Let’s Talk About It – Cruise Ship or Battleship

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason and Liz Burns in Access Church in Lakeland and Bartow, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Today we are in part three of our series.

The series is called Let's Talk About It.

If you don't know what this is, every Easter we we ask our church family to give us some information.

What are some topics you'd like to hear a message on?

Usually what we do as a church is we preach a whole series of messages around one idea or one topic.

These topics are all over the place, but here's the thing if you like it, good, you ask for it.

And if you don't like it, you ask for it.

Let's talk about it, okay?

Today, to get us started, um, I had this fun memory this week.

When I was about 16 years old, I went on my first ever international missions trip with my family, and I talk about it a lot because it's so profoundly marked and impacted my life.

And we we did like a week or 10 days in the nation of Fiji, but before we went to Fiji, my parents did something awesome.

We snuck an extra three days in on the front end of the trip, and we flew from here to Sydney, Australia.

And it was an unbelievable trip, and it's such a beautiful place.

It's really it's just it's such a crazy long trip to get there, but it's unbelievable.

We saw the Sydney Opera House, and if you've never been there, it's got perfect acoustics.

A person can stand on stage and talk in a low voice, and a person in the highest rafters can hear it with perfect clarity.

It's an amazing place.

We did all kinds of fun things.

Like here's I was looking through some archives, I found some pictures.

I got to hold a koala bear, and they look really cute, but they are mean, everybody.

And um, some of you dated people like that.

And um cute, but they'll bite.

And uh I got to pet a kangaroo and coincidentally also got to eat kangaroo.

And I know that feels weird to us because we think they're cute.

They're they're considered a nuisance, and they they kind of taste like a gamey cow if you were interested in what they taste like, but I did that, everybody.

And so here's the the point of the story.

When we went, we we flew across the ocean.

It's a long, long, long flight.

I think we were in the air for 16 hours at one point, and you get there and you're exhausted, and the time difference from our time zone to Sydney, Australia, it's 14 hours ahead.

And you know what they call Australia the land down under?

It's like you feel like everything's upside down when you're there.

Your time is upside down, your equilibrium's upside down, and it takes a couple days to get used to it.

So when we flew, our flight happened to land early in the morning, and we went to our hotel, and my parents said, Okay, let's let's just get a quick nap.

Let's not like, let's not sleep, let's not sleep for eight hours.

Let's get a quick nap and then we'll get out and we'll go do some tourist stuff.

And I thought that would be cool.

Now, something you need to know about me is I don't sleep good on planes.

I envy people who sleep good on planes.

My dad falls asleep before a plane leaves, and he wakes up when the plane hits the ground.

I hate him for that.

He he says, if you had a clean conscience like I do, you would sleep fine.

And I'm like, I will punch you.

That's what I would do, okay?

Um so I don't sleep good on planes, and so we go to the hotel and I fell asleep so hard, like hard, hard.

Like if you've ever fallen asleep and you woke up and you didn't know where you were, it was like that kind of fall asleep.

And I I need you to understand one detail, and this is I just I need to say it, but I need you to not think about it, okay?

I I just like when I sleep, I I get really hot, so I just strip down to my underwear.

That's how that's how I sleep.

You you'll need to know that in a second.

And so I I fall asleep hard, hard.

I'm in a hotel, other side of the world, completely thrown off, completely exhausted.

And I think I hear my parents who are in the same room as me asking me to go get something for them.

So I stand up and I walk out of the hotel room and I hear the door behind me shut.

And when the door shuts, I wake up and realize I'm a 16-year-old standing in another continent in a hotel in my drawers all by myself.

That's what's happening, right?

I sleptwalked.

It's one of two times in my life that I can remember that I've sleptwalked, but it is the weirdest feeling.

Have you ever sleepwalked, you ever had this happen to you?

And it's like you're kind of awake, but not really awake.

It's like you're kind of cognitive, but you're not fully functioning.

That's how sleepwalking works.

Can I can I say this to you?

I think a lot of Christians in our world today, they're kind of sleepwalking their way through their spirituality.

They're kind of sleepwalking their way through their relationship with God and the world around us.

And and here's what it kind of looks like to me.

You need to understand that there is a world beyond what you can see.

According to scripture, like there is stuff we can see, there's a spectrum of color you can see, but in the same way that there's color that you can't see that's outside of the color spectrum we can see, ultraviolet and infrared, there is some spiritual things happening around you that you can't see with your natural eyes.

We're gonna talk about this today.

And here's my concern.

My concern is if you're that Christian who's just kind of sleepwalking through this life, if you're that Christian that just thinks that all that there is is all that I can see, and as long as I'm happy, healthy, and good, then everything in my life is good.

I want to tell you, you need to understand and you need to wake up.

There is another reality that you cannot see.

Best way I can describe it is this is um you ever been on a cruise?

Anybody ever been on a cruise before?

Come on, I love a cruise.

You you eat you eat breakfast, then you eat breakfast dessert, come on, then you have a mid-morning ice cream cone, then you have lunch and lunch dessert, mid-afternoon ice cream cone, dinner, dinner dessert, after dinner ice cream cone, pre-bed ice cream cone.

Anyone know what I'm talking about?

Like, if you don't gain seven pounds, you didn't do it right, everybody.

Okay, like it's fun.

And I think somewhere along the way, many of us have gotten confused about what our relationship with God and what life should look like as a follower of Jesus.

And somewhere along the way, we we've confused what it looks like.

We we think that our life is kind of like a cruise ship, and I came to tell you it's really like a battleship.

Come on, I love a cruise.

I do.

Like, like, think about the difference between a cruise and a battleship.

Okay, a cruise ship is me focused.

It's all about me and keeping me happy and giving me as many ice cream cones as I want.

A battleship is mission focused.

A cruise ship, cruise ship asks, what do I want?

But but a battleship you ask, what is my assignment?

A cruise ship, you would say, I expect to be served with all kinds of things.

But a battleship, it's I'm here to serve.

On a cruise ship, we would say success for a cruise ship, it's fun and relaxing, but a battleship success is completing the mission in front of us.

A cruise ship exists to make me comfortable, but a battleship exists to make me useful and effective.

So the question I want you to wrestle with today is in your mind, are you living a cruise ship or a battleship kind of life?

I came to tell you there is something happening outside of what you can see, there's something happening in the world outside of your perspective that you can see.

According to Scripture, there is a battle happening all around you.

Now, every Easter when we ask this question, like, what do you want to hear a message about?

We'll hear messages, we'll hear questions like, Well, what do I do when I feel like I'm under attack?

What do I do when I feel like there is this battle going on around me?

And here's the churchy term that we would use for this.

We would call that thing that people are articulating spiritual warfare.

We don't talk about this a whole lot here, but spiritual warfare is one of those topics that if you grew up in church, you either heard a lot about it or nothing about it.

Some churches, this is like everything.

That they say, like, they pray and they dismiss you, and they say, get out there and fight the good fight, fight off the demons, fight.

And it's like all they ever talk about, so it makes you feel like there's a devil behind every bush, right?

But then there's some churches who avoid the topic and never talk about it altogether.

And I just want to say, we can talk about it.

Now we don't have to live afraid of it, because scripture says, Greater is he who is in me than he who's in the world.

But we we don't have to be afraid, but we need to live aware.

We we need to realize that just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not happening.

At the end of the book of Ephesians, Paul writes this letter to a church in Ephesus.

He's writing from prison, okay, chained to a Roman guard, a Roman centurion who's wearing all the Roman guard armor.

And he writes this letter that's it's called the Crown Jewel of the New Testament, did a whole series on it a couple of years ago.

And I love this.

This is how he's ending his letter to them.

He's like, this is the stuff you need to know.

He says, Finally, end of the letter, guys.

I'm landing the plane.

Here's the stuff I need you to know.

It's kind of like this is the very end, this is what matters.

Finally, be strong in the Lord.

This is important for you to hear.

I want you to hear me on this.

You don't need to find strength in your own strength.

This isn't about you getting stronger, nothing wrong with exercising and working out.

But he says, I want you to be strong, and your strength doesn't come from you, it comes from the Lord.

Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

Then he says these two words, put on.

All throughout scripture, there's moments where God invites us to literally put something on us.

Book of Isaiah says, put on a garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness.

Like the same way you put a jacket on in the morning, you can put on praise, and if you're feeling heavy, what it's going to do is it's going to replace or lift the heaviness off of you when you put praise on.

It says, put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.

Pause here for a moment.

Four times in the seven verses we're going to read.

Paul says, This is your responsibility.

When there is spiritual warfare happening around you, you don't even have to fight because the battle doesn't even belong to you.

It belongs to God.

You can just stand up and watch this against the devil's schemes.

Now I want you to see this.

Okay, no.

A lot of Christians like this.

They quote verses like Isaiah, I think it's Isaiah 54, that say, No weapon formed against me shall prosper, right?

And that's a promise you have as a believer.

All the schemes, all the works of the enemy that are pointed at you and in your direction, they're not going to prosper.

And that's a good way to hear it.

But here's another way to interpret that verse No weapon formed against me shall prosper.

Hold up.

There's weapons formed against you.

The devil is scheming against Christians.

He wants to defeat you, distract you, do whatever he can to disarm you.

So he says, I want you to, I want you to pay attention, take your stand against the devil's schemes.

And then he goes on and he says, For our struggle is not against flesh and blood.

It's not person to person.

And then he's gonna use some like uh governmental type language, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Pause here again.

Uh the Bible uses the term heaven three different ways.

Uh the first is like the sky, the the clouds, the stars, the sun.

Those are the heavens above us.

Another way is heaven, like where God is, where we'll spend eternity in the presence of God forever and ever after this life.

And that's a beautiful picture of what is to come.

The third way is this way, the heavenly realms.

And what that is talking about is this invisible thing happening around us that we can't see.

But just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not real.

Just because you can't see it or touch it or articulate it doesn't mean it's not happening.

He says, I want you to pay attention because there's things happening in the heavenly realm.

And then he says this, he says, Therefore, and I've taught you this many times.

Anytime you see the word, therefore, you should ask, What's it?

Therefore.

Essentially, Paul is saying, Because there's this battle, this war going on around you, I want you to put on the full armor of God.

Now, when you understand this, you understand what he's saying.

Paul is literally chained to a Roman guard who is wearing like a metal breastplate, a metal helmet.

Uh, he's holding a sword, he's got things on his shins, things on his feet, and he looks at them and he's gonna say, take those physical things and explain what we can do spiritually with it.

He says, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, and I want you to see this, like, evil's gonna come at you.

Like that's that's a reality.

You may be able to do what?

Stand, not fight.

You may be able to stand your ground.

And after you have after you've done everything to stand, what do I want you to do?

Stand firm then.

Like stand and stand.

And if it wasn't clear one more time, stand firm then.

And he says, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace, Paul's just dropping bars here.

He says, in addition to all of this, take up the shield of faith which you can use to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

Take the helmet of salvation, and I'll pause here for just a moment.

There's six pieces, five of them are defensive, and then number six, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

The only one he says that is offensive at all to fight a battle is the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, which is the Bible, which I'll talk about this more in a moment, maybe, but you need to understand the only way to fight off the devil's schemes is to know the word of God.

Like you can't fight with the word of God unless you know the word of God.

Biblical scholars say there's 7,000 promises of God in the Bible.

You can't take hold of the promises of God unless you like know the promises of God.

Then he goes on.

He says, in addition to all of this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one, take the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and and then and then this is it.

And I want you to hear me.

This is how God instructs us or invites us to fight.

We don't have to fight a battle, we can literally stand firm.

Now there is a battle, there is a war happening all around us, and I want you to understand this.

Paul talks about it one other place.

In the book of 2 Corinthians, Paul writes this letter to a church in a city called Corinth, and he says this.

He says, For though we live in the world, let me kind of explain this, though though we live a flesh and blood, like what we can see, what we can touch, feel, and smell, though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.

Like we're not we're not fighting a spiritual battle with bombs and guns and bazookas and grenades, and we're not doing that.

On the contrary, he says they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

Then he explains it.

He says, We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.

And I love this line, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

We did a whole series of messages earlier this year on this verse, but uh I want you to understand two things that Paul is saying from this, okay?

There is a battle happening all around you.

We don't fight the battle in the natural.

There is a spiritual way to fight this battle, but I want you to understand two promises that we can understand from the scripture.

The first one is this the enemy of your soul will always attack you where you are vulnerable.

Like, why would he attack you in a place of your strength?

He attacks in a place of vulnerability.

Let me ask you a question.

Where do you think you're vulnerable to an attack of the enemy?

I'll give you a few examples.

This is not an exhaustive list.

Anger.

Anger becomes a foothold, an opportunity for the devil to get in and cause you to completely implode from the inside out.

Here's another one, pride.

Pride exalts yourself, but it is humility that actually leads to the life of God.

Here's one more.

Distraction.

Are you on your phone right now?

Are you like me?

Like I can't I have a hard time even watching TV without my phone in my hand.

It's like I'm distracted from my distraction.

And I think this is true.

If the devil can't defeat you, he'll just distract you.

Right?

This is what he does.

So Paul says, here's what I want you to do.

I want you to close those doors.

And then I also want you to do this.

I want you to demolish strongholds.

We've we've talked about this before, but a stronghold is it's an ancient word.

It's kind of a it's to build a protective wall around something.

And what we tend to do if we're not careful is we will allow strongholds to take place in our heart.

We will believe a lie, and then what we will do is we will build a wall around the lie to protect ourselves.

I'll give you some practical examples of this.

Um many years ago, elephant trainers realized that they could take a chain and they could wrap it around an elephant's foot and they could just chain it to something.

It didn't even have to be all that heavy.

But if an elephant was walking with a chain around it and it felt resistant, it would just stop pulling.

The thing is, an elephant is huge, it's strong.

It probably could topple over a great weight, and yet when it felt any resistance at all, it believed the lie that it was actually trapped.

And I want you to hear me on this.

This is where a lot of us tend to live our lives.

We're just afraid to take a step.

Here's another story from the real world.

In the early 2000s, there was a story that made international news.

There was a 14-year-old girl named Elizabeth Smart who was abducted from her room at night.

I don't know if you remember this story, I think it was 2002.

She was abducted from her room at night, and the whole world was watching on pins and needles to see what would happen.

And for weeks and weeks and weeks, it was the story in the news.

The person who abducted her took her out into the woods, abused her, and did all kinds of unimaginable harm to her.

And then after a certain amount of time, he moved her back to his house.

And over time, as the news kind of fell off of the story, he got more brazen.

He would go into town, he would take her shopping with him.

He would be places, and nobody knew that it was her, and she was afraid to speak up.

Everybody in the world knew, in fact, she even knew that this wasn't how it was supposed to be.

She knew that she had been abducted.

There's a story that says at one point she was in a grocery store just a few feet away from a police officer.

All she would have had to do is go to the police officer and say three words.

I'm Elizabeth Smart.

And she would have been rescued.

But she believed a lie.

And the lie limited her.

The lie was you'll never escape.

The lie this is your new reality, and she built a stronghold around it.

Long story short, if you're a person who needs the end of the story to sleep at night, later she was rescued and she's given her life to help people who are abused and who are who are abducted.

And so it's a really amazing end to the story.

But I just need you to understand if you're not careful, all of us will have some sort of stronghold in our life that limits us.

It stops us from stepping in to the destiny, the promises of God for our life.

So if we're gonna fight this fight, I want to give you some practical tools you can use.

And in your message notes, I've just got a lot of lines for you to take notes, and I want you to write some stuff down because this is one of those messages that if you don't feel like you're in a war right now, I've got good news and bad news.

The good news is it's coming, and the bad news is it's coming for you.

You you will face some stuff, okay?

So I want to give you three lists of three that every believer needs to know.

The first one is this three realities you need to believe.

Number one, you need to actually not just think this, not just intellectually know this.

I need you to believe this in your heart.

Satan is real.

And it's funny because I think a lot of us, our picture of Satan has been informed by cartoons and Saturday Night Live.

We imagine the red horns and the pitchfork and the long red tail.

That's the picture we have of the devil.

That's not what the Bible shows Satan as.

In the book of 2 Corinthians, it says it like this it says, and no wonder, for Satan himself, he masquerades, he hides as an angel of light.

Scripture tells us that Satan was an angel, beautiful, unimaginable beauty, and pride is what took him down.

And you need to understand he is real, and what he does is he lies.

It's one of my favorite verses in the Bible.

Jesus is talking in John chapter 8.

John 8 · chapter mention

He says, When he, Satan, lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

It's who he is.

He can't stop himself, it's what he does.

So here's your part in this.

You need to understand that when we believe a lie, we empower the liar.

You need to understand he's real.

How do you defeat a lie?

You drag the lie into the light of truth.

So, number one, we need to understand Satan is real.

Number two, I need everyone to understand that his goal is to destroy us, to get us off of the mission, the plan, the purpose of God, to get us thinking cruise ship instead of battleship.

Jesus is talking one time and he says this, he says, the thief, talking about Satan, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

What is Satan's intention?

He wants to steal your hope, kill your dreams, and destroy your destiny.

The verse goes on, and Jesus says, But I have come that you might have life and have it with abundance or life to the fullest.

You need to understand that God's road, God's way, will always lead to life, and the way of Satan will always lead to a road of devastation.

He's real and he wants to destroy you.

But number three, the devil responds to a higher authority.

This is important.

I need you to understand.

He responds to a higher authority.

He is a ruler, but he's not the final word.

In the book of 1 John, John says this he says, the one who is in you, talking about the power of God's Holy Spirit.

The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

So if there is the power of God living inside of you, you don't have to be subject to the power of the enemy who wants to destroy you.

That's the first list of three.

Second list of three is God's giving you some tools or some weapons you can use to fight off the work of the enemy.

Here's three weapons you can use.

Number one, this is kind of old school, by the way.

I hope you're okay with some old school preaching.

You can use the name of Jesus.

Every name has power to it.

I have three kids.

My kids have three rooms.

They think they have rooms, but they don't have three bedrooms.

I have three bedrooms that they live in.

You understand how this works, right?

And so sometimes my kids will be fighting with each other and they'll argue with each other, and they'll come to me and they'll say, Dad, tell him this, tell her this.

And when I know what the real truth is, I'll say, tell them I said to do this.

And you know what happens?

The fight ends.

Why?

Because in my home, There's power in the name of dad.

Okay.

Let me say this to you.

Every name in your life has power.

Okay, look at me, church.

If you've gone to the doctor and gotten a diagnosis, if they've said cancer or dementia or some sort of illness or sickness or disease, that's a name.

But it's not the final name.

It's a name, but it doesn't have authority.

It is a name, but according to the book of Philippians, this is Paul talking, it says, at the name of Jesus, every knee, every other name, every other power in your life, every knee should bow in heaven, on earth, and under earth.

It literally means that if you have some sort of sickness in your body, yes, that is a name, but it's not the final name.

It has to bow to the name of Jesus.

There's power in his name.

Number two, second weapon you can use is you can use the blood of Jesus.

When I was a kid, we sang, What can wash away my sins?

It's nothing but the blood of Jesus.

And I need you to understand, like this is kind of like old school churchy talk.

But when Jesus died on the cross for you, this is important for you to understand, his blood that was shed paid the price for your sins.

But the book of Isaiah prophesied that when Jesus' body was broken, when he took the stripes across his back, when the crown of thorns was pulled over his head, that when that happened for you and me, it would also give you freedom in your body, healing in your body.

The power of God wants to flow through you because of the blood of Jesus shed for us.

The book of Revelation, chapter 12.

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

Revelation is one of the most intensely beautiful books, but it is also wildly confusing.

And it says, They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.

There is power in the blood of Jesus.

Third one you need to understand.

Third weapon you can use is you can use the word of Jesus.

Jesus was talking one time in the book of John, and he said this.

He said, If if you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

I need you to understand this.

We live in a world where we've taken truth from objective to subjective.

We've taken truth from being an absolute to being something that everybody's got their own truth.

It's like, let me tell you my truth, let me tell you my story.

And listen, I need you to understand we've all got a perspective, but our perspective also has to bow at the name of Jesus.

Like there is one word, one voice that gets the final say.

And I love you, but it's not mine and it's not yours.

This week I was at CrossFit and I was working out and I got a little dizzy and a little lightheaded.

And our coach, a good friend of mine, comes to our church and he goes, bro, take a round off.

Take care of yourself.

I need you to take care of me.

You're my direct connection to Jesus.

Like, I love it, brother, but I'm not like you.

You need to know the word of God for yourself.

Are you with me?

Final list of three.

I want you to do some stuff.

And I want you to hear me.

I want you to do this every day.

Today?

Yep, today.

Tomorrow.

Yep.

Tomorrow.

For those of you in the back who are maybe not getting it, every day.

Today, tomorrow, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

Do this every day as a believer.

There's a battle happening around you you can't see, so let's let's do some stuff.

Ready?

Number one, I want you to commit yourself to God.

Think of a lot of us think we we have.

But here's the question Is there any area in your life where you're just not obeying the word of God?

It creates an open door in your life.

You need to obey.

And look, I as a pastor, it baffles me.

That God will radically change a person's life.

Save them.

Forgive them of all of their wild, evil, wicked sin.

He'll change their life.

And then it's like we just partially obey.

Here's a principle for you.

Partial obedience is disobedience.

Okay, look, look what the book of James says.

Notice the order.

Submit yourself then to God.

Okay.

God submitted means you call the shots.

I obey you.

Submit first.

Secondly, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Okay, so like this is how God's promises seem to work.

We do our part, God does his part.

It's the law of sowing and reaping.

We put God first, he takes care of his children.

This makes sense in some natural ways.

Like it would be audacious for you to pray, oh God, bless my body, heal my body, help me to lose 10 pounds.

And every day you crush the holy trinity of hamburgers, Burger King, McDonald's, and Wendy's.

Like you can't pray away your poor decisions.

Right?

Like, are you does it make sense?

People will pray things like, oh God, bless my relationships, bless my marriage, but they're sleeping around with anyone with a pulse and a heartbeat.

Makes no sense.

Oh God, would you bless my finances?

I need a financial miracle, but they refuse to give.

Like I literally was kind of praying through this message today, and I thought I wanted to challenge somebody who, if the only time you've ever given to a church at all was to get something back from it, a ticket to an event, a t-shirt, a book.

If the only time you've ever given to a church is to get something back, you've missed it altogether.

Like play by God's rules and get God's results.

Submit yourself to God, and then secondly, resist the devil and he'll flee.

Second thing I need you to do is I need you to close any open doors.

And I need you, if there's any part in your life where the devil seems to sneak in and get himself in, close it.

Look what Paul says in Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

In your anger, do not sin.

So you're gonna get angry, don't let it turn to sin.

Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.

And a lot of people teach this to mean if you're married, don't go to bed angry at your spouse.

Good advice, not what it means.

It means don't let the sun set on one season of your life where you carry unhealed, unforgiving anger from one season to the next, because here's what'll happen you'll be on I-4, the place where all anger originates.

And someone will cut you off, and you'll have a reaction that is so over the top and it makes no sense.

You'll have a kid who's sitting in a high chair eating Cheerios, and they think it's funny to take their spoon and flick all the Cheerios all over the house, and you'll explode on them as if they started World War III.

You're like, where did that come from?

It's not about the I-4 and it's not about the Cheerios, it's it's about the unforgiven anger.

Can we go back to the verse for just a moment?

He says, and and do not give the devil a foothold, because if you don't deal with anger, the devil gets in and he slams his foot in the door.

And if a person has their foot in the door, they've got leverage, they get in.

So close any open door.

Number three, final thing is this challenge you every day to confront the enemy in prayer.

What do we do?

We we use the name of Jesus.

First Peter says it like this be self-controlled and alert.

Your devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

So here's what I want you to do.

I want you to resist him.

And here's the word one more time, everybody.

Standing firm in the faith.

Paul says there is a battle being waged around you.

You can't even see it sometimes.

Sometimes you feel it, sometimes you feel like you're under attack.

I need you to know the devil is real, and his intention is to destroy or distract followers of Jesus.

But here's what I want you to understand.

Your call is to put on the full armor of God.

You don't even have to fight him off.

You're just required to stand and let God do what he does.

So can we do this, church?

Can we can we just stand?

Come on, all of our locations, would you stand?

I'm gonna pray for you, and then we're gonna worship and we're gonna celebrate some life change together.

God, give us courage to be the kind of people who don't just hear your word but have the courage to actually live it out.

God, open our eyes to the war that's happening all around us.

May we engage with what you've called us to engage with and may we stand when we feel like cowering.

God, I pray for supernatural courage to be a shot to all of our hearts today.

God, may we leave here today knowing that greater is you who is in us than he who is in the world.

We thank you, God, for it.

We trust you.

With your head still bowed and eyes still closed, church, at all of our locations.

If you're here and you don't know if you're right with God, today you you want to start following Jesus.

This moment's for you.

If this is you and you need to start or restart following Jesus, would you raise your hand right now?

Come on, this is awesome.

Thank you, thank you.

All of our locations you can respond.

Thank you in the back.

If this is you, pray this out loud with me.

Come on, church family, everybody, let's stand together and let's pray this out loud.

Everyone with all of your heart, pray it out loud.

Say, Jesus, I give you my life.

Save me, forgive me, change my life from this day forward.

I choose to follow you.

Jesus, I love you, and I give you my life for the rest of my life.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Come on, church, let's celebrate with those who made that decision.