Battle Ready // Prepare for Battle

Ephesians 6 today.

Ephesians 6 today we are starting a new message series that I am excited about.

It's entitled Battle Ready, battle Ready.

A few weeks ago, I was involved in a battle.

Oh, yes, I was.

It was a real battle.

It included a vest, a gun, and before we went into the battlefield we had a briefing.

We went into the briefing room and we were briefed on how to use our weapons.

We were briefed on what the battlefield was going to look like, we were briefed on how we can attack the enemy and then we stepped into the battle.

Upon stepping into the battlefield, the enemy was firing incessantly and it's coming from all over the place, and I know this is going to surprise everybody in the room, but I lost the battle.

Everybody say, oh now I know you guys are dying to know.

Look, what kind of battlefield was this?

What kind of battle was this?

Laser-tacket, scandia, of course.

And who were my enemies?

My fierce enemies, none other than Pastor Cody and Edgar.

Those were the enemies.

And can you believe that those knuckleheads beat me?

And while I joke about this battle, there are veterans in our church community that know what a real battlefield is like In places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

You watch a Hollywood movie, it's based on a war and you just kind of Did you know that Hollywood could never accurately depict what really happens on a battlefield?

Most types of battles are intense and I can only imagine what you went through, and as a church we honor veterans here.

But there's another battle that some of us aren't quite as aware of, but it is nonetheless real.

It's the battle of spiritual warfare, and we're going to take the next five or six weeks as a church community and we're going to talk about this.

It's a battle that we're all involved in, and you might say no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I am not involved in a spiritual warfare battle, pastor Nant.

I'm just trying to live my life, just trying to do me, just trying to do my thing.

Friend, friend, friend, friend, friend.

By nature of the fact that you live in this world, you are a part of a spiritual battle, and the question is not are you in a battle?

Are you in a spiritual battle?

Are you a part of spiritual warfare?

Here's the question that I want you to think about this morning Are you aware of and prepared for the battle?

Are you aware of and prepared for the battle of spiritual warfare.

You might think spiritual warfare, what is that?

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

That'll get that.

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

It's God in all that is good versus the devil and all that is evil, and we are caught smacked out of middle-class.

And it's real.

And what we want to do is we want to get you ready for battle.

We want to get you ready for this battle Because here's the good news that, even though not everybody wins this battle, you can win this battle.

You can win this battle and this is what today's message is all about.

I'm not really a big title guy when it comes to messages, but this is the title of this message in the first week in the series.

It's this Prepare for battle, prepare for battle.

And today, what I'm going to do from Ephesians, chapter 6 is we're going to leave this room prepared for battle.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

So let's pick it up in Ephesians, chapter 6, verse number 10.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

If you're ready to be prepared for battle, would you say amen?

Paul writes this Finally be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength.

Now Paul has just spent five plus chapters in Ephesians, unpacking the gospel, the death, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Unpacking that and how, because of that, the moment we put our faith in Jesus Christ, we have a new identity, we have a new life.

And he's unpacked how do we live out the Christian life?

And now he gets to the end of the book of Ephesians, and now he's going to let them know that, even though you have a new identity, even though you have a new purpose, even though you now have a new life in Christ, you're in a battle.

And he says, you're going to need to be strengthened by the Lord.

You're not going to be strengthened by yourself because, well, you're not really that strong and, unlike our strength, the Lord's strength is vast.

So he says be strengthened by the Lord.

And in verse 11, he says put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the what's that next word?

Stand against the schemes of the devil.

Now, have you ever met a schemer?

You ever maybe met somebody that was always like trying to pull something.

Maybe you had a friend.

Maybe you had a sibling not something, you're looking at each other.

Maybe you had a kid and your child?

They were the scheming child always up to something.

You know the devil.

He's a schemer trying to pull one on us.

You know, one of his greatest schemes is trying to get us to think that we're not in a battle, to get us to think that all that's around us is what we see.

He says in verse 12, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, it's not against what we can see, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil spiritual forces in the heavens.

For this reason, take up the full armor of God so that you may able to resist in the evil day and, having prepared everything to take your stand, take your stand.

Can we say that phrase together ready, take your stand.

We gotta take our stand.

We gotta be prepared for this battle.

So how do we do this?

This is where it starts.

Here's the first step, and this is a very, very important step.

Step one is identify the real enemy.

Now some of you are thinking I'll tell you who my real enemy is.

It's my boss, my boss.

Let me tell you, pastor Nate.

He is a piece of work.

Some of you might think, hey, I'm not my boss.

The person that share a room with.

They're my enemy.

It's the person that fits down the hall for me.

Let me tell you the person that sleeps down the hall for me, those kids, man, they're terrible.

Some of you might think, pastor Nate, I got a neighbor.

They are crazy, like my neighbor.

They are the enemy.

But can I say they're not the enemy.

The real enemy is the devil.

Ultimately, our battle is not against other humans, it's against the devil.

Now you might think, nate, we were just thinking about the victory that we have because of the cross.

I thought the devil's defeated.

I mean, after all, when Jesus died on the cross and we put our faith in Christ because he died for us, our sins are forgiven, so sin no longer has power over us.

When Jesus resurrected from the grave, he showed his power over the devil, saying you're defeated, I have victory.

I thought he's defeated.

You're right, the devil's defeated, but he's not completely disarmed.

Satan is defeated, but he's not completely disarmed, he's fighting, he's fighting.

You guys remember when the devil was defeated?

He was defeated, he's fighting.

You guys remember when, in the New Testament, jesus was talking to Peter and Jesus said to Peter that the devil wants to sift you like wheat.

He wants to sift you like wheat.

And one of the reasons why the devil wanted to sift Peter like wheat is because the devil knew Peter's potential for the kingdom of God and because he knew his potential, he was after him.

And can I say, one of the reasons why the devil is after us and one of the reasons why spiritual warfare is so real, especially if you're a Jesus follower, is because he knows your potential for the kingdom of God.

He knows how God wants to use you.

He knows how God wants to do a work in you and a work through you, and he doesn't like that.

Some of you in this room you think, man, I don't really have, I'll have a lot of potential.

That's right.

If you only knew a past, if you only knew what happened to me, you would know that I don't have the potential.

You might say if only you knew how lack of, how my self-esteem lacks and how not really just the as she Frank, can I tell you, if you have breath in your lungs, god wants to use you, that you have potential for the kingdom of God and if you are breathing, god is not done with you and the blessing of God is not done with you, and the best is yet to come for your life and God wants to use you and the enemy knows that and he wants to get you and that enemy.

That was after Peter, it's after you and Peter.

Years, years later, at the end of his life, he wrote a book called Peter, first and second Peter really creative name, peter, right, he wrote first and second Peter and he's writing to Jesus followers.

He's trying to help them to grow in their faith and understand these different things.

And how do they make it?

Through trials and tribulations.

This is what that Peter, who knew what it was like to have the enemy after him.

This is what he said.

He said first, peter, five, be sober minded.

No, no, for your adversary, the devil, is prowling around like a roaring light looking for anyone he can devour.

You know what?

Be sober minded, be alert, ready for this.

Wake up.

That's what it means.

Wake up, wake up, understand what's happening around you.

Can I be real honest with someone who's going to do this morning?

What I really want to happen in some of our lives is that we wake up, like we spiritually wake up, and we realize that there is a real enemy and that he is after us and there are things that are going on that we say, oh well, it's this over here, that over here.

No, no guys, it may very well be spiritual warfare in our lives.

Some of you are sitting here.

You got to go live, Mate.

You got a little too excited about this, bro.

You're a little too passionate.

Maybe there's a devil, maybe there's not a devil, but I ain't worried about that.

I just want good vibes, I just want positive energy.

I expected to gather with First Christian Church on Sunday morning and get some good vibes.

I'm just not getting there right now.

I don't like it.

All right, nice to be in a very clear and straightforward way.

I love you enough to tell you the truth and I love you enough to tell you that there is a very real enemy that is ruthless, that leaves no prisoners, that comes to kill, steal and destroy, and he is after you and he's after your family and he's after your future and he's after what God is trying to do in you, and whether you're aware of it or not, that doesn't matter, because he is still to him.

It doesn't matter because he just wants to destroy you.

You realize the enemy's not after your recognition, he's after your destruction.

That's what he's after and this is what we got, you guys.

We got to identify the real enemy.

Identify the real enemy.

This is step one.

But step two, we need to understand.

You need to have an understanding of Satan.

On the fateful day of my laser tag battle a few weeks ago, I had no idea what Pastor Cody was going to do on the battlefield.

I honestly I don't think he knew what he was going to do in that laser tag battle field.

We were running around like chickens with our heads cut off.

Okay, but if he had a plan and if I knew his plan to try to get me, how much more helpful would it have been for me?

If you can understand the enemy, it's going to help you because you can understand his schemes.

Now to get this, I want us to help us understand how Satan became Satan, like what was his origin?

You guys remember Satan was not always Satan.

He used to be an angel in heaven.

Does anybody remember what his name was in heaven?

Lucifer, that's right.

Lucifer, satan that word Satan means adversary.

The word Lucifer means bright morning star.

Many believe that Lucifer was the worship leader in heaven, worship music leader in heaven.

But while he was an angel in heaven, something happened.

He got a little, a little prideful, as their fortune tells us.

He thought he needed more than God.

He thought he could do a better job than God could do.

God doesn't.

He doesn't do everything I got.

This Pride is what caused God to cast the devil out of Lucifer at that time, out of heaven, and a third of the angels followed him and became demons and then fast forward the clock, god, the Creator, created man and when God created man, god created man and woman and he said that is very good.

And when Satan saw that God had created man and called him very good, you know, satan began to go after it in Genesis, chapter number three.

He went after us, he went after people, and one of his primary things that he tries to do is to get us to not realize our need of Jesus Christ for salvation, to try to get us to think that we don't really need Jesus.

And what he does is he tries to make the world seem so alluring and so beautiful.

He tries to blind us and distract us away from our need that we really need Jesus.

Sometimes, it's funny enough, he blinds people with religion.

You know.

He blinds people by thinking that, oh well, I've done these religious activities in my life, so I'm okay with God.

Yeah, I'll have a little Jesus, but really I'm trusting in my works and these things over here.

I don't really need Jesus.

The enemy tries to blind us from our need of Jesus.

He tries to get us to pursue power and money and sets and all these other things to try to get us away from our need for Jesus.

Because the enemy knows, the moment we turn from our sin and put our faith in Jesus Christ, we have an eternity in heaven and he would want nothing more than for you to reject Jesus and spend eternity in hell, in the kingdom of darkness.

So he fights, and many of you in the room you might say man, I see that he fought, but guess what?

He didn't win.

He didn't get me.

I trusted Jesus.

I am following Jesus.

Whoo, I am so glad that the battle is over.

Not so fast, friend, he's still after you.

He wants you to become apathetic in your face.

He wants you to not pursue God's purposes for your life.

He wants you to not experience the beauty and treasures that are found in the gospel.

He wants you to not meet your potential for Christ, and this week I was actually.

I was studying about how does he do this?

What are things the devil actually does to get us to not pursue God's desires for our life, to get us to pursue all these other things?

How does he do this?

And it's vital that we get this and I'm going to talk very slowly through these and honestly, some of you you're going to be able to identify with these.

Some of you you're going to read this and you're going to say, oh, my goodness, this is happening in my life right now.

Look at what the devil does on the screen.

He plants doubts in your mind.

He puts obstacles in your way.

He attacks your identity.

He causes you to doubt God's love.

Have you ever done that?

He blinds unbelievers' minds.

He doesn't want you to see the truth of Jesus.

He attacks faith wherever he finds it.

Have you ever been a season of your life where you are filled with faith, trying to go forward for Christ and it just seems like something's just fighting against it?

The double-dice he lies John 844.

He puts out false doctrine.

He allures you with sexual sin and one of his favorite tactics is he presents half truths, partial truths, that there's some truth there.

But it's not completely true and we may not even realize that some of the things that we're facing right now are actually spiritual warfare.

It reminds me of the discovery of jerks in the 1800s, before the discovery of germs.

What doctors would do is they would go patient to patient to patient without ever washing their hands.

They literally would work on a body that was filled with disease and could even die, and then right after that they would say okay, now we need to go deliver this newborn baby right over there.

Now obviously we understand that's not a good thing.

Infant mortality rates were sky-high.

Newborn babies were dying like crazy.

Let me figure out why Doctors, they would continue to work on this person and work on this person and work on this person because it's fine.

Maybe they might rinse their hands, maybe not.

It's not a big deal.

There's one guy, one doctor.

This can't be right.

There has to be a correlation.

Get this theory that was widely rejected that we're carrying disease on our hands, but you can't actually see it.

In fact, he called these.

He says you're carrying something called microbes.

This is his theory.

He had been working on it and the doctors that told him about it.

They rejected.

They said there's no possible way that something you can't see can actually be leading people to die.

There's no way.

That doesn't make any sense.

You can't see it.

Hey, oh, there's microbes.

Look at my hands.

Can you see them?

What the he said?

Doctors wouldn't listen.

So you know what he did.

He got the interns to do something.

He got the interns to put to wash their hands in a little bit of chlorine before they delivered a newborn baby.

And this crazy thing happened the infant mortality rates, newborn mortality rates, went way down, went way down.

And this guy said hey, hey, doctors, look at what's happening.

They said no, no, no, no, no, there's no way.

He said okay, so start studying.

He started proving, he started, he started building a case for these people about hey, guys, listen, they were carrying something on our hands.

We're carrying these microbes, things that are causing people to die.

And in a massive gathering with hundreds and hundreds of doctors, that changed the course of medical history.

They all gathered and accepted.

The man walked up to the stage and made a statement that caused our lives here to never be the same.

He said gentlemen, for God's sake, wash your hands.

And everything changed after that, because one person started to understand something that was unseen, but something that was causing mass destruction.

They started to understand how these things work.

They started to understand the process.

They started to understand these things.

And I wonder, friend, what would happen if you started to understand?

Oh, maybe it's some of the doubts I have in my mind, maybe some of the attacks on my identity, maybe the reason why I'm doubting God's love, maybe the reason why I'm believing this.

We started to understand how the enemy was working.

But you have to understand, and it's vital.

Step one we identify the enemy.

Step two we understand him.

And then the final step and, honestly, if you don't do this, the first two are just a wash.

You don't really matter.

Is you need to embrace the battle?

Okay, you can know he's the enemy.

Are you gonna say oh, nate, I know he's the enemy.

Oh, okay, I kinda understand how it works a little bit, but you need to embrace the battle.

June 6th 1944.

World War II, the hot piece, largest land invasion in modern history.

Does anybody remember the battle that happened, or know the battle that happened?

Battle of Normandy E-Day, that's right, e-day.

5,000 ships.

5,000 ships Took 160,000 Allied troops onto the beaches of Normandy in France.

160,000 troops.

Now, when the troops were going into Normandy, they weren't coming in with their flip flops, tank tops and shorts and saying, hey, we're gonna be in this exotic vacation.

Hey, you brought the cold drinks right.

Hey, hey, you brought the volleyball net that we could play right.

These 160,000 men went into the beaches of Normandy knowing they were in for a battle.

They knew and they embraced the battle, and you know what happened to Allied forces.

They got victory because they embraced the battle.

And what some of us need to do this morning is we need to embrace the fact that we're in a battle, because until we embrace it, we will never get victory.

We need to embrace this.

You say I don't know if we're in a spiritual battle.

Well, right now, pornography is a multi-billion dollar business and many of us think it's totally acceptable to take our devices and go watch porn.

Guys, we're in a battle.

We're gonna get personal with these next couple of minutes, so hang with me, okay.

We're in a battle when we know the talking points from our political parties and our favorite podcasts and our favorite news stations better than we know Bible verses that can actually help us overcome temptation.

We're in a battle.

We're in a battle when those who claim to follow Jesus think gathering with the people of God on a Sunday like this is just optional if we have time.

We're in a battle when there are Christian teenagers that are living in open rebellion to their parents and they think that's totally okay.

We're in a battle when our hearts are more alert by the things of the world than the beauty of Christ.

We are in a battle when people who claim to follow Jesus completely buy into the propaganda that's being promoted by the media and social media instead of looking at what does the scripture say.

We are in a battle.

We are in a battle when it is hate speech for somebody to call what the scripture calls sin a sin.

We're in a battle.

We're in a battle when it is completely socially acceptable to express yourself sexually however you want, with no boundaries.

I like you, you like me.

Let's hook up.

We've been.

We've gone on three dates.

Let's go get it on.

That's totally acceptable in our culture, right?

We are in a battle, and the reason why this makes some of us uncomfortable is it just reveals the battle that we're in and some of us right now we're feeling some sort of way and honestly, I want you to lean into that feeling, and I want you to lean into that because the enemy is after you, but you don't have to give into his forces.

So what do we do?

Well, the rest of verse 13 says this, and we're gonna wrap this up.

It says we take on the full armor of God so we can resist in the evil day.

And having prepared everything to take our stand, you read that verse and you say how's your name?

We get armor.

That would be cool.

I want you might think I want a Samurai sword.

You know, I got something like I want a dagger, I want armor.

I don't know if in the series we're gonna be actually passing out real armor, but next week, next week, we're gonna get armored up because next week we're gonna talk about the armor for the battle.

And next week might be one of the most important messages of this year, probably the entire fall season here, because next week we're gonna talk about getting armored up for the battle.

Okay, so today you're prepared, in that you know who the enemy is, you've identified him, you understand a little of his tactics, you've embraced the battle.

Next week we're gonna armor up for the battle.

And next week I want you to be here because over these next few weeks and I really believe it is going to be the difference in some of our lives of winning or losing the battle of spiritual warfare.

But it begins by today being prepared and bracing this because you can win the battle.

I'll be back in a second.