PLAN: God's Purpose is Dangerous (Palm Sunday)
April 10, 2022
"The week of easter is the spiritual battle played out right in front of us. Either we can fight it or we can pretend like it doesn't exist, but we're going to be on the battlefield either way...but there's hope because God has given us the spirit and he's given us each other and he's given us his presence." In episode 14 of our series PLAN: God's Purpose in a Fractured World, Robert speaks on the spiritual battles we face in our lives, God's dangerous purpose for his people, and where we can find hope.
"The week of easter is the spiritual battle played out right in front of us. Either we can fight it or we can pretend like it doesn't exist, but we're going to be on the battlefield either way...but there's hope because God has given us the spirit and he's given us each other and he's given us his presence." In episode 14 of our series PLAN: God's Purpose in a Fractured World, Robert speaks on the spiritual battles we face in our lives, God's dangerous purpose for his people, and where we can find hope.
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All right, come on over. We are. It's palm sunday. But you know, I know you guys are excited to hear a sermon about a donkey. You're not getting it. Today. We are going to uh we're gonna finish up Ephesians because we're just so close And we love it. Love a fresh start after Easter. So we're in Ephesians chapter six palms. Okay, well I'm gonna switch the sermon and he wants me to hit palm sunday. Uh No, we're gonna, Yeah, every, every pastor who's honest will tell you the holidays are the hardest things to preach because every instance of christmas and easter, you've hit a million times. So we're gonna jump in Ephesians six if you get your bibles Ephesians six verse 10, A final word paul says, Alright, this is it. He's he's he's hitting the the final stretch here, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power, but on all of God's armor so that you'll be able to stand firm against all the strategies of the devil. For we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. Therefore, put on every piece of God's armor so that you'll be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. And then after the battle, you'll be standing firm, stand your ground putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God's righteousness for shoes. Put on the peace that comes from the good news that you'll be fully prepared. In addition to all these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil, put on salvation as your helmet and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion, stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere and pray for me to also ask God to give me the right words so I can boldly explain God's mysterious plan that the good news is for the jews and the gentiles alike. I'm in chains now and still preaching this message as God's ambassador. So pray that I'll keep on speaking boldly for him as I should to bring you up to date. Take a kiss, we'll give you a full report about what I'm doing and how I'm getting along. He's a beloved brother and faithful helper in the Lord's work. I've sent him to you for this very purpose to let you know how we're doing and to encourage you peace. Be with you dear brothers and sisters and May the God the father and the Lord jesus christ. Give you love with faithfulness. May God's grace be eternally upon all those who love our Lord, jesus christ. This is the word of the Lord. Do you guys have those movies that you watch over and over again? It drives me crazy. But I probably watch like I watched basically every baseball movie every spring, you know, to get ready for the season, you gotta get gotta get amped up. Um, and one of those ones that I watch pretty regularly um, is saving private Ryan and it's a, it's just a phenomenal film and obviously won like a million Oscars and all that. But I think for anybody who lives Or who lived in the 20th century, understanding the Second World War is vital to understanding our modern world. It shapes so much of who we are and what we do. Um, D day, the story of Saint Croix Ryan is about D day in the aftermath of Um the Allied forces coming across the English channel and taking the beaches in northern France and then moving towards Berlin over the summer of 44 D. Day was a culmination of six years of war across Europe and around the world. But I don't know if you if you've done the math, but the americans had only been a part of the war for a little over 2.5 years at that point, The war had been raging for six years And the Americans have been part of the war for just 2.5 years. From December 1941 forward, our country was sitting on the sidelines that we were supporting the allies, some with the lend lease act and pretending that the mode of the oceans around us would protect us from the war that was raging across three continents. But pretending that the battle wasn't happening, it didn't change the reality on the ground. If you lived in London you were experiencing nightly bombings at the hands of german fighter pilots France had been lost. Italy was no longer independent Germany was taking over a massive portion of the world and we wanted to pretend that the world war didn't affect us until the Japanese foolishly woke up what Admiral Yamamoto called the Sleeping Giant. And if that's not a great metaphor for spiritual warfare, I don't know what is, most of us are living in a world as if there's not a war raging around us. Most of us are pretending like we live in a world that is without conflict. But every once in a while like moments like 2022 2020 to come along and we are jolted by something like a pearl harbor in our lives to remember that this world is that war. There are distinctly two realms. There is what is seen which is the experience of humanity with our all of our five senses. We experience the world and we create some sort of image of what the world is by how we experience it, that is what is seen. But we know that there is this vast amount of all created order that is completely unseen. We know it through science, but we also know it, But because the physicists are saying that there's all these anomalies in the experience of the world that can't be explained by normal physics and what they call it is the metaverse, or they call it this um this multiverse where these all these they say up to 12 different dimensions that are existing simultaneously and they have no way of describing what it is or where it comes from. But what they're talking about is the unseen the reality that there's something much beyond what we experience and what we as humans are able to describe. But we live in a really material world, built on the scientific method of experimentation. And this is the great tactic of our enemy in the post enlightenment Western world. It keeps us on the sideline by using rationalism to keep us in our heads and using our eyes and our hands so that we ignore our bodies. We ignore our emotions. We ignore our spirits and use our eyes and our rationale is the only way of knowing something when all of us know that this world has much more going on than what we can see what we can touch. There's this other reality that we walk through every day, but we don't see it because we're like fish and water. It's all around us. It's moving every part of this world. But we can't even talk about it because it's just so primal to existence. It's the spiritual reality of the south and this spiritual world that is alongside our world. It's a lot like our world in that it's not neutral, It's not at peace. The spiritual realm itself is at war. It's raging alongside this reality that we face. It's why in our quiet moments we feel all of the anxious nous. It's why when we quiet our hearts and we look at what's happening inside of us, we feel all of this battle raging. But here's what happens. And I think what paul is pointing to here is that satan sometimes overplays his hand in the spiritual realm and we see it really clearly in our present realm, in this physical world and he repeats so much destruction that God's people actually notice the battle that's raging around us. That's what's happening right now. Ukraine in the battle, there is a spillover from the spiritual realm, our world is at war because the spiritual realm is at war first. Peter five Verse eight says, stay alert, watch out for the great enemy. The devil he prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to develop. Excuse me to devour a lion circles its prey. It waits until it's weak or it's slow where it's not paying attention. Cats. I don't know if you if you've been around cats, but they're pretty lazy. They're opportunistic. I like that. That's the way Peter wants to describe the enemy. He's lazy and opportunistic. Even satan has bad character in how he's trying to run this war against us. Okay, God's like throwing shade on him. He's like a lion, he waits around and when there's an opportunity he pounces, he's looking for opportunities. And this passage is about how do we fight? How do we fight spiritual battles in this physical reality that we live in. Um well, most of the bible is a very um, it's a very material document. It's talking about what's happening with people. There's a lot of history, there's a lot of stories, but woven throughout all these stories is this spiritual reality that's happening, that we don't always have access to a greater picture of were victims of the spiritual war this waging. But we can't see what's going on. But a few times in the bible, we get a real clear glimpse at what's happening in the spiritual realm and I don't know about you, but I always like really want to pay attention in those moments In Daniel chapter 10, Daniel had this vision in a dream of this man across the river and he, he was perturbed by it. He didn't know what to do with it. And so he started to pray and fast so that God would tell him what was happening in the spiritual realm. And he waited 21 days and Daniel was getting frustrated and then an angel shows up, An angel shows up actually, it knocks him over, knocks him out. And he has this vision of this angel before him in the spiritual realm. And it says in chapter 10 verse 12 then he said, don't be afraid, Daniel since the first day you began to pray for understanding and to humble yourself before God, Your request had been heard in heaven. So 21 days before God heard Daniel's request and he says, I've come to answer your prayer. But For 21 days, the spirit prince of the Kingdom of Persia blocked my way. There's a lot in that one sentence. First of all, there's a Spirit Prince of a country, like a guy who is in charge spiritually of a whole place of of Persia. This is the kingdom that had taken over the Northern kingdom. They were living exist exiles there. And Daniel is Daniel is trying to see what's happening and there's a, there's a fight happening in the spiritual realm. The Spirit Prince of the Kingdom of Persia blocked my way. Then Michael, one of the archangels came to help me and I left there, I left him there with the Spirit Prince of the Kingdom of Persia. And I just love this picture of like, Michael comes along and like puts him in a headlock and he's like, go for it and he's like the angel then bolts to get to Daniel because he couldn't handle it on its own. Like the picture of what's happening in the heavenly realm is that there's some, some spiritual distance between where Michael and the angels who are a part of God's kingdom are away from this world and this place, why? Because this world has been given over to the Kingdom of Darkness. You and I, Most of the humans on this planet have pledged loyalty with our lives to the kingdom of this world. We're living in his reality. And God, when his kingdom comes, it breaks into this kingdom, it has to fight its way in to ransom and rescue humans from this kingdom of Darkness. And he says, now I'm here to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future for this vision concerns a time yet to come. While he was speaking to me, I looked down on the ground, unable to say a word. And then the one who looked like a man touched my lips and I opened my mouth and began to speak and I said to the one standing in front of me. I'm filled with anguish because of the vision I've seen. My Lord. I am very weak. How can someone like me or servant talk to you, my Lord. This is Little L Lord, not big L Lord, my strength is gone and I can hardly breathe. And then the one who looked like a man touched me again and I felt my strength returning. Don't be afraid, he said. For you are very precious to God. Peace! Be encouraged. Be strong. Daniel had been waiting around for 21 days. Can you imagine how discouraged he felt? Waiting for God's voice. He'd been fasting for three weeks hoping and praying that God would bring him insight. And then this angel comes and gives him courage. Don't be afraid you are precious to God. Daniel had believed a lie that God had left him, that God had left him on his own and that his people, we're living as exiles and that God himself didn't care about them. But God sends a messenger and says, you are very precious to God. Remember that we're gonna come back to this And he speaks These spoke these words to me. I suddenly felt stronger. Said to him. Please speak to me, Lord, for you have strengthened me! He replied. Do you know why I've come soon. I will return to fight against the Spirit Prince of the Kingdom of Persia. And after that the Spirit Prince of the Kingdom of Greece is going to come Obviously like this has written 500 years, 400 years before Alexander, the Macedonian is going to take over. Like that's a crazy thing. It's right here in the text. Meanwhile, I'll tell you what's written in the Book of Truth. No one helps me against these spirit princes except Michael, your spirit prints. I have been standing beside Michael to support and strengthen him since the first beginning of the reign of Darius the Mead. This is a picture of the spiritual battle that's raging around us in this multiverse, that we can't see. The stakes are really high. All the marbles are on this planet being redeemed and restored into the Kingdom of God. And we're acting like there's not a battle waging. I love this passage from Daniel because it it tells us something about how satan works. He works against the king's army. He works against the angels that want to work alongside of us because he wants to keep us imprisoned by a few lies. The first is this daniel believed that he didn't matter that God didn't care about him because God had to battle through the powers of Darkness to get to him. He believed the lie that he's on his own. That Daniel doesn't have God with him in the battle? He believed that God's silence was natural. Have you ever believed that? Like you've had those days where you're like, I haven't heard God's voice in a while, that just must be the way it is. That just must be the way that it is in this reality. But what we see in this passage and Daniel is that there's a spiritual reality where God wants to speak and he's held back by the forces of darkness in this world, Daniel was starting to believe that God's silence was natural. It wasn't natural. There was a dark force keeping him from hearing from God. He wants us to believe that there's no help coming. That confusion is normal. Daniel was looking for clarity and insight from the father and what he got was confusion because there was darkness that was fighting instant. There's an enemy that's silencing and blocking God's messengers. And even in the kingdom age, when the spirit of God has come, that's still happening today. There's an enemy that is working with our flesh, the powers of darkness and the systems of our world that keep us away from God's voice today. The enemy is using our flesh against us. He's using distraction to keep us from thinking of God. He's using business to keep us distracted from listening to God. He's using pleasure to keep us distracted from listening to God. He's having us fight the wrong fights against the wrong enemies to keep us distracted from God's presence, fortunately we learn that we have a secret weapon, that what's going to happen in seven weeks or eight weeks when we celebrate Pentecost, is that at the beginning of the church, God broke into this world in a way that had never been seen before, Something Daniel didn't have access to, which was the very presence of God implanted into human hearts that had been redeemed by the blood of jesus. The Holy Spirit, God's presence was making itself known and real to the exiles living in this world. And all of a sudden what happened was the light of God started to live in people. We have this secret weapon. The Holy Spirit has come to be our constant helpmate. He's called the Paraclete, which is like someone who gets under your arm and lifts you up and walks with you. The Holy Spirit is literally giving us protection. What we see in this passage in Ephesians is that this armor that paul is. I think paul was just getting a little cute with his metaphor. He started with like the belt of truth things like, well let's just keep rolling with this. And then all of a sudden he's got the whole room and get up because he's like that was a nice, he's a he's a preacher. He found a good metaphor and he just, he worked it into his little sermon to Ephesians. Um, but I think that like the armor is all about the spirit, literally God's presence giving protection to his people. It says in verse 14, stand your ground, let's walk through it, stand your ground putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God's righteousness. So how do we battle against this, the dark enemy of this world? Um, if I were to call, if I were to name this a class, this would be defense against the dark arts. That's what we're doing today. Defense against the dark arts. Our first, our first tool in the defense against the dark arts is truth. Truth penetrates darkness because it is itself the very presence of God in lightness, truth holds us together, lies tear us apart. Truth holds us together just like a belt is the thing that brings the outfit together. You're not put together to get the accessories. The belt is the accessory that holds everything together. And truth is the center of what God's kingdom is like. Truth is the thing that holds our weapons. We don't have any weapons. If we don't have the belt and truth is the thing that makes the battle worth it. We must be people who speak truth. We must be people who believe truth and we must be people who must be constantly broken of our self delusion and the lies that we believe that are so convenient that keep us away from God. And so we have to be people that are confronted by truth constantly in our discipleship groups. We talk a lot about uh the constant work of repentance and belief, we repent of the lives that have owned us and are shaping our lives in our world and we grab hold of the truth by believing what God has told us. This is the constant work of learning that we do as followers of jesus. This is one of the key defense against the dark world. Number two verse 15 for shoes, put on the peace that comes from the good news so that you will be fully prepared like you, he doesn't really, I'm gonna, I'm gonna help paul out because he doesn't quite get the metaphor altogether here, I'm just going to add on to a little bit um what our shoes shoes, our freedom shoes are, how you get from one place to another. There. The only way that your body is able to traverse through difficulty, otherwise your feet are the weakest point on your body because the world itself will stop you Shoes protect us from the darkness in this world. And the way that we do that in the spiritual realm is that we grab hold of the good news and paul's not using good news metaphorically, he's not saying, hey pull out your four spiritual laws and make sure you remember what the gospel is, the good news here is that the king himself has come. The good news is that God himself is breaking into this world. The good news is that jesus has made a way for us as exiles to live in his kingdom. Now we can, in the in the midst of the darkness of this world, experience God's presence and power because the good news says that his kingdom has broken in and if we forget that if we forget that his kingdom is broken in or we forget that we're a part of his kingdom, we can't experience the freedom from the pain of this world. So many times, we are trapped by the lies of this world that we are on our own. That it doesn't matter that there's no hope. But when we grab hold of the truth that his kingdom has come, we experience him and it also helps us remember that this is an in between time. It started with God creating the world and then the enemy came in, staked his claim on this world, God himself broke back in and made a new beachhead. But the fulfillment of all time will be God himself bringing all of creation back unto under him as Lord. And so there's hope because in the final day, that long arc of history that martin Luther king talked about is going to bend towards justice. God himself is gonna set things right. We can put our hope in that verse 16 in addition to all these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil paul is talking about pulling up this shield of faith if you've seen, he was using a roman warrior because to be clear, there weren't jewish warriors in the first century. These were roman warriors that they were imagining and they would have these shields that would be about 3.5 ft, something that they could crouch fully behind in warfare so that when a volley of arrows came, they could they could fully defend themselves with it. This shield of faith. The way that faith works is this, there's there's no other defense. There's only two options in this war, much like Ukraine right now has a choice. They only have one choice. Either they acquiesce to the darkness that's becoming them or they fight to the bitter end. There are only two choices. And so when we're talking about spiritual warfare, there's only two choices. Either you yield to the forces of darkness that are washing up against the shores of your life or you fight and you do that by taking up faith. Faith is our defense because that's the only place where we have refuge. The only one who can come against the powers of Darkness is him who made all things. And so I don't want to call it like christian fatalism, but there's not any other options to overcoming the death and destruction in this world, there's no other option to deal with the Brokenness around us other than to lean deeply, which is what faith is. The word literally means to like to like lean into, to put your complete body weight and trust in The only one who can save you. So either you can give in Or you can lean into your father, but that's the only defense you have against the fiery arrows of the Evil one. Our faith is absolutely rational. It makes sense because there's no other options to us. What we sing about and what we pray about, what we talked about throughout the whole bible is that we need to make these, these reminders. We call them ebenezer or stone statues. Um, and the archaeologists call them Stella's, which are these, these stone monuments to God's faithfulness. That's what we put our faith in. We put our we put our faith in God himself coming through, like he came through for jesus, like he came through for his disciples, like he came through for all those who went before us, like he's come through in our lives, we put our faith in him verse 17, put on salvation as your helmet and take the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Part of me feels like these feel like just paul was like, well I've got, I've got to have a helmet and I've got to have a sword. So what am I gonna do with this? I think there's some overlap but but I think what he's talking about here is um, have you guys ever put on like an inflatable sumo suit, anybody can get the helmet on, you get the suit on and you're sitting here, It's it's absurd, but when you're in a sumo suit, what can hurt you? Almost nothing. A lawn dart, a sharp stick. Yes, but I don't know about you. As soon as I put it on a sumo suit, I wanted to start jumping against walls. In fact I did. You jump up and you bounce against the wall and you bounce off and you feel indestructible? Uh I like to think so. Did you know that there's more concussions and more head injuries in football than rugby, even though football has helmets and rugby does not. The reason for that is as soon as you put on a helmet, what do you feel indestructible? All of a sudden? The most vital organs are protected. I can jump in with my head and use it like a weapon. I think that's what paul is getting at. As soon as you put on this helmet of Salvation, we can fight and we can live without fear. Just like that helmet of Salvation getting on our head because Salvation means the victory is assured Resurrection is r plus one life for all you gamers out there. Just imagine you're getting, you're getting you know, I don't know about you, but you go up against king Bowser in the end of the first world in Mario brothers and if you've got an extra life, what do you do? You go all out right? Like you don't you don't worry about it because you have an extra life that's going to happen. And I think what when he puts on that helmet salvation, he's saying you can go all out in this life because God himself has given you the life to come. This is not the end. And so when we come up against the powers of darkness in this world, we don't have to fear because this is not our only life, the resurrection is going to come and God himself is going to make the world what it was meant to be. And then we see the only offensive weapon available to us. There's a lot of funny things you can say here, but the only word, the only offensive weapon were given here is God's word. If you go forward to revelation when God himself sets all things right, do you remember jesus is on a horse? It's white, it's like his robe is dipped in blood, which is his own blood from when he was crucified and he slays the world with a sword that comes out of his mouth. That is what was revelations say, the word of God. God is literally going to bring all things under submission by truth from his word. And so that is enough for you and I we don't need an offensive weapon that's going to kill our enemies. Because like the Father, the enemies are the ones who came to die for not to kill God himself is trying to bring truth so that the world will come under his complete role and rain. In truth more than ever is under attack. Truth is under attack because it's a threat to the rulers of this world, both in the heavenly realms and our political leaders. Truth exposes the weakness of the lies that this world has to offer. When we talk, we talk about the three, the unholy trinity of our flesh and the world and the powers of Darkness. That's that's all that is conspiring against us in the heavenly realm, our flesh. We all have a temptation, constant temptation in this world. That temptation, every temptation is a lie. That if I exchange pleasure and relief from pain for righteousness, then I'm going to be better off. But as soon as we speak, the truth, as soon as we come against this lie, that pleasure and relief is better than righteousness. All of a sudden the world itself has lost its ability to coerce us, coerce us with gifts like I'm going to give you money, and I'm going to give you power and I'm gonna give you position. It takes away its ability to coerce us with pain saying I'm going to make your life miserable. As soon as we take those things off the table, and we speak. Truth to our temptation. That righteousness in connection with God is the best thing. This world loses his power. That's why truth is so powerful. It literally comes against the powers of Darkness to to take us out of the battle. The systems of this world. They want to lie to us about power and about sex and about money and about family. The systems of this world want to convince us that God has been lying to us. But when we speak the truth, that powers worse than weakness. When we speak the truth, that sex is a gift from God. When you speak the truth, that money won't save us. When we speak the truth, that family is precious. All of a sudden the powers of this world don't have any power over us anymore. The truth sets us free and the enemy himself is called the Deceiver. He's called the accuser because he uses those lies to take us from God's presence, to draw us away from him, to silence the very spirit that God has put inside of you to draw us away with distraction and pain and Brokenness. Matthew says, don't be afraid of those who want to kill your body. They can't touch your soul. Fear only God who can destroy both soul and body in hell. I think that we have gotten that upside down were deathly afraid of those who can just take our bodies and we're not afraid of the God himself who says I am the only one who has power over you. We have believed a lie that this world has the power to condemn us when God himself is the only one who has the power to condemn us. And instead of condemning us, he condemned himself. I'm gonna come back. We'll keep going. Some of you are thinking a very important question. And the question you have is why is this world so hard? Why is it contested? Why did God make the world this way anybody wondering that I've had one of those weeks? Yeah. Why the heck did God make it this way? Um and you know, this is the question that the question of pain and suffering is an important one for us to deal with. And to answer, I think it's old, but it's important first is this if God wanted to be in a relationship, a loving relationship with creation and required choice. Otherwise it's slavery. If you force somebody to be your friend, what is that? It's slavery. I watch my kids try to do it. They have their friends over they they forced their friend to just be their friend and not be friends with their little brothers. That's what happens in my house. That isn't, that's not real friendship. You're seeing them as a possession. God wants this beautiful relationship of love between us and him and so choices. This important part of creation. He couldn't have us in relationship without choice. Choice in this. My my thing is beeping. It means I have two minutes. So we're getting close, here we go. Um The choice in this context means the choice to walk away from God towards death and destruction. And for God to set all things right. It means he has to vanquish what's broken in this world. So God had to make choice which opened up the the opportunity for us to sin and move away from him. But God to to make all things right. Like we've talked about before, it means that he has to vanquish the sources of evil which are you and me. This world is just full of evil because of us. And so God has to choose. Does he destroy us? Or does he save us? Does he destroy us? Or does he transform us? And the cost to that is all of us have to live in the misery and the muck that we create for one another? Because the prince of Darkness knows that we are the battlefield where the prize and where the battlefield. This is why the gospel is such good news. God was willing to die for his enemies rather than vanquish them so that some might repent and some might believe and become witnesses for his cause. The enemy himself. He's the source of all suffering in this world. He has enslaved us with our flesh to use us as pawns to hurt our father. And so the work of walking in the kingdom is this is this incredible work of resistance to the powers of darkness and that's why we resist our world. Our work to come against the schemes of the enemy is the way that God alleviates suffering in this world. It's the way that families are restored. It's the way that communities thrive. When we do this. Work from Ephesians six of spiritual warfare. When we stand strong against the schemes of the evil one, we see the Kingdom of God come in power. We become a literal outpost of kingdom rule, living in exile in enemy territory, undermining the ruling authorities throughout Eastern Ukraine. Russia has taken a bunch of cities along the coast. But you know what's true in every one of those cities, there's a bunch of Ukrainian citizens who are working in resistance to the darkness at at at at work around them. That's what we are. That's what Redemption Hill is. And then paul gives us this very practical last insight in chapter six verse 18, he says this, pray in the spirit at all times on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere. So what do we have available to us to fight this darkness first? We use the word to transform our minds. The word itself transforms how we see the world so that we can live in the spiritual reality we're in. We use truth to repent of the lies that enslave us and enslave others. We pray in the Spirit so that we remember what's available to us the power of God at work. We become what some of you will feel awkward thinking. But we come woke to the spiritual reality around us were alert and persistent to see that there is a battle at play. We put our hope in the peace that comes from our father. Some of you have stopped fighting in those two options that all of us have with spiritual warfare, either acquiesce or fight? Some of you have stopped fighting. The enemy has gained a foothold in your life. Maybe it looks like addiction. Maybe it looks like broken relationships. Maybe it looks like discouragement. Maybe it looks like being tired. But some of you have just said, I'm just going to ignore the spiritual war and pretend like it's not there anymore. The first act of resistance is speaking the truth by saying that's a lie. There is a spiritual battle for your soul in your life. Do you want God to battle alongside of you or do you want to be it on your own? A slave to this world? Some of you have grown tired in the fight. You've started to believe that you were on your own and that you don't have what it takes to fight the devil's schemes, but the spirit is in you. The spirit is with you. The spirit has given you what you need. The spirit is constantly speaking truth to you to fight the devil's lies. You have comrades in arms right here in your community that want to fight with you in your spiritual battles and maybe some of you need to talk to some, some of the elders or micro church leaders because there's a battle in your life, right? This second that you're experiencing and you need some freedom from the battle that's overwhelming you. All of us need to live as if the battle is present. It's time to wake up and see the world that we live in the ways that we've been taken hostage and the way that we do that is that we let God's word constantly be a reflection back to us of what the kingdom looks like when you get into the word every morning and you read God's word, you look at it and say what's true about that, that's not true in my life. And then what we do is we say, I repent the ways that I am not in alignment with God's kingdom and I want to pursue God with his spirits power. It's a daily work of looking at God, looking at ourselves, seeing what's broken and then working to set aside the lies and green hold the truth. I don't know about you guys this, this last month. I've been in one of the most intense spiritual battles in my life. I I had a moment, about four weeks ago where this incredible lie about who I am like God, like I heard it in my head as if it were my own voice, but it was the voice of discouragement. It was a voice saying that I'm not enough and that I'm not worthy of God's love. And it's a voice that it it literally was like inception. It was this, it's a battle. It wasn't something I invented, it wasn't something I needed or wanted. But there's this battle for my soul and I've been fighting through this constant wave of discouragement in my ministry and my work and my family and I'm fighting. But it feels hard. I don't know what battles you're in, but I know what battle feels like. Some of you are in the middle of a battle for your very life. Some of you are feeling like, I don't know if I'm gonna make it this week. The battle is real and you can either ignore it and try to self medicate it or you can fight. But there's nothing in between. And I I covet your prayers like paul did here at the very last of chapter six and verse 19 says, pray for me too, ask God to give me the right word so I can boldly explain God's mysterious plan that the good news is for jews and gentiles alike guys, this is not a light sermon. It's not like an easy way to start out Holy Week. Holy weeks like we treat it like a celebration. But when jesus entered into Jerusalem, the powers of darkness came in like a flood. These same crowds that were standing around watching the procession of jesus. Maybe they weren't, maybe they weren't cheering along, but they were there, they were then embodied by the spirits of darkness that yelled crucify called condemnation on jesus. The week of easter is the spiritual battle played out right in front of us and either we can fight it or we can pretend like it doesn't exist, but we're going to be the battlefield either way. So we might as well jump in with a band of brothers who's going to fight alongside of us. Amen there's hope because God has given us the spirit and he's given us each other and he's given us his presence. So let's not act like there's no battle at play. Let's pray together Lord God, this world without questions just messed up. It's so far from what you want. It's filled with death. It's filled with hunger, it's filled with broken relationships. People who are desperate and sad and lonely. Lord God, we know that there's spiritual battle because we see the effects of the dark one and so we pray that you teach us the way of spiritual battle, which is to look to you to grab hold of the truth that comes from your word and your presence that were emboldened and encouraged and strengthened by your spirits, power and presence in our lives. That is through prayers and spiritual prayers for one another, lifting one another up that we battle alongside each other as a minority in a world committed to darkness that we would seek your light and your truth. Lord God use use this um, this complete thing that you've set aside in Ephesians six of the Belt of Truth, The helmet of Salvation, the breastplate of Righteousness and let it be our protection as we look to you to be our shield and our strength or God give us the courage to speak truth in a world of lies. Give us the courage to live boldly in a community of saints. When the world says you're on your own, give us the courage to fight the temptations that so easily beset us. Lord God give us the courage to look to you in our times of need. Rather than feel like we're all alone Holy Father, Be with us in your name. We pray amenredemption church,
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All right, come on over. We are. It's palm sunday. But you know, I know you guys are excited to hear a sermon about a donkey. You're not getting it. Today. We are going to uh we're gonna finish up Ephesians because we're just so close And we love it. Love a fresh start after Easter. So we're in Ephesians chapter six palms. Okay, well I'm gonna switch the sermon and he wants me to hit palm sunday. Uh No, we're gonna, Yeah, every, every pastor who's honest will tell you the holidays are the hardest things to preach because every instance of christmas and easter, you've hit a million times. So we're gonna jump in Ephesians six if you get your bibles Ephesians six verse 10, A final word paul says, Alright, this is it. He's he's he's hitting the the final stretch here, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power, but on all of God's armor so that you'll be able to stand firm against all the strategies of the devil. For we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. Therefore, put on every piece of God's armor so that you'll be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. And then after the battle, you'll be standing firm, stand your ground putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God's righteousness for shoes. Put on the peace that comes from the good news that you'll be fully prepared. In addition to all these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil, put on salvation as your helmet and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion, stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere and pray for me to also ask God to give me the right words so I can boldly explain God's mysterious plan that the good news is for the jews and the gentiles alike. I'm in chains now and still preaching this message as God's ambassador. So pray that I'll keep on speaking boldly for him as I should to bring you up to date. Take a kiss, we'll give you a full report about what I'm doing and how I'm getting along. He's a beloved brother and faithful helper in the Lord's work. I've sent him to you for this very purpose to let you know how we're doing and to encourage you peace. Be with you dear brothers and sisters and May the God the father and the Lord jesus christ. Give you love with faithfulness. May God's grace be eternally upon all those who love our Lord, jesus christ. This is the word of the Lord. Do you guys have those movies that you watch over and over again? It drives me crazy. But I probably watch like I watched basically every baseball movie every spring, you know, to get ready for the season, you gotta get gotta get amped up. Um, and one of those ones that I watch pretty regularly um, is saving private Ryan and it's a, it's just a phenomenal film and obviously won like a million Oscars and all that. But I think for anybody who lives Or who lived in the 20th century, understanding the Second World War is vital to understanding our modern world. It shapes so much of who we are and what we do. Um, D day, the story of Saint Croix Ryan is about D day in the aftermath of Um the Allied forces coming across the English channel and taking the beaches in northern France and then moving towards Berlin over the summer of 44 D. Day was a culmination of six years of war across Europe and around the world. But I don't know if you if you've done the math, but the americans had only been a part of the war for a little over 2.5 years at that point, The war had been raging for six years And the Americans have been part of the war for just 2.5 years. From December 1941 forward, our country was sitting on the sidelines that we were supporting the allies, some with the lend lease act and pretending that the mode of the oceans around us would protect us from the war that was raging across three continents. But pretending that the battle wasn't happening, it didn't change the reality on the ground. If you lived in London you were experiencing nightly bombings at the hands of german fighter pilots France had been lost. Italy was no longer independent Germany was taking over a massive portion of the world and we wanted to pretend that the world war didn't affect us until the Japanese foolishly woke up what Admiral Yamamoto called the Sleeping Giant. And if that's not a great metaphor for spiritual warfare, I don't know what is, most of us are living in a world as if there's not a war raging around us. Most of us are pretending like we live in a world that is without conflict. But every once in a while like moments like 2022 2020 to come along and we are jolted by something like a pearl harbor in our lives to remember that this world is that war. There are distinctly two realms. There is what is seen which is the experience of humanity with our all of our five senses. We experience the world and we create some sort of image of what the world is by how we experience it, that is what is seen. But we know that there is this vast amount of all created order that is completely unseen. We know it through science, but we also know it, But because the physicists are saying that there's all these anomalies in the experience of the world that can't be explained by normal physics and what they call it is the metaverse, or they call it this um this multiverse where these all these they say up to 12 different dimensions that are existing simultaneously and they have no way of describing what it is or where it comes from. But what they're talking about is the unseen the reality that there's something much beyond what we experience and what we as humans are able to describe. But we live in a really material world, built on the scientific method of experimentation. And this is the great tactic of our enemy in the post enlightenment Western world. It keeps us on the sideline by using rationalism to keep us in our heads and using our eyes and our hands so that we ignore our bodies. We ignore our emotions. We ignore our spirits and use our eyes and our rationale is the only way of knowing something when all of us know that this world has much more going on than what we can see what we can touch. There's this other reality that we walk through every day, but we don't see it because we're like fish and water. It's all around us. It's moving every part of this world. But we can't even talk about it because it's just so primal to existence. It's the spiritual reality of the south and this spiritual world that is alongside our world. It's a lot like our world in that it's not neutral, It's not at peace. The spiritual realm itself is at war. It's raging alongside this reality that we face. It's why in our quiet moments we feel all of the anxious nous. It's why when we quiet our hearts and we look at what's happening inside of us, we feel all of this battle raging. But here's what happens. And I think what paul is pointing to here is that satan sometimes overplays his hand in the spiritual realm and we see it really clearly in our present realm, in this physical world and he repeats so much destruction that God's people actually notice the battle that's raging around us. That's what's happening right now. Ukraine in the battle, there is a spillover from the spiritual realm, our world is at war because the spiritual realm is at war first. Peter five Verse eight says, stay alert, watch out for the great enemy. The devil he prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to develop. Excuse me to devour a lion circles its prey. It waits until it's weak or it's slow where it's not paying attention. Cats. I don't know if you if you've been around cats, but they're pretty lazy. They're opportunistic. I like that. That's the way Peter wants to describe the enemy. He's lazy and opportunistic. Even satan has bad character in how he's trying to run this war against us. Okay, God's like throwing shade on him. He's like a lion, he waits around and when there's an opportunity he pounces, he's looking for opportunities. And this passage is about how do we fight? How do we fight spiritual battles in this physical reality that we live in. Um well, most of the bible is a very um, it's a very material document. It's talking about what's happening with people. There's a lot of history, there's a lot of stories, but woven throughout all these stories is this spiritual reality that's happening, that we don't always have access to a greater picture of were victims of the spiritual war this waging. But we can't see what's going on. But a few times in the bible, we get a real clear glimpse at what's happening in the spiritual realm and I don't know about you, but I always like really want to pay attention in those moments In Daniel chapter 10, Daniel had this vision in a dream of this man across the river and he, he was perturbed by it. He didn't know what to do with it. And so he started to pray and fast so that God would tell him what was happening in the spiritual realm. And he waited 21 days and Daniel was getting frustrated and then an angel shows up, An angel shows up actually, it knocks him over, knocks him out. And he has this vision of this angel before him in the spiritual realm. And it says in chapter 10 verse 12 then he said, don't be afraid, Daniel since the first day you began to pray for understanding and to humble yourself before God, Your request had been heard in heaven. So 21 days before God heard Daniel's request and he says, I've come to answer your prayer. But For 21 days, the spirit prince of the Kingdom of Persia blocked my way. There's a lot in that one sentence. First of all, there's a Spirit Prince of a country, like a guy who is in charge spiritually of a whole place of of Persia. This is the kingdom that had taken over the Northern kingdom. They were living exist exiles there. And Daniel is Daniel is trying to see what's happening and there's a, there's a fight happening in the spiritual realm. The Spirit Prince of the Kingdom of Persia blocked my way. Then Michael, one of the archangels came to help me and I left there, I left him there with the Spirit Prince of the Kingdom of Persia. And I just love this picture of like, Michael comes along and like puts him in a headlock and he's like, go for it and he's like the angel then bolts to get to Daniel because he couldn't handle it on its own. Like the picture of what's happening in the heavenly realm is that there's some, some spiritual distance between where Michael and the angels who are a part of God's kingdom are away from this world and this place, why? Because this world has been given over to the Kingdom of Darkness. You and I, Most of the humans on this planet have pledged loyalty with our lives to the kingdom of this world. We're living in his reality. And God, when his kingdom comes, it breaks into this kingdom, it has to fight its way in to ransom and rescue humans from this kingdom of Darkness. And he says, now I'm here to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future for this vision concerns a time yet to come. While he was speaking to me, I looked down on the ground, unable to say a word. And then the one who looked like a man touched my lips and I opened my mouth and began to speak and I said to the one standing in front of me. I'm filled with anguish because of the vision I've seen. My Lord. I am very weak. How can someone like me or servant talk to you, my Lord. This is Little L Lord, not big L Lord, my strength is gone and I can hardly breathe. And then the one who looked like a man touched me again and I felt my strength returning. Don't be afraid, he said. For you are very precious to God. Peace! Be encouraged. Be strong. Daniel had been waiting around for 21 days. Can you imagine how discouraged he felt? Waiting for God's voice. He'd been fasting for three weeks hoping and praying that God would bring him insight. And then this angel comes and gives him courage. Don't be afraid you are precious to God. Daniel had believed a lie that God had left him, that God had left him on his own and that his people, we're living as exiles and that God himself didn't care about them. But God sends a messenger and says, you are very precious to God. Remember that we're gonna come back to this And he speaks These spoke these words to me. I suddenly felt stronger. Said to him. Please speak to me, Lord, for you have strengthened me! He replied. Do you know why I've come soon. I will return to fight against the Spirit Prince of the Kingdom of Persia. And after that the Spirit Prince of the Kingdom of Greece is going to come Obviously like this has written 500 years, 400 years before Alexander, the Macedonian is going to take over. Like that's a crazy thing. It's right here in the text. Meanwhile, I'll tell you what's written in the Book of Truth. No one helps me against these spirit princes except Michael, your spirit prints. I have been standing beside Michael to support and strengthen him since the first beginning of the reign of Darius the Mead. This is a picture of the spiritual battle that's raging around us in this multiverse, that we can't see. The stakes are really high. All the marbles are on this planet being redeemed and restored into the Kingdom of God. And we're acting like there's not a battle waging. I love this passage from Daniel because it it tells us something about how satan works. He works against the king's army. He works against the angels that want to work alongside of us because he wants to keep us imprisoned by a few lies. The first is this daniel believed that he didn't matter that God didn't care about him because God had to battle through the powers of Darkness to get to him. He believed the lie that he's on his own. That Daniel doesn't have God with him in the battle? He believed that God's silence was natural. Have you ever believed that? Like you've had those days where you're like, I haven't heard God's voice in a while, that just must be the way it is. That just must be the way that it is in this reality. But what we see in this passage and Daniel is that there's a spiritual reality where God wants to speak and he's held back by the forces of darkness in this world, Daniel was starting to believe that God's silence was natural. It wasn't natural. There was a dark force keeping him from hearing from God. He wants us to believe that there's no help coming. That confusion is normal. Daniel was looking for clarity and insight from the father and what he got was confusion because there was darkness that was fighting instant. There's an enemy that's silencing and blocking God's messengers. And even in the kingdom age, when the spirit of God has come, that's still happening today. There's an enemy that is working with our flesh, the powers of darkness and the systems of our world that keep us away from God's voice today. The enemy is using our flesh against us. He's using distraction to keep us from thinking of God. He's using business to keep us distracted from listening to God. He's using pleasure to keep us distracted from listening to God. He's having us fight the wrong fights against the wrong enemies to keep us distracted from God's presence, fortunately we learn that we have a secret weapon, that what's going to happen in seven weeks or eight weeks when we celebrate Pentecost, is that at the beginning of the church, God broke into this world in a way that had never been seen before, Something Daniel didn't have access to, which was the very presence of God implanted into human hearts that had been redeemed by the blood of jesus. The Holy Spirit, God's presence was making itself known and real to the exiles living in this world. And all of a sudden what happened was the light of God started to live in people. We have this secret weapon. The Holy Spirit has come to be our constant helpmate. He's called the Paraclete, which is like someone who gets under your arm and lifts you up and walks with you. The Holy Spirit is literally giving us protection. What we see in this passage in Ephesians is that this armor that paul is. I think paul was just getting a little cute with his metaphor. He started with like the belt of truth things like, well let's just keep rolling with this. And then all of a sudden he's got the whole room and get up because he's like that was a nice, he's a he's a preacher. He found a good metaphor and he just, he worked it into his little sermon to Ephesians. Um, but I think that like the armor is all about the spirit, literally God's presence giving protection to his people. It says in verse 14, stand your ground, let's walk through it, stand your ground putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God's righteousness. So how do we battle against this, the dark enemy of this world? Um, if I were to call, if I were to name this a class, this would be defense against the dark arts. That's what we're doing today. Defense against the dark arts. Our first, our first tool in the defense against the dark arts is truth. Truth penetrates darkness because it is itself the very presence of God in lightness, truth holds us together, lies tear us apart. Truth holds us together just like a belt is the thing that brings the outfit together. You're not put together to get the accessories. The belt is the accessory that holds everything together. And truth is the center of what God's kingdom is like. Truth is the thing that holds our weapons. We don't have any weapons. If we don't have the belt and truth is the thing that makes the battle worth it. We must be people who speak truth. We must be people who believe truth and we must be people who must be constantly broken of our self delusion and the lies that we believe that are so convenient that keep us away from God. And so we have to be people that are confronted by truth constantly in our discipleship groups. We talk a lot about uh the constant work of repentance and belief, we repent of the lives that have owned us and are shaping our lives in our world and we grab hold of the truth by believing what God has told us. This is the constant work of learning that we do as followers of jesus. This is one of the key defense against the dark world. Number two verse 15 for shoes, put on the peace that comes from the good news so that you will be fully prepared like you, he doesn't really, I'm gonna, I'm gonna help paul out because he doesn't quite get the metaphor altogether here, I'm just going to add on to a little bit um what our shoes shoes, our freedom shoes are, how you get from one place to another. There. The only way that your body is able to traverse through difficulty, otherwise your feet are the weakest point on your body because the world itself will stop you Shoes protect us from the darkness in this world. And the way that we do that in the spiritual realm is that we grab hold of the good news and paul's not using good news metaphorically, he's not saying, hey pull out your four spiritual laws and make sure you remember what the gospel is, the good news here is that the king himself has come. The good news is that God himself is breaking into this world. The good news is that jesus has made a way for us as exiles to live in his kingdom. Now we can, in the in the midst of the darkness of this world, experience God's presence and power because the good news says that his kingdom has broken in and if we forget that if we forget that his kingdom is broken in or we forget that we're a part of his kingdom, we can't experience the freedom from the pain of this world. So many times, we are trapped by the lies of this world that we are on our own. That it doesn't matter that there's no hope. But when we grab hold of the truth that his kingdom has come, we experience him and it also helps us remember that this is an in between time. It started with God creating the world and then the enemy came in, staked his claim on this world, God himself broke back in and made a new beachhead. But the fulfillment of all time will be God himself bringing all of creation back unto under him as Lord. And so there's hope because in the final day, that long arc of history that martin Luther king talked about is going to bend towards justice. God himself is gonna set things right. We can put our hope in that verse 16 in addition to all these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil paul is talking about pulling up this shield of faith if you've seen, he was using a roman warrior because to be clear, there weren't jewish warriors in the first century. These were roman warriors that they were imagining and they would have these shields that would be about 3.5 ft, something that they could crouch fully behind in warfare so that when a volley of arrows came, they could they could fully defend themselves with it. This shield of faith. The way that faith works is this, there's there's no other defense. There's only two options in this war, much like Ukraine right now has a choice. They only have one choice. Either they acquiesce to the darkness that's becoming them or they fight to the bitter end. There are only two choices. And so when we're talking about spiritual warfare, there's only two choices. Either you yield to the forces of darkness that are washing up against the shores of your life or you fight and you do that by taking up faith. Faith is our defense because that's the only place where we have refuge. The only one who can come against the powers of Darkness is him who made all things. And so I don't want to call it like christian fatalism, but there's not any other options to overcoming the death and destruction in this world, there's no other option to deal with the Brokenness around us other than to lean deeply, which is what faith is. The word literally means to like to like lean into, to put your complete body weight and trust in The only one who can save you. So either you can give in Or you can lean into your father, but that's the only defense you have against the fiery arrows of the Evil one. Our faith is absolutely rational. It makes sense because there's no other options to us. What we sing about and what we pray about, what we talked about throughout the whole bible is that we need to make these, these reminders. We call them ebenezer or stone statues. Um, and the archaeologists call them Stella's, which are these, these stone monuments to God's faithfulness. That's what we put our faith in. We put our we put our faith in God himself coming through, like he came through for jesus, like he came through for his disciples, like he came through for all those who went before us, like he's come through in our lives, we put our faith in him verse 17, put on salvation as your helmet and take the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Part of me feels like these feel like just paul was like, well I've got, I've got to have a helmet and I've got to have a sword. So what am I gonna do with this? I think there's some overlap but but I think what he's talking about here is um, have you guys ever put on like an inflatable sumo suit, anybody can get the helmet on, you get the suit on and you're sitting here, It's it's absurd, but when you're in a sumo suit, what can hurt you? Almost nothing. A lawn dart, a sharp stick. Yes, but I don't know about you. As soon as I put it on a sumo suit, I wanted to start jumping against walls. In fact I did. You jump up and you bounce against the wall and you bounce off and you feel indestructible? Uh I like to think so. Did you know that there's more concussions and more head injuries in football than rugby, even though football has helmets and rugby does not. The reason for that is as soon as you put on a helmet, what do you feel indestructible? All of a sudden? The most vital organs are protected. I can jump in with my head and use it like a weapon. I think that's what paul is getting at. As soon as you put on this helmet of Salvation, we can fight and we can live without fear. Just like that helmet of Salvation getting on our head because Salvation means the victory is assured Resurrection is r plus one life for all you gamers out there. Just imagine you're getting, you're getting you know, I don't know about you, but you go up against king Bowser in the end of the first world in Mario brothers and if you've got an extra life, what do you do? You go all out right? Like you don't you don't worry about it because you have an extra life that's going to happen. And I think what when he puts on that helmet salvation, he's saying you can go all out in this life because God himself has given you the life to come. This is not the end. And so when we come up against the powers of darkness in this world, we don't have to fear because this is not our only life, the resurrection is going to come and God himself is going to make the world what it was meant to be. And then we see the only offensive weapon available to us. There's a lot of funny things you can say here, but the only word, the only offensive weapon were given here is God's word. If you go forward to revelation when God himself sets all things right, do you remember jesus is on a horse? It's white, it's like his robe is dipped in blood, which is his own blood from when he was crucified and he slays the world with a sword that comes out of his mouth. That is what was revelations say, the word of God. God is literally going to bring all things under submission by truth from his word. And so that is enough for you and I we don't need an offensive weapon that's going to kill our enemies. Because like the Father, the enemies are the ones who came to die for not to kill God himself is trying to bring truth so that the world will come under his complete role and rain. In truth more than ever is under attack. Truth is under attack because it's a threat to the rulers of this world, both in the heavenly realms and our political leaders. Truth exposes the weakness of the lies that this world has to offer. When we talk, we talk about the three, the unholy trinity of our flesh and the world and the powers of Darkness. That's that's all that is conspiring against us in the heavenly realm, our flesh. We all have a temptation, constant temptation in this world. That temptation, every temptation is a lie. That if I exchange pleasure and relief from pain for righteousness, then I'm going to be better off. But as soon as we speak, the truth, as soon as we come against this lie, that pleasure and relief is better than righteousness. All of a sudden the world itself has lost its ability to coerce us, coerce us with gifts like I'm going to give you money, and I'm going to give you power and I'm gonna give you position. It takes away its ability to coerce us with pain saying I'm going to make your life miserable. As soon as we take those things off the table, and we speak. Truth to our temptation. That righteousness in connection with God is the best thing. This world loses his power. That's why truth is so powerful. It literally comes against the powers of Darkness to to take us out of the battle. The systems of this world. They want to lie to us about power and about sex and about money and about family. The systems of this world want to convince us that God has been lying to us. But when we speak the truth, that powers worse than weakness. When we speak the truth, that sex is a gift from God. When you speak the truth, that money won't save us. When we speak the truth, that family is precious. All of a sudden the powers of this world don't have any power over us anymore. The truth sets us free and the enemy himself is called the Deceiver. He's called the accuser because he uses those lies to take us from God's presence, to draw us away from him, to silence the very spirit that God has put inside of you to draw us away with distraction and pain and Brokenness. Matthew says, don't be afraid of those who want to kill your body. They can't touch your soul. Fear only God who can destroy both soul and body in hell. I think that we have gotten that upside down were deathly afraid of those who can just take our bodies and we're not afraid of the God himself who says I am the only one who has power over you. We have believed a lie that this world has the power to condemn us when God himself is the only one who has the power to condemn us. And instead of condemning us, he condemned himself. I'm gonna come back. We'll keep going. Some of you are thinking a very important question. And the question you have is why is this world so hard? Why is it contested? Why did God make the world this way anybody wondering that I've had one of those weeks? Yeah. Why the heck did God make it this way? Um and you know, this is the question that the question of pain and suffering is an important one for us to deal with. And to answer, I think it's old, but it's important first is this if God wanted to be in a relationship, a loving relationship with creation and required choice. Otherwise it's slavery. If you force somebody to be your friend, what is that? It's slavery. I watch my kids try to do it. They have their friends over they they forced their friend to just be their friend and not be friends with their little brothers. That's what happens in my house. That isn't, that's not real friendship. You're seeing them as a possession. God wants this beautiful relationship of love between us and him and so choices. This important part of creation. He couldn't have us in relationship without choice. Choice in this. My my thing is beeping. It means I have two minutes. So we're getting close, here we go. Um The choice in this context means the choice to walk away from God towards death and destruction. And for God to set all things right. It means he has to vanquish what's broken in this world. So God had to make choice which opened up the the opportunity for us to sin and move away from him. But God to to make all things right. Like we've talked about before, it means that he has to vanquish the sources of evil which are you and me. This world is just full of evil because of us. And so God has to choose. Does he destroy us? Or does he save us? Does he destroy us? Or does he transform us? And the cost to that is all of us have to live in the misery and the muck that we create for one another? Because the prince of Darkness knows that we are the battlefield where the prize and where the battlefield. This is why the gospel is such good news. God was willing to die for his enemies rather than vanquish them so that some might repent and some might believe and become witnesses for his cause. The enemy himself. He's the source of all suffering in this world. He has enslaved us with our flesh to use us as pawns to hurt our father. And so the work of walking in the kingdom is this is this incredible work of resistance to the powers of darkness and that's why we resist our world. Our work to come against the schemes of the enemy is the way that God alleviates suffering in this world. It's the way that families are restored. It's the way that communities thrive. When we do this. Work from Ephesians six of spiritual warfare. When we stand strong against the schemes of the evil one, we see the Kingdom of God come in power. We become a literal outpost of kingdom rule, living in exile in enemy territory, undermining the ruling authorities throughout Eastern Ukraine. Russia has taken a bunch of cities along the coast. But you know what's true in every one of those cities, there's a bunch of Ukrainian citizens who are working in resistance to the darkness at at at at work around them. That's what we are. That's what Redemption Hill is. And then paul gives us this very practical last insight in chapter six verse 18, he says this, pray in the spirit at all times on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere. So what do we have available to us to fight this darkness first? We use the word to transform our minds. The word itself transforms how we see the world so that we can live in the spiritual reality we're in. We use truth to repent of the lies that enslave us and enslave others. We pray in the Spirit so that we remember what's available to us the power of God at work. We become what some of you will feel awkward thinking. But we come woke to the spiritual reality around us were alert and persistent to see that there is a battle at play. We put our hope in the peace that comes from our father. Some of you have stopped fighting in those two options that all of us have with spiritual warfare, either acquiesce or fight? Some of you have stopped fighting. The enemy has gained a foothold in your life. Maybe it looks like addiction. Maybe it looks like broken relationships. Maybe it looks like discouragement. Maybe it looks like being tired. But some of you have just said, I'm just going to ignore the spiritual war and pretend like it's not there anymore. The first act of resistance is speaking the truth by saying that's a lie. There is a spiritual battle for your soul in your life. Do you want God to battle alongside of you or do you want to be it on your own? A slave to this world? Some of you have grown tired in the fight. You've started to believe that you were on your own and that you don't have what it takes to fight the devil's schemes, but the spirit is in you. The spirit is with you. The spirit has given you what you need. The spirit is constantly speaking truth to you to fight the devil's lies. You have comrades in arms right here in your community that want to fight with you in your spiritual battles and maybe some of you need to talk to some, some of the elders or micro church leaders because there's a battle in your life, right? This second that you're experiencing and you need some freedom from the battle that's overwhelming you. All of us need to live as if the battle is present. It's time to wake up and see the world that we live in the ways that we've been taken hostage and the way that we do that is that we let God's word constantly be a reflection back to us of what the kingdom looks like when you get into the word every morning and you read God's word, you look at it and say what's true about that, that's not true in my life. And then what we do is we say, I repent the ways that I am not in alignment with God's kingdom and I want to pursue God with his spirits power. It's a daily work of looking at God, looking at ourselves, seeing what's broken and then working to set aside the lies and green hold the truth. I don't know about you guys this, this last month. I've been in one of the most intense spiritual battles in my life. I I had a moment, about four weeks ago where this incredible lie about who I am like God, like I heard it in my head as if it were my own voice, but it was the voice of discouragement. It was a voice saying that I'm not enough and that I'm not worthy of God's love. And it's a voice that it it literally was like inception. It was this, it's a battle. It wasn't something I invented, it wasn't something I needed or wanted. But there's this battle for my soul and I've been fighting through this constant wave of discouragement in my ministry and my work and my family and I'm fighting. But it feels hard. I don't know what battles you're in, but I know what battle feels like. Some of you are in the middle of a battle for your very life. Some of you are feeling like, I don't know if I'm gonna make it this week. The battle is real and you can either ignore it and try to self medicate it or you can fight. But there's nothing in between. And I I covet your prayers like paul did here at the very last of chapter six and verse 19 says, pray for me too, ask God to give me the right word so I can boldly explain God's mysterious plan that the good news is for jews and gentiles alike guys, this is not a light sermon. It's not like an easy way to start out Holy Week. Holy weeks like we treat it like a celebration. But when jesus entered into Jerusalem, the powers of darkness came in like a flood. These same crowds that were standing around watching the procession of jesus. Maybe they weren't, maybe they weren't cheering along, but they were there, they were then embodied by the spirits of darkness that yelled crucify called condemnation on jesus. The week of easter is the spiritual battle played out right in front of us and either we can fight it or we can pretend like it doesn't exist, but we're going to be the battlefield either way. So we might as well jump in with a band of brothers who's going to fight alongside of us. Amen there's hope because God has given us the spirit and he's given us each other and he's given us his presence. So let's not act like there's no battle at play. Let's pray together Lord God, this world without questions just messed up. It's so far from what you want. It's filled with death. It's filled with hunger, it's filled with broken relationships. People who are desperate and sad and lonely. Lord God, we know that there's spiritual battle because we see the effects of the dark one and so we pray that you teach us the way of spiritual battle, which is to look to you to grab hold of the truth that comes from your word and your presence that were emboldened and encouraged and strengthened by your spirits, power and presence in our lives. That is through prayers and spiritual prayers for one another, lifting one another up that we battle alongside each other as a minority in a world committed to darkness that we would seek your light and your truth. Lord God use use this um, this complete thing that you've set aside in Ephesians six of the Belt of Truth, The helmet of Salvation, the breastplate of Righteousness and let it be our protection as we look to you to be our shield and our strength or God give us the courage to speak truth in a world of lies. Give us the courage to live boldly in a community of saints. When the world says you're on your own, give us the courage to fight the temptations that so easily beset us. Lord God give us the courage to look to you in our times of need. Rather than feel like we're all alone Holy Father, Be with us in your name. We pray amenredemption church,
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