Art of War | The Battle Is Decided: Fighting From Victory - Ephesians 6:10-18 | February 22

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Lord, we are so grateful and thankful for you and for the cross,

for your resurrection, for all that you are, the God who made the universe,

the God who holds it together to this day, the God who pursues us.

Wherever we go, as a good shepherd, just waiting for us to turn back and acknowledge

and to realize that you've been here all along. You've never left.

It is we who, in our own pursuits of whatever this life has,

who ignore you, who turn our backs on you, but you have always been there pursuing

us. And we're just thankful.

Thankful for all of what you did at the cross and the victory that is brought

and the fact that even though sometimes we forget and we don't think about it,

we are living in the victory that you have given us in that moment.

And there's just so many awesome things that happen as a result of it that we

get to talk about today and we get to celebrate today as well. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.

So we have been the last several weeks talking about the idea or the subject

or whatever you want to call it of spiritual warfare.

And so we started with this idea of just laying out the battlefield that the

spiritual world is real, that there is a real world alongside of this one that we can't always,

and in fact, probably we would say mostly we can't perceive,

but it is in many ways more real than what we've experienced in our physical world.

There is a spiritual world that exists, and this spiritual world is not just

full of God and his angels who are for us and who are with us and who want good

for us to pursue God and his kingdom,

but it also has a real tangible enemy who wants nothing but for us to doubt God,

to doubt his goodness, like we see in the beginning in the garden,

to doubt that there is enough to doubt his provision, to doubt that God knows

what's best for us, so to separate us from him.

But it's not just these spiritual forces. Either we are spiritual beings and

our own flesh wars against us as well, trying to convince us and cause us to doubt.

But today, that's where we've been. Today, what we're talking about is the victory

that has already been won.

And I've been using some quotes from Sun Tzu in The Art of War.

Disclaimer, not a book that I've read. If I ever mention a book,

chances are I've never read it.

But one thing that he has said in this book is that victorious warriors win first, then go to war.

And so there's a lot of wisdom here that actually parallels quite a bit to the

gospel, to the Bible. And what we want to realize first today is that that is so true in the cross.

That victorious warriors win first and then go to battle.

And that's exactly what the picture of the cross is, that we do not fight for victory in this world.

This spiritual war that goes around or that is happening, we experience battles

still to this day. But when we fight, we are not fighting to win the victory

because the victory has already been won.

Instead, we are fighting from our positional standing as the victors.

And that is a huge, important concept for us to understand.

Often we forget that Jesus has already given us victory over the enemy.

We feel like that we'll never win sometimes.

The fact is that the enemy and our own desires have us fighting as if we need

to earn this win, this victory.

The lie tells us that we never had victory in the first place.

That accusation that keeps coming back and says that you've lost, you'll never win.

We have this lie that we give into too much. But the truth is that when Jesus

went onto the cross to die for us, the enemy was defeated completely.

The war was won, and though we fight some battles today, there is victory to be had.

In 1 John 5, it says, For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world,

and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith.

That when we place our faith in Jesus and his finished work on the cross,

stop trying to earn it for ourselves, stop trying to fight and win the victory,

that this is the victory that overcomes the world, that we walk by faith,

not by sight, when we do not war based on our feelings or even based on our

experiences, when we war from faith in what God said is true,

and we trust in the finished work.

Proverbs 21 says that the horse is made ready for the day of the battle,

but the victory belongs to the Lord.

And so we clothe ourselves with the armor that we're gonna talk about next week.

And though we fight battles, it is the victory that has already been won by

God that is the overarching narrative of that story.

So we get ourselves ready for war. We put on the armor, but the victory belongs to God already.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, but

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And there's a weird thing that happens where God, through Jesus.

Struck the final blow, but then he comes along and says, this victory is not

just mine, it is yours as well.

So this is our victory as well. Before we ever stepped onto the battlefield,

before we even realized that there was a battle going on, the reality is that

Christ had already stepped out and won.

And this is the point that we are starting from, and this is the point that

we are talking about this morning.

So Julie already read our verse, but for risking repeating ourselves,

if you wouldn't mind, just stand up and let's read the whole thing together. verses 10 through 18.

And I realize this is awkward. I don't like to participate in stuff either,

but there's victory in reading the word of God out loud together. So let's try it.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.

Put on the whole armor of God that you may able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers,

against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness,

against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. And then the next one.

Therefore, take up the whole honor of God, that you may be able to stand the

able day, and having done all, to stand firm.

Stand, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, having put on the breastplate

of righteousness, and as shoes

for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish

all the flaming darts of the evil one.

And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit,

which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication.

Awesome. Thank you, guys. Go ahead and sit back down.

So, to start this off,

I have a question, which I invite participation for, so it's not rhetorical.

I invite you to shout out some answers.

The question is this, and we've already foreshadowed it enough,

so don't try and skip to the answer you think I want.

Just shout out what comes to mind. Why did Jesus come?

To bring the dead to life, to give us new life. That's right.

To show us who God is. That's right, too. I have some verses written down,

but I don't need to reference them as much because y'all are speaking the truth

of what they said already. To reveal to us the Father.

Jesus says, if you've seen me, you know you've seen the Father as well. That's right.

Bring heaven down to earth. Perfect, yeah. One thing that we invite Jesus into

here in our lives when we say the Lord's Prayer and other things is that this

reality would look like what happens already in heaven.

What are some other things that you've heard, you know? To heal.

To heal, yeah. Not just physically, but also spiritually.

I came not to seek and save the righteous but the lost I came as a physician

to heal those who are sick those who are well don't need a doctor those are

all good things any other last ones?

To serve, yeah. I came to serve, not to be served. What about this?

Have you ever thought about this?

Jesus came to destroy powers.

Jesus came to shame authorities.

Jesus came to triumph over evil. These are not the answers that we tend to think

of automatically, but these are the truth as well as his mission on this earth.

In Mark chapter 10, this is our previous ones, but he came to destroy,

Mark 10 · chapter mention

he came to shame, he came to triumph.

In 1 John, it says, the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

Jesus came on a mission to destroy the works of the devil.

In Galatians chapter 1, it says, who gave himself, Jesus, for our sins to deliver

Galatians 1 · chapter mention

us from this present evil age.

That Jesus came to save from evil, not just in general, but from evil as well.

Jesus came not just to serve. He came to serve. He came not just to improve

our lives. Our lives are much better with Jesus.

He came not just to heal and seek and save the lost. He came to destroy something.

He came to break something. He came to cancel something. He came to shame.

And the reason that the Son of Man appeared and died was to destroy the works of the devil.

And if that's true, if we believe that's true, which we should,

because I just gave you evidence of why it was true.

Then the cross is where that happened. We're going to be looking at Colossians

Colossians 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2 this morning. If you've got your Bibles, you can open up to that and kind of keep it there.

We'll jump over to Jeremiah 31 later.

But for the most part, Colossians 2 is where you want to be.

And in that, starting in verse 13, it says, And you were dead in your trespasses

and the uncircumcision of your flesh. This was our reality. This is who he's

writing to. This is who you were.

But God made alive together with him. He made you alive together with him,

having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood

against us with its legal demands.

This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him.

As we get into this, I just want to have an overarching, I'm not trying to teach

you something new this morning.

I realize that, and I hope you will learn something.

It's not like I don't hope that I'm not teaching you, but the point of us getting

together on Sunday's mornings,

the point of us reading scripture and the point of me talking about it for probably

longer than most of you want me to is not for me to teach you something new,

even though I hope that's something that happens.

You might leave today thinking, I've heard all of that before,

and that's completely fine.

I did not lose in my goal one bit. What we forget about, Paul's writing this

letter to people he's already told this to.

He's not telling them something new in these letters.

What we're doing here is celebrating the reality that sometimes we forget and

we always need reminded of even if we don't forget.

And I know we're all over the place, so some of you are learning something new.

Some of you, this is all old hat for you. Some of you, they're somewhere in between, right?

We're all over the place, but that's never the goal. The goal is that we learn

about God, or we know who God is more fully, even if it's something we've heard before.

That we celebrate his work on the cross with more of ourselves even if it's

something that we think we don't need to be reminded of.

I say that because, again, some of you, you might have heard this all before,

but it's so powerful what this message is.

These passages in Colossians, I'm not going to take them in order of how they're

presented. I'm going to kind of start at the bottom and then move back and then jump around.

But I just want to point out what the cross has done.

And then we're going to talk about the results of that in us.

And then just one last exhortation before we get to sing and celebrate with

our voices some more. We get to celebrate River and his baptism.

So this is what the cross has done. Paul writes, having canceled the record

of debt that stood against us, this he set aside.

And so in this culture, in this time, they had their certificates of debt,

sort of like we have with the bank.

But in this case, they had to write them with their own hand.

They had to sign them with their own signature. And then they gave them to the

person that they owed the debt to that was able to hold it over them,

and it was legally binding, and they could be imprisoned for it if they didn't fulfill this debt.

And we see in Jesus teaches a parable about an unjust servant who is shown grace

and is forgiven the debt, and then he goes and strangles another dude asking

him for his debt back, even though he owed him way less than he was forgiven.

And then it says that that servant will be thrown into prison until every last pen he was paid.

This is the debt that we owe. We all owe this debt, this record of debt,

and it is a handwritten certificate that we have signed ourselves.

Paul says, it was written in our own hand.

It contains a list of our sins, a list of our transgressions,

a list of our selfishness, a list of all the ways that we act in unrighteousness

towards each other and against God as well.

It is signed by our own hands. It's our responsibility. and the image here is

that he has canceled it, that he has wiped it clean, that he's removed it from existence.

There is a story that I just read in Jeremiah where Jeremiah is a prophet and

he's prophesying the word of God against Israel, against Judah.

These are all the things that you did wrong and these are standing against you.

Repent and turn to God and he will turn to you.

And the king, I think it's Zedekiah that he's written this to,

this prophecy, is reading it.

Every time they read a line, they rip it up and throw it in the fire.

And it says that they did not listen to the word of God.

And now that's, I know that's not what we're talking about, but imagine that

this debt list is being read out loud.

And every time it's read, God is ripping off a piece and throwing it in the fire.

He is removing it from existence.

It is a similar image that he's not gonna listen to the accusation against us any longer.

As far as he is concerned, it doesn't exist. The debt has been satisfied.

When a debt was paid in full, they wrote on it a word that means paid in full.

And I would tell you in Greek, and I would probably say it right,

but I don't want to risk it because I'm feeling a little bit,

I don't know, self-conscious right now.

What was that? Fade in full. I don't speak Greek anyway. You guys don't speak

Greek. Anna's going to get up later and recite the Lord's Prayer in Greek.

In the face of all the devil's accusations, all of your fleshly thoughts,

all of the things that have caused relational strife in your life,

all of the sins that the devil continues to bring back up and say,

oh, you did this, you remember that.

All of these things written across it is paid in full. The debt has been satisfied.

And I realized that not all of you own a house, not all of you pay for a car,

not all of you have student loans, but all of us theoretically understand what

it would be like if somebody was just like, you don't have to pay any of those anymore.

The weight that would be off of us if we didn't have to pay that debt was amazing.

The debt certificate is paid. It says it is nailed on the cross.

And so in the Roman world, these are all pictures that the people that Paul

is writing to would understand. And he's using so many metaphors that at least

one of them is going to go home, take it home for them.

Nailed it to the cross. What they would do is when they crucified someone,

they would nail the list of their, what is it called when somebody breaks the law, Scott?

The fraction, sure. I don't know.

Whatever they committed, they would nail it to the cross above them.

This was the list of what they did wrong so that everyone would see,

oh, this person actually deserved it.

And so they would nail it to the cross. When Jesus is crucified,

Pilate nails to his cross king of the Jews because there was nothing that he did wrong.

The only accusation was that he was king of Jews. So Pilate nailed that to the cross.

All of our sins, all of our transgressions, not only was the debt paid,

but those were nailed onto the cross of Jesus, onto his cross and not our own.

Your indictments were nailed to the cross of Jesus.

Your charges became his. The list that condemned you publicly declared what he paid for us.

The list of your transgressions was nailed to the cross.

Within these two metaphors, these two syllogisms, I don't know.

It says that they were wiped away, that the slate was clean.

So back then, they wrote on papyrus.

They didn't write with ink that sunk into the paper like we do.

They didn't have acid in it. So you could literally wipe away the document as if it never existed.

And this is the imagery that Paul is using here, that the ink that had all of

your transgressions written against it, all of that was not just simply crossed off.

It was wiped away as if it had never been written in the first place. It was erased.

You didn't put up a payment plan in place and say, let's work on this together.

We'll get you out of debt free. It wasn't one of those commercials that promises

they'll reduce it by 50 or 80%. It was wiped away. The record was removed.

He also says that it is taken out of the way, literally removed from the middle.

All of this stuff that came between us and God, the wall that we had set up was broken down.

The jail cell that kept us into slavery was taken away.

I have this picture of a boulder that is in the middle of a path,

and I had a professor back when we were at Chapel Hill that taught New Testament

theology, but along the way,

he walked away from being a Christian, and his biggest thing,

this is what actually somebody wrote in the paper about him through an interview,

was it's as if he came into,

on his journey of faith and his path to God, he came in amongst a huge boulder

in the way, and instead of thinking to himself, I bet that path continues on

the other side, he just turned away and left.

It is if that big boulder has been taken away so that we can walk on a straight path.

This is this idea of taking away from the midst.

It also says that God made you alive, having forgiven us all our trespasses.

The Bible says in other places that you are dead to sin.

So consider yourself dead to sin in Romans chapter six. So you also must consider

yourself dead to sin, alive to God in Christ Jesus.

It uses this imagery of you are dead to sin, therefore be dead to sin.

You're dead, so act like you're dead to sin. It does the same thing,

but in reverse with regard to Christ. You are alive, so be alive.

You are alive to Christ. You are alive in him, so live, be alive.

We see those Bride of Frankenstein commercials coming up.

I'm not gonna watch that movie, but it's that story of Ezekiel 37,

of the dry bones, of what was dead coming to life. And God is saying,

you are alive. I've made you alive. Be alive.

You're dead to sin. Be dead to sin. You are alive in me. Live.

Stop rehearsing the graveyard. Stop going over all of the things that kept you in death and slavery.

Stop reminding yourselves of all of these reasons why you're not good enough.

And receive my word that you are worthy because I've made you worthy.

You are loved because I've made you loved. You are mine. You've been raised to new life.

Now, these are all of the things that you would standardly hear in the gospel

message, in the presentation of the victory of the cross.

These are all the positive things that God has done through the cross.

What we don't talk about, I'm not going to use the word negative.

It's not the negative things that happened on the cross, but it's the ways in

which God triumphed over evil.

We talk about what he did for us in clearing the record. We don't ever usually

talk about what he did in opposition to the enemy.

But this is where we encounter it in Colossians chapter 2. It says he disarmed the powers.

Colossians 2 · chapter mention

He disarmed the rulers and authorities. And as we read in Ephesians chapter

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

6, it uses those same words.

We don't war against the flesh. We war against principalities,

powers, authorities over this present evil age.

It is the same powers and authorities. These are ranked spiritual forces,

ranked hostile angelic beings, you could say.

We could talk about the authorities of this world, And yes, we are not condemned under them as well.

But Paul is writing very specifically about this spiritual warfare again.

He disarmed them. He stripped them of their weapons.

And we've talked about what their weapons were in the past. The weapons of the

enemy. They are deception. They are lies. They are temptation.

They are accusation. He gets us to believe the lie.

And then once we have believed it, he reminds us of every time that we've believed

it. And he brings it up over and over again. It is condemnation.

It is the penalty of the law that we broke. It is fear of death itself.

These are the weapons of the enemy.

And when the debt was canceled, that primary weapon, his only weapon, frankly, was removed.

It was taken away. There's no legal ground, no case, no leverage. He cannot accuse.

He cannot terrify you with death. He cannot make us keep on sinning.

The weapons of the enemy were taken away.

I heard a story about a guy who was at a zoo, and he was watching a zookeeper

or a janitor clean up the mountain lion enclosure.

And he was like, oh, he's going to put the mountain lion away while he does that.

But he watched the mountain lion, the zookeeper go in with his broom,

start sweeping up, cleaning up the place, taking care of it,

all while the mountain lion was still in the cage.

And he's like, this is weird. I'm going to stick around because I don't know

what's going to happen. And as this guy was cleaning up the cage,

he'd walk over, get near, poke him a little bit with the broom.

And then he finished and walked out. And he's like, I have to figure out what's

going on here. So he talked to the zookeeper.

I don't know if this is a true story or not, but sure, let's say it's a true story.

And he was like, aren't you afraid? I was like, well, that mountain lion's pretty old.

And to be honest, it doesn't have any of its teeth anymore.

So not really. Anyway, this is what happened at the cross with regard to the

enemy. His weapons were removed.

I think Martin Luther said something like, the devil is like a chained dog that

really only bites you if you get too close. It's a similar idea.

He's only going to mess with you. Well, he's going to mess with you, that's for sure.

But the danger he has has been taken away if we live securely in the victory

of the cross. Let's say it that way.

He has no case against us.

To give it another picture that might be more relevant to some of you,

especially working in the law enforcement field, it is as if we're in a courtroom

and the devil just keeps bringing up accusation against accusation.

And Jesus is our lawyer. And he just keeps saying, objection,

paid in full, objection, paid in full.

And God is sitting there going, sustained, sustained, sustained.

This is the image we have that all of the devil's weapons are weapons almost

of legal grounds and Christ has canceled them and taken them away.

It's a complete victory over spiritually dark forces that oppose God and God's

purposes in his life and his purposes for his people.

God has triumphed over them on the cross 100%. The victory is absolute.

It also says that he put them to open shame.

So when Romans conquered a place, they would take the king, strip him of his robes.

They would parade him through town in chains and other demeaning ways,

publicly humiliating him, exposing him as powerless.

This is what they would do when they would conquer a new place.

I think Anna can correct this, but fantasy football might be a little bit closer

to home than the Roman Empire.

A lot of people have bets. If you lose, you get some sort of humiliation shame.

I think it's like a hot dog mile or something with Elliot and his friends where

they have to run a mile and they eat a hot dog.

I'm not sure how shaming that is. Other people is shaving your head, right?

The devil has been put to open shame. These spiritual forces,

these powers have been put to open shame through the clear declaration of victory

through Jesus on the cross.

He's not just saying that Satan was defeated, but he's saying that it was a complete humiliation.

It is a reversal of the cross, of the picture that Satan thought he was painting when Jesus was killed,

that he was putting Jesus to shame, that he was triumphing over God's plans,

that he was getting rid of the Messiah, the chosen one of Christ.

And it is a complete reversal that Christ was staging a triumph at his death,

that the resurrection was an announcement, the battle has been decided.

We don't live under the oppressive rule of sin and shame and condemnation.

The Bible tells us that there is no one who condemns because Jesus has died for us.

There is now no condemnation.

Tells us that the accusations of the enemy have been silenced.

We've been made right in God because of what Jesus has done.

We are free to live in grace. So these are triumph. That's a military picture.

We have pictures that are from a courtroom, legal pictures.

We have pictures that are from various different walks of life so that people

understand, no matter what their background is, the truth.

Everything has been taken care of and the victory has been won,

not by just a little bit, but it wasn't even close.

The war was over before your battles have begun.

You don't fight to win anything. You fight because it's already been won.

Every time you resist temptation, you're not winning anything.

Ultimately, you are winning the battle, improving what has already been done is true.

Whenever you pray harder, you are participating in the victory that's already

been won. You're not earning a victory.

When you clean up your life and do stuff like that, you are not changing the

outcome of the war because it's already been won.

You don't have to win it because it's already been won.

You still have to fight because that's one way that we don't line up in the

victory, as we just stop fighting. But we don't fight to earn the victory.

The debt's been canceled, the powers are disarmed, the triumph has been declared.

And so if all these things are true, if the powers are disarmed,

the debt is erased, Christ has triumphed, then there are things that we should

expect this to produce, and it does.

And I'm going to run these sort of quickly, because there's this passage in

Jeremiah 31, where God is.

Revealing to his people who have been taken into exile, who have experienced

defeat, who are broken, who are scattered.

He's revealing to them through Jeremiah the victory to come.

That he will bring them back, that he will show them his everlasting love.

And so in the midst of these promises of restoration for God's people,

here's what God says. This is what the victory brings.

God promises, I will gather them, I will lead them, I will restore them.

There is a picture of restoration, that the victory brings restoration for us.

You could say it this way, that the victory brings us home.

We've been scattered, we've been lost, we've been living in exile.

The victory of Christ brings you home.

Colossians 1 says that we've been transferred from the domain of darkness and

placed into the kingdom of righteousness, the kingdom of God,

the kingdom of light, you are brought home by the victory. The victory brings you home.

We back up in Jeremiah 31, in verse 3, it says, I've loved you with an everlasting love.

God is reminding his people who he is.

When the accusations come, they are silenced and assurance becomes possible.

This is the enemy strategy, accuse, isolate, and slave.

But when the record is erased, when there is no condemnation,

when peace with God is restored, the victory brings assurance of God's love.

It brings assurance of security.

Victory brings security into our lives.

Jeremiah goes on in the word of the Lord spoken that the victory brings joy.

He says, they shall be radiant. I will turn their mourning into joy.

Now, this joy is not dependent on circumstances.

It is rooted in the nature of God and his faithfulness, that what he has promised he will do.

In Hebrews chapter 2, it talks about how the children, us, share in the suffering

Hebrews 2 · chapter mention

of Christ that he himself took.

And it says that through death, that he might destroy the one who has the power

of death, that is the devil, and deliver all of those who through fear of death

were subject to lifelong slavery.

That the power of the devil existed in the fear that we experience with regard to death.

1 Corinthians 15, it says that the victory over death, the sting of death,

that is sin, the power of sin, that is the law.

God gave us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

That the fear of death was taken away.

And if the fear of death is taken away, then the joy that God brings is experienced in full.

Peace and joy with God. Victory brings joy.

Christians don't live our lives in defensive survival, trying to make it through.

We live in joy regardless of the season, regardless of the circumstance.

We live in victory that's already been won. Victory brings joy.

You might have sung that song before if you've spent much time around church.

What a day of rejoicing that will be.

This is that day. We might refer to it as this present age is that day.

The victory is won. We live in the day of rejoicing. Victory brings joy.

Victory brings satisfaction. We are satisfied in him.

He says, I will feast the soul of the priests with abundance and my people shall

be satisfied with my goodness, declares the Lord.

We read about the abundance that God has for us.

It speaks of grain, of wine, of oil, shepherd's flocks, a satisfied soul,

covenant fullness, because the victory brings this refreshing fullness.

Victory brings satisfaction. Victory is the restoration of life.

We are satisfied in him. There is an abundance.

We don't live in scarcity. The lie is that God doesn't know what's best for

you, that God doesn't have your good in mind, that there is not enough to go around.

The truth is that in God, there is an abundance. Victory brings satisfaction.

Also, the strange one, victory brings authority.

If I were to guess the one that you believe less, maybe the satisfaction one,

but it's probably this one.

Through Christ, you have been seated with him in heavenly places.

It's what the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

Through Christ, you are more than conquerors. That's what God says,

Romans chapter 8. Through Christ, you have authority over the power of the enemy.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

Jesus sends out his disciples. They come back rejoicing that even the demons

listen to him. He said, don't celebrate that.

Celebrate that fact that your name is written in the book of life.

The truth that the authority they had is still there.

Victory brings authority. James chapter 4 says, resist the devil and he will flee from you.

James 4 · chapter mention

We know that the devil will flee from God.

The devil is way more afraid of God than you should ever be of the devil.

James chapter 4 says that if you resist him, he will flee from you.

James 4 · chapter mention

I'm thinking out loud here. So for all of you internal processors that want

to have exactly what you thought of before you say it.

I can agree with that. I'm on the fence. I do both. This is me thinking out loud.

This is not me giving you theology.

Don't go home and say, Zach said this.

I just want you to think about it. And if it turns out to be true. That's a side note.

What if the only authority that Satan, that these powers, that these principalities

will ever have in your life is authority that you give him?

We see Satan having to go and ask permission from God over and over again in the Bible.

We just read how this authority has been given to us.

Any authority Satan has been granted to him has been granted to him through

you to have authority in your life. You've given him permission.

I'm just thinking out loud. What if that's true?

If the legal case is closed, if the enemy authority is gone,

then any authority he operates in this life has been yielded to him from you.

The truth is that the enemy does not own you.

I feel like the air cut off at like, this is the right moment.

It's like everything's quiet now.

The victory brings authority and that authority has been given to you in Christ.

If you are outside of Christ, you have no legal ground to stand in authority

over the works of the devil.

In Christ, he has given you authority. Like I said, I don't think that means

you should go have a conversation with the devil on a regular basis,

but it does give you the authority to say, I'm not listening to you.

This is the truth. Get back in your place.

Victory brings authority. Victory brings purpose. Here's where I want us to land. I'm wrapping up.

Victory makes you dangerous.

Victory makes you dangerous because you cannot be accused in Christ.

Because you cannot ultimately be condemned in Christ.

Because you cannot be owned by sin in Christ. Because you don't need to fear death itself in Christ.

And this is what I mean. The Winter Olympics are ending. Today's closing ceremony.

I don't know if you've been watching.

There is this thing that happens in the freestyle sports. It's like half hype,

slope styles where they're jumping off of things.

The ones where the guy gets up and they're like, he was in an iron lung seven weeks ago.

There's the thing that happens in these sports that's counterintuitive to any good mom's advice.

So they have three runs, let's say. And they order themselves or are ordered based on their placing.

So the person who's in first goes last in the ranking.

A lot of times, what happens in the third and final run, it's for all the gold, it's for all the glory.

A lot of time, they get to that last person and they still have the highest score.

They've already won the gold medal. They can't do anything. They could get a

higher score, but it's not gonna change the position.

So you would think, since I've broken 27 bones and was in a medically induced coma seven weeks ago,

maybe I just play it safe and walk

off I don't know but what

happens is they take their victory lap while all of their loved ones there so

many of these athletes in America are like recently engaged so their fiancés

are sitting down not wanting to look as their other fiancé because that's a

terrible word and we should change it because it's the same for both sides.

Down on their final run after they've already won the gold. And what do they

do? They do the biggest tricks.

They do the thing that they've never tried before. There's this thing called

NBDs, never been done. They do the thing that nobody's ever landed in a competition.

They do the thing that's the highest risk. They go the highest. They go the biggest.

They flip the most. They don't play it safe. They go bigger because it's a victory lap.

They're not trying to win anymore. They're just celebrating.

They're just showing off.

They could fall, and it doesn't change the fact that they get the gold. So why not?

This is what we're talking about.

Colossians 2 says that the debt is canceled. The record is erased.

The powers are disarmed. The enemy is shamed.

Christ has triumphed. The gold medal is secure in Christ. The record is erased.

Even if you stumble, the victory has already been won, the verdict has already been made.

Even if you fall a hundred times and get back up a hundred times,

victory is already won, and it is already yours.

So we don't, as much as it doesn't make sense, we don't live cautiously.

We don't play it safe. We don't walk down the slopes.

It looks like radical generosity because you're not afraid of lack.

It looks like courageous obedience because you're not afraid of death.

It looks like confession without shame because you're not on trial.

It looks like holiness without fear because you're not trying to earn anything.

It looks like authority without arrogance because you know who has already won.

You're not fighting to become accepted. You're fighting because Jesus already accepts you.

Some of us still run like the score is not final. Some of us still live in fear.

We haven't fully embraced the victory yet. We haven't allowed it to shape our lives and our beliefs.

But this is the truth, and we're going to end here. Y'all want to get ready to sing.

The cross was not a close game. The Bible is written in such a way to show that

God has no rival, and he has no equal, and nothing is too hard for him.

It wasn't even close. It was decisive.

Jesus didn't barely win. He triumphed. He disarmed. He exposed.

He shamed. He rose. And now we fight from victory.

We pray from victory.

We resist the devil from victory.

We worship. We sing from a place of victory.

What if when we got together, we didn't see how low we could sing so that nobody

hears us, but we still count as singing if somebody saw our lips are moving.

What if we sang with a shout of victory?

The war has been decided. In some ways, we don't even need to talk about spiritual

warfare next week, but we're still going to.

The war has been decided. The victory is yours.

So we go big with obedience, with faith, with radical love, because before we

even got here, Jesus won the war.