The Endgame - Part 5

You turn to John, Chapter 10, and I'll just reiterate this,

John 10 · chapter mention

set it at the beginning of announcements, but just in case

you were a little late this morning, service for Natalie

Monroe will be Wednesday at 1:00 and then we will have no midweek

services that evening. So hopefully you can come on out

and support the family 1:00 on Wednesday.

Hopefully you can be here. Well, this is the, this is the

last day as we go through the Devil's playground.

When we started this series, I told you that the Devil's

favorite playground is in a haunted house or a Horror Story

or a scary movie. It's it's the human heart.

And the enemy doesn't just attack in the obvious ways.

He, he hides in the ordinary things.

We talked about the fact that he does not run at you with a

pitchfork with his horns out, although there is a giant

billboard down in Alabama somewhere that says go to church

or the devil will get you. My, my wife and I have seen it

first hand. Apparently it's been torn down

three times and keeps getting rebuilt and nobody knows who's

rebuilding it. I don't think it's the devil

because the devil works quietly. He's sort of in the background

of our thoughts and he works to shape our motives and twist our

desires until we have small compromises become big

compromises. And over the last several weeks,

we've gone step by step through a lot of the battlegrounds of

the heart. We we started talking about

different spirits that represent different attacks.

And the first one that we highlighted was Leviathan.

It's kind of a spirit of pride and twisting things and

represents chaos. And when chaos manifests in your

life, you don't know who to trust.

You don't know if you can believe the words that you hear.

You question the motives Leviathan works and twists in

order to create great disunity amongst the brotherhood.

That's why two people can hear the same thing and then walk

away divided, both sure that they're right.

And then we had the spirit of Belial, and as we talked about

Belial, the spirit of worthlessness.

He's the one that tells you that you're too far gone, too broken,

too useless for the Lord to put to work, which is obviously a

lie straight from the pit. Belial is used a lot in the Old

Testament. In more modern translations

you'll see scoundrels and troublemakers.

But there was a term back then called Sons of Belial.

It meant that you are of Belial, which let's be honest, none of

us want that. And then after that, we talked

about Mammon, the spirit of greed and control, who whispers

that if you could just get more, if you could just have more than

you'd have more security and then you'd finally feel safe.

We talked about one name that's not even listed in Scripture,

but the ancient Jews believed in it was Asmodeus, which is the

spirit of lust and covenant breaking, the one who takes what

God makes pure and then turns it inward and corrupts it.

And finally, at the end of last week, we discussed Azazel, the

spirit of rebellion and forbidden knowledge.

And he convinces people that they can out think God or they

can figure him out and live by their own wisdom.

And I don't care how long you serve our Lord, you'll never

figure him out. His ways are too high and his

thoughts are too high. Like Leviathan, the issue isn't

in in what you think it is, it's just in your own confidence.

He wants you to think that you're brilliant enough to

justify what you want while you still rebel against what you

need. And each one of those spirits

might look different, but their goal is the same, and their

strategies are coordinated. You've got pride and

worthlessness and greed and lust and rebellion, and each one

chips away at a different part of the human soul.

Been excited to do this. Forgive me.

It's going to be a heavy message so I need to start with this.

Today we talk about the end game.

Does anybody know what this is? This, if you're a movie fan, is

called the Infinity Gauntlet. I'm not going to keep moving it

because it makes a lot of sounds and that will be very

distracting. If you have watched Marvel, they

were really on a roll for a long time.

We will not discuss the last couple years.

They don't exist. For a while, what you had was

you had a bunch of individual movies.

Captain America, you had Iron Man and all of these different

individual battles. Guardians of the Galaxy, they

made a talking raccoon cool. And in it, what you found

floating around were these different stones that were

called Infinity Stones. If this is a spoiler for you,

you're behind so this is on you. You thought you were watching a

bunch of movies with individual battles, but it all culminated

in a two-part movie with all of The Avengers together and in it.

What you found is even though there were small battles, there

was this great villain named Thanos who did not care if the

heroes won or lost their individual battles.

He was after something smaller, or at least it seems smaller.

These things were hidden in plain sight and when he got all

of them put together, he put them into this gauntlet and with

it he had ultimate power. The six stones that he had were

the space stone and the mind stone and the reality stone and

the Power stone and the Time stone and finally the the

soulstone, which required a life for a life.

I think that sounds a little biblical.

This was his end game. Those two movies were called

Avengers Infinity War and then Avengers End Game.

And in it they found that they had been outsmarted because they

were fighting battles that weren't the main battles all

along. And it is a cinematic picture of

how evil operates. And so I'm not going to draw a

straight correlation. I'm not going to keep referring

back to this. But what I will tell you is it's

interesting if you think about it, if the enemy gets to you and

makes you feel like you've got more knowledge than the average

person, it's almost like he's got a piece of it.

If he is able to get to you and corrupt your covenants and and

make you turn something that is beautiful into something you

lust after, he's got another piece.

If he comes to you and he starts making you carry the weight of

worthlessness that you were made in the image of God, but he

starts to rewrite how you view yourself, Boom, he's got another

one. And before you know it, they're

all put together. Now in this gauntlet, Thanos has

one ultimate goal, which is to destroy half of all life across

the entire universe. And he says if he has all of

these stones, he could do it with a snap of his fingers.

The makers of this don't allow it to move in such a way that

you can snap. It's probably for the best.

And with a snap of his fingers, it seems like everything

crumbles. But it wasn't just a snap of his

fingers, was it? Because at this point we were

looking at something like 9 movies worth of battles and

storylines and everything that had been happening before he

finally got what he wanted. I want you to understand this.

The devil wants you to suffer. He cannot directly wound our

Lord, but He can directly wound those that are made in His image

and those that he loves the most dearly.

And the best thing he can do is come at our father's kids.

He wants you to suffer, but he's not looking to score little

battles. If you feel like you can be

tangled up in just one attack and you can hold your ground and

you're not on guard for the other ones.

He is a strategist. He's got other things in the

works and he's got only real one purpose.

That's split up into three things and we'll talk about that

right here in John chapter 10. It's a perfect picture where you

John 10 · chapter mention

can hear about the devil's end game and the end game that Jesus

has at one time. Verse one says the Lord Jesus

says, I tell you the truth. Anyone who sneaks over the wall

of a sheepfold rather than going through the gate must surely be

a thief and a robber. But the one who enters through

the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.

And the gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep

recognize his voice and come to him.

He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

You cannot underestimate how important this is what we just

read. He opened the gate for you.

There was not a way into the Father's graces like this before

Him. He opened the way, called you to

it, and the only thing you have to do is hear that voice and

follow it. He literally says even a dumb

sheep could figure this out and that's what he's trying to get

across to us. Verse 4, after he's gathered his

own flock, he walks ahead of them and they follow him because

they know his voice. They won't follow a stranger.

They will run from him because they don't know his voice.

That to me is comforting. I used to read it and feel

guilty because I used to wonder, well how many times am I

following another voice? And does that mean that I'm

really not his sheep? No, no, no.

If you stay submitted to Him, He will protect you from the voice

of the enemy. Verse 6.

Those who heard Jesus use this illustration didn't understand

what He meant, so he explained it to them.

He said, I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep.

All who came before me were thieves and robbers, but the

true sheep did not listen to them.

Yes, I am the gate. Those who come in through me

will be saved, and they will come and go freely, and we'll

find good pastures. That thief's purpose is to steal

and kill and destroy, but my purpose is to give them a rich

and satisfying life. A rich and satisfying life.

Now that is different from living your best life now.

Big difference there. A rich and satisfying life.

According to whose terms? Your terms or the Lord's terms.

But when you start to find your greatest joy in pleasing God and

living the way that God wants you to live, you'll have a rich

and satisfying life. It's not always all the trinkets

and trappings of this life that we assume that it is, but this

is the summary of the whole series, the whole 5 weeks that

we've talked about this. The enemy's end game is

destruction, and the end game of Jesus is resurrection and

restoration. So the enemy wants to steal your

joy, kill your purpose, destroy your identity, and Jesus

restores all three of them, every spirit that we have talked

about, It was just one piece of the enemy's plan to steal and

kill and destroy. But Jesus has done every healing

and every miracle and every promise in order to bring his

plan about, which is abundant life.

And that's where we're going today to expose the enemy's

final move, the destroyer himself, or as the Book of

Revelation calls him, Abaddon. And then we're going to remind

ourselves that the King has already made his move and the

game really is over. So if you've ever played chess,

you know that the end game isn't when the board is empty.

It's not an attempt to try and get every piece off of the

board. The end game happens when it

becomes clear that checkmate is there and you have no way out.

A master chess player moves in such ways that make it seem like

he doesn't know what he's doing. He's luring out different

pieces. He's taking over your pawns, the

seemingly useless ones in the front.

Before you know it, it's not check anymore, It's checkmate

because he has known what he's doing.

And you were just an amateur in chess.

I'm not bashing you. I'm also an amateur in chess.

But the devil does the same thing.

Every lie that he tells, every wound that he inflicts, every

time he tempts you with something, it's not random, it

is coordinated. I want you to know that he is

not like like we were in high school, right?

How many of us? We were like, I know I need to

study for this test, but I'll just get up at 5:00 AM and I'll

study and I'll cram it and, and some of us, if we floated it in

the tests, this is not how the enemy attacks you.

He's not have hobbies, he's not have other goals in mind.

He's not have vacation time. The enemy watches and observes

and he makes a strategy and he is a coordinated attack.

So he's not just throwing things at you trying to see what hits,

what works. He's watching you and he knows

the things that get to you. He knows that the things that

get to you may not be the things that get to your spouse or your

kids or your friends, but He does know how to get to you.

And we're not without hope in this, but it is something that

we have to take seriously because in the scripture that we

just read, Jesus draws a clear line between 2 kingdoms, 2

masters, and two end games. You might think there's not a

lot worse that can happen than than being killed, but you'd be

wrong. He wants to destroy your

relationships, your legacy, the effectiveness you have in the

Kingdom, the reputation that the Lord has through the life that

you live. Our lives are meant to be a

living testimony. We'll get there.

When Revelation 9 describes them, that is where we're going

to go next. It gives him a name that

literally means destruction, the culmination of every other

attack that we've studied in this series.

I want you to understand this, that when the enemy can't own

you, he'll try to ruin you, and when he can't possess your soul,

he'll poison the purposes that the Lord has given you.

That is what Ibadan represents, the spirit that delights in

devastation and wants to burn down everything God has built in

your life. So I want to start there today,

the reality of that destruction. Let's take a look at the enemy's

end game, which is destruction. Now before we read this, I want

you to understand something because some people get freaked

out when you open the Book of Revelation.

Revelation is not written to scare believers.

If you're a believer, you have no reason to be afraid of it.

John is not describing fantasy or myth.

He is pulling back the curtain on a spiritual reality that the

early church already believed was happening.

What we're about to read is not just a prediction of the future.

It's actually a picture of how the enemy is working even now.

So when John mentions a baton or the destroyer or Apollyon, he's

showing us what happens when the powers of hell are given freedom

to unleash chaos. So as we read this, don't hear

it as a vision of the end here. It is a warning to the heart

because this is what the enemy's after.

Revelation Chapter 9. We'll just start in verse one.

Revelation 9 · chapter mention

Read the first 11 verses. John says this.

He says the 5th Angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that

had fallen to earth from the sky, and he was given the key to

the shaft of the bottomless pit. When he opened it, smoke poured

out as though from a huge furnace, and the sunlight and

air turned dark from the smoke. And then locusts came out from

the smoke and descended on the earth, and they were given power

to sting like scorpions. They were told not to harm the

grass or plants or trees, but only the people who did not have

the seal of God on their foreheads.

They were told not to kill them, but to torture them for five

months with pain, like the pain of a scorpion sting.

In those days, people will seek death but will not find it.

They'll long to die, but death will flee from them.

And it says the locusts look like horses prepared for battle.

They had what looked like gold crowns on their head, and their

faces look like human faces. They had hair like women's hair

and teeth like the teeth of a lion.

They wore armor made of iron, and their wings roared like an

army of Chariots rushing into battle.

They had tails that stung like scorpions.

And for five months, they had the power to torment people.

And listen, their king is the Angel from the bottomless pit.

His name in Hebrew is a baton, and in Greek, Apollyon the

destroyer. OK, let's get a little

historical. When John was writing this

vision down from Revelation, his audience would have immediately

recognized the imagery. The bottomless pit was not new

language to them in Hebrew thought it was called Abyssos or

the Abyss. It was a place of chaos and

confinement for demonic forces that were waiting for judgement.

It is not even the first place that that word is used in

scripture. If you are a Bible nerd and

you'd like to write it down, I'll give you 2 other places you

can find that word. Abaddon.

You can find it in Job 26, verse 6.

Job 26:6

It's a pretty old book, and you can find it in Proverbs 1511.

That's Job 26, six and Proverbs 1511.

Abaddon referred to the realm of the dead and destruction.

It's a dark pit where destruction itself reigns and

hope is gone. And so when John describes

Abaddon as king over the locusts, he's taking the Hebrew

concept of death and he's personifying it into something

that's terrifying. It's a commander of chaos, an

Angel of annihilation. And so by the 1st century, in a

lot of Jewish writings, especially from the

intertestamental period, which is between the Old and New

Testaments of our Bible, there had already been this idea

developed of fallen angels that were ruling over realms of

corruption. There were a lot of extra

biblical texts that backed it up as well, but they were saying

that these were the beings that would inspire violence and

corruption and all sorts of disgrace amongst nations and

communities and people groups. And Abaddon fits right into that

worldview because to the early believers, this was not a

metaphor for bad luck or hardships.

It was a revelation of the unseen enemy that was working to

destroy the image of God across the earth.

Remember John's writing to people who are under Roman

persecution? They tried to kill John a couple

different ways, didn't work, just didn't take to him.

And after they tried to boil him alive and they did all these

things, they just exiled him to the island of Patmos.

And he wrote down this divine revelation that the Lord had

given him. And so he's writing it to these

people that are being persecuted by the Roman government.

Well, the Roman government is obsessed with what?

They're obsessed with idolatry and power.

And when they read the word apollyon, that would have been a

smack in the face to Roman culture because one of the gods

that they worshipped was named Apollos.

It was their sun God. And this is also derivative and

connected to that same word. It comes from the word apollymi.

It means to utterly destroy. It's very close.

And Apollo was worshipped as a God, and he's saying no, no, no,

That leads to destruction. So what do we do with what we

see in this vision? It's difficult because some

people try to actually depict exactly how it looks.

He calls them locusts, but then says they have human faces and

women's hair and lion's teeth, and they've got giant tails.

And the more he describes them, the less they look like locusts,

right? Well, locusts are things that

persecute and destroy things. And isn't it interesting that

they're not even allowed to kill in this vision?

There are so many more things worse than death for a believer.

So that's exactly how the Destroyer still works today.

He doesn't just go after your sin, he goes after your strength

and he tries to SAP it until you don't feel it anymore.

He doesn't just attack how you're behaving, he attacks your

belief. If you think Leviathan twisted

truth and Belial drained worth and got nothing on a baton, it's

the ultimate destruction. It's trying to make a decision

in your head that there is no way back.

But that's just not true. I know you've seen it happen in

the world around you, maybe even in your own life.

Maybe you've got someone who was once full of joy, loses it all

to addiction. Or you've got a marriage that

was once built on love and it collapses under betrayal.

Or a leader who was once passionate about things that

were good burns out and walks away from their calling.

You see it every day. Those are Abaddon's fingerprints

all over the people made in the image of God.

And Abaddon will not be satisfied until everything that

reminded you of God looks like ruins.

But remember this, at the end of that passage, it also says that

the locusts could only torment those without the seal of God.

That means even in judgement, God sets the limit on

destruction. And I don't know about you, but

that brings me a whole lot of comfort.

The enemy's goal has always been to kill, seal, and destroy.

He knows nothing else. Like I said, it's a heavy

subject today, but it's not quite as light as The Avengers.

But may I have permission to give you a silly illustration

today? Who remembers Blockbuster?

Blockbuster, right? Blue and yellow.

I mean Blockbuster. Look, Blockbuster was not a

video rental shop. It was the video rental shop.

If you were looking for your movie and you couldn't find it

at your local place, it had to be a Blockbuster.

Even if it was like when the Titanic came out and you had to

rent 2 VHSS like a giant brick because it was so long and it

wasn't going to fit on one Blockbuster.

Let me just tell you I got some numbers here.

At the pinnacle of their success, they had over 9000

stores and 60,000 employees and made billions every year.

And quietly, gradually things started to change.

But this little company started to exist called Netflix.

And this is not a case of Netflix defeating Blockbuster.

This is a case of Blockbuster being given the opportunity to

invest in and purchase Netflix. And they said that's stupid.

Now, streaming itself was not quite as popular when Netflix

first came out. Some of y'all will remember

this. You used to check out with

Netflix and they would ship you a DVD, right?

And then you'd have to return it.

And you'd have to like, don't put your fingerprints on that

one because they'll charge me for it if it's broken when I

send it back. And then it became that and

streaming and eventually converted just into streaming.

See, Netflix knew where things were going and they were

prepared for it. Blockbuster said, we've got a

model that works. I don't need further

information. I don't need to know more.

Well, does Blockbuster exist today?

Yes. One store left and it's in

Oregon and it's half a museum and half a rental place in

Oregon. They sell a lot of memorabilia

and nostalgic hoodies and T-shirts and mouse pads in case

you still use those. It's a silly illustration, but I

wanted I wanted to share it with you for one reason.

I remember being a kid and thinking that there were a few

things that would just never go away and I would have never

guessed that that it would have gone away.

Why? Because I watched it transition

from Avhs into DVD and then even into Blu rays.

Whatever media they put like me, you know movies and TV shows on,

there will always be a video rental store and no there won't.

Things change. Right now I'm like, well when I

do purchase a movie, do I purchase it on Amazon or do I

purchase it on Apple? Which one is going to exist the

longest? Right now, it seems impossible

that either one of those companies won't exist, but guess

what? Someday they won't.

And what I'm trying to get to is this.

As the Lord leads you into further revelation, don't feel

like you've got it all put together.

It's once we start to feel like we've got it put together.

It's once we start to feel like our defenses are all shored up

that the destruction actually comes.

See, I didn't plan to go back to it, but I will.

In The Avengers movies, they won their battles and then of

course, they fought each other and they weren't a cohesive team

anymore. And it was once they were

scattered and they were divided that he came in and he did his

end game and they weren't even ready to fight the battle

together. I want you to think about some

of the most petty things that you've allowed to cause division

with another believer in your life.

Why do I want you to think about it?

So I'm not the only one suffering today.

I want you to think about it because every time you let the

enemy get in there and drive a wedge, it creates disunity and

disunity. Disunity creates a lack of

power. We just sang and we asked for

the Lord to touch us and to steal the weakness from our

bones and to strengthen us and empower us.

But we have reasons why we don't connect with other people.

I'll be honest with you. I've talked about this with our

leadership team. I don't even have to like you to

build the Kingdom with you. I do like you, though.

I'm obviously not talking about you.

I don't have to like you to build the Kingdom.

I love you already. We're brothers and sisters.

How many of you got to choose who your brothers and sisters

were growing up, Right? We're brothers and sisters.

We got the same dad. We got the same father.

I'm on board. I'm ready to see the Kingdom

come. And we've got to be willing to

put aside petty things that stop us and create disunity.

I can't tell you how to do it. I don't know your problem, but

the Lord can tell you. In John's time, Abaddon wasn't

just a a figure of personal torment.

He was seen as a spirit behind a collapsing nation and corrupt

empires and decaying morals. And the Jews knew that when

governments grew arrogant, the leaders would start ruling

without justice, and the poor get forgotten and the powerful

become predators. And that was Abaddon at work.

Thankfully, that doesn't happen anywhere today in America.

The spirit of Abaddon is still working through monsters in the

shadows and through motives in broad daylight.

We see it all the time in this culture when the truth becomes

negotiable, when leaders care more about winning than they

care about wisdom, and when morality gets rewritten for

convenience instead of what convicts us.

What happened to a gospel that was supposed to make us change?

You know what we do now? And now we look at this and we

look for a teacher that will twist it and make it fit so that

we can still do what we want. But there was a day when we

would read this and say, I was wrong.

I have to change. This is not just in the

government. This happens in the church too.

When Christians start to trade discernment for comfort and we

defend our political party more than we defend the gospel, we

start to echo the culture's outrage a whole lot more.

Just go through Facebook later on today.

I'm actually asking you to not right now.

Deacons are watching you, but go through a, a, a social media

feed and just tell me how often you'll see that somebody will

change like their profile picture to say, I stand with

Israel or I'm against ALS or whatever.

You know what? I'm against people dying and I'm

against diseases too. I just don't feel like I have to

post that all the time. I feel like that's an understood

thing. We're so quick to do that And

tell me how often they also post about their Lord.

And I'm not just talking about sharing something that you saw

somebody else post and say, oh, that's good.

That sounds like something I'd say and I'll just share it.

I'm not trying to step on toes, I'm saying how often can you

actually see these people with genuine testimonies?

Let me tell you about what Jesus is doing in my life right now.

If you're trying to out logic people using social media, it's

no wonder that our battle feels like it's lost sometimes.

You're not going to do it. By the way, I still share stuff.

I'm just saying that can't be the only thing that you do.

Get in the trenches, have the conversations.

Share the goodness of your God, not just the warnings and the

dangers of it. A baton doesn't need an empire

to fall. He just needs a generation to

stop caring. And when I look around, I see

that he's working hard at it. But guys, I got to tell you,

when the people of God repent and they wake up and they

surrender and they remember who the true king is, the destroyer

loses his foothold. Revival won't start in

Washington. It's going to start in your

heart as soon as you refuse to bow to the idols of convenience

or compromise or control. So the end game of Jesus is the

opposite of destruction. It's resurrection.

But how do you fight back? Well, how can you overcome the

hopelessness of the enemy? The first thing is to reawaken

your awareness. Anybody who served the Lord for

a number of years will admit to this, if they're honest.

When you come to the Lord, you are so excited.

You've got hope. There's something brand new you.

You could go to 13 church meetings a week and you would

love it. I wouldn't, but you'd love it,

right? You could do it.

You could go to everything and all of a sudden it becomes the

norm. And as it becomes the norm, we

talked about this not long ago. Familiarity breeds contempt.

And sometimes you start to say, God knows my heart.

He knows I'm tired. He knows I don't need to do

this. This is not a drive to get you

to show up to 13 church meetings.

We're not going to do that. But what I am saying is reignite

the wonder of serving this God. Don't just hear these stories

that you've heard 100 times and say, oh, yeah, yeah, I've heard

that. Read through it, Picture it.

Imagine you were in the crowd. Ask God to give you an image of

what it looks like. I'm not saying he's going to

transport you and give you some sort of physical recording, but

ask him what it was like. Because when you understand how

brilliant and how beautiful this plan for resurrection and

salvation was, it'll reignite some of this.

We got to get our passion back. It's not my notes, but I

remember when I was a a mentor in the Big Brother program and

my little brother split his head open and I had to take him to

kids were kids, right? And I tripped him, but I said

sorry. And so I took him to the

emergency room and he had this big gash in the back of his head

and he was worried that they were going to have to shave his

head. And I was like, I'll let him

shave my head too. I mean, I was on the radios.

It didn't matter. And so I was like, yeah, we can

do that. And they said, no, we don't have

to, but we have to clean it really well.

And they start scrubbing this 9 year old's head.

Listen to me. Like a greasy pot that you

thought soaking was going to fix.

But the next day you're there with a Brillo pad and this lady

is scrubbing his head. He is crying harder over the

cleaning than he was about hitting his head in a coffee

table. And I had to look at her and

say, can you please be a little more gentle?

He's a kid. Although the reality is, I would

ask her to be more gentle if it was me.

And she did, but she was not happy.

And she left. And then the other nurse said,

sometimes when you've taken care of people for so long, you lose

your compassion. And I thought, man, God, may

that never happen to me. There are days that it feels

like it's gone. And I know that.

And that's normal because your emotions, they're not reliable,

but they fluctuate. But you can't get into a

lifestyle where you lose your compassion for people.

And when you do, you've got to do what it takes to reignite it

and to do the right thing. Reignite your worship.

Like we talked about, it's not a song, it's a weapon.

I always tell Pastor Ann and the worship team I love what you all

do because what you do at the beginning of the service is you

steward our focus. If you drove to church this

morning listening to five songs by Metallica, look, if you like

Metallica, that's you. I'm just saying, if you were

listening to five songs by Metallica, what do you think

your mood would be when you get here?

Yeah. OK.

All right. What if you listen to five songs

by Boys to Men, not counting Motown, Philly, because that was

up tempo. Now you're sad and your heart

broken and all of this. I know, I know neither of those

bands are popular today, but I'd say what happens if you listen

to five songs by Nicki Minaj? But that's inappropriate to

discuss. So my my point is this music has

something to it where it grabs your attention and it stewards

your focus into something. Every time that I got broken up

with when I was a kid I thought it was the end of my world and I

would find the saddest songs to pull it out of me so I could cry

harder. I remember one time writing this

note to a girl not asking to get back together but kind of asking

to get back together and trying to cry over top of this letter

so she would see my teardrops on the letter.

Don't act like I'm the only one who's ever done something like

this. I remember being so angry at

somebody and then going to a friend and having them start to

talk me off a ledge that I had to go back into my room and

listen to music on my CD player to get me angry again because I

wanted to stay angry. What is it inside of us that

wants to stay sad or angry? There is an answer.

It's sin. It's seductive.

Because when you're sad or when you're angry, it feels

justifiable. You are now no longer a guilty

party. You are the victim.

And it feels good to know that, hey, I was the victim.

I was wrong. She shouldn't have broken up

with me. I know we're in the eighth

grade, but one day she'll regret it.

Here's the thing, When you're the victim, you don't have time

to look at the one that you victimized who hung on that

cross because we're not the good guy.

It's easy to look at it and say they're the bad guy.

I'm the good guy and I've already said sorry for the times

I was the bad guy. We're all the bad guy, not him.

He's worth worshiping. When we worship at the end of

this service, I hope you all sing just as loud as you did at

the beginning. Reignite your worship.

And the last thing is to rebuild your purpose.

Would you go back to that? Please?

Rebuild your purpose. Serve again, love again, pray

again, dream again, maybe say, well, I did serve and it burnt

me out. Well, don't do it like that

again. Could you imagine that?

Well, I'm not going to a restaurant again.

I went one time and I got food poisoning.

I'll never go to a restaurant again.

That sounds wise. Serve again.

And I'm not just talking about church ministries can always use

it. You want to serve here.

I don't have a specific thing to pitch to you.

We'll talk to you after if you want that.

But get out in the community, work in a soup kitchen,

volunteer somewhere you see a neighbor who's struggling.

Do something to help them, and don't expect anything back.

That's not service. That's a transaction.

Love again. I'm not just talking about

romance. Love people again.

Yeah, Well, when I love people, they hurt me.

People are going to hurt. You got the best marriage that I

know of. Cassie's hurt me before, and

I've heard her before. We always make it right.

But it doesn't mean you stop loving.

A life without love is pretty lonely.

Pray again. Well, when I pray, I don't feel

like things happen. Oh, things happen.

What you meant to say is I don't feel like everything I want to

happen happens. That's not how prayer works.

Pray again and dream again. Once you're back in that loving

relationship with the Lord, dream again.

See what he puts in front of you.

Go and turn to Colossians 2. We talked enough about the

enemy's end game. Let's talk about the Lord's end

game. His end game is resurrection.

There is this thing that I want to say is you're turning to

Colossians 2. Before we move forward, I feel

like I need to remind you of something that is crucial.

The enemy's power was never equal to Christ's.

It's stolen authority, stolen power, and it was broken at the

cross. A lot of times when we talk

about spiritual warfare, we talk about it like there's 2 equal

forces that are locked in eternal combat.

There's good and evil, light and dark, yin and Yang or whatever.

God is not worried about defeating the devil.

Satan was never God's rival. It's not just that he's not his

rival today, He was never his rival.

He's a fallen creation, not a counter creator.

So every ounce of influence he has only exists because God is

still allowing time for redemption.

And the day that Jesus hung on that cross, the countdown began

for everything the destroyer could ever do.

The destroyer is running out of time, but you and I are not.

As I said, Abaddon's end game is destruction, but the Lord's end

game is resurrection. Now in Colossians 2, listen to

this in verse 6 Paul says now just as you accepted Christ

Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow Him.

Let your roots grow down into Him and let your lives be built

on him, because then your faith will grow strong in the truth

that you were taught and you will overflow with thankfulness.

Don't let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high

sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the

spiritual powers of this world rather than from Christ.

For in Christ lives all the fullness of God and a human

body, so you also are complete with your union with Christ, who

is the head of every ruler and authority.

When you came to Christ, he says you were circumcised not by a

physical procedure, but Christ performed a spiritual

circumcision by cutting away of your sinful nature.

For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized, and with

Him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty

power of God who raised Christ from the dead.

Listen to this. This is life changing.

Reignite this passion. Verse 13.

You were dead because of your sins and because of your sinful

nature was not yet cut away. And then God made you alive with

Christ. For He forgave all of our sins.

He cancelled the record of the charges against us and took it

away by nailing it to the cross. Verse 15 says in this way he

disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities and he shamed

them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.

Then he goes on to to say just a couple verses about don't only

condemn you for what you eat or drink or whether or not you

celebrate certain Jewish holy days and all of this.

He says this in verse 19. He says these people who would

who would shame you and judge you.

He says they're not connected to Christ, the head of the body.

He holds the whole body together with its joints and ligaments,

and it grows as God nourishes it.

And then he double s down on this in verse 20 and says you

have died with Christ and he set you free from the spiritual

powers of this world. So why do you keep following the

rules of the world such as don't handle, don't taste, don't

touch? Such rules are mere human

teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them.

These rules seem wise because they require strong devotion and

pious self denial and severe bodily discipline, but they

provide no help in conquering a person's evil desires.

But you know why we prefer it all too often?

Because it gives us control, at least the illusion of it.

That's really the best we ever get, isn't it?

Yeah, I know, it's just through a relationship with the Lord and

through a rich and intimate relationship, which we talked

about earlier. But if I do read all the time,

if I do serve all the time, if I do all of this, it needs to come

out of what God has already done.

You're not going to find a rich relationship with God because

you've tried to deplete yourself of what you already had.

Now, one of the most powerful patches, passages in all of

scripture, we just read it. It's because it tells us what

really happened in the spiritual realm that day.

Those rulers were shamed publicly.

You know why this mattered? Because when Roman soldiers LED

prisoners through the streets after a victory, they would

strip the enemy of their armor and March them in chains as

trophies. So the church in Corinth would

have fully understood this, that the devil got stripped of his

armor, of any weaponry, and paraded through the spiritual

realm when Jesus was on the cross.

In other words, he's writing to a church where the cross has

already happened, the crucifixion and resurrection has

already happened. It's already over.

But these people were fighting like the war was still going on.

Now, don't hear what I'm not saying.

You're under attack, but the war is over.

We have to live like the war is over.

Some of you will know this. It's a Marine community, but

well, a lot of people will know this part.

But in 1945, World War 2 officially ended.

Germany surrendered in May, in Japan in August.

So in case you were worried about World War 2, it is

confirmed that is done. But scattered across the islands

of the Pacific, in the jungles of Guam in the Philippines,

there were still Japanese soldiers that were living and

hiding. Some of you may know this.

They had never heard that the war was over.

They had no way to get communication from Japan.

These were people that were called holdouts.

And these men actually survived off of like coconuts and

rainwater and whatever they could hunt.

And they built shelters out of bamboo and palm leaves and they

waited for fresh orders to come, but they never came.

But whenever somebody would come near them, they would attack

them, feeling like it was the enemy.

In fact, at one point, there were actually pamphlets or

brochures that were dropped from airplanes saying, hey, the war

is over in case anybody's out here.

And they would could read these and think that they were a trick

from the Allied forces. Now, again, you're not going to

get me today. And so they'd stay there.

One of the most famous holdouts was Lieutenant Onoda.

He was an intelligence officer in the Philippines.

And when Japan surrendered, his commander told him, whatever

happens, we'll come back for you.

And nobody ever did for 29 years.

I'm not making this up. For 29 years, nearly 3 decades,

A Nota lived in the jungle and he kept his rifle polished and

his uniform ready, and he set traps and hid from villagers and

sometimes attacked patrols because he thought that the war

was still going. And it wasn't until 1974 when a

young Japanese traveller found him and brought his old

commanding officer back, now an elderly man.

And he heard the truth face to face, that the war was already

over. And he said, you don't need to

fight anymore. Come home.

Can you imagine living your whole adult life in fear,

surviving on scraps, missing out on peace, all because you didn't

know that victory had already been won?

In the spiritual realm, too many Christians do it.

We're still fighting battles that Jesus already won.

We're still apologizing for sins that he's already forgiven, and

we're still running from enemies that he's already disarmed and

still trying to earn the grace that's already been given.

The enemy knows that he's defeated.

He just hopes that you don't. So my advice today is to stop

living like a holdout. You don't need to live on the

defence. Stop fighting as if the war is

undecided. Walk in victory instead of

victimhood. It doesn't empower you.

The war's outcome is already settled and you're not fighting

for victory. You're fighting from victory.

You're helping bring about what God has already accomplished on

the cross. And that's the stance of every

believer who truly knows who their king is.

You don't have to earn freedom. That's already been paid for.

You don't have to keep apologizing for what's already

been forgiven, and you don't have to live guarded like the

devil could take back what Jesus has already won for you.

I want you to know that if you can really grab a hold of this,

it will change everything about your faith.

It really will. You will start praying

differently, and you'll be praying from a place of

confidence instead of begging God for a scrap.

And you'll start worshipping differently, not just trying to

copy what you see around you. But you're not begging for a

breakthrough there anymore. You're thanking God for the

breakthrough that's already yours, and you're just waiting

for it. And you'll start facing your

temptations differently too, because you're not going to be

afraid that you'll fall at some point.

You're going to have faith that Christ has already conquered

that sin that tried to conquer you.

But how do you actually live that out?

It sounds good. Who doesn't want that?

There's a couple things. The first thing you need to do,

we'll spend a little bit of time on this.

Remember the cross daily. This is not a bumper sticker,

OK? Remember the cross every single

day. If you can reignite this wonder,

you have no idea what this will do for you.

Wake up and think on the cross. What do I mean by think on the

cross? I mean it's not just a story of

His pain, it's the sight of your personal victory.

How many of y'all watch the Passion of the Christ?

How many of y'all love to watch it?

Watch it all the time. Where did the hands go?

We love Jesus, right? Why don't we like to watch it

often? It's painful, it's difficult.

It really brings to life something that we know.

I think it's next year that Passion of the Christ too, the

resurrection is happening. We're probably going to rent out

the theater across the street and we'll all go there as a

church film. It's going to be pretty cool.

Remember the cross every day. The reason that we don't like to

revisit it is because it's painful to go through.

And if we're being gut level honest, it's also heavily

convicting because when you look at it, if you look at it through

the right lens, you think that was supposed to be me.

That was supposed to be me. And look what they did to him.

Every morning I remind myself that Jesus didn't just die for

me. I remind myself that he died as

me. He didn't just die for you.

He died as you. And because of that, you get to

live the life that he was gifted.

How could we ever lose our wonder about this?

Resist the lie of almost. Here's what I mean by that.

Most believers, most know they're saved, but they don't

feel free. I'm almost there.

I've almost got a breakthrough. You don't have one last piece to

earn. It's not like God gave you

salvation. But now if you really want the

deluxe package, you got to buy into the spiritual timeshare or

something. No, no, no, there's no almost.

It's complete. God didn't give you half a gift,

didn't give you a partial one. It's fully yours.

The lie of almost will have you try and try and try and exert

all of your energy until it's depleted and then you feel burnt

out and then destruction comes. You want to reclaim your

authority. You have to do it through

obedience. We talked a lot about this on

Wednesdays the last couple of weeks.

Obedience is key. Jesus learned obedience through

the things He suffered. If you learn obedience through

the things that you suffer, your suffering is never wasted.

Reclaim your authority through obedience.

What we talked about on Wednesdays is that you actually

have as a believer authority over these evil spirits that are

attacking things, both the ones attacking in a bigger scale and

the ones that try to mess up your day.

You have authority over them, but it was gifted to you.

It's delegated authority, and you can only carry it when

you're obedient to what the Lord asks of you.

It's not because you joined a club and you got a special gun

or a special badge. It's obedience.

So when you start living free and you remember what Jesus did

for you, you start being obedient.

And you know what that means? That means you don't drag your

feet when you're told to forgive somebody means you don't drag

your feet when you're told to go and bless somebody.

You don't drag your feet when the Lord says, I'd like to have

a word with you, He gets the final call.

And the last one is to refuse to retreat.

Once you've done everything you can to stand, therefore stand.

You'd think it would say something else.

No, just keep standing. The resurrection life is not

about perfection. It's about perseverance.

And so the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is

the same Spirit that lives within you.

And you don't have to try to find your footing when you're

standing on resurrection ground already.

The Lord's end game is to take every dead thing in your life

and bring it back to purpose. But Abaddon's end game is to

make you believe that you're too far gone.

You're going to have to choose one of them to believe.

I believe that the cross settled the score.

I believe that it was finished that day, that the destroyer was

disarmed, that he was publicly shamed.

I believe that Hell's gates were broken.

And I believe that your story was rewritten that day from

defeat into victory. I just have two more scriptures

for you. And then we're going to pray for

those who who need prayer. But the devil's end game,

obviously, is always destruction.

Jesus's end game is not just resurrection, it's dominion over

all of creation. From the beginning of time, the

thief's plan has always been the same, to steal whatever God

gives you and to kill what God breathed life into and to

destroy what God has designed for his glory.

But Jesus did not just come to undo the works of the devil, he

came to reclaim that authority and restore creation and rule is

the Good Shepherd. We started this morning with

John chapter 10 and we heard about the devil's kill, steal

John 10 · chapter mention

and destroy plan, and we heard about Jesus and how he wants to

bring us abundant life. Well, what does he say

immediately after that in verse 11?

He says I am the Good Shepherd. He said the Good Shepherd

sacrifices his life for the sheep and a hired hand will run

when he sees a wolf coming, but he'll abandoned the sheep

because they don't belong to him and he isn't their shepherd.

And so the wolf attacks them and scatters the flock, and the

hired hand runs away because he's working only for the money

and doesn't really care about the sheep.

I am the Good Shepherd. This is after he says my sheep

know my voice. He says I know my own sheep and

they know me just as my father knows me and I know the Father.

So I sacrificed my life for the sheep.

I have other sheep too that are not in the sheepfold and I must

bring them also. They will listen to my voice and

there will be 1 flock with one shepherd.

In verse 17, he said the Father loves me because I sacrificed my

life so that I may take it back again.

That's the difference between the destroyer and the shepherd.

The destroyer takes life, Jesus gives life.

The destroyer scatters, Jesus gathers, and when He rises with

all authority, He employs you to make sure that these other sheep

that are in the sheepfold get to come home.

We talked about this earlier about what we post and what we

talked about. We need to start getting very

verbal and very vocal about the things that we know to be true.

I'm not even going to call it the things that we believe.

I'm talking about the things that we know to be true.

Not to rub it in the faces of other people who believe things

differently, but we need to be vocal about it so that we can

share the love that we have experienced with them.

They desperately need it, even if they don't know it.

And in the Book of Revelation in chapter 12, verse 11, says

they've defeated him by the blood of the Lamb, by the word

of their testimony. And they did not love their

lives so much that they were afraid to die.

Today I'm not just inviting you to lay down what the enemy has

tried to throw at you. I'm trying to ask you to get

loud with your faith. You overcome by the blood of the

Lamb and the word of your testimony.

Many of us are fuelled by the blood of the Lamb.

We accept that free offer of salvation.

But that word of our testimony is so small.

Your testimony is not just the goodness of God in your life.

It's where you have fallen woefully short.

And most of us, that's what trips us up.

We don't mind saying God is good.

That's why when you see somebody get a touchdown on TV, they'll

point up to the cloud, too. I didn't know God was that

invested in like college sports. The word of your testimony is a

story that takes away your role as the hero and places Jesus in

the role of the hero. Something I taught teenagers a

long time ago when Cassie and I were youth pastors was there's a

big difference between a biography and a testimony.

Whenever you watch a biography, you see all the highlights and

you might see a couple little hiccups or something, but really

you get to see like the cool life that somebody lived.

Read through that. Tell me, tell me one character

that looks perfect outside of Jesus.

No, their sins are on display. But you know why?

Because when you know how good God has been to you and you know

how redeemed you are not worried about those other things.

You don't mind saying here's where I failed.

That's your testimony. Get loud about it because the

love of God will draw people, but they also want to hear what

you have to say when they realize that you're not perfect

either. So today we'll end with some

worship music. Wasn't planning on doing this,

but any elders or deacons that are here, if you all would just

come up here, I'd, I'd love to pray with some people today.

Staff if you, if you, if you're here, maybe what you need to lay

down and request is for God to touch your marriage or your

peace or your calling or strengthen your faith.

Maybe the battle has been in your mind or it's been in your

motives and you need God to cleanse your motives.

Maybe it's just in the quiet places nobody else can see.

I want you to know the same Jesus who defeated the

destroyer. It's the same one who could

defeat this. As we close the series, I want

you to remember the end game doesn't really even belong to

the enemy. He's got one, but it won't come

to pass. So the end game belongs to who?

Jesus. DBS answer Jesus.

The end game belongs to Jesus. He's the one that will have

checkmate. But you're going to have to give

the testimony, and that's scary. But we can do it together.

Next week. We've got Pastor Carl Vinson, a

hero of the faith, who's bringing a message called the

Four Messages of the Cross. You want to hear about how rich

that victory is. Do not miss next week.

And don't forget that Natalie's service will be at 1:00 this

Wednesday. No midweek service in the

evening. But that's really all that I

have. So if you need some prayer

today, if you need to lay something down, if you need to

get this final victory mindset into you coming up right now,

don't even wait for the song to start.

Just coming up right now. Amen.