Stand Strong!

If this is your first time with us, we come to this part of our service every Sunday where we take a few moments and we dedicate purely just to praying. We don’t just want to be a church that offers prayers to the Lord, but we want to be a praying church. We know that when we do things in our power, by our ingenuity, by our effort, by our ideas, we get what people can get. However, when we do things according to what God wants us to do, when we tap into His power, we get what God can get. So, that’s why we spend some time every Sunday morning just to pray and ask for the Lord to work mightily and specifically in various areas.

If you weren’t with us on Friday night, man, you you missed a great time at least for the guys. We had about 40 men here for for a little guys grub and grow as we’re kicking off a men’s ministry. Donna had I think like two dozen ladies here for the women’s pack and pray earlier in the week. Their ministry is going to kick off. Both of those will kick off in September. So, what we’re going to do for the month of August is praying specifically for adult disciplehip here at Sauldam Baptist.

This morning, we’re praying for life transformation just like what was saying a second ago that God would transform all of me, all of you, all of us so that we would be more conformed to the image of Jesus. So, what I invite you to do right now is just to buddy up with the neighbor. Pray specifically, pray out loud that God would transform the lives of our adults here through disciplehip. All right, y’all take it away.

Holy Spirit, we desperately need You to do what only You can do. We’re thirsty for it. We’re hungry for it. We need You to transform us. God, it’s it’s not the gospel does not just give us a clean slate and expect us to figure out the rest, God. The good news, Jesus, of what You’ve done, it also fuels life change. It’s like Paul said in 2 Corinthians that as we behold You, Jesus, that transforms us from one degree to the next into a more glorious image of You here. God, I pray for that. I pray that You would use the experiencing God study with the men to transform the men of our church to look more like Your son. I pray that You would use the study on Christ our Christian identity with the women to transform the women of this church. Lord, what could You do with us if we were all being actively transformed into the image of Your son? What what ways could we bless our community? Which people could we win into the kingdom? What acts of faith could we go through? God, I long to see that. You deserve it. You are worth it. Lord, please make us look more like You.

I pray that the men’s and the women’s ministries of Sauldam Baptist Church would grow so strong. Lord, I pray that they would just flourish ultimately, Lord, so that the the lives of adults here would be transformed. God, I pray that You would get a hold of this sermon as well. That You would do something with this time that I need You to do. God, You and I have met together this week. I feel like You’ve given me the word for the church today, and I’m begging that You would do something with it. God, Your word in Isaiah 55 says that just like the rain does not just fall from the sky, hit the earth, and go right back up into the clouds. No, it stays here. Eventually, it saturates and it produces fruit. God, in the same way, Your word, when it is spoken, it does not just bounce off of hearts and ears and minds and come back. No, God, it finds good soil and it takes root and it produces something. God, please let Your word find good soil in us this morning and do something with it. It’s in Your great name that we pray. Amen. Amen.

Demons, anyone? There we go. Demons. Based off of your context, based off of your upbringing, your kind of spiritual disposition, when I say something like demons or spiritual warfare, that might elicit certain types of reactions or responses for you. For me growing up, spiritual warfare is something that I was vaguely not familiar with. I, I had some sort of acknowledgment of. It’s what missionaries dealt with overseas. Spiritual warfare was this type of thing that You read about in missionary biographies or in kind of like the weird section of Lifeway when Lifeway was still a brick-and-mortar store, if you know what I mean. All the books that had like the codes on them and stuff like that. But for me, spiritual warfare became tangible and personal whenever Becca and I moved overseas to go serve and share the good news of Jesus with folks that didn’t grow up in a bit of a Christianized environment like I would imagine most of us did.

Spiritual warfare became something that was, I would say, even tangible for me earlier this year. Some things started happening personally in the beginning of 2024 where I would go through these moments of, I guess I would just call them, deep, dark, lie-fueled despair. I would make a mistake or I would hit some sort of situation, and what happened in my mind is the same thing that’s happened outside. It’s like lies were just pouring into me. And the moment I lost my footing, I just kind of got swept by them until Becca would find me some corner of the house and I’m trying to grab on to some sort of truth.

And then it led me to some interesting conversations that I ended up having with Seth’s parents, folks who deal every day with spiritual warfare, not just over where they serve internationally, but have helped folks here in the States. And the passage this morning, what I’m praying and what I’m hoping and trusting, it’s going to lay a foundation for all of us to be able to handle spiritual warfare.

Based off of your upbringing, when I say something like spiritual warfare, you might have a fair amount of suspicion or skepticism. You might say, “Man, this is kind of where the kooky Christians deal with. That’s not really who we are, man. For me, it’s the Father, the Son, and the Holy Bible. I’m not even talking about the Holy Spirit.”

Others, I think, might have like an overemphasis on spiritual warfare. The devil is behind everything. The devil’s behind every red light. The devil is behind every buffet that you might feel tempted to stop at. The devil is behind everything. And you’re always overemphasizing that, you might feel some measure of fear toward this. It’s like, Jeremy, if you even talk about this, you’re like opening the door for the whole thing. Therefore, man, like we can’t even discuss this stuff or else, man, the bad stuff might get in.

Some of us, I think, kind of live in what I would call willful ignorance. Jeremy, that doesn’t have anything to do with like reading my Bible every day or tithing. I’m just, man, I’m not going to worry about that.

No matter your past regarding spiritual warfare, today we can all leave feeling confident about what spiritual warfare is about, understanding who spiritual warfare is really against, and understanding why we take it seriously. And we should take it seriously. The Bible fully acknowledges the reality that there are active spiritual forces waging war against you for your destruction. It’s been true from the very beginning of time.

Adam and Eve are created and they live in this perfect environment in the Garden of Eden. This situation that if you and I were placed in, we would probably think we could never screw it up. They do because spiritual warfare was going on when Satan comes to them. The Bible talks about spirits being a real thing. The Bible talks about the forces of darkness coming against God’s people. And even Jesus Himself took it seriously. His whole ministry began not with Him preaching on some big mega stage, but with Him and Satan in the wilderness and Jesus refuting the lies that Satan was giving Him based off of Scripture.

If you are a Christ follower, you must take spiritual warfare seriously. Without any further ado, this is Ephesians chapter 6 verses 10-13. “Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by His vast strength. Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood. No, it is against rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil spiritual forces in the heavens. For this reason, take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything to take your stand.”

Christian, this morning, your charge is this. Stand in God’s strength. Stand in God’s strength. Please, just stand in God’s strength. That is your charge.

This morning. That is the central thrust of this passage. We love to look at the armor and dissect it piece by piece. And next week, Pastor Al is going to do that for us. However, the central thrust is not just in collecting all the armor like you might collect your hobbies. The central thrust of this is to stand in God’s strength. That verb in verse 10, be strengthened. It’s really interesting. I’m going to nerd out on you just a little bit. Okay. Thank you, Diane. All right.

The English language, we miss something with how we communicate. For us, whenever you start giving somebody a verb and another verb and another verb, they all kind of look similar. It’s all on a flat plane. So, if you told somebody, “Hey, can you please make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?” And then you start saying, “Get out the bread. Get out your peanut butter. Get out your jelly. Get out the knife. Scrape the peanut butter on both sides of it.” Because man, peanut butter belongs on both pieces of bread for sure. And then you put the jelly in the middle. I’ve just given you a list of verbs.

Greek, the language of the New Testament doesn’t work that way. In the Greek language, there are certain verbs that carry more weight than other verbs. The verb be strengthened is that verb that carries the most weight in this passage. If you are a true nerd, you would know it is an imperative present. An imperative is a command. Paul is not saying, “Hey, if you want, you could consider being strengthened.” No, Paul is saying, “Be strengthened.” Be strengthened. That’s what he’s saying.

And it’s written in a continuous form. So, he’s not saying, “Hey, accept the gospel, get saved, and then be strengthened.” No, he’s saying, “Hey, when you when you go to bed tonight, be strengthened. When you wake up tomorrow morning, be strengthened. Whenever you get into that awkward conversation with somebody, be strengthened. Whenever you make that move of faith, be strengthened. Whenever you make that sacrifice for the Lord, be strengthened whenever you’re on your laptop at night, nobody watching or you’re watching your TV and that temptation comes at you again. Be strengthened. Be strengthened.”

It is this continual command that you have as a Christian, but is also written as something you can’t do in yourself. Paul doesn’t say be strong. He says be strengthened. Receive strength, man. Too much focus of spiritual warfare is put on all the armor. We say, “Man, if I only had my belt of truth, if I only had this breastplate of righteousness.” Paul is saying, “Hey, the armor is part of it, but the main thing is, man, be strong in the Lord. Be strengthened in Him.” That’s why the command of this passage is to stand in God’s strength.

Let me try to bring it home for a second. We’re all going to be strong in something. What’s it going to be for you? What are you going to be strong in? I in other words, there’s a source of strength that all of us draw from. Here’s some examples. you might draw your strength just purely through self-help. Man, I can run my life. I can read some books. I can kind of improve my habits to get happier. I can do whatever it takes to just make myself feel better about myself. And that might be your source of strength.

For some of us who grew up in church, I think that church attendance and church activity is a source of strength. I go there every Sunday, every Wednesday. I tithe every week. I do the checkbox on my prayer calendar. That’s my strength. It’s my church and my my Christianity sort of stuff.

Others of us, it’s our good intentions. Man, I’m trying to be a good person. I treat people kindly. I don’t get too angry at too many people. I I’m I’m a good guy. I’m a good lady.

Some of us, our strength is in our financial success and our career accomplishments. Man, look at me. Look at all the money I’ve accumulated. Look at all this stuff I’ve done for my company, all these possessions and all these treasures I have. If some sort of rainy day happens, it’s okay because I have stockpiled for myself.

Others of us, our strength is our family. Man, it’s okay if something happens to me because I know mom and dad or my brothers or my family members are going to take care of me. Or maybe it’s just your last name. Hey, I come from this family. I am going to be fine.

That is my source of influence and control. Maybe it’s just your personal grit. It’s like, man, life stinks. I’m going to get through it because of who I am. Others of us have some source of strength, man. Like, what’s it going to be for you? Here’s the deal. It’s not a question of will your life have hard times. And it’s definitely not a question of will you face spiritual warfare. The question is when spiritual warfare comes against you like wind and rain and storms come against a house, what will be the source of your strength? Stand in God’s strength. Man, those things I listed, they could be good, but they are not enough. Because you are facing a battle that is bigger than flesh and blood. Paul says, “So our struggle, our battle in this life as Christians is not against flesh and blood.” Real strength comes from God and it is available to you. Will you take it? Man, I pray that you do because there is a dire need for strength. There’s a dire need for strength. You don’t have to look around too far these days to see how life and the world are just being more and more influenced by what I would say are demonic forces, from the social media that we download onto the thing that sits in your pocket at all times to what you see happening in the world around us. Whatever it is, whatever your hobby horse is, you can see how Satan is at work in our world. There is a dire need for strength.

Look at verses 11 and 12 with me. Paul says, “Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil.” I hope I don’t have to convince you that the devil is scheming. I hope I don’t have to convince you that there is an enemy who is after your soul. I hope I don’t have to convince you that there is a spiritual force that hates you, that lies to you, that would love to destroy you. Satan is always scheming. He will never stop. From the very beginning of human history until His final judgment, the devil has been scheming against God and His people and His creation for its destruction and death. And here’s the deal. Satan is smarter than us. He knows the Bible better than us. And he has more experience tempting us than we have at resisting him. We must recognize that Satan schemes and we must take that seriously. And Satan, man, he can use anything. Turn back. Turn to the left in your Bible to chapter 4, verses 26 and through 27. “Be angry. Do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger.” Why? “Don’t give the devil an opportunity.” Man, the devil can even use anger and miscommunication between Christians. He can scheme through it and get his work done. Satan can get his hands into the social structure of our church and tear us apart. If he can do this with minor disagreements and your anger, imagine what else he can do. Man, he can convince you that some moment of sexual pleasure is totally worth it and you can hide it until one day you’re having an affair and your family is destroyed. He can convince you that just one drink is okay until you find yourself careening off the side of the road hitting somebody else. He can convince you that some white lie or some juicy gossip is totally fine until you find yourself on the other end of a split family or split church. Satan, here’s what he does. He makes what is bad look good and makes what is good look bad. He is scheming. Take him seriously. He lies. He distorts. He divides. He slanders. Ultimately, he destroys. That’s why we have to remember that our struggle is against him. We need strength because we need to know who to struggle against. That word struggle is wrestle. We need to know who we are grappling with.

I was a wrestler in middle school. Not an accomplished one, but I wrestled on some good teams. And with a guy like me, my coach was not very worried about teaching me all the skills. He was concerned with teaching me like two moves so that I could recognize early in a match the type of wrestler I was against. He knew he couldn’t download very much prowess into my 98 pound frame at that time. But he did know that if he taught me how to recognize who I was wrestling with, I could win a match. We need to know who we are wrestling with. You will not win in spiritual warfare if you do not recognize that your struggle, your match is not against people. It is against Satan. Our warfare, our struggle is not with somebody else in the sanctuary. Your struggle is not with a family member you have to see a couple times a year. Your struggle is not actually with your boss or your employee or with some political figure. Your struggle is against Satan. Man, as frustrating, discouraging, and even sinful that we can be toward each other, ultimately people aren’t the enemy. Satan is. And for us Christians, man, when we struggle against each other, we are just committing friendly fire. We’re taking each other out when there’s a war going on around us. A very real enemy who deserves everything we’ve got. When we attack other Christians, it’s like we are attacking fellow soldiers in this battle.

There is a battle raging. There is a battle raging for the hearts of the next generation. There is a battle raging for your heart and your mind today. Are you going to wrestle and battle against other Christians or are you going to wrestle and battle against Satan? Now, here’s the deal. Behind all divisive comments, behind all gossip, behind all slander and all backbiting is a scheming devil. Let me just say that again. Behind all divisive comments, gossip, slander, and backbiting is a devil that is scheming and acting and manipulating. Be on guard. Be strengthened. That also means that when you feel the desire well up inside of you to divide, gossip, slander, or backbite, Satan is working in you, man.

Those tangible moments I mentioned a few moments ago where I just very assuredly was experiencing spiritual warfare. You know what didn’t come to my mind in those deluge of lies? The desire to call one of y’all and just say, “Hey, I’m praying for you. I love you.” The desire to sacrifice my time for my family, that didn’t come up. A desire to read my Bible, that didn’t happen. What happened when I was experiencing spiritual warfare was the other side. It was the frustration. It was anger. It was these twisted desires. Man, when God or sorry, when Satan is working in you, he will not produce what God likes. God will never affirm any sin, especially sin against the people that He sent His Son to die for. If we feel okay speaking poorly about other people’s personhood, intentionally stirring up emotions to get our way, trying to make life hard for others, then Satan has a grip on us. He’s got a foothold. He’s got a handhold. He is like a rock climber that has wedged his hand into the side of a cliff and he is pulling himself up about to crest over you. We need God’s strength because our natural shortcomings cannot stand up against these spiritual forces against us which produce the fruit that God hates.

If you want to do what God loves, you you got to take this battle seriously. So what’s the point? What’s the point of being strengthened in God? What is the point of all of this? Once again, is that you would stand in strength. Look at verse 13 with me again. For this reason, take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to resist in the evil day and having prepared everything to take your stand. God’s strength is what enables and empowers our stand. Just like that word struggle is a physical match. It is a physical wrestling. That word stands, it’s like this military term. It is a it refers to the fact that there is a very real battle going on. And here’s the deal. God’s desire for you is not that you would go charging into hell, guns blazing, trying to take everybody out. God’s design and desire for you is simply that you would just stand, that you would stand under the force of it. That you would just be able to hold up under the weight of spiritual warfare. And that does not happen unless God’s strength is inside of you.

Man, you can either become a victim of spiritual warfare or you can become a conqueror. In Christ, we are supposed to be more than conquerors. Which will it be for you? Will you be a victim of the schemes of Satan? Or will you be a conqueror in the spiritual battle that is raging in and around you? Do you need strength today? Are you going through something that you know is otherworldly in the the bad kind of ways? God’s word has something for you. In Exodus chapter 15, Israel has just gone through the Red Sea. The Red Sea has just consumed Pharaoh and all of his armies. And this is the song that they sing to him. Moses and Israelites sang this song to the Lord. I’m going to back up a little bit from that slide. Sorry. They said, “I will sing to the Lord for He is highly exalted. He has thrown the horse and its rider into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song. He has become my salvation. This is my God and I will praise Him. My father’s God and I will exalt Him. The Lord, get this, the Lord is a warrior. The Lord is His name.” Do you need strength today for some battle you are going through? God is a warrior. He has strength for you. Psalm 35:1-3. Listen to this. God, oppose my opponents. God, fight those who fight me. Take up your shields, large and small. Come to my aid. Draw your spear and your javelin against my pursuers. Assure me, I am your deliverance.

Do you need strength today? Are your kids going through something and you’re trying to get them out of the darkness and you just cannot get a hold of them? You need God’s strength. Have you seen some evil going on around you and you know you’re supposed to speak to it, but you don’t know what to say? You need God’s strength. Then the Lord is a warrior. Do you see darkness encroaching on your life and you’re trying to you’re just trying to let your light shine for Christ, but the darkness feels so deep and so heavy? The Lord is a warrior. That is His name. He has a javelin and a spear. He has shields. And He will take these things up for you.

And man, we just go through life as Christians and that’s not how we treat God. And that’s not how we treat reality, man. Like the image of like office workers in a cubicle farm, I think, is what most of us think of Christianity. We’ve been hired for a job and we just kind of show up day in day out and type out our TPS reports or whatever it is and we just kind of deal with life and we check out and we go live our real life outside of this little cubicle farm. That’s not what God intends for you. What God intends for you is for you to be a soldier engaged in His battle. Not against politics, not against the school board, not against your crazy family member, not even against another church member. What God intends is for you to take up your strength so that you would battle against Satan and his forces at work.

Look at the passage we’re in again. Ephesians, I’ll get there eventually. Ephesians chapter 6, verse 12. Look at this list. Our struggle isn’t against flesh and blood. It’s against rulers and authorities and cosmic powers and of this darkness and against evil and against spiritual forces. We got enough problems. We don’t have to make more. We’ve got enough. We’ve got enough enemies. We’ve got a big enough opponent.

I know there’s someone in the room though who does not have this type of protection and coverage from the Lord that is being offered this morning. And when I talk about the deluge of lies, you’re like, “Man, that’s Monday.” When I talk about feeling like you can’t get out from under darkness and heaviness and sin, you’re like, “Dude, that’s that’s my every day.” When I talk about the Lord being a warrior on your behalf, there’s a part of you that I know is screaming, “Yes, I need that.” Because I know that I cannot battle this on my own.

Man, for you this morning, if that’s you, my plea, my call, my invitation for you is that you would give yourself to Jesus. There is coverage and freedom and safety and security now into eternity for anybody that calls on the name of the Lord. For anyone that does that, they will be saved. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is the son of God and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, sealing your freedom from sin and darkness, God will save you. You don’t have to look like me to follow Him. You look like you and follow Him with everything you’ve got, but make it all of you. Give all of yourself to Him because a half-hearted, half committed Christian is like the most miserable person in this world because you’re trying to figure out which one is it going to be. Am I going to Have the Jesus that I hear about and I think about, and He’s holy, holy, holy, but He’s kind of disinterested or at least irrelevant to my life? Or am I going to be all here, which feels fun in the moment but leaves me feeling real bad in the morning? Which one is it going to be? Stop vacillating between the two and choose one. There is freedom for anybody that calls on the name of the Lord. Call on Him.

See, God has secured our freedom in Jesus. He has already triumphed over the powers of this spiritual darkness. But Satan, he is not going down without a fight. Satan is like a wounded lion who has been backed into a corner, and he’s just looking to do some damage on his way out. This is how First Peter chapter 5 speaks of him. The author Peter says, “Be sober-minded. Be alert. Your adversary, the devil, is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. Resist him, firm in the faith, knowing that the same kind of sufferings are being experienced by your fellow believers throughout the world.”

Satan is prowling. He is scheming. He is devouring. Christ is the King. He is the winner. He is the victor. And God has strength for you today as long as you embrace the gospel and take this stuff seriously. Next week, I will teach about the armor. But as I close today, I want to ask you one final question. Do you want to be God’s tool for good or Satan’s tool for bad? Do you want to be used by God for good or you be used by Satan for bad? For all Christians who take spiritual warfare seriously, they will be used by God for good.

I want to give you a moment, in fact, to bow your head and close your eyes and pray that question to the Lord. If you want to take this stuff seriously, then you would repeat this prayer in your own words after me. God, am I Your tool for good or Satan’s tool for bad? God, I beg that You would help us. I beg that You would help us to be a family of people that are used by You for good. Help us to stand in Your strength, not in ours, to rely on You, to call on You, to believe in You. I beg that Sauldam Baptist Church would be a church that would resist Satan and his efforts. This would not be a hospitable place for him.

Lord, for anybody in the room that might be their first time, their first time in a long time, their 50th time being here, God, I beg that You’ll please help them to walk out of here with some sobriety about the spiritual war going on, but also deep confidence in You. You are the warrior. You are mighty. Let us believe in it. For right now, God, I’m begging for anybody that doesn’t know You as Lord and Savior, You’d get a hold of them during this final song. They would give their lives over to You, please. Amen.