Pray Like This... (Part 5) | Spiritual Warfare | Jason Webb

Well, I love movies and the best movies are of all are the ones that have great villains and some of my famous and favorite villains are the ones you'll see on the screen. The first one is Lord Voldemort. How many of you have seen all the Harry Potter movies? Yes. Can I get an amen?

That's awesome. I mean, he's just ugly. I mean, do you ever think about evil personified?

It's in Lord vulnerable Voldemort right there. I remember watching that movie for like, the 15th time with my daughter and she turned to me and said, Dad, you look just like him. She now stays outside.

Not literally, but figuratively in my heart, but it's a great battle. The last scene definitely hollows where Voldemort kills Harry Potter.

Sorry to spoil that for you in the moment. But he kills Harry Potter. In that moment, you're thinking evil. Has one Voldemort has one. And the next villain is this plan aos? How many of you seen all the Marvel movies and a view? Yeah, I over COVID My son and I had nothing else to do. So he said, Dad, we're going to do a Marvel movie marathon. 50 hours and 35 minutes later, we were done. It was worth every single minute of it. And you remembered the end game where several of my favorite heroes had died. Sorry to spoil that for you. And Thanos is creating this unique, evil world of his own. You're thinking evil has one of my favorite villain of all time. Is this Darth Vader? I see. I'm a child of the 80s. And my favorite scene in the Star Wars movies and is an empire strikes back you may remember it well. We're the Luke is fighting Darth Vader and Darth Vader tells him this shocking information. Luke, I am your father. And Luke is just like, unbelievably shocked. And all of a sudden he says, join me on the dark side. And together as father and son, we will rule the galaxy and you're thinking to yourself, no, Luke, don't do it.

There's another movie coming out. It's called The Return of the Jedi. And it's better than this one. And by the way, Luke, don't kiss Leah. She's your sister. It's weird.

And you're thinking to in this moment, Luke's thinking evil has one maybe I have to join the dark side. Now you and I thankfully aren't facing Voldemort or Darth Vader or thin OS. But we are fighting our own built villains. There are a lot of spaces in our lives where we may think that evil has one. We look at our world and we see a war ravaged Ukraine and we think evil as one. We look at our nation and the city. And we read that since the beginning of this year, over 100 mass shootings have taken place. And Madison itself is one of the highest volume increases of gun violence, violence in the nation. We think evil is one.

It's not just our world. It's not just our city, it's our lives. Our boss criticize us.

Once again. The doctor comes in and say says it's cancer. Our dream marriage becomes a nightmare. Our kids make decisions that go against everything we taught them. Our financial security is no longer security it has gone. Maybe we wake up each day with just this heaviness this dread. This way that we can explain but it's there. We promise that this week will stop will stop the drinking will stop the porn will stop the overspending will stop the overeating. But you can't and you wonder if you ever will. And you think to yourself, evil is winning. Or maybe evil has won.

For those of us who have are felt this, or maybe do feel this way Jesus comes in and offers us a lifeline in the form of a very famous prayer that we've been studying here the last few weeks. It's called the Lord's Prayer and it goes like this.

Jesus says, pray like this our Father in heaven, May your name be kept holy. May Your kingdom come soon, may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today the food we need and forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who sinned against us. And don't let us yield to temptation. And here's the part I want us to look at today. But rescue us from the evil one. In other words, God help because evil is winning.

And so the question remains, does God actually rescue us from the evil that's around us? Or do the villains in our lives and in this world actually have the last word? Well, thankfully, and the reason I'm here is that I believe God does and can and will rescue you from this evil.

But if God's ever going to rescue us from this evil, there are three things we need to know The first is this need to know your enemy. You need to know your enemy. You know, my guess is that a lot of us feel like we're in a war and we're losing.

The truth is you are in a war.

Scripture is very clear about it. But the problem is, is that we're fighting the wrong word, war, and we've identified the wrong enemy. You see, we think our boss's enemy, we think our spouse is the enemy. We think our friend who betrayed us or took advantage of us, is our enemy. And some of us just think life with all the stuff it's throwing at us, is the enemy.

And we fight them. And sometimes we win little battles here and there. But in the end, we're losing the war. Because we're fighting the wrong enemy. We're fighting the wrong battles.

Jesus in Matthew six says, Yes, you are in a war, you need to be rescued, but not from your boss, not from your husband, not from your kids, not from your professors. Not from your life.

No, what you need to be rescued is from a villain that's much greater. The evil one, deliver us rescue us Jesus praise from the evil one. See, the greatest villain of all time is not Voldemort, or Darth Vader. It's Satan. The devil, the evil one.

mean, you may think your boss is Satan. You may think your wife is saying your husband may look like Satan. But there is only one Satan is the evil one. Who whether you realize it or not, is that war with you right now?

Now, let's be honest, this seems strange, and uncomfortable and weird to talk about is why some people don't come to church because we get into weird topics like this. But I've lived in countries around the world where this is just readily accepted as fact. See, Israel scriptures Satan is referred to as a murderer or the chief of liars.

He's told, we were told that he's the deceiver who prays around like the angel of light, but he's actually filled with darkness. We're told he's the thief who comes to rob your life of its fullness, that He's the prince of this world, trying to break the beautiful things God created, that He's the great tempter trying to drag you away from everything that's good and healthy and right in this world, that he's the Great Divide are trying to divide the things that are supposed to be together, that he commands at a huge army of demons. hell bent literally, on destroying you. But perhaps the most telling words of Satan, are this and First Peter Five, Verse eight, says this your enemy the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. So hear me well. This ain't no joke. You are in a real war with a real enemy, who since the beginning of humanity has conjured up 1000s of demons and thrown them against you, and every other human being who has ever lived, is what theologians and Christians have called throughout the years spiritual warfare. Now there's two dangers when it comes to this. The first danger when we talk about things like Satan and spiritual warfare warfare is assume that everything that goes wrong is Satan doing it. So maybe you burnt your dinner last night and you say, well, Satan did that.

No, it might be just that you're a bad cook. Or maybe you're not getting a promotion at work and you think Satan's behind this, well, maybe you're just not good at your job.

See, sometimes we assume it's Satan. It's not really Satan.

It's just life. There's some realities we have to wrestle with there. But I think the Baigent bigger danger in this room. And online, whoever is listening is not assuming that everything is Satan, but assuming that nothing is Satan.

Now most countries around the world that I've lived in and visited, just accept this as truth, like I mentioned, but in the US in the Western world, we don't That's why 26% of Christians, according to Barna Research, don't believe in Satan, or the evil one. But that's part of Satan's plan to make you think that he's not real. So we fight the wrong enemy. Assuming is something else. And we don't realize what's going on in a deeper level. Now, like Steven mentioned, I, I recently got remarried and I went from four kids to six kids. And so that meant before my fiancee at the time came from she was actually living in the Philippines. And before she came with her two kids, I needed a bigger car. Now you have to understand something about me and cars. The only thing I really know about cars is like how to turn the ignition key. And that's even on days. I don't always understand that.

But I thought to myself, You know what? I'm going to do what every good father of six kids again, should do. I'm going to buy a minivan. And so I went online and I didn't have much money so I thought I'm going to find a great deal that nobody else can find. I'm not going to go to a dealership I'm going to find that one diamond in the rough and so I went on Facebook marketplace because there's no scams on Facebook marketplace and I I went in And then I found this Honda Odyssey because I saw, like 50 million people driving a Honda Odyssey. So I thought, well, that must be a good car. And so I saw it for$2,000 less than the blue book value. I'm like, wow, there it is. There's my car. And so I went to the south side of Chicago to buy it and, and I test drove it. And the car has all the bells and whistles as leather seats, the DVD player, all we use DVDs, but my car does still and, and, and it was an amazing car. Now, I didn't pay attention to the fact that one of the lights was still blinking hysterically. And the guy said, Well, I mentioned a price that I was willing to pay for it. And right away, he said, Yes, that's fine. And I thought, wow, God, you're good. So amazing. And then he said, but you need to pay all cash. And I thought, Oh, well, you know what, that's probably He's just afraid of checks. So I went and got a wad of cash from I know, you're thinking, What in the world were you doing? Again, I'm not very bright when it comes to cars.

And so I went, and I, I bought it with cash. He said, Look, meet me at the the office that processes the DMV stuff, and the title and I thought, well, that's legit. And so I went, bought the car there looked at the title, it seemed fine, went home, drove it home, call my dad and said, Dad, I got this great car for a great deal. It's gonna be amazing. Then I couldn't sleep that well at night. And I thought to myself, let me check the title again. And I went to the title, and I realized that he had a race, one of the numbers on the mileage, and that the mileage had been doctored on the title. I thought, oh, and I thought, well, you know, maybe it's not that bad. Two days later, I go into my driveway to turn it in, the car won't start.

And I got a tow truck, brought it to the mechanic, he said, Oh, you just need a new battery. So he said the rest car think is okay, so few. It's just a battery issue. Nothing big, got the battery. And in my then fiance and her kids came and we're driving. Second day, they're here we went to church, we're driving home to church, at STOP sign in a neighborhood, in the car, just guys completely.

And you remember that moment where you're like, This is the end, this is where I should just give up altogether. Because that was that moment for me because I knew was serious AAA comes out, they drag it to the mechanic mechanic says, A day later, he sends me a picture. He said, Well, what we actually didn't see was underneath it, if you see your engine, it's completely ruined. And so after spending 1000s of dollars later with a new engine, what I had realized was what I thought was on the surface, just one little battle was actually something much deeper, much worse going on underneath. And Paul's comes in he says, wake up guys, when it comes to the battles that you have in your life, you think it's just this one little issue on top, but really, there's a dead end and underneath, there's a much greater war going on, underneath the surface that you haven't even seen that you don't realize, is happening. So I says this in Ephesians chapter six For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers against the authorities against the powers of this dark world. In other words, it's not the engine, it's not the battery issue is the engine underneath.

It's the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms, therefore, put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground. And after you have done everything to stand, he says there's this whole nother round that you can't see that you kind of have to lift the hood up to see. And when you see it, it is scary. But it's very real. And some of you may have seen the face of evil before some of you may not. But when you see it, you never forget it. And we're spending a couple of weeks in the Democratic Republic of Congo. So war torn nation and the place we were staying had child soldiers guarding it. I was there to lead a conference with another pastor Congolese pastor on preaching in the area, and we were in this town and we got to an ask from a family. They said, would you come and see our son? To see our 14 year old son who was a very joyful, mild manner. Meek, even friendly, great kid who loves Jesus is now a totally different person. He's saying horrific things to people. He's attacking people. And he's so strong that it took six men to tackle him.

Whereas before he couldn't hurt a fly. We think there's something wrong with him. We think he might have a demon. As an American, I thought Yeah, right. Well Whatever. But you can't say no when you're the guest of honor in the city. So we went, when my Congolese pastor friend, they went to this, this house, and it was just a little room and it was bright and sunny out. But we walked into this room. And even though there was lights in this room, they were all turned off.

We didn't see him at first, but hunched in the corner was this 14 year old boy in the darkness.

And I'll never forget the look in his eyes. It was like pure evil, staring at me. And I can't even describe the feelings of that room because it was as if you were entering into a war.

And we prayed over him tried to have the demon delivered from him. But it's not just in the Congo, where I've seen it. I've seen it in people's lives. I've seen it when I was asked to pray over somebody's house, who, whose husband who had just randomly lost his job at 25 years at a company that he had served well, the wife who's battled the cancer, which she thought was over which she thought she was cured from, strangely, that same week came back and their kids who were saying, at night, they were seeing strange figures walking through their house. And so we prayed for deliverance over that house and over that family, but I can tell you about my own life and coming face to face with evil. A few friends of mine asked me and my family to move into the inner city of Milwaukee to really deal with the issues of racial segregation, not to say save the city, but to just live alongside of people of different colors and ethnicities, to show something different. And we're doing some huge work, incidentally, in our organizations, and in our churches, fighting racial reconciliation. But of all the families that moved there, all of in the stretch of just a few months. One family lost their son to gun violence. Now, their family the father had inexplicable things. The doctors couldn't even describe what was going on with his health. And they had a bullet fly through the room of their daughters in my life. My marriage at the time was falling apart. I had been tempted, beyond anything I've ever been tempted in for and was giving into addiction. People were publicly bashing me because Satan is a great accuser. And one night in my basement, I looked up and I looked up to the ceiling, and there's this dark figure, and I tried to scream, but it couldn't scream because I felt like somebody was choking me. Now I know some of those stories seem weird. I know. You probably wondered the validity of those stories. But let me tell you, it is real. The spiritual battles are no joke.

And sometimes they're dramatic like that. But more often than not, they're not dramatic.

They're subtle, especially here in the US. If you ever get a chance to read CS Lewis's Screwtape love letters that will give you the best insight into how this works is actually a story that CS Lewis wrote about.

The devil, the Satan and one of his demons, Wormwood and he was given the devil's giving Wormwood advice on how to attack people. And listen to what the devil tells Walmart would on this he says, It does not matter how small decisions are provided that their cumulative effort is to edge the man away from the light and out into the nothing.

Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. And D the safest road to hell is the gradual one the gentle slope soft underfoot, without sudden turnings without milestones, without signposts. In other words, just gradual, subtle attacks. He talks about how to attack relationships, listen to what he says. When two humans have lived together for many years, it usually happens that each has tones of voice and expressions of face, which are almost unendurable ly irritating to the other. Those who are married How many of you have a spouse who has an expression of face that is almost unendurable ly, irritating to you? Work on that bring into full consciousness of your patient, that particular lift of his mother's eyebrows, which he learned to dislike the nursery and let them think how much he dislikes it, letting him assume that she knows how annoying it is, and does it to annoy? If you know your job, he will not notice the immense improbability of the assumption. And of course don't Don't miss this never let him suspect that he has tones and looks, which similarly annoy her as he cannot see or hear himself this easily managed. In other words, it's subtle. So you may not be possessed by demons.

But you may have a growing anxiety that's getting worse and worse by the day. You may wonder what's happened in the relationship with your kids you can't explain. He may not understand why you can't seem to ever catch a break at school or at work. You may wonder why you've grown apathetic to God little by little Day by day, month by month, year by year.

Satan attacks is real. There's a war going on, sometimes dramatic, more oftentimes subtle. So know your enemy but also know your authority. Know your authority Jesus knowing this knowing that we're in a real battle with a real enemy with a great villain, Satan says, Okay, here's how I want you to pray. I want you to pray rescue me from the evil one.

Rescue me, because I can't do it. I love being a stepdad partially because I get to Father kids who are younger because my kids are getting older, the most of them are teenagers now. And so my youngest stepson is six years old, and I love my favorite part is picking him up from school because he comes out and it's a little kindergarten line, and he sees me and he shouts JSON, and he runs to me and I grabbed him.

And then he he says, tickle me.

So I tickle him. And then he says all sorts of random things like this Friday, I picked him up and it was started spring break. He said, Jason, it's spring break. I said, I know.

You said, You know what that means? I said, What? We get to go to Hawaii? And I say, No, we don't. And he said, Well, yeah, kids go to Hawaii on spring break, not us. And anyway, he's he's having fun. And then inevitably, every time I pick him up, he hands me his backpack. He says, take it, it's too heavy for me. And usually I say no, deal with it. But then, in a moment of compassion, as I see this little six year old boy, hunched over with this pack backpack, that's twice his size, like pushing them to the ground, I grab it. And I pick them up.

And I carry it for him because he's not strong enough for it.

And Jesus says, You're not strong enough for this life.

There's many times when this is gonna be too heavy for you. The evil one will destroy you if you fight them on your own. So if you feel like things are too heavy for you right now. They are. If you feel like you're not going to win by doing this on your own, you won't. Life is too much. You're not designed to fight this on your own. I know what this is like for the last several years. I've felt this in many ways. But I remember two summers ago, I was in a job transition. That wasn't necessarily my choice. I lost tons of money. I was dealing with rebuilding relationships with my kids. I was dealing with some other health issues. And some deep loneliness if I'm honest. Around that time, Stephen, even not necessarily knowing all of this asked me to come and speak here. And I said, Yeah, sure. I'll be willing to do that. But those days, I was so tired from everything. And so I was driving up from Chicago to Madison and between Chicago and Madison as you go past Rockford past Janesville, there's vast nothingness. I don't know if you realize that, but there's like nothing there. And I started to fall asleep at the wheel. And so I did what I should do, I went to a rest area, I splashed water on my face. I'm okay, I feel better. Now. I gotta get to Steven. Because we got to film this message. It was still during COVID film this message for us in church. And so I went back on the road and I'm about five minutes later, I'm going 80 miles per hour. And I fall asleep. The next thing I know and feel is a semi hitting me. I had drifted into a semi going 80 miles per hour. I woke up and somehow got the car into the grassy median. And I stopped and soon a cop came and I was still in shock. And he looked at me said, I have no idea how you're still alive. My car was completely totaled. Next morning, I was journaling. And I remember just writing these words, God, I can't do this. I'm so stinking tired. I got nothing left. I can't win this battle anymore. And Jesus in that moment spoke to me he was word of course you can't. You're not strong enough for it. You weren't designed to deal with all this stuff on your own. Let me carry it for you. It's too heavy for you. That's why in this prayer that we've been praying, Jesus says the first thing you pray is May Your kingdom come. You need a new authority. You need a new king because you can't be the king.

You can't be the queen. You're not strong enough. The valley you're facing is too big for you. And so you say to God in your prayer, I can't. I can't win this but you can't. Or actually I can't win this. But you already have won this Paul says Jesus has actually already won this war we're in. Listen to what he says in Ephesians. One is great hope for us. It says, God raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand and the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion. In other words, everything in this huge battle has come under Jesus.

He's one every person, every situation, every demon, even the evil one, Satan himself, Jesus is the King on his throne. May Your kingdom come. Now maybe to put this into practice, I'm gonna ask Stephen to come up.

I've asked him to volunteer for this. He actually doesn't know what he's doing. So this is good. But when we think of the battle, this cosmic battle between Jesus and Satan, no, no, don't still sit down. You're not to that point yet. And for 10, for intents and purposes for this illustration, Stephen is Satan. And I'm Jesus. Okay. So I just think that it's important to recognize appropriate roles.

But Stephen is not actually saying you may have called him that in a couple of emails that you've written to him at times.

But no, he's not actually saying, but for this illustration, you will be. But when we think of the battle between Jesus and Satan, we think of them going head to head like this. And let's be clear, if I was to take Stephen on, I would win because I'm jacked like that. But if you know, but that's not actually how the battle is. It's not Jesus and Satan, in a slug fest know what Paul says? It's like this. Can you lay down? Lay down on the floor? Yes. No, not like that.

Let's see your face. There you go. What Paul says the battle is actually like this. Right now.

Where Jesus has Satan under his face, do you say you hate me?

Well, that's because you're Satan. You're full of hatred.

But listen to what Paul says in Ephesians. He says, And God placed all things including Satan, under his feet, so the war is not really a war anymore.

Satan is just down here. And Jesus is sitting on top of him.

You can get up give us a keepsake. Give Steven a hand for that. Well done, Steven. But here's the crazy part, it gets even crazier. Paul says, okay, not only as Jesus said, so did they're seated there with Satan under his feet. Listen to what he says fusions to verse six, God raised us up with Christ and seating us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.

So not only is Jesus here, but I'm in like Jesus lap. I'm sitting here with Satan under my feet to the war is actually already one.

But the problem is, even though we have that authority, even though the war has been won, even though we know our real enemy, the problem is, while Satan's down, he's not completely out yet. Because while we sit here with Jesus, he can still grab a hold of us. He can still have what Scripture calls, strongholds. And when he has those strongholds, we need to know how to fight. We need to know how to fight. Look at what Paul says Second Corinthians 10.

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

Let me ask you, yeah, you may know and then you when we're has evil, where has Satan? Where's the evil one, still grab a hold of you? Where is he grabbing tight, because we all have areas where there's a stronghold maybe as a stronghold of sin or addiction. Maybe for you, nobody knows how bad has become, how much you really drink, how much you really eat, how much you really spend. Nobody knows how many times you've promised to stop looking or stop doing.

Maybe it's not an addiction, per se, but maybe it's anger or apathy that just grows and grows and grows. No matter what you try. No matter how many promises you've made to God can't change.

Maybe you change for like a week, maybe a month, but you go right back there. It's a stronghold. And the problem is you've been trying to fight that with the Wat wrong weapon. You know, we think we just keep it to ourselves and try to handle it on our own and just muster up enough willpower to somehow rebuild to defeat this thing that keeps defeating us. And this is what your enemy wants you to do. Because he knows if you go about it that way you will lose. He knows you will start to believe the lies the lies that you will never change that you will never measure up that you will always be this failure. And Paul says Hang on.

There's a different weapon to use. It's the weapon of truth and honesty. In fact, a little later in Fusion six, he says, Put on the belt of truth. Just be honest about it. Tell somebody about it. Find somebody safe even here and say I'm struggling. Would you help me James says that something powerful happens when that happens. In fact, we saw earlier in the service the word Psalm James about prayer, he goes on in that passage and says, confess your sins to one another, so that you may be healed. We don't like to think of confession, especially in Protestant circles. But it's a beautiful, mysterious, powerful thing. Then when we confess, when we get really honest about our stuff, the stronghold begins to vanish. Dr. Dan Green, who I actually owe my life to, says this. Shame loses its power.

When it's exposed, bringing it out into the open, makes the power makes a stronghold go away. Doesn't mean that you don't have to do hard work you sometimes do. The stronghold goes away when we fight with truth and honesty. Another stronghold that many of us may have is a stronghold of relational conflicts or attacks from outside. Maybe somebody's coming at you. Maybe it's a friend, a spouse, a colleague, and it's not fair. And what they're saying about you is not true. What they've been doing to you in sometimes may be called diabolical. You wake up every morning thinking about him or her and you go to bed every night thinking about him or her.

They have their arms wrapped around your life. There is a stronghold there. But the problem is and fighting them, you've tried to fight fire with fire. They yell at you, you yell back, they fire an email at you.

You fire one back with all caps.

They say something untrue about you. You say something untrue about them. They exaggerate about you, you exaggerate about them, they give you the cold shoulder shoulder, you go stealth mode on them. Not working. My guess is that it's not. My guess is that if you engage that way, the stronghold has become tighter. Jesus comes in and says there's a different way. Use different weapons.

Instead of revenge. Forgive. See them for who they are a human just like you a confusing mix of good and evil, who's hurt and traumatized and they're hurt is hurting you we get it. But forgive them. Probably what Jesus prayed from the cross Father forgive them for they don't know what they're doing.

Instead of hatred. So kindness and goodness and fight for peace. Jesus says Paul says, Now, don't get me wrong. That doesn't mean you let them steamroll you. There are many times when you have to stand up for what is right and defend yourself. But even when you do that, you don't lower yourself to their tactics and their standards. You do so with integrity and within the proper systems. A Paul says this Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you. live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath for it is written, it is mine to avenge, I will repay. Now don't miss this.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Other words saying to them, I'm not the judge. God's gonna take care of that my role is to fight for peace and goodness and kindness and love. They won't know what to do. They may change as a result, they may not. But what will change is the stronghold they have over your life.

Because when you let them go to stronghold, let's go as well.

There's another stronghold that a lot of us have. It's a stronghold of control. In other words, we tried to control the outcomes of everything's for parents, we know what this is like. We tried to control our kids and what they do or say and what we realize we actually have no control over situations over people. And it's like we're in the backseat of our car of a car trying to drive the car. We're telling him which way to turn but it won't turn that way. And Jesus comes inside the way to fight that isn't we're trying harder, or thinking more or coming up with some new solution. No, the way to fight that is with complete surrender.

Not my will Jesus prayed once, but yours be done. So every day this is a huge one for me. I pray this prayer. It's what Christians have historically called the Serenity Prayer. I write this in my journal every single day. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I can the wisdom to know the difference.

Never forget Dr. Dan Green telling me this as well. He said, Jason, the only thing you can control in life is how you love God or you love others and how you love yourself. That's all you got. How others respond to you. You have no power over.

Whether good or bad how they respond is their issue, not yours. And when I found is that the more I let go The more stronghold Let's go. One final stronghold that I think some of us are in is the stronghold of despair. The stronghold of despair is this overwhelming sense, whether it because of internal feelings or external circumstances or both, the life just isn't gonna get any better.

There's no end in sight. And the enemy wants you to think that this will never change. You're always going to be defeated. But Jesus is shouting to you today.

It's not the end of the story.

There's another movie coming out and it's better than this one.

So fight this weapon with faith.

fight this, this, this battle with the reassurance of God's promises that you are actually seated with him. Fight this with hope that one day maybe not today. But one day this too shall pass. Because never forget. You are seated with Christ in the heavenly realms.

And Satan, well, he's not fully out one day he will be because listen to what Paul also says in Romans 16. He says the God of peace will soon maybe not today, but soon crush Satan. under your feet now I know what you're going through. I know this stuff is hard. I know life is hard. I know Relationships are hard. I know struggles are hard. But you have an authority. You have a God who seemed to sit with me because the best is indeed yet to come.