Close the Door | Pastor Di Beals | Venture Church

Hi, and welcome to Venture Church Online. My name is

Kelsey and I'm our online campus pastor. We're so glad

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We hope that you enjoy today's series.

Good morning, Welcome to Venture this morning. If you're here

in the room, we're joining us online. If I haven't

met you, my name is Die. I'm part of the

team here at our mil Creek campus and I've been

a little low key lately because I tried to disguise

by wearing black all of the appliances I've had. But

if you didn't hear, I fell epically coming down a

mountain and broke my wrist in eight places, in my

kneecap in two and here I am. Nothing will stop

the Word of God from going forward.

My broken body will not stop it. Why why are.

We teaching break Free? That's our series that you're joining

us for. We are teaching this series because we understand

you and I have an enemy. You and I have

an enemy, and his goal is to deceive you. His

goal is to divide us. His goal is to ultimately

destroy every one of us.

And your and my ignorance of that is really not

a problem for him.

In fact, he prefers that we would be ignorant, complacent,

maybe blow it off a.

Little, maybe be weak, maybe be a little bit.

Of easy prey, because easy prey gives him easy access

to our lives. And you and I have got to

understand that with an enemy who desires to come and

take things from us, the Bible describes him as a

thief that he comes.

To steal, kill, and destroy.

With this enemy, we have got to figure out how

to close the doors in our life that we have

left open that give him access to our life, to

our families, to our marriages, to our hearts, to our peace,

to our thoughts, you name it. We leave the door open,

he gets access. Now you've probably noticed that there is

a door on stage with me. Thank you very much,

Ryan Baylis for making this prop possible for me. I

want to illustrate my illustration, and so before I use

this for all the spiritual reasons I want to use it,

I want to just use it for something that is

very visual and familiar. Years ago, our family lived in Snahomish,

and we you know, lived near woods and near Native growth.

And you know, it's kind of rural and stuff like that.

And everything in our garage was not in the big

black Costco totes with the yellow lids because they didn't

sell those yet. Everything in our garage was in cardboard boxes.

And one day I went out to the garage and

I opened a cardboard box and I noticed that the

cardboard was like kind of chewed up a little and

a little bit afraid pieces around. When I opened that box,

I found where the rodents had decided to put their

entire city. I mean, it was like ness And I'm

this is the purpose of this is not to gross.

You out, but go with me.

You know what it's like if you've had rodents in

your home. The rodents had set up their village in

my garage. And the first question is how they get in? Well,

the second question is going to be how to get

them out, But the first question is how they get in?

And you want to know what it was we left

the door open? Well, what do you mean, Well, it

was our garage. My kids were all young, and they played.

They rode their bikes like down the driveway through the

garage back up. They'd go play out in the woods.

We just left the garage open all day, and turns

out if you leave the door open, rodents can and

will take advantage of the opportunity to come in and

take up residents.

Now here's the thing. They didn't just get into the

boxes with.

Our foot po albums and my kids's baby books and

like important papers.

They got in to the insulation.

They got access to the electrical wires that live in

our garage. They got access to the cross space, which

gives them access a lot of times to.

The walls of your home.

And before you know it, you have generations of rodents

who are.

Now living in your home, and they are not easy

to get rid of.

Ultimately, to get rid of rodents, you've got to figure

out how do I close the door. I got to

keep these things out. Don't we all want to keep

rodents out of our house? I mean, that's just a

little minor example.

Many of you have.

Left a door or multiple doors open in your life

that have given our enemy access to everything that is

important to you, to your family, to your mind, to

your marriage, to your children, to your home. And we've

got to figure out how do we shut the door?

Jesus said in Matthew twenty four to forty three. If

a homeowner knew exactly when a burglar was coming, he

would keep watch and not permit his house to be

broken into, which is.

Very very no dah. And yet we.

Keep our doors unattended, very very often.

So if we have an enemy, which we.

Do, and if his goal is to have access to

your and my life, and if he's coming through the

doors we've left open, how do we close them?

Great question? Let's pray.

First, Lord, you know each of the people that are

here right now in this room and those that are

watching online. You know each of the people that are

going to listen to this in the weeks and the

months to come. You know exactly where the doors have

been left open. You know exactly the seriousness of the situation.

And you know that the ways that we lie to

ourselves and tell ourselves it's not that big of a deal,

it's not going to do that much damage. I got control,

or we just are completely ignorant and unaware. So Lord,

I'm asking right now, I'm asking that you sound the

alarm by your spirit, that our hearts would stand at attention,

that our minds would recognize the danger and you would

help us to be sensitive to how you would direct

us in your name.

Amen, Well, we have an enemy.

One.

Peter five eight says, stay alert, watch out for your

great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion,

seeking for someone to devour. That's who we're dealing with.

Last year we did a series in depth through the

entire book of Genesis, and that was a great series.

I just want to revisit one chapter in Genesis, So

if you have a Bible, you can turn Genesis four.

I'm just going to kind of recap this story.

If you don't have your Bible, we'll throw some verses

up there for you to follow along. But Genesis chapter

four tells the stories of two brothers, Cain and Abel.

These are the kids of the first humans. They're the

kids of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and Verse

three tells us that both boys brought sacrifices to the Lord. Abel,

who was a shepherd, scripture tells us brought his best

from the flocks, and Cain, a farmer. Scripture tells us

brought some of his crops. Verses four and five say

the Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering,

But on Cain and his offering, he did not look

with favor. So Cain was very angry and his face

was downcast. Now we don't know for sure why the

Lord didn't accept Cain's offering.

We don't know for sure.

I would like to propose to you there was a

heart issue involved. In fact, I hold to the belief

that Cain wasn't rejected because of his offering, but his

offering was rejected because of Cain. That's not our focus

for today. We need to pay attention instead to what

happens next. Look with me at verses six and seven,

where it says, then the Lord said to Cain, why

are you angry? Why is your face downcast? Sin is

crouching at your door. It desires to have you, but

you must rule over it. God was warning Cain explicitly

that Sin was crouching right outside of his door, crouching

that idea, it's like a beastlike characteristic, and it means

that the legs of this beastlike character are curled up

underneath it in preparation of pouncing. So our enemy is

described as being right outside of our door, hunting, ready

to pounce. In a crouched position, ready to take advantage.

Ready to hunt. Right outside of our.

Door is this Kin's literal door of his house, like

he's you know, in his bedroom playing video games. And

the enemy is no, This is a spiritual door. It's

a dangerous thing. That sin is right outside of his heart,

right outside of his mind, right outside of the choices

he's about to make. This is God's warning and unfortunately

Kine did not heed the warning. And if you know

the story, you know instead his anger and his jealousy

drove him to murder his brother.

This is a big jump.

He goes from anger and jealousy to murder, and his

ruined life is the consequences of him not shutting the door.

The enemy is Kyle, ching right outside of your door too,

right outside of your marriage, right right outside of your kids,

right outside of your heart, right outside of your choices,

your thoughts, your business, your dreams, your hopes, your future,

your peace.

He's right outside the door. That's the alarm.

And if we leave the door open, we have granted

him access to come on in, just like the rodents

that come and take up residents in our homes.

All he needs is an open door.

Now, let's talk about his tactics because I really want

to break this down for us. I want this to

be seared into our minds, like to the point where

every door you open, which is multiple a day, you

are thinking, is the door open in my life? Let's

understand the tactics when we leave the door open. So

number one, here's the enemy's tactics. First, we leave the

door open. An open door. Okay, if you're taking notes now,

if you don't know this, on our What's Next page

of our app, we actually have a note taking button

you can push and you can fill in the notes

and then it will email it to you, which is awesome.

I encourage you to take notes.

If you've got a journal, or you've got a note

app on your phone, any of those will work. So

if you're taking notes, write this down. An open door

is an opportunity.

Say that with me.

An open door is an opportunity. It's the entry point

to your life. If we're talking about the rodents, this

is where the rodents find access to the home. And

if you know anything about rodents, you know all they

need is this time.

It doesn't matter. This is open. This is also open.

What all they need is this tiny little sliver of space,

and they can take access.

You know this, right.

A rodent can squash itself down flat and squeeze wide.

And an open door is an open door. And often

open doors start small, These little opportunity things.

In our lives start off small.

For Cain, it was anger and jealousy, like in the

grand scheme of his life, or these the biggest things

that he could be wrong in his life? Probably not.

But all the enemy needs is an open door. And

Cain's open door was his anger and his jealousy. But

they are our whole host of open door opportunities in

your life and my life, And for the sake of time,

I'm gonna lump them into some big categories for us

in our venture U classes that start this week. So

Wednesday night we have a class called Breaking Strongholds and

we're gonna deep dive into these. So if you'd like

to learn more, I encourage you to join us on

Wednesday night. But let's get a couple of big categories

of open doors to our enemy.

Ready, Number one? Sin?

I mean, yes, of course, we all can nod our

heads and go yeah, Sin.

Not a great thing. We're talking specifically.

Known, repeated, sin known and repeated. These are violations of

the law. Have you read the Ten Commandments lately? I

mean those are pretty basic. Most of us know don't merge,

but did you know don't commit adultery is in there?

Do you know that? Don't put anything before your God

is in there? God is God, He alone is gone.

Do you know that with our mouth if we talk

negatively or we dishonor God with our mouth, that's in

the Ten Commandments. These are big deals. So they feel like, okay,

maybe not that big of a deal. Most of us

are like, yeah, okay, I'm not doing the big ones.

Do you know jealousy is in the Ten Commandments? Coveting

what your neighbor has? Okay, So these are these unresolved

Sins create an open door. And what's an open door

an opportunity. It's an entry point into your life, just

as it was for Cain. First John three six says,

no one who lives in him in Jesus keeps on sinning. Okay,

is this talking about perfection? Like nobody who knows Jesus

ever makes a mistake.

Of course not.

But when we make a mistake, when we sin, we

are too repent. We are too confess that before Jesus

and realign ourselves to him. When we don't, when we rebel,

when we keep the door propped open, we've created an

entry point for our enemy.

So we have to be vigilant. So number one is sin.

Second kind of an open door, big category unchecked heart issues.

Unchecked heart issues tewod Corinthians two eleven. Paul urges the

church to forgive why so that Satan might not outwit us,

for we are not unaware of his schemes. This means

your unforgiveness is used by your enemy to outwit you.

It is a scheme.

It's an open door. Did you know that your anger

is also an open door? Ephesians four to twenty six.

Paul warns, in your anger, do not sin, and do

not give the devil a foothold in your anger.

Don't give a I'm a foothold.

Now.

We're going to talk about footholds more specifically in just

a moment, but for now, please understand your anger, as

justified as you feel it might be, is an entry

point for the enemy.

It's an unchecked heart issue. So is your.

Bitterness and pride, rebellion hardheartedness, greed, jealousy, unchecked heart issues leave.

The door propped, open access entry point.

So number one is sin, number two is unchecked heart issues,

and number three is compromised. But I'm going to actually

illustrate that a little better than the word compromise and say,

treating unholy things as harmless. I think that really specifies

it for us. There's a very prominent Catholic priest named

Father Carlos Martin's. This is how he describes this category.

He says, these are practices that often disguise themselves as harmless,

the things that seem like it's not that big a deal.

I could stop.

It's probably not great, but I could stop doing that soon.

I've got control over it. No one needs to know

about it. Pornography, substance use or abuse that often leads

to some sort of an impaired judgment that leads to

often an open door to addiction. How about pagan or

a cult or new age media or entertainment. This could

be as extreme as witchcraft. It could be as what

seems harmless as a Ouiji board, which was a big

deal when I was a kid, Maybe not so much now. Astrology, horoscopes, psychics, mediums,

tarot cards, meditation to anybody other than the One True God,

Big g. This can include more extremes. This could include

things like, and I'll call it covenant or agreement with evil?

Well what is what is that?

A covenant in this context is some kind of a

union or agreement or promise or packed that gives evil

power some kind of ground in your life.

This could be a cult practices.

This could be witchcraft, could be you know, like good witchcraft,

white witchcraft.

Whatever could be.

Divination, could be any kind of spiritual activity that is

away from God or in defiance of God, that invites

and consents to and gives access to the enemy through

the door into our lives. So we have sin, we

have unchecked heart issues, we have compromise or treating unholy

things as harmless, and number four unresolved trauma now emotional

or psychological trauma. While it is not sinful in and

of itself, because often this is trauma that has been

done to you that you could not prevent or do

anything about. So you did not sin having something bad

happen to you.

But if that is not.

Surrendered to the Lord, it can quickly become an unchecked

heart issue. That's where unforgiveness and anger and bitterness and

hatred and a desire for vengeance all those things love

to thrive in unresolved trauma.

And while this is.

An incredibly, probably too simplified list, and while I am

in no way intending to make you fearful, that's not

the point. It is meant as a wake up call.

It is an alarm that we sound. I want you

to hear me say, we can't play around with this,

playing around with this stuff, playing around the door being

a jar. If the stakes are too high, your life

is at risk. Your spiritual life is at risk, Your

family is at risk, Your children and their children are

at risk. When we don't take this seriously, I mean

the cost. Don't you know that if you've found yourself

in a place in your life where you're paying a

high price for something and you look back at the former,

you you wish you could tell the former you don't

be dumb. I mean, don't do it to begin with,

but at least get it right as soon as possible.

But instead we dig our heels in and say it's

just not that big of a deal.

I don't want anyone to know, and the stakes are

so high.

Nurturing anger or unforgiveness, it's an open door. Dabbling around

with a psychic just because it's funny is an open door.

Secretly looking at porn or engaging.

In sexual activity outside of marriage. It's an open door.

Rebelling against God being hardhearted, crossing your arm, saying, oh,

I can just be prideful.

I don't need any help. I don't.

I'll save praying to God for like the big things,

like if I get cancer or something like. All of

these are open doors for the enemy to just step

right inside. The problem is the open door isn't where

he stops. Open door is number one, but the next

comes a foothold. And if you're taking notes, where an

open door is an opportunity, a foothold is an advantageous position.

An advantageous position. This is where the rodents in our

rodent example, have now gotten inside of your home and

they are beginning to gather their nest making materials. They're

already doing damage because they're tearing things apart in order

to gather their nest making materials. This a foothold is

a small area of influence or control that the enemy

in this case, spiritually gains inside of your life. The

enemy has crossed the battle line. Okay, let's go back

to our door here. An open door, we know is

an opportunity. It's the access point. But when we do

not close this door and we just think it's not

that big of a deal, the enemy steps across the

threshold into your home and into your life, and into

your mind and into your peace and into your relationships,

and he builds a camp over here. He's got an

advantageous position because now he's.

Fighting you from the inside.

Now he's got turf.

I like the word turf. You've given him the turf.

He didn't get to get in there and just steal

it from you without you letting him steal it. He's

gained access and he's fighting from the inside. I know

that most of us haven't been in any kind of combat,

but if you've been in combat, you would understand this.

But I think we're all smart enough to understand the

picture here. It's hard enough to fight an enemy that's.

Outside your door. But you have a door, you.

Shut it once the enemy is on your side. How

do you fight something that is behind you and next

to you and in front of you.

He's surrounded you on all sides.

That's what happens when you and I allow a foothold

to be developed. When Paul said in Ephesians four twenty seven,

which we referenced a minute ago, when he said not

to give the devil a foothold, the Greek word he

used is tapos and it literally means place, or I'll

use my word turf, Paul.

Saying, don't give your enemy turf.

Don't leave the door open so he can come in

and start building himself a nice, cushy place to live

on your.

Side of the door. And that's what we do. When

we leave the door open, we give him the advantage.

But he doesn't stop there. He doesn't stop with just

setting up a foothold. He goes on and he builds

a stronghold. Now we have a graphic to represent this.

I ask chat GPT to make me this graphic. And

while this graphic is I think too playful in its colors,

and the stronghold looks like a sand castle or a

fun place to go, so maybe it's missing a little

bit of the somber tone that it needs. I want

you to understand what it represents. So it's going to

stay there for a couple of minutes so that you

can really get this ingrained in your mind. Where an

open door is an opportunity and a foothold is an

advantageous position. A stronghold is a fortified area.

Fortified. I mean it's in the name a strong hold.

This is where the rodents do their greatest damage in

our rodent illustration, because they make their nest bigger and

bigger and bigger. They of course do more damage in

order to make their nest bigger and bigger and bigger.

They even endanger our health the more that they live.

And you know, they're droppings, they're urine, they have babies

in your heart. I mean, they do a lot of

damage and endanger our health. A stronghold, spiritually speaking, is

a fortified area in your mind, in your heart, in

your family and your children, in your home and your relationships,

and catch that it's built on the turf you gave over.

It's where an open door and giving just a little

bit of ground has become an entire established pattern of

thinking and beha behavior. It's where a little bit of

dabbling has now become who you are. Two Corinthians ten

four and five describes strongholds with words like this, arguments

and rebellious thoughts that are set up against God, that

is set up against God on your turf, behind your door,

in your family, in your heart, and in your life,

and you let the enemy build it when you don't

address it, it doesn't go away.

Every time you engage in any kind.

Of behavior that lets that stay there, it just gets

another brick added to it to make it bigger. It

just expands in territory. I like this idea. I hate

this idea actually, but I like how it makes our

brains understand that repeated, ongoing behavior.

That builds that fortress. It's where as sin.

Becomes a habit becomes bondage.

Let me use some actual examples.

It's where unforgiveness becomes bitterness. That's the foothold becomes the

stronghold of hatred.

Do you see the progression open door lust.

Foothold, repeated indulgence, stronghold addiction, open door believing I'm worthless.

Maybe I even say it out loud to myself. I'm worthless,

No one cares. Foothold chronic shame, isolation, stronghold, self destructive behavior.

Each time we agree with the lie, we protect the sin,

we turn our head and ignore it, we engage in

it again.

We're just adding another brick.

I know this is really serious, and maybe I've come

on too strong this morning.

I don't think I have. I think it's the truth.

I don't just.

Think you need to hear it. I think I need

to hear it. I think we all need to hear it.

I think we need to we need to actually say

I'm done messing around with this. I'm done messing around.

But I also want to give you hope, because if

I just leave it here, it feels pretty bad. It

feels like, well, it's too late, and it's not. It's

not too late. So now we go back to let's

go back to the original question. If it's true that

an open door gives the enemy access to build a

foothold and then build a stronghold, how do we close

the door all the way?

How do we close it all the way?

I'm gonna take you through a quick little exercise and

then we're actually gonna do it together.

And this is.

Indepthly described on our What's Next page, so I encourage

you to visit there. We will also do this in

our Breaking Strongholds class on Wednesday night.

This is just one way to line it out.

There's probably lots of ways you can do this, but

I'm gonna walk us through what I call the five rs,

and our discipleship team kind of collaborated and work together

on this, So this isn't just me, but these are

the five rs. This is how we're gonna deal with

closing the door. I'm gonna explain them, and then we're

gonna do them. Number One repent. This is where we

call the sin what it is. This is where we say,

forgive me God that I left the door open, Forgive

me God that I allowed this stuff to come and

take up residence in my life.

I call it what it is.

It is not holy, it is evil, or it is sinful,

or it is both. And I repent, which means I

turned from it. Number two Actually, and first John one

nine says, if we confess our sin faithful, he's going

to forgive us of our sin. He's going to cleanse

us from it, so we repent. Number two we renounce Luke.

Chapter ten, Jesus gives his followers, and that's not the

only place in scripture, but he gives his followers authority

over the enemy, authority. And when we renounce, we are

canceling the permission with the authority that.

God has given us to.

We've canceled the permission we've given to the enemy to

take ground, and we are now saying, you can't have

that ground anymore. By the power of God and the

blood of Jesus Christ shed for me, you can't have

that turf anymore.

Number three is rebuke. We rebuke the enemy.

Not with our own strength, but with the strength that's

been given to us by Jesus Christ, with his authority.

When he died and was buried and was resurrected, he

conquered death, hell and the grave. He conquered our sin.

And when we align ourselves with him, we get to say, devil,

you don't get to come and take that part of

my life. You don't get to take my piece. You

don't get to inhabit my thoughts that are become anxious

and sinful and are constantly focused on anger or you know,

getting revenge, or whatever it might be.

We rebuke. Isaiah fifty four.

Or seventeen reminds us no weapon formed against us will

prosper well if we stand on our own. Yes, the

weapons can prosper, we align ourselves with Jesus. No weapon

prospers against us. So number one is repent. Number two renounced,

Number three, rebuke number four, Resist James.

Chapter four, verse.

Seven says, resist the devil and he will flee. Resist

the devil and he will flee. One of the young

women that I've been discipling for a little while now,

she helps me teach a couple of adventure Yew classes.

She was just saying in our class two weeks ago,

she was saying, I quoted that verse so often that

it was like almost hilarious.

Like I'm sitting at home and I'm like.

Jesus, you said, if I resist the devil, he will flee.

He must flee.

Like that's how serious we have to get about it.

We get to say, no, I'm shutting the door. You

don't have access anymore. You don't get to come in

and take that turf anymore. I'm standing against you. This

is where we talked about a couple of weeks ago.

God has given us weapons for spiritual warfare.

We use those weapons.

We are actively resisting the enemy of our souls. And

when we make mistakes, we are quick to repent and

we start this process over. And the fifth one is receive.

This is where we say, Spirit of the living Gog.

Where all of that turf had junk built on it,

and now it's gone.

I ask you to come.

Rushing in and to breathe new life and to fill

me with your spirit. I receive your forgiveness, Lord Jesus,

Thank you, Thank you for the work you did on

the cross. And I receive your spirit, who empowers.

Me to fight against the enemy. We need the Holy Spirit.

We're not strong enough on our own, so we asked

the Spirit to fill us. In just a moment, we're

going to pray this together. But before I close, I

do have to go back to the rodents for just

a minute, because this bothered me all this week. While

I was thinking about it. It was like I just

left a little you know when you watch a movie

and there's like.

A plot piece that's hanging there.

I couldn't leave this hanging because in my house, when

when we actually closed the door and that keeps the

rodents from coming in, we still have to get rid

of all the rodents that are inside. Right, And it's

not just the rodents themselves, Like Brandon wanted me to

tell you that in one day he killed seven rodents,

that was his record. But also they were in my

car because my car was parked in the garage. My

car was infested with rodents. And you know what rodents

leave behind, droppings like after birth from having babies. I know, gross, right,

They've left behind pieces of insulation and pieces of wire.

You might have to spend a lot of money to

have new vapor barrier paper put in your crawl space

because they've torn that up like they do a ton

of damage.

Okay, So if you are sitting.

Here and you're like, okay, diet in a minute, I

want to pray with you that I can shut this

door in my life and we're gonna we're gonna evict

all of the rodents. There's still the damage that they've done.

There's still maybe you need to ask for forgiveness from somebody.

Maybe you maybe you need to actively go to somebody

and say I forgive you. Maybe you need to be.

Held accountable and be honest about the junk you've allowed

into your life for the first time ever or in years.

That is how we get rid of the leftovers. The debris,

the damage. There's work to be done when we need accountability.

It was never meant for us to figure this all

out on our own. So we need each other. Maybe

not every person in this room, but you need somebody

to help you work through the process of cleaning up

the mess that's been left behind.

You agree with that, all right?

I'm going to ask you if you will stand to

your feet with me, if you'll bow your heads. If

you're watching online, please join us by your heads, because

I want to actively help you close the door, which

is going to require your response. I mean, yeah, you

could secretly sit back there in your seat and maybe

no one ever knows. I should really think that we

got to take this stuff seriously. So I'm going to

say a quick prayer and then I'm going to ask

you to respond.

Would you join me? God right now, stir hearts.

I pray that there's like a leaping in the hearts

of the people in this room and online at the need.

To respond to this message. None of us is above

this happening, none of us.

We are all susceptible if we leave the door open

to the enemy taking ground in our lives, and we.

Don't want him to have ground in our lives. So

stir our hearts to respond right there with your heads bowed.

If you need to respond to this, if you need

to say, yep, I need I need to pray through

those ours, would you just raise your hand across this room.

Great.

I'm gonna have Megan sing for just a minute here,

and I'm going.

To ask you to be bold.

I'm gonna ask you to come to the front so

we can pray together. I'm gonna ask you to step out.

This is a step number one. You can start moving.

Go ahead, because when you have, something has to break.

So tear down every leg and said the things right.

Because when you come on, if you have an open door,

now's your now's.

Your chances to break. No shame, no condemnation, just.

Honesty has to break.

Bring you.

Something has to break. I feel it in this.

Worm plice feel.

Because when you have, something has to break.

All right, before we hold on, hold on, Magan, before

we go any further, I'm going to honor those of

you that took a step for your courage. I'm gonna

honor you for your seriousness at taking what the enemy

wants to.

Do in your life seriously.

And you might be in the room and you're like,

you know what, I'm walking with Jesus right now. Awesome,

we need your help, Like if you can help us

by just praying for those who are around the room that

are still struggling with responding. But I'm just gonna say

you have another thirty seconds here. I'm gonna ask you

to be bold and step out of your seat. So

everyone with your head's bowed, would you just agree with me?

Lord?

There are more, There are more who don't want to

admit or face the fact that they left.

The door open.

It even could be a door of apathy or neglect

of their relationship with you.

Maybe they don't know you.

Maybe they're like, I don't even know if I've left

the door open because this is my first time ever

in church. We invite you to respond, So draw draw

people to yourself, Lord, draw people to yourself. You can

continue to move while we pray. Wait, we must have

step forward. If our steps fill in the space, make

room great. There's space if you want to keep coming

even while I'm praying. If you want to keep coming,

I'm going to pray, and I'm going to ask you

to repeat a few things after me. There's power in

you actually verbalizing these things as well. So would you

join me and all around this room. It won't hurt

to pray these prayers all around this room.

So let's first.

Say, Jesus, I repent, Jesus, I admit I've sinned, and

I turn wholeheartedly to you.

Thank you that you forgive me. Okay, here we go, and.

I renounce the turf I have given to the enemy.

I take back the permission I gave him, and I

surrender my life to you, Jesus. Next, we rebuke the

enemy of our soul. I rebuked the enemy of my soul.

Come on, I rebuke you. You do not have access

to my life.

Command therefore, my family, Thank you Jesus. And now.

We resist the enemy. I resist the enemy, I resist

his ploise against me. I resist temptation, and Jesus, I

choose to stay close to you. And now just say simply,

I receive. Allow me to pray over you, Spirit of

the Living God. Would you pour fresh on each of

these people who have said I'm shutting the door.

As we work hard.

To evict what we've allowed in, as we've canceled the authority,

we've taken back the turf, and now we've shut the door.

Lord, I pray, fill our lives, fill our minds, fill

our marriages, fill our homes, fill our children's with your presence,

with your power, with your peace.

Bring healing for past herds, Bring healing.

Where there's been unforgiveness.

Allow us to release that anger and instead find.

Such love that is not from ourselves.

So God, we receive your forgiveness, and we receive your spirit.

Thank you that your spirit is how we fight the enemy,

and we.

Choose to keep the door closed. It's in your name

we've prayed. Amen.

I'm just gonna let Megan sing for another minute or two. Here,

all across this room you're either worshiping or you're just

asking God to help protect your heart.

To believe you give me too. I believe that you

will do it right now.

So then has sur broke? So then has sur broak

crying out and your name, So then has a break,

and so then have supreak.

So then I spreak.

Fry knowing your name. So then a surprise, how believe

to leave me thrown? Have believe you give me choin,

have believe that you are doing right now. So then

has a break. I believe you leave me throwing have

believe you give me joy, Happilah and the jow up

dw son surprede. So then has supride crying in your

holy name.

So then ha supread? So there has supread?

So that hass to pray crying ell annual name. Jeez,

something has to break.

I'm gonna invite up all of our prayer workers up front.

If you need prayer for anything, they are here available

for you. We want to thank you for coming Adventure

and come tomorrow night six o'clock. We are believing that

strongholds will fall, So thank.

You guys for coming.

We'll see you next week.

If you need.

Prayer, our prayer workers will.

Be up here ready to pray for you.

Thank you again for joining us. If you enjoy today's service,

go ahead and subscribe to our channel so you can

see future messages. If you'd like to learn more about

Venture Church, you can click the linkless in our bio.

We hope to see you again.