Conia [00:00:22 – 00:01:25]
In our time together, I have been looking at and helping you guys explore who God is. And we’ve talked about all the things that God wants to be to you, and he really wants to be everything to you. But sometimes everything is a hard concept to grasp. So we’ve been breaking it down and looking at all the elements that God fulfills in our lives. And we talked about God is a father and what does that mean? And the fact that he’s a perfect father and he embodies all the things that a father should be, not necessarily what we think of when we think of an earthly father.
Conia [00:01:25 – 00:02:19]
So we did that and we talked a little bit about, he wants to be our comforter. He really wants to comfort us. He wants us to come to him in our times of need and allow him to wrap his arms around us and comfort us through the trying times. What I’ve been working on for us this time is God is our defender. And not only is he our defender, he is our first line of defense. I was at an event not too long ago, and there’s a vocalist there, and she was having some trouble because her voice was not doing what she wanted it to do. There were allergy issues happening, and she’s got all the sinus, all the mess that happens in the spring. And I came to her and I said, do you need anything? I carry my mini little pharmacy in my.
Conia [00:02:19 – 00:03:01]
What David now calls the purse of provision. I’m like, if you need it, I got it. And then I left and I came back to her and I said, and I’m also praying for you. And she goes, has it come to that? And that’s really our joke, is, oh, my goodness, has it come to, we’re going to pray for you, but praying for you. Getting connected with God about the situation at hand should be our first line of defense. It’s our most powerful line of defense. And we often leave our most powerful line of defense on the table. It’s right there.
Conia [00:03:01 – 00:03:38]
It’s available to us. It’s easy. There’s no financial cost that we’ve got to do. There’s nowhere that we have to go to make that happen. But we leave our first line of defense right there in our Bible, right there in our journal, right there in our hearts. And we don’t capture the essence of who God is by coming into communion with him and finding out how he wants us to proceed and how he already plans to defend us. He already has a plan. Remember, he he has ordered our steps.
Conia [00:03:38 – 00:04:33]
He knows the end from the beginning. And if we need a defender, he already knew that. He knew that before the day that we were born. He should be in all things, our first line of defense. We’re going to explore some scripture today on why God is our first line of defense and some examples in history of where he has been the defender in much greater battles than what you and I face. If you look at what you and I face on a day to day basis, we probably don’t face some of the challenges that we read about in Scripture. So putting our everything into perspective, but knowing that just as he stood in defense of people who are going into battle, he stands in defense for us, our battles. Your battle is your battle.
Conia [00:04:33 – 00:05:07]
No matter what you’re facing, no matter what’s in front of you at the moment, that is still your battle and God still comes to your defense. Ready? Okay. So we’re going to start by looking at Exodus 14:14. The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still. That’s packed. And I want to give you some context and I really want to get in a good habit of we don’t just quote a scripture and stand on that little one. Scripture all by itself.
Conia [00:05:07 – 00:05:48]
You need to know the context. You need to know more of the story behind it so you can put it in its proper perspective too. So here the Israelites are trapped between the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s army. I don’t know how much more battle you get into than that. I don’t know how much more dire things can seem than being trapped between Pharaoh’s army and a big giant sea. It seems like it’s one or the other, and both of the options seem bad. But in their fear, God says, I got you. Trust me.
Conia [00:05:49 – 00:06:31]
Come to me. And you’re going to see throughout all of Scripture, as you familiarize yourself with more of scripture, more of what’s in the Bible, God’s going to say this a great deal. He’s going to say often, trust me. Probably because in our humanness it is more difficult to trust him and the unseen than what we think we can do. We always want to try and do what we’re going to do first, but he’s going to say, trust me now. Then if he tells you to do something, you do it. But in this case, and what he’s saying is, be still, hang out, chill out, I got you. And then he parts.
Conia [00:06:32 – 00:06:51]
He tells Moses how to part the Red Sea. God says, I’ll fight for you. You just have to be still. Don’t panic. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t run around like a chicken with your head cut off. Don’t assume that the world is falling apart, that the sky is falling. God has a plan in all things.
Conia [00:06:51 – 00:07:27]
And sometimes it might be to part a big old sea right in front of you. Then we go to Deuteronomy 24. For the Lord your God is the one who. Who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies and give you victory. Not only has he planned your steps in advance, he’s going to go with you. He’s right there. He never leaves you. And so Moses is giving these instructions to the Israelites before they go into a battle.
Conia [00:07:27 – 00:08:13]
And he’s saying, the priests, we need to tell them that God is with them. We need to remind the people. We need reminding. Often that is why the renewing of the mind is so important, is because we get covered up in all the stuff that we can see here in the world. And we get caught up in our feelings right here and right now. And we forget sometimes that God is standing right next to us, with us in the battle with the footsteps that he’s already ordered for us. It is so easy for us to forget. It is so easy to get caught up in how I feel about this thing.
Conia [00:08:13 – 00:09:13]
At this moment, I’m teaching a book by Mel Robbins to a group of business people and it’s the five second rule. And what she talked about in the latest thing that we were looking at was your feelings. And your feelings can have this overriding, looming weight to them that makes you want to run and hide, that makes you want to crawl in the corner and makes you not even want to try, makes you not want to get out of bed in the morning because we just don’t want to. Because the feelings of dread, the feelings of I don’t know if I can do this, will come against you. And part of her point in there is you just have to move forward despite your feelings. God’s telling you, I see the enemy behind you. I see the challenges in front of you. I understand how that makes you, in your humanness, feel.
Conia [00:09:13 – 00:09:53]
But I am right with you. And if you will trust me, we will step forward and we will conquer together. You don’t fight life’s battles alone. God goes before you and with you. When we look in Psalm 18:2, it says, the Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer. He’s a rock, he’s something to stand on. He’s a fortress, he’s shelter, not Only is he shelter. That word, fortress is a big word.
Conia [00:09:53 – 00:10:35]
You know, a fortress is fortified, right? That’s where we get the root is fortified and fortress. So it is. It’s shielded up, it is supported, it is protected, it is shored, right? And he’s your deliverer. So no matter if you’re standing on firm ground in your fortress, even if something comes against you that can overcome your rock and overcome that fortress, he’s going to deliver you out of it. He’s got it all. He’s right there. He’s firm ground, he’s protected ground. And he will deliver you out of the hands of the enemy.
Conia [00:10:35 – 00:11:02]
One of the things that I have been ruminating on recently is Jesus in the midst of them. Would all of a sudden, here comes all the Pharisees, and they’re. They’re crowding him and they’re about to take him, and then he’s just, boom, gone. You got to look that up. It’s a good story, and we’re going to talk about that a little bit later. But he is just gone from the midst of them. God delivered him right out. Poof.
Conia [00:11:02 – 00:11:31]
Talk about. Beam me up, Scotty. We’ll go over that more later. Right now, we’re still focusing on making God our first line of defense. So anyway, this psalm David is writing the psalm after he’s been delivered from King Saul, right? So he’s got something to say here, and he has a basis on which to say it. It’s not just that he’s out there saying, God’s my rock, God’s my fortress, he’s my deliverer. He’s like, no, no, no. Whew.
Conia [00:11:31 – 00:12:13]
Thank you, Lord. You are my rock. You have delivered me out of this, and you provided me with fortress. He just experienced it. So we always want to learn from the experience of others so that we don’t have to experience all these things ourselves in order to learn the lessons at hand. So David’s reflecting on a long period of time at the time of this writing on years of running and hiding and now being able to trust God in the dangerous situations. And the more you do it, the easier it becomes. You know, you think about the first time you get out on roller skates, right? And, man, that.
Conia [00:12:14 – 00:12:34]
That’s. It’s tough. It’s tough now. Now the kids have. They’ve got these little PVC pipe, little kind of roller skate walker things. Have y’all seen this? I’m like, we didn’t have that. Why didn’t I get a PVC pipe? Walker roller thing. When I was learning to roller skate, it was just fall on your tush and come home bruised.
Conia [00:12:34 – 00:13:21]
But I guess we live and we learn and we get better. But when we get to the point where we can balance, where we understand how fast those wheels are going to roll, when we really get to gliding and we overcome the trepidation and we just trust that we’re going to be able to stand up straight. Roller skating can be fun. And then you have reverse skate, which is a whole other set of fun. But once you’ve done something enough times, you can see how you got there. And then you now have assurance that you can do this over and over again. We don’t think about getting up and walking for the most part. Most people don’t think about when they stand up and they start walking.
Conia [00:13:21 – 00:14:29]
They just do it. But that baby who’s learning to walk, or someone who’s been paralyzed and is learning to walk all over again, they think a lot about walking. They think a lot about what they’re having to do and having to balance and distribute weight evenly and putting one foot in front of the other and making sure that that foot is firm before we move that next foot, there’s a lot of thought that gets involved in there. But once you get it, you don’t have to think about it anymore. And here we’re looking at David, and he doesn’t really even have to think about whether God’s going to be there for him anymore. He’s seen it enough times that now he knows the Lord is my rock, he’s my fortress, he’s my deliverer. God is that steadying force that’s going to provide the stability for you to be able to accomplish whatever it is that you are facing right in that moment. You go into Psalm 20, verse 7, and it says, some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
Conia [00:14:31 – 00:15:12]
And you would think that something physical could be more trustworthy than a name. But nothing is more powerful than the name of the Lord. And it’s a prayer for the king, possibly written for David before he goes into a battle. They would pray over them. Just like when we get into anything, we should pray. First line of defense. And that’s what this is, is a first line of defense, a covering in prayer over a battle. So the verse is contrasting the military power and might to trust in the power of God, which is infinitely greater.
Conia [00:15:12 – 00:16:01]
Your battle is already won. In the supernatural realm of the Lord, it’s already won. But You’ve got to tap into what he has for you. He wants you to come to him on a regular basis and say, lord, I know you see the end from the beginning. Where do I go from here? And he is happy to impart that to you. So just like in this verse where they’re preparing a prayer for the beginning, just like in our football teams that kneel in prayer together and ask for provision. Just like when we prepare for the battle that is the traffic on a road trip. And we say, lord, thank you for your ministering, spirits that go before us and protect us on our way.
Conia [00:16:01 – 00:16:53]
Just like with our daughter who just recently sold her house. And we had asked, we knew that they wanted a new home. We asked the Lord for the right new home for them. They found the right new home, they were able to purchase that new home, and then they needed to sell the existing house that they were in. And we have decided since we sold our last home without having to put it on the market, that that is the way we would prefer in our family to sell our homes, that we would prefer in our family to sell our houses without having to put them on the market. And our daughter’s realtor brought to her a buyer that was looking to buy a home in that area. And our daughter’s house was not on the market yet. And the buyer came.
Conia [00:16:53 – 00:17:37]
They were going to look at many houses that day. They came to our daughter’s house first. They spent a great deal of time. They left and by midday they had called and said, hey, can we come to your house again? And then they had an offer that evening. The house sold without ever being put on the market. We determined and we asked God, lord, would it be possible, would it be within your will to not put these houses on the market? And if you can see your way through that, we would really prefer to sell our houses without putting them on the market. And twice that has happened. Our first line of defense was, lord, we would like to sell this house.
Conia [00:17:37 – 00:18:28]
We want your blessing in it. And we feel like that we could sell these houses without putting them on the market. Is that within what you would have done in our lives? And lo and behold, there it was. There was no battle to sell that house. There was no dual mortgages for a long period of time. There was no stress of trying to prep the house and getting the kids out and doing all the things, all of that. God went ahead of her and our son in law, bless his heart, and the kids and made the provision for them to be able to basically not even fight the battle, because God was their first line of defense and we were all in agreement in prayer. Psalm 28:7 says, the Lord is my strength and my shield.
Conia [00:18:29 – 00:19:31]
David starts out in this verse, he’s in distress. He is not thrilled about what’s happening. He’s not thrilled about the enemies that are coming against him. But he affirms his confidence in God’s ability, God’s strength, God’s provision, and he comes out of it happy. And if you’ve watched preachers enough times, and if you watch David enough times when he can start a sermon and he’s in a good mood and he’s there, but by the end he’s preached. Well, we say, we say he’s preached himself happy. And so by immersing yourself in the word of God, you know, if you, if you’re having a problem with something I say, go preach a sermon on it, record it, because you have no choice but to take in the word, to declare who God is and then to go, wow, my life is so good because I have God at the forefront. Test it out, see how it works.
Conia [00:19:33 – 00:20:27]
The Lord is my strength and my shield. There’s power in declaring God’s protection. When you feel vulnerable, use the power. Don’t leave your power sitting there. Psalm 46:1 says, God is our refuge and our strength, an ever present help in time of trouble. The thing that you have to do is you have to remember that God is an ever present help in time of trouble. You’ve got to take your eyes off the situation and you’ve got to look at who God is and what he’s planning to do in this moment. Despite disaster and chaos, which this was probably written in a time of war, despite the disaster and chaos, God is with you.
Conia [00:20:28 – 00:21:19]
I was sharing with somebody. You know, our news is, I don’t know that we could really call it news. Sometimes it’s kind of inflammatory and it’s headline grabbing and that sort of thing. And we had somebody in our circle who was sharing a little bit more world news and less sugar coated and less sound bitey. And it was talking about missionaries who were actually being tortured in another country. And the description of the torture was really graphic. It was, it was laid out and exactly what had happened. And the, I’m not going to go into all the torture, but one of the pastor’s sons was being tortured in front of him.
Conia [00:21:19 – 00:22:01]
And as a parent or just as a human, watching somebody be tortured right in front of you, especially somebody that you love and is that dear to you, that was crushing to me vicariously. I didn’t know these people. I had no idea. All I knew is that they were out trying to carry out God’s word in another country that was hostile to Christianity. And it plagued me for quite some time. And I prayed about it, and I kind of thought about it a great deal. And finally, finally, I felt in my spirit. I heard the Holy Spirit say in his still small voice, kanye, you don’t know where I was in those moments.
Conia [00:22:02 – 00:23:18]
You don’t know what that person was experiencing. You can imagine what you would. You would be experiencing, but you have no idea what they were actually experiencing, because I was there in the midst of it with them. When God is in the midst of it with us, we can face lots of things, right? And if you think about. Let’s go with a nicer metaphor, shall we? Let’s think about a football player who is possibly injured, but he’s in the super bowl. And he gets hit and there’s an injury, but he just keeps playing because there’s that adrenaline running, right? And there’s the. You just don’t even feel like you’re hurt. You don’t feel the pain because of everything else that’s happening in your body and emotionally exciting and all those things, right? And then only later is it like, oh, yeah, you know, he broke eight bones in his hand and, you know, taped it up and went out and did it anyway, right? And so you can see that in a physical standpoint, all of us have kind of had these times where it’s like, if you slice your finger open and at the very beginning does hurt, you’re like, oh, I just sliced my finger open.
Conia [00:23:18 – 00:24:11]
But after a while, it’s like, oh, wait a second, that hurts. And you don’t realize it at the beginning. Well, there’s factors involved in that injury at that time. Well, if you think about who God is and in the way that he is in everything that we do, physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, that he’s able to provide for us in those moments, then those are not necessarily moments that are to be dreaded. They look horrific, and they are horrific on the outside. But we’ve got to trust God that in the midst of our battles, he will be there. And he is better than the strongest anesthesia, Right? He’s better than the strongest painkiller. God is better than all of those things, and he will see you through that.
Conia [00:24:12 – 00:25:11]
And I finally got peace on this pastor and his son because I was confident that God was with him in those moments. And we just came out of Easter Sunday and the torture that Jesus endured, that was horrific and that was painful and that was awful. But knowing that God was with him in all of those, those moments, even though it was painful, and you come out of your battles on the other side to great reward. Think about it. So he’s an ever present help in times of trouble and every storm. He is our place of safety and strength. Psalm 91:4 creates a beautiful vivid image here that says, he will cover you with his feathers. His faithfulness will be your shield.
Conia [00:25:12 – 00:26:23]
And if you think of a, of a mother eagle covering and shielding and protecting her young during the mating season and the hatching season of the bald eagles this year, you know, things start to pop up on your social media threads. Well, that one got on mine and you know, once you click it now, they’re gonna show it to you a bunch. So I got to see several different bald eagle nests that they had cameras on and that they had laid their eggs. And everybody was excited. And when they started to break out of their shells, everybody’s excited. But during the time that those eggs were in the nest, those eagles had to protect them in some pretty adverse conditions, some pretty big snowstorms, lots of wind. And there was one picture where the mama eagle was on top of this nest and the snow was up to her neck. She was covered in snow, but those eggs were protected and they ended up hatching and spring has sprung and you get to see these baby eaglets that were protected by their mother in all forms of adversity.
Conia [00:26:23 – 00:27:15]
And God is so much better than even the mama eagle. He is going to protect us in all sorts of adversity. He’s going to be our shield. His feathers keep us warm, they keep us protected. And we can keep growing, incubating there in our little egg until we are ready to face the elements or until the environment has passed. The ucky environment has passed and now spring has sprung and now we can come forth and be who all God called us to be. So think of him in that beautiful imagery of that is peace. There’s a painting out there that shows a similar thing of the mother bird protecting her young in the midst of a pretty intense thunderstorm.
Conia [00:27:16 – 00:27:54]
And that bird, that baby bird’s at peace. We are the baby bird. We can always be at peace because God is protecting us. So his faithfulness is an armor that you can wear daily. And his feathers are a shield that he will always put around you. The last verse I want to look at is Isaiah 54, 17. We use this verse to stand on all the time. And the context here is God’s promise of restoring Israel after exile.
Conia [00:27:54 – 00:28:48]
No weapon formed against thee shall prosper. Every tongue that rises up against you in judgment shall be shown to be in the wrong. Even when voices are coming against you, even when outside forces are coming against you. God will show them to be in the wrong. If we just turn to him as our first line of defense, he protects us always. And no matter what anybody else is doing, no matter what’s happening outside of us, if we stay right there with God, if we stay focused on what he has for us and we allow him to illuminate our enemies, evil for us, he’ll do it. We don’t have to say anything. We don’t have to point fingers.
Conia [00:28:48 – 00:29:25]
We don’t have to scream and yell. We don’t have to gather evidence. We don’t have to do any of it. Because no weapon that’s formed against us shall prosper. We are children of the Most High God, and we have to remember that in order to stay in peace. Otherwise, you’re going to look at what’s going on in the outside world. You’re going to see what’s happening. You’re going to hear the voices that are coming against you and the people who are out there who have no idea what you’re going through, what you’re doing, or what you have done, making judgments against you.
Conia [00:29:25 – 00:29:55]
And it can be really easy to get down. It can be easy to let those voices into your head, and it can be easy to just want to give up. But God says, no weapon formed against you shall prosper. He’s going to protect us. We have a spiritual inheritance. We are children of. Of the Most High God. We are daughters and sons of the King.
Conia [00:29:55 – 00:30:36]
And as such, we have royal protection in all things. It’s about letting God be your very first line of defense in big things and in small things. I hope this has meant something to you today. I hope that you take this, study these verses, learn the context of these verses, and apply all of this in your life. Because we fight a battle every day. Sometimes the battle is just getting out of bed. If you’re a young mom, sometimes the battle is just getting a shower. Sometimes the battle is overcoming the inertia to pick up your journal and start writing.
Conia [00:30:37 – 00:30:59]
Sometimes the battle is bigger than that. But God is always the first line of defense. And if you do The Mel Robbins 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. You say, Lord, I’m going to do the 5, 4, 3, 2′, 1. And I want you to be with me. I want you to be with me in everything. I want to acknowledge you and the power that you have. The Dunamis.
Conia [00:30:59 – 00:31:44]
Look that word up. Power that you have to protect me, that I am privileged to be a partaker of. Of. David’s going to come close us out here in just a moment, but let me pray for you. Father, thank you that you are our first line of defense. Thank you Lord, that you paved the way so beautifully for us. Father, when we find ourselves having trouble, help us, Lord, to stop and seek you. We thank you Lord, for your provision, for your protection, for your defense of us.
Conia [00:31:44 – 00:31:48]
In Jesus name, amen. Here he comes.
