2 Corinthians 1:12-2:11 – Satan’s Schemes

For anyone who was here last time I read Scripture, I'll be

reading it slower. I don't know if anyone did you

remember when Julian? Julian did it in his preach and

I did something entirely unpredictable and tried to read

the whole whole chapter in a minute or 30 seconds, whatever

it was. OK, so 2 Corinthians 112 to 211.

Now this is our boast. Our conscience testifies that we

have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our

relations with you, with integrity and godly sincerity.

We have done so relying not on worldly wisdom but on God's

grace. For we do not write you anything

you cannot read or understand, and I hope that you have

understood us in part. You will come to understand

fully that you can boast of us, just as we will boast of you in

the day of the Lord Jesus. Because I was confident of this,

I wanted to visit you first that you might benefit twice.

I wanted to visit you on my way back, on my way to Macedonia,

and to come back to you from Macedonia and then to have you

send me on my way to Judah. Was I fickle when I intended to

do this, or do I make plans in a worldly manner so that in the

same breath I say both yes, yes and no?

No, but as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is

not yes and no. For the Son of God, Jesus

Christ, who was preached among you, who was preached among you

by us, by me and Silas and Timothy, was not yes and no, but

in him, in him it has always been yes.

For no matter how many promises God has made, they are yes and

Amen. Oh, they are yes.

In Christ. I was ahead of myself.

And so through him the Amen is spoken by us to the glory of

God. Now it is God who makes both us

and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set His seal of

ownership on us, and put His Spirit in our hearts as a

deposit guaranteeing what is to come.

I call God as my witness and I state my life on it.

That it was in order to spare you that I did not return to

Corinth. Not that we Lord it over your

faith, but we work with you for your joy because it is by faith

you stand firm. So I made-up my mind that I

would not make another painful visit to you.

For if I grieve you, who is left to make me glad but you whom I

have grieved? I wrote as I did, so that when I

came I would not be distressed by those who would who should

have me rejoice. I had confidence in all of you

that you would share my joy, for I wrote you out of great

distress and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to

grieve you, but to let you know the depth of my love for you.

If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he

has grieved all of you to some extent.

Not to put it too severely. The punishment inflicted on him

by the majority is is sufficient now.

Instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him so that he will

not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.

I urge you therefore, therefore to reaffirm your love for him.

Another reason I wrote to you was to see if you would stand

the test and be obedient in everything.

Anyone you forgive, I also forgive.

And what I have forgiven, if there was anything to forgive, I

have forgiven in the sight of Christ, for your sake, in order

that Satan might not outwit us, for we are not unaware of his

schemes. Thank you very much.

Let's pray, Lord Jesus, we thank you for your word and God, and

we pray that as we discussed this this morning, that you

would change and mould us God, that you would make us more like

you. I pray, Lord God, that we're

you've already challenged some of us already through our entire

worship, that you would continue to challenge us and that we

would leave here not the same, but more like you.

Amen, Amen. So we started last week this

journey through the book of two Corinthians.

And this is this is our second instalment in it.

And last week I alluded to to the fact that this wasn't Paul's

second letter to the Church of Corinth.

There actually were other letters and in this passage that

we have just read, Paul actually alludes to other visits and

other letters that he has written.

And what we can get by what he is saying here is, I mean, if

any of you have read the book of Galatians, Paul gets really mad

in the book of Galatians. But we can, we can kind of guess

that from what he says here that the book that we don't have, the

letter that we don't have was slightly less inspired, slightly

less inspired than than one in two Corinthians.

Paul probably got really, really, really mad and probably

said some things that probably God wasn't quite OK with.

So, So what we've got here is that actually that Paul part of

his writing here to the to the Corinthians in this, this letter

is that he wants to make sure that there is no division.

He wants to make sure that there is love between them and him.

That they know that he loves them and that he knows that they

love him. Because he is all too aware, as

he says at the end, that we have an enemy who loves to divide.

We have an enemy who loves to lie.

We have an enemy who loves to sow lies and division between

his church. You see, when God, I mean, it

was brilliant when Michael was, was here because actually, I

don't don't know if you picked up if you were here.

He was talking about church planting and church planting,

especially into places like Benin.

And it kind of blows our mind as Westerners really.

But he's talking about church planting into a nation.

And he said one of the first hurdles that they have to get

over is cult worship of other gods.

Actually, they have a, there's a, there's three national days

to other gods of the land. And we, we, that kind of blows

our mind as, as Westerners. But the reality is the Bible

talks about that there is a physical world and there is a

spiritual world. And that as human beings, we are

made both physical and spiritual, that we are made-up

of, you know, carbon and, and magnesium and potassium and kind

of all this kind of stuff that's this, this physical and you can

see it. But we are also made-up of

spirit, which you cannot see. And it says actually in the book

of Genesis, it says that God created the land, He created the

sea, He created the air, He created everything that we can

see the trees, and he filled it with animals like birds and

cattle and, and fish. And he created the end.

He creates mankind, you and I, to subdue it, to rule over it,

to have dominion over the physical world.

But actually the Bible also talks about that.

He made a spiritual world and actually He made what the Bible

calls holy ones to have dominion over that that spiritual world.

I'll just read Genesis 116 to 18.

You may not see it straight away but I'll explain what it what it

means. But it says Genesis 116 to 18

says God made 2 great lights, the greater light to govern the

day and the lesser light to govern the night.

He also made stars and God set in the vaults of the sky to give

set them in the vault of the sky to give them light on the earth

to govern the day and the night. Same word as mankind people to

govern the the land he gave. He gave stars to govern the day

and the night and separated the light from darkness and God saw

that it was good. I mean, to go into this a bit

deeper, the Bible Project, if you've heard about them, they do

a great series on one's called the the Second Born and the

other one is about spiritual beings.

And they they used this, this verse.

And what this verse is saying, even though we may not see it

straight away, is that in the ancient mindset, the stars, yes,

they were twinkly lights in the sky, but they they represented

the spiritual world, especially the planets.

They represented spiritual beings.

And so when the Bible talks about stars, yes, it's talking

about twinkling, but it's also talking about spiritual beings.

And see, see if you were to go, if you were to look up in the

sky and maybe with your phone app or whatever, and you'd be,

you'd point out, you know, there's, there's Jupiter.

Actually, you know, that in itself we name after the Roman

God Jupiter. But if you were Greek, you would

have looked up and you've gone. Oh, that Zeus, if you were, if

you were Babylonian, you were looked up and you'd gone.

Oh, that there's Marduk. And what scripture tells us is

that these holy ones, that he created, some of them through

lust for power, some of them through lust and jealousy of

mankind, rebelled against gods. They rebelled against his holy

order and they set themselves up as gods against the real true

one and only gods. These are the, these are the the

sons of God in Genesis 6. These are the, the watchers in,

in the book of Daniel. These are the principalities and

powers that Paul writes about. And Ezekiel the prophet, he

writes in Ezekiel 28. He tells a story as he's as

he's, as he's prophesying against the king of Tyre.

He tells a story of how one of these holy ones fell from grace.

I'm just going to read it. It says it in Oh, sorry, let's

start this. So some of you would have seen

before. I've used this, this kind of Cos

this is how the ancient world saw how the world works, how

cosmology was. And So what you see is we have

we talked about before that the air that we breathe, they called

the 1st heaven where the stars and the sun were in the that was

the 2nd heaven and that's the spiritual realm.

And then above that was the 3rd heaven, which is where God's

throne room was. And so God gave us dominion over

this first realm, the land, the earth, but he gave spiritual

beings this, the realm to rule over the the 2nd heaven.

And like I said, some of them rebelled.

And in Ezekiel it tells us a story of how one of those

rebellions took place. It says in Ezekiel 28, you were

the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.

You were in Eden, the garden of gods.

Every precious stone adorned you.

And it talks about a load of stones and stuff which I get

wrong every time I read them. So I'm going to miss that bit

out. It says you were an anoint.

You were anointed as a guardian cherub.

That's cherub. Think of the the amazing

creatures on top of the the ark, these golden images.

You were anointed cherub, which was a throne guardian for so I

ordained you. You were on the holy mountain of

gods. You walked among the fiery

stones. Think of a think of Isaiah and

as Isaiah's in the throne room of gods, it's holy.

It's it's it's coals, burning coals that come and touch him

that Seraphim brings to touch him.

You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created

till wickedness was formed in you through your widespread

trade. You were filled with violence

and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from

the mountain of God, and I expelled you, guardian cherub,

from among the fiery stones. Your heart became proud in in

verse 2 of this very same chapter, it said you became

proud, you said and you set yourself up as God.

It says that you became you became proud on the account of

your beauty and you you corrupted your wisdom because of

your splendour. So I threw you to earth.

I made you a spectacle of you before kings by your many sins

and dishonest trade, you have desecrated your sanctuaries.

You see what this is telling us is that these rebellious

spiritual beings, God threw them out of his presence, they fell.

These are like I said, these are the sons of God, the holy ones.

This is the the Satan. And in pride they set themselves

up as gods. And you may not realise this,

but the moment you became a Christian, you became an enemy

of them. They hate you.

This is why you know next week when we baptise two people that

that Satan hates it. Satan hates it because what he

wants, he wants everyone to perish.

He wants everyone to to turn on gods.

But if you choose to follow him, he wants you to keep that

private. He wants you to keep that to

yourself, but he hates. This is why if you become a

Christian in a Muslim culture or or Hindu culture or things like

that, that that your life becomes in great danger if you

become baptised because the enemy hates it so much.

You see, when we become a Christian, we become his enemy.

See the serpent, the the dragon, the Satan, the devil.

He never really liked you. He might have pretended to like

you, but he never really liked you.

But once you raised your flag of allegiance to Christ, he sets

out war against you. And his plan, scripture tells

us, is loss. His plan is death, and his plan

is destruction for you. He is a schemer.

He schemes thinking of ways to try and fool you, to try and

trick you, to try and bring you out of community, to try and

trick you into not following the one true gods.

I mean, do we have any schemers here?

No one's putting their hand up. Anyone been called a schemer as

a little girl and an adult? OK, but yet when I think of

schemers that I think of, I think of, you know, you think of

children, they, they, they're planning, plotting.

We had a funny instant when we were on holiday of, of, of of

family. We were visiting and, and their,

their sons scheming to tie up the girls.

And I'm not, he's going to remain completely nameless just

in case I get in trouble. But that's what I think of when

you think of when you're, you know, grown-ups, if you've got

children, especially little children.

It's like they're crying, they're screaming, they're

wanting your attention all the time.

And then they go quiet and you think that's nice until you

realise what are they scheming? What are they plotting?

What are they planning to do? I mean, for those of you who are

old enough to remember the the Hannah Obera cartoons, Dick

Dastardly cartoons, that he was a schemer.

He was a schemer. He, you know, the wacky races,

he would, he would always get himself ahead to plot and plan

to try and bring destruction on the other races, which would

always backfire, always go wrong.

And I never really understood it because if he managed to get so

far ahead, why didn't he just win the race?

That was the whole point. And then the other one, you

know, you had this, this little pigeon that had a that carry a

pigeon that had a note to bring to, to headquarters.

And he would have his motley crew to stop that pigeon.

That's what it's called stop pigeon.

And and he, he would, he would come up with all these schemes

to stop the pigeon and it would always go wrong.

Either he'd do something, his men would do something or Mutley

would do something. But however it ended, Mutley

would always desire a a medal. Well done.

Thank you, Ian. You've seen it.

So he was a these are schemers plotting, planning to do wrong.

And like I said last week, we have a God who, yes, lets us go

through trials, lets us go through storms to build us up,

to encourage us to let us know more of him.

But he does not scheme. He is not planning on ways to

bring you down. You see the enemy?

He's described as a roaring lion prowling rounds waiting to pick

us off. He's described as a sea dragon

with venomous, spitting venom. He's described as fiery arrows.

And his desire is to deceive and to divide.

That's what he longs to do. Jesus said Satan is the father

of lies. That's how he knows how to

speak. He can't do anything else.

And it is it is. It is his native tongue, this

spiritual being. As he enters the scene of

Scripture in Genesis 3, he comes up to Eve and he says his first

thing is, did God really say trying to sow doubt?

No, God didn't mean you die. You will not die.

You will be more like him. He comes to deceive, to bring

doubt, to separate us. That's why Paul in the scripture

we've just written, we've just reads, reads, writes this for

the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by,

by us, by me, Silas and Timothy was not yes and no, not

sometimes God will be yes. And sometimes it will be no.

Like, like God will say something and sometimes he'll

say, yes, that's what I meant. And sometimes I'll go, yeah, I

meant that, but not this time or yeah, yeah, I am like this, but

not now. No, he's, he says he's always,

but in him it is always been yes.

For no matter how many promises God has made, they are yes in

Christ. And so through him the Amen is

spoken by by us to glory, to the glory of God.

Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ.

He has anointed us, set a seal of ownership on us, and put His

Spirit in our hearts as a deposit guaranteeing what is to

come. See, God has spoken promises

over you. God has spoken promises over his

church. Now I hope and I pray that some

of you can remember some of these promises and you call them

to mind. I was reading a book by a, a, a

pastor called Bill Hybels and he, he is saying that every time

he goes on a trip, he's got a list of kind of post it notes

with the promises of gods. And he just, he just memorises

them over and over and over again.

It's so good to remember the promises of God, but but here's

some here's some of God's promises.

I just wanted to read some out to you rather than just it being

very fairy or God's promises. But here we go.

He will never leave you or forsake you.

He will never. That means that if you are in

Christ, no matter how alone you feel, you're never alone.

He is never, ever going to leave you or forsake you, Jesus said.

I've cut, I've overcome the world.

Everything that you come against, Jesus is more powerful

than it. There is nothing more powerful

than Jesus, he says. Come to me, all who are weary

and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Sleeps great. Many of us, we love to rest by

bingeing programmes on Netflix. Jesus says I am rest, you find

rest in me. My grace is sufficient for you.

Whatever you are going through, whatever you've done, whatever

you said, whatever trials you're through, Jesus says come to me

and my grace will be enough for you.

Since for I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper

you and not to do you harm, plans to give you hope and a

future. This was said by Jeremiah to a

people going to exile. So this doesn't mean that every

day is going to be amazing and rosy, but what it means is God

has a plan for you. He has thought your life

through. He has a purpose for you, as

we've read earlier this morning. If my people, called by My name,

will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from

their wicked ways, then I will not, might not today or

tomorrow, but I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their

sin and will heal their lands. He says if we confess our sins,

He is faithful and just and forgive our sins and purify us

from all unrighteousness. It doesn't matter whether you're

a Christian here or not. Today, if you come to Jesus and

you say please forgive me, I want to follow you, He will not

turn you away. He says He will forgive you

because of Christ's death on the cross.

Your sins are forgiven if we come to Him.

It says for for God so loved the world that he gave his one and

only Son, that whoever, anyone, the person furthest from God,

that you can possibly imagine, if they come to gods, if they

believe, they shall not perish but have eternal life.

All of these and many more. I could have gone on all day

with just these, but all of these and many more promises.

God has spoken over you. He has spoken over your church.

And they are not sometimes yes, in Christ Jesus, they are always

yes and Amen. See, without Christ, without his

death on the cross, they are a hope, a dream, A wish, but

through Him they are all yes and Amen.

See, we are in a war church, but we have a God who has equipped

us to overcome the enemy. You do not need to be fearful.

You do not need to cower because we have a God who has equipped

us to overcome the enemy. And I believe He's given us

three key ways in this Scripture, especially of how we

can overcome the enemy. The 1st is truth.

So He has given us His truth. He has given us His scripture.

Satan comes to Eve and the problem was she didn't know what

was true. She didn't know what was true

and what was false. And so how easy is it for the

enemy to deceive us if we do not know what is truth?

And let me tell you, you do not need to study all the ways that

the enemy might try and fool you, all the false gospels that

are out there, because there are more false gospels everyday.

You don't need to do that. As bank tellers, they don't need

to know every single way of making false currency.

They just need to know how real currency feels, what it looks

like, the watermarks, the metal link in it.

They just need to know what it really looks like and therefore

when they see something that's not real, they know it's fake,

it's not real cover and see it's the same is with Christ's truth.

See Paul says from the truth of God, it's like a it's like a

belt buckled round our waist that holds everything together.

It is like the gospel is like shoes on our feet that ready us

to take us over any terrain into battle.

Secondly, so we must know God's truth.

Secondly, we must be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Paul says, using the analogy again of, of a, of a, of a

soldier. Paul says the Holy Spirit is our

sword. It is how we can attack the

enemy. It is our sword is the sword of

the Spirit. And he says that he dwells in

us. If you're a Christian, the

Spirit dwells in you. And as Paul writes, he will say

that that spirit in US is a guarantee of our salvation

because that Spirit in US longs for Gods, longs him, calls him

Father. And it's because of that longing

in us we know that we are saved. It is a down payment of what is

to come in the future. So we must know truth.

We must be filled in the Holy Spirit.

And thirdly, we must keep in community.

See, I've used this analogy before, but soldiers, they can

have all the best armour, they can have all the the right belt,

the right shield, the right breastplate and a helmet and

shoes. But on their own, you know, they

are no John Wick. There are no real John Wicks.

OK, Jesus is the only John Wick who can kill anyone and take

anyone else. No, in reality, there are no

lone soldiers. There are no John Wicks.

OK, we are a soldier, a Roman soldier.

If they had all the right stuff. But we're on their own.

They were a dead man. You need.

We need our brothers and sisters left and right behind us, in

front of us. We need each other.

As I said last week, you need me and I need you to speak truth,

to encourage, to uphold one another.

Think of Moses, so the greatest prophet of them all.

He needed Aaron and her. And you read the stories.

Neither of them are that impressive, but he still needed

them. He needed them in his life to

uphold him, to support him. We need one another to pray for

each other, to be prayed for. And you may be saying, yeah, but

I can. I can receive truth.

I can be filled with the Holy Spirit at home.

You know, I can listen to podcasts and I can listen to

online sermons and I can read books.

I can receive God's truth. And yes, you can.

Should you? Yes, you should.

Is that God's best? If it's the only way you're

receiving truth, No, You say, well, I can, I can be filled

with the spirit. I can sing songs, I can play my

instruments or, or I can listen to, to, to worship music on, on

Spotify or on YouTube or whatever.

Should you? Yeah.

Is it good to? Yes.

Is that the if that's the only way you're receiving the

presence of God, is it right? No, no.

God has designed us to be in community, to be a family that

we hear the public reading of scripture.

You read the Bible. Actually there is there's very

little reading the Bible on their own.

It does happen, but it's much more the public reading of

Scripture and the whole body. Here's the scripture.

So so here for us, we hear the public reading of Scripture and

then we talk about it and we don't always talk about on a

Sunday, but that's what we do in home groups.

So we do a women's group on men's group.

So I'm I encourage you get involved in those things because

that's where where truth doesn't just fly over our heads, but it

gets rooted in US. Same for for being filled the

Holy Spirit. Yet we should be praying in

tongues and and and asking God to fill us every single day.

But actually also there's a real specialness that God has created

us, that as we come together as the body, one person brings a

tongue, one person brings a prophetic word, someone brings a

prayer. And that lifts my spirit like

nothing can when I'm on my own. The Bible speaks about over and

over again about laying hands on that putting your hands on

someone and praying for them to be filled in the spirit.

I can't lay hands on anyone if I spend my whole day on my own and

no one can lay hands on me either.

But there is a power by having by people touching one another

by by in a good way. Let's let's make it by by

hugging one another by, you know, a hand on the shoulder in

prayer. Let's just make this perfectly

clear, OK? But none of that was in my

notes, by the way. When we come together, we are

to. When we come together, God does

something special amongst us, something greater amongst us.

That's why one of Satan's biggest desires is to get you on

your own. And like I said last week, God

uses you to grow each other. He uses me to grow.

He uses you to grow me. And he even does it through the

weak and the brokenness of our lives.

You know, I love it when we come together and, and someone has a

prayer or someone has a prophetic word.

Prophetic words aren't about telling the future, by the way.

Prophetic words are about we have this kind of smog that

we're seeing life through our own lenses, and then a prophetic

word lifts our eyes above so we can see what God is truly doing

in that moment. That's what prophetic words are

for. And I love it when God brings

prophetic words amongst us. What God calls us to do is when

prophetic words are brought, He calls us to weigh them.

That's why we say if you've got a prophetic word, if you feel

like God's speaking to you, come to the front, share it with one

of us, and we'll weigh it and we'll determine.

Is that? Is that?

Is that from God? Is that right?

Is it right for now? Actually, it might not be.

It might be right, but it might not be right for now.

You see, so often you get people who they hear from God.

But because we see life through our own lens, we sometimes

struggle to interpret what we hear.

You say, well, why would God speak to us if we can't always

interpret it? That's why he has the church, so

that one can bring a word and one can discern.

That's why we need one another. You know, sometimes people hear

stuff and I've, I've got countless examples of people

hear it saying they've heard from God, but their response to

it goes against Scripture. It's unbiblical.

And let me tell you, if God speaks to you, he will not speak

against his Scripture. He will not counter it.

But also, you know, sometimes God may not be speaking to us at

all. It could just be us, could just

be our own thoughts. You know, actually, the Bible

talks about more seriously, the Bible talks about deceiving

spirits. And that's why in the church he

gives those with the gift of discernment.

You know, when when were it devoted?

You know, there was there's so many people with words and with

things they wanted to bring. And that's why they what people

would go to the front and they would share it with a few people

and they would discern is this from God.

And for almost all the time they'd be going, yes, that's

from Gods, but we haven't got time or that's just for you.

You know, it was, there was, but there was a real encouragement

there to share and to hear from God and have it weighed.

You see, we do that. We do that at the front of

church. But actually, if you feel God

speaking to you, you should also have that wait, share what God

speaks to you, to others, and let them help weigh it.

There is safety in numbers, but God loves to get, no, not God.

Satan loves to get us alone. He loves to get us alone and

where he can easily deceive us. You know, the gift of a prophet,

the gift of evangelist, the gift of an apostle, they are amazing

gifts. But a solo prophet or a solo

evangelist, they are dangerous. We have to be in the church and

accountable to one another. We can all get things wrong and

so when we have something, we should bring it in a sense of I

feel God is bringing this, what do you feel?

What do you think I'm willing to be wrong.

It's like I said, Satan loves it when we're on our own.

So how does he get us alone? He says in Two Corinthians

chapter 2 verse 9, he says anyone you forgive, I also

forgive. And what I have forgiven, if

there is anything to forgive, I have forgiven in the sight of

Christ for your sake, so that Satan might not outwit us, for

we are not unaware of his schemes.

How's he get us alone? One of the biggest reasons is

unforgiveness. Unforgiveness.

I mean, think Jesus tells the story, doesn't he, of the

unforgiving servant? And we've got this, this this

servant who's called into the master's house.

And the master says you owe me what?

And today's money would be billions of pounds.

He says, I'm going to throw you into prison where you are going

to rot. And the servant gets down on his

knees and he begs and he says I'll pay you back.

I don't know how, but I'll work out a way and I'll pay you back.

And the master says I forgive you.

I'm writing it off. He's been forgiven.

That's how great God's begin this is.

But that servant then goes into the world and another and a

friend comes to him and he owes him the equivalent of £100 and

he goes, you pay that back to me this instant.

He says I can't, please forgive me.

He's like, no, and he has no forgiveness on him.

So. So Jesus says that the original

servant is then thrown into prison where there is gnashing

of teeth because his the forgiveness he received was not

truly transforming. See, some what?

Some of us, actually, no, not some of us, all of us are easily

offended. We are.

We're easily offended and we can find it difficult to forgive,

and Satan loves that. But forgiveness, true

forgiveness, is a sign of what it means to be saved by Christ,

what it means to be chosen by Him.

And for those of us who practise forgiveness, we will not be

picked off easily by the enemy. You may be saying, but I know

I've done wrong. I know I'm a mess up, but how do

I make it right? There's this guy that Jesus

meets called Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus is a chief tax

collector, which basically means he's hated by everyone.

I mean even more than he would be now.

He's hated by everyone and he wants to see Jesus, but no one's

letting him see Jesus. So he climbs up a tree just to

get a glimpse of Jesus, and Jesus sees him up the tree and

says, Zacchaeus, I'm coming to your house.

And Jesus saves him. He meets with the with Jesus

Christ and in saving him, Zacchaeus says if I have wronged

correction, he has wronged everyone in his community.

If I've wronged anyone, I will pay them back four folds.

Now, the story doesn't let us know what happened to Zacchaeus.

He doesn't doesn't let us know whether he gets welcomed back

into the community, whether he gets friends or not.

But in the words of the book of Romans, he did.

As far as it was for him, he did all that he could to make it

right. And that's all that you can.

We can ask if you know that you've wronged someone, do all

that you can as far as it depends on you to make it right.

If they choose not to forgive you, that's on them.

But we are called to be forgivers, so we cannot make

others forgive us, but we are called to do all that we can to

make things right. Not everyone will forgive us,

but when we do all that we can to make things right, we make

sure there's not an in for the enemy to gain a foothold.

You see, to end with that, let's just end with this.

Jesus says that if we do these things, if we abide in His

truth, if we are filled with the Holy Spirit, if we live in

community, we will not just overcome the enemy.

But Romans 8 says we will be more than conquerors.

More than Congress, that means that we will excessively be

overwhelming in our victory. It means that we won't just

defeat the enemy, but actually, just like Jesus does, we will

turn the enemy schemes on their heads and be a weapon against

him themselves. How many times Genesis ends with

doesn't it? For what you meant for evil, God

used for good. That's what God has for you,

that the enemy schemes that are there to do you harm, to do

evil. Jesus will turn them on their

head and he will do good, you see.

And one day Jesus says that not only we will reign, we will rule

over this physical world, but actually heaven and earth will

become one. And those rebellious angels,

they will be cast into the pit of fire, they will be destroyed.

And Scripture teaches us that we will replace them and we will

reign over heaven and earth with Christ.

We that is your destiny, to rule and reign over heaven and earth

with Christ our brother. So we must conquer with truth,

empowered by the spirits and in community.

So as we go, I just want to ask you these questions.

Are you reading scripture? Are you in your Bible?

How often are you, are you making a priority really, of

coming to a Sunday service, to being fed, to being a men's

group, being a women's group, being at Home group, of hearing

the public preaching of scripture and discussing it?

Are you being filled daily with the Holy Spirit?

Are you coming to a place like this and being willing to be

prayed for but also being prepared to pray for others?

And are you actively seeking fellowship?

Is this just a Sunday morning club for you or are you actively

seeking fellowship? It may be for some of us.

Who do we need to forgive and who do we need to ask for

forgiveness from? I'm just going to pray and I'm

going to ask God just to search our hearts right now.

So Jesus, you know, you know that we have an enemy who wants

to do us harm, who desires to steal, kill and destroy, who

desires to separate us and so lies and deceit, who desires for

loss and death and destruction. But thank you, Jesus, that your

plan for us is family. Your plan for us is abundance.

Your plan for us is life. Lord God, I pray that every

single one of us who hears this will be rooted in your truth.

Would would prioritise being filled with your spirit,

empowered by you Gods, and make changes in their life to be

fully engaged in community. God, if we need to forgive, show

us where we need to forgive. If we need to ask forgiveness,

let us be humble and go and ask for forgiveness.

Lord Jesus, we pray that there'll be no root, no crack

that the enemy is able to exploit in here.

God, I pray for your overwhelming protection over

every single person here. God, we ask for your Holy Spirit

to fill us now. May we not leave this place

without doing business with you. Amen.

Amen.