The Unseen Truth - Part 4

This is the end of this series, guys.

And since it's the end, why don't you turn to the Book of

Revelation? We'll start in Chapter 12 in

just a moment. While it's the end of this

series, I do have two more series on this spiritual warfare

topic that are coming up, and the next one is centered around

the Holy Spirit. Which will begin when I come

back from Guatemala. Very grateful that Jared, who's

our youth minister and, and honestly wears like 15 other

hats here that he's going to be covering for me next Sunday.

I'll send a message from the team.

I'll be keeping you all updated on social media how we're doing

as well. But we're going to be doing a

deep dive into the Holy Spirit, who he is, how he operates, what

he's like, how to hear the voice of God.

What about tongues? We'll be covering all this kind

of stuff, the baptism, Holy Spirit by the end.

And it's going to be a pretty extensive time that we spend

learning about this really forgotten nature of God.

People sing about the Holy Spirit, but we really don't give

him the same amount of attention that we give to the father and

to the Son, but that's more for two weeks from now over the last

three weeks, especially if you are are are here for the first

time today. We've been exploring a part of

the Christian faith that a lot of us.

Believe in theory, but really rarely.

Practice. We believe that there's a

spiritual world. We believe that angels exist and

demons exist, and we believe that Satan is real.

But normally we reserve that name for like when we spill hot

coffee on ourselves and we say, not today, Satan, no, you were

just clumsy. If that is the best he's got, I

mean, what are we? Afraid of right?

But we believe that there are things happening around us that

physical eyes can't see. And so three weeks ago we

discovered there's a war happening all around us, whether

we recognize it or not. If you remember the the unseen

battle, we talked about this incredible moment in the Book of

Second Kings where Elisha's servant wakes up and sees that

the armies and the Chariots of heaven are in the sky around

him, and he had no clue how much was around him in the spiritual

realm until Elisha prayed that the Lord would open his eyes.

That became the starting point for everything that we've talked

about since then, because we learned that our struggle really

ultimately isn't against flesh and blood.

There are spiritual forces at work in this world.

In Week 2, we talked about the enemy.

Week 2, we went all the way back to the Garden of Eden, and we

discovered that Satan's strategy really hasn't changed very much.

He's an accuser, he's a prosecutor, and he's really good

at deception. And the dirtiest thing about

him, if you remember, is that he'll tempt you into something

and then as soon as you fall or you cave to it, then he accuses

you of it. It's like.

Do you want a cupcake? And you're like, oh, thanks.

I can't believe you just ate a cupcake, but it's normally worse

than eating a cupcake, right? You have to remember our

challenge in that week was not to become an expert on Satan.

That's a weird thing to put on your LinkedIn.

It's just to become so familiar with Jesus that you can

recognize the counterfeit. And to be honest with you, I've

had moments like this over the last two weeks where I'll feel

something and I'll just think doesn't feel like the Lord and I

can't put my finger. On it right away, but I

recognize that it's false. I hope that you're getting some

greater discernment there, too. And last Sunday we pulled that

curtain back even farther and we got real weird.

We talked about the unseen hosts, and we talked about some

of those scriptures that a lot of Christians have read for

years without having any idea what to do with them.

So we talked about the Lord in. Genesis 6 we talked about the

understanding of certain fallen angels called the Watchers and

the Nephilim, and we talked about the tower of.

Babylon, the division of the nations.

And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you might want to

check that one out. We talked about the heavenly

council that God employs. We talked about angels and

demons, rulers and authorities and principalities.

Michael the Archangel and the Prince of Persia.

Not the video game, but the point that we.

Were trying to make was not so that everybody would leave

church and wonder where the next demons hiding it was so that you

would remember this. They're all created beings and

there is one Creator and his name is Jesus.

So the unseen world might be complicated, but we have to

remember that the throne in the heavens is not contested.

And after three weeks of this, those of you who have been here

know considerably more about the unseen realm than you did when

we started. And if this is your first Sunday

with us, welcome. Let's get weird.

But I wanted you to know something as well.

We're learning a lot, but even knowledge itself about spiritual

warfare can become its own distraction.

I'm going to ask for. Some good friends of mine,

Abigail and Benjamin if they'd come up here for a moment.

Darling, could you hand me my jacket?

Yeah, I said something nice. I'd do that.

Why'd you sound so surprised? Thank you.

Sorry. I know it's August.

It just gets so cold. You know, so anyway, thank you

for helping me out. I'm excited that you guys are

helping me out. You've not helped me in an

illustration yet. And thanks for volunteering for

it, because I already told you what you're signing up for.

This is Abigail. She's not asked.

Me to do this, but not so subtle.

Plug, she owns Heavenly Grounds coffee truck.

Amazing coffee. Yeah, don't just cheer for her.

Buy some coffee when you see her.

OK Right. Feel so much better.

Anyway, I asked her if she'd be willing to be a demon today.

So thanks for being a demon, Benjamin said.

Oh, yeah, that makes complete sense.

I'm just kidding. I end up putting up with the

words in his mouth here. Go ahead and take that one, and

you can take this one, too. So Abigail's going to be a demon

today. And give me a second.

Are you having fun? No.

All right. I'm sure she was.

Just not yet. I'm sure she was just getting

used to what the ropes were like.

What I want you to know is that there are unseen forces that

work here. Hang on.

Are you having fun now? A little bit.

Why am I doing this in church? There is.

There is a story to this. All right, hang on.

We're going to do something different.

Benjamin, she's being too nice to you.

She's being too nice to me. Probably.

It's OK. I went to the chiropractor this

week. Can you tell me something?

Sure. OK.

Where was where was Abigail born?

Minnesota. Minnesota.

On purpose. OK, I'm just kidding.

All right. What did she have, like a

favorite food? No, no.

She likes all of it. That's great.

I'm so happy for her. Does she have, like, a favorite

show or something? Something you want to say in

church? No.

OK, that means it's Game of Thrones.

I'm. Just kidding.

I'm just kidding. Anyway, is is she always like

this? Mostly.

Are there other people like her? Yes.

Are there like, hierarchies of different Abigail's?

Absolutely. Yeah.

That's scary. How do you get her to stop this?

I don't know yet. OK.

You know, there is there is one thing that I haven't considered.

Now, why don't you try to take my Apple Watch?

There we go. OK, here's the thing that I want

you to think about with this. All too often.

There are good Bible believing Christians that are under attack

by the enemy, and the enemy knows your weaknesses and the

enemy comes and pulls your strings.

And to be honest with you, she's real nicer than the demons I've

encountered. I don't think you're probably a

demon. Probably not.

It'd be really weird if you had heavenly grounds coffee trucks.

So yeah. Thank you guys.

How many times have? You and I have been under

spiritual warfare. We hear a message, We Google

something. We try to learn more about the

demonic. We learn more about the

spiritual realm, but we're not getting rid of what they hold

onto. I went over to Benjamin and I

said, teach me about Abigail. Tell me about her.

Where is she from? Are there other people like her?

Why is she doing this? And you can learn all these

different things, but just knowing these things isn't going

to get rid of the handles that the demonic have on your life.

I would rather get to such a place that when the demonic

tries to attack me, there's nothing to grab a hold of.

So what are the handles? What are these?

Ropes, well, I mean, to be honest, a lot of us are carrying

their own baggage and these ropes here, I'd venture to say

these represent things like past.

Wounds, these, these are our baggage, right?

These are the the things that we struggle to get rid of, the

things that we struggle to let go of, the ways that we're

insecure, that we see ourselves. These.

Ropes represent people that have abandoned you.

These ropes represent the time that you thought you were safe

with somebody and then they. Betrayed you.

And if you were to go and talk to them, they would say I didn't

betray you, I was just being honest or whatever.

And you're like, yeah, but you were, you were using.

Information you had about me behind my back.

These are the things that make us unsure of who we are.

And so often I'm just, I'm just wondering if we're trying to

learn about the things that are pulling our strings when really

we could just be getting healed. Here's the thing.

We're going to be in. Revelation 12 in just a moment,

but I want you to understand something.

You can't see all of the spiritual realm.

We've covered this very well over the last three weeks now. 4

And in the same way that you can't see the enemies or the

angels, the messengers of the Lord, you can't see the full

victory of Jesus. You just can't, and anybody who

tells me they can is wrong. Now we sing about it.

We sang about it this morning. I'd hazard a guess to say we'll

sing about it again this morning.

If you could see the full victory, you would live

completely differently. You would pray differently.

You would love people differently.

You would open yourself up to other people.

Differently. Not because you would think that

you're never going to get hurt by people.

People end up hurting people. I've just shortened the saying

for you. Remember that saying.

Hurt people hurt people. I can make it quicker for you.

People hurt people. It happens.

You know why? Because we're flawed.

Every time we say that, we say that it comforts somebody who's

been wounded by somebody else. But everybody who's ever said

that sentence has also wounded somebody, haven't they?

So. People hurt people.

We've got to learn to manifest the grace to deal with it.

I want you to know this. You can learn the names of

demons and never deal with your bitterness.

You can study spiritual hierarchies while protecting

your addiction still. You can learn everything there

is to know about generational curses and generational patterns

and still refuse to forgive somebody.

It's another rope. You can become fascinated with

deliverance ministry while still continuing to feed the very

thing you've been asking God. To deliver you from and you can

spend hours trying to determine whether something in in your

life is demonic while refusing to repent of something that you

already know God has told you to stop doing.

Some of us are wondering why God lets the enemy keep pulling the

same attacks on us, but we're still wearing the jacket.

Spiritual warfare is not always as dramatic as we make it seem.

Sometimes it is repentance or confession for just.

Open free forgiveness. Sometimes it's deleting

something from your phone, sometimes it's ending a

relationship that keeps pulling you away from Jesus, and

sometimes it's admitting to another Christian that you've

been hiding. Sometimes it's putting down the

bottle. Sometimes it's turning off the

screens. Sometimes it's dealing with the

anger. Issues that you've been putting

up with your whole life because your dad was angry and you're

just an angry guy and that's just who you are.

And I want to be careful here because I don't want you to hear

something I'm not saying. The Bible does not teach that

every spiritual attack means you've just opened a door for

the enemy or given him permission.

You're going to get tempted no matter how pure your life is,

and the evidence of that is that Jesus was tempted by the enemy

in the wilderness. And Jesus didn't sin.

Every time you feel tempted to do the wrong thing, you need to

remember that it is not a sin to be tempted.

When you're tempted, you just have a golden opportunity that's

been laid out in front of you. And you can use that temptation

as an opportunity to glorify God and worship Him, or you can use

it as an opportunity to sin. But the choice is yours.

But the greatest unseen truth. That we have encountered this

entire series is not that there are demons around us or

temptations that are going to come.

It is that there's a decisive battle that's already been won,

and we're going to take a look at that starting in verse 7.

Here's what it says it says. Then there was a war in heaven.

Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and his

angels. Remember, angels means

messengers, and the dragon lost the battle.

I mean, you could just end it there.

But it says, And he and his angels were forced out of

heaven, this great dragon. The ancient serpent called the

Devil or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world, was

thrown down to the earth with all his angels.

Then I heard a loud voice. Shouting across the heavens, it

has come at last salvation and power and the Kingdom of our God

and the authority of his Christ. Christ, the Messiah, the

Anointed One for the Accuser of our brothers and sisters, has

been thrown down to earth, the one who accuses them before our

God. Day and night.

And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and.

By their testimony, and they did not love their lives so much

that they were afraid to die. Therefore rejoice, O heavens.

And you who? Live in the heavens, rejoice,

but terror will come on the earth and the sea, for the devil

has come down to you in great anger, knowing that he has

little time. Nobody understands all of the

Book of Revelation, and if they. Tell you that's a lie too.

But we do understand some concepts there.

The timelines get a little hazy, they get a little muddy, but

they're not really for you to figure it out as much as they

are for you to adhere to and learn from.

By this point in the series, I think almost everybody here in

in this. Story that we just read is going

to hear names that were familiar to us, right, Michael?

And he's an Archangel, and we're talking about the angels of the

Lord, and we're talking about Satan and then the demonic

forces that follow him. And we're talking about the

Lord, and we're talking about Christ.

These are all names that we know but.

This morning, I don't want to spend our time identifying

everybody on the battlefield again.

We've already done that something else that John writes

in the Book of Revelation that I think might be even harder for

Christians to. Truly believe, and it's this.

God sees the victory. We sing it.

We understand it theologically. But that is one of the strangest

problems that we have when it comes to spiritual warfare,

because we don't see the victory.

We don't act like we're walking in it.

I've said this before. I've said it not long ago.

How many of you heard a preacher say we don't fight for victory,

we fight from victory? Oh man, that sounds great.

Put it on a bumper sticker. What does that mean?

How do you live that out? How do you understand that in

your mind and in your spirit and your heart?

Because you can't see the victory of Jesus with your

physical eyes. You don't live as though it's

real. We live like the enemy's got the

upper hand. We don't know when that child.

Of ours will come home, we don't know when that relationship will

be restored. We don't know when we'll be

fully healed. We don't really know what it's

going to look like when we step into glory.

But I want you to know John is being allowed to see the story

from a perspective that you and I almost never get from Earth.

They're still suffering, and there's opposition, and there's

an enemy who's furious because his time is short.

I can't help but wonder what would happen if we lived like we

believed this victory was that decisive.

How differently would you walk into the thing you're afraid of

if you could see the victory first?

How differently would you pray if you could see what God sees

while you're praying? And how differently would you

respond when temptation came your way, or forget temptation?

How differently would you handle suffering or disappointment or

accusation or spiritual opposition if the victory of

Jesus felt every bit as real as the battle that you're walking

through? I think we've got some things to

look at this morning, and we can't go much further without

looking at Jesus and seeing his scars.

I'll tell you why that matters. We'll be in John chapter 19 in a

John 19 · chapter mention

moment. There's something about scars

that makes them different from almost every other mark on our

our body, right? Because if you have a wound, A

wound tells you what's happening right now, but a scar tells you

what happened. Before.

A scar is also a reminder that you are healed.

You may be different now, but the wound says you're bleeding.

A scar says you bled, but you made it through.

Scars are the history of your life written on the body.

When you think about it, they tell stories about accidents or

surgeries or fights or moments that you tripped and fell down

the stairs but you told somebody that it was something else.

Christianity is built around scars.

The central symbol of our faith is not something that you would

normally associate with a victory.

And I want to challenge you with some things that we don't think

very deeply on because of our faith, because we see it all the

time and we hear about it all the time.

The central symbol of our faith is not something we would

associate with victory. If we lived in the days of

Jesus. It's a cross.

We've got one right there on the wall.

Is there anybody here who's got one on their jewellery today or

on their shirt? Anybody got a cross that they're

wearing? Do you have any idea how weird

that would be to a Christian? About a week or maybe a day

after Jesus was crucified, or even before Jesus was crucified,

if you walked around wearing the shape of a cross, they would

have been like, you're morbid, you love death, no.

No, no, To us it's not a symbol of death, but we know what that

cross accomplished for us. I think a lot of times we forget

how strange that might have sounded to the early Christians.

But even though this scripture is normally spoken closer to

Easter, or Resurrection Sunday as we call it.

I want you to listen to this from John chapter 19 as I read a

John 19 · chapter mention

lot of these verses. Read it and listen to it like

you're hearing it for the first time.

They took Jesus away, carrying the cross by himself.

He went to the place called the place of the Skull in Hebrew,

Golgotha, where they nailed him to the cross.

Two others were crucified with him, one on either side, with

Jesus between them. And Pilate posted a sign on the

cross that read Jesus of Nazareth, the.

King of the Jews, he, he is a king.

He's kind of a king of a lot more than that.

Verse 21 says the leading priest subjected and said to Pilate,

change it from the king of the Jews to he said I'm king of the

Jews. Pilate said, no, what I've

written, I've written. When the soldiers had crucified

Jesus, they divided his clothes among the four of them and they

took his robe, but it was seamless, woven in one piece

from the top to the bottom. So they said rather than tearing

it apart, let's throw a dice for it.

This fulfilled the scripture that says they divided my

garments among themselves and threw dice for my clothing.

So that's what they did. Verse 28 Jesus knew that his

mission was now finished and to fulfil the scripture.

He said I'm thirsty and a jar of sour wine was sitting there.

It's probably Boone's farm. I'm sorry, it's getting real

heavy. I can't believe you guys know

what Boone's farm is. So they soaked a.

Sponge in it, put it on a hyssop branch and held it up to his

lips. When Jesus had tasted it, he

said It is finished. And then he bowed his head, and

he gave up his spirit. Listen to this.

It was the day of preparation and the Jewish leaders didn't

want the bodies hanging there the next day, which was the

Sabbath and a very special Sabbath because it was Passover

week. So they asked Pilate.

To hasten their deaths by ordering their legs to be broken

and then their bodies could be taken down.

And in case you don't know, that meant their feet were together

nailed, and they would break their femurs.

They would break their legs here so that they could not hold

themselves up and breathe. All of a sudden, now all the

weight would be down like this. They wanted to get this show on

the road. So the soldiers came and broke

the legs of the two men crucified with Jesus.

And when they came to Jesus, they saw that he was already

dead, so they didn't break his legs.

One of the soldiers, however, pierced his side with a spear

and immediately blood and water flowed out.

You all don't even know how many.

Scriptures I just fulfilled by reading this.

This report is from an eyewitness giving an accurate

account. He speaks the truth so that you

also may continue to believe these things happen in

fulfillment of the scriptures that say not one of His bones

will be broken and they will look on the one they pierced.

All right, jump back in time with me.

If you had been standing there that afternoon, there was

nothing about what you were watching that would have looked

like victory. Not one bit.

Jesus had already been beaten before John even begins this

part of the story. They had already spit on him.

They had already whipped him. They had already flayed his

flesh, tore it open, laid a purple robe or a purple cloth on

top of him, ripped it again, put the crown of thorns on his head,

and dug it into his scalp. They'd already done all of

these. Things and when we get to this

point, it starts with Jesus carrying the instrument of his

own execution until he's taken to Golgotha.

We see the nails driven through Him and we see everything

happen. If you could only see the

physical world on that day, your conclusion would have been

obvious. And I know we all have the faith

of a lion today, right? But if you were there, you would

have assumed Jesus lost. Rome won.

The religious leaders had won. His enemies had won.

His disciples scattered after that, and his body would soon be

placed inside a borrowed tomb. He didn't even have a tomb of

his own, and the whole movement surrounding Jesus of Nazareth

probably would have dried up just as quickly as it arrived.

But we've also spent 4. Weeks learning not to assume

that what? We can see is everything that's

happening, so we see a cross in that scene.

But while human beings are watching Jesus being stripped

and humiliated, the Kingdom of darkness was being stripped of

its claim. While Rome believed it was

publicly shaming Jesus, Scripture tells us that through

the cross, Jesus was disarming spiritual rulers and authorities

and publicly shaming them. While death appeared to be

swallowing Jesus, Jesus was swallowing death and what looked

like from earth, the greatest defeat in all of history was

actually, from heaven's perspective, the.

Most decisive victory that could have ever happened.

There are scriptures that say that if they knew what they were

doing, they would have never crucified our Lord.

The scars of Jesus remind us that appearances can lie, and I

want you to understand this, that there are going to be

moments in your life where obedience looks like it's

costing you more than compromising wood.

I know that there are moments where doing the right thing

seems to produce the wrong result and there are going.

To be moments that you have prayed and prayed and the

situation gets worse instead of better.

Is anybody here willing to just with a show of hands say, like,

I tried praying and it didn't make a difference, right?

We don't know that, but we've said it because we can't see it.

There's going to be moments where evil appears to prosper

and darkness looks powerful. But when that?

Happens. I want you to remember that

beautiful YouTube video that Christians love so much.

It's Friday, but Sunday's coming.

Jesus was crucified on a Friday. If you had judged God's

faithfulness by what you could see on a Friday afternoon, you

would have gotten the entire story wrong.

There's one reason that I find it so powerful.

Think about this. When Jesus was risen from the

dead, he's not fully healed, is he?

Not in the way we assume that we will be.

He doesn't erase every indication of what happens to

him, what remains on Jesus when he's resurrected, The scars and

they tell a story of what he went through.

Later, he's going to invite his disciple Thomas to look at his

hands and to touch his side. Those wounds that once appeared

to prove that Jesus had been defeated are actually scars

proving that death couldn't even hold.

Him. What do your scars say?

We need to remember that because Christians are incredibly

forgetful people. And I'm one of them.

I don't mean that insultingly. I just mean we're human.

And so something could be overwhelmingly real to us on a

Sunday and feel incredibly distant by Thursday.

We can stand in this room and sing about the goodness of God

while we're surrounded by a couple hundred of His Saints,

and then one phone call can make us wonder if He's anywhere near

us. And Jesus knew that about us.

Do you know how good and gracious He is for us?

Before He ever went to the cross, He gave His.

Followers, a way to remember what was about to happen.

And while we just read something that's normally preached around

Easter time, now we're going to read something that's normally

done when we take communion together.

First Corinthians Chapter 11, he said this, well, Paul is saying

1 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

this. I pass on to you what I received

from the Lord himself on the night when he was betrayed.

The Lord Jesus took some bread and he gave thanks to God for

it. And then he broke it in pieces

and said, this is my body which is given for you.

Do this. In remembrance of me.

In the same way he took the cup of wine after supper, saying

this cup is the new covenant between God and his people, an

agreement confirmed with my blood.

Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it.

Verse 26 says every time you eat this bread and drink this cup,

you're announcing the Lord's death until he comes again.

Think about those words. Do this to Remember Me.

We are incredibly. Forgetful people.

But think about this in the context of everything we've been

talking about. Jesus, I think, knows that

generations of Christians are going to follow him who never

physically stood. At Golgotha.

We aren't going to see the nails.

We're not going to see the crucifixion, we're not going to

really hear the hammer. We aren't going to watch the

blood run down the cross. We aren't going to see the.

Stone rolled away on a Sunday morning.

So we certainly aren't going to see with our physical eyes

everything that is death and resurrection accomplished in the

unseen realm. So Jesus gives his church.

Something incredibly relatable to help remember.

Bread and a cup. These are not just religious

things that we do because we want Jesus to be happy with us.

They are constant reminders that we are children of the in

between. There are spiritual beings that

have no bodies. You are spiritual beings with a

body. You belong to this earth, but

you belong to him more. So you are in between.

And that's what makes things so confusing.

We live like the body part, like the flesh part is all we have

when the reality is there's so much more happening outside of

us. We are somewhere between.

It is finished and I'm making everything new.

How many of y'all are excited for the day that everything's

new? Christians aren't supposed to

spend our lives staring backward at the suffering.

But remember that those scars remind us that God can be

working when we can't see him working.

And they remind us that suffering doesn't automatically

mean defeat. When God seems silent, it

doesn't automatically mean absence.

A battle raging doesn't mean that the war has been decided.

So when the enemy tells you that your sin is too great, I want

you to see the scars when the accuser tells you that God

would. Never want you after what you've

done. I want you to remember what

those scars purchased. I want you to remember the scars

that Jesus carries when you're terrified about what comes next.

I want you to remember that the one who carries those scars has

already walked through death and come out on the other side when

he hung there on the cross. It's what we call the Great.

Exchange because he hung on this cross, and it says that he

became sin who knew no sin, so that you and I could become the

very. Righteousness of God and we

don't feel like the very righteousness of God.

Maybe you do. I don't.

But the reality is I theologically know that that is

what the exchange did because of what the one and only Son of God

was willing to do on the cross. He was willing to become sin

Incarnate so that every bit of sin would be purged from my

record. And when God looks at me, he

sees Jesus. Think about that the next time

you say life isn't fair. Because you're right, But it

kind of worked in your favor, didn't it?

This is the great exchange. It looked like defeat on that

Friday, but Friday wasn't the end of the story.

I would tell you to look at your scars too, because your scars

are proof that you survived something that was incredibly

painful. And maybe it's a physical scar,

maybe it's an emotional one, maybe it's a relational one.

But I'll tell you this. I mentioned it earlier when I

was in great distress and being puppeteered.

This week I went to a. Chiropractor for the first time.

Why didn't you guys tell me how wonderful it is?

You know, it's my first appointment and he's feeling

around the muscles in my neck and shoulders and checking out.

Everything moved. Then he got to my left shoulder

and arm and he stopped for a second and he said, oh, you've

injured this. Before and I said I don't think

so. Apparently the muscles over on

here on this side felt different to him and he's familiar with

this. I'm not.

He kept checking it and he said no, you've definitely had

something. You did something.

To this arm or this shoulder at some point, and it was a while

ago and I went maybe. So I can call my wife.

Maybe she knows something I don't know.

And then I called her and she did.

I called her and I said, did I ever hurt my left shoulder?

And she said, yeah, three years ago when you started going to

the gym. And I went, I did.

And she said, yeah, remember when you went to the doctor?

We had at the time, we went there and we asked him because

you were afraid it was a rotator cuff thing.

And he said it's normal and just stretch it.

And I said, well, he was wrong. I remember that.

I forgot about it. I completely forgot that three

years ago when I was lifting and not really knowing what I was

doing. I did hurt myself.

I'm so glad I had somebody who could remember it.

Apparently one of the benefits of marriage is that eventually

your spouse becomes additional storage.

Look, she started reminding me about what happened, and

eventually it did come back to me, But I started thinking about

how easily we can do the same thing with Jesus.

Some of us have known the story of the cross for so long that we

have forgotten how extraordinary it is.

We have heard about the nails, and we've taken communion and

we've worn crosses and we've seen them hanging in churches,

and we know that Jesus died for our sins and we know that he

rose. Again, it is so wild to me that

something that changed the course of human history can

become so familiar that we stop remembering what actually

happened there. And forgetting what happened

doesn't actually change what happened.

Most of us aren't going to walk around this week and literally

look at scars in the hands of Jesus.

But I will tell you this, it means that we've got to.

Refuse to let what you can see make you forget what you can't.

I want you to remember how you felt when you were first saved

and when you came to the Lord. You have got to remember the

invisible moments where He truly blessed your life.

This is an incredibly practical thing.

When something happens this week, and it will happen this

week, wait for it. That immediately makes you

afraid before you start imagining every possible.

Way it could go wrong I want you to remember what's already

happened when the enemy starts accusing you over something that

Jesus has already forgiven, I don't want you to spend 3 days

arguing about the. Accusation until he reminds you

of his resurrection. I want you to go back to the

cross when temptation tells you that you had no choice but to

give in to that temptation. Again, I want you to remember

that Jesus didn't simply forgive sin at the cross.

He broke the claim that sin had over you.

When suffering makes you wonder whether God has abandoned you or

not, I want you to remember that there was already a Friday when

everybody thought they were abandoned and they were all

wrong. You have to choose to

deliberately interpret what's happening now through what has

already happened, and that is a discipline and it will not come

easy to you. Seeing the scars means you

refuse to let today's battle rewrite what the cross already

established in your life. But even Jesus knew the

importance of having that physical reminder.

That's why he allowed Thomas to see it, and I think that's why

he allowed the other disciples to see it.

One of my favorite songs says Scars or souvenirs You never

lose when you remember. I don't want you to just

remember that Jesus suffered. I want you to remember what his

suffering accomplished. There's a huge difference

between feeling sorry about what Jesus had to go through on the

cross and we all feel that when we watch the Passion of the

Christ. There's a big difference between

feeling sorry or sad that he had to go through that and trusting

that what Jesus did accomplished what he said that it.

Accomplished. We've spent this whole series

learning this lesson about the enemy, that we can't see things

that are happening. And it's the same thing here.

Just because you can't see the victory doesn't mean the victory

isn't real. Remember those scars.

Remember what he went through. And I'm convinced he would have

done it if it was only you that needed it.

I think he still would have gone to the cross for you.

There's going to be days where the scriptures are something you

start your day with and you read it, and you still walk through

that day afraid. And I want you to know that I

don't want you to feel like your faith has failed you.

There's going to be days when you've looked at those scars,

but the battle's still louder. And there's going to be days

when you've prayed and you're tired of praying.

I mean, if I did another show of hands, there would be a lot of.

People here that would say there's days that I know I

should pray, but I don't want to.

And isn't it wild to think you don't want to when you know that

that is something that will actually help you?

There are going to be days when somebody hands you the bread and

the cup right here at church and you know exactly what these

items mean. And victory is still going to

feel far away. And I want you to know I don't

think that God is disappointed in you when that happens.

I think He planned for it. I think He already knew it.

And I'll explain this to you because Jesus didn't build His

church around people who never struggle.

He built his church around people who would sometimes need

somebody else to remember for them.

And that's one of the reasons I love that story about my

shoulder. I was carrying the evidence, but

I couldn't remember the story. So I called somebody who could.

And that's really what our faith life looks like sometimes.

You and I need somebody who can look at us and remind us this is

not the end of your story. We need somebody who will pray

for you when you don't know what to pray for anymore.

Maybe more importantly, you need somebody who's willing to pray

for you. When you say I don't even feel

like praying when that happens, don't say, well, do you mind if

I pray for you? Why you need their permission?

Start praying for him. Sometimes you need somebody who

knows you well enough to recognize when you're starting

to believe a lie. You need somebody who loves you

enough to tell you when you're putting that.

Jacket back on and you need somebody who will sit beside you

without trying to fix all your problems, but just refuses to

let you fight that battle alone. As a matter of fact, I have this

written into my notes. I'm going to ask you to take

your phone out right now. Why don't you thank someone

right now? Why don't you send a message?

I'm going to do it. Also, I'm texting in church.

Text somebody and thank them right now.

Now we do have cameras in here. If you slide over into a game

after this, we'll know. We won't make a scene.

But we will mention it. Via our prayer team to the Lord.

All right, so we're going to see the scars and we're going to

remember, and we're going to thank those that have been in

our life and fought those battles.

For us when we couldn't fight on our own, but you also need to

see the Saints and this is where I'm really going to challenge a

lot of you today. There's a reason why the

military doesn't train Marines to fight wars by themselves,

although if there was 1 branch where one could take it on, it

would be the Marine Corps. But isolation is dangerous in

almost every kind of warfare because when you're alone, you

lose more than additional strength.

You also lose perspective. You can't see everything no

matter what your vantage point is, and so you don't have anyone

watching in the direction you're not looking, you don't have

anyone telling you when you're walking towards danger, and you

don't have anyone checking the information that you've

received. I think Satan understands that

principle better than most Christians.

Do. And so if we've learned anything

through this series, I think it's that deception is one of

his greatest weapons. Would you agree with me on that?

But deception becomes considerably easier when there's

nobody around you to challenge what you're beginning to

believe. This is why isolation is such an

effective war tactic. And every time I bring this up,

I know for a fact that there is at least one person who's like

this is a push to join a ministry or a small group.

Yeah, it is, and you're welcome. But I want you to hear me on

this. The enemy doesn't necessarily

need to convince you to abandon Jesus.

He just needs to slowly separate you from people who will keep

reminding. You who Jesus is in your life.

And by the way, that can happen while you're sitting in this

room every Sunday. You can attend church without

actually being connected to anybody in the church.

You can know hundreds of faces and still have nobody that knows

what's happening inside of your head.

You can worship in a crowded room and go home completely

alone. You can sit in this sermon and

you feel completely alone, even though physically we are very

much not alone right now. By the way, you can also shake

hands, have conversations in the lobby, and you can you can serve

on a ministry team and still sit in the same section every week.

And most of you do. And still nobody.

Maybe have nobody that you would call it 2:00 AM when your world

falls apart and being around other Christians is not

necessarily the same thing as being known by Christians.

And I want you to know that today, when you have been

isolated long enough, little things will start to become

enormous things to you because there's nobody close enough to

help you sort through them. And this isn't just the small

ways that we get offended with one another.

Oh, they didn't say good morning to me.

Oh, they seem too busy for me. Oh, what did they mean by that?

Probably nothing. They probably not thought about

you since. Tuesday.

It's not just those things, but then how many of us have been

alone in our faith and we've gone down a theological rabbit

hole? I've watched this happen with

Christians again and again. Somebody watches a video online

that says, you know, did you know that Jesus wasn't his

original name? Suddenly they're wondering

whether or not they're praying to the wrong person their entire

life. And it's interesting because,

you know, Mexico has a lot of people named Jesus.

We don't name a lot of people Jesus.

And I had somebody say that and they're like, we don't do that

in America, do we? No, we don't.

We name them Joshua and it comes from the same root name.

And not everybody knows this, right?

But what was his original name? Somebody discovers maybe that

the word translated Lord can be used in different contexts and

start wondering whether calling Jesus Lord connects us to Pagan

gods. Somebody learns that our English

Bible contains translation decisions or discovers A

manuscript difference. Or they said.

Did you know that the King James talks about unicorns?

Ask me about unicorns when I'm not at the pulpit.

By the way, we'll go back to the Nephilim.

Anyway, I have had somebody who doesn't go to this church run

into me in public and say, you're a pastor of that church,

right? And I said, yeah.

And they said, can I have an appointment with you?

And I'm like. This is what I live for.

This is my bread and butter. Come on in.

We got room and we sit. Down to have them tell me.

I've heard that you baptize people in the name of the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

You're only supposed to baptize them in the name of Jesus.

And we talked about it, and I was kind for most of the talk.

I did end up by saying, well, when you baptize people, you can

say it the way you want, and when I baptize them, I'll say

them the way God. Wants and then I said just

kidding. I don't know if I was completely

kidding. Listen, asking questions is not

the problem. Don't ever feel bad about a

spiritual question. If you have ever had these

questions, you are fully allowed to message me or somebody you

trust and ask for some help. That is part of what it is to

chop up our faith and to learn what it means.

You know me better than to say don't ask questions.

I think Christians should ask the most difficult.

Questions out of anybody in the world?

We've spent four weeks asking some weird questions, but

questions become much more frightening when you have nobody

trustworthy to ask the Internet. I want you to hear me on this,

please. The Internet is more than happy

to disciple you if you wanted to, but you should also know

that it's algorithm doesn't care whether you're becoming wise, it

just cares whether you keep watching.

So you watch one video asking whether you've been saying the

name of Jesus incorrectly, and suddenly you find 12 more of

those videos. Isn't that crazy?

In fact, you might find them when you walk out of here

because your phones are listening.

You watch one person explaining everything that you've been

taught about the Bible is supposedly wrong.

And now your feed introduces you to 15 more.

And before long, something that a 10 minute discussion with a

mature Christian would have fixed has become a spiritual

crisis that you've spent three weeks labouring over.

And you don't even know those people on the Internet.

And this is not an information problem.

It's. Spiritual warfare.

I think sometimes we misunderstand what the writer of

Hebrews was saying about gathering together in this

scripture. I'm going to read from Hebrews

10. I think a lot of times we hear

this and we, we, we've heard it used to say you need to go to

church. And that's true.

But listen to what the writer of Hebrews is actually saying.

He says in Hebrews 19, Dear brothers and sisters, we can

boldly enter Heaven's. Most Holy place because of the

blood of Jesus. By his death, Jesus opened a new

and life giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy

Place. And since we have a great high

priest who rules over God's house, let us go right into the

presence of God with sincere hearts, fully trusting Him.

For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ's

blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with

pure water. You know so many.

Times he's saying us. He's not saying you can go, he's

saying let's go. That is a contraction.

That means let us go. Let us hold tightly without

wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep

His promise. Let us think of ways to motivate

one another to acts of love and good works hard to do that

alone. And let us not neglect our

meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another,

especially now that the day of his.

Return is drawing near. Do you notice how relational all

of that language is? Let us go into the presence.

Let us hold tightly. Let us think of ways to motivate

one another. I want you to know that Paul, or

not Paul, but the author here is describing deliberately that

helping one another actually helps one another remain

faithful. And this is a war strategy.

You do need people. Close enough to notice that

you're drifting, and if you don't have them, you're going to

be in trouble at some point, if you're not already.

You need people who can hear what you're.

Saying and recognize that fear has started to change what

you're saying and to say this is not you what's going on and if

you have relationships but they're not deep enough where.

People can call that out in you. You're not going to know when

you're deceived. You need somebody who's going to

look at you with love and say, I don't think that's God.

You also need people that are willing to celebrate what God is

doing in your life without competing with you or correcting

you, without condemning you, or pray for you, without gossiping

about you. And by the way, you need to be

that person for somebody else, too.

I told you this is going to push you, but that's an important

part of what we sometimes miss. Christian community is not just

assembling a support team around yourself.

The Saints aren't supporting characters in your spiritual

story. They're supposed to become

somebody. That is the reinforcement for

your spiritual warfare and somebody needs your testimony

and odds are one of them is sitting in this room right now.

Somebody needs what God taught you through the thing that you

survived. Somebody needs you to notice

before they withdraw. And somebody needs you to ask

the second question. When they say they are fine,

Paul describes this again in First Thessalonians chapter 5.

1 Thessalonians 5 · chapter mention

But you aren't in the dark about these things, brothers and

sisters, and you won't be surprised when the day of the

Lord comes like a thief, for you are all.

Children of the light and of the day, we don't belong to darkness

and night, so be on your guard, not asleep like the others.

Stay alert and be clear headed. Night is the time when people

sleep and drinkers get drunk, but let us live in the light, to

be clear headed, protected by the armor of faith and love, and

wearing is our helmet, the confidence of our salvation.

For God chose to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not to

pour out his anger on us. Listen to this the last two

verses 10 and 11. Christ died for us, so that

whether we are dead or alive when he returns.

We can live with him forever. So here's the challenge.

Encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are

already doing. I love it because Paul uses that

language. Of people preparing for battle,

he says stay alert, be clear headed, put on faith and love

his armor. Wear this helmet of salvation.

But you notice how he. Finishes with Encourage one

another. Build each other up.

Apparently one of God's strategies for keeping you

standing in spiritual warfare is putting another Christian beside

you, so I want you to think about that.

Who knows when you're not OK? Don't answer it out loud, but I

want. You to think about this.

Who knows what you're fighting? Who knows what you're tempted

by, Who knows what lies you tend to believe when you're

exhausted. Who has permission to tell you

that you're wrong and who can recognize when you're beginning

to isolate yourself? Because if we're at war, those

are not small questions. Those are big ones yesterday in

our Bible reading that we're going through at liberty.

If you're going through the chronological Bible reading, we

read the entire book of Obadiah, which if you've not read the

Scripture, that sounds really impressive, but it is the

shortest book in the in the Old Testament, it's just 21 verses

long, but. If you missed yesterday,

congratulations, this may be one of the days that's easiest to

get caught up on. Obadiah tells this painful story

between two nations. That should have remembered they

were family. Israel and Judah have fallen,

right? And this comes right out of the

stories from the book of Jeremiah.

And then you have Edom. Edom descended from Esau.

Back in the day you had two brothers.

You had Jacob and Esau. And the Edomites came from Esau.

They are. They are literally brothers as

far as nations go. And as they see.

Jerusalem attacked. Edom had a choice to make.

They could look at what was happening and they could

remember. Those are our people.

But instead, Obadiah says that they stood at a distance and

they watched and they watched strangers carry away Jerusalem's

wealth. And they celebrated when Judas

suffered because. They took advantage of this

disaster for themselves and eventually they had to stand at

a crossroads and captured people that tried to escape.

They actually worked against their own brothers and this.

Is why God's judgement hits Edom so hard.

There God was angry because when their brother was surrounded,

they chose to stand at a distance.

Are you hearing what I'm saying? This is what the Saints are

supposed to do. When somebody's struggling, we

don't stand at a distance and watch.

That's what the world does. When somebody starts questioning

everything they believe, we don't make them feel stupid for

asking questions. When somebody falls, we don't

celebrate because at least we're still.

Standing, we move towards them. That's what we're called to.

When our family is fighting, we don't stand at a distance.

I'm going to wrap this up in about 10 or 15 minutes.

OK guys, but I need you to hear this.

When I say Saints, I want you to understand who I'm talking about

because if you came from a Catholic background, first and

foremost, you can be a St. and be alive.

I know that's not what you learned.

In the Catholic Church, and I'm not picking on them too much,

the first step in becoming a St. is you have to be dead.

It's a prerequisite. Then you have to go through a

canonization process. There are investigations into

this person's life and you have to see if there's miracles that

are attributed. And I want you to know then

there's patron Saints that are assigned to just about

everything that we can imagine. How many of you are familiar

with this concept of of the patron Saints?

You know who I feel really bad for is Saint Anthony.

St. Anthony is the patron St. of

lost items. So every time you lose your

keys, you think about that. You live this life, you get

martyred, and then you're up in heaven and you're like, I'll be

right back. Chris lost his keys again.

I got to. He lost his wallet also.

I'll be back again. What a gift.

What a gift. Listen, I'm not saying that to

be disrespectful, but I want you to understand it's very obvious

from a biblical standpoint that when I say Saints, what I mean

is that in the New Testament, Paul repeatedly uses this word

that is translated as Saints for ordinary believers who are very

much alive. If you belong to.

Jesus, you're a St. And you may say I don't feel

like it when. Somebody does something

especially nice, we go, oh, that person's a St.

You might call somebody a St. who doesn't even know the Lord.

St. is somebody who believes in Jesus, belongs to Jesus because

they've been washed by the blood of Jesus.

And when God looks at them, he sees a St.

So here's some steps if you want to connect with those Saints.

First of all, stop hiding behind that F word.

Fine. Some of us do it because we

don't want to be seen, and some of us do it because we just

don't have time. We're too busy.

You know why? Because everything's crazy.

Isn't that what we don't really say?

How's life going? It's crazy.

When was it not crazy? It's always busy.

Stop hiding behind this F word, even if you don't.

Have time right now. You know what, actually, it's

been rough. Let me call you later and let's

talk about it. I've had some sad thoughts this

week. It's been rough.

And every time somebody's asked me this week how are you doing?

I've been like, I'm sad. I cried it's great.

I mean not crying, I prefer not to, although there are some

biological effects that are healthy for the body but.

It's nice to just tell people it's been rough because I'm not

hiding anything and it makes me feel like I'm not carrying it

alone. I know there's people that pray

for me. Second of all, you better give

somebody permission to challenge what you believe.

You better give somebody challenge permission honestly.

Sometimes that correction is going to be more uncomfortable.

Than we think. But you need somebody that can

say you're wrong about this, or you're wrong about this person,

or you're becoming bitter, or you're putting that jacket back

on, or you're isolating yourself.

But it's not just. About you.

So you need to also start watching someone else's

battlefield. They're under attack.

Do you care? Do you care when you see other

brothers and sisters in the Lord under attack, that you could

look at them and say, yeah, they're going through a lot,

man. They've got some spiritual

warfare happening. If you believe that, why don't

you start fighting the enemy? Being a St.

I guess if I could sum it up, just means refusing to be Edom.

You see your brother or sister struggling, and instead of

standing at a distance, you move closer.

And so this week, I would challenge you to don't just see

the Saints, but to let one of them see you also.

And I'm going to give you a chance to respond to that in a

moment. I'm going to do something

different as we finish this morning.

Normally when we get to this part of the service, I ask

people to come forward when we're doing an altar call for

salvation. But today we're going to do

something different. Maybe people need to respond to

something. That God has been speaking to

them throughout this morning. And if you need any of those

things today, we'll absolutely pray with you.

If you need salvation or you have a crisis, we'll absolutely

pray with you. But before anyone else moves,

I'm going to ask for our small group leaders to come up here

and just stand across the front. Just be spaced out.

Give the care team some papers that you all will have too.

We've got those available for you and I'll explain what we're

doing in a moment. I've got one more scripture to

share with you. Now, as you see these people

walk up. I want you to understand

something about them, and I'm going to make it painfully

obvious, although they already know it.

These are not professional Christians.

OK, they do not have everything figured out.

They do not have perfect marriages.

They do not have perfect families.

They do not have perfect theology or faith or.

Lives. They have questions and they

have struggles and they have things that they are working

through with Jesus. Some of them have scars that

most of you would know absolutely nothing about.

But they've made a decision. That they're willing to open

their lives and make room for other people.

And I want you to see something else while they're all standing.

Up here for the last four weeks, we've talked about a world that

we can't see We started the series learning about the war

all around us, but today we've discovered the unseen truth

behind it that. Jesus has already won.

We saw a cross, but something bigger was happening, so Jesus

knew there would be days when remembering by ourselves.

Would be difficult and he gave us the Saints.

I don't think it's an accident that when Jesus finished his

work on earth and sent the Holy Spirit, the first thing that

emerged wasn't a collection of isolated Christians having

private spiritual experiences. It was a.

Community and I want you to understand something before I

read the scripture. When I get back from Guatemala,

we're going to continue moving deeper into this unseen world

through the stories of the Holy Spirit.

In the series that I'm pleased to call Ghost Stories, we're

going to talk about all of it. Who he is, what he does, how he

speaks, how He empowers his believers, the gift of tongues,

the baptism, the Holy Spirit, all of it.

But I want you to know the same spirit that raised Jesus from

the dead now lives within you if you belong to Jesus.

And as we are encountering this and we're getting armed for

warfare, it's going to be a whole lot easier to navigate if

we've got some people fighting that battle with us.

When the Holy Spirit was poured out in the church in the book of

Acts, something happened that I don't want us to miss.

Acts 2, verse 40. Two says this all the believers

Acts 2:40

devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, and to

fellowship, and to sharing in meals including the Lord's

Supper, and to prayer. A deep sense of awe came over

them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs

and wonders. And all the believers met

together in one place and shared everything they had.

They sold their property and possessions and shared the money

with those in need. They worshipped together at the

temple each day, met in homes for the Lord's Supper, and

shared their meals with great joy and generosity, all the

while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people.

And each day, the Lord added to their fellowship those who are

being saved. That's the church.

I want you to notice how much of that scripture happens to be

together. They learned together, and they

ate together and prayed together and worshiped together.

And even though it doesn't say it, I bet you they laughed

together. I bet you they cried together.

And somehow I feel like we've turned the relational.

Option into some sort of upgrade for Christianity.

And so we say things like my relationship with God is

personal and of course it is. My relationship with my wife is

personal, but it's not private. You all know who my wife is.

You were never designed to answer every question alone, or

survive every temptation alone, or carry every grief alone.

And that is why I've asked. For the small group leaders to

stand here, when we're done talking about the Holy Spirit,

we're going to end up talking about how to get clean from

demonic and unclean spirits. We're going to talk about how to

rebuke the enemy, how to cast them off and away from us and

from people that we love. And even though it's weird,

we're not the weirdest church out there.

Believe it or not, the way that our small groups work is they

meet on different days of the week.

They don't meet during midweek services or Sunday mornings.

And if they meet on a Sunday morning, please tell on them,

let me know. Most of them meet about twice a

month, some once a month, some once a week.

You can find one where you can make some connections because

I'm willing to bet there's a lot of people in this room that

don't really know a lot of people in this room.

And if you don't feel like it's for you, that's fine.

I'm not trying to force you, but I'm trying to give you an

opportunity. And I also want you to know

this, we have other ministries that aren't represented here,

Men's ministry, ladies ministry, C2 for single adults up through

age 30. We've got north of 50.

If you're between 30 and 50, we love you and we're praying for

you. We're working on it, right?

No church have is everything. Listen, if you are sitting here

thinking I don't really have anybody, there's no.

Shame in that. Maybe you've been at liberty for

three weeks or one day, or maybe you've been here three years.

Maybe you know everybody's name, but nobody really knows.

You. Maybe you used to have

community, but something happened.

Maybe somebody hurt you. Maybe you've slowly withdrawn

and not even realized it. Maybe you're surrounded by

people on Sunday, but you still feel alone.

And I'm not asking you to come forward because we think

something's wrong with you. I'm just asking because

Christianity is not. Good alongside isolation.

So if you need men's group C2, women's ministry.

If you need a small group these. People, you don't have to pick

the one that you want to join. Just come up here, we'd love to

get your information and we'll help you find the groups and the

connections that you need. You don't have to know which

group will help you. You just need to be willing to

say I need people. So these leaders are not going

to interrogate you except for Mike Helmite, right?

They're not going to interrogate you, they're not going to make

you sign your Lifeway, they're not going to make you sign a

covenant. That means you have to start

giving money. We just.

Understand that after four weeks of talking about spiritual

warfare, I want us leaving here harder to isolate by the enemy.

So worship team if you all want to go ahead and start playing

and I'll just I'll just end by telling you this, there might be

somebody who will survive something next.

Year that you survived five years ago.

It's not just about what you need, it's about the people who

need you. There might be somebody who

needs your encouragement, your testimony, your questions, your

prayers, your laughter, your wisdom, or maybe just your

friendship. We got a group that meets in.

Swansboro, we got one that meets in New Bern and we got a whole

lot in between. I want you to know this is what

the Saints do. So I'm not asking you whether or

not you attend Liberty. I'm asking whether or not you're

known by other Saints. And if you don't have people or

you need to get this fixed up a little bit, I'm just going to

ask you to come on forward and you can meet with somebody.

The enemy loves isolation and we're not going to give it to

him. So if you need community, I'm

asking you to do something incredibly simple and probably a

little uncomfortable. Get out of your seat and come

down here. And if you need community.

Just walk up to one of these people and say I need people and

we'll take it from there. I've already told you that we're

surrounded, but this morning I want you to decide who you're

going to be surrounded by. Amen.