Conversation - with Pastor Robby and Pastor Jared - Seeing the Invisible - Overcomers - Week 5

Welcome to the Church of the Lakes Kingdom Conversations podcast.

At Church of the Lakes, our mission is connecting all to Christ to become healthy in God and courageous in love.

In 2026, we're emphasizing a kingdom mindset in all of our ministries and missions by being more like Jesus and countercultural in our living.

Today's podcast dives deeper into our current sermon series, Overcomers, a study of the book of Revelation.

Join Pastor Jared and Pastor Robbie as they talk about trusting in Jesus who has overcome and claiming that hope and strength as followers of the King.

Be blessed.

Welcome to another Kingdom Conversation.

I'm Pastor Robbie Strack, and today we're working through our study once again on the book of Revelation that we're calling Overcomers.

And this week we are diving deeper into Revelation chapter 12, where perhaps we're seeing the birth narrative of Jesus in a totally new light.

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

And really the overarching theme for today's podcast is seeing the invisible.

That is the fact that there is a cosmic battle, and it's boiling under the surface of all of our lives and everything that we do, a battle that is only able to be won through the blessed blood of Christ and through the power of our Lord.

So to help us unravel Revelation 12, the theology, the application points a little deeper than in its sermon itself, as Pastor Jared Pre-say.

How are you doing, Jared?

I'm doing well, looking forward to this uh discussion today.

Yeah, we're going to get a little bit uh uh deeper into a vision of John uh that we see given to us, inspired by the Holy Spirit.

And uh I think we both concluded in our examination of Revelation 12 that point blank, people are not the enemy.

Rather, we read about a dragon who is depicted as Satan, um, or Satan depicted as a dragon, I should say, uh, which we highlighted uh really emphasizes the spiritual forces of wickedness that Paul writes about in Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

So, my question to you to start with: how does that concept change the way that we understand our relationships with others?

If people are not the enemy, although people do hurt us and oppose us and disagree with us, how does realizing that it's Satan and the spiritual forces of wickedness uh that we're really battling against?

I I thought we kind of talked about this in our Kingdom Relationship series, but I thought it would be good to kind of refresh our thoughts on that again.

So, what says you, Jared?

Yeah, thank you.

Uh, you know, I think Revelation 12 does give us an incredible, uh uh incredibly re important reframing of of that idea.

Okay.

Uh, you know, there is an enemy, uh, but the person standing in front of you is not necessarily that enemy.

Okay.

Uh, you know, reminding uh from the sermon, you know, we mentioned that Paul says in Ephesians that Ephesians 6, our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities of darkness.

Now, that doesn't mean people don't hurt us, as you said, sin against us, manipulate or oppose us.

Absolutely.

We know that reality too.

And they certainly can and will.

Um, but it doesn't it doesn't mean that we shouldn't establish boundaries or confront sin.

Okay.

Right?

Uh but it does mean that Christians have to learn to look beneath the conflict.

Uh example, uh, if I make you my enemy, then the goal becomes defeating you, right?

But if I recognize that Satan is the actual enemy that I'm contending with, suddenly my goal towards any type of uh rift in our relationship, it isn't to, again, defeat you, but it's to remain toward a redemptive ending.

To me, that's huge.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I can disagree with you but not dehumanize you.

I can confront you without condemning you, I can establish boundaries without hatred, I can speak truth without cruelty, I can pray for someone who is actively opposing me, because again, there's a battle beneath the battle, and that really is the the ultimate enemy uh that we are contending with.

And I think that's exactly what Jesus does at the cross.

Uh, you know, from the cross with uh the people who you know voted to crucify him, he looks down and says, Father, forgive them, right?

But they know not what they do.

To me, that's that's really encapsulates kingdom living.

Okay.

Uh we fight evil without becoming evil toward the people that are caught up in it.

Okay.

Right?

Um, and I that's again the battle beneath the battle.

Sure.

Pose evil, fight evil, uh, but do so without becoming evil yourself, uh toward the people that are caught up maybe in the evil act.

Well, thanks, Jared.

So that means we need to turn our focus to the real enemy.

And we highlighted um in our sermons individually that the enemy's tactics are typically subtler than some might recognize.

He uses things like deception or accusations, divisions, isolation, and you talked about wonderfully all these little whispers and lies that that come out from from Satan.

Now, from a Wesleyan perspective, how do these things interfere with what we kind of talked about last week, with God's work of sanctifying grace in our lives?

Because certainly there's going to be a conflict there, right?

In corruption.

Yeah, definitely.

Uh just go back to what is sanctifying grace.

It it's uh in my mind, sanctifying grace is God's ongoing work of just making us holy as he is holy.

Uh, it's restoring the image of God in us and then forming the character of Christ within us.

Uh Satan, this is the cool reality of it all.

When you're in Christ, Satan cannot undo the victory of Jesus.

Oh, okay.

What does that mean?

Uh what that means is because he can't undo the victory of Jesus, his strategy is to resist, um, to get us to resist the transforming work of grace.

Ooh, okay.

So uh give some examples of tactics.

Uh, deception, again, that's one of the tactics of the enemy, makes us believe something contrary to God's truth.

Um, I'm worthless.

Well, that's not true.

Um my greatest identity marker is you name it.

Uh maybe a mistake I made or the job I held.

That's not true.

Yeah you know, so on and so forth.

Another tactic of the enemy is temptation.

Right?

It invites us to satisfy uh here, there's a legitimate desire in an illegitimate way.

That's temptation.

Um example of that, we could come up with one.

Um you know, eating is a necessity to our lives, but sometimes we're tempted not to eat just a few handfuls of chips from the bag, the entire bag.

Right.

Right now we've fallen into the sin of gluttony.

And and and I find it interesting that we see Jesus after he's baptized get tempted immediately into the wilderness.

Of course, with physical nourishment from Satan, but also with something like power.

Do you think power could apply as a temptation?

Very much so.

Yeah.

Like you know, we're gonna be talking a lot about leadership next year, but influence.

You know, you you're uh given a certain level of influence over specific people, you can you know, you can take advantage of that influence.

You can, right?

Right, to manipulate and to to wield power over them.

So that's another tactic.

Accusation, right?

Uh Satan wants to keep us trapped in shame uh instead of receiving grace.

Oh wow.

So once again, to emphasize this, like shame is not a weapon that or guilt is not a weapon used by our Lord, it's used by the enemy.

Definitely shame.

Yeah.

I I think guilt is um could be a motif motivator to chain that doesn't keep us uh trapped or or paralyzed in in our mistakes.

Um, you know, we're we're we're guilty of sinning against our God.

We are uh that needs to move us towards accepting Christ's free gift at the cross of his blood to save.

But then if guilt can very quickly turn into shame.

Because now it's not something I've done, it's some someone I am.

Okay, okay.

And that that's where the say that's where the devil wants to destroy.

So that's where the dividing line is on that.

Okay.

I think so.

Also division, right?

Satan wants to destroy the relationships God often uses to form us.

I talked a lot about division uh in that sermon, and how if if the devil, if he can successfully get us to be pitted against each other, all he has to do is sit back and watch the movie unfold.

Doesn't even have to get in there and get involved, right?

We're doing his work for him.

I laugh because we have such an us versus them mentality currently in our culture.

And the church needs to stop that.

We need to step up and be a voice of reason in the midst of that uh that conversation.

Well, speaking of voices, you know, you really emphasize also in your sermon that of course there's these whispers from the accuser throwing, you're not good enough, so on and so forth.

But you challenged us with a question I'd like to revisit, if that's okay with you.

Please.

You asked us, what voice have we been listening to lately?

So, how can we discern the difference between the accusing voice of the enemy, our own sinful desires, versus the conviction of the Holy Spirit?

How do we decipher what voices maybe we should just simply listen to?

I I love that question that you you prepped me with before this podcast.

The simplest distinction I can make is that accusations drive us away from Jesus.

Conviction draws us toward Jesus.

So the enemy is going to say something like this look what you did.

This is who you are.

You're a failure, God is finished with you.

That's accusation again that leads us away from Jesus.

Holy Spirit, on the other hand, will say things like this This is sin.

It's not good, but to get rid of it, you have to bring it to the light because Jesus has something better for you.

Therefore, I want to encourage you to come home.

Ooh, bringing it to the light.

I mean, like by keeping it hidden, that means we're giving it power over us.

Is that is that how I should interpret that?

Very much, yeah.

Yeah.

Um I I think the the things of the devil grow in darkness.

We can just expose them.

Um the light can can sanctify us, you know, and pull pull the temptation away from allowing that thing to be what defines us or what brings us shame.

So should we wear it around our neck like a badge of honor, though?

Um whatever we fell into and that have found victory.

To bring into the light.

Is that what you mean by that?

Yeah, well, that you know, it doesn't have to necessarily be you know, I'm hoping people I don't think it's a safe space for people to come up on a Sunday morning and just confess their sin.

Yeah.

Um I'm obviously asking tongue in cheek.

Yeah, you are, I know you are.

Um, but but there needs to be there needs to be accountability in people's lives.

Okay.

They have people that they feel safe with, that they can be vulnerable and transparent with.

Because the enemy, what the enemy wants to do when we sin, our our our our fleshly reaction when we sin is to draw back from community.

Okay.

It's to isolate.

And that that's where the devil wants us, because that's where he can do his best work in us.

Um but when we when we resist that temptation to withdraw and instead press into community, bring things to the light, it takes all the power away from the devil.

Uh and we actually have put ourselves now in a context where we can not only be forgiven but heal and gain a victory over whatever it is the devil is trying to use to to keep us down, to keep us away from the God who creates, redeems, and sustains.

Um Yeah.

I I I think with that question also we gotta remember, you know, we I tell people all the time we have three great enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Okay.

And sometimes our flesh betrays us.

Um I'm thinking of James, you know, is when you're tempted, uh dragged away by your own evil desires and enticed.

So so not all sinful thought is Satan whispering directly in our ear.

Sometimes the enemy, what he'll do is explore exploit, excuse me, desires already disordered within us.

Okay.

Um, if that makes sense.

So a helpful test in my mind is when it comes to discerning the different voices or accusations or convictions.

Does this voice agree with scripture?

The lies of the enemy emphatically know they don't agree with scripture, but the Holy Spirit's voice does.

Okay.

Uh does it lead toward Christ or away from him, which we already said?

Does it produce repentance in me, or does it produce hopelessness in me?

Um, these are ways again to discern the voices.

Wow, that last one's really relevant, I think.

Does it produce repentance or hopelessness?

And a lot of you right in in today's culture in America, there's a lot of hopeless people out there, right?

Uh and does it expose a specific sin, or does it the voice condemn my entire identity?

That's a really big one.

So again, the Holy Spirit rule one is wonderfully specific.

Uh, this was sinful what you did.

You need to confess it, surrender it, and less change.

The accuser is just more sweeping in general.

You're worthless, you'll never change.

Why even try?

So he's not giving specific issues that that you you know have stumbled in into.

He's making sweeping generalizations in a negative way about your identity and who you are.

Uh conviction says, Come to Jesus, condemnation says hide from Jesus.

Okay.

And that's going back to the Satan wants us to isolate one from another.

Man, we see that in Genesis 3 right away.

Oh my gosh, right?

They sin and they realize they're naked.

What do they do when they hear Jesus or the God walking in the garden?

They hide.

You know?

Um tragic moment.

Yeah.

But it's a moment that plays over and over and over in the lives of many, many human beings.

Yeah, throughout all times.

Yeah.

Um, well, Jared, you know, uh, we are calling this series, spoiler alert, overcomers.

And actually, I kinda I love the phrase that you've been, and it's it's from uh um, you know, the resource we've been using through Matt Chandler, I believe.

It's his phrase, you don't fight for victory, you we fight from victory.

Or in other words, you know, Jesus overcomes, so we through him also are overcomers.

So in light of our conversation so far today, how how do we hold that truth together and realize it's not all on us?

Are we really still called to actively pursue holiness and cooperate with God's grace?

It's all on God, isn't it?

Or I would say it's um it's a both and.

Okay.

I I think Wesleyan theology kind of refuses uh both extremes.

Like one extreme will say it's all up to me, the other extreme says, Well, Jesus did everything, there's nothing for me to do.

So I'm just gonna be a passive participant in this thing.

Uh no, Wesleyan theology will say to us, Grace for comes first, grace empowers everything, but grace also calls us to respond.

Through transformation.

Yeah, and so I think of Philippians 2.

Okay, uh, you know, I think Paul captures that wonderfully when he says, Work out your salvation with trilent uh fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you to will and to act.

So we're working again in partnership with what God is already doing.

But we have a part to play in that partnership when it comes to pursuing holiness.

Um, I think that's what cooperating grace means.

Again, we don't pursue holiness so God will love us, we pursue holiness because God loves us.

Uh, we don't obey to be accepted, we obey because we already are accepted.

So fight fighting from victory, it doesn't produce passivity, like I said a moment ago.

It actually gives us the confidence for the fight.

Um let me say it again.

Fighting from victory doesn't produce passivity, it actually gives us the confidence for the fight.

Again, Jesus defeated sin and death.

Therefore, when I resist temptation, when I practice a means of grace, when I confess sin, when I forgive somebody, when I fast, pray, receive communion, or surrender an area of my life to the Lord, I'm not trying to accomplish Christ's victory.

Instead, I'm learning to live inside the victory that He has already accomplished for me.

Oh, okay.

Okay, so that must mean that uh this victory um were imparted the grace you said.

Um, so it's got to do a work within us and transform us, then, right?

So how does this text from Revelation 12 kind of emphasize overcoming temptation and surrendering battles to Jesus, you know, and it points to the actual possibility of transformation rather than simply learning to manage sin.

You know, that's the that's the key here.

You know, actually overcoming or managing.

And we see uh that cosmic battle play out in Revelation 12.

How do you think that reality plays out?

Well, uh I would say the gospel isn't simply Jesus forgives your sins so you can remain exactly who you are.

Okay, yeah.

It's Jesus forgives you, cleanses you, restores you, and begins making you like himself.

Uh that again, we're saying a lot of a lot of different ways, but that again is sanctification.

Uh again, John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement in England in the 18th century, went even further when he talked about the doctrine of entire sanctification.

Uh what is entire sanctification?

It's this conviction that God's grace can transform, so transform our heart that love for God and love for neighbor becomes the governing orientation of our lives.

Um, which I think is just awesome uh in terms of a definition and something that we we are called to pursue even in life now.

Doesn't mean we're not incapable of making mistakes, but it does mean we should never make peace with our sin as though transformation isn't imp is impossible.

Oh, okay.

So um to me that's incredibly important when we're we're talking about revelation and overcoming, and here's why.

Jesus isn't merely teaching us better strategies to uh manage bondage, and so so many of us think that's what he's doing.

Yeah, he actually sets captives free.

Um and we have to again live into that freedom.

I think of an illustration I gave on Easter several years ago about Houdini, uh, you know, the great escape artist.

Uh, you know, he said he could escape any jail cell within 30 minutes that anyone put him in.

So he was in this one specific town, I don't know what it was, but the sheriff locked him into a prison cell and gave him 30 minutes to to get out of it.

And most of the cells he could get out within minutes.

And 30 minutes came and gone, he couldn't get out.

An hour came and gone and he couldn't get out, and finally he had to admit he was defeated, and he leaned up against the door and the door swung open.

It had already been unlocked.

The sheriff never locked the door.

And every time Moudini tried to unlock the door, he was actually locking himself in.

And so, you know, we we have been set free, but how often do we keep ourselves imprisoned in these cells that the devil wants us to convince us that we're not free from, but we really are uh free from.

So it's not managing bondage, it's not managing you know, pet sins, it's it's it's uh transformation that actually sets the captive free.

Man, that's God's amazing grace.

I mean, uh uh that's good news wrapped up in basically a two-minute synopsis right there.

We could play that on a loop in the country way, you know what I mean?

But you know, uh when we're looking at this, like let's circle the wagons here a little bit.

I think there also is kind of an unsaid warning here.

I I understand what the text is saying in Revelation 12, but there's also this fear that I have, Jared, of misidentifying the enemy.

We do it all the time.

Okay, so what happens spiritually then when we begin to fight people instead of fighting the sin, or as you said, the deception, division, or like you said, Ephesians 6, the spiritual forces of wickedness, the darkness that's beneath the conflict.

Uh uh, you know, what happens spiritually there?

Yeah, um, it this is another great question.

I think it's probably one of the most important pastoral implications of Revelation 12 and 13.

All right.

And what I mean by that is when, you know, when Satan convinces Christians that people are the enemies, he gets us fighting the wrong battles.

His battles, you know, uh in his way, and again, he sits back and just watches it unfold.

Uh, but I think even worse, we we begin using the enemy's weapons while convincing ourselves we're defending God's kingdom.

So we we we become angry in a sinful way, or we become suspicious, or we dehumanize people or demonize people, uh, we divide people, we accuse one another.

In Revelation 12 says accusation, hear this, is the language of the dragon.

And that to me is so sobering.

Uh you know, Satan, who is the accuser of the brothers and sisters of Christ, um if he can get Christians to to start accusing one another, uh then he's we we've met our demise.

Uh you know, we we ought to be incredibly cautious about becoming people characterized by accusation.

Um because because here's the tragedy of it.

We can believe we're fighting for Jesus while behaving not like Jesus.

And how many of us do that in a church?

I mean, I know I see people's social media What they post, even for people within our con our congregation.

I want to pull them aside and say, What are you doing?

You know, you you believe you're fighting for Jesus, but in the f the way uh in f in your and and that's a that's a desire that might be holy.

You want to fight and defend your faith and fight the defend the Lord, but you're doing it a way that's not behaving at all like Jesus.

So, you know, again, our our battle in America is not against Democrats or Republicans.

It isn't against the atheists, it's not against a person who's different has a different worldview, it's not against family members who hurt you, it's not ultimately against the person actively even opposing Christianity.

Again, I said it Sunday, people are not the enemy, people are the mission field.

What do you mean by that?

Um Christ calls us to pursue people in such a way that compels them to want to come to Jesus.

You know?

Uh again, all this doesn't mean you eliminate truth, right?

And that that's the that's the concern about it.

Is people say, well, if I if I don't engage this way, then it's gonna be like I'm compromising truth.

No, it doesn't mean you're eliminating truth or discernment or boundaries or justice or confrontation.

You know, Jesus exercised all those things.

Read the gospels, right?

Uh but it what it does mean is the Christian's objective is never simply to destroy the opponent.

Right?

It it's to see people liberated from the powers that are enslaving them.

And I think that brings the whole conversation back to Revelation.

Uh the dragon again wants us accusing one another.

He wants to pick us one against the other.

The lamb, however, teaches us to lay down our lives for one another.

There's a difference.

Uh the question Revelation places before the church, it isn't merely will we recognize the dragon, it's when the pressure comes, will we still act like the lamb?

Not will we recognize the devil but or dragon, but will we when the heat comes, will we we be able to behave uh and look like the lamb.

Yeah.

Well our uh conversation about the dragon depicted in Revelation 12 isn't gonna just end here this week as as we move forward, uh not only next week into Revelation 13 where we see further beasts that are weapons and tools of the dragon.

Um I think it should be a sober reflection, especially um as suburban Christians, on the deceptive tactics of how the dragon works in in our lives.

Um something else I said in terms of caution with revelation, something I said, I can't remember if it was this past week or the week before.

Um but but because of all the apocalyptic and prophetic imagery in the scriptures, it can get so we can get so fascinated with the dragon or all the all the symbolism that we we fail to fix our eyes on the Lamb.

And I think if John's trying to get us to do anything in Revelation, it's to keep our eyes fixated on the Lamb who sits on the throne.

The real Lamb.

The real Lamb, who is given the authority and is has been found worthy to open up the scroll.

And the scroll are God's purpose is reaching their appointed end.

And just to remind the listener, what's God's appointed end?

It's creation's restored, uh, evil's judged.

Uh uh creation, like I said, is fully restored, evil judged.

The kingdom of God fully culminates on earth as it is in heaven, and all the promises God has made to Jesus or God has made to us through Jesus reach their culmination.

But yeah, don't get so fascinated with the dragon that you can you forget to fix your eyes on the land.

That's a good word.

Well, Jared, thank you for your time today.

Certainly, this has been uh a difficult passage of scripture, perhaps for some, gut-wrenching, uh evoking those emotions that uh John is is uh really trying to unveil to us, um, not to use fear as a tactic, but instead to show us the power of the Lamb.

Yeah.

Um so thank you.

Thank you so much.

And as we continue on in this series, I hope people are beginning to see some further insights into the book of Revelation, uh, and we'll continue to do that all the way through the end of the series.

But before we go, I just want to say a big thank you to Betsy, who's our director of communication, to Len Brown, our editor and main encourager, and to my wife Stephanie, our social media coordinator, and getting this podcast up and running.

Please, if you want to reach out, submit a question about Revelation, please send me an email at podcast at churchlakes.org.

We'd love to hear from you.

We'd love to answer right here on our very own podcast.

But before we go, please remember that it's our mission as followers and disciples of Jesus that we are to connect all to Christ to become healthy in God and courageous in love.

So until next time, God bless you.

Thanks for listening to this episode from Church of the Lakes with Pastor Jared Priestett and Pastor Robbie Stride.

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