Rooted - Vigilance and Victory: Fight Like a Follower

Welcome to South Sub Church. We are so glad that you've decided to worship with us today. Whether you're in the room right now or watching from home, wherever it is, we're just so glad that we get to spend this time together and worship the Lord together as one. Here at South Sub Church, we believe we are one church with two expressions of worship, but we have one mission to bring people to Jesus Christ and together become passionate followers of him. Another way that we worship is through our tithes and offerings. And here at South Subub Church, we believe that we give the Lord back what he gives us. And there's a couple ways that I want to invite you to do that this morning. One is giving online at southub.urch/give. Another way is by texting the number that's on the screen right now. Or there's an envelope in your seatback pocket. And here's what I want to invite you to do. No matter what gift you give, big or small, we believe that whatever we give, the Lord multiplies that and we are able to be the hands and feet of Jesus here where we are right now. If you're new, we invite you to fill out a connect card. We would love to get to know you, pray for you, and find a way for you to get more connected with our church. And if you're watching us online, make sure you leave a comment wherever you are. Maybe you're going to the mountains, maybe you have a soccer game to go to. Whatever it is, we're just so glad that you've decided to join us for worship. You picked a great week to be here. Let's jump into God's word together. Let's worship him today.

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Have you noticed that nothing speaks of the Halloween season more than seeing all the Christmas decorations in the stores right about now? And so I didn't want to feel like left out because any store you go to, they have all the Christmas decorations. So I'm kind of getting in the spirit in my house. Let me show you a picture of our house that we're working on right there. Now that's actually a picture from last year. Someone gifted my family, that's my mother-in-law there, this giant poinsetta. And my wife loved that. That was like the best part of her entire Christmas. And she kept it up all Christmas. And so she's had this goal since last Christmas that she's going to keep that poinsetta alive and that way she can display it this year. But there's only one problem. If I had another picture, I would show you that beautiful red poinsetta is green. Like all year long, she has kept it alive, but it turned green. And she cannot figure out how to turn it red. And so we've been working on it. She's fertilized it. She's watered it. She's putting it by the sun. But that beautiful ran red poinsetta is green. And so finally last week, she went to the experts. She goes, "I want this poinsetta red this year." So she went to the experts which is of course all of us know chat GPT right and she put in there and she goes I was given this beautiful poinsetta it was red it's turned green what do I do you know what they came back and said chat GPT the expert says this she has to for the next eight weeks take that plant and place it in a dark closet with a box over it for about 12 to 16 hours a day for eight weeks now I'm reading that going Chad GPT has lost his mind because there's no way We know sunshine. We know fertilizer. We know water. That's what makes a plant look the way it's supposed to. But it said you must put it in the closet with a box over it for the next eight weeks. Now, that does not seem like it makes sense. It seems like it's missing all the obvious things, doesn't it? Now, let me kind of change subjects for a second. We've been studying in our studies here on series on Sunday mornings this study called Rooted. And if you're just joining us, what we're doing is taking 10 weeks and we're examining different biblical mandates, different biblical commands that we need in our lives in order for us to become rooted to be the type of person that God wants us to be. And we've looked at those very obvious things, things like prayer. We looked last week at suffering. We talked about who is God. So some of those very obvious things that you think would go into a sermon series about rooted so you can be the fruitbearing tree that God wants you to be in life. Today, here's what I want to do. I want to talk to one to you about one that is not so obvious. In fact, it's a lot like the poinsietta tree or points at a bush that I just showed you. The points at a plan is that when I talk to you about this, you're going to be looking at it going, "Really?" That's one of the things necessary if we're really going to be rooted the way God wants us to spiritually in order to produce the life that God desires for us to have in our life. That's what we need. But it is and it may be one of the most unobvious things that we need in our life. Yet as you look at scripture, when this one particular area is left out of our spiritual journey, it can lead us leave us looking as awkward as a green poinsietta bush in the middle of Christmas time. So you wonder what that is. Hit up the the roll of drums there for a second. What is the one thing that we need in our lives if we're really going to be spiritually rooted to God the way God wants us to that we can bear the fruit that we really want from our lives. And the topic that I want to talk to you today about is spiritual warfare. Now, I was a little shaky about to say that. And here's why. Because anytime I've gone somewhere and I've preached and talked about spiritual warfare, it seems like there's two sides of the coin that people fall on. either they lean on that side when you hear the word spiritual warfare that they take it to the extreme. In fact, when they look at it and they think about spiritual warfare, they often see that the devil is behind everything. Bad circumstances, bad decisions, bad arguments, even a bad hair day, they're going to blame it on the devil and everything is so spiritual warfare, spiritual warfare, spiritual warfare. Oftentimes, people that lean that far in their idea towards spiritual warfare completely take their own responsibility out of it and they take the philosophy of that old comedian Flip Wilson that said, "The devil made me do it." And so they lean way over here. But then oftentimes there's people that take a different perspective and a different angle towards spiritual warfare. And that's just it's on a completely different side of the coin and they just kind of push away and dismiss the idea there is even anything like spiritual warfare that they they they think that spiritual warfare is just really just this imagination, this imaginary thing that we make up and we blame everything on the devil. But it's really more about our circumstances or things that we put into life. But here's what I want us to understand today. That spiritual warfare is real. In fact, can you do me a favor? Whether you believe it or not, would you just turn to the person next to you and just look at them and say this? Spiritual warfare is real.

And you guys just said it like you absolutely do not believe it. Okay, so we're going to try this again. Here's what we have to understand as we dive into it. Not to see what Keith has to say about it, but to see what scripture has to say about it. We need to understand that spiritual warfare is real. Okay, we're going to try it again. Would you turn to your neighbor and say with a little bit of conviction, say with a little bit of like meaning in there, say with a little bit of emphasis, spiritual warfare is real.

Okay, I'm still not sure you believe it, but at least you can say it better now, right? Here's what I here's what you need to understand. It's not a fantasy. It's not superstition. Spiritual warfare is the ongoing struggle between God's kingdom and the forces of evil. Now, spiritual warfare doesn't take us out of the picture at all, but spiritual warfare is this ongoing battle between God's kingdom of what God wants to happen in this world and the evil forces in our world. In fact, it was the Apostle Paul that said this. He says, "We are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world." And nobody in all of scripture probably understood this idea of spiritual warfare more than the Apostle Peter. We can look back on his life on a number of different narratives that we find throughout the New Testament, and he was right smack dab in the middle of spiritual warfare. And the one that comes to my mind first is the night that he was with Jesus on the night that Jesus was sitting with his disciples and they were taking partaking together the Lord's supper. If you think back with me in Luke chapter 22, here's what's going on. Jesus sat down with his disciples and they thought they were just coming together to to to experience the Passover meal together. But on this particular night, Jesus knew that there's more at stake than just the Passover meal. Jesus knew that he was taking his last couple of days until he was to be crucified on the cross. And so after taking the Passover meal, Jesus instituted what we just participated in a while ago, the Lord's supper or what we often times call communion. And it was his way of kind of setting things up going things are about to take a turn. And so on this night, Peter and the other disciples and Jesus, they were sitting around this table. They were participating in this meal. They were probably just having casual conversation. They were talking about ministry that would be coming up because the disciples had no idea what was going to happen in the next 24 to 48 hours. And at one point in that meal, the Bible records in Luke chapter 22 that Jesus turned his attention from the group and he looked straight at Peter and he said these words to him. Starting in verse 31, he said, "Simon, Simon," again another name for Peter. Peter, Peter, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. Can you imagine being at that table for just a moment? Again, you're having different conversations. You're still trying to figure out this new thing called the Passover, the communion that Jesus brought into it, but you're just having normal conversation. And Jesus turns to Peter and he looks at Peter and says, "Peter, Peter, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat." Now, when you and I hear that expression, sift like wheat, it may not make as much sense to us as it did to back in those days. It was an agricultural term. And here's what would happen. One of the major crops that they would grow in this part of the country where Jesus was was wheat. And the way they would get the wheat, it would come in these tall stocks. And they would send somebody out to the field and they would chop down those stocks and they would bail them in what they would call sheav. And then they would take the sheav to the bailing floor. And basically what they would do is just stomp on it, press on. Many times they would put animals in there to clamp on it and move it around and what would happen is the seeds would begin to break off from the stalks and then they would take a winnowing fork just kind of like a pitchfork and they would take all those sheav that were broken up now and they would just kind of gently toss them up in the air and when the wind blew it would blow the just the shaft off. It would blow the stocks. It would blow all the unusable parts of this grain wheat of of of the wheat and it would just leave the seeds. And next they would take basically like a sift and they would scoop up the remaining seeds and they would shake it in the sift and then the fine seeds would drop to the ground and all the leftover residue that they still didn't want would remain in the sift. And what would be left was just the seeds on the ground. And when this whole process, every time they had wheat, that's what they went through to get to the seeds of pure part they wanted. And Jesus looks at Peter and says, "Hey, Peter, Satan came to me and he wants to treat you like we treat the wheat. He wants to sift you like we do the wheat." So, can you imagine Peter sitting there again? He's at this meal. He thought he was just having kind of a family celebration of Passover. And all of a sudden, Jesus looks at him and here's what we can understand from behind the scenes that there's been a conversation before the conversation. Jesus is having a direct conversation with Peter about what Satan wants to do to him. But the conversation before the conversation was the conversation that Jesus and Satan had had about Peter. It is the beginning of our understanding of spiritual warfare. See, the apostle Paul, as I read it earlier, said this in the book of Ephesians that we come against principalities and things beyond our flesh. And so, what we can understand from this passage that there's really two levels of life going on. There's a level of life that you and I live in. The level of life that you and I exist in. The level of life that you and I have somewhat control over. But there's another level of life called spiritual life, spiritual warfare that Satan and Jesus are talking through. And the conversation goes on to say this. But Jesus looked at Peter and said, "But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail." So in other words, Satan comes to Jesus going, "Hey, Jesus, see your boys down there, your disciples. They seem like they're following you, but that's only things because things are going well now. Let me get hold of Peter and let me sift him like wheat and let me show you what's really made he's made of." And Jesus said, "I looked to Satan and said, "No, no, no, no. I'm going to plead on your behalf. I'm going to stand in the gap for you and I'm going to pray in such a way that your faith doesn't fail. And so when you have pre repented and turned back to me again, again, Jesus talking to Peter and you. So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers. Then Peter looked at him and said, "Oh Lord, I'm ready to go to prison with you and even to die with you." But Jesus said, "Peter, let me tell you something. before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will deny me three times and you'll even say you don't even know me during these times. So this conversation about spiritual warfare, Jesus and Satan, they're talking about this stuff over here. They're talking about Peter. Peter's right in the middle of it, and he's going, I I would never deny you, Jesus. I would never turn my back on you. I'm ready to go to war for you, Jesus. And Jesus says, "Well, I got news for you." And the part that you don't see up here that Satan I've already talked about, you're not going to do as well as you think. But when you repent from doing the bad things that you're going to do that you don't know you're going to do, God's going to still use you. So spiritual warfare. Again, most people lean way over here and blame everything on the devil. Or they lean way over here and don't even take account and think about spiritual warfare as being real. But I think we learn from this passage right here in Luke chapter 22 that spiritual warfare falls right in the middle and spiritual warfare is real. Just to make sure you're awake, can you look at your neighbor now and say spiritual warfare is real.

In fact, if you don't think your neighbor is getting it, just slap them upside their head and say spiritual warfare is real. And you just felt it right there. Here's what I want to do. Because there's still so much confusion and and and just lack of awareness of spiritual warfare, I want to take the next few minutes and give you four principles about spiritual warfare. Four tactics that take place in spiritual warfare. If you're taking notes, you can jot some of these down. But here's the first thing I want you to understand about spiritual warfare. The battle you can't see is the battle you can't ignore. The battle you can't see is the battle you can't ignore. You see, Peter sitting down with his disciples. He's talking to Jesus. He is so unaware of this other battle that's taking place over here. And he actually tries to ignore it. Oh, Peter. Or Peter just yells, "No, Jesus, that would never happen to me. I'll go fight to the death for you. I'm right here for you." But he's so unaware of what's going on that it could lead to his downfall if he's not careful. And so in mind your life as we think about spiritual warfare, we have to be aware that things are taking place that we can't see, but the reality is still taking place in our lives. You see, when Jesus was having this conversation with Peter, it was almost like he was giving him a warning. Hey, Peter, you see right now, but I see in the future. You see what's taking place, but I see all the moves taking place before the moves take place. story about a family in the Midwest. They season got cold and so like all of us, they turned the furnace on and one night they went to bed and they kissed the kids good night. Mom, dad went to bed and they kissed each other good night and they all snuggled in in their their nice toasty warm house because the furnace is working good just to settle in for a night's sleep. But unbeknownst to them, somehow during the night there was a crack in the furnace. And so the carbon monoxide monoxide began to ooze out and slip out and and and fill the rooms. Nobody knew. Nobody woke up because there were no alarms going off. Nobody woke up because they smelled anything. Because as you know, carbon monoxide is a just a a gas that you have no sense of smell or sight of it. The next morning, nobody got up for breakfast. The next morning, nobody got out of bed because sadly the entire family had died in the middle of the night because of this unseen unknown gas that slipped into their house. The way they found out about them is the neighbor saw their car there for the next day and it never moved and got worried about them, called the police. The police came called the fire department and they all came in. They found the bodies of the family. A horribly sad sad story. But the fire marshall that checked everything out and did the report, he said this. If only they had a detector, just one small device could have saved them. I wonder in mine and your lives what we're missing when it comes to being really rooted in life and having the fruit that God desires out of us spiritually is we're missing the detector. We're missing that thing in our life that we're looking going, "It's not just about what I see, it's also about what I don't see. Peter was writing as we've looked throughout this series years later 30 or 40 years later he wrote the books of first and second Peter letters to the churches and this is what he wrote in 1 Peter 5 8 and 9 he says stay alert watch out for your great enemy the devil as he's writing this I wonder if he's thinking back to this conversation they had with Jesus that he had no idea what Jesus was talking about that Peter had no idea did that Satan would come upon him so strong and so quickly that he would end up denying the Savior three times before he was crucified. He says, "Stay alert. Watch out for your great enemy, the devil." He prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. And he says, "Stand firm against him and be strong in your faith." Peter's given admonition to the church then, but he gives admonition to us now that we need to be aware that Satan is like a roaring line waiting to prowl and get us. Several years ago, Denise and I were probably been married about 10 years and we had kind of what I would call a dark patch. I wouldn't just call it kind of a dark patch. It was a dark dark patch. There was conflict between us we couldn't resolve. There was emotions in between behind everything we said to one another that we couldn't get hold of. It was just it was not good. I've always told people we all have always said that we would never use the dword divorce, but we were in a few weeks there that we might use the dword death because we're about to kill one another if we didn't figure things out. And I was convinced I knew the problem. You know what it was? Her. That's what the problem was. If she would just fix her stuff, we'd be okay. But she wouldn't go to a counselor. And so I'll never forget I went to a counselor. First time in my life that I went to a counselor. And as I begin to share things with him, thinking now you she won't come. She should she should be here so you can fix her. But I'll tell you all about her that you can tell me what to how to fix her. As I begin to share the share these things, he just opened some insight into our relationship. He showed me things about my wife that I had didn't understand for the first 10 years were married. He showed me things about myself that I couldn't see as I looked in the mirror. And all of a sudden, my eyes were opened up. But I will never forget the last thing he said. He looked at me and he said, "And Keith, I need to wake you up and you need to hear this. Satan is a roaring lion waiting to devour your marriage." And then he looked at me and he said, "As the man of your house, you need to go home and fall on your knees and be ready to fight the things that you can't see." Now, he wasn't giving me some mystical instruction to go home and look in my house and try to look for cobwebs in the corner that might be Satan or some kind of ore over here or cloud over here. But here's what he was saying. He's going, "Keith, you look at your wife and you think she's the problem." The problem is something you have to look inside of you, but it's beyond you. It is Satan trying to come in and destroy the very thing that you hold the dearest.

And so as we think about spiritual warfare, spiritual warfare is the battle that you can't see, but it's the battle that you can't ignore. Do me a favor. Look at your neighbor and say this. Spiritual warfare is real and we can't ignore it just because we can't see it. Here's number two. If I'm learning some things and and Jesus and Peter's interaction get together, here's the second thing I learned from it. You might lose a round, but Jesus has already won the fight. When it comes to spiritual warfare, you might lose a round. You might lose a battle here. You might lose a battle there. But we need to understand that Jesus has already won the war. You know, think about this conversation between the two of them, between Peter and Jesus. Jesus or Peter, I'm sorry. Satan asked for permission to go after Peter. I love that. You know why? It lets me know who's in charge. Satan couldn't walk into this conversation with Jesus going, "Hey, I need to move you aside, Jesus, because I'm about to go after your boy." He had to even get permission to go after Peter from Jesus himself. That lets me know who's in charge of the room. But they had this conversation. And so Peter or I'm sorry, Jesus is asked by Satan, can I go after Peter? And Jesus says, "And I interceded for you and nothing would happen to you, that your faith would remain intact." That sounds like a great story. Sounds like something you can make a movie out of. But you got to read the rest of this passage to understand what took place. By the end of this passage and by the end of the next 12 to 24 hours, here's what we understand that we've mentioned before. That Satan would still attack Peter and Peter would deny Jesus three times. The very man, the very savior that he was said that said I would stand up and fight for you until my death. The very savior that we were walking the garden, the soldiers came to arrest Jesus. Peter pulled out his sword and he cut off the ear of one of the soldiers, the very one that he's ready to fight for. He denied him three times. If you don't know the story, you read that going, "Well, I guess Jesus didn't know what he was talking about. He might have said and wished he would have prayed that his faith would be intact, that Peter's faith would would remain intact." But undoubtedly, that didn't work out very well because look what Peter did. Here's what we need to understand. that Peter might have lost a couple of the battles, but he didn't lose the war, that God held his faith intact, that God held him all there together and he said, "I will hang on to Peter." Now, here's why that's so important. There are some in this room today, this morning, that you feel so beat up by life. You still feel so beat up by Satan himself. You came in today going, "If somebody could see my two black eyes, Satan, punch me in my eyes this past week." And sometimes we get so beat up and we lose those battles and we feel the shame of that that we hold our head, we drop our head and we're think, "God can never use me and I'm going to lose this battle and God can't hold on to me." Here's what I want you to know. That God will never let you go. He will never let you go because Satan pulls so hard and takes you from him. or he will never let you go because he's ashamed of you. God will always hold you in his hands. In first Peter chapter 1, here's what Peter writes years down the road. All praise to God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Can you imagine as Peter's writing that he is thinking back 30 years ago, I denied Jesus three times. I dropped my head and I told that little girl, "I don't even know who you are." He told the little girl, "Get away from me. I'm embarrassed by all of this." "No, I don't know Jesus." But here, 30 years later, Peter's able to say, "It is by his great mercy that we've been born again because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead." And now we live with great expectation. And we have a priceless inheritance. And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive your final salvation. It is by your faith. It is by my faith that God has hold of us and he won't let go. No matter how many times we deny him, no matter how many times we fail him, no matter how many times we get punched in the face by Satan himself in this thing that we call spiritual warfare, here's what we need to understand. We will not ever ever ever lose the fight because it's not even our fight to win or lose. It is spiritual warfare. And God says, "I have won the fight." As the writer in First John said this, "Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world." And you may be here today and you're going, "I don't even have the strength to hardly get here today because I feel so beat up in spiritual warfare." Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. One of the greatest most common tactics I think that Satan uses in spiritual warfare is he fills our mind with lies. He fills our minds with fabrications. He fills our mind and we start believing Satan over God. Again, let me say the verse. Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. And so as we think about spiritual warfare, there are times we may lose the round. But we have to understand that Jesus has already won the fight. You know when it is when he won the fight as he hung on the cross and said it is finished. Now Satan thought that's the end of it right there. But three days later when Jesus rose again, that's where the fight was won. That's the reason Romans chapter 8:34 here's what Paul wrote wrote. He says, "Who then will condemn us? No one for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us and he is sitting in the place of honor at God's right hand pleading for us." Sometimes we think we're in this ring called spiritual warfare and you're just getting punched and stalked and jabbed and you're going, "Oh my goodness." Here's what you have to remember. Jesus is in the corner of your ring and he's pleading for you. He's going one more round. You can do it. Don't let go. You've got it. In fact, the application that I think for this one is this. Live with deep confidence, not in yourself, but in Christ finished victory.

That's two. Let me give you a third tactic when it comes to spiritual warfare. Third tactic says this. Your scars when it comes to spiritual warfare, your scars can become someone else's strength. Your scars can become someone else's strength. Let me read verse 32 of this Luke chapter 22 to you again. This is what Jesus looked at Peter says, "Okay, Peter, um, he's asked, Satan's asked to shift you and I've been pleading for you." And he goes, "So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers." Jesus didn't say, "If you get defeated," he goes, "When you suffer some losses, when you have repented, turn back to me and I will strengthen your brothers." I find that so interesting. It seems like Jesus said would have said, "So when you turn back to me, repent and I will strengthen you." That's not what Jesus said. He says, "When you turn back to me and you repent, I will strengthen your brothers." Think with me for a second. Why would Peter returning back to Jesus after losing a couple of spiritual battles and spiritual warfare, how would that ever strengthen the brothers? You know how? Because the brothers are going, "Wow, you too. You too, Peter." But God brought you back. God is still using you, Peter. Peter, if God can use you after you deny the Savior three times, he can use any of us. And so, when it comes to it, many times our scars become someone else's strength in our life. I have a good friend of mine, his name is FTO Gonzalez. He lives in Tijuana, Mexico. When Denise and I were serving at our church in San Diego for six years, we met VTO. He pastored a church that was a partnering church with ours. And so once a month, I got to go over to Tijana and preach at his church. And you would meet FTO going, "Wow, there's a man of God. Wow, there's a man that w has walked faithfully with God." But when you get to know FTO, you hear all this story. See, FTO grew up in LA in the San Diego area, but was never an actual citizen of the United States. FTO didn't grow up in a good family, didn't have a good surrounding around him, and let's just say he led a life that was less than becoming. Was always in trouble, spent a couple of times in jail. the last time he went to jail, um, an American jail, even though he was not an American citizen, put in American jail and he met Jesus. And Jesus began to change his life around. And then when he was let out of jail, he wasn't let out to stay in America. They deported him back to Mexico. Now, understand at this point, FTO's got a wife in America. He's got family in America. and he's being deported to another country that he can never come back and see them. And he's throwing his hands up going, "God, what in the world? I finally gave my life to you. I'm finally following you and this is what happens to me." And he said, all of a sudden, his life became dark. And he thought, "What is the purpose of my life?" Because he was new in his faith. He began to just saying, "I've got to have some Christian people around me." So, this was a number of years ago. He would get a DVD from the preaching of the church. and his wife wife would go to America in San Diego and they would send it to him in Mexico and he would gather get gather a few people in his living room and they would do church together and all of a sudden those few people began to grow to six people and 10 12 people and 12 people and 20 people. All of a sudden he's got a full-blown like gathering and he's going what do I do? All I have is a little DVD that I get from the church across the border. And God called FTO to be a pastor. He begins to study God's word more. He begins to study on how to be a preacher. Right now, if you go to Tijana, Mexico, FTO Gonzalez is the pastor of two full-blown churches in Tijana. And you know who what type of people go to his church? People just like himself. People that had spent time in jail were deported. Their family still in America. Their family moves to Tijana because they want to all be together and they're trying to live for Jesus. It is a church full of excon and people who didn't live a good life. His scars of his testimony became the platform for his pulpit.

One of the things that breaks my heart more than anything else is when somebody new comes to church and maybe they haven't been to church very much in their life. And you know, one of the things that keeps them from church, it's like, "Well, I'm not like those people because those people have it all together." Yeah. I got news for you. This pastor doesn't have it all together. And I got news for you. None of us have it all together. If you're a guest here today and you're kind of kicking the tires on Christianity and trying to figure out this whole God thing, here's what I want you to know. That a full a church, a real church, an authentic church of followers of Jesus are just a bunch of broken, messed up people that were trying to do our best to be like Jesus. And I pray that our scars, our shame, our past mistakes, anything that we participated in that we're going that is not like God that God can use to draw people to encourage them in their life today. Peter's failure wasn't final because his scars became his ministry. He would later write in 1 Peter 5:10, "In his kindness, God called you to share in his eternal glory by the means of Christ Jesus." "So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore and support and strengthen you and he will place you on a firm foundation." When we repent, God uses us to encourage those around us. Let me let me leave the last one with you here. The last kind of spiritual warfare tactic. It says this, "You can't fight on your feet until you've bowed on your knees." You can't fight on your feet when it comes to spiritual warfare. You can't fight on your feet until you've bended bowed on your knees. Peter looked at Jesus and Jesus, Lord, I'm ready to go to prison with you. I'll even die for you. Let's come on. Let's get up and fight. Let's do it right now. You see, it's in our innate nature. Whether you're Peter sitting around the table with the disciples 2,000 years ago or in our nature right now, we have this innate nature to fight, don't we? To raise our fist when something comes our way, let's go. Let's go. And if we don't raise our fist, we raise our voices. If we don't raise our voices, we raise and speak loud on the post that we make. We do our actions. We try everything we can to defeat what's in front of us. But so many times we forget that the first step we ought to take is prayer. The first step before we speak ought to be prayer. The first step before we raise our fists ought to be prayer. The first step we ought to take before we ever post something on social media to express our views ought to be prayer. The old adage, you mess with the bull, you get the horns. Too many of us have replaced the 13th commandment, which is to love God with everything that you have and to love your neighbor. and we've replaced it to say you mess with the bull and you get the horns. If we would spend more time on our knees praying than we do standing up trying to fight, I think our world would be a lot better place. Peter wrote this in 1 Peter chapter 4:7. He said, "The end of the world is coming soon." How many of you feel like that some days? The end of the world is coming soon. Therefore, be earnest and disciplined in your prayers. He didn't say the end of the world is coming soon, so stand up and and do some kind of campaign. He didn't say the end of the world is coming soon, so make sure you stand up for every right that you believe in. He said the end of the world is coming soon. So make sure you're disciplined in your prayers. The Apostle Paul wrote it another way. He says, "Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. And before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ just places worry at the center of your life. And so when it comes to spiritual warfare, yes, there's sometimes and there are spec specific actions that we need to take sometimes, but before we ever do that, we need to make sure we're praying about it first.

And so church, look at somebody around you and say this. Spiritual warfare is real. And people often ask me, well, so which side of the coin where do you lean? The one that leans on it too much. The ones that don't think about it. Here's how I like to think about spiritual warfare. It's like a rubber band. Here's how a rubber band works. If you take a rubber band and you never put any tension on it, it doesn't do any good. I can try to hold something within this rubber band, but there's not enough tension on it. Things will just fall straight through. It doesn't do any good. That's like the people that don't put any focus or thoughts about spiritual warfare. It doesn't do them any good. But then of rubber band, if you put too much tension on it, it will eventually break and not be any good. So for those that lean so far over here to this side and they make everything the devil's fault, you may be putting too much tension on it. The best thing about a rubber band is you put just enough tension on it for do what it's supposed to do. And as we think about becoming more rooted in our life, growing deeper in our relationship with God that we can bear the fruit that he wants us to, we need to make sure we understand that spiritual warfare is real. And I think those four tactics that we just talked about will help us as we think through that in making sure that we keep it where it needs to be. Okay. Got to do it one more time for me. Look at your neighbor and say spiritual warfare is real.

I'm going to pray for us and then I just have a few announcements that we're going to make before we finish up today. But here's what I pray that God is making you more and more and deeper and deeper in your spiritual roots on the things that are so obvious like prayer, things that are so obvious like understanding how suffering fits into our life, understanding who God is. But I pray it'll also make you aware of the things that aren't so obvious like spiritual warfare. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you that you that you give us your word to to just give us clarity. And I pray this that we would understand with great spiritual clarity exactly how and what and even when spiritual warfare is taking place in our lives. So open our eyes and we pray this in your holy name. Amen.