Possession: Created to be Possessed

Praise God from whom all blessings flow Praise Him, all creatures here below

Praise Him above ye, heavenly host

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost

Well, Father God, thank You so much for the opportunity to be here once again and to worship You.

And Lord, we just thank You for the opportunity to call on Your name.

To know that no matter what shape we came in this morning,

to God we can still call on the name of Jesus and have access to You.

And Lord, maybe this past week we had some of us that we just didn't put a lot of effort into it.

Or we didn't seek You like we should, we didn't call on Your name, we didn't prepare ourselves for the moment.

But God, You are faithful to meet with us anyway.

And Lord, I pray that as we start a new year that You would help us to realize that everything that we do Monday through Saturday

is so much more important than what we will do here today.

Lord, Monday through Saturday is just leading up to this, it's preparing us for this.

So God, I pray this morning that if we neglected this past week that You would be merciful and visit with us anyway.

That Your Holy Spirit would come in this place and that You would reign in our hearts

and that You would fill us and guide us and show us Your ways.

And Lord, this coming week that we would be led to seek You, be led to open up our hearts

and our lives to allow You to come in and to have reign within us, that we would truly be Yours.

Lord, as we pray for the service, as we pray for You to speak to us and guide us,

that we also pray for all of our people who aren't able to be here today.

You know, a lot of families are sick and a lot of people are just recovering from various illnesses

and Lord, this morning I just prayed for Miss Sandra Smith and her sons as they've been pretty sick the past couple of weeks.

I pray that You would touch their bodies and guide them.

But we also pray for the Gabriel family today with the loss of Mike and God, I just pray that You would touch them

and send Your Spirit to comfort them during this time as they prepare for the funeral tomorrow.

And Father, it is a blessing to be here.

It's a blessing to be able to come and to read Your Word and pray and sing songs.

God, I pray that we wouldn't take it for granted.

But God, we would truly desire to meet with You in this moment and allow You to speak into our hearts

and shape us and mold us into the men and women that You have created us to be.

Jesus, we love You. We thank You and we ask all this in Your precious and holy name.

All God's people said, Amen. You may be seated.

If you feel led, please feel free to stand up and share. We invite you to do that.

I've been sick, if you've heard me already, I'll try to keep my distance from you guys this morning as not to spread the love.

But this morning, we're talking about something new, and Scripture refers to us as vessels, fragile clay jars, temples of the Holy Spirit.

It's very important to understand that we're created by God to be constantly filled.

I want you to let that sink in this morning because this is what we're talking about.

God has created us to be beings that we have this never-ending, eternal hole within us that constantly needs to be filled.

You think about life every day. It doesn't matter how much you eat.

It's funny, the more you eat, the more hungry you get. You ever notice that?

So we're constantly eating, we're constantly drinking.

I don't know if you've ever done that before, but the more water you drink, the more thirsty you get.

That's how we are as people.

We're constantly learning, constantly seeking entertainment, constantly seeking purpose, constantly seeking gratification.

There is something within us that can never be filled, and God has created you and I for that.

The only appropriate term there is for us is that we were created to be possessed.

That's weird, because if you're like David this morning, he was like, okay, I automatically think of demonic stuff whenever you say that,

and that's the way we always associate the Word.

I just want to challenge us this morning in the way that we think about this,

and as we talk about possession over the next several weeks, is that God created you and I to be possessed.

Not in an evil way, because I want you to think about what Satan does.

Satan tried and is still trying to be God.

He mimics God. He's trying to do all the things that God does so that he can bring glory and gratification to himself,

and therefore he copies and he mimics things that God does,

and that's often why so many times it's confusing for us as people as to,

okay, what's good and what's bad? What should I actually do in this situation?

What's right and what's wrong?

Because Satan loves to come in and muddy the line so that we can't really see where the line is,

or even what's right and wrong in those moments, because he's constantly mimicking who we should be serving.

He's constantly wanting to fill us whenever we should be filled with God.

That's his desire.

So we think about possession being, oh, you must be possessed by an evil spirit or something like that.

No, you were actually created to be possessed by the one true God.

He created you for that, and that's really important,

because if you understand that, then you know you need to be filled with something,

and what should you be filled with?

Let's read together, Ephesians chapter 3, verses 16 through 19.

Ephesians 3:16–19

Paul writes through the church in Ephesus, and he is talking to them in this letter,

and he's talking about what he's been praying for them, and listen to what he's praying for,

because this is a church that he started.

He's traveling around. He's keeping up with them.

He's trying to maintain their spiritual health and help them grow in their spiritual walk with Christ.

And listen to his prayer in verse 16.

He says, I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources

that he will empower you with inner strength through his spirit.

Now, this is really important to understand this morning.

I'm going to talk a little bit as we read through this,

because I want us to truly understand what it is that we're talking about.

God has created you to be this vessel, this being, this thing to be filled,

but you can never be filled.

Even though you have a physical body, you're a spiritual being,

and so your desire is going to be to be filled,

and we will try to fill ourselves with all kinds of physical, worldly things,

things that we can put our hands on, things that we can rationalize,

things that we can understand, and we will try to fill ourselves with that constantly,

and we'll never be filled.

And so if we have this vessel that can never truly be filled by physical things,

then what's the alternative?

It's to be filled by spiritual things.

That God created you to be filled with his spirit.

And if you have this vessel that can't truly be filled,

like you can't fill yourself with enough stuff of the world to truly be satisfied,

listen to what Paul's saying.

From his glorious, unlimited resources,

God created you with a void in your life that can only truly be filled by himself.

He is the only thing that can truly satisfy,

and it's not even one of those things because let's be honest with each other,

like you can be filled with God in a moment,

and yet there's a desire for us to have that same feeling

to be filled with his spirit and to be filled with God's presence

and to have those experiences again, right?

I don't know if you've ever done that before,

but I've been there, like especially as a young person,

I had some pretty significant spiritual moments in my life as a young person

that changed my life forever,

and I've found myself so many times wanting to go back

and experience those moments again, like we want to be, we want more.

And so the only thing that can truly fill us is the God who designed us,

who has this unlimited amount of resources

that he can just continually pour himself into you

over and over and over again,

and it's the only way you'll ever truly be satisfied.

That's what Paul's saying right here.

In verse 17 he says,

then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him.

Jesus wants to live in you.

The whole concept of possession is that something is living in you,

which is like this weird thing to think about,

but then to take a step back and you look,

and a lot of people who don't believe in Jesus

have a really hard time deciphering these things

because a lot of stuff that it talks about as far as Christianity goes,

the terminology isn't that different from things that are evil.

Jesus wants to live in you.

He wants to possess you.

He wants to be in your heart.

And it says your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong,

and may you have the power to understand

as all God's people should how wide,

how long, how high, and how deep his love is.

So God wants to dwell in you

and he wants to give you power.

He wants to be in you.

And one of the things that we see about demonic possession

that you read about in Scripture is,

everything about Satan, whenever he possesses us,

he is possessing you to take away from you.

He's getting something from you.

God possesses you to give to you.

He wants to give himself to you.

He wants to pour himself to you.

And while he's giving to you and he's empowering you,

it is not lessening him in any way

because he has this infinite amount of power

and resources to freely give to us,

which is a wonderful thing to think about.

But Satan comes to possess us, to take from us,

to destroy us, to weaken us.

This is why people who are of the world,

and maybe some of us here this morning,

like we find ourselves like we're just held captive by something.

We don't have the power to overcome it.

We're stuck. We're dealing with something.

We just can't get over it.

Do not move beyond this because Satan wants to take from you

and he wants to weaken you.

God wants to give to you.

He wants to empower you.

Endless amount of resources.

In verse 19, we'll go back to verse 18.

We talked about how wide, how long,

how high, and how deep his love really is.

Another reference to how infinite

and amazingly big God's love is.

It is beyond what we can understand.

So in verse 19, he says,

may you experience the love of Christ,

though it is too great to fully understand.

And this is the scary part, right?

Like we are afraid of what we don't understand.

If we can understand it, then we feel comfortable with it.

There are things of the world that we understand.

It may not be fully satisfying,

but it satisfies for a moment.

And we'll take that because we understand it

and we feel like we're in control

and we feel like we are familiar with this

and it's comfortable.

So therefore we'll choose that over choosing God

because we don't truly understand him

and that makes us afraid.

There's been times in my own life

I've been afraid of God.

I've been afraid to do what God has called me to do

because I did not understand and it made me scared.

And I thought what I wanted

and what I knew was better than what God had for me.

And that's just being honest.

And I think a lot of people struggle with that.

Then you will be made complete

with all the fullness of life and power

that comes from God.

God wants to possess you

so that he can feel you,

so that you can be satisfied so that you can have power

and so that you can be made complete.

God created you and I to be possessed

but to only be possessed by him.

He is the only thing that can truly satisfy

and complete us the way that he created us to be.

Everything else that we put in our life

is just a shadow of what God is capable of doing.

Point number one,

God wants to possess you in case you missed the memo.

Make sure you write it down.

God wants to possess you.

Even think about the vocabulary that's used

throughout scripture, throughout the entire Bible.

When you read the Old Testament and God calls Abraham

and God is dealing with the people of Israel,

how does he refer to the people of Israel?

They are Israel,

my very own special possession.

How crazy is it that God,

whenever he starts laying his claim to people,

they are something that he possesses.

The terminology is very much there

all throughout the Old Testament, even in the New Testament.

Look at 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 9.

1 Peter 2:9

And Peter writes,

But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people.

You are royal priests, a holy nation,

God's very own possession.

As a result, you can show others the goodness of God,

for he called you out of the darkness

and into his wonderful light.

God's desire is to possess you.

And it's not just this idea of laying claim to you

like he wants to just say,

he doesn't want you to just stand up

and say, hey, I belong to Jesus.

I ask him into my heart, forgive me of my sins,

and I have eternal life.

Like, yeah, he wants you to do that,

but that's only a fraction of what he wants.

God wants to possess you.

He wants to live inside of you.

He wants to fill you with himself

so that he can give you power and authority

so that when people look at you,

it's not just a matter of what they're hearing you say,

because you can attest to this,

you can testify to this this morning.

You've heard people say over and over again,

oh yeah, I believe in Jesus,

and they don't live like they believe in Jesus.

Right?

A lot of people claim that.

So a lot of people claim to believe in Jesus,

they don't live like Jesus.

And truly, some people may be able to fake it

a little better than others,

but eventually, if they don't truly believe in Jesus

and Jesus is not in them and living in them

and empowering them,

there's still a gap there.

And eventually, it's exposed.

God wants to possess us in such a way

that he is living in us,

empowering us, guiding us, showing us his ways

so that when people look at us,

they're not just listening to us say,

oh, I believe in Jesus, I'm going to heaven,

that they can see with their own eyes

there's something different about them.

They are not like everyone else.

And it's not because of the way that they talk

or what they say,

it's because you can feel it just being in their presence.

You see their actions, you see their attitudes,

you notice the words that come out of our mouths.

It's not just saying Jesus,

it's every single word that comes from our mouths

that God orchestrates and gives us the power to overcome

even things that shouldn't come from our mouths.

People see it.

In 1 Corinthians 7, verses 29 through 30,

1 Corinthians 7:29–30

I'm sorry, verses 19 through 20,

it says, don't you realize that your body is the temple

of the Holy Spirit who lives in you

and was given to you by God?

You do not belong to yourself,

for God bought you with a high price

so you must honor God with your body.

God wants to possess you.

God wants to live in you.

God doesn't just want to come inside of a church building and live.

He tried that back in the Old Testament.

I say he tried that.

We ruined that in the Old Testament.

And what you find is,

is that every time the people of Israel turned away

and they tainted the temple,

God's presence was withdrawn from the temple.

And so we have a lot of people,

and I've done this before in my walk with Christ.

We say we love Jesus.

We want God to be in us.

We want to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

And yet our temple is not cleansed and purified

in a way that allows the Holy Spirit to come in

and to truly reign.

So we have these parts of our lives

and our hearts that are dirty.

They're sinful.

They're not completely surrendered to the Lord.

And so we wonder, it's like,

why do I not feel the presence of God in my life?

Well, because our temple,

the thing that he is supposed to possess

is dirty.

It's tainted.

It's got sin in it,

and that needs to be resolved.

It needs to be moved.

It needs to be addressed in our lives

so that the Holy Spirit can come and fill us

and dwell in us and empower us.

Because the type of possession you think about,

and I have thought about many times,

is all the ways that that person is held captive

in the way that they're struggling.

But what's amazing is that people who are possessed by God,

the possession of the Holy Spirit is life-giving.

It's gift-giving.

It's eternally giving.

It's encompassing, permeating and transforming.

It's cleansing.

It's purifying.

It's perfecting.

It's exactly what God created you and I to have,

is for him to live in us.

Not for him to just say,

I love Jesus, but for him to actually live within us.

We are a temple that was designed

to house the very spirit of God.

That's what you were created for.

That's what I was created for.

So point number two,

there's a black hole in us.

We've talked about this a little bit ago.

There is something within you

that can never be filled and satisfied.

It is a black hole that just absorbs everything

and no matter how much of something you put into it,

it will never be enough.

It doesn't matter if you try to fill it with everything,

it will never be enough.

You cannot fill it.

In this conundrum,

God created this conundrum for you and I.

He did this because, for lack of better terms,

God is a gentleman in a lot of ways.

He's not going to come in and force himself upon you

and move into your life

and take up inhabitants in your life.

That's what Satan does.

Satan comes in and he forces himself on us

in many different ways.

We'll talk about that in a second.

But God comes in and he stands at the door

and he knocks.

And we have to decide whether or not

we're going to open up that door

and invite him in.

And God created us to have this black hole in our lives

that's never filled

so that you and I

will constantly sit

and think, why am I not happy?

Why am I not satisfied?

What is missing in my life?

You could have millions of dollars.

You could have the nicest cars.

You could have the most beautiful or handsome spouse.

You could have the greatest, most talented kids.

You could have achieved everything you've ever wanted to achieve.

And, in fact, many people in the world have

and a lot of those people are absolutely miserable.

And why is it that I am not satisfied?

And God says,

you ready to invite me in yet?

He created us to be that way.

In John 4, verse 10,

John 4:10

there's a great story about this woman

who comes through the well

and Jesus just happens to be sitting there.

He has this conversation with her.

And in verse 10, Jesus replied,

If you only knew the gift that God has for you

and who you are speaking to,

you would ask me and I would give you living water.

So Jesus looks at this woman and he's like,

look, you're focused on this well.

You're focused on literal water

because that's what you understand.

That's what you're used to drinking.

And every day, guess what?

You got to come back to the well.

And the woman kind of brings this up.

She's like, oh, you think you can give us better water

than our ancestor Jacob gave us through this well?

Because Jacob, the one that we read about in Genesis

is the one who dug the well.

It was his well.

And you think you can give us better water than that?

Everything she'd ever known came from this well.

This well was special.

It was an inheritance from God

for them to receive this in the Promised Land.

This was a big deal

because it was the only thing that she knew.

It was the only thing she understood.

How many times have you in your life

looked at God and him and telling you something

and you say, no, I don't know about that God

because I like this better.

I feel like this could be better for me.

I've done that countless times

where I've been like so comfortable

and so used to this well that I've been drawing from

that I choose this sometimes over what God has for me.

And Jesus says, no, if you really knew who I was,

you'd be asking me and I would give you

life-giving water,

living water.

In chapter 4, verse 13 through 14,

skipping ahead,

Jesus replied,

anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again.

There's the issue.

Yeah, the well might be special.

It might be great.

You may love the well that you're drinking from,

but the well that you're drinking from,

you'll be thirsty again.

Whether it's a relationship or habit or a hobby

or your passion in life or whatever it is,

you can drink from it,

but you will become thirsty again.

But those who drink the water I give

will never be thirsty again.

It becomes a fresh bubbling spring within them,

giving them eternal life.

And then that sounds cool.

That sounds great, right?

And this is the moment where everybody says,

yeah, I want to be saved.

I want to ask Jesus in my heart.

I want to be forgiven in my sins.

I want to go to heaven because that sounds great.

But immediately Jesus says,

all right, you can have some of the water I'm offering you.

Go get your husband.

And he takes the elephant that's in her heart

and he drags it out for everyone to see,

because the elephant in the room has to be addressed.

Here's this woman, she's living in sin.

She's had five husbands.

The one she's married to in this moment is not her husband.

So Jesus says, you can have the water

and you can ask for the water,

but until you clear your house out,

I can't come in and give you what I'm offering you,

but you got to do it.

And in our lives, so many times we have this hole

that we just cannot be satisfied.

And we know God is the only one who can satisfy it.

We've heard it said, we've read it in scripture.

We probably believe that right now in this moment,

like, yeah, I know that's true,

but I'm not willing to deal with the elephant in my life

so that it can actually happen because I'm scared.

Because so many times God scares us because we don't understand.

Because we know that God wants every single minute part of our lives.

It's not just some of it.

God doesn't just want us to stand up and say,

yeah, I believe in Jesus.

He saved me when I was seven years old at Bible school

or blah, blah, blah.

He wants us to ask him to come into our lives

and to clear this thing out of every single thing that's there to say,

God, whatever's there that you don't like,

you can have it, you can take it out,

you can throw it away and you can get rid of it.

I want to be completely 100% yours,

and you can have every single little thing in my life

and that scares the bejebes out of most people.

I know because it scared the mess out of me for a long time.

And I was saved and I walked with Christ for two or three years

before I finally give him what he was asking for.

But it scares us because we know,

and you know sitting here this morning,

until you give him everything and until you let him come in

and be that life-giving water in your life,

you're not going to be happy,

you're not going to be satisfied,

and you're constantly going to be thirsty

and you're constantly going to be hungry,

and it's a miserable, repetitive cycle

that you're going to go through until you say,

okay, Jesus, you can come in and you can have it all.

Point number three, we will be possessed by something.

If you're not possessed by God, which you were created for,

the sad part is that eventually you will be possessed by something.

Think about what happens when we reject God.

Think about what happens when you stare at sin

and you know it's wrong, but yet you choose it.

Or when you're faced with a situation where you know that you should forgive

or you know that you should go apologize and be humble and you resist.

Or whether you just sit here on a Sunday morning

and you know you should surrender everything and you say,

I know I need to, but not today.

And then there's this void that's left.

And if God cannot fill that void because you will not let him,

I hate to tell you this morning that you are not a powerful vessel.

I am not a powerful vessel.

We will not be filled with what we think we will be filled with

or what we desire to be filled with.

We will be filled by things that people and entities that are more powerful than us

will fill us with whether we realize it or not.

Because we may think that we're filling it with stuff that's not that bad,

but inevitably it's taking the place of God.

It is becoming what we are worshipping.

We will worship what we fill ourselves with, whether we realize it or not.

That's the way that God created us to be.

And if we reject God and his feeling,

the only other option is that we will be filled with the world or evil

and probably both before we ever realize what's actually going on.

By not choosing God, we are inadvertently choosing to be possessed by Satan.

And that's strong, right?

That's some strong words, I admit that.

But let's talk, let's be real.

I guarantee you're sitting here this morning saying,

okay, Pastor James, you have always been kind of like,

at least talked in a way that was like, could make sense and stuff like that.

The older I get, the longer I serve Christ,

the more I realize how urgent spiritual things are.

The more I realize how sneaky and devious our enemy that we talk about a lot really is.

So you believe in God.

If you say you believe in God, then you have to believe in the devil.

If you say you believe in heaven, you have to believe in hell.

If you say you believe in possession that the Holy Spirit can actually fill you,

then you also have to believe that Satan can also fill you as well.

And many of you are struggling right now with what we're talking about

because you're like, well, from what I read in Scripture,

when we talk about demonic possession, these are the things,

these are the signs of what demonic possession really is.

And I just want to challenge you this morning

and remind us that as we read Scripture,

God has given us exactly what He's wanted us to have through His Word.

But it's not every single piece of information that's ever existed in this world.

We've talked about that a lot.

There's a lot of things in Scripture,

a lot of details in these stories that are left out that drive some of us crazy.

It has drove me crazy many times because I like details.

I like knowing as much as I can know.

And just because you read these stories about these people

who are possessed by a legion of demons and they're walking around

and they're cutting themselves with rocks and they're howling

and they're living in the graveyard and they're breaking chains

and they're falling out in water and fire

and their bodies are literally trying to be destroyed by these demonic forces.

Do not think for one second that Satan will not come in

and fly in under the radar and undetected as he possibly can.

One of the greatest things I've ever heard someone say,

I don't know who it was, said Satan does not live underneath every rock

but he probably lives underneath every other rock.

He will present himself in such a way that you are going to go

and you're going to say, is Satan underneath this rock and you turn it over

and look, oh, he's not there. See, I told you, you're just being overreacting, pastor.

This thing is not inherently evil.

No, this thing is not inherently evil.

But you know what is? Me and you.

And we can take this thing that Satan is not necessarily in or under

and we can take that like we do with most other things

and we can pervert it and distort it and twist it and we can make it evil.

We've done it with everything in this world since we've existed.

But Satan is underneath every other rock.

Just enough for us to turn one or two over and him not be there and say,

oh, see, we told you he wasn't real. It's not a big deal.

So let's talk for a second.

Talk about possession, talk about possession in our culture

and what that looks like, what that may be.

Possession happens when there's an absence of God.

We agree on that.

God created us to be possessed.

If he created us to be filled with something,

if God is not present, then that void is filled with something.

There's possession there.

It comes in many different forms.

Think about something as simple in our lives,

and I tried to find a lot of different examples,

so I didn't pick on anybody particularly.

I didn't want to make you feel like you're the only one.

Think about how difficult it is for us as individuals

to not eat when we know that we should eat less

in order to be healthy and lose weight,

and I deal with that daily.

I love to eat. I'm a happy eater.

It's a constant battle that me and my wife fight through all the time.

We were heavy beforehand, both of us.

It's a battle we struggle with,

and it's amazing how we know that we shouldn't eat as much as we do,

and I think a lot of people feel this way.

We know we shouldn't eat as much as we do,

and yet, for whatever reason, when you're staring at that piece of food

or that snack or that thing, it's like,

I know I shouldn't eat that,

but there's something in you that's just like,

I can't not eat it, and therefore you do,

and you feel so not in control, right?

Now, another thing that I struggle with, personally, is sweets.

Like, I know I'm probably going to have diabetes.

I don't want diabetes,

but when I see that Reese's Cup or peanut butter M&M's

or any kind of peanut butter and chocolate dessert that exists,

and for all you people who make me snacks at Christmas time

and send stuff my way, thank you,

but you're helping with the problem.

It is extremely difficult to know,

if I do this, this is bad for me,

and yet there is something within me that just,

it almost seems like, why can I not, not do this, okay?

Simple, fun examples.

How about being lazy when you need to exercise?

Like, you know you need to get up,

you need to start working out,

you need to start moving more just physically,

and yet the desire to sit there and watch TV

or play on your phone or whatever just overpowers you in that,

and these are just three little silly examples.

Let's go to number four.

You know that you need to stop smoking, dipping, or vaping,

but that hit a nicotine, man.

It just calls to you,

and you know that it's not good for you and you need to quit,

and yet there is something inside of you that just cannot say no.

That sip of alcohol.

You know it's destroying your life,

you know it's bad for your health,

you know that it's terrible for you,

and yet there is something in you that whenever you face that thing

and you're looking at it, it's like,

why can I not say no to that?

That high when you're trying to be clean

that so many people struggle with,

that next image or that next video or that next movie

or that next book whenever you're trying to be pure,

and you know that God doesn't want you to look at that stuff

or think about those things,

and yet there is something within you that cannot say no to it.

To simply buy something when you know that you should be saving money

because of the way that it makes you feel.

To spill the tea when you're trying not to gossip

because you know scripture plainly says you shouldn't do this.

If you didn't know, spilling the tea means gossiping.

And it is this insatiable desire for some people to just,

I can't not say it.

To just check your phone.

You don't even have a message.

You haven't felt it go off.

Nobody's called you and there's something within you

that just cannot look at that stupid thing

because you know if you don't look at it,

you are going to go crazy

because you need to look at it

and you don't know why and you can't say no.

Or to even work when you know you're supposed to rest.

And it's amazing how us as people,

like one of us can struggle with working

when we're supposed to be resting,

one of us can struggle with being lazy

when we know we should be working.

One of us can struggle with eating

whenever we know we should cut weight

and then other people over here

are struggling not to eat because they're afraid to.

And it doesn't matter what it is.

None of us are the same.

None of us have that same void in our life

but we all have the holes

and we all have the thing that needs to be filled with God

and yet there's something inside of us

and you can say, oh James, like you're overthinking it.

Those are addictions.

It's the chemical stuff in your body,

the dopamine and all that.

I've read all that garbage too.

And I'm telling you,

100% believe with all my heart,

you're not a physical being.

We are spiritual beings in a physical body.

There is nothing that you and I go through

that is not spiritual.

Even physical ailments and sicknesses

are spiritually tied to us.

You want to struggle with your faith?

Wait till you get a little bit of age under your belly.

You can be saved for 50 years

and then you start significantly struggling with your health.

Can't tell you how many conversations I've had with older people

who've been saved for a long time.

Really struggle with their faith whenever their health starts failing.

It's very much spiritual.

You will be filled with something.

And one of the reasons why you know it's evil

is because you don't feel like you can overcome it.

You don't feel like you can say no.

You don't feel like you can beat this on your own.

And the truth is, you can't.

It's a spiritual thing.

You were created to be filled with the presence of the Almighty God

for Him to pour His never-ending pool of resources

and power and authority into your life to set you free.

Satan wants to captivate you.

God wants to set you free.

Satan wants to make you feel debilitated

and to feel like you have no power.

God wants to give you power.

Jesus said that when you're filled with the Spirit

you will do the things that I've done

and even greater things than I have done.

God wants to pour into you.

Satan wants to take from you.

That's why every little thing that we talk about,

all these little addictions that we just mentioned a while ago,

when I look at these things,

I don't see, oh, these are bad habits in people's lives.

Like, no, I know,

because I've lived through a lot of these things

and said, man, these things are powerful.

These are not just bad habits.

These things control our lives.

Satan wants to control our lives.

God wants to free us.

It's always an option when it comes to God.

It's never an option when it comes to Satan.

You know that?

Anytime God comes into your life,

it's always an option.

So many books of the Bible, Hebrews, Galatians,

so many passages of Scripture

talks about our ability to walk away from the Lord,

to turn away from our faith,

to be careful, to stay strong, to run the race.

Over and over and over again,

God never imposes Himself on us,

but He always gives Himself freely to us

when we invite Him in

and give Him the authority within our lives.

Satan takes from us.

He puts us in bondage.

He holds us captive.

He takes away our power slowly, slowly, slowly,

until eventually we're consumed.

You'll be possessed by something.

I will be possessed by something.

Today, we have to figure out what it is

that we will be possessed by.

In Ephesians 5, verses 15 through 18,

Ephesians 5:15–18

Paul closes up and he begins talking about

living by the Spirit's power.

And he says,

so be careful how you live.

Don't live like fools, but like those who are wise.

Make the most of every opportunity

in these evil days.

Don't act thoughtlessly,

but understand what the Lord wants you to do.

Don't be drunk with wine,

because that will ruin your life.

Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit.

And you know, he says wine in this.

But just think about the context

and the time period and where they were at.

Wine was one of the only things

that they had access to

that they really allowed themselves

to be captivated and consumed by

during this time period.

You know, you look at our culture today,

we have an endless amount of things

that we have the opportunity to be captivated by.

Food, drink, video games,

hobbies, entertainment, TV,

shows, books, audio books,

podcasts, you name it.

We have an endless amount of things

in our lives to be consumed by today.

That was just one example that Paul gave

during this time.

He says, don't be drunk with wine.

It will ruin your life.

Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit.

And you'll sit here and say this morning,

ah, man, you're looking into it a little too much.

You're getting a little out there.

And my challenge back is, think about it.

Read God's word.

Think about the simple aspect of God wants to set you free.

Satan wants to put you in bondage.

He wants you to be with him in bondage.

He wants you to be destroyed with him in bondage.

That's his desire for your life.

God gives life, he gives freedom, he gives power.

Which one do you want to be possessed by?

Let's pray.

Father, God, thank you for this day

and for everything you've given us.

For the opportunity to be in your house once again,

to read your word, and to speak into our hearts.

And Lord, I pray that you would work

and move in a powerful way this morning.

God, help us to see that you just want us.

You simply want us.

And Lord,

my desire is for you to speak.

Lord, I pray that every person in this room

would simply just be willing to say in this moment right now,

okay, God, I don't know if I agree with everything.

I don't know if I understand everything.

But Lord, I'm willing to consider it.

I'm willing to say, God, speak to my heart.

Reveal truth to me so that I know what it is,

so that I can make the choice that I need to make.

Lord, I pray that you would touch our hearts

and just help us to understand the truth

that you want us to see this morning

and to be submissive to you

and allow you to come in and have free reign in our life.

Lord, we love you.

We thank you and ask this in Jesus' name.

Thank you. You're dismissed.