What if God does not win a battle for me?

Hey, thanks again for sending in questions related to our recent sermons. We’ve started our series, This Is My Story, relating the lives of many of our ministry leaders to the people that we read about in the pages of scripture. And this last week, we discussed the story of Jehoshaphat, who faced an impossible battle, but he turned and worshipped the Lord. And in the end, his enemies were defeated, not because he went out to fight them, but because God fought those enemies for him.

So the question comes in this week, what if that isn’t my story? What if enemies assembled against me and I lost? What if, what if the end of my story isn’t deliverance, but is instead defeat? What does, what does that mean? Um, did God, did God fail? Is he not really there? It worked out for Jehoshaphat, um, but I, it hasn’t worked out for me.

What about me? And what we find in the pages of scripture is that regardless of what happens in our individual, you know, momentary trials, um, the actual end of the story is, uh, is a is a happy ending. Um, it’s not a sad ending. From, uh, the book of Revelation chapter 21, um, in very large print in front of me: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

And I saw the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people. And God himself will be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.

Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former order of things has passed away.’ And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’ That is the end of our story. There will certainly be many ups and downs before then, uh, some things that feel like wins, some things that feel like losses, but, but the sum total of our story, um, at the conclusion is a win. Um, our final destination, uh, is, is a sunrise, not a sunset.

It is life, not death. It is, uh, it is glorious, it is redemptive. It was God saying he makes all things new. He does not say, you know, notably, he does not say he makes all new things. He doesn’t start over. He takes what was there, the mess that was there, the pain that was there, and he makes those things new.

There is redemption at the end for all things. Um, and so even if, you know, our, our immediate story didn’t end like Jehoshaphat’s, you know, the enemies came and defeated us, even if that is what we’re experiencing in, you know, in the timeline of our lives, that’s not actually the end. I know it feels like the end, but that’s not actually the end.

The end is, um, a new day when all these things are put back together. Um, and so, so will our story end like Jehoshaphat’s? Yes. Even if it didn’t yesterday, it will eventually. Um, and that is our hope as Christians. It is the new heavens, it is the new earth, it is God, um, restoring everything that has ever been broken. Um, and so that is the hope that we can always hold on onto, no matter how dark the the day may look today. Uh, it will look bright eventually and forever. Um, so thanks for the question. We’ll see you next time.