Strength for the Struggle

All right, everybody. We’ll go ahead and start finding our seats again.

There we go. I see a couple of our folks getting back to their seats. Some other folks are hearing the voice over the lounge speaker and they’re starting to find their seats now, too.

Man, what a what a a wonderful noise to hear everybody greeting everybody. We’ve got we’ve even got babies greeting their neighbors. So happy for that.

I will say for all of our parents of children and young ones. Your children, your babies are so welcome in here. There’s zero issue whatsoever. don’t don’t feel like you’ve got to vacate the premises. If little one starts talking or squawking, we’re good with that. We’ve been praying for those sounds and that life for years. So, we’re not going to be upset about God answering those prayers.

So, we are actually coming to our time of prayer for our service today. If you are one of the guests that’s with us here this morning, this might be a little new for you. I would trust all of our longtime Sauldam folks to carry the weight here. But, we believe here at Sauldam that if we attempt things in our power, then we get what we can create, which honestly for people is not very much. But when we ask God to work, we get what God can do. And God can create anything and do anything He wants. So we dedicate a portion of our service every Sunday morning just for prayer.

so this morning, we’re going to continue to pray for our adult ministries that are kicking up here in September. This morning, we’re praying specifically for evangelistic impact through our adult disciplehip stuff. So the men, we’re about to kick off with Experiencing God next month. the women, they’re kicking off with identity in Christ. And our one of our prayers is that what is talked about, what is learned in those settings, God would use to draw others into salvation through our folks. So, that’s what we’re going to be praying for. So, I ask you, grab a neighbor and pray out loud for just a moment, asking God to use our adult ministries to save souls for evangelistic impact. Y’all take it away. I’ll put a bow on it here in a second. Thank you.

Holy Spirit, good morning. Thank you for drawing us here today. Thank you for giving us a desire to be here with other believers, folks who call on the name of the Lord. Thank you for bringing us here. Thank you for speaking to us in your word, Jesus. You are the word embodied. And you did not just speak to us from the sky, but you came and you lived, and you walked, you ate, you hugged, you cried. And thank you for being the word incarnate. And Jesus, when your ministry was finished and you went back to heaven, you sent your spirit so that God would not just reside in a body, but God would reside in all folks who believe in the name of the Lord. And we know like we declared earlier, Holy Spirit, that you are here. And I’m begging that you would speak to us this morning. I’m begging that you would use the men’s ministry to speak to the men of our church. that we would come away from that not just agreeing that there is a God or that there is a God who has holy rules, but that we would believe with every fiber of our beings that that God wants a love relationship with us that is real and personal and that that God is always working and that that God is inviting us to join Him. May we have that so that we would view every conversation and every opportunity and every disappointment as some way for your kingdom to grow. May you please use the men’s ministry to grow your kingdom that lost men and women and children would come into the family of God because a few of us are gathering to study.

And would you use the women’s study, Lord, to recalibrate as we are going back into the fall, as our life rhythms are resettling after the craziness of summer, that we would recalibrate, at least the women would, that their identity is fully rooted in Jesus Christ. And no other thing can provide that identity. And our identity need not be drawn from anything that’s passing that this world may offer. Lord, it’s not motherhood. It’s not careers. It’s not accomplishments. It’s not damage done. It’s not unfulfilled hopes and longings. Our identity is squarely rooted in the person and work of Jesus Christ. And May that truth fuel women to share the gospel with others. Holy Spirit, may You get a hold of us. May we hear from You this morning through Your Word that there would not be a doubt that all of us would walk out of here just a little bit more like You. God, I’m going to read it later, but I’m just quoting it now as we get to behold You with unveiled faces. We are being transformed from one degree of glory to the next. You are on a mission to seek and to save the lost and make us look more like You. May You use this morning to do that, please. We love You and it’s in Your great name that we pray. Amen. Amen.

Well, if you have your copy of God’s Word, go ahead and open it up to Ephesians chapter 6. We are coming into the final turn of the book of Ephesians. As we’ve been walking through this incredible letter over the past few months, the last two Sundays have been spent addressing something that’s very near and dear to my heart, which is spiritual warfare. We’re going to read the entire passage so that we can get an idea of where our passage this morning is rooted. But what we’ve been looking at is that God’s plan, His will for you is not that you would be like some pebble or some shell on the beach that constantly is being flooded and overswept with the attacks of the enemy, but that your life would be more like the cliffs of Dover over in the United Kingdom that is standing strong against the attacks and standing remaining where they are no matter what is thrown at them.

God’s purpose for you is that you would be strengthened by Him, that you would wear the full armor, and that you would stand against the schemes of the devil because your struggle is not against flesh and blood. Your struggle is not against any person or any cultural or societal evils, though those things may be present. Your struggle is against rulers, against authorities, against forces of evil that hate you. Because of that, God has provided armor for you in the person of Jesus that as you behold Him and put Him on, you would wear righteousness. You would wear truth. You would have the gospel protecting you and arming you so that you won’t just have to hope that the evil one doesn’t come against you, but that you can be more than a conqueror in Christ. That is God’s plan for you.

This morning, as we continue rounding this bend, we’re going to look at prayer and how prayer relates to spiritual warfare. When I was a teenager and God had saved me, I came into contact with the preaching and ministry of a pastor in Minneapolis named John Piper. And he said this about prayer: We can’t know what prayer is for until we know that life is war. Life is war. That’s not all life is, but it certainly is war. Our weakness in prayer is owing largely to our neglect of this truth. Prayer is primarily a wartime walkie-talkie for the mission of the church as it advances against the powers of darkness and unbelief. It is not surprising that prayer malfunctions when we try to make it a domestic intercom to call upstairs for more comforts in the den. God has given us prayer as a wartime walkie-talkie so that we can call headquarters for everything we need as the kingdom of Christ advances in the world. That is prayer.

We treat prayer as a way to get more of what we want from God to make this life a little more palatable and comfortable. But this life is not just a Sandals resort. This life is a war. Which means that our communication with God is not just getting more comforts. It is like a wartime walkie-talkie. The Apostle Paul, the one that wrote Ephesians, agrees with this, and he wants to connect prayer with your struggle. So this is God’s Word. Ephesians chapter 6, verses 10-20. I’m only preaching on the final three verses, but I want you to get those three verses in the context of what Paul has been saying.

So 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, but against rulers, against authorities, against cosmic powers of this dark evil age, against 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. Stand therefore with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest, and your feet sandaled with the readiness for the gospel of peace. In every situation, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the word of—sorry, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

And now today’s passage: pray. Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints. Pray also for me that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. For this I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may be bold enough to speak about it as I should.

That’s prayer. That’s the context that Paul teaches about prayer. That is how we ought to view prayer: a resource for our spiritual battle, not a conveyor belt for more delicacies in the cafeteria of life until we get to that life.

This morning, there’s one major thing I want you to take away. There is one major truth I want you talking about over lunch. It is this: prayer is power for the struggle. Prayer is power for the struggle.

Now, I’ve been talking about spiritual warfare. Let me just talk—like, just define this a little bit as we get into the passage. Spiritual warfare can be as broad or it could be as specific as you define it, really. Some people define it as broadly as the battle between heaven and hell. It is the struggle between God and Satan. Some people want to define it as specifically as possible: spiritual warfare is the opposition and the proactive aggression that Christians take against a force of evil in every local and place manifested against all societal evil, and you can—you can have any sort of thing in the midst of that.

What you need to know about spiritual warfare is not a specific definition. What you need to know is that spiritual warfare has a predetermined outcome. Christ has already defeated our great enemy on the cross and in the resurrection. Which means, as Carter was leading us to sing, we—we fight from a position of victory. There is no force that will ever come against a born-again believer that does not have an end date for their own life attached to it. You will never encounter anything as a follower of Jesus that has not already been dealt with at the cross. However, because we have not reached the end of time as we know it, we are still engaged in a struggle, albeit against a losing enemy, but we are still in a struggle.

Spiritual warfare also has lasting consequences. I fully believe how you handle today’s temptations will set the direction for how you act next month and next year. What you allow into your life, what you allow into your mind, the things you do not check and handle will impact you later.

Finally, spiritual warfare is real and personal. I’ve shared a little bit about my story. This past year—this year, 2025—has been one I would say just marked by spiritual warfare. Man, if we’re sitting down over coffee, I’d be a little more upfront with you about some of this. I’ve got a couple moments this year where the deluge of lies and dark thoughts come against. And I’ve had some incredible—incredible—mentors and friends walk me through this. I’ve come to see: Satan hates you. He hates me. He hates God. And He hates what God is doing here at Sauldam. And He will do anything He can to distract us from the beauty of Jesus and to get junk into your life.

Spiritual warfare is real and it is personal, but it is not something you have to fall victim to. I said this earlier: you are a conqueror in Jesus because Jesus defeated sin and death on the cross. He defeated Satan on the cross, and you are in Him. That means you’re under His authority, not Satan’s authority. And if you’re under the authority of Jesus, your—your future is secure, which means you do not have to give yourself to the voices or the powers of anything else.

This morning, we’re going to talk more about how you remain vigilant in this spiritual battle. Prayer is power for the struggle. It is power for your battle. It is strength for you as a believer. Now, Here’s the deal. Prayer is natural when you recognize that spiritual warfare is real. My first little subpoint from this is that God empowers our prayer. If you’re a notetaker, you see on the bulletin thing, God empowers our prayer. Look again at verse 18. Paul says, “Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request.” Did you know that God joins your prayer? Sometimes you can pray with God. Did you know that? Not just to God or about God or about things that you think God cares about. No, you can pray with God. Praying in line with God’s desires from a heart that’s being purified from sin will result in God joining your prayers.

Have you ever talked with a Christian that was talking about this sort of spiritual moment where they just said, “Man, I don’t know, but I could feel God was there.” Anybody ever had that conversation? Or anybody in the room, you just sit there and you say, “Man, I wish that I could just hear God speak. I wish that when I pray, I would know that my prayers are getting past the ceiling and doing something.” Wouldn’t you like to pray with God? There’s a way you can. You don’t have to leave here feeling ambiguous about this. I’ll tell you, there are three ways that your life can begin or your prayers can begin to be joined by God. If you’re a notetaker, please write this down.

The first thing that you’re going to need to do if you want to pray with God and not just to Him is you are going to have to fight sin. Here’s the deal. Praying, God will listen to the prayers of repentant people. You don’t have to clean yourself up to become acceptable to God. But what you cannot do is maintain love for sin. You cannot maintain hard-heartedness. You cannot maintain any sort of stuff in your heart knowingly. You’ve got to be aggressively fighting your sin. The things that the Holy Spirit convicts you of and prompts you about and says, “Hey, that’s not right.” Or, “Hey, maybe you shouldn’t have said that.” Or, “Hey, is this really the thing you want to be doing right now?” You need to listen to that because that’s God trying to get a hold of you. If you are maintaining those things, God will not join your prayer.

Think about this. Your relationship with God, I fully believe, is like your relationships with others. You have friends, you may have a spouse, you may have kids. The way your relationships with people grow deeper and tighter is by doing things with them they like and spending time with them, not talking bad about them. I mean, your relationship with God works the same way. If you want a functional relationship with God, if you want to feel close with God, then you got to do things that God likes. You got to pursue the things that God likes. And pursuing sin and not fighting those things will result in a distant relationship with Him, not a close one.

So as you fight your sin, you draw near to God. You say, “God, I am tired. I am tired of this selfishness. Give me an other-centeredness. God, I am tired of being harsh. I’m tired of being rude. Lord, make me kind and gentle.” As you fight the things that God does not like and you pursue the things that God does like, you will find yourself drawing nearer and nearer to Him. And when you do that, you will find His voice getting clearer and clearer and clearer.

Finally, after you fight sin, you draw near to God. You take this book and you start to consume it and you pray the words of this book. God has already given you a prayer language. He has already given you something that you can model into your life. Man, when you read this in the morning, I trust 100% of our members here at Sauldam Baptist Church have a quiet time every single morning because I know that our members want to know God deeply and want to walk with Him. When you do that, and it says, “Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request.” You say, “Okay, Spirit, I’m supposed to pray at all times to You, but I don’t know what that means. But You’ve told me to bring every prayer and request to You. Okay, Spirit, here are some prayers and requests I have.” That’s how you do it. You don’t have to make it some complicated formula. You just take the words and you pray them.

back to God, and God will join you with that. God empowers your prayer. And that’s incredible. And here’s something else incredible. God cares about everything you could pray about. Look at what He says in verse 18. “Pray at all times in the Spirit with some prayers and requests.” No, I’ve got one head shaking with most most prayers and requests, Cindy. No, with every prayer and request. There is no single prayer and request that God is too high or too lofty to care about. Let me say it a different way. Anything you could possibly want to talk with God about, God will buddy up and cozy up and listen to you talk with Him about because God loves you. He cares about you. He wants to hear your prayers.

Kids, there is no fight you had with a sibling or mom or dad that He does not care about and He wants to talk with you about those things. Teenagers, every desire you may have for sports or relationships, God cares about and He wants to talk with you about. Young adults, every career aspiration that you are frustrated with, every longing desire for your parents or to become a parent, God wants to hear about. Seniors, your aches and your pains, your concerns about the next generation or about how you are going to live for the next 20 years, God cares about. There’s not a single thing you experience today or next year that God doesn’t want to hear your prayers for. He tells you explicitly, bring every prayer, every request to Him. We’ll let Him shake out what He says yes to. What we have to do is bring as many possibilities to Him as possible, and then He will shake it all out.

Prayer is power for your spiritual war when God joins in, when the Holy Spirit joins in your prayers. And that’s good news because the second little subpoint is this: that all the saints need our prayers. “Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints.”

Here’s the deal. We are all engaged in spiritual war. We all are. Not just the other people in this room, but the other believers who are sitting in their churches right now, folks in our community that don’t don’t even go to church, believers in Iran and in Kenya. We are all engaged in a spiritual war, and especially those who call on the name of the Lord, the saints. There is no Christian who is strong enough to not need God or to not need prayer. In fact, I believe that spiritual maturity is recognizing that you can’t do a single thing without God. You can’t get out of bed without God. You don’t make your coffee or your tea in the morning without God. You don’t get dressed without God. You didn’t drive here without God. You’re not taking your next breath without God. You will not make ends meet this month without God. You will not be able to plan for retirement or the life to come for your kids without God. God is absolutely essential for every single thing you could ever do. You need Him. We need Him. I need Him.

And aside from just the normal onslaught of the difficulties living in this world impacted by sin, every Christian is being attacked in a spiritual war. One that we have victory in, one we have assurance about, but one right now that is real and personal and raging. The Bible teaches us there are three fronts to the spiritual war that you are going through right now: the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Here’s what the world is. The world are those external things outside of you. These cultural societal temptations. You’re driving down the road, you see that billboard, you hear that ad on the radio, you’re on your phone, you’re scrolling, you get that popup. That’s the world. The types of things that society says okay to that God would not say okay to, those things are coming at you every day. It’s just the it’s just the water that we are swimming in. And the world would love to tone down your Christianity. The the world would love to say you don’t have to be so serious about following Jesus.

But it’s not just the world. It’s also your own flesh. It’s not just what’s external to you. Your flesh is what’s internal to you. Here’s the deal. I love you. You’re incredible. But we all have an innate internal desire for sin. It’s just how we were made. Not by God. God did not make us to be sinners. God made us to love Him. But when Satan tempted Adam and Eve and they disobeyed God and they ate the fruit they weren’t supposed to eat, they invited sin into the world. And sin is kind of like that family member that never leaves after the holiday meal is done. You know, you’re done cleaning up the kitchen, you’ve put on your comfy pants, you know, okay, now we’re on the same page, and you’re like trying to send the signals and they’re just not leaving. That’s kind of like sin.

But sin doesn’t just live physically beside you in the house and you can close the door or you can kind of forcefully evict them. No. Sin is this dark resident in your soul. And the moment you think you got your sin figured out, it switches. It does something new. That’s another one of those areas where you are in a spiritual battle. It’s this internal desire toward the things God doesn’t like. But it’s not just what’s external to you, the world, or what’s internal to you, your flesh. The devil is also attacking you. This is this third front of your spiritual war. These are the supernatural schemes of the demonic to destroy you.

This is that moment where you are flooded with lies about your identity because you’ve made a mistake. These are the moments where out of nowhere something crazy comes into your mind. Some sort of desire to destroy somebody or to destroy yourself. And you’re like, “Where did that come from?” I tell you that came straight from the pit of hell because Satan hates you. He is in a war to destroy you. Jesus Himself said that the evil one has come to steal, kill, and destroy. Not to borrow and break something, but to steal, not to hurt you but to kill you, and not just to slow you down but to destroy you. That is your enemy and he is waging war against you.

So Paul says stay alert. Stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints. Believers around the world and in this room need you praying for them. On your way in, you probably grabbed a bulletin and in that bulletin there’s a prayer. There’s like a prayer list. We don’t just print that because it makes ourselves feel good. Like we really want our members praying for those names. Would you pray for them this week? When you’re talking with somebody in here this morning and you said, “Hey, how’s your week going?” And they said, “Ah, I actually had such and such come up.” Would you pray for them this week? That friend of yours that’s trying to establish some new habits of walking with Jesus, like reading their Bible and praying and coming here, Satan hates all that. Would you pray for them this week?

God, this morning is asking that you would stay alert with all perseverance and intercession. That you would take seriously their condition. That you would be radio in air support for their spiritual war. That you would be calling headquarters asking for the commander to take care of them. See, praying for others is not some trite show of solidarity, but it is a viable strategy to encourage the frustrated, to strengthen the weak, to embolden the despairing, to equip the needy, to push back the dark and bring in the light, and to bear real effect on this world.

That’s why we pray during our service. If you’re new here this morning, praying out loud is probably a little weird. We do not pray out loud because we think it’s going to make us more attractive to folks that don’t know who Jesus is or who are not yet comfortable in our space. We pray out loud because we believe that our prayers change earth and therefore fills heaven with more folks. That’s why we pray. When you pray for people, God listens. He wants to join you. We pray because the saints need it. And finally, we pray because the mission demands our prayers. The mission demands our prayers.

Look at verses 19 and 20 again with me. Paul says, “Pray for me that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. For this I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I might be bold enough to speak about it as I should.” Imagine it. Paul, the greatest theologian, the greatest church planter, the greatest missionary ever, someone who had been shipwrecked multiple times en route to mission assignments and en route to prison. Someone who at this point had already been Imprisoned two other times. This would be the third time. Someone who had gotten 40 lashes minus one. Someone who had been opposing Christianity but God saved miraculously and now was spreading Christianity. This incredible man who was incredibly bold for the gospel. He is writing in this prison cell, and what he does not say is, “Look at me. I’m the baddest guy on the block for Jesus.” No, what he says is, “Pray for me. I want to be bold.” It’s like, Paul, you’ve been bold. Look at it, man. You’re in chains because you’ve been bold. If Paul can pray for boldness, he is able to recognize the mission demands our prayers. What God wants to do to send Jesus to seek and to save the lost demands our prayers. Even in imprisonment for the gospel, Paul is asking for the Ephesians to pray for him so that he would be faithful to do what he’s supposed to do, which is tell people about Jesus.

Here’s the deal. You and me, we’ve all got unique assignments from God. I fully believe God has a unique assignment for you, a plan for your life, a reason for you being here. Some of those assignments are seasonal. You might have kids in the home, a job placement. Some of those assignments are just momentary, a specific conversation with somebody at Starbucks. But all of us have assignments. And Paul wanted to use his assignment well. And I know you do, too. I know that you want to use the season that you are in right now really well. I know that you want to use your chance encounters well. And Paul is saying, if that’s you, then pray.

Because Paul saw himself as an ambassador. Verse 20, he said, “I am an ambassador, albeit one in chains, but I am an ambassador.” An ambassador represents a different kingdom. That is a diplomat that lives in a foreign country, not to assimilate to the culture of where they are, but to represent where they have come from. We are ambassadors. It wasn’t just Paul who is this super incredible special missionary. It’s you and me. Because Paul also says this to the church at Corinth: If anybody is in Christ, he is a new creation. Yeah. The old has passed away, and see, the new has come. Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed the message of reconciliation to us—that’s you and me and Paul. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making His appeal through us. So, God making His appeal through us, we plead on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. And this is how He did it: He made the one who did not know sin to become sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

You are given your seasons and your moments as an assignment not to be you, but to be Christ’s ambassador wherever you are. God’s plan for you is for you to represent a different kingdom than the one you live in. So our lives ought to look different. The way we carry ourselves ought to look different. The things you care about ought to be different. The things that burn and hurt you. We are ambassadors of a different kingdom, one that is being attacked every day by Satan, but one that stands victorious through it all. We are ambassadors of Christ with a unique story to tell and a new kingdom to invite people into. And it’s really hard for an ambassador to do their job well when they look just like the people they’ve moved to. When we get caught up in the details of life here, we stop caring about the kingdom we’ve been sent from.

I put it in warfare language: You will not be a good soldier in the battle if you stop representing the country that sent you. We have been sent here to represent a new kingdom. We have been sent here to wage a—it sounds weird—we have been sent to wage a spiritual battle. Not because we want to tear down societal structures here in Charleston, but because we want to bring the peace of the gospel wherever we go. Young parent, whatever park you’re going to go to this week, the homeschool co-op or the car line, God wants you to represent Jesus there. Professional, the office you work in or the job site, you’re going to be walking with somebody.

God wants you to represent Jesus there. Parents with kids out of the house, I’m not sure what you do, but God wants you to do it for Jesus. I just be—I’m not there yet. God wants you to be you for Him wherever you are. And as you do that, you will suffer spiritually. But the good news is we have a home with God that cannot be taken away. A home without cancer. A home without credit card debt. A home without disagreements or fights. No more aching back or foggy minds. No more empty hopes or broken promises. No more just willing yourself out of bed in the morning or wrestling with the demons that make you want to end it all tonight. No more sin, no more sadness, and no more darkness. That is what Christ came to secure for you.

Are you in Him? Are you a new creation? Have you been made right with God? Jesus did not come to give you more rules that maybe perhaps one day if you fulfill them all you can make a holy judge happy with your performance. No, Jesus came to make you right with God because you are sin. And God made Him to be sin, Jesus who didn’t know any sin, so that we who are sinners might become the righteousness, the rightness of God.

If you are here this morning and you are still in your sin, man, God is calling to you through me right now. That’s what the Bible just said: be reconciled to God. Give your life to Him. Maybe, just maybe, your life feels so overwhelmingly dark because there is still a spiritual force over you, named Satan, because you have not given your life to Jesus yet. He has not come and evicted the darkness out of the home of your soul yet. God loves you and He wants a relationship with you. Will you have it?

For everybody that has begun this life with God, I want to ask you a question: do your prayers reflect a wartime walkie-talkie or a domestic intercom? A good test for this is to think with me. If God answered every prayer that you prayed last month with a yes, how would eternity be different? Who are the broken families that would be fixed? Who are the lost that would have given their lives to Jesus? Who are the addicts that would be done with what they are dealing with? Or if God answered every prayer you prayed last month, how would your life be more comfortable? How many more of your desires and your preferences would be running your way?

See, here’s the mission: God sent His Son to seek and to save the lost, and He sends us into that mission as well. It would make a lot of sense for there to be some war in between. That’s why we exist as a church. It’s not for ourselves, but for the souls of people around us and around the world. God has a mission for you. He has a purpose for you. And as you go through it, don’t be surprised to encounter some difficulty.

Pray with me, please. Jesus, thank You. The Father’s wrath completely satisfied, so we can give our entire selves to You. We can surrender all to You, Jesus. Thank You for holding us secure. Thank You for housing us in Yourself. Thank You for giving us a mission like our Savior, to now, like Him, seek and point them to the Savior. For anybody in the room that is going through that supernatural opposition from the devil, I pray that You would encourage them this morning. You would strengthen their backbones, and that You would help them to walk through it well. For all of us this week, we’re going to encounter some temptation from the world, and I pray—I pray—that as we do, we be broken for the world, but we would not fall under the weight of that temptation. And all of us this week, we’re going to face temptation from our own flesh, just the natural desires we have toward [inaudible]. I pray in that moment, Holy Spirit, You would remind us of our identity in Jesus, and that through Your strength, Holy Spirit, You would help us to fight that. For anybody in the room that doesn’t know You as Lord and Savior, please get a hold of them today and this week and save them. God, we love You. Amen.