VIA | Spiritual Warfare | Know Your Enemy | Kris Bowman  

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Via, how we doing?

That was a little weak.

Via, how are we doing?

Let's go.

Well, man, it's so good to see all of you here on Thursday night at Creekside.

Um, if uh it's your first time with us tonight, I just want to say first off, welcome.

Uh my name is Chris.

I get to serve as a part of our team here at Via.

Uh, but then I just want to kind of catch you up because you are jumping in.

Um, and if you're here wa with us last week, you're gonna remember that we are in this series on spiritual warfare.

And last week, Clayton showed us that there is an unseen battle that's going on around us, and Satan is our enemy.

You'll remember that that our enemy is not our roommate, it's not our parents, it's not a teacher or a coach, it's not someone who's done you wrong.

Our enemy is Satan.

And John 10:10 calls him a thief that comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

John 10:10

Throughout the Bible, he is called the accuser, he's called our adversary, a tempter.

He is the ruler of this world, and Jesus calls him the father of lies in John chapter 8.

John 8 · chapter mention

We know that he is a schemer, right?

Clinton showed us this last week.

He he showed us the four schemes that are uh most often used against us, right?

We've got lies where we're uh tempted to believe something about ourselves or about God or about somebody else that is not true.

He uses temptation that this other thing is going to satisfy you more than God.

He uses accusation that you're never going to change, and he uses distraction to say that this thing over here is gonna matter more than God.

And while I don't want to re-preach that sermon, what I do want to do is use these schemes as kind of our launch pad into where we're gonna spend most of our time tonight.

Because it's one thing to know our enemy, but that's really only half the battle.

So I know that you guys have already been studying ancient Chinese war generals on your own, but in case you haven't, I want to show you Sun Tzu in the Art of War.

It says, if you know your enemy and yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

But if you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

You see, if we really want to stand firm against the enemy's schemes in our lives, we can't just know the enemy, we have to know ourselves.

And so there's a few things that I want you to see tonight, and the first one is this I want you to know yourself.

Know yourself.

Let me see if I can illustrate it this way.

For those of you that don't know me, I am a huge sports guy.

Uh I grew up playing sports, I still love to play sports, I love to watch sports.

I mean, I'm wearing a jersey on the stage, for goodness sakes, right?

All of the things.

But back in high school, I played football, basketball, ran track, baseball, like all the things that I could do.

But one of the things that I noticed about sports across the board is that the preparation process is actually pretty similar.

It doesn't matter what sport that you're playing, if you plan on winning the game, you're gonna have to have a game plan.

You see, a game plan is essential because you need to know what your opponent is like, what they want to do, their strengths, their weaknesses, how they plan to attack you.

It's called scouting your opponent.

But in addition to scouting their opponent, most teams will do something called self-scouting.

And self-scouting is where you look at your team.

You look at what your tendencies are, what your strengths and weaknesses are, and you ask the question: if the opponent were gonna beat my team, how would they do it?

How would they attack us?

Because it's one thing to know your opponent, but if you want any hope for winning the game, you also have to know yourself.

And now listen.

Some of you in this room, you know everything about our spiritual enemy, Satan.

But you know nothing about yourself.

You don't know how to self-scout.

You don't know how to look at yourself and honestly answer the question if the enemy were gonna take me out, how would he do it?

That's what I want to help you do tonight.

I want you to be able to answer the question.

If the enemy was gonna take you out, how would he do it?

And to answer that question, we've got to talk about how we get taken out.

Because it's not like just out of the blue, suddenly we have this massive moral failing where we blow up our lives and ruin all our friendships and cheat on our spouses, become alcoholics and kill ourselves.

We don't go zero to a hundred like that.

These things don't happen overnight, they happen over time.

And what you choose to allow in your life now is already planting seeds for what is gonna trip you up later.

Listen to me.

What you are allowing in your life right now is going to trip you up later.

We have got to take sin seriously in our lives.

If we don't, it is gonna come back and it is going to crush you later in your life.

The things that you don't think are that serious right now, they are going to kill you later.

A theologian John Owen said this.

He said, Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.

And so here's the problem for us in the room right now.

We're gonna get real practical, real quick, and I'm gonna step on your toes just a little bit.

But a lot of us in this room, we've got some pet sins in our lives.

And a pet sin is a lot like a pet lion.

You you've got your little Simba cub at a young age, and he's cute, and he's kind of cuddly, and you kind of hold him up, right?

You know, and and he's got some teeth and he's got some claws, but he's not that big yet, you know?

And so you're not really worried about him because you can control him.

He he's small, like it's just a it's just a pet lion, right?

But one day, that thing grows up into one of the most ferocious predators on the planet, and it will destroy you.

You you guys all know the verse.

1 Peter 5:8, be alert and of sober mind.

1 Peter 5:8

The enemy prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.

But some of you, you've got baby lions in your closet, and they are going to grow up, and you're not gonna be able to control them.

They're gonna get stronger and harder to kill.

And so listen, this is what sin does in our lives.

It starts out small and then it grows and it grows and then it takes us out.

This is what James writes about in James chapter 1.

James 1 · chapter mention

He says, But each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.

And then after a desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin.

And sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death.

I want you to think about what he's saying.

Sin, it starts out as a desire, as kind of a small desire, almost like a little baby desire, but then it grows up into like a toddler of sin.

And when that toddler of sin grows up, it just leads to death.

And so we can't keep letting these little sins sneak into our lives because they're eventually gonna kill us.

Are you tracking with me?

Can I give you some real life examples?

Let's talk about your porn addiction.

It is not something to play around with.

You can't hide it, you can't control it.

What you don't realize is that you are training yourself to be a serial adulterer.

What?

KB, what are you talking about?

All right, let's can we take the foot off the gas a little bit?

Sheesh, bro, you're coming here yelling like crazy.

I mean, I'm not it's not the same as having sex, right?

Like, I'm not hurting anybody.

Nobody else is involved.

Well, that's crazy because Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 5, he says, You've heard it said, you shall not commit adultery, but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

Whoa.

Do you see what Jesus is saying?

It's not just the act that is sinful, it's the heart behind it.

And this sin has been growing in your heart since you were in the eighth grade and you're still struggling with it.

You think that you have it under control, but every time that you try to stop, you just relapse one week later.

And listen, let's not act like this is just a guy thing, because I know that there are women, one, that struggle with that, but are struggling with a different kind of sexual sin.

And so listen, you may not be watching it, but are you reading it?

Or are you rushing to Amazon to buy the next spicy book off of book talk?

Well, what about how you look at other men and women in the gym?

I'm telling you, it will come back and it will crush you.

For my girls in the room.

How about the sin of comparison?

There are girls in this room right now where you are stuck in a comparison trap on social media.

You can't scroll on your phone or walk into a room without looking at everybody else and wondering how you measure up.

Wondering why you don't look like she does.

Why you don't have what she has, why he's with her and not with you.

But this seems small, right?

Like it's not that serious, it's definitely not a porn issue, right?

Uh but then the lies start.

You you're too fat.

You you just need to lose weight.

Actually, you need nicer clothes.

You you just need to dress in a way that people are going to look at you because, after all, your your value is directly connected to the amount of attention that you can get from boys.

People wonder why girls are struggling with eating disorders, but literally all that you see on Instagram are people who spend their time, all of their time, at the gym taking supplements, taking peptides.

They've had the cosmetic surgery, the lip injections, and now all they want to do is make money off of you watching their video and buying their products.

And I know my guys in the room aren't off the hook with this one either.

I know how much you compare your body to the other people at the gym.

I'm gonna keep going.

Do you think that Satan is oblivious to the fact that girls in the room can't stop spending all of the money that they have or all of the money that their dads have?

You think that Satan doesn't know that the fastest growing addiction in 18 to 35-year-old men is sports gambling?

Do you think that that isn't ruining families down the road?

Again, the enemy is all over this.

You think that he isn't messing with your Instagram algorithm?

You think it's a coincidence that when you scroll on TikTok after 10 p.m., all you see is lustful content that makes you sin?

Do you think it's a coincidence that you're single and all the algorithm shows you is the perfect Instagram couple with the dog and the kids and the house and the magnolia kitchen?

I love a magnolia kitchen.

But can I tell you a secret?

It's showing you that because that's what you want.

Your algorithm is specifically tailored towards you.

What you like to watch, what you like to listen to, what you want.

And here's the problem.

Instead of being disciples of Jesus, we have become disciples of our algorithms.

Listen to me.

Instead of being disciples of Jesus, we have become disciples of our algorithms.

I don't think we realize this.

That every video that we watch, every song, every podcast that we listen to, everything that we're consuming is either pushing us closer to Jesus or it's drawing our heart away from Him.

And look at me, because I'm going to show you how it works.

It starts in the mind with what you see and what you hear, and then it moves to the heart.

To what you want, what you long for, and then it results in an action.

How you live.

This is the enemy's game plan.

It is a sinful thought that turns into a sinful belief, and it is tailored towards you, and so let me ask you.

It's tailored towards you, and so let me ask you.

What are you watching?

What are you listening to?

Are those things pushing you closer to Jesus or drawing you away from him?

Where are you giving the enemy a foot in the door?

What is the algorithm of your heart that the enemy is trying to use?

You feel the tension of what's going on.

You can nod your head up and down if you're with me.

This is spiritual warfare.

This is what we're talking about when we say that the enemy is scheming.

It's how he uses our flesh and how he uses the world to his advantage.

He uses deceptive ideas that speak to our own distorted and disordered desires, and then all of that gets normalized in our sinful, fallen society.

He speaks deceptive ideas that speak directly to our disordered desires, and all of that gets normalized in our fallen world.

And so let's do some self-scouting now.

Where are you most likely to stumble?

What are your weaknesses, your desires, the areas that the enemy seems to have a foothold?

What are the things that you think, if I could just get this one thing, well then I'll be happy?

In a lot of ways, the answer to these questions lies deep within our hearts.

And usually the desire that you have on the surface isn't actually the deeper longing underneath.

Because deep down we are all looking for the same things.

We're looking for love, we're looking for belonging to be known.

We're looking for peace, for purpose, a sense of identity, for joy.

These are our deepest desires.

And you've heard me say it like this before that they create this God-sized hole in our hearts.

And so often what we try to do is we take the carousel of the world to try to fill that God-sized hole with everything that the world has to offer, and they always leave us feeling empty.

Now, if the story were to end right here, we would have a real enemy in a broken world with a sinful heart and no hope.

But that is not how our story ends.

And so the second thing that we need to know is we need to know our Savior.

We need to know our Savior.

Remember John 10, 10.

Quoted half of it earlier, but the full verse is spoken by Jesus, and it goes like this the thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.

But I have come so that you may have life and have it to the fullest.

Jesus has come to fulfill in us every desire, every longing, every part of us that's desperately searching for God.

He shame, He came to show us who God is and what He's done, what He's like, what His heart is towards us.

He came to bring grace and truth and peace and joy and hope.

He came to make us whole, to restore our hurting souls into a relationship with God so that we could experience what it's like to be loved, to be known, to belong, to have a purpose and to experience this fullness of life.

But listen to me, Jesus didn't just come to fulfill you, he came to free you.

And so he came to release you from the spiritual bondage that you once found yourself in.

He came to break your chains, to fill you with his Holy Spirit, the same power that raised him from the dead, it now lives in you.

He came to save you from the schemes of the enemy, to give you divine power to overcome the strongholds that Satan has had on you.

This is 1 John chapter 3.

1 John 3 · chapter mention

It says the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work.

Colossians 2 tells us when you were dead in your sins in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ.

He forgave all of our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us.

He has taken it away, nailed it to the cross, and having disarmed the powers and authorities, listen, he made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them by the cross.

And so what does this mean for you and me?

It means that we no longer have to be slaves to sin.

We no longer have to live at the mercy of our feelings and desires, but instead, by the power of the Holy Spirit inside of us, we have been set free from the things that once kept us chained down.

And so it's one thing to know your enemy, to know yourself.

But when you know your Savior, when you know Jesus, you experience the life, the power, the freedom that Jesus died for you to have.

And so let me spell it out for you.

Yes, we live in a fallen world.

Yes, our flesh still has these passions and desires that are sinful.

And yes, we have a real enemy who plays on those things to try to keep us chained and keep us from experiencing all that Jesus has to offer.

But Jesus has come to give you life and life to the fullest.

He has given you his Holy Spirit to lead and guide you, to teach you, to give you power and peace.

And as John writes in 1 John chapter 4, the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

1 John 4 · chapter mention

And so now what?

You know how I work.

I don't just want to give you the information without helping you experience a little bit of transformation.

And so here's what I want to do.

I want to give you just a couple of quick, kind of practical takeaways straight from the Word of God that we can take with us tonight.

As you self scout, as you look at yourself and you ask, what are my weaknesses?

Where am I vulnerable?

If the enemy was going to take me out, how would he do it?

Where is the enemy trying to pull my heart from Jesus?

How can I fight back?

I want to give you just a couple of things.

Number one is this.

Know the truth.

Know the truth.

If you want to spot the lie, you have to know the truth.

And you've heard me illustrate it like this before, right?

How do you spot a counterfeit hundred dollar bill?

Do you study all the counterfeits out there and try to match it up to one of those?

No, you study the real thing.

You hold the lie up to the truth and you say, does it match up?

But to know the truth, you've got to go to the source of truth.

And so listen, everybody in this world is trying to tell you their truth, their version of the truth.

They're trying to sell you on why their truth is the truth.

But if we believe Jesus to be who he says that he is, then we believe his words in John chapter 14 when he says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

John 14 · chapter mention

And no one comes to the Father except through me.

We've got to take his word that he is speaking truth.

And so if you want to spot the lie, you've got to know the truth.

And you find the truth in God's word.

We have no hope for spotting and combating the lies of the enemy if we don't know and spend time reading God's word.

You've heard maybe Pastor Tony say it like this before: that your level of experience victory in your life is directly tied to how much time you spend in God's word.

And Jesus said in John chapter 8, if you hold my teaching, you are really my disciples.

John 8 · chapter mention

And then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Number two is this we take every thought captive.

We take every thought captive.

If you are in a war and you take an enemy soldier captive, what are you doing?

Are you stealing them and then letting them hang out in the back with your boys?

Eating your food?

Watching your TV?

No.

You're throwing that boy in solitary confinement.

And you're saying, hey, who are you?

Where did you come from?

Who are you serving?

Why are you here?

What are you trying to do?

What are you trying to convince me of?

And in the same way, we do the same thing with our thoughts.

We question them.

We say, hey, why are you here?

Why has this lie come in?

What are you trying to do to me?

Did you know that you have around 6,000 meaningful thoughts per day?

Those numbers range pretty widely, but it's at least that.

6,000 meaningful thoughts each day.

Let me tell you something else.

Did you know that not all of those are worth giving weight to?

Did you know that not every one of those thoughts requires you to give yourself to it?

That you don't have to be at the mercy of every single one of those thoughts.

Just because something enters into your mind does not mean it's right, does not mean you should do it, does not mean you have to do it, does not mean it's from God.

And so every time that you have a thought that doesn't align with the truth of God's word, remember we've got to know the truth of God's word first.

Every time that we don't have a thought that matches up with that, we take it captive.

We lock it up and we question it.

We say, What are you doing here?

Where did you come from?

What are you trying to do?

What are you trying to get me to do?

And then we make it obedient to Christ.

We remove the lie and we replace it with the truth.

And so that's the next point is that we've got to renew our minds.

Romans 12 tells us, don't be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

And so as you remove the lie and you replace it with the truth, you've got to renew your mind with that truth.

I'm gonna nerd out on you for just a second.

There is a phrase in neuroscience that's talking about neuroplasticity.

You can look up those words later.

But but what they say is that neurons that fire together wire together.

Neurons that fire together wire together.

And essentially, what that's talking about is that when we repeatedly think and say and consume certain things, those things become ingrained in our identity.

And so if the lie that you believe is I'm just depressed and I'll never get better, or I'm just addicted to this thing and I'll never change, then you are going to identify with that and you're gonna get stuck in that thought pattern, and then as it moves from just a thought in your mind into a belief in your heart, it's gonna lead to a behavior that you don't want.

It starts in your mind, it moves to your heart, it leads to your actions.

But what's so awesome about your brain is that you can actually change your thinking.

It's a 2,000-year-old concept from Paul.

That if you change your thinking, you change your beliefs, and when you change your beliefs, you change your behaviors.

You can renew your mind just like the Bible says.

And so what do you do?

You replace the lie with the truth, and once you have the truth, listen to me.

You write it, you think it, you say it until you believe it.

You write it, you think it, you say it until you believe it.

You write it, you think it, you say it until you believe it.

One more time.

You write it, you think it, you say it until you believe it.

Do you believe it?

I do.

I've been saying it.

I wrote it, I've been thinking it.

But that's how we renew our minds.

When you renew your mind, you begin to transform your heart, and as a result, you begin to live a different way.

And when you are renewing your mind with the word of God, you start to change your heart to align with the heart of God.

And then what do you know?

Your behaviors, your actions follow what God has called you to do, and you experience the life in life to the full that He has promised.

Number four is this.

So quickly.

Don't fight alone.

Don't fight alone.

The enemy thrives when we are in isolation.

I want you to think back to 1 Peter chapter 5 when he talks about being a lion, right?

1 Peter 5 · chapter mention

Seeking someone to devour.

I don't know how many of you spend a lot of time on Animal Planet as kids, but if you've ever seen a lion hunt, what do they do?

They find the weakest one and they separate it from the rest of the pack.

Because if they can get it separated, they know that it's vulnerable.

And so the enemy, like a lion, thrives when we find ourselves in isolation.

We cannot do these things alone.

We've got to bring in other believers around us to help us walk through them, to speak truth to us when we are starting to believe the lies of the enemy.

We need friends who know us, who know when something's off, to who know when we need help.

We we need them to hold us accountable, to help us grow, to spur us on.

We say it all the time that we experience God best in community.

Some of you, you need to start finding those types of friends.

And some of you, you need to become that kind of friend.

The book of James lays this out for us again, chapter five.

It says, Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

There is healing found in confession and prayer in community with other believers.

The last one is this.

We've got to remember the resurrection.

Remember the resurrection.

Listen, it can be easy for us to hear all of these things and think that now we've just got to get super disciplined and delete all of our social media, cancel our subscriptions, and just try harder.

But nobody ever white-knuckled their way to holiness.

And because we are fallen, sinful human beings, we are naturally bent towards sin.

We don't drift towards holiness, we drift towards sin.

And because of that, we found ourselves eternally separated from God.

Ephesians 2 tells us that we were dead in our sins, that we were following the ways of the world and the enemy, just living for the desires of our flesh, and we were fully deserving of the wrath of a holy and righteous God.

That means that in our own power, we cannot change.

We cannot overcome.

But the story that we get to celebrate this weekend on Easter is that we are no longer slaves to our sin, but because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we have been set free.

The Lamb of God has overcome.

Satan has been thrown down, and where sin and death once thought that they had the upper hand 2,000 years ago, Jesus hung on the cross at Calvary and he declared, It is finished.

He died on the cross in our place, paid the debt of our sin, and he marched right into hell, defeated death and Satan on our behalf, and three days later he proved it by being raised from the dead and offering that same resurrection life to you and me.

And so for us to have placed our faith and trust in Jesus, he has given us the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of our salvation, that we are holy and blameless in the sight of God.

And Paul writes in Romans 6, he says, For if we've been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.

For we know that our old self was crucified with him, so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.

He goes on in Romans 8 to tell us that that same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead now lives in me and you.

So can you do all of these things on your own?

Can you overcome in your own strength, in your own power?

Absolutely not.

But you were never meant to.

Because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.

Because of what Christ has done and the Holy Spirit inside of you, you can overcome.

This is what John tells us in Revelation chapter 12.

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

He says, Then I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, Now have come the salvation, the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah.

For the accuser of our brothers and sisters who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.

They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.

That is how we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the Word of our testimony.

And so as you walk through life thinking about how the enemy might be trying to take you out, we've got to remember that we don't fight for victory, we fight from victory.

And our Savior has already purchased our freedom once and for all with his own blood, and now through the power of the Holy Spirit inside of you, you can destroy every single lie, every single temptation, every single accusation, every single distraction with the word of God and the authority of Jesus Christ his son.

Amen.

Amen.

Let me pray for us.

Father God.

God, I just bless these men and women in the name of your son Jesus.

Father, we are thankful that you are a God who would send his own son to be the payment for our sin.

But God, we are thankful that you hold the keys to death and Hades.

That you have the authority.

The death has lost its thing.

The grave has no victory.

The victory has been secured by your Son Jesus.

God, we're thankful that by the power of the Holy Spirit in us we get to experience that victory.

And so, God, would you stir that up in us?

God, would you break off every chain, every stronghold that has held us down, that's kept us trapped for years and years.

God, would those end tonight?

By the power of your Holy Spirit inside each and every one of us.

God, we love you.

God, we praise you.

We thank you for who you are and for what you've done.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.