are you
trying…” You ever
see that? That
doesn't mean the world won't try and come
and overcome you. The
world knows that
you’ve got the Lord on your side.
That doesn't
mean it won't try, you but it does mean that we have the victory that
the Lord
gave us to overcome. That
doesn't mean you won't cry,
sometimes. It
doesn't mean you won't hurt.
It doesn’t
mean that you won’t have
spells of confusion. That
doesn’t mean
that you won’t encounter things where you just don’t know what will
happen. It means
that it’s already been
given to you; it’s already in your life.
It might not be what you think it might be, but it
is the victory that
God has put in our lives to counteract everything. To
face anything. The
victory that overcometh the world.
This, Saints, is the victory that lasts a
lifetime. Part 4:
As Long As We Have the Lord Jesus, We Have
Our Victory When
we talk about Victory, we
have to talk about all our relationships.
You may say, “Brother Parrish, how can I say I have
the victory? You
know, I face a lot of stuff. Shoot,
I get distressed; I get depressed;
sometimes I’m oppressed, and, sometimes my life is just a mess? How can I say I always have
this victory? How
can I say I have the victory when I still
get tempted? How can I say I have the victory when I get angry? How can I say I have the
victory when I have
apathy, and I just don’t feel like doing this or doing that? How can I have the victory
when I feel like
just leaving the situation, whatever it might be? Plus,
Brother Parrish, you don’t know; you don’t
know what I go through, speaking up there so bad.
You don’t know.
You don’t know what situations I face. You don’t know what I go
through.” And, you
know what? that would be absolutely
accurate, but I know the One who does know.
We know the One who does know everything we go
through, everything we face. He
knows our hurt and He knows our pain.
He knows our fear, and he knows our
tears. He knows
when we think we’re
strong; He knows when we think we’re weak.
He knows; he knows; he knows.
He
has said something to us, and it’s back at our first Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15:57
But
thanks be
to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. “…Through
our Lord Jesus Christ.” As
long as we have our Lord, we have our
victory. So, yes,
our victory is in our
worship, for as we praise Him, He inhabits the praises of His people. Our victory is in our
humility, for, if we
decrease, we give Him the room to increase.
The victory is in our faith, knowing that every Word
of God is true and
He will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). Our
victory is in the blood of the Lord Jesus,
knowing that it washes away our sins.
Our victory is in reading His Word that His
mysteries might be revealed
to us. Our victory
is in His precious
Love, which, Saints of God, changes everything in comes in contact with. Yes,
Saints, our victory is in
everything that God gives us, and it lasts a lifetime. We’d
like to close this by singing
the song that we started out with:
“In
the Name of Jesus, (We Have the Victory).” Verse 1 In the name of Jesus, in
the name of Jesus We have the victory! In the name of Jesus, in
the name of Jesus Satan will have to flee. Chorus Tell me who can stand
before us, When we call on His
great name Jesus, Jesus, Precious
Jesus, We have the victory!
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