I Declare War - Battle Lines pt. 3

Do you do you believe that?

That's just a couple of you. Yeah, it's all good. One day we shall see. Victory in the mighty name of Jesus. Hey, man. Thank you, Worship team for worship this morning. I must confess, there's times when I sing that song that I don't believe it. There's times where I may be proclaiming victory over a situation or my life in.

I just don't see it. I don't know if you've been there before, but I know me personally. I've been in a space where I'm calling out to God and my God, if you don't move like I know you can, then I don't know what else to do right? And it really resonates with me because we're in a series right now.

It's it's all it's all talking about spiritual warfare. And last week we talked about where God places us in a valley to get victory. But those valley moments is not beautiful. It's not pretty. I don't like being in those valley moments, but we know that those valley moments are necessary to grow our faith in him. And so I might be preaching to myself today, and that's okay, because most of the sermons I preach every Sunday is about me anyways.

You may not know, but I just. That's a buzzkill. I'm sorry. I don't mean to put it on you like that, but when I read First Corinthians and Apostle Paul is writing, he's talking about when the parish will puts on imperishable and immortal, puts immortality, and then it shall come to pass, saying that it is written that death is swallowed up in victory.

Oh, death. Where is your victory? Death? Where is your resting? I'm asking God, where is my victory? Because I feel more sting than victory. I feel more defeat than victory. So, Father, this morning I pray that you would tune out your so your voice so we can hear from you this morning. Stand in my body, speak through my vocal cords.

And yes, Father, pray that the words in my mouth and a meditation of my heart be pleasing. And I say, Father, you are my strength, you are my redeemer. Receive glory in this place today. And God, we give it all to you as in Christ, our Lord, in savory, we say, Amen. So we're picking up our Scripture. Going back to Ephesians chapter six, I'll be reading out of the ESV version.

Infusion six is a very familiar passage. We've been in this passage for the past three weeks now. I think it's only suitable because the simple fact that it really talks about specifically what God wants us to receive from Him Ephesians six, verse ten If you're there, say Amen, if you nasty pastor, hold up, I'll wait for you. I don't mind.

I've been there before because I'd be like, let me just go to my table of contents and see where it's okay. Whatever you need to do. Ephesians six, chapter, chapter six, verse ten through 18, and the Word of God reads, Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His. My put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and against the authorities and against the cosmic powers over the pretense. The present darkness against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places, therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, in having done all stand for stand, therefore having fastened on that belt of truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness and as one shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the Gospel of peace, but in all circumstances take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one,

and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spear, which is the word of God, praying at all times in this spirit with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all of the saints so churches are reminded of them reason to of our children. Ashton and Kindle. Yes. Ask them.

We'll talk about you a little bit today. That's the privilege of being the pastor, any father man. But raising ash and a Kindle has always been that the transition period of those who have kids understand what I'm talking about. We're at some point where they're growing up. They want to choose their own clothes, right? They would normally say, mom, dad, you know, I got this.

Let me pick out my own outfit today. You know, there are about six maybe five or seven or so. And they're in this rhythm where they wanted to pick out their clothes. But the problem was that every time they wanted to pick something out, it did not match the weather that was going to take place that day. My kids, no, they they will wear shorts in 30 degree weather in a hoodie, flip flops.

Brie Oh, gosh. And so what would take place is that they will put on some shorts and a hoodie and some flip flops or and I'm like, Ashton Kindle, you need something more. Because what the forecast is saying for later today is that it's going to rain, is going to temperature are going to drop. But mom and dad, you know, no, we we're okay.

We're fine. So I'm at a debate. Did I sit and argue with the five or six year old or do I just declare martial law and tell them what they're going to put on? That's right. In my house is martial law, right? It's better known as the Old Testament. That's me. I'm old Testament all day long. Felicia. She's New Testament.

God bless her. So I'm the letter of the law is going to be this, and that's it. And so typically what I do, because I love my children, I will encourage them. This is what you need to put on, put on a coat, put on a shirt, put on some jeans, and let's go. And this is what Paul is saying to us.

Paul is telling Christians that I've seen the forecast, that I know what's going to take place as a believer. So I am encouraging you to go to your spiritual closet, put on the full armor of God. Come on, Church. I Apostle Paul is say he's telling us he is. He's asking you. He's actually just encouraging us to put on the full armor of God.

He's saying that because he know the journey that we will be on at some point in our lives. He know what this faith walk is going to entail. He knows what exactly we are going to counter from day to day now, week to week and month to month. So since a Christmas put on the full armor of God, great.

He's telling us, Go into your spiritual closet, put on the breastplate of righteousness, put on the helmet of salvation, put on the belt of truth. If you're going to wear some Nike's worth, some JS If you're not going to wear some JS, put something on, but at least have some peace about it, right? Amen. Come on. He tells you to hold the shield of faith, then pick up the sword, which is the living word of God.

Paul is telling you that he knows what is going to take place. If you're proclaiming to be a believer of Christ, Paul is letting us know that there's going to be a spiritual battle that you're going to be faced with at some point with your walk with God, and you can't fight it in the natural. You have to fight it in the supernatural.

You have to fight it in the spiritual so that so if you don't put on this full armor of God, it might be to your demise. If you choose not to wear the full armor of God, you just can't put on one or two. This is the full armor of God. If you don't do that, you will be at a disadvantage against the person who's been studying you day after day, week after week.

And he's coming for you. Yeah. And not only that, he's coming for you. He's bringing all of his homies with him to South Side with you. Pick a side, whatever side you want to be on, they coming at you. So Paul is asking Saints put on the full armor. Verse 13 says this therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in that evil day, having done all to stand and stand firm.

He's saying that one day, the day is coming, the Satan's going to unleash every demonic attack upon your life, every witch, every warlock, every amp, every one purpose that he's trying to put against you. He's going to have that thing taken place with you, maybe asking, why am I fighting against my spouse? Why am I fighting against my kids?

Why am I having trouble at work? Why does it feel like life is against me right now? Maybe Satan is still in your joy. Maybe Satan has your peace. Maybe he's trying to distract you from the purpose and the calling that God has on your life. And He comes in so many different ways. The spirit of busyness. Those people who like to be busy all the time don't know how to sit down.

You need some grandmas and meatballs in here just to sit on down, park it in a bench, because to be a whole different word. But a man would keep it like it is. See, if you look at Ephesians six, you begin to realize that Ephesians six tells us about the entire armor of God, but there's some things that I come to realize that there's some defensive armor that we have and there's some offensive pieces that we have as well, but most of us only use the defensive pieces.

We only put on the defensive pieces. One out of seven items that is talked about, Ephesians chapter six is only offensive, is used for the offense purposes. And actually there's two. There's two that many people I've I've taught in priests for many years and had to begin to slow down to read the Scripture of all. We stopped. We said just take the sword, which is the word of God.

Now we'll stop right there. But, you know, say someone, tell you something different. Today we have something else. And the offensive mechanism that God has given us and we're going to talk about that today, and that's verse number 18, verse 18 says, is praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication. And to that end, keep alert with all perseveres, making supplication for all of the saints family.

It's time to fight back. It's time to it's time to fight back. It's time to draw a line in the sand and say, You know what? This is where we're standing and I'm going to be steadfast and unmovable. But you can't fight back with only the sword. If you do, you will not have the full arsenal. What God has put in our in our path.

He tells us that you have to have the sword of the spear and pray. You know how many times I read the scripture and I just stopped that sword. I never added prayer to my weapon. You were. You were supposed to be. And so today I want you to be on notice to know that to have the full armor of God to of the seven items that we're talking about today are for offensive purposes only means that they're used for the position of attacking.

We have to pray. We have to pray. So it's time to fight back. If Satan has robbed you of your health, begin to proclaim by his stripes, I am healed. If Satan has robbed you of your finances, let him know that I will rebuke the devour for your sake. That's what this does. What Scripture tells us is you've been robbed of your peace.

Let him know that Jesus is the Prince of Peace. Have you been robbed in the enemies coming in to steal your joy? Tell him that because in his presence there's fullness of joy. You have to know that you have to begin to believe that man. We have to begin to fight in such a way that we're taking our territory back, we're taking our families back, that we are called to take communities, recall to take cities and nations, because we have come in call to take this whole world.

But we're not doing it. We have too many weak Christians. I know what I see. Dusty Bibles. Come on in church. Oh, yeah, I forgot already. Okay, Dusty Bibles, dirty Christian. If your Bible Bibles, Dusty nine times out of ten, you dirty. You need to wash yourself in the word of God. But to really understand what we're talking about in Ephesians chapter six, we have to kind of go back three chapters before in Ephesians chapter three, and I'll be lifting up verses 14 through 20.

And this is what the Word of God says, verse 14. For this reason, I bound my knees before the Father, whom every family in heaven and earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory, He may grant you to be the strength, and by power of His Holy Spirit, by His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith that you being rooted and grounded in love may be strength to comprehend.

With all this saints, what is the the breath and the length and the height and the depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses the knowledge that you may be filled with the fullness of God. Now to Him is able to do far more in a bundling than we can ask or think according to the power at work within us.

Paul is writing to the Church of Ephesus. He's writing a letter to the Church of Ephesus and he's telling me he's praying, said, Look, the church has been reconciled because we have been reconciled with the father. I need you to be reconciled with one another. Paul is saying that we have vertical reconciliation now. We need to have horizontal reconciliation.

And in that together we have brought Jew and Gentile together. I want you to understand that if you're not born a Jew, guess what? You're a gentile, black, gentile, white, gentile, Latino, gentile, Asian, gentile. What are you? Gentile? Maybe you are a Gentile. If you are not a Jew, you are Gentile. Paul is writing to the Church of Ephesus.

Hey, look, we have reconciled with the father. Now we have to reconcile with one another. And because Christ has done that, I'm praying that you will be filled with the Holy Spirit in such a way that it will begin to redeem and restore, and better yet, capture your heart for others. I me put it like this. Paul is teaching in Ephesians what Jesus was talking about in Luke.

Chapter five. See Luke Chapter five. We hear we come upon a story where Jesus walks and there's there's a group of guys fishing. They've been out all night fishing at the boat with them. Jesus walks up to them and they're clean of their nets. And Luke Chapter five talks about where these fishermen who are skilled fishermen, did not catch anything the entire night.

Now, imagine this Your soul profession generationally, has been fishing after fishing and fishing. You mean to tell me you've been out all night? He never caught anything. What's going to happen? They're back home cleaner. Their nets, their face are downcast. They're wondering what happened. Jesus gets up on the scene and they begin like, What's going on? Jesus tells them, like, I need you to surrender.

Let's go back out into the deep. I want you to surrender your life to me. So Jesus is teaching them that Christ wants you to fully surrender like Jesus. We've done this already. Like we've been fishing all day long, He said, But I know you've been doing that, but I want you to do something different. Just trust me.

Paul was saying that he's asking the Jews and the Gentiles to surrender their lives fully, their hearts to Christ. These fishermen been out all night long, fishing, and they don't know what to do. God has given us an armor of God and we wear it. And we don't know what to do with it. We read the scripture, we read Ephesians day after day.

We get we this is a very familiar piece of passage, but yet we still walk around like we're defeated. So, God, you're asking me to pray big prayers. But I have big frustrations. God, you're asking me to pray big prayers. But God, I have big doubts. God, you're asking me to pray. Prayers that I don't see anything taking place.

God, you're asking me to pray in such a way that I don't know if you're going to really show up when you're going to show up. I'm asking you, God, are you working in my timeline or am I working to his timeline? What? We're asking God to do something in our lives. Oftentimes, we're not aligning our timelines and the results that we want to see happen with God himself.

You have to have faith what you're praying for. You have to begin to stop worrying about and pray about it. In other words, you have to do this. You have to pray. Not until God hears you, but until you listen to God. Let me say that one more time. We have to pray in such a manner. That is not until God He hears you, but until you listen to God.

I've been there before. God, I'm praying. Things are not happening. God is speaking, but I'm not listening because I'm praying with the results in my mind. Exhausted of worrying, establishing deliver the results. You just have to align yourself with what I want to do in your life. So when you begin to pray in such a way that you're listening to God and I try and listen to what you want to hear, the God can move mountains in your life.

Maybe. So I go for quick points today and it's all coming from verse 18, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication. This is the season six to that and keep alert with our perseverance. Make a supplication for all the Saints. Point number one is this that God has called us to pray regularly. That's the first three words for praying at all times.

He's saying that we are call to pray regularly. That's lonely. Chapter five verse 17 says this Pray without ceasing. That means you have to pray continually that you will pray and pray the more impressive, more that you're going to continue to be in prayer. That doesn't mean that you're going to be having a 24 hour, 24 hour per life.

No, and we're not talking about that because that's impossible. There's no way that we can pray 24 hours throughout the day. But praying without ceasing means that we are subconsciously thinking about our prayers throughout the day, that we're always petitioning God, that we're putting it before God. Matthew, Chapter seven says this. And I won't just give you a lot of support.

Scripture Matthew seven says this ask and it will be given seek and you will find knock and it will be open for everyone who ask receives and now everyone who signifies and everyone who knocks it, it will be open. Prayer is the seven piece of the armor of God. Many of us are walking around with only six. We're all suited up now, thinking about like a firefighter, right?

A firefighter has a helmet on his mask, his thing, his boots and all of that. And, you know, his gear. He's going into the fire. Right. But there's a command center that's taking place outside that's calling the shots. So if the firefighter does not pray or in other words, communicate to the person who's calling the shots, the firefighters, they know what to do.

So he run it into somewhere that's blazing up, that's on fire. It potentially could kill him. But if he does not radio in to the command center, he doesn't know what to do or where to go. Many of us are one running into fiery places without going back to the command center for information, we have to go back to a place where we radio in the command center.

John Wesley said this God does nothing except in response to believing in prayer. In other words, this is what John is saying. Prayer is the pathway to the promises of God. Prayer is the pathway to the promises of God. We have an app for everything. You got an app to tell you that you need to drink water. My iPhone tells me I need to get up and move around because I've been sitting down too long.

We have an app that tells us that you need to do this, but you need to exercise or you hit your mile marker or you hit you close, your shirt goes out there, you thank you. You know, so many people, I'm afraid, as they're doing this exercise and is ringing in on me and it's like, okay, Ryan, you to go beat them.

They kind of beat the exercise goals. It tells us everything else to do but pray. How many of us have a regular routine throughout the day to pause and pray? If you have an app that says drink water, you should pray it that says Get up and move around. That means it's time for you to pray as well.

So whatever that prompting of that app that you may have on your phone, there's water bottle that lights up. And when you drink in certain volumes of water, but we don't take time out the day to do one of the most important disciplines as a believer, which is to pray our leadership team every Wednesday morning, 7:00 in the morning, we have our all of our leaders.

We go on a prayer call our men's group Praise God. They're leading the way with some other ladies as well. They pray almost every other Friday because we are a church that pray. But imagine if everybody was praying what we can do. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my faith, then are we here?

See, humble yourselves and pray and seek his face. There's a recipe there, praying and seeking. Second point is this We have to pray correctly. We have to pray correctly. The disciples never asked Jesus to teach them how to preach. The disciples never ask Jesus say, Can you teach me how to cast out demons? The disciples ever ask, Can you teach me how to turn water to wine?

Come on, Church. The disciples never ask, Can you teach me how to raise the dead? But the only thing that the disciples asked, Can you teach me how to pray?

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Your kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth that is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us of our debts. That we forgive our debtors and do not lead us and into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one for yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever.

That is the motto prayer, that is spiritual warfare. One on one. Everything that we see talks about trials, tests and temptations. I'm like, Jesus, why are you teaching me how to lead me not into temptation? I don't need help getting tempted right? Come on. Church Like I can do that all by myself. I got a Ph.D. in it to like temptation.

I can do that all by myself. I don't need any extra help. So don't believe that Jesus is saying that He tempts you because James says that Jesus does not tempt us by any measure, but we are tempted by what is only within us, within our own flesh. So he knows what tips you, He knows what your vices are.

The enemy knows what you can place in front of you. He knows what he what he can put before you to compromise your beliefs. This is spiritual warfare. The enemy has studied you in such a way that he knows specifically what to do. And there's a difference between testing and temptation. There's a difference between testing and temptation. Testing shows our strength in the Lord.

Temptation shows your weakness by your sin. When God test us. He is saying that I've made you, I made you strong. I mean, my strength is perfect in your weakness. That's what God is telling us. But when you are tempted, it is revealing your weakness of your sin, which means you need to make a course correction. We see this all throughout the scriptures where we talk about praying in the Holy Spirit, praying by His Spirit.

We see this in chapter one versus 20. It says this, but you love building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. ROMANS Chapter eight, verse 26 and 27 says this Likewise, the spear also helps you in your weakness, where we do not know what we should pray for. We are too. But the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groaning which cannot be uttered.

Now. He who searches our hearts of hurt knows that the mind of the spirit is because he makes intercession for the Saints according to the will of God. What God is saying is this We don't know what to pray. The Holy Spirit that is in within you prays or intercedes for you. So you may be saying, okay, Pastor, I don't know what to pray for.

What I'm in spiritual war for. Okay, I got my sword, I got my Bible and everything like that. But God, I don't know where or what to pray. The Holy Spirit that's within you will pray and give you utterance. That's what Scripture says. Allow God to really just as you surrender to Him, to guide you in such a way that he's speaking for you.

My next point is this We have to pray persistently. There's an author by the name of Jack Canfield who wrote Chicken for the Soul, which is an amazing book. Early on in the years when he was trying to get the book published, he went there over a hundred more like 138 just to try to get the book published.

No one picked him up Chicken for you. So he has seen it at Wal Wal-Mart before. The book has sold over 500, 500 million copies after the 131st person, an agent in Florida picked him up and now he's worldwide selling books. That's persistence that you don't stop when you get to know that you don't stop when things are getting rough.

You don't stop when the money's not there. You don't start when things don't look right. You don't stop when your family or your dynamics may not be looking the way that it needs to look. You don't stop when the money's not in the bank. You don't stop until you continue to go forward and press on in. I get to tell the story because Felicia, she was pretty my wife, She was pretty persistent.

21 years ago, she saw this fine chocolate specimen walking to caramel. Thank you. Correct. Caramel specimen working at a super K-Mart, you know, walking around doing some things that she said, I want that guy right there. So she call for customer service to come by. It has a mic, some paint. So I'm walking by and, you know, I saw her.

I mean, she's like, can you come over, help me, because I'm paying by. Sure, why not? I don't have anything else to do. She's persistent. 27, 20, 21 gallons of paint messed up later. That's how persistent she was. 21 years later, her persistence paid off. Don't tell her I told you that story. Truth be told is, it's the other way around.

Persistence. What are you persistent about? Like, let's just really get to the nitty gritty. Some of you are persistent about your job. Some of you persistent about pursuing a specific or particular person. Some of you are persistent about hitting your weight or your goal. Some of you persistent about trying to really climb to the next corporate ladder. Some of you guys resist that about everything else that doesn't that's going to fade away.

But the things of of Christ, the things of God, we should be persistent about and knowing that you're persistent will pay off. Because, you know, when you read scriptures that you know that God hears you, you know that he hears your voice first. John, Chapter five, verse 14 says this that I am confident that we are have towards him.

That if we ask anything according to his will, he will hear us. We are persistent because we know that he will help us. We are persistent to know that we have the prayers of big mamas and me, miles and miles and jigs and all of that. Those who lay the foundation of the faith that we are riding on the coattails of today.

What about the prodigal son? The father was persistent, and I just can imagine where the son said, Dad, give me all of my money and I want to go live my life by myself. The father gives him all of his son, all of his all of his inheritance, and he leaves. I just imagine the father every single day going out to the door.

Is he coming home? He goes back to his house and prays again. Next day he he goes back to the door looking for his son. But he doesn't see him. He does that day after day. That's because he's praying for his son to return home. And one day his persistence paid off. I can't imagine any pair, any father who were in a child leaves.

They don't continue to pray for that child to return home. His persistence paid off. My last point is this Pray inclusively that we are called to pray regularly. That we're called to pray correctly. We are called to pray persistently. And last but not least, we are called to pray inclusively. Verse 18 tells us that praying for all of the Lord's people.

You have to remember, going back to chapter three, this is where we see the redemption work of Jew and Gentile.

So what Paul is saying is this because you've been reconciled vertically, Jesus is calling us to be reconciled horizontally and somehow keep it real. God, you mean to tell me to pray for this joker that I feel like I'm going to choke out life for real? Right. Like you want me to pray for this person where they've done me wrong?

It is. Say, pray for some people. He says, Pray for all people. You mean a person who robbed me, held me up at gunpoint? You want me to pray for that person? You want me pray for my ex-wife who cheated on me? Now I can do that. Like you. Really? God, you want me to pray for this person I call so much heart and harm in my life.

He says pray for him. He says, because there's no way if you surrendered, your heart fully surrendered. Your heart is such a way that you can pray for people horizontally. So God is saying this. It doesn't matter where you are that we are called to pray for. Everyone so that the Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith is because we are rooted in love.

It's because we are rooted in the great commandment where he tells us that we are called to love everyone. So yes, God is asking us to pray for everyone. And that's hard sometimes what I think about as I look around now, today we have a church that is multi-generational, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and all the other more ties, more ties, socioeconomic, where we have blue collar, white collar is working together, where we have Latino, Asian come together, black and white, where the world is saying that we're supposed to be divided, but God has called us to come together.

So this is the reason why we do what we do. This is the reason why we are called to be one church, because we serve one faith and one gospel and one baptism. So how do you fight this spiritual warfare? You fight it with a full armor of God because he knows what's coming next. You fight in such a way that you've put on the entire seven pieces of the armor of God.

You have to fight with your sword, but you do it on your knees as well. If you're failing to fight in prayer, you would not be as victorious as God wants you to be. Does our worship team make their way to the stage? Today represents Pentecost Sunday. Pentecost. Sunday is seven weeks after. The resurrection of Jesus Christ. You may be wonder why is that important?

I'll tell you why is important. Because Pentecost Sunday we have the Holy Spirit. That's when the Holy Spirit came down from the heavens and began to reside on all the people on the earth. So when we talk about praying in the Spirit, we can't pray in the Spirit without the Holy Spirit. And so today, as we celebrate Pentecost Sunday, I want you to realize this Pentecost Sunday gave us the power and the anointing to do the work of the Lord.

He came. He died. He rose. And guess what? He's coming back. And we have to be ready for in such a way that he's going to do it again. I believe that God has the opportunity to do what he says. He's to do in your lives, but you can't do it by yourself. You have to do it. Well, we would encourage you do it with the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so when we fight this spiritual battle, we begin to put on the full armor of God. John preached on a couple of weeks ago that the part of that he really talked about, he honed in about the word of the God. When Jesus was tempted and took it up. If you go and look at the Scripture that that word attempted in the Greek means that it was tested.

And John really laid into what it looked like when you are tested by the word by by the enemy, that you're supposed to bring the word of God with you to really combat everything that the enemy was saying. And Jesus knew the scripture in such a way that he went back to the Old Testament to proclaim where the Old Testament feel he's going to actually have victory.

And we have victory today. We have victory because we place our trust and our hope in our risen savior, in a man called Jesus. And we have that victory. He's going to do it again. He's going to come back with all power and all authority. And he's going to do what he wants to do with us.

So today, church, I don't know where you're at. I don't know if you're at your wit's end, like you can't take anything else. But I just would encourage you to allow God for you to put on the full armor of God, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes with peace, the belt of truth, the helmet of salvation is sort of the spirit and yes, praying.