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Tonight, what I want to do is I want to start a new series. It's "The Heart of a Conqueror." Because as we move through from Vision Sunday, on God wants us to be people who have the heart of a conqueror. God has new land for you to take. God has new victories for you to win. Places where you've known to be places where you've not seen fruitfulness. God wants to do. He wants to take us from glory to glory to glory. He wants to work in us and through us and move us to the place that he has for us.
You see that an example or a type of that in the Old Testament, several different pictures, but especially as you come to the book of Joshua. Joshua is a conqueror. Joshua is going to lead the people into the Promised Land. Whatever happens to Joshua is going to determine what happens to the people. I want you to give some thought to that. Moms and dads, whatever happens to you is gonna determine what happens to your kids. If you're a student, whatever happens to you in your suite, your apartment, determines what happens to the people around you. If you're strong for God, it has an effect. If you're weak, it has an effect. If you're strong for God where you work, if you're living for God with all of your heart, if you have the heart of a conqueror, God will use you to transform the lives of people. God will give you wisdom. God will open doors. God will knock down walls. God will take you into new territory. And we desperately need that in this area. We need, we need conquerors.
When we think of Southwest Missouri, you say, "What do you mean?" When I look around, and we talked about it before, we talked about it at the ministers' meeting today, and I had the opportunity to share just a little bit. When you think about Southwest Missouri, you think about the needs. You think about Springfield with 32.9% of the people living in poverty in Springfield. I mean, imagine that, highest poverty rate in the state. And with it all, the attendant issues that that are a part of that poverty cycle, whether it's substance abuse, whether it's crime, whether it's broken homes, whether it's children growing up in family situations that are less than ideal, whether it's domestic violence, whether it's kids in foster care. I'm telling you, in Greene County, we have got that problem everywhere. It's epidemic. If it's gonna change, it's gonna be because we have people who have the heart of a conqueror, people who are bold for Jesus, people who are gonna declare the gospel to their generation. I'm not talking about pastors. I'm talking about people, because you'll go where I can't. You'll be where I won't be. You'll have audiences to talk to. Never underestimate, never undervalue the size of your audience. You've changed one life, you've changed a whole lot of people along with that one life.
If we're gonna see that, if we're gonna see God do powerful things, if we're gonna see the things we pray for, we hope for, whether it's survival in the area, whether it's the power of God to rest upon us so that we, in the name of Jesus, can pray for people and see people miraculously in that moment healed. Missed part of the sphere, filled life. Is it not as part of what made the early church so powerful? The people talked about Jesus everywhere they went. They had a heart of a conqueror. So people were able to take new land. People were able to have the hand of God on them. God with them. God going before them. And it revolutionized the world. So as we talked about this, I mean, I'm thinking big for you. I'm thinking revival for our area. I'm thinking about lives changed. I'm thinking about social situations turned on their head, turned around, changed because God is working in power. You said, "I believe that when I see it." Well, just, just watch. Just watch. The Lord is gonna go before us. Because I know this about the group that's here. I know that the majority of you have the heart of a conqueror. I believe the majority of the people in this room tonight and the other campuses, at North, at West, at Joplin, you're out on Wednesday night because you got the heart of a conqueror. So I'm talking to the core. I'm talking to people who got it going on. I'm talking to people who want to see God do something more. That's why you came. You came to pray because you wanted to see God do more.
So we're gonna do a mini-series on Joshua as we make our way through it. We're gonna talk about aspects of the heart of the conqueror. And tonight, I want to talk to you about aspect number one, and that's strength. You're gonna be a conqueror, you got to be strong. We'll move really, really fast. Got a lot to say, more to say than I got time to say it. So hang on tight, buckle up, buttercup. Here we go.
When you read through Deuteronomy and you read through the book of Joshua, it's very, very interesting. Over and over again, there's a phrase that's said to Joshua. It's said to Joshua by Moses. It's said to Joshua by the Lord. It's said to Joshua by the people of Israel. Look at it. It says this: "And Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, 'Be strong and courageous.'" Joshua, if you're gonna conquer, the first thing you've got to do, you got to be strong. He goes on. Let's read the next verse. "And the Lord commissioned Joshua the son of Nun and said, 'Be strong and courageous.'" This is the Lord now talking. Joshua, if you're going to, if you're going to conquer the land, if you're going, if you're going to lead the people, the people around you to do something great for God, the first thing you have to do is you're going to be strong.
It's very, very interesting. You get to the Book of Joshua, and we read this here. You have the Lord saying, "Be strong and courageous." "Be strong, Joshua, if you're going to conquer the land, you'll have to be strong." Verse 9, look at it again. "Have I not commanded you? Be strong." How many people know that when God says something once, it's important? When he says it twice, it's like, it's like really important. If he says it three times, it's like with a megaphone. If, if he says it over and over again, it's like, it's like loudspeakers blasting you out. How important is it for us to be strong? If God says over and over and over and over again that if Joshua was gonna be a conqueror, he's got to be strong. You see it again in Joshua chapter 1, verse 17 and 18. "Only be strong and courageous." People say, "You know, we want to follow you, but we only want to follow you if you're going to be strong. If you're going to be weak, we don't want to follow you." Listen, people don't want to follow somebody who's weak. They won't follow somebody who's helpless. They want to follow somebody who's valiant. They want to follow somebody who is strong. So we need to be strong. We need to be strong because there are battles, battles with our own flesh. The enemy will try to take you out personally, individually, and in your own heart, in your own mind, in your own world. We got to be strong because there are the forces of evil. Paul says we're in a battle with the forces of evil. We got to be strong because we live in a sin-first world. We got to be strong. And we've got to be strong because strength is the key to victory. There is no victory without strength. You can say this year, "I want it." Your victory, praise God, and may God grant it. But let me just tell you this, you're not gonna have victory if you're not strong. You've got to be strong. You're gonna be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, as Paul says.
If Joshua isn't strong, think of this, he and his army are gonna know victory. How important is strength? If I'm not strong as a pastor, how can the church know victory? The staff isn't strong, how can the church know victory? Hey, listen, our walk with God, our strength has ramifications and consequences beyond what we can imagine. Our strength affects other people's lives. Our strength is the key to other people's victory, not just our own.
So, 10 ways to get spiritual strength. We're gonna move really, really fast. And then we're gonna be in the presence of the Lord and allow him to work in our lives. How do you, how do you get strong? Number one, grow in your knowledge of spiritual principles. Grow in your knowledge. It's so important to be in church. Honestly, be here every time the doors are open. Don't, don't fall into the pattern of saying, "Well, you know, I went last week, so I guess I don't need to go this week." Don't ever get in the pattern of thinking, "You know what? I've had enough. I've had enough of the word. I've had enough teaching. I've had enough of being with God's people." If you want to be strong, you have to grow in your knowledge of spiritual principles. Proverbs chapter 24, verse 5. Listen to this: "The wise are mightier than the strong." The strongest, the mightiest person in the room is not the person who can deadlift 400 pounds. The mightiest person is the one who is wise in the things of God. Watch this: "And those with knowledge grow stronger and stronger." You get the more knowledge you get, the stronger you get. The more you hear God's Word and apply God's Word and are in God's presence, the stronger you become. That's why we have church. That's why we have the prayer meeting. That's why we have Sunday morning. I can tell you what, at the end of the day on Sunday, even though I'm physically tired, I am stronger in the Lord from being in the presence of God. On Thursday morning, tomorrow morning, in Bearably, and I get up, and I'm stronger because I've been in the presence of the Lord. When you're in his presence, when you hear principles that are applied, it feeds your spirit. It strengthens you. So we get strength by increasing our knowledge of spiritual principles.
Number two, living God's Word and let God's Word live in you. Look at this in Joshua says this: Joshua 1:8, "The book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you might be careful to do according to all that is written in it, for then you will make your way prosperous and you will have good success." Want to prosper? Want to want to be successful? Want to have God go before you? What is God saying to Joshua? You need to do. You need to be thinking about the Word of God. You need to be meditating on the Word of God. You need to be considering the Word of God. You're not gonna meditate on it if you've not thought about it. You're not gonna meditate on it if you don't have it somewhere where you can see it, where you can hear it, where you can listen to it. Get the Word of God in you, and then live the Word of God. And watch what God will do. God promises Joshua it will make him prosperous. It will make him successful. In other words, it's going to make you a great conqueror. Take one of the verses you hear tonight. Think on it. Talk about it. Live in it. Apply it. As we go through these principles, one of them surely will stand out in your heart, your mind. One of them the Holy Spirit will speak to you and say, "That one is for you." Live in it. Embrace it. Act it out. Talk about it. And what strength rise up in you.
Number three, give glory to God. Give glory to God. Worshipping God, praising God, giving glory to God, all of that strengthens our faith. Listen, the song service, the choruses, the songs that the team leads us in, those are not preliminaries to be missed or to get everybody standing till we can get them all seated. And they're all there when when they're singing and you're singing and you're reading the words and you're thinking about the words and you're making a melody in your heart to the Lord. What happens is you are becoming stronger, stronger by the minute. That's why you don't want to miss a minute because you want to be as strong as you can possibly be. Get here. Be here. Be on time. Watch it. Be, get, get involved. You say, "I'm not a very good, I'm not a very good singer. I can't really sing. I've never heard those songs." So put the words on the screen. Just follow along. Just read along. Just practice. You say, "People won't like my singing." I don't care. God loves it. And you want to be strong, right?
Well, giving the glory to God though involves more than just worship. It means that as you're worshiping God, you believe God does impossible things. And you are praising him before he's done it. Anybody can thank God after he's done it. It's the conqueror who thanks him before he's done it. Anybody can thank God after he's taken care of, "Oh God, you solved that problem." And it's not wrong to do that. We should. But if you want to conquer land, the key to conquering land is to praise God before you take the land. To praise God that you're gonna take the land. And say, "Well, you don't know how impossible it'd be for me." Well, you know, that's where faith comes in. You believe God to do it. Watch Abraham. He's the classic example. Romans chapter, when everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway. That is the heart of a conqueror. If your life, if you got a hopeless situation, and you believe God can do it anyway, that God can help you, that God can go before you, right there, you're on your way to being a conqueror. You're on your way to a miracle. When you say, "There is no way except God is a God who makes the way, and I'll believe him and I'll trust in him," you're on your way to conquering in Jesus' name.
Here's Abraham. He, he knew he was past the ability to produce a family. But he didn't focus on his own impotence and say, "It's hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child." Nor did he serve Sarah's decades of infertility and give up. He didn't tiptoe around God's promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. "Oh, I love that. Well, you know, I just don't know. I, you know, I sometimes wonder, do you think maybe God?" Cautiously skeptical questions. He didn't do that. He plunged into the promise and came up strong. I love that. He plunged into the promise and came up strong. It says in the ESV, it puts it this way: "He grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God." He said, "God, I just thank you. I can't see it. I can't understand it. I just know you said it." And I've told you before about standing on this land here. Cameron, can you give me a hand? Help this thing go drive me crazy. So, you know, I can remember standing here on the land, and we didn't own the land. We had put a lease on the land to be able to purchase the land at a certain price, and we didn't own it. And we were facing a, a building campaign that was way beyond us. And I can remember standing on this land and saying, "God, I don't understand it. I can't see it. It seems absolutely impossible. But you're the God that takes things that aren't and calls them as though they are. And if you say it, it will happen. And I'm just praising you right now for what I can't see and for what I cannot understand. That in that place, you will do it." I'm just telling you, that is what it means to give glory to God. And that's what strengthens your faith. Faith. And that's what will move you from wavering to being strong in the Lord, to being a conqueror.
Number four, keep your joy in God. You want to keep your joy in God. Nehemiah chapter 8 and verse 10: "The joy of the Lord is your strength." You got to be happy in Jesus. Can have that joy in your heart. Psalm 16 and 11: "In your presence there's fullness of joy." So have you say, "Where am I gonna get the joy?" Get in the presence of God. Get around the people of God. Get around people who talk with joy, and you begin to feel joy. Get around people who celebrate God, and you'll find yourself celebrating God. Get around people who look at things through the eyes of faith, and you'll find yourself looking at things through the eyes of faith. Psalm 43 and verse 4: "There I will go to the altar of God, to God, the source of all my joy." Go to God. Say, "God, give me joy. Give me joy." Do you know it's one of the things I pray for? I pray for wisdom every day. Let me tell you all the things I pray for, but I will tell you, I do pray for joy every day. Because you know what? I am, by nature, not an optimist. I'm married to one. She is the optimist of all optimists. But you know what I've learned over the years? You can't walk by faith and be a pessimist. And some of you are saying, "Well, you know, I'm just..." You know what? You're hurting yourself. And you're keeping yourself from being a conqueror. Yeah, you got to believe God. You got to have joy in the Lord. Debbie was born on a sunny day. She is one of those people. She just wakes up happy. I gotta have my coffee before I get my joy. That means she wakes up, she can just start talking and just start telling me all the different things. And I'm like, I point to my coffee cup. She just laughs. Talks anyway. Her joy, though, has taught me a lot about joy. Her joy's been one of the big keys to the strength of her heart. If you want to be a conqueror, cultivate joy.
Number five, pray. Number five, pray. Jesus said this: "Watch and pray, so you'll not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." So we got to pray that we'll be strong.
Number six, allow God to strengthen you. And I love this, this thought about God. In First Corinthians chapter 16, it says this: "Be on guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be courageous. Be strong." It's interesting that that word for strong there, or that command to be strong, in the Greek, it's in the passive. So the idea is, it isn't something you do. It's something God does in you. Let God make you strong. That's the idea. God wants you to be strong. Let him make you strong. You know, when we talk about strength, God wants you to be strong in your home. He wants you to be strong with your friends. He wants you to be strong at school. He wants you to be strong in your marriage. He wants you to be strong at work. He wants you to be strong in the church. God wants you to be strong. He delights in taking weak people and making them strong. He delights in seeing people in their weakness. He likes breathing on them. He delights in filling them. He delights in moving them forward to accomplish what they could never do on their own, because then he gets all of the glory. Let God make you strong. It's the same identification because you see it again in Ephesians 3:16: "I pray for his glorious unlimited resources that he will empower you with inner strength." That's the idea that God is the one who makes us strong. Here's what I love about God. He commands us to do something, and then he does it in us. That's so awesome. You know, they're not like on your own. God wants you to be strong, and God wants to make you strong. Let him. Put yourself in a place. Don't do the things. Don't, don't let the things happen in your life that circumvent his working in your life. But walk before him and say, "God, I just want to be as strong as I can possibly be. Make me strong." And he will.
Number seven, serve God with a wholehearted commitment. And that's what we're talking about, saying, "God, I am full on." What keeps a lot of people from knowing the strength of the Lord and experiencing it is they're divided in their commitments. They're not, they just are not fully in. And here's what the Bible says. The Bible says this: "It says in 2nd Chronicles 16:9, 'The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen.'" How awesome is that? God's like, "Who can I strengthen today?" "How about you?" That's very encouraging to me. It's not just you looking for God to strengthen you, but God is like, "Who is there out there that I can pour my strength into?" He's got such a heart to see you conquer that he's looking for people who say, "Hey, I'm over here. I'm full on. I want to have the heart of a conqueror. Strengthen me." And God says, "You got it."
Number eight, faith. By faith. Hebrews chapter 11, the Hebrews Hall of Faith. We read, "By faith Abel, and by faith Enoch, and by faith Noah, and by faith Abraham." And it goes down. You get down to verse 33. Look what it says: "By faith, these people, by faith, what? Well, they did all these things. Their weakness was turned to strength." How? By faith. God loves to take us at the point of our weakness and make us strong. The point of your defeat, God wants to give you a victory. So when we talk about conquering things, maybe for some people tonight, the place where God wants to begin working victory is the place where you've known continual defeat. And even as I say that, you're saying, "I don't even see how that could possibly happen." And God is saying, "Listen, will you just give me glory? Will you just believe that I'm a God who can do something miraculous in your life? Will you just start praising me for the victory before you get the victory?" That you're gonna have victory in the place that you've been weak. God delights in doing that. And he does it when you believe him by faith.
Number nine, the words we speak. The words we speak. I want to ask you, what words are you speaking? You realize Proverbs 18, verse 21 says this: "Words kill. Words give life. They're either poison or fruit." You choose. The power of life and death is in the tongue. You determine by the way you talk whether you're going to have the heart of a conqueror or are you gonna live in defeat? If Joshua comes out and says, "You know, I just don't think I'm a very good leader, and I'm not sure how this thing's gonna go." That's not gonna work. At some point, you have to decide, is God gonna help you or isn't he? Do you believe you will or won't? And then you have to speak accordingly. You have to talk as if God is for you, because he is. You know, outside of prayer, then I would say this, the most important conversation we'll ever have is a conversation we have with ourselves. What do you tell yourself about yourself? What kind of words are you speaking about yourself? I mean, you're constantly telling yourself you're tired, and guess what? You will constantly feel tired. Are you kind of constantly telling yourself that you're not up to it? Then guess what? You're just gonna constantly battle feeling that you're not up to it. And the enemy will love it. So what do you tell yourself about yourself? Do you come out of your prayer closet saying, "I, I touched heaven's throne, and God is gonna help me"? What we say has a lot to do with what we end up accomplishing in life and the strength that we have. When people are constantly saying self-defeating things, literally what's happening is you are weakening yourself for the battle, and you are cutting the rug out from under your feet in terms of victory. You know, at some point, you got to say, "I believe God's gonna help me. I believe God's, I believe we're in for a miracle. I believe something's gonna break. Something's gonna give. Something's gonna happen that God's gonna do something miraculous. That God's gonna do something that people are gonna watch it, and they're gonna say, 'Are you serious? Get out of town. God did that.'" God gets all the glory. God delights in that. But are you gonna believe it? And are you gonna speak it? So I'm just being real. And let me just say this, you can be as real as you want, but you'll never change anything by using your right to speak the defeat that's on the inside of you. You're never going to change your life by giving voice to that. Doubt dies if left unexpressed, but it grows every time you question God's goodness. Every time you wonder if God's gonna help you. Speak words of faith. God will help me. He'll go before me. We're gonna go conquer the land. That's the heart of it. Conquer the words you speak. Either strengthen you or they weaken you.
I ask musicians to come and finally pray in the Holy Spirit. Pray in the Holy Spirit. My prayer for you is that every single person, don't say, "Oh boy, you know, that's what, that's the only thing I don't like about this church is they talk about, you know, come on." I know I was standing around the corner in the hallway, I heard that. You know, I'm just saying, listen, it's true, true, true, true, doubly true. Listen to what Jude says. Jude says, "But you, dear friends, carefully build yourselves up." How? "In this most holy faith by praying in the Holy Spirit." I thank God for the, for the power of the Holy Spirit. If I want to speak supernaturally, if I want to minister with supernatural power, I got to speak a supernatural language. I just know that to be true. And I depend on the Holy Spirit. I'm just telling you, I do. It happened last night. I went, I went to lay down. Debbie wasn't there yet. And all of a sudden, I found myself instantaneous, spontaneous, and not by my own energy was it. It was a very unusual thing. Found myself praying fervently in the spirit. Just as I laid down. I was even as this happening, I was like, "This is wilder." But I felt such power in it. And I wondered, still today, I wonder, what was God doing? What's happening? Well, maybe he just saying, "John, you're gonna need some help. I'm gonna strengthen you. I'm gonna build you up in your holy faith as you pray in the spirit." I'm just saying to you, listen, this year, God has land for you to conquer. What's the promised land that God's called you to possess? You say, "You know, John, it's just said, I, I mean, I've thought about it. I've tried before." You know what you're saying? You're saying the same thing unbelieving people said in Joshua's day. "There's there's giants in the land. We can't do it." And their words condemned them to living in the desert. Some, some of you, your words are sentencing you to living in a barren place when God has promised you a delightful land. But if you're gonna, if you're gonna enter that land, you'd have to have the heart of a conqueror. And a heart of the conqueror is first of all strong. Gotta be strong. And the good news is, God wants to strengthen you.