Unseen Realm Pt. 1 // Open Your Eyes

Welcome to the Lookout Weekly Podcast.

Church of the Lookout is in Boulder, Colorado, and our vision is Jesus abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love.

Visit us online at the lookout.church.

So if you have your Bibles this morning, open up.

We're going to start is in 1 Kings, okay?

We're going to cover a lot of ground today.

We're going to start in 1 Kings.

And if you don't have your Bible, no sweat.

We will have the uh the scriptures on the screen.

Before I read, let me just pause for a moment.

Let's just quiet our hearts and become aware of the presence of Jesus.

How many of you guys know we're not just singing about him as if he's not in the room with us?

We're honoring his very presence here.

And uh so it's our joy as we open the living word of God that we remind ourselves what we're doing.

So we just take a moment and quiet.

Turn your Bibles to Second Kings if you have your Bible.

Starting in chapter six.

Once when the king of Syria was warring against Israel, he took counsel with his servants, saying, At such and such a place shall be my camp.

But the man of God sent word to the king of Israel, Beware that you do not pass this place, for the Syrians are going down there.

And the king of Israel sent to the place about which the man of God told him.

Thus he used to warn him, so that he saved himself there more than once or twice.

Verse 11.

And the mind of the king of Syria was greatly troubled because of this thing, and he called his servants and said to them, Will you not show me who of us is for the king of Israel?

And one of the servants said, None, my lord, O king, but Elisha, the prophet, who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom.

And he said, Go and see where he is, that I might send and seize him.

It was told him, Behold, he is in Dothan.

So he sent their horses and chariots and a great army, and they came by night and surrounded the city.

When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city.

And the servant said, Alas, my master, what shall we do?

He said, Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.

Then Elisha prayed and said, O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.

So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

Well, say this with me.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

So what if you were to blink this morning as you sit in your chair, and when your eyes reopened, all of a sudden you were to see not into just the physical reality of the room, but you were to see into the spiritual realm all around us.

What if around us right now, on Sunday morning at approximately 10:49?

What if all around us right now is a realm of spiritual beings with us around us?

And what if what if you were able to recognize angels and the heavenly host all around us, doing the will of God, assisting us in worship, pushing back the powers of darkness?

And what if you also could see the diabolical forces of darkness that are opposing us in this very moment?

And what if you were to look out the windows and see what was in the atmosphere over this region?

What would you see?

What if you could see the powers at work not only in Boulder County but all across the world?

What would happen if we had eyes to see, and like Elisha prayed over a servant, that our eyes would open to see what we did not see?

Those are kind of the driving questions behind where we're going at both today and over the next several weeks.

We're starting this new teaching series we're just going to call unseen realm.

See, it was Paul who talked about when he wrote in 2 Corinthians, he said, We look not to things that are seen, but to things that are unseen, for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

And how true is it that for you and I, we're tempted to spend most of our short existence on earth planning out and trying to control only things that we can see and sense with our hands and see with our eyes and things that are concrete, things that we can touch.

And we spend a tremendous amount of energy and decision-making power doing the best with the 70 or 80 or 90 God-willing years of our life when we have an entire eternity that God has designed us for.

How many of you know that you are an eternal being?

And so the invitation in scripture, when we come to scripture, is to not just focus on what is seen, but to focus even on what is unseen.

And the scriptures have so much to say, so much to say about this.

God's creative order, created order, even the parts that we cannot see.

And because all of this has to do with our purpose on earth as image-bearers of God, what we want to do today and over the next several weeks is really reorient ourselves on what the Bible actually teaches about the unseen realm, what the biblical authors believed about this, and why this matters for you and I today.

Because when we understand what is really going on around us, if your eyes opened up to see what was really happening on the earth, it would startle you awake to see that everything we do with our lives has tremendous consequences.

There are high stakes to living as human beings on planet Earth right now.

And it transformed, when we see like this, it transformed every day and every decision, every part of your life into eternal consequences, living into God's eternal story.

And so, in order to do that, though, we have to kind of admit, coming into this, that when you open the scriptures, when you open this book, if you spend any amount of time, let's just be honest, there are some weird things happening in here.

Okay?

Can we just settle into that for a second here?

This is bonkers, alright?

That's a technical word that just means strange.

So, for instance, if you were with us when we started the service, we do this thing called the call to worship, just so you guys know if you're never here on time.

Psalm 29 was the verse that was read today.

And in this psalm, the writer says, Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

Ascribe to the Lord glory to his name, worship the Lord in splendor of holiness.

But this first line, ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings.

You probably read that, or have you read that before, and you're thinking, oh yeah, of course, heavenly beings.

But what are what are we actually talking about?

Heavenly beings.

What is the writer talking about?

See, the word that he uses here is this Hebrew word Elohim, and some of you maybe have heard that word.

You're like, oh yeah, yeah, I know that word.

It means God.

Well, it means God, but it also can mean gods, or it can mean sons of God.

And so heavenly beings is just this wild word that has to do with this entire created order of beings that surround that are in the heavens.

So, whatever those are, ascribe to the Lord.

So we kind of move through that, right?

And we're like, okay, not sure I get that one, but let's just uh let's keep moving on, right?

And so there's this other passage that we run into in 1 Kings chapter 22.

1 Kings 22 · chapter mention

There's a wicked king in Israel named Ahab, and he gets into confrontation with this prophet Micaiah, uh, which the king can't get Micaiah to prophesy happy words to him.

He keeps trying to, he's like, Can you just say something nice about me?

And Micaiah's like, Can't do it, right?

And we get into this really strange passage.

Let me just read this for you in verse 22, or chapter 22, verse 19.

And Micaiah said, quote, therefore, hear the word of the Lord.

I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the hosts of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left.

And the Lord said, Who will entice Ahab that he may go up and fall at Ramath Gilead?

And and one said one thing, and another said another.

Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, I will entice him.

And the Lord said to him, By what means?

And he said, I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all of his prophets.

And he said, You are to entice him, and you shall succeed.

Go out and do so.

Now therefore, behold, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all of these prophets, and the Lord has declared disaster for you.

Right.

Yeah, okay.

There's a lot happening there.

Okay?

What was that conversation in heaven like?

Who is the spirit that came forward with this brilliant idea of lying to all the prophets?

And why did God give a green light to this?

Alright?

Can we just agree that there's a giant question mark hanging over this one?

But when you move out of the Old Testament, you've been moved to the New Testament.

You're like, okay, finally, the New Testament.

I get the New Testament, right?

We're in safe territory.

We opened it Peter, 1 Peter chapter 3, and you're thinking, like, I love Peter.

1 Peter 3 · chapter mention

Peter's my guy, right?

I get Peter.

I'm like Peter.

But then he says weird things.

1 Peter chapter 3, verse 18.

1 Peter 3:18

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.

Okay, good so far.

In which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey when God's patience waited in the days of Noah.

Okay.

So now we gotta do something with this whole imprisoned spirits thing.

And God going to declare something to them after his resurrection.

Okay.

Well, let's just keep moving on.

Jude chapter 1, verse 6.

Jude 1:6

And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.

Okay.

So fallen angels who abandoned their posts, now they're kept in chains.

Okay.

So there's a few things we can do with these kinds of passages.

We can say, all right, that's all just kind of metaphorical, these are just symbols or whatever.

But that's not what the authors believe.

They believe this is reality.

This is this is kind of the chain of events.

This is this is the unseen realm, and there's something happening since the beginning of time that we have to know how to deal with these things.

And this is what the ancient believers actually were holding.

And so we read we read passages like this, they're mostly lost on us, and they they they tend to go into this bucket called, I'll deal with that one later, right?

We also call that the WTF bucket.

Like, all right, I'm gonna deal with that's a good one.

I'm gonna I'll deal with that one later.

But hey guys, good news.

Today is that later, okay?

And so um so we get to talk, and today and over the next several weeks, we're gonna talk.

I'm gonna do my best to talk about some of these challenging ones, but the but the prayer today is much like Elisha's prayer over his servant.

Lord, would you open our eyes to see?

Lord, would you open our eyes to see?

What if we could see?

Now, the unseen realm for a church like ours for many of us, this is not a new idea or a new paradigm.

Many of you live with the reality that we are not in alone we're not alone here in this universe, as scholar Tim Mackey says, we live in a crowded universe.

There's a lot going on.

More than what we can see with our very own eyes.

And so for me, even growing up, this was kind of this was the world that I grew up in.

I grew up in the church and a stream of the church that was very open to life in the spirit, not only life in the spirit, but just an acknowledgement that there are unclean spirits too and evil spirits.

And and and it was all kind of there.

But, you know, I felt like my family growing up had a lot of openness to that.

But I was a part of also a church culture that was so into the spiritual realm that they just like to me, it was almost like there was times that it would just, it felt like just they went way overboard.

And everything was so spiritualized that nothing was natural anymore, right?

And I kind of got this bad taste.

I'm just talking my own personal story.

This might not be your story, this is just my story.

I grew up in this church culture where people were so attuned to what the enemy might be doing that everything was a spiritual conversation.

You get a flat tire, oh, it's a spiritual attack.

You get some indigestion, oh, the enemy's attacking me.

It's like, geez, man, I don't know if that's the enemy, bro.

I think you ate a gallon of ice cream last night.

And uh, and and now you're calling that a spiritual attack, right?

And like, I'm not sure, I'm not sure how I sit with that.

And so I I kind of had this season where I was like, man, I I don't want to live in a way as if I'm shirking my own responsibility for my alone life.

Everything is the devil did it, right?

Everything is it's a spiritual reason for everything.

So I'm not, I'm coming to you this morning, not saying that that we need to slide to that pendulum swing.

But over time, as I've grown into my adult life and I've grown into kind of where where my my own walk with the Lord of just kind of relating to these things and relating to the unseen realm, and then my own personal responsibility as a human being that God has given a free will to to make terrible decisions and some good decisions, all of that kind of has to come together, right?

Um, but we're living in a time where not everybody has that worldview, and that's not the case for everybody.

We fast forward, and now in the West, we're living in primarily in a secularized culture.

Most of us have become accustomed to having a rational explanation for everything that happens in our lives, our families, our marriages, political systems.

Everything is can be explained culturally or sociologically through either hard sciences or soft sciences.

Every way of thinking is just a different, various form of pathology, right?

And if you've ever watched Sherlock Holmes, like the one with Robert Downey Jr., um, this was kind of the, this is this is kind of the world that we're living in right now, where Sherlock Holmes, every episode, it's like he's there's a mystery and he's gotta find it, but he's gonna find it not through spiritual means.

He's gonna find it through, he's gonna dig underneath and find the right, there's gotta be a rational, logical explanation to everything that happens and even the spiritual things.

We're gonna get underneath that and find out that it's just this and that and the other, things that are very easily explained because it's just the material world.

Canadian theologian and philosopher Charles Taylor, on in his book on secularism, calls this way of living life the imminent frame.

And so many people today are living with a frame that what you see is all there is, and this present moment is the only moment.

There is nothing else.

There is no other layer somewhere, everything can be explained, and and when you are done with this life, it's just over, and that's it.

That is the frame that most people have been told is reality, and yet stats are showing that there is a resurgence of quite the opposite.

But real quick, even some of us in the room, as you as you're thinking, like as I'm setting this up, and you're thinking, really?

We're gonna spend several weeks about like angels and demons and spiritual things.

Like, what can't we just do a sermon series on like money or something like that?

Or can't we do something, or like, you know, like relationships, or like what is something we can actually use, right?

Like that hits a felt need.

Do we have to be all kind of weird like this?

And so, and and and but here lies the problem.

We think that this world is more real than that world.

And we think that all of everything we're dealing with, be it money problems or relational problems, can be solved with techniques and tactics.

And we can kind of bypass the need to understand the heavenly realm and how God operates and his role in pushing back the forces of darkness.

So even in the church, sometimes we can think, oh man, that's that's cool, but it has nothing to do with my real life.

Let me just tell you, it has everything to do with your real life.

Everything to do with your real life.

And the stats are showing that everybody is catching up to that.

So, what's really interesting when you look at statistics right now happening in the West, while there has been a decrease in like church attendance and organized religion as a whole, there's actually been a massive uptick in supernatural curiosity.

People are seeking alternative spiritualities.

People have given up on the church because they come to the church and they don't experience anything supernatural.

But they know that they're wired for it.

And so like I can do without the organized religion, but it doesn't settle the craving in my heart to know what to do with supernatural experiences.

And so uh so there's a tremendous openness to the spiritual world.

Even Barna had a stat just in the last couple years, 40%, 47% of Americans are certain there's a spiritual dimension to life, even though the amount of the amount of church goers has has decreased.

Gen Z is going up, but generally church attendance has decreased.

And so the same people who say that they don't believe in God will also tell you that they believe in the supernatural.

It's just really phenomenal.

So that sounds weird to you and I because we can it's hard to separate the two, but that's not the world that a lot of people are living in.

A lot of people are like, I'm not sure if I believe in God, but I'll tell you about this experience I had as a child.

And it's a really interesting thing, even as a conversation starter, when you go to somebody, if if you start with, hey, do you believe in God or are you a Christian?

The conversation might just kind of fall flat immediately.

But if you say, hey, have you ever had an experience you couldn't explain that maybe you felt like was supernatural, you you probably what you're gonna find is a lot more openness because people have had experiences they don't know what to do with.

People are actually longing to try to make sense of what they're experiencing in their life.

And this is where I believe the church should be ripe to say, let me tell you about God's created order and about the way the world works, right?

It this explains the obsession even this time of year with death and the demonic during Halloween, the rise of and the popularity of even supernatural entertainment.

If you if you're paying attention to the shows that are continuing to come out and even the movies that are being released, they're getting more and more supernatural.

You guys see that?

It's getting more and more supernatural.

All the Marvel events, all the superhero movies, it used to be about like just flying and saving children from like windows in downtown New York City.

Now it's all like it's like witches and sorcerers and all these things, like even all the Marvel superhero movies have gone way supernatural.

Why?

Because they're tapping into the core curiosity and the desire of the public.

This is what's happening.

People are longing to make sense of what they're experiencing.

And so in the Catholic Church, one of the things that's really interesting, in the last few years, there has actually been an exponential increase on a request for exorcisms.

So exorcisms is the Catholic version of what we would call like deliverance, deliverance from demonic spirits.

But in the Catholic Church, they're trying to train more exorcists globally right now because there's been a crazy uh uh increase.

Um, Father Carlos Martins, he's uh he's one of the uh probably most well-known exorcists within the United States, uh, because he was noticing that young people were crazy, they were going out trying to have supernatural experiences, and they didn't have any way to frame that and they didn't even know what was at stake if they were to open themselves up to spiritual realities.

This is why he started in the last couple years, he partnered with somebody else and they started this podcast called The Exorcist Files.

And they actually he drew from over 30 years of case studies of walking with people who were demonically possessed by the devil and how they got demonic, like what was the open door, and they.

I mean, it's just these really dramatic episodes, and they all end with um being delivered in the name of Jesus.

It's actually quite astonishing.

And it's been, it's like one of the top podcasts right now.

What people are learning, even through this podcast, about how demons work and what opens the door to the evil spirits, right?

It's creating this pathway for people to learn how that happens, but then how to get free from demonic powers of darkness through the name of Jesus.

And it's awesome because that's coming up.

In fact, um a couple years ago, there's this movie released, and I just finished this movie the other day, called Nefarious.

And it's uh it's actually uh uh yeah, released in 2023, and and it was actually produced by some Christians who wanted to kind of similar to screw tape letters, if you've ever read screw tape letters by C.S.

Lewis, to kind of take you into the life of what it looks like to be possessed by a demon.

And the the plot in this movie um has to do with an inmate who is in prison and he is completely possessed, he's he's he's he's killed several people, and a psychiatrist is assigned to go to him and to basically find the pathological reason why he's in there.

The psychiatrist isn't he's really good at what he does, but he doesn't believe in God or any of the supernatural, so he has to sit with this guy and try to diagnose him to try to figure out what to do with him.

Is he insane or is there something else going on here?

And so, and it and and so Father Carlos Martins, he was actually one of the consultants on this movie.

And he said, you know, this movie is categorized as a horror movie, but actually, he said, it's actually more of a biopic about the mind of a demon.

If you want to know what the mind of a demon is like and what a demon, how a demon thinks, that's what this movie really captures.

I'm not recommending it, but what I'm saying is, if you want to know how a demon thinks, there's actually some really, you know, it there's some really powerful moments throughout this this film.

Um but one of the scenes, in one of the scenes, the psychiatrist is at a table with this inmate, and that's who's filled with the demon, and they're going back and forth, and this demon is manipulating and controlling and twisting words and turning this man in, his mind in on itself, and they finished this kind of first session, and then they agreed to take a break, and then the demon says back to psychiatrist, he says, Hey, are you ready for round two?

And the psychiatrist says, I didn't know this was a fight.

And the demon says, And that's exactly why you're losing.

And that's exactly why you're losing.

See, so many of us have settled for a version of reality that we don't know that there are stakes to the stories that we're living.

There are stakes to the communities and the nations of the world.

And when we don't know how the enemy is seeking to destroy the image of God and his tactics to do so, furthermore, God's intention to resource you through his Holy Spirit and to grant you back the authority to undo the works of darkness and to move out into every square inch of the earth until it comes under the rule and reign of God, then we are gonna miss the plot line altogether.

We're gonna settle for pithy little small lives which are much different than the lives that God intended for us to live.

You guys hearing me?

When we lose the biblical plot line, we are not only vulnerable to the schemes of the enemy, but we're sit we settle for lives less than what we were made for.

And so we need to remind ourselves of what the scripture says.

Okay, so that's my setup.

All right.

Now I'm gonna go Bible nerd for about 10 minutes.

Okay?

Some of you, you're gonna have to just track with me because I'm gonna go fast.

I'm not gonna explain everything.

But I'm gonna talk about a few key passages and then how they kind of fit together, and this is gonna be important for the next several weeks.

So uh so just so you know, if that's not your thing, or maybe you haven't read the Bible yet, it's okay.

Just hang with me.

You can always go back and read, okay?

And we have some resources for you to catch up.

Okay.

So I want to talk about a few passages that give some language in a unique way to the created order, the unseen realm.

Okay, let's start in Psalm 89.

It says this: Let the heavens praise your wonders, O Lord, your faithfulness in the sem in the assembly of the holy ones.

For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord?

Who among the heavenly beings is like the Lord?

A God greatly to be feared in the council of the holy ones.

And awesome above all those who are around him.

Okay, so there is this picture of something happening in heaven with heavenly beings, and there's a council of holy ones.

Again, the word used here is this word Elohim that refers to both all the spiritual beings, but it can mean God or it can mean sons of God.

And that's what he's used.

And so this picture has to do with okay, somehow in heaven, there's like this divine council that is around God.

Okay, so let's just hold that for a second.

Psalm 82 is kind of similar.

God has taken his place in the divine counsel.

In the midst of the gods, he holds judgment.

Okay.

How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?

Okay, so here we see again some of this language of the gods.

And sometimes when we read the gods, we think of like kind of the fictitious idols of our own making, and there's there's room for that as well.

But when the the Hebrews, their understanding of the gods was was also that there are beings in the created order that were so that surrounded God that rebelled against God.

They were part of what we could call a divine council or a divine staff team called the Elohim.

Okay?

And in this pass, in Psalm 82, this is talking about how God, the Elohim of Elohims, there is only one true God, Yahweh, but even Yahweh will hold all of the other God, the sons of God, the ones who rebelled against him, in judgment for what they've done.

Okay?

Now just stick with me, alright?

If that sounds new to you, it's okay.

There's another kind of bizarre passage that we get to in Daniel chapter 4, and this is in a particular chapter where there's judgment coming over King Nebuchadnezzar.

Daniel 4 · chapter mention

And uh chapter 4, starting in verse 1 starting in verse 16.

Let his mind be changed from a man's, and let a beast's mind be given to him, and let seven periods of time pass over him.

The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones, to the end that the living may know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he wills and sets over it the lowliest of men.

Okay.

So now we have a new word Watchers.

So there's this whole new category.

Okay, so let's just back up here a second.

We got not just angels, but we got seraphim and cherubim, we got we got demons, and and we in a New Testament perspective, we have powers and rulers and principalities.

We have different levels and hierarchy of angels, and kind of what we see here is like when we start to piece these passages together, we see that in the heavenly realm, there's a hierarchy of spiritual beings.

Yahweh is the God above all gods, he issues judgment over however he pleases, right?

But there's somehow within the heavenly realms, the way he designed it, there's this divine counsel that he allowed to be a part of a decision-making process over the nations of the world.

And we're gonna talk a little bit about that next week.

So there's this kind of like this is this wild thing.

When I grew up, I just thought, oh, it's just angels, demons, Satan, and God and us, right?

But when you open the scriptures, it is this wild composition of the way that God designed it.

He is the God above all gods.

But when we understand that in the spiritual realm, there were several different rebellions that happened that got us into the mess that we're in right now.

It's actually very important to know so that you know how significant Jesus was in taking back all authority in heaven and on earth and inviting us back into the Great Commission to get Project Eden back on board.

Okay, we'll get to that in a second.

So, in heaven, there's this hierarchy of spiritual beings.

But then we have to go back to what are the what are humans' role?

What are our roles in the story?

Genesis 1 through 3.

We read at the very beginning of the Bible, humans were created to partner with God in ruling the earth.

Eden was a place designed by God, not just on earth, but to be an overlap between heaven and earth.

You guys know that?

Eden was a place where it was earth and heaven combined.

It was like the way God intended for it to be.

And he placed Adam and Eve as image bearers within the garden to rule and reign, to extend the blessing of Eden into every square inch of the earth.

That was the commission.

That they were to be take all of the blessing of communion with God, and then to live in a way to cultivate the land, to be fruitful, to multiply, that everything would come under the blessing.

That was their primary call.

You are called not to stay here, but to move out.

Okay?

But we read by chapter three that there was another being, spiritual being, an Elohim, as we'll find in other parts of the Bible, called the serpent, we know as the Satan.

And he was created to be an angel of the Lord, but there was a rebellion that happened in heaven.

He came into the garden, and his goal was to sabotage, to deceive Adam and Eve from their God-ordained purpose, which is to rule.

God did not call any of the spiritual beings to rule over the earth.

He called humans to do that.

That was our responsibility, was to extend the dominion of God over the earth.

And so the serpent came in, deceived Adam and Eve, corrupted that partnership, and that led to the fall.

That led to sin.

Now, a lot of times we think that that was the only rebellion.

It wasn't the only rebellion in Scripture.

See Genesis 6, we read about how the sons of God, this is one of those crazy passages that like I've never preached on.

It was always a joke to go, like if somebody asked me, like, hey, what are you preaching on?

I would tell them the Nephilim.

It's always been a running joke.

What are you preaching on?

Oh, probably the Nephilim, you know.

But like that's a legit part.

So you get to Genesis chapter 6.

Genesis 6 · chapter mention

If you didn't think the Bible got any weirder, you get to this chapter and it says that the sons of God came down and had sexual relationships with women.

And the gods, the sun the sons of God, this is what's what it says, sons of God came down, procreated with women, and created this hybrid monster being called Nephilim.

No, I'm just gonna leave that one right there.

You guys go deal with that.

You guys got YouTube, alright?

I'm not gonna explain that one.

I don't know how it works.

I don't know.

How does this work?

I don't know.

But there was a rebellion, and they were trying to usurp, again, man's created divine purpose to rule and reign over the earth.

Then you get to a third rebellion, the Tower of Babel.

And this was kind of this project in the book of Genesis as well, where humans assisted by spiritual beings begin to erect a tower to the glory of their own name.

And they wanted to do something and it would to bring the nations of the earth in.

But ultimately it was an anti-Eden project.

Because Eden's, the project in Eden was to take the blessing of Eden and push it out into the world.

Babylon was much different.

They were trying to draw everybody back into this is the center, and this is going to be to the glory of our name.

And it was a rebellion.

And we read in Deuteronomy that after that, God divided the nations of the earth and assigned the sons of God to rule over the nations, the false gods of the earth to rule over the nations of the world.

Okay?

So it all is kind of connected and these multiple rebellions.

And then after the Tower of Babel, this is where as God assigns the rebellious God's rulership over the nations, he says, But I want one for myself.

And he calls Abraham out.

And he says, You are gonna be mine, you are my portion.

And he calls Abraham out and he commissions him that I'm gonna bless you in order to be a blessing.

And from your seed will come the blessing of many nations.

And so we start the whole is the journey through Israel, a people set apart from God, a people called by God to worship Yahweh as the one true God, to not fall prey to the deceit of the gods of the nations.

Are you guys tracking with me?

And so Abraham would move out from there, trying as best as he can to be faithful as a people to the calling of God, to not give in to the Babylon, the Babylonic project of trying to create something for our own glory, but to live a life that extends the rule and reign and the blessing of God to all of creation, right?

And so that is what sets up the framework for the understanding of Jesus.

When Jesus came, as you know, as we follow the people of Israel and Abraham through the Old Testament, we see that even with their best effort, they could not escape the hooks and the lures of sin and the rebellion and the unfaithfulness of their own heart.

And they just couldn't do it.

They couldn't, even they were called by God to live under them.

They couldn't do it in and of their own strength.

The sin was too deep.

And so it set the stage for one who was to come, the Son of God, the perfect one who would come and live faithful to the Father's will, not in rebellion to the Father's will, but faithful to the Father's will to do for Israel what Israel could not do for himself, for herself.

And by doing so, and by freely laying down his life, going to the cross, putting to open shame the rulers and the powers and the gods of this age, by going to the cross, dying, resurrecting from the dead, he in himself reset Project Eden and says, Now I'm going to commission you.

All authority has been given to me.

Now go into all the world, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

God's plan got back on track to the work of Jesus Christ.

And so all of those who were stuck in darkness, stuck in the deception of the world, all of us who have felt the sting of sin in our own lives, the wrongdoing and brokenness, Jesus says, just through Jesus we get to come to him and receive the gift of what he's done.

He invites us back into the storyline of God.

And why does this all matter?

Because in Jesus, he restores cosmic order by conquering these rebellious powers on earth, and all who call on his name can enter into that same life.

And this is why, this is why when it comes to spiritual warfare, we had this with this phrase spiritual warfare, Paul would write in Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

He would remind us, listen, our fight is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and powers and authorities in the unseen realm.

And we have to continue to be reminded of that, because what does the enemy do?

The enemy wants to say the exact opposite.

The enemy wants to say to us, no, your fight is against that the person across the street, or across the aisle, or that nation, or that people group.

That's what the enemy wants to say.

Your fight is absolutely against flesh and blood, which is why he specializes in division and chaos and confusion.

That's what the enemy does.

But when we come into Christ and we realize that's what the, this is what the enemy is doing, but what the what what the the what God is doing is He's restoring to Himself a people who live faithfully to him and through the power of worship and praise, through the power of sacrificial love and forgiveness, through the power of generosity and service, through the power of not thinking more about ourselves than we ought, but laying down our lives like our model Jesus Christ, as we enter into his life, we actually make a mockery of every rebellious power who thought they could do it in their own way.

And that's much better than just trying to have a good retirement.

Isn't it?

It's so much better than just trying to improve your golf game a little bit.

That's so much better than these little goals.

No, we were created to participate in the reordering of the entire cosmos through the precious blood and body of Jesus Christ.

And we have been invited back into our heavenly identity as sons and daughters, authorized by him to now invite the world to know his life and his goodness and his love.

Isn't that awesome?

Come on.

What else are you gonna live for?

What are you gonna do?

And listen, if maybe that's the first time you heard that, you're like, I've never heard it like that before.

Like, listen, don't let this go on deaf ears.

You were made for this.

You were made for this.

If you have not given yourself to Jesus and his plan to restore all that has gone wrong in this world, starting with you and I.

That's why we're here because we're admitting I've got stuff wrong in my life, I got brokenness in my life, but through Jesus, he deals with the sin, he deals with the shame, he deals with the brokenness in our life, and he says, that does not disqualify you for coming back into my internal purposes and plans.

Just come on in.

I've paved the way for you.

You can come on in and be in relationship with me.

Some of you, you need to respond to that today.

Some of you need to wake up.

If you've been living for a less than a storyline less than that, you need to wake up because it's so much better.

It's so much better than that.

Are you guys with me today?

So we are invited.

All of this means that we are invited to change the way that we see.

And that means this for you and I as well.

And the worship team can come up.

Our deepest struggles, you got you have to understand in this room right now, we have addiction, we have jealousy, we have insecurity, we have shame, we have sin, and you've been trying to manage those things on your own.

And I'm telling you, it's not about your own struggle with your own flesh and blood.

God wants to bring freedom and deliverance to you through the power of his spirit.

And if you have been stuck in ways of being and you've been all on your own, and you're thinking, I just gotta re- I'm one more book away from getting through this, I'm one more podcast away, I'm one more YouTube video away from finally hacking this thing inside of me.

No, no, no.

The deepest part inside of you is meant to be touched by God Himself.

And he wants to resource you, the resources of heaven, to do that.

And if you've been all on your own, just trying to white knuckle your way throughout, there is a better way forward, and it's life in the spirit.

He wants to free you.

And today would be a good day to get free.

I'm not saying everything, there's spiritual dimensions, everything, and there's physical, there's natural dimensions too.

You need to understand that there are things that we that we address on a natural level with our bodies.

But do not give into the way of thinking that says, I'm gonna figure this all out on my own.

That's what the rebellious powers in heaven did.

They wanted to find their own way.

That's not how we're created to live.

We're created to depend on him.

And listen, if you need help, if you need God to come through for you, if you need to open it, if you need to see that around you, maybe you feel surrounded like Elisha and his servant, his servant, you sort of feel surrounded by enemies all around you.

But what you need is a revelation to open your eyes to see that all of the hosts of heaven is fighting for you.

All of the host of heaven is fighting for your marriage, for your son, for your daughter, for your friendships, for your family, for your community.

All the hosts of heaven is with you, but you need eyes to see that.

Today is that day.

So here's what I'm gonna do this morning.

I'm gonna invite our ministry team to come up, okay?

And we're gonna have some ministry.

Team on the sides of the room.

And if you're here today and you're like, God, I need eyes to see what you're doing in my life.

I need your power.

I need to know King Jesus and your rule and reign in my life.

I've been trying to figure it out on my own, but I need a revelation from God to see this from heaven's perspective.

I don't want you to leave this room.

That would be the worst thing that you could do is leave this room without prayer today.

I'm gonna ask for a few more ministry team members.

Do we have any more?

Amy, Megan, Andy?

Okay.

Let's just let's hear, let's stand together.

Let's do this.

We're gonna stand together.

Alright, so hopefully you're catching the drift a little bit of where we're going.

Here's one other thing to oh actually I'll talk about this afterwards.

But listen, we're gonna sing together.

We're gonna sing about the kingship of Jesus.

We sang this earlier, but it's one of the most powerful things we can do is to say, God, you are king in my life.

And we want to see your rule and reign here in our lives, our church, and our world.

So we're gonna sing this together, and as we sing, if you want prayer, if you're just like, I just think God open my eyes.

And I hope that's all of us, honestly.

I hope all of us are there.

But if you want someone to be with you in prayer, because you want to know the freedom and power of God in a new way, come for come forward.

So let's pray, Jesus.

As we sing of your name, God, as we open the scriptures, as we remind ourselves that you are the God above all gods.

And you are the God over our world.

And all authority is now yours, Jesus.

I just thank you this morning to wake us up from the inside out.

I pray that you would open our eyes to see.

Give us that spiritual x-ray vision, God, where we don't experience anything the same.

We go to work tomorrow, it's not just work.

When we're with our neighbors and our co-workers, it's not just that.

There's other things at play, and you're calling us to live in your rule and reign, to extend your blessing in every area.

I thank you, that's what we're made for.

And so this morning, God, we just we just want to say glory to your name, all Hail King Jesus.

Come on, lift up Jesus' name.

That's why we're here.

Jesus.

And God, together as your people here today, we're we're gathered here to be a people set apart for you to announce that very thing.

God, I thank you that as we lift up a song of praise, that is our spiritual weapon, God, praise and worship.

I thank you that there's a tidal wave that goes out from this place every time a song is lifted up that declares allegiance to the King of Kings over every other power and ruler on this planet.

And so today, Lord Jesus, as we share this space, God, we do circle back to this prayer, God, that you would open our eyes.

And just around the room, if that's your prayer, just kind of put your hands just right up, kind of over your eyes, just up here.

He says, God, I just pray that you open our eyes to see.

Remind us of who we are.

Remind us of your intention.

Remind us of the internal story.

Well, remind us, God, how every part of our lives matters for what you're doing.

I thank you for every person in this room, Lord Jesus, that is bold enough to say, God, I need you in my life.

I have been trying to do it my own way.

Maybe you're even a Christian and you've just been, you've been doing it your own way.

And every you're you've been here for the sake of self-improvement, but not necessarily joining God in his mission to extend his blessing into the whole world.

I'm just telling you, that can change today.

And if you're bold enough, I just want to invite you to just say, Jesus, I need you in my life.

I want to do it your way.

I want to make you Lord of my life.

Just invite him into your heart.

Salvation is here.

His presence is here.

And if that was the first time you prayed that prayer, or maybe you prayed it and you meant it this time.

Come introduce yourself after the service.

We want to get to know you.

And Jesus, I just thank you for this journey.

I thank you to let this be a fun journey digging into your word that we can be a part of what you're doing.

In Jesus' name, we pray together.

Jesus' name.

Come on, say it with me.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Hey, listen, one thing, listen, I threw a lot at you today.

And some of you are like, okay, I'm like, my brain is melted right now.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

That's okay.

That's all right.

It's the risk I took.

There's some resources we have.

Number one, there's we're gonna put a number on the screen.

This is our text message number.

You can tell, by the way, you can text message any prayer requests, anything to this number.

Any questions that you have, you can text message this number.

But um they're gonna put this on the screen and it just says unseen.

If you text unseen to that number, I want to send you a series of videos by the Bible Project that just do a way better job than what I did explaining some of this stuff, and it's actually fun.

Um, animated videos.

We used to call those cartoons, but uh but they're good for people like you and I as well.

Um text unseen to that number, and then you can watch that this week.

It'll help you kind of start tracking.

You'll love it.

You'll love these videos.

Um, also, I can't recommend highly enough Dr.

Michael Heiser.

He's he's one of the chief uh kind of leading scholarly voices as it relates to some of the things that we're talking about.

He has he's got a book called Unseen Realm, but he also has a book called Supernatural.

That's it's actually it's much shorter, and I think it's better because it's shorter.

Um and it's a good, so it's Michael Heiser, Supernatural, it's a great introduction to some of these things in a way that we can't get to on a Sunday morning.

But we're we're we're rooting into a biblical worldview together, okay?

That's what we're doing.

So before we get out of here this morning, everybody stand, let's stand together.

I just want to remind you on your way out, if you're a guest with us, I'd love to get to connect with you.

You'll see a sign in the back that says connect with us.

We actually have some uh gifts for you today.

We'd love to give to you.

Um we have a table.

You can sign up for the remaining volunteer positions for Fall Fest, and then pick up a bag for blessing bags, fill it up for Mexico, and we're gonna send it out.

All right?

So may the Lord bless you and keep you, make it make his face to shine upon you.

May he be gracious to you and lift his countenance upon you and give you peace.

Go in the peace of God.

Love you guys.