Keith Battle - This Victory is Gonna Hurt - Part 1

I’m going to preach from the subject today: «This Victory Is Going to Hurt.» The goodness of God is so overwhelming that it is untraceable. God is so good to us that, if I could be frank, He has spoiled us. When you think about how good God has really been, and you narrow it down to some of the necessities of life that He has met without our asking, surely our good days have outnumbered our bad days. I don’t care how bad it’s ever been for you; your good days have far outnumbered your bad days. Just the fact that you have not told yourself to inhale or exhale even once today—the fact that your brain is helping you breathe without instruction from you—is a miracle from God. The fact that if your eye began to itch right now, your brain would send a signal to your hand to comfort your eye without a conversation or hesitation is the grace of our God. The fact that when you woke up this morning, you looked in the mirror and knew that it was you you were looking at, is a miracle and grace from God. We are so spoiled! The fact that God has blessed us to travel from point A to point B day after day after day—and you didn’t get hit in a head-on collision; a drunk driver didn’t come up beside you; nobody had to cut you out of a car and pin you to a gurney and leave you strapped down—is a testament that our God has been good to us. We are so spoiled! If we get a flat tire, we look at the Devil, forgetting about the six years when the tires weren’t flat, those six years when the tires were running and balling, and we weren’t even taking care of them; we didn’t even get them rotated for six years, nine months, three weeks, four days, fourteen hours, thirteen minutes, and twenty-six seconds! Then, at the twenty-seventh second, the tire goes flat, and we look at the Devil. I’m saying we need to look back at how long the Lord was keeping all four tires working, and my washing machine working, and my dryer working, and the iron working, and my garage going up, and a roof over my head. Does anybody understand how good our God has been to us? Your good days outnumber your bad days.

What makes it so difficult in this passage—oh, I’m trying to get you—is that you can miss this whole message if you miss the timing of this passage, because this Psalm doesn’t really begin in verse one: the real timing of the psalm begins in verse four. The psalm is really a prayer that is prayed in verse four, and the prayer is, «Lord, you did it before; do it again! Turn again our captivity.» Watch this now: when you go back to verses one, two, and three, it is a reflection of what He had already done. In fact, verses one to three is a praise: «Lord, we thank You for when You brought us out before. You brought us out of seventy years of Babylonian captivity; You brought us out in such a way that it blew our minds! We thought we were dreaming. You brought us out in such a way that we just laughed and sang about it, and it was so good that the heathens started talking about what God had done for us. We thank You for what You did.» Right? That’s a praise. But then he moves into a prayer in verse four and he says, «Now, Lord, please do it again.»

And it’s interesting, if you’re taking notes, that he moves from a praise to a prayer, to a promise that comes from God. He’s not in quotes, but God starts speaking in verses five and six, and God says, «You’re going to win, but this one is going to hurt. You’re going to sow in tears, and you’re going to reap in joy.» It is interesting when you look at this Psalm, because whoever I came to preach to today, it’s almost a prophetic message. What God did for Israel, He is doing for many of the people who are listening to me right now. Look at what it says in verse one: there’s a «when» at the beginning of verse one, pastor, and then there’s a «then» at the beginning of verse two. There’s a «when» and a «then, ” a „when“ and a „then.“ Let me teach you about the „when“ and the „then.“ The Bible says, „When the Lord turned our captivity“ and „when the Lord brought us out, ” it says, „Then we began to see laughter and joy. Our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue was singing.“ When God did what He did, then we did what we did. God takes care of the „when“; we take care of the „then.“

What are you saying, preacher? Even if you have to look back over your life, whenever God does something for you, there ought to be a response of thanksgiving. It’s called manners. You know what manners are, right? Manners are when somebody does something nice for you, and you’re supposed to say, „Thank you.“ It is not cool, it is not right, it is not proper for you to come in church—especially—and act like you got here on your own. Whenever you look back on your life, praise and worship is not a spectator sport. It is not for you to sit back and watch people praise God while you sit back and relax; praise is participatory! All you need to do to praise is to remember what He did in your life.