The Kingdom Is For The Brave

Well, let's open our Bibles to Ephesians chapter six, and we'll see where the Lord takes us with the message today.

I as always just in the Lord's presence, seeking him on what to share, and there's so much in my heart, but I want us to recognize that, you know, we we've been talking and getting before you the fact that we're having this conference coming up, but I do not want to have a conference for conference sake.

Can I hear an amen?

I love Pastor Robert.

I know he's gonna bring a powerful word, he's gonna minister to us in a powerful way, and we're blessed to have his wife here, and we'll see.

Maybe she'll release some words for us as well.

We'll just follow the Lord's leading in all of that.

Uh, you know, but above all, we want to be prepared for what God is taking us into.

Because I don't look at the conference coming up as an island oasis, you know, a spiritual retreat to go on, you know, to sail in, enjoy a wonderful time with God, and then pack my bags and go home.

I believe that as a church, God is taking us somewhere, but we're not expecting them to come here and make it all happen.

We're asking them to come and partner with us to launch us into deeper waters, to take us to higher places.

But that means we start climbing now, we start launching out now.

Can you say amen?

Amen.

Because I've been around some amazing and powerful men of God, and Robert is a powerful man of God.

I do want you to understand the man that we are bringing to this place, okay?

He is one of many fathers to the nation of Guatemala.

And, you know, last year, even as Pastor Brent and I were there and Pastor Brent was ministering, I was translating, uh, I found myself in a dinner meeting with Robert, and I had no idea what I was walking into the middle.

I just knew I had to meet with Robert because he was gonna take me to his church to minister that night.

So I took, how many of you know what the little tuk-tuk taxis are?

Little bubble taxis, three-wheeler things.

I jumped into one of those, went across town, and I wandered through this old um kind of museum antigua place, and found Robert.

And I saw him at a table with some other people, and I'm like, okay, I know he's expecting me.

I don't want to interrupt.

And they usher me into the table and they insist on, you know, again, such a humble, gracious guy.

He's like, no, no, no, come eat something.

We we want to look after you before we head out and you minister at the church.

And uh, little did I know that we have people from Honduras coming to Guatemala just to meet with Robert and eat with him and say, Robert, we have heard of what God has done bringing the church together in unity.

We have heard of the impact in cities around your nation through the initiatives that you're spearheading as the president of this ministry organization, bringing together people from different backgrounds and denominations, laying down our differences, raising high the name of Jesus, opening up our communities to the Spirit of God, and we're seeing breakthrough.

We're hearing about it in Honduras, the next nation over.

Tell us how we can begin to see God move this way in our nation.

So I got to just be a fly on the wall in that meeting, and I'm like, this is pretty awesome.

And I say that to honor him and how God has used him and to build expectation in you for what God wants to do in him when he comes to this place and how God is going to use that weekend to build us into the people we need to be to carry the move of God forward?

How many of you believe that being church is more than just Sunday morning service?

How many of you believe that the kingdom of God is bigger than your morning devotional with coffee?

How many of you believe that we are called to impact our nation?

Come on, but we have to get in the fight, amen.

We can't sit on the sidelines just making a bunch of noise and cheering others on.

We have to engage in the battle, and that's why I told you to flip to Ephesians chapter six, now that we've kind of built some of where I believe the Lord is taking us.

So why am I telling you all of this?

Because you need to get in the battle, I need to get in the battle, and we need to see ourselves as moving forward towards, yes, that event that's coming up in just a few weeks' time, but more than that, that that would be a springboard, a catalyst into better things.

But I know, and I hope you know, and I'm here to remind you today that if we're gonna go after the things of God as the New Testament instructs us to do, as Jesus calls us to do, then we will encounter resistance.

You and I have enemies, and they're not the people that you battle with on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, oh, it's not Twitter for a long time.

X.

But we have real enemies in the unseen realm.

Just because our enemies are not visible doesn't make them any less real.

It's easy for us to ignore them because they're invisible, but to our own peril, to our own loss.

If we are not engaged in the battle, then we are losing ground.

Come on.

So I want to read you these amazing words by the Apostle Paul, and they're words that I come back to again and again, and I hope you do too.

It says in Ephesians chapter 6, verse 10 Finally be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.

Ephesians 6:10

And as Pastor Brent prophesied over my wife and I this morning, not in your own strength, not in your flesh, not in your wisdom.

Cursed is the man who trusts in flesh, right?

Who trusts in strength, who trusts in his own wisdom.

Blessed is the man whose trust is the Lord his God.

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

I'm not just reading the Bible to you this morning.

I'm prophesying over you.

I am declaring the strength of God over your life this morning.

There is more strength that you have not yet known, you have not yet seen, you have not yet stepped into.

And you know, one of the things that was a revelation to me many years ago, I used to read this passage of scripture, and in just a few verses, it's gonna start talking about the armor of God.

But I changed the title in my mind subconsciously.

I changed it to be the armor of the Christian.

My armor, my spiritual armor.

How many of you know that it's God's armor?

I don't know if you quite understand what I mean by that.

But you are stepping into him, into his strength, into his righteousness, into his truth, into his salvation, into his gospel, into his spirit.

It's we get to be in Christ, in God, and if we walk in him, as the apostle John says, as if we walked as he walked, right, as he was in the world, so should we be.

Then we begin to take on this armor, not because we're superhuman, superheroes, but because we are overshadowed by the power, the might of the most high God.

Because we realize that the battle is not ours, but it is the Lord's.

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

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

That's scheme.

Is that a word?

Start making up adjectives right away.

I don't know why when I hear the word scheme.

I grew up on old cartoons.

I don't know about you, I think of wily coyote.

Right?

Scheming.

And that's kind of what our enemy is.

He's always trying to throw stuff at us.

And I'm not calling you all a bunch of roadrunners, I don't know, but but may his stratagems, may his schemes, may his machinations come to naught.

Amen.

Just like all of the weapons, the acne bombs, the whatever it was that he threw at that bird can land back on his own head.

For we do not wrestle.

Here it is.

This is where it talks about the reality of the enemy that we have.

An enemy that hates us and hates the God that we serve more than he hates us.

So we can kind of get out of, you know, the battle sometimes because we begin to distance ourselves from that central purpose and presence of God, and we step into our own life and flesh and just living for ourselves, we can kind of remove ourselves from the battle because he really hates God more than anything.

But if we step into the fray, if we step into the battle, if we step into God to begin to fight, then we are going to face resistance.

And what sort of resistance are we facing?

Verse 12, it says, We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness.

If there's darkness around us, if there's death and confusion around us, if there is anything that we know is not the will of God around us, you know you have an enemy trying to cover the earth with darkness.

But thank God that the light can do more than the darkness.

Thank God that there is more power in the smallest, I don't even know how to express this because there's nothing small about God.

But there is more power in God's little finger than there is in this whole universe.

There, there, this is not an equal match, you need to understand, between God and the devil.

They're not going head to head like they're equal opponents.

The only power the enemy has are through schemes, deceit, lies.

Our God is the creator of the universe.

Our God can do all things.

There is nothing that He cannot do.

But we find ourselves here in a world full of darkness, full of sickness, full of sin, full of oppression.

It's time to begin wrestling.

It's not saying don't wrestle, right?

I know some people read half the verse, do not wrestle, thank you, Lord.

Strive not, right?

Well, no, actually, there's a lot in your Bible that says you've got to fight on your hands.

Fight the good fight.

Stand up, be strong, get equipped, don't back down.

Don't back down.

Do not back down.

And I'm not saying this this morning that you can never rest, you can never enjoy life.

Thank you, God, for rest.

Thank you, God, for the good things in life that you've given us freely to enjoy.

But you rest to come back in with more strength, you rest to find new direction in the presence of God so that you know the strategy that you need to move this thing forward.

Come on, we are wrestling, but not against flesh and blood.

So don't look at your neighbor if you've been having some difficulties with them.

Like they are your issue, they are your problem.

And for that matter, Lord speaking.

Don't be surprised when evil days come.

Full stop.

Amen.

Sometimes, Christians, we live in this little bubble where if I say all my prayers right, if I don't offend anybody, if I just am a nice little Christian lamb, that life will be perfect.

No, you will have evil days.

Bad things will come your way.

You have an enemy, you need to be ready, standing on guard to fight those battles.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you would be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand firm.

Isn't that a beautiful thing?

You can practice a lifestyle in God of taking on his strength, of stepping into his armor, of being equipped by him to such a place that no matter what comes, you can stand.

I mean, you might go through a financial crisis, you might not know where your bills are coming from, but you're still standing.

You might have a health crisis come your way, you might be sick and you might even be wrestling with why is this happening to me?

But then you got to put those doubts and that confusion aside and just say, This is what I'm facing, Lord.

I am gonna stand, I am gonna worship you, I'm gonna believe the promise of God or yes and amen in Christ Jesus.

I am not gonna let the enemy catch me on my back foot.

I am gonna lean in, step forward.

Don't let the enemy catch you flat footed.

I didn't do much martial arts, but I did a little bit growing up.

Because what kid doesn't want to be like a martial artist, a master, right?

Actually, it's a crazy story.

I did not go down to the local, you know, doju and sign up for lessons.

You guys, uh, we could have got ourselves in a lot of trouble.

Me and my buddies were came walking out of the forest one day into the local park carrying wooden swords because you know we were cool.

Uh and we would go back in the forest to fight and you know, do our own thing.

Little did we know someone was watching us.

And as we're walking out of the forest, we notice somebody's walking out, you know, about 50 yards back, and we're trying to keep our cool, right?

I don't know, 15 years old, 16 years old.

And but we notice he's getting closer and closer, so we're starting to, you know, the hairs are going up on the back of your neck, like, this is weird.

What's going on?

And this guy just walks up, as he's walking up, catches up beside us, he just looks over, he's like, This time here next week.

Big broad guy.

Okay, long story short, we basically that was our registration for private martial arts lessons back in the bush.

Really dumb thing, of course, we didn't tell our parents, we're just out in the bush with some random super buff guy.

This could have gone really bad.

Thank God it didn't.

And to give you an idea, once he started to teach us a few things, I tried to put my arms around his shoulders, I couldn't.

I couldn't, so yeah, we could have got a lot of trouble.

Why am I saying that?

Because as young guys, we all, you know, want to be the super amazing warrior, all of those sorts of things.

And one of the few things that I did learn in the bit of those lessons that I had was you never meet your enemy flat footed.

Posture is the first thing you need to learn when you're fighting an enemy.

Because if you're just standing normal and somebody is coming at you, it's really easy to knock you off your balance, get you on the ground, and you're in a really bad place really quick.

So you learn how to brace yourself, you learn how to plant your feet so that if something is coming at you, you are able to withstand the blow.

They're trying to knock you back.

You're gonna stand, and having done all, continue to stand.

So, again, for you and I, we're looking at the this this amazing picture of the armor of God.

Part of this is knowing where our feet are planted, it's knowing what we're standing on.

We must be in the word of God, people.

We must know his will for our life, we must know who Christ is and who we are in him.

Therefore, we're doing this again.

Take up all the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm.

And I want to tell you something as well.

You may feel like I haven't taken ground.

We're gonna believe that you're gonna take ground.

But I will tell you as well, if you are not being pushed backward, I thank God for you.

You at least haven't been taken out of the fight.

You're here, you're worshiping, you're praying, you're you're giving of yourself, of your resources, so that the kingdom of God can advance.

You have stood and you are continuing to stand, and that's the first thing.

But now that we've got our feet planted, let's move forward.

Let's move forward.

And one of the things about the armor of God is it starts talking about a breastplate, it starts talking about a shield.

Those things do not help you if you turn around and flee from the fight.

Notice it does not say and the back plate of cowardice.

It's like just in case, okay, I got something to protect me when the enemy's too much for me.

No, God has not given you a spirit of fear, a spirit of cowardice, but a spirit of power and love and a sound mind.

Sound minds, power.

That means that you have the wherewithal to continue to stand and control your life.

Christian, you don't have excuses.

I'm just going through too much.

So now It's understandable if I don't stand on my convictions, if I don't follow the word and the will of God.

No such thing.

No such thing.

You have self-control and you have the power to face whatever would otherwise come at you to instill fear and cowardice into you.

How many of you know that the kingdom of God is for the brave ones, not the cowards?

And I love that language.

You're speaking my language.

That's guy language, right?

The kingdom of God is for the brave.

How many of you know that when you get to the book of Revelation, and we're not going to talk about the end times, but when it talks about, and you know, the wicked and the liars and the this and the fornicators and the, you know, all of these sorts of people, the sorcerer, they're out there in outer darkness.

They do not have a place in the in the New Jerusalem, in the kingdom of God.

You know what else it says there?

It says the cowards.

And that is one of the most sobering lines in the Bible I have ever read in my life.

Because, you know, as a Christian, I can I can feel good about myself because I don't lie, I don't cheat, I don't, you know, I'm not messing around, I'm keeping myself a good, clean, upright citizen sort of life.

But how many of you know we're called to be brave?

I mean, when God speaks to Joshua when Moses is gone and it's his turn to take the lead, that's in your Bible, not just to tell you history, it's there to tell you be strong, be brave, be courageous, have no fear, have no fear.

Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.

Come on, come on, and when Jesus is talking, I might have mentioned this last week, but it when Jesus is speaking to his disciples about the signs of the end, it talks about people whose hearts go astray, grow cold, because of the fear of what is coming on the earth.

Again, if we're so occupied with what's going on, what's the enemy doing out there?

It will instill fear into our hearts.

We need to look higher than those horizons.

We need to look to the maker of heaven and earth and say, He has the final word.

Come on.

Stand therefore, having fastened 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.

The gospel will prepare you for the battle.

We need to get into the gospel again.

The gospel isn't just good news for you to believe, to have your sins forgiven once upon a time.

The gospel is the good news of Jesus, the gospel is the good news of a kingdom that's coming to bring us life, to change everything, to make all things new.

The gospel, you know what that means?

The gospel gives us hope.

Christian, you need hope to fight the battle, you need hope to resist the enemy.

You need hope.

Because you will not face the enemy if you think there's no hope.

It's not worth it.

There is hope.

Why do I know that there is hope?

Because I know that the enemy did whatever he could do.

He threw the worst of the worst at Jesus.

He nailed him to a cross, he lashed him, he beat him, he broke him, he shamed him, he stripped him naked, he died the death of a cross.

That was the worst that the enemy could throw at the Son of God.

And oh, thank you, Jesus, that you came and you did that for us.

But I know that the gospel isn't just that he shed that blood for us as a sacrifice.

The gospel is, and death could not hold him.

Death could not hold him.

So whatever hell throws at us, whatever comes our way, we look to the cross and the empty grave, and we say, No matter what comes, I'm standing in Christ.

If that means standing in my armor, wrestling, fighting, pushing forward, if that means going to the cross, whatever it means, I know that there's something beyond the cross.

There's something more powerful than all the force of hell.

That's the God I serve.

How about you?

Come on.

Jesus paid it all for us.

Now he's asking us to get in the fight, to push back the darkness, to fight, to fight, to fight.

Come on.

You and I are here today because somebody fought for the gospel in your family, in your life.

Somebody paid for a missionary to cross an ocean.

Somebody prayed gut-wrenching prayers to see your soul come into the kingdom of God.

You are not here by accident.

You are not here just because Jesus died on the cross 2,000 years ago.

That's where it began, and that's the source of our life and our strength and our hope.

But you're here today because there's a chain of men and women, sons and daughters, children, young and old who have said, God, your word is true, and I will stand and I will fight, I will pray, I will preach, I will testify, I will give of my resources, I will do whatever has to be done to see the gospel move forward.

And I'm throwing those things in there because it's so easy to stay in the abstract fight, the good fight, and I could get us, you know, all of us up on our feet, and we could be, yeah, maybe we will.

You know, with glowing red eyes and horns and a tail to freak you out.

But what does he do?

He gets your eyes on, oh Lord, look at what's happening in the economy.

Oh God, look at what's happening.

Who knows what's gonna happen to my job when Saskatoon catches up with the AI revolution?

Who knows?

And we begin to hold on to our resources, that God would stir in our heart and say, be generous, give your tithe, give offerings, equip people to move the kingdom of God forward.

How many of you know if we sit on our money and if we close our mouth to prayer, and if we close our hands to giving to those who have need, that the gospel can stop in this territory in our generation?

I thank God that we grew up in a nation that has a Christian heritage, but it's not guaranteed.

The only guarantee is if we will fight the fight, if we will pray the prayers, if we will give of our resources, if we will serve when we're called to serve.

Because none of this happens without those things.

Come on.

I had a lot of other verses, but you know.

Don't let go of the truth of the gospel people.

The enemy's a liar.

And there's a lot of smart people, a lot of talking heads, a lot of interesting dialogue going on out there.

Don't let go of the truth of this word right here.

That's a scheme of the enemy.

Get our eyes off of the life-giving, light shining, transformational word of God.

A belt of truth.

Having put on the breastplate of righteousness.

Thank you, Jesus.

Not a righteousness of my own, but the righteousness of the sinless Lamb of God, your son.

And when the enemy comes and he's trying to discourage you and get you out of the fight and begins to question you about your own righteousness, that is a scheme of the enemy.

He will try and get you to look at yourself, how imperfect you are, how you, and this is the thing, people, you don't really know the depths of your own heart, only God does.

So don't get into a battle with the enemy about who you are in and of yourself.

Remind him who Jesus is, because you're not standing in your righteousness, you're not standing in your armor, you're standing in his.

I think I already touched on that readiness.

And in all circumstances, taking up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.

I love that.

All the flaming darts of the evil one.

Faith.

Faith.

Faith.

We need faith alive in faith alive, living faith, faith that's that's on fire, faith that believes for the impossible.

Faith is not in what you can see.

So don't look at yourself once again.

Don't look at what's going on around you.

If you could look at something and say, Oh, now I have faith, that wouldn't be faith.

Faith is hearing God's voice, his word, his spirit, and saying, it doesn't matter what it looks like.

I believe in the God who speaks into the nothing and creates.

I believe in the God who makes the barren fruitful.

I believe in God who makes a nation out of people like Abraham and Sarah.

I believe in the God who opens the sea.

Moses didn't raise the staff to the waters because the wind started blowing.

He rose the staff because God said, This is what I'm gonna do.

The water's still there, there's still no way.

Faith responds, faith is active, faith is a shield that will protect us from every dart, every flaming dart that the enemy would throw our way.

Faith, come on, what are you and I believing for, church?

I mean, I thank God for the good life that He's given me, my family, my house, my every one of his blessings.

But I'm believing God for more.

I'm believing to be part of something that's bigger than me, that's bigger than a nice house, that's bigger than a nice church, that's bigger than doing a couple projects here and there that you know have limited reach.

Can we believe God for the kingdom advancing, for enemies falling, for territories being taken for the kingdom of God?

Come on I just need to speak into that.

Oh, Lord, we thank you.

We thank you, Lord God.

Open our eyes in the spirit to see the things that you would have us, Lord, believe you for.

Lord, strip away our apathy and our satisfaction, Lord, in this low level of life that we can get wrapped up in.

We want to look higher, further, bigger, greater, because you're a big God, you're a great God, and your work is not complete.

If we're alive in this generation, Lord God, then we're believing for things to happen and change, Lord God.

Come on, we have to see ourselves as more than just yes, standing our ground, that's our posture, that's where we start, but now we move forward, we move together, we move to advance the kingdom of God in all circumstances.

There is no circumstance to which faith does not apply.

We're really good at keeping God and the word and the spirit in certain corners of our life, and those are wonderful corners to visit, aren't they?

Wonderful Sunday mornings, wonderful Thursday nights.

There is no circumstance where our faith should not be applied.

All circumstances taking up the shield of faith with which we can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one, take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

And I better do this because I bothered to bring it here.

You already heard that I was an interesting young man, right?

And I am honestly shocked that it's taken this long for me to bring this to church.

This, my wife is like, oh no.

This lives in the garage at home.

Anyone notice the edge of this thing?

Should I tell you another story?

Another one of those.

Oh the guys are like, please do.

So another fun thing we did as silly teenagers, right?

We decided to make this adventure movie for class in like grade 10 or something like that.

Horrible script, horrible, horrible, horrible acting, horrible everything, but a whole lot of fun.

And when we got to the end, when we got to the end, of course, we had no choreography.

It was just like, let cameras roll.

And so my good friend with long, dark, wavy hair, was the villain, and I was the hero.

And he had a long sword, and I had this little short sword.

This is about the size of a Roman sword, by the way.

It's not a Roman sword, but and we had no choreographers, and we had, as most young men have, not a due respect for our own lives.

And we just began to fight.

I mean, like not flat to flat, edge to edge, fight through this impromptu scene.

And then, of course, we looked at it at the end, it's like we probably got a little carried away.

Somebody probably could have got hurt.

And actually, just out of curiosity, I've kind of cleaned this up a little bit since, but I took it to a uh branch and I used it as a saw afterwards.

But how many of you know that when you get in the battle, it's not always gonna be perfect and pretty.

That you're gonna have some nicks, some bangs, you're gonna have some moments that maybe you fall to your knees, that maybe you will feel like giving up.

But I want to see us grab a hold of the word of God, of the spirit of God, like David's mighty men of old.

I love, I can't even remember the name of the man, but one of those great mighty men that you read about.

I love that story.

It says that he fought and he killed, I don't know how many of the enemies, hundreds of enemies.

And it says that when the battle was over, his sword stuck to his hand.

The closest thing I've ever experienced like that is roofing.

Roofing, roofing, roofing, and I can literally not open my hand at the end of the day because I've been shingling for hours and hours and hours.

But that warrior, he fought, he fought, he fought.

And that sword was stuck in his hand.

It became part, an extension of who he was.

I better put this down before I scratch the nice new pulpit, right?

And even as I say that this morning, I think some of us need to get so stuck to the word of God, to the spirit of God, that no matter what the battle looks like, it's like an extension of who we are.

We can't let it go, people.

We cannot let go of the spirit of God.

We cannot let go of the word of God.

We gotta cling to that thing because it's what we've got to swing at the enemy.

Come on.

Let's have the band come on up.

And let's stand to our feet this morning.

This day, whatever time it is now.

And I want us to seek the Lord together in this place.

And again, just like last week, I said as we looked at the ascension psalms, that we're we gotta see ourselves going higher.

But if we're going higher, we're gonna be going through enemy lines to get there.

So this morning, I want us to pray, to seek the Lord and say, God, affirm my posture.

I want to be standing strong.

Lord God, get me rooted so deep in the truth of your gospel.

Lord, overshadow me as I step into who you are.

God, I don't go into the battle in my own strength.

I say with David, I come against you in the name of the Lord God Almighty, and the battle is not mine, it's his.

And Lord God, I believe that this morning, that there are men and women in this place that are straightening their posture, that are planting their feet, that are being closed with your armor.

Lord God, and that that sword, that weapon, your spirit, your word, Lord God.

Oh, it's stuck in our hand, and we can inflict blow after blow after blow to the enemy, Jesus.

We bind the lies of the enemy this morning, the schemes, the deceit, Lord, the accusations, the things that are trying to take us out, the things that are trying to get us out of the battle, Lord God.

We say no, we say no, you're a liar.

We grab hold of faith, we grab hold of truth, we grab hold of your salvation, we grab hold of all that you are, God.

I will not be afraid.

How can I be afraid when my father is clothing me with his armor, when his presence surrounds me, surround us this morning, Lord God?

Come on, let's worship together, let's seek him.

And I encourage you, come, come, come and take that posture of strength, stand, rank and file as the army of the Lord today, and say, I'm gonna stand, I'm gonna fight, I'm gonna push back darkness.

Come on, let's worship.