Put Away Your Sword (Ephesians 6:17 The Sword of the Spirit part 1)

Joshua Kehler: in all circumstances take up the shield of faith with which

you can extinguish all A l L, all the flaming arrows of the evil one, and take

the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

So there are some ways that the Bible has been used in modern

evangelical Christianity.

some of these may be familiar to you, some of them may be foreign.

but they're out there.

They're, they're out there.

The goldmine approach, right?

reading the Bible is a vast, cavernous, dark mine in which one occasionally

stumbles upon a nugget of inspiration.

here it is.

I've dug, I've read through the Old Testament in a year, and I've.

Finally I came across the gold nugget that I'm going to, I'm gonna take, hunting

for wisdom, the gold mine approach.

when I was with, the church I was at before we tried to get, nug.com

cuz it was available in Ugg.

Cuz we always say That's a good nug.

That's a good nug.

And we just want to post the nugs.

here's a nug, here's a nug.

Which is probably cool, there's that approach where you're hunting for the nug,

you're hunting for the deeper knowledge.

You're hunting for that, that one thing that's there that nobody else sees.

and so the result of that can be confusing reading.

Because you're reading the whole Bible and you're like,

how does this all fit together?

secondly, there's the hero approach.

Reading the Bible is a moral hall of fame that gives us one example after

another of heroic spiritual giants to emulate the heroic approach.

Which I'm very guarded against Mario's listening to the Action Bible,

which actually is pretty amazing.

but I listen for it.

I listen for, David was a man after God's own heart and never failed.

You can be David too, if you try hard enough, for four easy payments of 1999.

that's the kind of you too could be David.

There's that hero approach where we read the Bible and we're like, oh,

if we just had more Davids, oh, if we just had more, Ezekiel's or Jeremiahs

or Isaiahs or Peters or Paul's forgetting that they came utterly broke

into the throne of grace, that they literally were the utmost examples

of failure that God redeems and uses.

Wow.

And so, we can read that.

we want to follow their example.

We're, we are, addicted.

To following the example of somebody else.

and in that we characterize their complexity and we highlight their

good moments, forgo their bad moments, and say, you two can be this, which

is an impossible thing for somebody who accomplishes because any good

that person did as we read in scripture, was by God's grace alone.

One of the most shocking things you read in the Bible is when it says righteous.

A lot.

You're like, wait, what?

Where did, yeah, we missed that part of the Bible.

Yeah.

Is that like a, is that in a, did we miss a book?

righteous lot who escaped from the city, tried to throw his daughters to the crowd

saying, Hey, have sexual relations with them cuz I've gotta do the hospitality

thing and protect these angels.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Rape them.

Go ahead.

and then left that night.

His wife, looking back, his daughters ended up sleeping with him

and, because they wanted a child.

And now they were outcasted and ostracized from society in God because there was

some ember of faith that he blew on.

Not a lot.

Yeah.

Because of the brokenness that God looked at and he fanned in the flame

that desperate ember of hope in him.

Okay.

That he would hope to something beyond himself.

In the New Testament scripture for 2000 years, God wrote righteous lot.

Yeah.

We really gotta rethink how we read these stories.

There's the rules approach.

I think we come from churches who use this approach, reading the Bible on the

lookout for commands to obey subtly to, reinforce a sense of personal superiority.

yeah, brother struggles with this.

I don't, sister struggles with this.

I don't.

Oh.

If they were only more passionate for Jesus, they really understood what

he did for them at the cross, then they would really want to obey him.

The rules approach the subtle reinforcement of legalism, the faira

approach, It's attractive to some of us.

It's attractive to me because I wanna define myself.

I literally want to hide my shame behind my fig leaves of faux spirituality.

Sure.

And if I can find somebody who's sewn worse fig leaves than I have, oh,

they are my focus, rip that thing off.

Too bad about Jeremy.

I read a book and it's amazing and I think, you have Christus

Exemplar Christ, our example.

Yes.

but it has to go hand in hand with Christ Our substitute.

Christ our righteousness.

So Jesus did for us what we can never do for ourselves.

Absolutely.

But in the new life, he's also the pattern that he's making us into.

So we get a forte sometimes.

The worst thing is I go into a McDonald's.

I just did one.

It was horrible.

I told my boss I did a two week, I did a three week job in two

weeks, and there were no plans.

I had no plans.

I had to guess.

I begged.

I made phone calls and I'm like, I know there's something coming up.

I was working nights in days, so we'd work from 12 at night till five in

the morning, and then from five in the morning till 11, and then come home

and sleep and then do the same thing for two weeks and then some weekends.

That's why I missed some weekends.

And I wanted plans.

I wanted to know what I was building, and I could anticipate it, I could sense it.

And then sure enough, the heads up came in and they said, oh yeah, we need this.

And I was like, I made the phone calls.

Now we're a week behind.

What are you doing, Russ?

Give me the plan.

Show me what I'm building.

And I can lean into that.

And the beautiful thing about the life that Jesus lived from his birth, where

he's like obedient to his parents, right?

He submits to their authority, to the point where he says, father,

forgive them for they know not.

What they do is he's giving us the pattern of a life that looks like him.

He gives us this beautiful thing, but he doesn't say, go and do it.

because we can't, that's why he had to come.

If he just said, here's he's every other religious leader who just

comes and shows up and says, here's the way to get to heaven and find

serenity and peace in your life.

And then you know, you go and you do it.

You try really hard.

no.

He did what We couldn't.

Amen.

Amen.

To do through us what we could never do for ourselves.

The beautiful promise of the resurrection is that the power of

the resurrection is alive in you.

The beautiful thing about the Christian Gospel is that he isn't

abandoned us to then make our way up Jacob's Ladder to heaven, but that

the story of the gospel is that Jesus came Jacob's laddered down to us.

Yeah.

and he took what was supposed to be the wall that you fell against.

In desperation called the law given at Sinai.

Sinai was a mountain that you were not supposed to scale.

Absolutely.

it was a mountain that you said, I need somebody to go up for me.

That's what Moses was, He was a prototype of the Jesus who would come to go up

the mountain who said, you blot me out.

Don't blot them out.

You blot me out.

And even Moses felt so unqualified.

That's the iron.

And he was, that's the irony.

That's the amazing thing.

he's, that's the best story.

Like when you think about grace and the law is, Moses nailed

it for 39 years, 11 months.

He like killed it.

Perfect.

pretty good.

He's blot me out of your book.

And then at the end he strikes the rock and Jesus.

and God's you can't go in.

You failed because that's the law you miss once.

But what does Grace say?

The beautiful thing about Grace and the story of the gospel is he gets

in, he shows up in the Promised land.

At the Transfiguration.

There you go.

Where the law said you're out.

Grace said, oh my son, you can come visit the promised Land, but you're

probably gonna want to go home.

And and what does he do when he shows up?

He's just worshiping.

Yeah.

but what an incredible view of.

That law, that rules approach, you miss once you're gone.

Yeah, miss once you're gone.

Pass or fail.

Pass or fail.

So the result is despairing reading and.

And and it's reinforces and it's iCal reading, right?

The artifact approach reading the Bible is an ancient document about events in

the Middle East a few thousand years ago that are relevant to my life today.

Oh yeah, I believe that happened.

nothing impacts now it's just a history and we can learn and

glean some lessons from that.

The result is board reading.

Alright, the guide, reading the bylaws, a roadmap to tell me where to work,

whom to marry, and what shampoo to use.

Oh, been there.

Actually, this is more common than we think.

We kinda laugh, but if you've been raised in the church, I think this is huge.

Yes.

I've told you the story where I washed my.

Acne seven times.

Oh yeah.

To be cleansed.

And it was like somebody took sand pa a belt sander to my

forehead, it didn't work.

it's that kind of weird, like these story, this weird reading of scripture

where it's like this guidebook.

And, we've had friends who saw.

Yeah.

Who saw things on billboards and then read in her devotional that she

was supposed to marry this person, and of course it didn't work out.

And she had this crisis of faith, was she, we lost our friendship.

Oh, wow.

And just because we're like, no, I, I don't think that's what God's telling you.

Yeah.

but we hunt for these like Gideon.

Who God came gently and said, Hey, you're pretty much a pegon.

I'm gonna incline myself in my grace to meet you in your weakness

because you're so utterly weak.

But we take that as like the hero.

oh, he put out a fleece.

Oh, we can put out a flee.

instead of this like immaculate act of God's grace, we put

this fleece out to say God.

Speak to me in some weird way other than he's spoken to you and the person of his

son, he's given you everything you need in life and the person of Jesus Christ.

Every word that he says about be not being anxious.

Every word that he says about him valuing you more than the lilies of

the field and the sparrows that fall.

Every word that he said about how no one's gonna snatch you out of his hand,

every prayer that he prays is answered.

if the son of God is praying for you in John 17, every bit of it Yeah.

Is sure and true.

So everything you need has been given to you.

But sometimes we hunt for these other ways because honestly, they're a way to.

Go around God's hard sovereignty and his slow time.

Yeah.

To spiritualize what you want for your life.

Yeah.

and that's just the truth of it.

It is interesting, I think, especially when you're a young Christian or

you're new to the faith, I think that, and I don't mean to put in

that framework like it's an immature thing cuz I still struggle with it.

Yeah.

Having been a Christian most of my life, but, the sense

that I have to find God's will.

And then there's this pressure.

There's this, I feel like a stop.

I'm up against a wall.

I'm like, like I, I feel like some, like I can't progress

forward unless I get his will.

Like I'm, I am praying, I'm seeking, I'm reading scripture, but I'm

reading scripture in such a way where Make something jump out at me.

like it, it's this thing that it's man, just do this.

And then you learn later on in life.

He just wants you, he doesn't need your work.

He doesn't need you to do great things for him because he's

already done the greatest thing.

Anything good you do is gonna be his grace anyway.

He just wants you.

But then I even think of Abraham because he didn't see it.

He had one son and he was told that he was gonna have more.

Descendants, then all the stars in the heavens, he just sees one, and then,

cheel right along the way, his own work.

But there was that, there was so much trust in what God was doing there.

But I think that there's this, there's like this pressure.

I have to be right in this situation and this circumstance.

I cannot fail.

I cannot sail.

And you know what?

I think it comes from a good place.

God is good.

Yeah, he's been good to me.

I want to be good to him.

I don't think it, sometimes it may be you start to get under

your motivations and you're like, oh, I thought that was about you.

God, that was all about me.

Yikes.

But yeah, but honestly, like even for me, like at this point in my life,

I've always felt called to Stockton.

Wes always felt called to Stockton.

Our house is falling apart, it's something new every week and

we're like, let's just move.

We need more space.

we have so many kids now, we thought we were moving into a different transition

in life and we're like, oh, wow.

I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be like 65 when Nathaniel graduates.

that's crazy to think about.

Like I'm, what, and being so I just want to be where you are and I know that.

Yeah.

if that's my heart, then you can bring it, you can bring a whale

to bring me back to Stockton.

Even if I'm like, I'm done.

Like I'm so okay with not.

I was so paralyzed for so many years, honestly.

Let me just, okay.

I had a vision, and that vision,

it was the burden I carried

that I had to fulfill.

Which makes success.

Yours and failure devastating because you don't fail yourself

or your spouse or your family.

You fail God as if God has two plans, as if he has an A

and a B, and you can miss it.

Beautiful.

Thank.

Thank the sovereignty of God as you're always on Plan a.

No matter how much you zig and you zag and you go this way, and

you go this way, you look back and you're all, oh, that was planning.

Oh yeah, that was planning.

Jesus said, good thing about visions.

Take my yo p oops for my yolk is easy.

And my burden is light.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jesus never gives you something that takes you away from himself.

That's right.

The way the whole yolk worked is you were yoked to something else and Jesus saying,

take my yolk, yolked yourself to me like.

We're together.

I'm doing the heavy lifting.

I'm basically dragging you, Kayla, like I've got, I'm taking you

all the way, yolk yourself to me.

But it's so easy to be absolutely paralyzed to where you don't

even know up from down, because.

You're gonna do something for him, you're gonna find that thing.

And then you look and you go these places and you're like,

confirm it, kind of thing.

And he just keeps saying it.

Time after time I saved you.

I brought you out to bring you in.

I called you out to bring you into myself.

The whole scheme, God doesn't need you.

God doesn't need you to fulfill the great commission.

like it's a joy to be able to be used by him, but he just, the whole

point and every bit of health flows from the idea of him just bringing

you in and you enjoying him.

Because then it's a reaction that's out of the overflow of heart

to his goodness and his grace.

It's not I have to prove myself.

I have to prove to God that I'm worth saving.

I have to do this.

I have to.

I have to prove to others that I'm not a failure.

I have to do this.

I have to do.

It's out of the overflow of your heart, you're like, oh my gosh, God.

You're saving people.

You love that person.

Oh, that was me.

Can I help?

can I go with you?

Can I go with you?

He's yeah, come.

Let's love this person.

. That's it.

So I have one little intro I think we'll end on, and then I want us to

all just study the passage where Jesus is tempted, by Satan, the adversary.

because, we'll talk about it because what does he say over and over?

He uses the sword of the spirit.

It is written.

It is written, yes.

One of my favorite stories obscure in the book of Acts is Paul.

Paul uses a sword on himself.

He is before the Sanhedrin, and, the Sanhedrin says, or, the hi

priest says something, just.

Just demeaning to Paul and Paul reacts and he is like you whitewash tomb

or whatever, And just and then one of the people standing by is Hey,

did you, that's the high priest.

You aren't supposed to speak against the Lord's anointed.

And Paul literally quotes scripture to himself and he uses the sword and he says,

oh yeah, it written, you shall not speak.

And he changes in that moment because he uses the sword on his heart.

the physical sword cuts through bone and flesh, the spiritual

sword, cuts through the heart.

Yes.

and so often cuts both ways.

One more.

so the guidebook approach is anxious reading, the doctrine approach.

Reading the Bible is the theological repository to plunder for ammunition

from my next debate at Starbucks.

And I only write that because I've done that.

And the result is cold reading.

You're just looking, for the, the ammunition.

so this night had been a heavy one, right?

It's the night and nights, and this is where we intro into this with a

rabbi telling them that he would be leaving soon, but not to lose heart.

Because he would return soon.

Passover had been different and there had been talk at the table of one

of their master's closest followers betrayed him to the religious leaders,

and they all asked, is it I?

Which is beautiful humility.

It's a good thing.

He checked once again, the sword strapped to the belt under, hidden

underneath his coat as they sang a hymn.

I love that part of the story.

As they're walking through the Kron Valley, they're

coming down out of Jerusalem.

They're walking into the valley where the Brook Cron was, and then

walking up to the Hil, to Yosemite, and it says they sang to him.

So they're worshiping, they're praising, they're singing songs.

Jesus is singing on the night of nights that he's gonna be betrayed.

Jesus is worshiping.

Jesus is praising on that night as we talked about, the Eucharist, giving

thanks that he's breaking bread and giving thanks, Lord, thank you

that I get to be broken for them.

he checked once again, the sword strapped to the belt, hidden underneath

his coat as they sang to him.

Threw the Kidron Valley and walked up the incline to the orchard of olive trees.

Darkness laid over the land, thicker than any normal, night.

And their rabbi had asked them to stay up and pray, but as so often sleep won

the battle, and each time the master woke them up, they would fall asleep again.

And Jesus ended up saying, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

I one of the greatest, Hey, you really wanted to do this.

There was a part of you that wanted to do this.

Good job.

But the flesh was weak.

But not only their voices as they were talking, as they were arousing

from their sleep, there were more voices than even the master's voice.

10, a couple dozen now many voices, a mob coming towards them carrying torches.

As the mom moved closer to where they were, one toward the front

leading the pack looked familiar, and as he came into the light of the

torches, They realized it was Judas.

Judas had brought a mob to halt and moved toward Jesus and

leaned toward him and kissed him.

And in Luke 2249, and those who were around him saw what would follow.

They said, Lord, shall we strike with the sword.

They're ready to run the palm branches Palm Sunday.

A physical deliverance, a physical sword.

A physical deliverance, a physical liberation, a physical

freedom, violence, throwing off the opposition and oppression.

And in John 18, 10 to 11, then Simon Peter having a word, drew it and struck the

high priester and cut off his right ear.

The servant's name was Malus, so G.

So Jesus said to Peter, put your sword into its sheath.

Shall I not drink the cup the father has given me?

And Jesus was saying, and they would soon realize, Peter, this

isn't the sword dear to use.

This one only brings death to those it is used upon.

And to those who use it.

Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.

Soon Peter, soon you will get that heavenly blade that brings life.

Where there is death.

It was weeks later and they had been praying together, even as their master

and savior had prayed that night in the garden, Jesus had ascended.

They had watched him in heaven.

The angels showed up and were like, . It's gonna be a little

while before he comes back.

You guys can go about, fulfilling the great commission.

You guys can go wait and wait for the promise of the Holy Spirit.

They're just like staring.

He's I'm gonna come back the way you see me going.

And they're like, okay, we'll be here.

But now they're in the upper room and they're praying.

It had been weeks since they watched him rise into the heavens

and he had told them to wait.

To wait for the promise that a helper would come in the morning as the day was

starting, as the noise outside grew in intensity as people made their way to

the temple and as the roosters crowed,

a noise inside the upper room began to grow a sound like rushing wind.

Were told the promise, the Holy Spirit poured out.

And people begin to gather around because the crowd gathered outside the house,

heard those who spirit come upon praising God and declaring his mighty works

each in their own language and dialect.

That is the true miracle of, that special language that God poured out because what

was he saying in that very first instance?

It's not just for Jews.

And it's not just for Gallions.

It's not just for Naza rights, but it's for everybody.

The gospel has come for everybody.

Everybody is welcome and that Jesus has come to meet you where you are at.

You don't have to come and make a pilgrimage to where he is.

He comes to meet you, even in your own dialect elect

as Peter sees the crowd gather.

Mama something we know The Holy Spirit stirs in his heart and this once coward

reaches not for the cold steel he wielded and the garden of Yosemite,

but now for his Jerusalem blade, the devil edge sword of the gospel.

And he takes up the word of God by the spirit of God and he begins

to cut this way and that way.

And how do we know it was a sword and a blade?

Because Acts 2 36 says, Peter preaching, let all the house of

Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and

Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.

Now when the they heard this, They were cut to the heart

and said to Peter and the rest of the Apostles Brothers, what shall we do?

And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized every one of you in

the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you

leave the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Priests, Pharisees, sades, commoners, fishermen, tradesmen,

carpenters, brick layers, stone masons, moms, dads heard that,

and 3000 were saved and added to the church right there.

Peter, like Moses at first tried to deliver and liberate people

through physical violence.

Remember, Moses struck down the Egyptian, he murdered 'em.

he said, this is the way to liberation.

And then he had to run for his life after he found out, after it was found

out what he did and hid for 40 years.

He would one day discover God's word alone was more enough and

more than enough to defeat Egypt.

The physical sword pierces the body, but the word of God pierces the heart.

The more that you use the physical sword, the dull it becomes, but using God's

word only makes it sharper in our lives.

Peter used the word of God.

The power of God unto salvation as Romans once says, is the gospel the good news?

That is the sword.

See how this blade with one edge kills that physical sword?

And then see how this blade with one of its edges, the spiritual sword kills,

but with the other edge brings life?

Yes, it kills pride.

It cleaves it in two from north to south, it kills bondage

and enslavement and addiction.

It cuts the mask of hypocrisy and cuts open the palace's, darks, and the dens of

iniquity and exposes them to the light.

Oh, but it heals even as it wounds.

Yes.

A life giving sword.

It sounds like a contradiction, but think of it like a scalpel.

The scalpel causes pain to bring health.

It brings new life, new hearts, promise, inheritance, eternal life there in

here, and transformation how wonderful a weapon the sword of the spirit is.

And we're commanded in our passage to take it up.

To take it up little bit.

So let me just end on, so we're gonna jump into how Jesus uses it and we'll

get into a little bit about what it is, it's history, why we should trust it.

But let me just recount from the word of God itself.

And this isn't circular reason.

It's 66 books written by, different authors through thousands of years.

Who tell a singular story?

Yes, through different cultures, different phases, different histories,

different technologies, and yet they all tell the same story of God coming

to save rebellious men and women and to restore all things unto himself.

it is truly phenomenal.

So the word says,

Nothing is to be taken from it or added to it.

Deuteron, may 42, that it's eternal.

Isaiah 48 and first Peter 1 25, that it's effective.

Isaiah 55 11, that it's pure Psalm 12, six and 1 19 40, that it's perfect.

Psalm 19, seven, that it's precious.

Psalm 1910, A wife guide, Psalm 1 19, 1 0 5, soul food, Jeremiah

15, six, a Fire and a hammer.

Jeremiah 2329.

That it's true.

Psalm 1 19, 1 60, that it's helpful.

Proverbs 6 23, that it's flawless.

Proverbs 35 to be obeyed.

Luke 8 21 in James 1 22.

All we need to know.

to know God.

Luke 1629 and 31, the standard by which all teaching is to be tested.

Acts 1711, faith Building.

Romans 10 17.

For everyone.

Romans six 20 or 1626 sin cleansing.

Ephesians 5 26 and James 1 21.

The sword for spiritual battle.

Ephesians six 17, the very words of God for Thessalonians two 13, God

breathed second Timothy three 16.

Life changing.

Hebrews four 12.

Life giving James one 18 Spiritual nourishing, first Peter two, two.

Saint equipping second Timothy three 17.

So you got like a pretty good, Hey, this is important that we should

know it, but as important as it is in all those ways that we can read

the word of God, more importantly is that the word of God reads us.

And that we know who the word is.

scripture says every jot, it seems like har hyperbole to me.

Every tittle, just the little mark, the little dot on the eye that the

volume of the book is written of Jesus who would come and rescue.

you think of the story a lot.

Righteous lot.

And Abraham prayed and used lots righteousness to try

to say you should save him.

Remember the story.

God comes to him and he is, and Abraham's God tells him, Jesus supreme guard it.

He's got angels with him.

And he is Hey, these angels are gonna go off because they're gonna

see to the destruction of this city.

And Abraham says, if there's 50 righteous.

Will you leave Destruction?

will you hold off?

He's yeah, for 50 Righteous.

And Abraham thinks a bit and he is like, how about 45?

Righteous.

I think he's doing math on how many relatives Lot has, and

did his daughters get married?

I forget.

And he gets them down to 10.

Pretend righteous.

Yeah, for Ted Righteous, we'll withhold judgment,

but judgment king,

what Abraham should have done, and what we all should do is not go to

the 10 or the 50 or the 45 or the 35 or the 20, but the one righteous.

It's the only way a lot was righteous was because of the one righteous, and

the wonder of the gospel is that the unrighteous gets to go outside in the

city and the righteous one stays in and says, let the fire fall on me.

The only way lot righteous lot could be was for righteous Jesus.

To take all that and righteousness on himself.

To take the fire of it all you guys, from beginning to end the Bible is about Jesus.

The volume of the book, the signs, and that's why I love Levi Vagus.

We should go through the vagus Leviticus, I can't even say it like,

like the temples, the sacrifices, the feasts, the every rule.

Everything is a symbol pointing to the greater reality.

In fact, Hebrews, as Tom was saying, we should go through Hebrews.

He says like all these things were signs and symbols pointing to the reality that

Christ is, the way you read the Bible that transforms you is that Jesus is the hero.

David's not the hero of the story.

David fails, but that there's a greater David who comes

along and says, guess what?

I'll face off against the giant Goliath of Satan sin and death, and

my victory will become your victory just like it was in David's like

all along the way, he is the hero.

He is the rescuer.

He is the one to which everything pointed to, and the sword of the

spirit is sharp when it's about Jesus.

It is something else that the enemy uses cuz you'll see in the

temptation of Jesus or the testing of Jesus that Satan quotes scripture.

And guess what?

I've heard a whole lot of sermons like he quotes it.

So it's not just a matter of knowing the method or the scripture, but

we have to know the message of scripture that it's all about Jesus

and he has to be the hermeneutic.

Through who we see everything and everything through.

Like the whole testament is okay, you want a king now?

Cool.

Okay.

You want it, you want me to lead you in the wilderness?

oh, you need a physical representation and a cloud and a fire by a cool.

Okay.

You need like all it is God trying to meet where people standard is and then the

whole story is about, man, that standard.

we're just not, we're not hitting it where God intends and that he comes.

And he saves us.

Like you read the prophets, e free m didn't even know how to walk.

Isn't that your testimony?

Like here, I'm raised in this family with a spiritual heritage.

I don't even know how to walk, so I picked you up.

And I drew you with my chords of kindness.

I taught you how to walk by kindness.

I drew you by my love, my everlast like, like this story of Jesus rescuing

the story of Peter transformed, like from someone who used the

sword of violence and then used the sword for the rest of his life.

the sword of the spirit to transform and to change the world.

We so often think if we have the right person in power, then the

world will be a better place.

But over and over, as you read scripture, we learn that Jesus is the only thing.

He's the prince of peace.

He's the only one that can bring peace.

Where there is divisiveness and a lack of reconciliation, and I'm sorry,

it doesn't happen through violence.

It doesn't happen through power.

It happens through weakness, and it happens through the good news of Jesus

Christ, and it happens through us following him in that message as we.

Have enemy love as we bear one another's burdens as we follow him into loving

the unlovable because he loved us.

that's what changes the world.

That's what transforms the world.

I forget who the king was, who asked for more years on his life.

Because he was a good king and people were like, that is a good prayer.

yes.

Reelect him, he's 80 something but reelect, and then he had the most

wicked son in the history of the kingdom, in that remaining years.

So like even that yes, extend that goodness, it still fails

the extension of the best of our human people who represent us.

They still fall short.

only Jesus.

And his kingdom is totally different and operates in a different way.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for your word.

Lord, we thank you that, you took the sword into your heart.

It's crazy.

The vision we get in Revelation where it says The swords coming out of your mouth.

It's just every word you say is actually the sword.

I pray we would like.

Let that hit us.

That

that when you say I say them to you, love your enemies.

Bless those supers.

Keep you.

That is the sword coming out of your mouth.

We're so quick to battle in this realm.

We're sorry for that.

Jesus, we're so quick to physical solutions that involve

the realm of men and the small little power they wield.

Lord, may we strap to us the message be good news that Jesus wins, but that he

does it through overcoming evil with good,

that he takes something like the cross, the worst event in the history of

mankind and may sit into the best moment.

The transformative moment, the pivotal moment, and our history.

And so Lord sharpen these swords.

May we not just look to use them on others, but may we use 'em on our

heart ourselves, like James says.

And may you just be glorified because when we see you as the

hero, it's exciting reading.

It's insightful, it's encouraging, it's uplifting, it's supernatural.

It's worshipful, it's adoring, it's than full of Thanksgiving.

Every verse pregnant with Thanksgiving waiting.

For eyes to read it and it to give birth into our souls.

So we thank you.

Bless this time.

Thank you that, Lord, you took the sword into your heart, the sword of

justice that we deserved, cuz there was a sword, there was destruction, there

was condemnation, there was separation, and you took it into your heart.

So that we might just know your peace.

We love you so much.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for conquering Satan sin and death.

Lord, thank you that you're our future, that it's secure.

We love you and we praise you.

And remember, your body broken in your bloodshed.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.