Battle Ready // The Belt and the Breastplate

or six today, or maybe efficient six.

And we started a new series last week entitled battle ready, and this series is all about spiritual warfare and I'm going to give you guys a little quiz this morning.

Are you ready for a quiz?

Let's go.

Okay, that's all I'd like to hear.

So last week we learned what spiritual warfare is.

Spiritual warfare is conflict in the spiritual realm that affects the physical realm.

That's right.

The physical realm, that's right.

Some of you were in a conflict, you're like physical, yes, you're right.

The physical realm, that's what.

That's what spiritual warfare is.

And last week we started this series by sharing that there are three steps that we need to take to prepare for battle.

And does anybody have an amazing, incredible memory and can remember one of the three steps that we have to take to prepare for battle?

Prayer is an important thing.

Prayer is an important thing.

That wasn't one of the steps we talked about, but that was good.

That's right.

That's right.

I identify the enemy.

Identify the enemy, that's right.

We first be identified the enemy.

Who's the enemy?

The enemy is Satan.

It's the devil.

Okay, what's up?

What's another one?

That's great, that's right.

Find out his plan.

Understand the enemy that's so good.

Man, y'all are smart, y'all got a great memory, identify him, understand his plan.

And then we need to embrace the battle.

Great, that's right.

Embrace the battle that we are in.

Maybe you weren't here last week.

You can catch any of our messages on YouTube or our podcast.

You can catch up on last week's message.

But these are the three steps we need to take Now.

Today, as we get into this, we are going to talk about and settle some really important life debates.

These have life-impacting implications.

We're talking about these debates that center around food, coffee and, of course, football.

This is what I want to do.

I want to give you an opportunity to share what you believe about these things.

We're going to put some pictures up on the screen.

First picture the two most popular breakfast cereals of all time Cinnamon toast crunch and honey net cereals.

Cinnamon toast crunch and honey net cereals.

If you are team honey net cereals, let me hear you on the count of three One, two, three.

Team honey net cereals in the house.

If you're like me and your team, cinnamon toast crunch, let me hear you.

That's oh yeah.

Cinnamon toast crunch One, two, three, all right, all right, that's kind of close, okay, all right.

Now to coffee.

If you are a Starbucks Frappuccino loving person, let me hear you on three.

One, two, three.

All right.

Starbucks versus Pete's If you like your coffee, maybe a little bit stronger, or maybe you're just anti-Starbucks and you just like Pete's Pete's is your jam Team Pete's, let me hear you on three.

One, two, three.

Yeah, okay, yep, yep, and some of you in the room that our team know coffee at all.

You're like you, coffee people are crazy, you guys are crazy.

But now the most important debate of these three.

We talked about food, we talked about coffee.

It's the fall season, so we're going to talk about football.

Okay, all right, okay.

So how many of you are wretched people out there, our, our team leaders?

If your team leaders, let me hear you on three.

One, two, three.

God, I'm trying, I really am.

If you are a Jesus loving, god fearing person and you are team Niners, let me hear you on three.

One, two, three, let's go.

And how many of you just don't care about football?

Okay, those are the people we will all pray for this morning, all right.

Favorite foods, favorite coffee, favorite football teams you know what these are, it's just objective.

They're based on your preferences, your preferences.

I have preferences, as much as I would love to say no, this isn't a preference, it's objective.

That the Niners are the team that I would like to say cinnamon toast crunch, let me just tell you that is.

That is the greatest cereal of all time.

It's.

It's based on my preference.

Subjective things are based on preferences, but objective things are based on facts.

Objective truth is based on facts.

It's not based on feelings or emotions, it's a fact.

For example, okay, here's an objective truth.

If I were to climb up the top of a building, and I were to jump off the top of a building, what would happen?

Somebody tell me I would.

I would fall.

I would fall.

Because why would I fall?

Because of the objective truth of gravity, right, that, that's the real of gravity, because gravity, I would fall.

Objectives I could say no, no, no, I believe I can fly, sorry, right.

Here's another one.

As you get more seasoned in life, you have more life experience.

Your body just doesn't quite work as well as it used to.

That's like.

That's objective, right, like it just kind of happens.

It doesn't matter what you feel Like.

This is true.

Here's another one Some of you parents you've learned this because you have younger ones Is that if you don't take a shower and you don't clean yourself, eventually you're going to sleep.

That's objective.

No matter how much apps body spray somebody sprays on themselves, you got it.

You got to take a shower.

Now here's why this matters so much.

Tell me you're thinking where in the world are we going with talking about 49ers and Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Aft's Body Sprite?

We live in a society that says there's no objective truth, that everything is subjective.

If you feel that way, I feel this way.

That's your truth.

This is my truth.

Like there's no such thing as objective truth.

I mean, does it logic alone tell us that there has to be objective truth?

Ok, 2 plus 2, what is it equal, guys?

It equals 4.

No, I feel like this equals 5.

No, no, no.

Are you telling me that 2 plus 2 doesn't equal 4?

Like this hurts me.

You think, guys, we know 2 plus 2 equals 4.

This is truth.

And why this matters so much is because, in this battle-rating series that we're in today, we're going to see that, if we're going to armor up in the midst of spiritual warfare, the most important piece of armor we have is truth.

And, according to Jesus, truth sets us free.

Jesus says this.

Jesus says you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

And if truth sets us free and, as we're going to see today, truth protects us, then freedom and protection is found in knowing and applying the truth.

Freedom and protection is found, experienced, by knowing and applying the truth.

Even in a world that says no, there's no such thing as truth.

Even in a world that says truth, it's just based on whatever you feel like.

I mean, after all, you're the captain of your own ship.

Nobody has the right to tell you what to do, because you are your own person.

Ultimately, you are your own deity, you are your own God.

You can do whatever you want.

Truth is what you want it to be.

And while that's our mindset in our world and in some of our lives, have we ever paused for a second and thought about where that mindset has led us today, as a group of people in our country, we, on record, are the saddest and loneliest generation in history.

Since the 1960s, happiness levels in our country has been on a steep decline and in our quote, unquote progress.

To have this hyper-inflated view of self.

What's happened to guys is it just hasn't worked, like making feelings.

The foundation for truth has failed us desperately.

So what did we get?

We run to truth and we let truth be the foundation of our life, even if truth is unpopular, even if truth is uncomfortable, even if truth calls us to do hard things.

What we don't do is we don't try to adjust the truth to fit how we want to live.

We fit our lives to what the truth is, because it's then, and only then, where we can experience freedom.

And some of us right now are in a place in our lives where we are trying to experience freedom and we are just like looking for something out there and like we need this and if we can just get this next whatever over here, then we can experience the life that we want, then we can experience freedom.

And all along the way, we are running from the very person that can give us freedom, and that's Jesus.

This is what's going to happen this morning, and I'm just believing this that, as we look at truth this morning, that somebody in this room and some people in this room are going to experience freedom, maybe for the first time in a long time, because you are going to see what the power of truth can do in your life During Ephesians, chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

You are ready to see this?

What you say?

Amen.

Ephesians 6, verse 13 we read this verse last week.

Ephesians 6:13

This is for this reason take up the full armor of God.

You may be able to resist in the evil day and having prepared everything to take your stance.

So how do we take our stance?

Paul is about to unpack six pieces of armor that we are going to see over the next few days of how we take our stance.

He starts off with the most important piece of armor.

Stand, therefore, with what's the next word ready.

It is truth.

Stand with truth like a belt around your waist.

Righteousness like armor on your chest.

You guys have seen one movie with the Roman soldiers and they go out to battle and they are fighting and these different things.

You guys have seen those before.

They were a tunic, which is like a fancy dress.

They had this belt around them and they would have to have the belt in place or they were not equipped for battle, because on their belt they would have their weapon.

They would keep things all together.

And you had to have the belt because if they didn't have a belt and they were just running out without a belt to keep everything together.

They were not equipped for battle.

This is what Paul is saying right here.

Paul is saying that we have to be equipped with truth because truth keeps everything together.

Which begs the question what is truth?

Well, Jesus said that he is truth and he would go on in John, chapter 14 and say that the scripture is true.

John 14 · chapter mention

So Jesus says he is truth.

There is a who and then there is a what.

It is scripture.

That is truth.

You might say I don't really like everything that Jesus says.

I am not really comfortable with all the stuff that he said.

I would say, okay, if you can predict your own death and resurrection and then actually pull it off, you get to call all the shots.

You just do so Jesus did.

Jesus predicted his own death and resurrection and he actually pulled it off, and he says that he is the truth.

So you know what he is the truth and he says that scripture is true.

So what we need to do here, if this is the belt of truth, is I want us to zoom in and look at this first piece of the belt of truth.

If you maybe study scripture a little bit, you know that in Genesis, chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

The Garden of Eden is when man first sin.

Sin is anything we say, think or do that breaks God's laws, building our lives on something other than God and the evil one, the enemy.

He tempted Eden to sin and this is what he did.

He said you gotta really say that?

You gotta really say that you can't give that truth.

Are you sure?

And then he went a step further.

And then he got hurt to doubt God's goodness.

Because God knows, if you eat of this fruit, well, you're gonna be like God.

God knows, god knows that up.

You're gonna be like him.

What God's doing is, if you follow God, then you're gonna miss out on life.

You're gonna miss out on happiness.

God doesn't love you.

God is holding out on you.

Eve, you need to take it to the truth.

You got her to doubt.

You got her to doubt the truth with the law.

And here's the thing about lies.

I don't know if this never occurred to you, but a lie doesn't have to be true to have power, it just has to be believed.

A lie doesn't have to be true to have power, it just has to be believed.

If I were to climb up the top of the building and I say hey guys, I'm gonna jump off this building because I believe I can fly.

If I believed that that lie would have power over me.

There's a man that that not a lot of people recognize his name, but everybody understands his impact.

His name was Joseph Goebbels.

Joseph Goebbels was an infamous individual who was a part of Nazi Germany in World War II, and what Joseph Goebbels did was he.

He was the minister of propaganda and enlightenment for Hitler.

He worked right next to him and what Joseph's Goebbels role, what his role was, was literally to shape the mindsets and to shape the worldview of the people of Germany.

So what he did is he led the way in systematically and strategically changing people's minds, and one of the things they would do is they would pick an aircraft and they would fly over a city and they would drop hand blitz, a Jewish hate, anti-jewish rhetoric and things like that over the city streets and as people would walk, they would pick them up and they would read about that and over a period of time, people started to believe the propaganda that they were hearing.

And Joseph Goebbels, in an incredible amount of honesty, said this statement.

He said if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it.

You will even come to believe it yourself.

If you went on a record to say that, if you believe a lie often enough, people will believe it.

You will even come to believe it yourself.

So if there's something that maybe isn't true but you hear it again and again and again and again, you can come to the place where you believe it is true.

For example, let's say, somewhere along the way in your life you picked up the lie that you're not lovable, that you're not worthy of love.

Maybe something happened in your childhood, maybe you had a rough break up, maybe you were bullied, maybe you had a tough home life, but somewhere along the way you believe this lie.

Then you told yourself enough times that you weren't worthy of love, you weren't lovable.

Scientifically, what will happen is it will get in your brain, it'll get in your neurobiology how it works and then you actually believe this.

And then what will happen is you've heard this enough times, you believe this.

You'll start acting on this.

So what you can start doing is people can treat you in a disrespectful and demeaning way and you're just like, well, it's fine, because I'm not worthy of love.

I'm not, I don't deserve any love.

What can also happen is you can start treating people in disrespectful and demeaning ways.

Why?

Because you're just, I'm not worthy of love.

And what can happen?

After we tell ourselves something enough times, we can be formed.

We can be let me say this word when we hear something enough times, we are discipled.

We are discipled into being a certain type of person and having a certain mindset and having a certain worldview.

And, whether we realize or not, whether we realize or not, we are all being formed.

We're being formed or being discipled by the media we consume, by the people that we're around, by the influence on our lives, and they are shaping us and this has massive implications of our view of God, our view of the church, our view of relationships, our view of people, our own mental and emotional health, and can ultimately leave us in a very unhealthy place and in a world that is trying to form us.

Our primary defense against this is knowing the truth and letting the truth form us.

So if we live in a world that's constantly trying to form us, our defense is letting truth form us.

Now, this week, I was watching a documentary about elephants and you guys like documentaries, documentaries yeah, okay, I was watching.

I'm such a sucker for documentaries, right?

I get an email from Netflix that says new documentary.

You know you get all these random junk emails I like never click on any of them, but it says new documentary like you might be interested in.

I'm clicking that right, so I clicked on it.

As about elephants, I was learning some things about elephants I had no idea about.

First of all, when they're born, they're between two and 300 pounds.

Women can you imagine that Baby two and 300 pounds, two and 300 pounds, bring it in.

And what they do when a circus has an elephant that's born or they bring in a baby elephant is they chain the elephant to a stake in the ground.

And when the elephant's small, the elephant can't break the chain.

The elephant isn't powerful enough to break the chain.

So as a baby, the elephant just knows I can only go in this certain area.

There's no other place I can go.

But as an elephant maturing as it becomes an adult, I had no idea about this, but they can actually get up to 15,000 pounds.

A typical the elephant's between eight and 12,000 pounds.

That's massive.

Now the chain that could hold down a 250 pound baby elephant could not hold down an 8,000 pound elephant, but the elephant doesn't realize that.

So what happens is they can chain a full grown elephant down.

They can chain a full grown elephant down and the elephant just believes that they can't go anywhere.

So the elephant never experiences freedom, because this is what they believe it could have been.

In some of our lives right now, there are some things that we believe that maybe we've been deceived, could have been.

There are some things, there are some world views that are holding us back because we've been discipled, we've been formed into thinking certain things, and can I just say the enemy is a master at deception.

The enemy is a master at planning lies and things in our mind, and what we need to do is we need to let the truth form up.

Here's the question how in the world do we do this?

One thing I love about this time period, when we live in 2023, is there's never been so much Christian material, truth filled material, accessible to all of us, like there's a ton of stuff accessible.

One thing we do as a church is we have something called Right Now Media that we pay for, and it's basically the Christian version of Netflix, and we make it available to everybody for free.

Why?

Because we want you, we want you to have access to a bunch of incredible Christian material Something else that that I put on your seats I didn't put on your seats, our amazing ushers did, but if you want to grab this, I want you guys to grab this.

It's on your seat.

You might need a magnifying glass to see this, okay, but what this is is.

This is a list of some great Christian content that you can consume.

Here's some YouTube accounts.

Here's some Instagram Facebook accounts.

I know you guys on your Instagram and Facebook accounts, you guys are watching your like cat videos and dog videos and all this kind of stuff.

Right, you can follow some solid Christian accounts here.

There's some Christian TV series.

There's some Christian podcasts Like.

Here's something you could do on your drive to work, on your commute to work, instead of just listening to talk radio.

Nothing wrong with that at all.

You can listen to a Christian podcast.

You can do that a couple of days a week, and what this does is this is allowing truth to become a part of us.

One reason why we make such a big deal here about growth groups is because we want you to be an environment of 8 to 15 people where you are being surrounded with the word of God.

You're learning the word of God.

You're fellowship with other Christians.

By the way, it's really awesome.

We have more people involved in growth groups right now than ever before.

Can somebody say amen, that's awesome.

Yeah, that's all right.

We love that.

This is why we make a big deal about growth groups.

This is why we make a big deal about something we have called growth track, where somebody will sit down with you A spiritual mentor will sit down with you for about six or seven sessions and teach you the foundational truths of scripture.

This is what the scripture says.

This is how you live out the scripture.

By the way, guys, we're on track to have 25 people 25 people complete growth track this year.

Isn't that awesome?

That's awesome.

Yeah, we applaud for that.

Okay, why?

Because we want truth to form us.

Here's my question.

Here's my question how are you engaging with truth to inform it?

Like, what is your plan?

Like, what is your plan to be in the word, what is your plan to grow?

What is your plan?

Because a dream without a plan is just a wish and we have to be people that say, okay, this is my plan, this is how I'm going to engage with truth.

So I'm going to let truth form me.

One thing that I've learned if you're serious about anything whether it's business, fitness or finances or whatever if you're serious about it, you're going to have a plan.

You got to have a plan for it and when it comes to us growing spiritually, we have to have a plan.

With that, I got to say I'm so thankful to see so many new people in our church, so many new people in our church.

You are learning.

You have made part of your weekly plan that you're going to gather with the church on Sunday morning, like that's just what you're going to do.

You're going to come, you're going to gather, you're going to worship, you're going to hear the word, you're going to fellowship.

Can I just like applaud you, like that is huge that you're doing this in your life.

And you've said this is part of my plan, like that is awesome.

And as we make plans and as we engage with the belts of truth, it will hold everything together.

So we have the belt of truth.

Then let's talk about the second piece of armor here, and it's the breastplate of righteousness.

The breastplate of righteousness.

It says righteousness, like in armor on your chest.

Now, think about this Armor on our chest.

So, if I have a piece of armor on my chest here, what is this?

Protecting your heart, that's right.

Your heart, your vital organs so my vital organs are protected.

Okay, think about this.

This is really important.

Like.

This is like the most important part, right, but we're protected with the breastplate of righteousness.

Now, what does this even mean?

Well, in second thing, chapter five, verse 21, it says he this is God, the Father, made the one, that's Jesus, who did not know sin, to be sinned for us so that in him, in Jesus, we might become the righteousness of God.

So what happened was the moment we came to Jesus Christ by faith.

I put my faith in Jesus Christ.

His righteousness was placed onto me.

So now I have this righteousness on my life, now I have this position of being right with God.

Now, it's so important that we get this Now.

Speaking this week, I'm like how can I help us to understand this?

So I thought I'm in a great way.

Let's give a football illustration.

Okay, maybe not such a great way, we're going to do it All right, nine o'clock service, like it.

So I was at a 49ers playoff football game earlier this year, which we won, of course.

And it was a Saturday game and I was with a new friend and he said hey man, do you have a 49ers jersey?

Now I came to the game with a teacher.

I didn't have a jersey.

He said do you have a jersey?

I said I don't have a jersey.

He said do you want a jersey?

I looked at him and I said is the Pope Catholic?

Is the Pope Catholic?

I was like yeah, yeah, I mean, I would like a jersey.

He's like I'm going to buy you a jersey.

I'm like no man, you're not buying me a jersey.

We were in the stadium, like jerseys in the stadium are expensive, like $150.

I was like, bro, you are not buying me a jersey.

He's like, yes, I am right now.

He's like we like walking through a little store or whatever.

He's like I'm buying you a jersey.

He's like I'm going to give it to you and the jersey that he bought me is this one.

Right here, that's right.

That's right.

He bought me this jersey.

Now, rader's fans just hang with me.

He bought me this jersey and he's like, whether you accept it or not, like I just bought this for you, like I'm giving this to you.

So here you go.

You know it was really hard.

It was a really big decision.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but I took it.

I took it, it was good.

I was like man, I can't believe you did that.

I do sacrifice so much that you gave that to me.

And I was in a little bag and I started walking around.

He was like I'm in.

He said so I just bought this for you.

Like I paid for it, I just gave it to you.

He accepted it, but you got to wear it, bro.

He's like yeah, where.

I was like yeah, like let me get to my seat and like I'll put it on you.

Here's my seat and I had this jersey.

I wanted to fully embrace the reality of being given a 40 dinars and it goes to Jersey.

So we got our seat and I put the jersey.

And now I'm going to put the jersey on.

And I put the jersey on and he was like there you go.

He was like now, now you're living in this reality of having a 49er surgery.

Like I paid for it, I gave it to you, you accepted it and now you're wearing it.

Now, here's why I tell you this story.

Some of us have put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

He paid the penalty for our sin.

He died on the cross for our sins.

He resurrected Three days later after he died.

You have made a decision to put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

You've accepted that gift.

You've been given the jersey, you've been given His righteousness.

But some of us aren't living in the full reality of all that we have in Christ and we may have salvation, but until we live in this reality of it, we won't be able to experience all that comes with this, ie what having a righteous standing with God means.

Some of you are like okay, help me understand this.

A lot of us live our lives with this feeling that we are not enough, that we can't measure up.

A lot of us feel that we are never you feel in the blank enough.

I'm never good enough, I'm never perfect enough, I'm never pretty enough, I'm never skinny enough, I'm never rich enough.

I'm never.

You know what I'm talking about.

I'm never good enough, mom.

I'm never good enough dad, I'm never good enough, spouse.

And we live in this reality and even though for some of us maybe we've never articulated this, you have felt this.

I felt this many times.

In fact, honestly, I felt this this past week.

I talked to Pastor Cody about this and I talked to him about this especially.

I was like, guys, your church is growing, I'm alive enough to reach the church to the next level.

I don't know.

I just don't know and I was just feeling this like never enough, I'm not enough, right, no matter what context.

I think we all feel that from fine design.

And what's the answer to this?

What do we do?

What do we do when you've been told you're not enough and you feel you're not enough, and then you live your life in this position of I'm not enough.

It drains you.

This is what we do.

We look to our identity in Christ and what it means that we're righteous.

This never enough feeling really is something called shame.

You've heard of it before.

Shame is the feeling or the experience of believing that we're flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.

There's a difference between godly guilt right Guilt is I did something wrong versus shame.

Shame is I am wrong.

And sometimes what can happen is we can have this overwhelming shame in our life of making us feel this certain way, maybe because of something that we did, maybe because of something that was done to us.

And now we live in this place where we're just like we are not enough at all.

But this is what the gospel does.

The gospel says that you have no condemnation because of Christ Jesus.

In fact, in Romans, chapter Abram 1, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for those that have put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

So here's the reality.

Okay, you're right.

Apart from Jesus, we're not enough.

Apart from Jesus, we don't have what it takes.

Apart from Jesus, we really are nothing more than maybe what we've done.

But in Jesus, we are not defined by any of those things.

We are defined by who.

He says that we are Now the devil.

He's known as the accuser of the brethren, and what the devil will do is he will accuse you of things.

Remember when this, remember when that you'll always be, you're nothing but.

And then what Jesus does, so beautiful, is he's like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

That is not who you are.

You know who you are, you are.

My righteousness on you.

Your identity is one of being loved, of being accepted, of one, of being made new, of one that is completely whole.

That is who you are.

This is what it means to have the breastplate of righteousness.

Now, what society does?

Society and I've been learning a lot about this recently society understands that shame is a terrible thing, and society tries to minimize shame by saying, well, just look within yourself, and if you look within yourself enough, then you're going to find some goodness in there.

Or society will say, well, what you did isn't really that bad, so just minimize it.

It's OK, you just messed up.

But this is what the gospel does and this changes everything, guys, and this is so powerful and I'm going to get really passionate.

It's going to be right here, with this thought, as we're about to wrap this up, the gospel removes shame by pointing us to what God has done for us and what God declares over us.

Ok, the gospel removes shame by pointing us to what God has done for us and what God has declared over us.

What the gospel says is you have a new identity.

What the gospel says is your righteousness is not about you.

Your righteousness is not about your best day.

Your righteousness is not about your worst day.

Your righteousness is in who God says that you are.

And then what Paul does.

Paul's like listen, you need to live in the reality of the righteousness you have in Christ.

This is who you are.

Live in this reality.

You want freedom from shame.

Live in this identity.

You want freedom from having this mindset of like I'll never be in the upper.

I've done this.

Live in this reality of who you are in Christ and when you believe and you live in the reality of who God says you are, there is power when we are in the battle of spiritual warfare, because the enemy is coming for you with accusations.

Now, as we wrap this up, I just want this to be kind of a message where talk about the 49ers, talk about different things, talk about the belt of truth.

I want you to apply this to you.

I want you to live this out, because the power is not in just knowing.

The power is in you.

This is what I want to invite us to do this morning.

One of three things.

One, I want us to engage with one of today's suggested resources.

If you go to Right Now Media, you watch our studies.

If you want to set up a Right Now Media account, you can use the green card that's around you, or you can scan the QR code, or you can go to the next steps in the information table and we'll get you a free account and you'll say, hey, right Now, media has the Bible studies on everything.

Maybe what you need to do is, maybe you need to say, hey, I'm going to go on Instagram, I'm going to follow some of these accounts right here.

Maybe what you need to do is say, hey, I'm listening to a Christian podcast this week instead of listening to my favorite news station or whatever.

Engaging through Number two, I invite you to join a new version Bible study devotional.

We do this from time to time here.

Actually, I have a really good time with it.

This week, we're doing a seven-day devotional about spiritual battle and about the armor of God, and I invited a bunch of my friends to be a part of it, and you guys are my friends too, so I want you guys to be a part of it.

And if you're on new version and maybe I'm not a friend with you, what you can do is that.

Well, and if you're not on the app, you can download the app.

Search for my email address makespoturegmailcom.

Friend me and I will send you an invite just to this seven-day Bible study devotional.

It's really simple.

It'll take about five minutes or so a day, five to 10 minutes a day, and it just allows us just to get in the word together.

And then, number three, be intentional and strategic to remind yourself of your righteousness in Christ, of your identity in Christ.

I've shared this before.

One of the things I do every morning is I just take some time and I read to who I am in Christ, like this is what my identity is in Christ.

I've got a specific problem in the word.

I do that and what this does.

It just gives me that mindset of like reminding myself this is who I actually am.

We've got people in our church I think this is so beautiful They've taken sticky notes and they put them around their house and they wrote down some of their identity in Christ, who they are, and they put a script of verse next to it and they're constantly reminding themselves this is who I am.

Guys, I invite you to take some steps, because the only way that we're going to be able to defeat the enemy is if we live with the belt of truth and we rest in the breastplate of righteousness, the reality that we have because of the gospel, and it's the truth that sets us free, because Jesus says you'll know the truth in John 8.

And the truth will set you free when you decide that you're going to live in truth, that you're going to engage in truth.

I would say it's going to be uncomfortable at times, it's going to be hard at times.

It's going to be unpopular at times.

It's going to be the same.

That's going to free you.

Let me pray to you this morning.