The Unseen Battle - Part 1

I feel good today, guys. Yeah.

I thought I'd feel a little nervous.

I don't. I'm not nervous to speak

publicly. I I do that frequently.

I used to, as a youth pastor, get really excited when it was

time to preach about spiritual warfare because seems really

exciting to talk about, like the demonic manifestations and the

different things that would happen.

What I found is when you're really digging into it and

you're really hearing from the Lord and you're really preaching

it, you also open yourself up to different attacks.

The enemy doesn't like it when you expose the tactics.

But we're starting a new series that is called Things Unseen.

You need to know that for the rest of August, we're going to

run through this series, but there are going to be two other

significant chunks of teaching on spiritual warfare that

happened throughout much of the end of the year.

At the end of this month, I'll be accompanying a a team of 18

people to Guatemala on the mission field.

When I come back, we'll be diving deep into the Holy

Spirit. We'll talk about tongues.

We'll talk about the anointing of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of

the Holy Spirit, all sorts of things.

And then finally, the the last section that we'll cover will be

how to battle and fight against the demonic or the oppressive or

things like this. But we're not going to even talk

about that until the Lord has gotten his due and we've talked

about his plan and how glorious and powerful he is.

This is coming. As a matter of fact, it's

already here. How many of you came up in a

faith tradition that never talked about spiritual warfare?

OK, how many of you came up in a faith tradition that probably

talked about spiritual warfare more than it should have?

Because that exists, too. And one of the dangers you can

make is to believe there's a demon around every sort of

issue. And another mistake you can make

is to say that there's no real demonic.

I've had people ask before, don't you think that demons is

sort of like a metaphor for like our personal struggles?

And I don't know, you just have to read the gospel one time to

know that that's not true. You know, when somebody sees

Jesus approaching and they start screaming out, I know who you

are, Son of God. That's not indicative that

somebody is dealing with a mental health crisis.

It's just not. These are genuine real

manifestations that happened. And as far as we can tell, every

single one of them was somebody who believed in God.

So then we assume that there's really nothing that can affect a

believer when it comes to spiritual warfare, when it comes

to the demonic. And that's a lie.

Now, you can't be completely controlled by the demonic if you

belong to the Lord, but you can sure be influenced.

And I know this because I've been there.

I've been there. I've been there to be the

recipient of these whispers that make you second guess yourself

and make you go down a dark rabbit hole of anxiety or

trepidation. This first series is called

Things Unseen. We're going to talk about things

that we can't see. And so over the next 4 weeks

we're going to talk about a part of reality that most of us don't

think about a whole lot. We spend nearly all of our lives

paying attention to the things that we can see and hear and

touch and measure and the stuff that we can explain.

By the end of this series, you will not be able to explain

everything that happens biblically or in the spiritual

realm. I don't know all those answers

and I'm not meant to, but you need to know about this.

Think about the things that you do notice throughout the, the

the week. You notice things at work, you

notice what's happening in your home most of the time.

You notice what's happening in your body or your bank account.

You notice your relationship. You notice the world around you.

How many of y'all have already seen a couple headlines on the

news this morning before you came to church, right?

So we notice a lot of things, don't we?

And we start to look for a visible explanation every time

something goes wrong, we want to know who caused it, what broke,

what changed, and what we can do to fix it.

And the Bible describes a world that is so much larger than the

part that you and I can see. I would actually go as far as to

tell you I believe the spiritual realm is more diverse, more

colorful, and bigger than even what we can see.

There's colours that exist that we haven't seen.

And I know this to be true because there's colours that

exist that we literally can't see.

But a mantis shrimp can see them, and they live in the

ocean. There are color spectrums that

your eyeball and my eyeball just can't perceive.

It doesn't mean those colors don't exist.

It means that we can't take them in.

I think that God's spiritual realm is just as diverse, just

as robust, if not more so, than this one.

And you and I are unique because the physical realm is made and

the spiritual realm is made. And you guys are a dirt that has

the breath of God blown into you.

You're a hybrid, and this is something that the angels long

to look into, that we are this blended spiritual, wrapped in

flesh, created reality. And so we somewhat have a foot

in both of these realms. We just only pay attention to

one of them. So Scripture teaches us that

there are spiritual realities that surround our physical

lives. It talks about things like

angels and demons and heavenly beings, sons of God.

It talks about spiritual authorities, the kingdoms of

God, the Kingdom of God. It talks about principalities,

and it talks about the Kingdom of darkness.

It tells us that there are battles that we can't see.

So for Christians, the entire part of our faith that is

spiritual tends to get pushed into a corner.

We believe it because of the Bible.

Most Christians, if you talk to them and say, do you think Jesus

really walked on water? We'll say yes.

A lot of Christians you grew up in church will say, do you

really believe a donkey talked in the Old Testament?

We'll say yes, because we know what we're supposed to say.

Do you really believe there were demons that got cast out?

Yes. Do you believe a donkey could

talk today? Well, I've known a couple.

I'm just kidding. I got to make it a little

lighter, OK? Do you really believe that God

could create a moment where somebody could walk on water

again? Do you think that God can

miraculously heal somebody in a moment?

We know the right thing to do and to say yes, but we're so out

of touch with the spiritual realm that we don't even expect

it. And there we are hedging our

bets again, because we know that God can.

We just don't think He will. So we don't even try.

I'm sorry, let me rephrase it. So we don't even participate.

We don't even do our part and then wonder why He doesn't show

up the way we want Him to. So I want to show you what I

mean. So I needed somebody who would

trust me enough to come and help me for a moment.

And I took somebody who who went through the youth group for many

years and I've known for well over a decade.

I'm going to ask Emily to come on up here.

Yay. Oh, they're clapping for you and

you really haven't even done anything yet.

You guys are so loving. Here is a blindfold now, Emily.

It's really weird calling you Emily.

Can I just call you Chuck? I call her Chuck because her

nickname in the youth group was Chuckles or Up Chuckles,

depending on what she had done recently.

So you're welcome. What?

What did I ask you to do? You asked me.

To put that blindfold. On I asked you to put a

blindfold on. And did I ask anything else of

you? You don't know anything else

that's going to happen to you. Some parts of being a pastor are

really hard. Some of them are just really

fun. We tested this out.

This is like it's it completely blocks out the light.

So go ahead. Oh, on me, I thought.

I. Was putting.

It on you? Oh, no, not on me.

No, this is on you. But you already said yes.

Let your yes be yes and your no be no.

All right, this is good. Can you see any light?

Great. So I'm just going to talk to you

for a minute. Scale from one to 10.

How would you rank your morning? What's a 7A7A7?

That's decent. OK, so let me ask you, what is

one of your biggest fears? I just want you to expose it in

front of this room full of people.

You. Know well hi friends, probably.

Failing. Failing.

You're afraid of failing. Usually just in general or any

specific. What's your favorite color?

Yellow. Yellow.

Yes man, you almost never hear that.

What else? What's your favorite food?

Chocolate, Mostly chocolate. That's crazy.

I'm very uncomfortable. Why?

Because every hear. Things moving.

What's moving? I don't.

Know. People, people it.

Sounds like people. Chuck, who was up here?

I don't. Know what you've.

Done, she said. I don't know what you've done.

How many, how many people do you think are on the stage right

now? I don't know.

I know that it's just me and you, but I hear everything.

God bless, Oh my God. What do you see a lot?

Of people I was. Correct.

Your own father. Hey, hold on to this.

That's a souvenir for you. I hope you sleep better.

Listen, just because you couldn't tell they were here

doesn't mean that they weren't here right Today.

We're talking about the unseen realm.

And you need to understand that just because you can't see them

doesn't mean that they're not there.

I'm telling you right now, God is my witness.

I believe in my heart. This would be controversial to

some of you. I think there are good spirits

in this building. I think there are probably evil

spirits in this building. Thank you, guys.

Thank you. Why would why would I think that

there are evil spirits in this building?

This is a church, well, because in a church, what we do is we

ask for everybody to come. We want you to hear the gospel,

right? And so don't let Hollywood fool

you. You're not going to have like a

ring of salt or sprinkle holy water on a door.

And all of a sudden you do have authority in your home.

And we have authority and we pray over this building.

The, we have a, we have a prayer team that meets throughout the

week. And they prayed over me this

week. I'm so grateful.

And one of the things they did was they just prayed and

anointed in advance of this building because they said, we

know that not everybody who comes into a church building has

good motives or good intentions. And this is true.

And Jesus didn't chase them away.

He brought them in. This matters.

If you feel like wherever you go, you're in God's special

little bubble and nothing can touch you, you're wrong.

Those weapons don't prosper, but sometimes they do still come for

you and they do still hit you. Just because Chuck could not see

what was around her, it didn't change the reality.

The reality didn't change either.

When the blindfold came off, all of a sudden she could see

something that she couldn't see before.

So for everybody that when I said I just need you to come up

and be creepy and stand near somebody when I do a thumbs up.

Thank you for being willing to do that.

In just a moment, we're going to be in Second Kings chapter 6.

2 Kings 6 · chapter mention

But I want you to understand this.

You and I are only seeing part of this reality.

And even if you have seen into the spiritual realm before, we

never see all of it. We never get to see all of it.

That's OK. It would make your head explode.

We don't need to see all of it. We need to see what the Lord has

for us. I wonder how often our true

spiritual existence is happening where we're going through life

and we're surrounded by all of these things that are happening

and we don't know it, but then all of a sudden we get into a

fight at work and we're like, that guy is a Jack wagon.

Now, that guy might be a Jack wagon, but is he being

influenced by something? Are you being influenced by

something? Is there all of a sudden a

spirit that's coming up and saying, man, he's always going

to be like that man. They're never going to see you.

They're never going to understand what's happening.

You've been married. How long you still fighting over

that? All it takes is just one little

whisper, 1 little doubt and these spirits are all around us

and we'll talk about how to fight back about this.

But today is all about understanding how diverse and

robust the spiritual realm is. I want to be really careful

before I start reading the scripture.

OK, guys, the goal here is not to make you suspicious of

everything. We're not going to start blaming

a demon every time the Wi-Fi stops working.

We're not going to blame a demon every time somebody does

something that bothers us. And we're also not going to

become frightened or superstitious or fascinated with

darkness. But we are also not going to

ignore an entire dimension of reality just because we can't

see it. So what we have right here is a

man who woke up one day believing he understood exactly

what was happening around him. In Second Kings chapter 6,

2 Kings 6 · chapter mention

starting in verse 8, it says this.

When the king of Aram was at war with Israel, he would confer

with his officers and say we will mobilize our forces at such

and such a place. I've been there.

If you have you ever been at such and such a place, lots of

war happens there. But immediately Elisha, the man

of God would warn the king of Israel, do not go near that

place, for the Arameans are planning to mobilize their

troops there. So the king of Israel would send

word to the place indicated by the man of God.

And time and again Elisha warned the king so that he would be on

the alert there. Elisha is getting some spiritual

discernment, some wisdom here, and he's not allowing harm to

befall these people. How is he doing this?

Well, the king of Iran is trying to wage war against Israel, and

every time he comes up with a strategy, Elisha knows exactly

what is going to happen. So what would you assume if you

were the king of Iran? You would assume I got a spy.

You would look for the natural conclusion somebody's leaking

something. We need to figure out what this

is. It never crosses his mind that

God is simply revealing what nobody else can see.

So listen to this. In verse 11, the king of Iran

became very upset over this. He called the officers together

and demanded, which of you is the traitor who has been

informing the king of Israel of my plans?

It's not us, my Lord, the king, one of the officers replied.

They said, Elisha, the prophet in Israel tells the king of

Israel even the words you speak in the privacy of your bedroom.

That's a little scary, isn't it? You can tell the truth.

That's all right. Go and find out where he is.

The king commanded so I can send troops to seize him.

And the report came back. Elisha is at Dolphin.

So one night the king of Iram sent a great army with many

Chariots and horses to surround the city.

So now the plan has changed. Instead of this repeated attempt

to attack Israel, now he's going to go and attack the prophet.

Because now he figures out if I take out the prophet, I can then

take out Israel. So that's what he does.

He sends them there. And everything about this

situation would point to an obvious conclusion.

But check this out just verse 15.

When the servant of the man of God, the servant of Elijah, he

got up early the next morning and he went outside and there

were troops and horses and Chariots everywhere.

And he said, oh Sir, what will we do now?

Says the young man cried to Elijah.

It's terrifying. I want you to a picture walking

outside of your your house this morning and all of a sudden

you've got FBI cars and the police and state troopers and I

don't know, a helicopter or whatever.

You've got all the stuff outside of your house.

You wouldn't be like, oh, that's weird.

You'd freeze up. What is happening?

So he goes to his boss. He goes to this prophet Elisha

that he's serving. And Elisha says this in verse

16. Don't be afraid.

He says there are more on our side than on theirs.

And I just got to imagine that his servant goes what?

Where? Look at this.

Then Elijah prayed. Lord, open his eyes and let him

see. And the Lord opened the young

man's eyes, and when he looked up, he saw that the hillside

around Elijah was filled with horses and Chariots of fire.

Yes, that's where the movie got its name from.

As the army and army advanced towards him, Elijah prayed,

Lord, please make them blind. So the Lord struck them with

blindness as Elijah had asked. Now listen to me.

First of all, you've probably heard this.

The Lord can open doors that no man can shut, and he shuts doors

that no man can open. Well, he does the same thing

with eyes. All of a sudden, now you've got

Elijah and his servant. Now they can see things they

couldn't have seen before. And for this army, he's like,

shut their eyes. The Lord said, got you

paraphrase mine. I don't think due to what we're

going to read next, I don't think that it's a literal

blindness. I think it was a confusion.

OK, so check this out. So he said let them be blind.

It says Elisha went out and he told them you've come the wrong

way. This isn't the right city.

Follow me and I'll take you to the man you're looking for.

And then he led them to the city of Samaria, which is in Israel.

So as soon as they had entered Samaria, Elisha prayed, Oh,

Lord, now open their eyes and let them see.

And the Lord opened their eyes, and they discovered they were in

the middle of Samaria. Ladies and gentlemen who have

served, I want you to imagine that you're being sent to France

and you're walking around France.

And then all of a sudden, you blink and you go, I think I'm in

Afghanistan, OK? This is what happened to them.

This was a very rude awakening because now they're in enemy

territory. As a matter of fact, when the

king of Israel verse 21 saw them, he shouted to Elisha, My

father, should I kill them? Should I kill them?

He asked twice. He's really excited about this.

Elisha said, of course not. Do we kill prisoners of war,

give them food and drink and send them home again to their

master? This was a power play and the

king made a great feast for them and sent them home to their

master. After that, the Aramean Raiders

stayed away from the land of Israel.

I bet I would have too. I've been like, I want nothing

to do with this again, Elisha responds with one of the

simplest prayers in all of scripture.

He doesn't ask God to move the army.

He doesn't ask him to smite them.

He doesn't ask God to change the circumstances that he's found

himself in. He doesn't even ask God for the

reinforcements. He just prays God open his eyes

and let him see. Let me ask you something.

He sees the armies of the Lord, the Chariots of fire up in the

sky. What did they do?

They didn't come down and battle them.

He saw something that nobody else could see and because of

it, he had confidence. Christians, I want you to start

seeing things that nobody else can see.

And maybe it won't be literal like this, but I want you to see

things and hear things and understand things from the Lord.

That will give you confidence that when the enemy comes

against you, you'll be like, there's way more that's for me

than are against me. I don't know how this is going

to go, but the goal, even that day you can see God in his love

and his mercy. He doesn't even let them kill

this army, this army that's tried to kill them.

He's like, make them dinner, so they make them a feast.

It says they even give them rations.

They gave them a feast. So these guys went back with the

story that not only did we end up in the wrong area, we were

shown mercy. We were fed really well.

They have really good food over there.

I mean, we were taken really good care of.

So now they don't want to come back because they know they're

messing with the Lord. They know that Elisha is not

somebody to mess with. And I'm betting that some of

them kind of like those people that fed them really well.

You really want to make a good impression, feed somebody.

Well, ask me how I know. Let me ask you this before we

move on. What if the greatest thing that

God wants to do in your life isn't to change your

circumstances first? What if He just wants to open

your eyes to more than what you can see?

So today I'm going to push you. This is hard, and I'm being

pushed too. So if I'm getting pushed, you're

getting pushed. We're all getting pushed.

OK, the first thing I have to say to you today is this.

Wake up, Wake up. And I mean this from the bottom

of my heart. You have got to wake up the

servant of the Lord. His name, you'll find out in

later stories, his name is Geheza his his problem isn't

that he lacked courage and it wasn't that he didn't love God.

There's many people that are in the the struggle bus of the Lord

and they love God and they are courageous.

And you're normally the people that go to and say, wow, you

overcome everything. Wow, you've survived all of this

stuff. You must be really strong and

you're like, I don't want to be strong, OK?

It had nothing to do with Ghazi's strength or his courage

or his love for God. He didn't even doubt Elisha, his

master. His problem was much simpler

than that. It was this.

He woke up 1 morning believing he could see everything with his

physical eyes that he needed to to understand the story.

Is that not you and I? We wake up and we're like, oh, I

got a lot to do today. And we feel like we understand

it, But the truth is, a lot of us live exactly like Ghazi.

We wake up every morning and we start thinking about our

schedule and our responsibilities and our bills

and our jobs and our families and everything we have to

accomplish before the day is over.

Some of us wouldn't say it out loud, but we feel like if we

don't do it, nobody else is going to do it.

So we have to. And then we take on too much and

then blame other people for letting us do it.

It's just very unhealthy. In case you're curious, it can

become very easy to live as though these are the only

realities that exist. And I'm not telling you they're

not important, but I'm just telling you that if you begin

measuring your lives by only what you can see and what you

can touch and explain, you're going to forget.

The Scripture repeatedly reminds you that there is so much more

than what you can see. Think about the ways that we

prepare for danger. I want you to think about what

you do to make sure that you stay safe.

Most of us lock our doors before we go to bed.

I lock my car door three times when I walk away from it.

It's also probably my OCD, but if I do it three times, I'm sure

that at least one of those button pushes has worked.

We buy insurance because you never know.

We save for retirement because we never know.

We go to the doctor when something doesn't feel right.

Well, not all of us. Some of us are stubborn.

We teach our children to look both ways before crossing the

street if we let them cross the street.

We understand the importance of preparing for dangers that we

can see. But so many of us give almost no

thought to the spiritual battle that Scripture says is right in

front of us every single day. And most of us don't wake up

expecting temptation. We don't wake up expecting that

the devil's going to do something that deceives us

today. We don't wake up and say, I

wonder how the enemy's going to attack my marriage or my mind or

my witness or even my church today.

We just drift into another day, assuming that everything happens

for some reason that can be explained by what we see in

front of us. But we're going to see this

story from the Gospel of Matthew in Matthew chapter 26.

Matthew 26 · chapter mention

This is Jesus praying in Gethsemane, right?

We're familiar with this. He's sweating blood.

He's crying out to the Father. I just referenced it earlier.

God, if there's any other way, but if not, your will be done,

not mine. Listen, it says in verse 36,

Jesus went with them, his disciples to the olive Grove

called Gethsemane, and he said, sit here while I go over there

to pray. So he took Peter and Zebedee's

two sons, James and John, and he became anguished and distressed.

He told them, my soul is crushed with grief to the point of

death. Stay here and keep watching with

me. Think about one of the most

important people in your life. Should you imagine that?

They say to you, my soul is overwhelmed with grief to the

point of death and they look at you and they say, I need you to

pray with me. What would you do?

Pray with him? That's certainly the right

answer, and I hope that we would.

So what happens here? Jesus goes down a little

farther. He bows with his face to the

ground, praying. My father, if it's possible, let

this cup of suffering be taken away from me.

Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.

You see a difference there? A lot of times we're like, well,

if you can't do what I want, then let your will be done.

He says, I want your will to be done.

Christians, we got to get to the place that we want His will done

in our life so much more than we want our will to be done.

Now a cool little cheat code is this.

The closer you get to the Lord, the more that your will will

become His will. But it takes time.

And this is a refinement process as He takes you from glory to

glory. Now he returns to the disciples

and he finds them asleep. Don't you picture that?

You go into the other room. You're like, hey, are you still

praying for? And they're asleep.

You just said you might feel like you could die.

You're so overwhelmed with grief.

He returns and this is Jesus. He says to Peter, couldn't you

watch with me even one hour? Keep watching.

Pray so that you'll not give into temptation.

For the Spirit is willing, but the body is weak.

I don't know what you live in, but I live in a body.

My body's weak, my spirit can be strengthened over and over

again, but the body is still something that is in the game

where this hybrid of spiritual and flesh rolled into one, and

sometimes the weakness of the body plays a part in this.

Now then Jesus left them a second time and prayed.

My Father, if this cup cannot be taken away unless I drink it,

your will be done. And he returned to them again

and found them sleeping, for they couldn't keep their eyes

open. And he went to pray 1/3 time,

saying the same things again. And as he came to the disciples

this third time that he says, go ahead and sleep, have your rest.

But look, the time has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into

the hands of sinners. Up.

Let's be going. Look, my betrayer is here.

I don't think it's an accident that on the night before the

cross, Jesus doesn't tell his disciples to sharpen their

swords. He doesn't tell them to do

anything other than to stay awake.

He wanted them to be in the loop.

He wanted them to be active. He wanted them to be

participating. He wanted them to be engaged.

And he comes back and he finds them.

What? He's sleeping, He's sleeping.

They're not wicked people. That's not why they're sleeping.

To my knowledge, I don't think evil makes you sleep any better

or worse. They just don't understand the

moment that they're in. I think they understood that

Jesus was overwhelmed with a lot of grief.

I think they were just so used to Jesus fixing things that they

said, well, we're here. They probably, to be honest with

you, I don't have Scripture to prove this, but based on other

conversations I saw, the disciples have.

I bet you Peter, James and John, they just felt really good.

Oh, can't wait to see the rest of the guys tomorrow.

We went praying with Jesus in the garden.

They're going to be so jealous of us.

Yeah, they weren't jealous that they were here to experience

this, but they're sleeping because they don't understand

what's happening. And that is one of the greatest

deceptions, one of the greatest spiritual battles of their lives

was happening feet away from them.

Jesus said watch and pray so you won't enter into temptation.

In other words, he's telling them wake up.

There is something that is so important here, and if it felt

important to you, you would stay awake.

There's more happening than you realize.

And I wonder if Jesus would say the same thing to his church

today. By the way, like I said before,

you do not need to be suspicious over every inconvenience or

become fascinated with anything that's a cult.

The enemy doesn't have to convince us to stop believing in

Jesus if he can just convince us to stop paying attention.

If we expect that God's going to handle it, He's our fairy

godmother. He's going to take care of it.

We won't participate, we won't be alert, and we are going to be

numb to the things that happen around us, both positive and

negative. The apostle Peter, he understood

that lesson better than anybody. Why?

Because he was there that night. As a matter of fact, the first

time Jesus comes back, it doesn't even say that he wakes

up James and John. It says he woke up Peter.

And he said, could you not even stay awake with me for an hour?

Peter? Peter, Peter's the knucklehead

who said, man, I'd die for you. And he's like, well, actually,

you're going to betray me. But listen to this.

The words of Peter in first Peter chapter 5 verses 8:00 and

1 Peter 5 · chapter mention

9:00. Peter learned from his mistake.

Here's what he writes. Stay alert, he says.

Stay alert and watch out for your great enemy, the devil.

He prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to

devour. So what does he say?

He says stand firm against him and be strong in your faith and

remember that your family of believers all over the world is

going through the same kind of suffering you are.

I'll be honest with the first several years that I read this

scripture as I was going through this, I read it through a filter

of guilt when I said, and don't forget, everybody around the

world is suffering the same way you are.

You know how I heard that? I heard that so many people have

it worse than you. Suck it up.

I don't think that's what Peter's saying.

He's saying be alert. You need prayer.

You need protection. By the way, pray for the other

believers because they're going through the same thing you are.

Don't become obsessed with self. Talked a lot about pride last

week. Do not let yourself become the

main character you're not. Now.

Peter doesn't write those words as a man speaking and trying to

write some theology. He writes them as someone who

knows exactly what happens when you're not paying attention.

For many of us, we would see him write that because we are so

insecure today. Today's culture is probably the

least secure one that has ever existed, and we would probably

read that from Peter and be like Peter says, stay awake, like

he's the guy to be given advice on staying awake.

It was years since that had happened.

Whatever happened to our grace for people?

Whatever happened to the fact that we could look at somebody

and say, I know they went through that, but I know they

can change and they have changed and they are growing.

But for most of us, we would look at that and we would think

otherwise. I think this is where the series

has to begin today because before we talk about angels or

demons or answer the difficult questions about the unseen realm

or discuss our spiritual gifts or demonic oppression, we have

to ask ourselves a personal question.

And I really want you to ask this of yourself.

Are you asleep? Are you ignoring things that are

happening around you because you can't prepare for a battle that

you don't believe that you're in?

And you'll never fight an enemy that you don't believe exists.

Gehezai was not prepared to fight the enemy because he

didn't even know the armies of the Lord that were standing

there for him. My prayer for you is the same

prayer that Elisha prayed for Gehezai.

Lord, would you open their eyes? Lord, would you open my eyes?

One of the strangest things the human body can do is sleepwalk.

Any sleepwalkers here? You don't have to admit it, but

I haven't done it in a while. But yeah, it'll leave you in

some awkward situations. I I remember one time waking up

downstairs where the Christmas tree was when I was growing up.

And I lived upstairs. So somehow I made it down the

stairs. And it's very disorienting to

wake up somewhere that you didn't fall asleep.

But sleepwalkers can do incredibly complex things.

It can be hilarious and unsettling at the same time.

Some can wander into another room and have an entire

conversation with somebody that they don't remember OK.

Others have been known to. This is real.

Other sleepwalkers have been known to make a sandwich while

they're asleep, or to fold laundry.

I can't imagine they do it well but rearrange furniture or even

try to leave the house only to wake up later with no memory of

it. I'm just talking about in the

physical realm, things that we can accomplish while we're

asleep. So think about this on the

spiritual scale. But you should also know this.

There are parents who have found their children sleeping in

closets because they wandered in there in the middle of the

night, and they're scared because they go to the bed and

their child's not there. There are stories of people that

have woken up outside on their front porch, wondering how they

got there. And as amusing as those stories

can be, here are some statistics.

I just want to drive this home. Sleepwalking can also be

dangerous. About 7% of people will

sleepwalk at some point in their lives, but about 17% of adult

sleepwalkers have suffered injuries that have required

medical attention because of sleepwalking, Something that

they did unconsciously, weren't aware that they were doing, and

it caused them damage. Some of them, they walk out to a

street, they're not awake, they're not alert, or they fall

down the stairs or they grab a knife the wrong way because

they're somewhat conscious, but they're somewhat unconscious.

And there's a great inherent danger when you're walking that

line. You and I have a responsibility

because we are spiritual beings inside of a body and there's a

war that's being waged around us and we would prefer to be over

here just on the physical side because we understand it better.

And I get it. A lot of us, we don't want to do

something new because something new is something we might fail

at. Emily, when I asked you earlier,

what are you afraid of, and you said failing.

I mean, we talked about this recently.

We're all afraid to fail. And so for some of us, we're

just scared that if we dip our toe into something that's in the

realm of spiritual, spiritual warfare, we're going to fail at

it. You're not the main person

fighting, but you are a participant.

OK, So what does it actually look like to wake up?

I don't want to just tell you to wake up.

I need you to hear me on this. It does not mean trying to find

a demon everywhere you go. Maybe you all like Christian

rock. Anybody ever listen to that band

Demon Hunter? You've heard of them?

Yeah, I'm sure they're great. I don't like, I don't like heavy

rock. I'm sure you can tell by looking

at me. I'm more of a hip hop guy.

But some of you are laughing because you know it's true.

And some of you are like, ha ha ha.

No, you aren't. I am.

But I have always thought, I've always thought that Demon Hunter

is a bad name. There is not one scriptural

mandate for you to hunt for them, not because they're hard

to find, but because every time that you go and you take

something and put it in your own hands, especially something in

the spiritual realm. Somebody I used to work with in

ministry, he told me a story where he got so fired up for the

Lord he walked outside of his college dorm room, shook his

first at the sky, pointed a finger and started rebuking the

principalities and saying I'm coming against you and all it

like he started rebuking them and I said, what happened?

He said, well, he said that night I went to go to sleep and

I heard this weird sound and it sounded like breathing.

And when I opened my eyes, there was this thing that looked like

a, an enormous wolf head that was coming through the wall with

just drool, like coming off of it.

And I was like, what did you say?

And he's like, I couldn't say anything.

I was so scared. When he eventually did, he

rebuked it in the name of Jesus because that's where the real

power is. And it went away, but it was

paralyzing. That's how scary it was to him.

And a lot of times we're like, oh, I'm on God's side, so I'll

go, I'm God's little special agent, right?

You might feel like you're double O 7.

You're more like Perry the Platypus right out there trying

to rebuke things that you got no business dabbling into.

Your job is to be obedient to what God tells you to.

If a principality comes against you, he shall not prosper.

If a demon comes against you, he shall not prosper.

You don't need to insert yourself into places where that

war is not yours, right? By the way, for those of you who

have served, do you respect the people who don't follow orders

and decide to take into their own hands and go and do their

own thing when you're out in the field?

My experience from talking to you is no.

As a matter of fact, you'd probably have choice words about

such a person. This week.

I want to challenge every single one of us online and here this

morning. I want you to start every

morning with one simple prayer before you check your phone.

Don't you dare check your phone before you do this, Before you

turn on the news, before you look at your calendar, before

you look at your first text message.

I want you to pray. Lord, open my eyes today and I

want you to mean it. I want you to mean it because

words have power, but it's the meaning that you put behind the

words. That's why lies are such a

grievous sin when we have intent to deceive somebody that we love

and care about. It's why it's so grievous

because you use a life giving ability that God has given you

and you code it in yourself. Lord, open my eyes today.

I want you to ask Him to help you notice where the Lord is

working in your life. Help.

Just say, help me recognize where the enemy might be trying

to distract me or deceive me or divide me.

Could you imagine on top of that, if everywhere that you

went for this week, this next week, you would also ask, what

can I see right now? In the same way that we had

Emily up here surrounded by, I don't know, what was that, 1214

people, something like that. What can I see right now?

The next time you get into a fight with your spouse, before

you respond, All right, Lord, what am I not seeing?

And He may not answer you, but I want you to understand this.

He will answer you if you need it to overcome the situation.

He will give you the insight you need if you are submitted to His

will, if you're submitted to His battle, if you're submitted to

His kingship, He'll give you the wisdom, the discernment, the

words that you need. And if He doesn't give you

something, you don't need something from Him.

But you better check. Lord, what can I see right now?

The next time your kids act up? Lord, what can I see right now?

Because maybe beneath the attitude is fear.

Maybe it's insecurity. Maybe it's a lonely kid.

Maybe it's a heart that really needs more grace than another

lecture. When someone at work lashes out

at you, before you decide that they are just rude or impossible

to deal with, ask the same question.

You don't know what burdens they carried into the office.

Or maybe when temptation comes in and it seems stronger, and

maybe you think, I thought I already beat this.

Well, instead of asking how close can I get to this without

falling into temptation, Which is kind of what most of us do.

Lord, what can I see right now? Why is this temptation so

appealing today? Where am I vulnerable?

And maybe it doesn't have anything to do with somebody

else. But when anxiety starts to take

over your heart and you start to feel discouraged because you

feel anxious and afraid or bitterness starts coming in.

Lord, what can I see right now? There may be a a battle taking

place just beneath the surface of the reality.

You can see one prayer and one question have the potential to

change the way that you walk through every day of this next

week and probably beyond. My prayer is that for every one

of us is that God would answer that same prayer that he

answered for Elisha's servant. You got to wake up.

We've got to wake up, but that's not enough.

Sorry. Actually, I'm not.

We have to wake up. The other thing we have to do is

we have to grow up. We have to grow up.

We have to start maturing. Have you noticed that in this

country we don't, we don't take 11 year olds and put them into

the military. I don't know if you've ever

stopped to think about it. Maybe you're like, oh, I've

never noticed that. That's true.

We don't. You know why?

They're not mature yet. They're not mature enough to

handle it. When you go to war, you have to

be trained. Knowledge alone is not enough to

defeat temptation. So if waking up is about

becoming aware that there's a battle, growing up is about

becoming prepared for it. One of the greatest mistakes

that you and I can make is believing that simply knowing

spiritual warfare exists somehow prepares you for it.

It doesn't. How many wars do you think are

happening on this planet right now?

A lot, right? We could probably list five of

them just real quick. But that doesn't mean you're

equipped to go fighting them. It just means you know they're

happening. So knowledge itself doesn't

defeat temptation. But God isn't looking for

Christians who know more. He is looking for Christians who

are actively working on becoming more like Jesus in Hebrews

Hebrews 5 · chapter mention

chapter 5. Most, by the way, we don't

really know who wrote the book of Hebrews.

Later on this fall when we return to midweek Bible studies

and renewed my Bible studies, it'll be the book of Hebrews.

My personal opinion, I think it's Apollos.

I could be wrong, but I think it's Apollos that wrote this.

But whoever they are, they're not playing games.

So listen to this. In Hebrews 5 verse 11, they

Hebrews 5:11

write this. There's so much more we would

like to say about this, but it's difficult to explain, especially

since you're spiritually dull and don't seem to listen.

Could you imagine getting this letter in the mail?

Man, I'd like to tell you a lot more, but you're kind of dumb.

I mean, that's what he's saying. He's like, man, you should be

ahead of this verse 12. You've been believers so long

now that you ought to be teaching others.

Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things

about God's Word He writes. You're like babies who need milk

and can't eat solid food. I'm sorry.

This is really funny. Listen, when I was in Top 40

Radio One time, they kept spilling drinks on the Control

Board, which is bad electronics liquid bad.

OK, so at one point, at one point they made this rule where

everybody had to have a sippy cup.

And if you only knew what it was like to have a room full of like

4 grown men, you know, right here on the hot FM like that's

it only lasted a few weeks, but the message was received.

It was like, look, if y'all are going to act like kids, we're

going to treat you like kids. When they lifted that rule,

nobody spilled anything else as far as I knew the rest of the

time I worked there. I'm sorry, I just had to shit

that wasn't in my notes. All right.

He says you're like babies, you need milk and can't eat solid

food. He said someone who lives on

milk is still an infant and doesn't know how to do what is

right. Babies don't know how to do what

is right. Children are being taught what

is right. Adults.

Verse 14 says solid food is for those who are mature, who

through training have the skill to recognize the difference

between right and wrong. The writer here in Hebrews is

frustrated. He's not frustrated because

believers don't know enough, but because they haven't grown

enough, he said. You've been believers so long

that you ought to be teaching others.

In other words, time has passed, but transformation hasn't kept

the pace. So they're still going over the

basics over and over and over again.

They're not even using their God-given gifts to make an

impact in the life of somebody else.

And if you feel like, man, this is like hitting me a little bit

because I've been a believer for several years and I'm not doing

anything with my gifts, that's not fair.

Yes, it is, yes it is. We are called to equip and

mature others. Chris, you served when you were

being trained basic training. Were you trained by somebody who

was brand new or by somebody who had more experience than you?

More experience. I don't know what else I was

expecting to hear. If you have more experience,

share it. Equip somebody.

War is at their doorstep. Don't you care?

Do you care that the people that you love and are invested in

have demonic entities who are working towards their downfall?

That's how serious this is. And you may say, well, I'm good.

I've made my my peace with the Lord.

I've prayed to salvation prayer. I took communion this morning.

I sang every word to every song. I'm good.

I'm glad you're good. The war is still happening.

Mature believers are those who have trained themselves to

distinguish between right and wrong.

That very last verse, he says solid food is for those who are

mature who through training have the skill to recognize the

difference between right and wrong trained.

What does train mean? It means repetition.

It means challenging yourself. It means pushing yourself.

Athletes train. They have to.

Trust me. I have a brand new program that

starts tomorrow with an official trainer, and I'm scared.

Marines train. Yeah, I was waiting for it.

Cassie, this worship team, do they train, they practice over

and over again. One time I made the the mistake

of posting on, on social media, I said, I said, I'm going to

worship team practice. And somebody wrote and they

said, I thought worship was just something that happened.

I don't think it's something you trained in.

And I used to think it was funny.

I was like, oh, I meant it's band practice.

No, worship is something you train into.

Because I showed up at this church back at the end of 2004

and I was like, man, these people put their hands up a lot.

And it's weird. It's not weird.

It's not weird to put your hands up.

Why don't you just do a quick Google search and find out?

I don't know, ask your best friend, the one that always

agrees with you, ChatGPT. Why don't you ask them how many

times the scripture says to lift holy hands and then tell

yourself why you don't ever lift them?

Doctors train. Aren't you glad?

Are you glad that the last time you went into a doctor's

appointment, they didn't say? Well, I'm not really sure, but

hang on on Web MD, Let me see. Let me compare it to this

picture. Doctors have to train.

If you want to become stronger physically, you train.

If you want to master an instrument or another language,

you have to train. If you want to compete at the

highest level, you train. The Olympics aren't volunteers.

Why would you assume that spiritual maturity happens any

differently? Too many Christians want the

strength of a mature believer without ever embracing the

habits that will actually produce maturity.

We'll be in Ephesians 6 in a second.

Think about this. We want to have a peaceful life.

We just don't want to put the time in with prayer.

Well, I do pray. I just don't feel like I hear

from God. So I don't pray.

That's what you're saying. And I know this because these

are things I've said. So if you're like, man, he's

coming at me. Yeah, I'm coming at you because

I'm coming at myself. I've been there.

We want wisdom. We just don't want to know the

Scriptures. It's kind of hard to have that

wisdom though. We want to have victory.

We just don't want to be obedient.

And the really hard things that the Lord requires of us, we want

discernment. We just don't want time in God's

presence. And that's the only way you get

discernment. When our life falls apart or

temptation comes or suffering arrives, we wonder why our faith

feels fragile. It's because we haven't trained.

We've skipped spiritual leg day and now we're paying for it.

Listen to this Ephesians 6 starting in verse 10.

It's well known, but listen, a final word.

Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.

Put on all of God's armor so that you will be able to stand

firm against all the strategies of the devil.

Paul says this. He says we are not fighting

against flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers and

authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this

Dark World, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.

Now we get to VBS, right? Therefore, put on every piece of

God's armor so that you'll be able to resist the enemy in the

time of evil. Then after the battle, you'll be

standing firm. Stand your ground, putting on

the belt of truth and the body armor of God's righteousness.

For shoes, put on the piece that comes from the good news so that

you'll be fully prepared. In addition, all of these hold

up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil.

I've heard people make fun of that before because sometimes

the translation is like fiery darts and they're like a dart.

Doesn't sound too dangerous. You want to get hit with a

flaming dart. It doesn't sound like a good

time to me. Put on salvation as your helmet

and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of

God. And then a lot of people end

their Bible study right there, which is really a shame because

right after that it says pray in the Spirit at all times and on

every occasion. It's prayer.

And by the way, it's prayer in the Spirit.

I believe he's talking about tongues and we'll get to that in

due time. Stay alert there that that is.

Again, stay alert. That means wake up and be

persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.

And then he says this and pray for me too.

I'm not honest. Paul writes to them, He's

encouraging them, he's pushing them.

He's like, hey, and could you say prayer for me?

Ask God to give me the right word so I can boldly explain

God's mysterious plan that the good news is for Jews and

Gentiles alike. He says, I'm in chains now,

still preaching this message as God's ambassador.

So pray that I'll keep on speaking boldly for him as I

should. I'm not going to unpack all the

armour that's been done a million times.

I'm sure I'll do it again one day.

But what I do want to say is this.

He says this in verse 13. Put on every piece of God's

armor so that you'll be able to resist the enemy in the time of

evil. I would venture to say that most

Christians have at least one of these pieces of armor down pat.

Maybe you've got great faith, cool, you've got an awesome

shield. But there's righteousness in

here. There's truth, there's peace,

there's salvation. He said put on every piece so

that you will be equipped to stand against the enemy in the

day of evil. And for many of us, we're like,

well, I got a couple pieces of the armor.

I'm a work in progress, aren't we all?

Get dressed, get dressed, put on the armor.

It's time to grow up. You would not do this out at

war. Those of you that have been

there, I'd never served in the military.

But you wouldn't go out to war and say, I don't want to carry

that. That pack's heavy.

Yeah, there's some in that pack that might save your life.

You're going to bundle up and you're going to trudge right

through the mud. You're going to get it done.

Why? Because you know what's at stake

there. But we act like we don't know

what's at stake here. Notice what Paul doesn't say.

He doesn't say. When the battle comes, hurry and

build some armor. That is what we do normally.

We try to borrow it from somebody else.

Hey, I'm really worried this is all going to work out.

You. You're a man of God.

You've got faith. Can you tell me this is all

going to work out? Well, I'm at my own war.

I can't promise you what's happening over there, but we try

and borrow it from somebody else.

Paul doesn't say when Satan attacks, then it's time to learn

to pray. Could you imagine that?

Could you imagine that right? Like you've got, you've got the

enemy firing at your building and you're like, quick Google

how to fire a gun. It's not the time.

It doesn't say when temptation shows up.

That's the time to start reading the scriptures.

You need to already have those scriptures in there so that as

the temptation is rising, and it will, it doesn't matter how long

you've served the Lord, you'll still get tempted.

So don't feel shame over that as temptation wells up.

You know what else wells up? The Scripture because you've

read it, you've been in it, you understand it.

So at the same time, you're like, well, I could look at

that. It's coming up here and it's

like, make a covenant with your eyes.

Oh, that's a really good scripture.

Pastor Marshall, when she was alive, I know that my wife went

to her for counsel one time and she told her the importance of

reading the Scripture because she said one day when you're in

a crisis, you have to pull from the well that's inside of you,

and you can't pull something out of the well that's not there.

It's like a lot of us are trying to pull water out of a dry well.

We just haven't been filling it. We haven't been paying

attention. Church, I just think it's time

that we stop asking how close can I get to God without

changing my life. I think we have to start asking

what kind of man or woman does Jesus want me to become?

Because the goal of the Christian life isn't to survive

the battle or even to get saved. It's to become so connected to

Christ that the battle no longer determines who you are.

I just think we need to understand that spiritual

immaturity is not a small problem on the edges of the

American church. I actually think it's one of the

worst problems the American church is dealing with today.

And I want to be fair when I say that because I'm I'm going to

read you some numbers. And no research company can look

into the human heart and determine who genuinely loves

Jesus. A survey can't measure someone's

entire relationship with God. But I want you to hear this, OK?

The Barna Group has been studying the religious lives of

Americans for decades, and in its newest long term research,

it found something that should grab your attention.

Listen to the comparison in the year 2000, the distant past,

back when CDs were all the rage. It doesn't make me feel old to

be like we have little circles we listen to music on.

But I remember cassette. So don't get me started.

In the year 2074% of self identified Christians said faith

was central to their lives. We're not even talking about a

habit. We're not talking about being in

those scripture or prayer, just that their faith was central to

their life. So 74% of Christians said my

faith is central to my life. In 2025, that number fell to

54%, 20%. These are people that say they

believe in Jesus, they're saved, but their faith is not

considered central to their life by them.

That's a year ago. Isn't that sad?

You can see the same gap when you look at Scripture too.

Barna reported some genuinely encouraging news in 2025.

Bible reading increased significantly across the

country, particularly, by the way, amongst younger adults.

I don't know if you all know this, if you have enough people

of a different generation in your lives, but there is a real

hunger that is coming up in young adults right now.

There are people who are on the edge of adulthood and they're

stepping into this and they are hungry for what is true.

And they do not like being deceived and they do not give

you a lot of chances with it. And they want to know what's

true. And they're finding what's true.

They're finding Jesus. It's really cool.

That's pretty encouraging. But even after that increase,

only 50% of self identified Christians said they read the

Bible at least once a week. Half of Christians read the

Bible once a week. That is worth celebrating

compared with where the number had been, but it still means

that half of the Christians surveyed were not opening the

scripture even weekly. We're trying to recognize lies

and we're trying to resist temptation and understand the

will of God, and we're trying to survive a spiritual battle

without even opening this book that gives you everything you

need to know. It's a little scary.

That's the Barna research. How about the Pew Research

Center? They found something that was

similar. They had this enormous 2023 and

24 religious landscape study. Listen to this. 51% said they

read scripture outside of church service at least once a week.

So we're at that half number. Again, it's consistent.

About 72% said they prayed daily, which means that even

within one of the most committed Christian traditions in America.

OK, this is in the evangelical Protestants.

It said that 72% said they prayed everyday.

And again, this doesn't mean that the people are not saved.

It just means that anyone who misses a day of of Bible reading

has become spiritual immature in somebody's eyes or whatever.

But here's what I'm telling you. For a lot of Christians, they

exist. They're going to heaven and

guess what? They've got milk.

Milk. Remember that pride we were

talking about last week? If all you're worried about is,

is it going to be OK for me? This is like when you're like,

you know, you're not going to pass the class and the

semester's running out. And then you all of a sudden

realize, oh, if I get a 72 on this exam, I'll pass it and

never have to take it again. And then you get that 72 and

you're like, thank goodness, now I'll never have to take that

class again. Is that really the measuring

stick for our faith? What do I have to get done?

And because of that, the enemy comes in, fights you, We're not

even aware of him, and we get clobbered by him.

This is why so many of us feel unprepared.

So we would never expect someone to walk to the gym once a week

and watch them exercise for 40 minutes and then somehow become

physically strong. Although that does happen, it's

normally January and February. We would never expect a Marine

to attend one lecture every Sunday and become ready for

combat. And I'm just telling you all

that I'm giving you the best meat that the Lord has given me

to give to you right now. And it's still not enough

because your war requires your maturity, and it requires your

discipline and your relationship with the Lord.

The tragedy is that a lot of Christians have been believers

for years without ever becoming spiritually older.

Their bodies age, but their careers develop and their

families grow, and their relationship with God has

remained frozen in place. So where do we begin?

Well, I would just say this, we have to stop asking how little

do I have to do and still call myself a Christian and start

asking what kind of man or woman do I need to be?

They're 2 completely different questions.

So this week I would challenge you to stop measuring yourself

by what you know and start measuring it by what you

practice. This is a self examination tool.

I want you to honestly look at it.

I want you to look at your life and don't talk to yourself about

what you know. Talk to yourself about what you

practice. And if you look at what you're

disciplined or your practice looks like every week, are you

impressed? Do you feel like it's enough?

That's step one. Number two, I would tell you

this, I'm glad you're here. Next week it'll either be packed

again or I'll have half of you. But I want to challenge you in

this too. I want you to know that Sunday

won't sustain you till next Sunday.

I mean, you've heard this probably before, but you could

not imagine eating one meal every seven days and then

wondering why you feel weak. I just got addicted to this

little show on Netflix called Outlast.

And they're so hungry and they're trying to figure out how

to eat food and how to like, you know, hunt and, and provide what

they need. And they're so hungry

spiritually. We are starving ourselves to

death because we're just like, well, I'll just think on, I'll

think on the pastor's words for that week.

I don't want that pressure. By the way, I bring this up in a

lot of different ways. Ask somebody else into your

growth. Ask someone to help you grow.

No Marine becomes the ultimate Marine on their own.

They've had people that have trained them, talked to them,

held them accountable, pushed them, not allowed them to quit.

It's the same thing. Ask somebody into it.

The reason you know why most of us don't do that?

It's not, it's not rocket science because we don't want

it. We don't want it.

We don't want somebody calling us out.

We want to be able to make our own decisions.

It's like another TV show that I saw where somebody said, I, I

want someone to lead me. I just want them to lead me when

I want to be LED. By the way, when you give

somebody permission to challenge you when they see pride or

bitterness or compromise creeping in, all you're saying

is, I know I've got a blind spot.

And since it's a blind spot, I can't see it.

So I need your help. And you should know this, Mature

believers, don't pretend that they have no blind spots.

Anytime you ask somebody if they've got a blind spot or

where they know their struggle is, they should be able to tell

you. And the last thing I would tell

you is don't wait for a big spiritual moment.

Start paying attention to your small daily decisions.

Every time that you choose forgiveness over bitterness,

it's huge. You don't need to have that

moment where the Spirit of God fell on you and made you cry at

the altar. Those are amazing.

I'm not taking anything away from them, but if you're just

waiting for one of those, you're going to keep waiting.

I want you to know that every time you feel like being selfish

and you choose to be generous to somebody, that's a big deal.

Every time that truth wins out over a convenient conversation,

it's a big win. Every time that you allow God to

use humility and to humble you in something instead of caving

to pride, it's a big win. Purity over compromise is a big

win. Any guesses what patience over

anger is? It's a big win.

OK, Spiritual maturity is not built in one dramatic moment.

You don't have one giant workout and then all of a sudden your

bodybuilder. It is built in thousands of

small decisions that nobody will ever notice except for your

Lord. As we close this morning, I just

want to remind you that nothing that we've talked about today is

meant to make you feel afraid or less than if you leave, more

afraid of Satan than when you walked in, then man, I failed as

your pastor today. The purpose of this series is

not to magnify the darkness. It is instead meant to magnify

Christ. And so, like I said, we will not

become fascinated with darkness. We'll become equipped to battle

against it. We are going to become more

faithful disciples than we were at the beginning of this series.

Confidence is something that the Lord can bring to you, but

confidence will never, ever work if we allow it to become

complacency. In Second Timothy chapter 2, it

2 Timothy 2 · chapter mention

says this. Paul writes to his spiritual

son, and he says, endure suffering along with me as a

good soldier of Christ Jesus. Don't get offended.

The army didn't exist yet, he said soldiers don't get tied up

in the affairs of civilian life, for then they cannot please the

officer who enlisted them. All right, do you see this?

He says, hey, you and I, we're going to suffer.

We're in the spiritual war. So we're going to suffer because

we're at war and we are not going to consider ourselves to

be distracted by a civilian life.

In other words, we're not worried about what's happening

in pop culture or what's going on.

Oh, my gosh, Demi Lovato is fighting with who?

I don't care. You understand 1000 different

like distractions that we've got.

Listen, I got on my treadmill the other day and I put my iPad

up there and I froze for about 30 seconds because I was trying

to decide between 4 things. I'm watching right now, 4

things. And I would like to tell you

that I settled on a Bible podcast, but I watched X-Men 97.

But I'm telling you, there are so many opportunities to be

distracted. Just depends on your brand and

your flavour of distraction. He said we don't get hung up on

these things that the world gets hung up on because we're not of

the world. We have a mission.

We want to please the one who has deployed us here.

So Paul reminds Timothy that following Jesus is not a

spectator sport. There are no stadium seating for

a spiritual war. And I want you to know this also

over the next three weeks, we're going to keep pulling back the

curtain on the unseen world. Next Sunday, we're going to talk

about the unseen accuser. We'll talk about how Satan works

in our lives. Then we're going to talk about

the unseen hosts, because a lot of Christians are surprised to

find out that there's more than just angels and demons out

there. But we're going to talk about it

and why that matters, matters to you.

But there's also an unseen victory that we'll talk about.

But before we go, I want to model Paul here, and I just want

to ask something of you as your pastor, if I can.

I'm just asking you if you would pray for me.

I've noticed that every time I speak about spiritual warfare, I

get hammered. It happens every single time,

and sometimes for me, it's discouragement or unexpected

conflict that pops up out of nowhere.

Sometimes it's just my own exhaustion, and sometimes it's a

rift with somebody close to me. But I'm not trying to be

dramatic. I'm not saying that because I

think I'm special. I'm saying it because I know

that there's an enemy who would love nothing more than to keep

me from speaking on the things that are coming.

So would you please pray for me? My other request is would you

please pray for one another? And when I ask you that, I'm not

saying like when you see somebody and you say, hey, good

to see you brother, I'll be praying for you.

And what that means is you hope that things go well, but you

forget about them throughout the week.

When 1 spirit gets stirred up here, all of the spirits get

stirred up. So not the quick prayer before

the meal. I want you to really pray for

one another when you find out things are happening, even if

you don't know things that are happening.

Would you intercede and pray for the marriages of this church?

Would you intercede and pray for the parents that are raising

children, tomorrow's men and women?

Would you intercede and pray for the students that are going back

to school? Ask for them to be sharp minded

and to find Jesus everywhere they go?

Would you pray for those that are fighting temptation and

silence because they don't know how to say it out loud yet?

Pray for them to be bold enough to say it and to find the people

that will help them. Would you pray for the people

who fight anxiety? I don't care if you understand

anxiety or not, it's a real thing for a lot of people.

Would you pray for them? We spend so much time talking to

other people about our problems. I just wonder what would happen

if we just spent just as much time talking to God as we do to

each other about them. One last scripture, 2nd

Corinthians 10. Paul says this to the church in

Corinth. He said we are human, but we

don't wage war as humans do. We use God's mighty weapons, not

worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human

reasoning and to destroy false arguments.

We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing

God, He said. We capture their rebellious

thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.

Think about this, just like we started today, They captured

those people, the Aramaian army, and made them a meal, sent them

back. They weren't even willing to

attack them anymore. When you come into this conflict

over the next week or weeks, what can the Lord do to capture

those thoughts and build a bridge where you thought you

were going to burn? 1 Paul's reminding you that even

though you live in this world, you don't wage war the way this

world does. We can't clap back.

We can't snap at people. We can't ruin our witness in one

conversation because we need the satisfaction of feeling seen.

So this week, don't forget the prayers and questions we've

learned today. Lord, open my eyes.

What can I see right now? And Lord, grow me church,

there's a war. So before I walk off of here,

I'd like to pray for you if you wanted.

If you don't, you can stay seated.

But if you'd like a prayer, I'll just ask you to stand up.

Lord, there's a lot that we don't understand.

So God, instead of trying to understand everything, would you

give us your peace? Would you give us your truth?

Remind us of your salvation and your righteousness.

Equip us with that armor, Thank God.

Just remind us that this unseen reality around us is huge and I

can feel overwhelming until you remind us that you are the one

who's walking with us. Remind us that there's a reason

why we don't have full access to see all of it.

You don't want us overwhelmed, but you do want us equipped.

So God, from my own heart, I just pray that you keep me

humble, that you keep me safe, that you keep me confident in

you. Protect my family.

And God, I speak that over everybody at this church,

whether they attended today or not.

We love everybody who is seeking you.

God, would you do good amongst the brethren?

Would you take care of them? I intercede for the marriages

and the families and the children and the spiritual

destinies and callings of those that are here in this church.

God, you love these people way more than I ever could.

So I ask that you show them that love and that you let them feel

your presence and your confidence as we head through

this together. In the name of Jesus, everybody

said Amen.