Every believer, whether you like it or not, is engaged in a spiritual conflict. The earth is a spiritual battle zone, and you're either in the fight winning, or you're in the fight and beaten up. The Bible calls it a fight of faith - its a fight about what you believe.
The only thing that can move the hand of God is that we are in faith, that we are agreeing with God about what God says. We take His side in life, and we begin to learn how to live and move by faith.
Just because you have a need, does not mean God will meet it. He knows the need. He looks for faith, and faith can be developed and cultivated. Faith has an evidence in our life, so when you're operating and living by faith, it is evident.
Why don't we open our Bible in 2 Corinthians 10. I hear you've had a great time since I've been away, great meetings last week, and great youth service, Shane Willard preaching fantastically. Isn't that great to see young ones rising up like that? Man, that's what we want to see. Isn't that right? That was a pretty weak response. [Laughter] I hope that wasn't jealous old people being quiet. [Laughs] Come on, you want to see young people rise, rise up. [Applause] If you're in the 50-plus age bracket, it's crucial you be excited about the next generation rising up, or you'll be missing totally what God would want you to do in this season, which would be part of encouraging them. You see, there's always something for us to do, but if we're focussed on me, we miss what we're called to do.
We have to see what God wants us to do in the different seasons of our life, then embrace that, and so if you're 50-plus there are two things, at least two things, you need to be aware of. One is that within the next decade, there's going to be huge increase of people in that age group, all needing Christ, and so there's a huge harvest field in Hawkes Bay emerging in this next five to 10 years, of people over 50 needing to be won to Christ. Who will reach them? Will it be you? See, will it be you? So you've got to think that one through, will it be you, and if it isn't you, then God has to raise up someone, who will stand in the place you were called to fill. Think about it. Then the second thing is that God's wanting to cause a young generation to emerge, that can begin to pick up the baton of ministry and the baton of leadership, and begin to emerge and become a very strong voice. We have to be a part of helping that happen and see, we have to be part of that. Why? Because in this coming decade, probably about 50-plus per cent of the whole earth will be people who are under the age of 20.
So it's a real need for us, individually and corporately, to see where we're positioned in life, and to fully embrace the part we have to play in it. We'll talk more on that a little bit later as we go through the year, but I want to just carry on, and just do one more message on the wilderness, then I want to get out of that wilderness. [Laughter] My goodness, I want to get out of that wilderness, but anyway, it was a season of growing, so just going to give hopefully my last message on the Wilderness Wisdom; about fighting a good fight, fighting the good fight. So let's just read here, first of all in 2 Corinthians, Chapter 10, Verse 3: For though we walk in the flesh - that means we're in a physical body - we do not war according to the flesh. We don't struggle or fight with people - for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal or human, but they are mighty through God! Mighty through God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and every high thing exalting itself against the knowledge of God, bringing into captivity every thought into obedience of Christ.
Every believer, whether you like it or not, is engaged in a spiritual conflict. There are no exceptions. If you want to have the absence of conflict then you need to die and go to heaven. It's the only place I know without conflict - but we're in the earth, and the earth is a warzone. The earth is a spiritual battle zone. You see it everywhere. You read the papers, no matter where you look, you can't escape that we are in a battle zone. The battle zone is between the kingdom of darkness, which controls and rules through the thoughts and the behaviours and the attitudes and sin patterns in people; and the kingdom of God, which God wants to expand, to bring hope and light and life into our community. His agent for doing that is the church of Jesus Christ, so for us to advance the kingdom, it requires we understand there is a fight that we fight. There are no exceptions. You're either in the fight winning, or you're in the fight and beaten up. If you're beaten up, then you need to come up the front, get healed, get delivered, start to get discipline in your life, start to grow in your Christian faith, start to get foundational patterns of living established, and then begin to win, because God has called us to win, not to lose.