Hallelujah. God is good. It's time for some announcements. Welcome to Bridge Gospel Church.
I'm glad you're here. This is your first time. I'd especially like to welcome you. I know it's
hard to walk into a new church sometimes. You don't know where people sit and if you can bring
coffee in or not, but just make yourselves at home. And we're honored to have you here today.
I'd like to welcome everyone who's watching online. Some of you can't make it here physically
or for whatever reason, but we welcome you and we bless you in the name of the Lord Jesus.
I just have a couple of announcements I want to share what's going on this month.
This is everything going on in the month kind of all at once. I realize that nobody goes
to the website, including me. So we have prayer every Wednesday at 7, right here. We have a
women's Bible study Thursdays at 645. We have the men's Bible study Saturdays at 8. We meet
at Panera. That has been growing. And we have healing rooms this Thursday from 5 to 7. The
events are on the website that I don't think anybody goes to, but that's up there. So take
a picture. I'm going to try to share this at the beginning of the month just to make sure
that everyone gets the goings on around here. And one other thing I wanted to just share
real quickly is if you have an interest in volunteering, we're always open to that. That's
on the website that nobody goes to. Hallelujah. So greeting, hospitality, kids' church, you
know, the tech worship side of things. If anybody wanted to video edit, there's a special reward
for you in heaven. So I just want to put those things out there. You can always come talk to
Jesse or I about those things. If God puts that on your heart, we're never going to put
pressure on people. Hey, you got to serve and this and that. But we just want to put that
out there and allow that opportunity for you to be blessed by serving. So there's one other
thing I want to share, kind of an order of business issue. We've put our finances together
for 2025. And I just wanted to share some of those details with you guys. I have a slide
here. So 2025. I'll make this very quick. Our tithes and offerings, they totaled $152,000 and
some change. Our total expenses were $157,000 and some change. So our support that we received
from the outside was only $5,000. So that means in our first year of being a church, only
3% of our support came from the outside. Glory to God. So typically a church plant, a first
year church will depend on 50 to 60 or 75% of their finances coming from the outside.
But because of your faithfulness and God's goodness, we were 97% funded by people sitting
here in this room. So thank you for being so generous and believing in what we're doing
here in Apache Junction. I believe that God has an amazing vision for this town. And glory
to God, we have this great building. That's a very unusual thing to have your first year.
It's like when you move out of your parents' house, you don't get a house. You get like
a little apartment, right? And then you go to your parents' house and you enjoy their
house. I still do that with Two Rivers sometimes. But this ministry, this is a great ministry
tool for us. To have this building, to be able to meet during the week, to be able to
stay as long as we need on Sunday. But because of your generosity, we have a permanent
home and we're not, you know, lugging in and out of a school and setting up chairs
and all that stuff, we can focus on ministry. The other thing I wanted to share is our giving
to Overseas Missions was $6,326 from this church. 100% of that money went to Overseas
Missions. We don't take a cut. We don't take the processing fees. It 100% goes to Overseas
Missions. That is going to support Sharon, who's in Cambodia right now for six months.
Many of you know her. She's been with us since the beginning. That amount does not include
all the funds that was given to her through the missions organization that she's traveling
with, CPAC. So she's received additional funding through friends and family through CPAC
as well. But this is the amount that actually came from us. We've got some photos of Sharon
over there. She's in the middle. She's on this six-month trip. This is not something that most
church plants would do their first year, but we thought, hey, let's try it. So we put it in her box,
and on the way she went. But we believe in the gospel going all over the world, right?
We believe that. So we want to start with that in our foundations. So this money went to fund
her housing, her transportation, meals, blessing people while she's there. She's been traveling
to orphanages and teaching the house parents how to do health care for their kids. She's been
doing hearing and vision screenings for children. Right now, I think she's teaching first aid in
a high school for a week. And they give her the opportunity to share the gospel with the
students. That would never happen here in America. You'd never go to a public school and share the
gospel like that. So that opportunity has been wide open for her. So we are very proud of the
opportunities. And if you've been following what's going on over there, she was very close to the
border conflict that's been going on with Thailand. There's been some disputes about the border,
and there's been some militarized violence and things. And we talked, I think it was the end of
December that was really escalated. And there were bombs dropped about six miles from her apartment.
That means you're next. And I spoke to her over WhatsApp. And we talked about the situation. And as
Americans, I don't think we understand what goes on in other countries. So I said, you know, I said,
you can come home. Because I don't want to deal with losing someone overseas the first year of my
ministry. I don't know what to do. And she said, I want to stay. She didn't give up. That's the grace
of God right there. That power that you don't know that you have all of a sudden shows up when you
need it. She says, I want to stay. And that paid off. You know, she's had more doors open to her in the
last few weeks than she's had the whole time she's been there. So you can continue to support her
through the website. Financially, I encourage you to, we do have a WhatsApp group if you want to get
on that and see the pictures and the silly videos that go back and forth. Or you can call her. It's
amazing that we can call her. So we want to send more people like Sharon on missions trips. I'd love
to send her back. I'd love to send more people to Cambodia. There is an open door for the gospel
advancing in Cambodia. That's actually the hearing testing thing right here. It's very old, but it works
quite well. She actually got that fixed up and got it going. So she's helping do the medical
screenings and stuff over there. They don't have equipment like we do here, and they don't have
doctors. You don't go to the doctor. They don't explain things to you when you go to the doctor.
So she says, they go to the doctor and they give you a little baggie of pills. And you're like,
what are these? So she's explaining to people how to take care of their health. So we want to sow into
that. I want to be a part of that. I believe God is doing something great there. So continue to pray for
Sharon and continue to support her financially. And we're very proud of what she's doing. And
we'll see her, I believe, in April. So we'll hear all the details when she gets back.
So let's get into it. We're going to be in Ephesians 6 today. I'm going to be continuing
on my series about living in a supernatural world. And I titled today's message, The Invisible War.
So we're going to be in Ephesians 6. I'm just going to get into the scripture. I don't have time
for stories or anything like that today. So the passage is Ephesians 6, starting in verse 11.
It says,
Clothe yourselves with the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand against the schemes,
that's an important word, of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood,
but against rulers, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness,
against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens. For this reason, take up the full armor of God,
so that you may be able to stand your ground on the evil day, and having done everything, to stand.
Now, a lot of people, this is a familiar passage. We love thinking about the armor of God. When we're
in Sunday school, we cut out little knights with shields and swords, and, you know, we visualize the
armor of God protecting us, and it makes us feel empowered, and it makes us feel safe.
And I think we talk a lot about the armor, and we don't talk so much about who the enemy really is.
We kind of, like, skip past that part. And I wanted to talk a little bit about that today,
because it fits into this thing I'm talking about, about there being a supernatural, unseen world.
And, you know, you imagine a soldier gearing up for war, and putting on their equipment,
and their weapons, and, you know, they know who their enemy is. They understand how they think,
how they work, what kind of weapons they have. They understand the organization of their army.
And every war that the United States has been in, we fought very unique enemies. World War II is not
the same as what happens in the Middle East. The enemy is organized in a very different way.
And Paul gets very specific. You know, he doesn't just say, oh, we're fighting, you know, evil,
we're fighting bad vibes, or bad people. Like, he's very specific here. He talks about the schemes
of the devil. And he lays this out, and forgive me for making this Excel spreadsheet,
but he lays this out, and it's easy to miss it. I spent a lot of time on this. I hope you like it.
But he talks about, there's an organization to our enemy. And he uses these words. It starts with
rulers. Literally, like principles or beginnings, the Greek word is like archos, which is like an
archway. It's an entrance. That's like the principal part. And this is sort of like a general or a high
ranking official or a president. And that person has a sphere of influence, if you will, over nations and
periods of time, then it's where the strategy begins. And then the next word, the authorities,
the exousia. And that literally refers to a delegated type of authority. So like, if I said,
well, I'm going to call the authorities, that means I'm probably going to call the police,
because they have power that has been delegated to them by a higher authority, the government
and the constitution. So they represent the power of the upper rulers. And then it talks about,
and this is different in every translation, world rulers of darkness or cosmic powers.
The Greek literally uses the word cosmo. It sounds a little bit science fiction. I like cosmic powers.
I think that's literally what it says. They influence the spirit of the, kind of the age
that we live in. They kind of control culture. They kind of set the tone of what is going on in
the spiritual realm. And they kind of manipulate the atmosphere and have the ability to control the
direction of overall culture and thought. I kind of think of it as like the propaganda department,
if you will. And then the spiritual forces of evil.
It's the root of that is the word pneuma, which is our word for spirit or breath. If you think about
pneumatics, they're things that move with air. Pneuma is breath or spirit. And these are the agents that are
actually carrying out the specific acts of evil. You may refer to them as demons, but they are evil spirits.
They're kind of like the infantry or the foot soldiers of the spiritual world. I put Young's
literal translation up there. I like how you can see the hierarchy a little better. Each translation
kind of picks different English words along the way for these. That's why I made this lovely Excel
diagram. What does this teach us? I think it teaches us that evil is not this random thing that
happens to us. It's not this dark cloud that's kind of out there touching here and there, invading our
life here and there. It's not just chaos. It's organized. It's strategic. And I think it should
tell you that the devil has a plan for your life. Right? But God has a better plan for your life.
And the devil will use your disagreement with God. He'll use trauma. He'll use fear. He'll use sin
to get you into agreeing with evil and to invite these things into your life. And he'll use your
past against you. He'll tell you things that aren't true. He'll tell you things that aren't in line with
the word of God. And it's our agreement with those things that allows those things control over our
life. And Paul is saying that you need to recognize that the enemy is highly organized against you. He's
highly strategic. He has a scheme, if you will, which is a plan, an evil plan. So you need to arm
yourself. You need to organize yourself, your spiritual life, your team, the people around you.
And you need to prepare to stand up to this. And that's where we get into talking about the armor
of God. So I wanted to explore this. You know, who are these guys? Where did they come from?
And how do we know that they are still active today? And if I, if I ask you, I said, well, do you
believe in God? Well, you say yes. And I think in our culture, it's a really, it's a vague term. And if
you ask someone who was a Muslim or a Hindu or a Buddhist, do you believe in God? They'd all say, well,
yeah. They would say yes. But we don't mean the same thing, do we? It's a different thing. So that's
one thing to keep in mind. The other thing is, is kind of this analogy of names. So let's say that,
let's say that I asked for a Kleenex. Well, we all know what that is. That's a facial tissue, but it's,
it's a brand name. And even if you gave me a generic facial tissue, I would take that, right? Or if I said,
oh, I'll Google that, that means to go search for it. So oftentimes we use proper names, right? As generic
terms. So the same thing happens with the name God in our language, right? We use the capital G God
to talk about Yahweh of the Bible, Yahweh God. That's the King of Kings and Lord of Lords God.
But then the lowercase g, we may talk about Greek gods or mythology or things like that.
And we see this in scripture. We see where the writers of the Bible, you know, they never used
any English, so we have to get over that, but they use this Hebrew word called Elohim. You see,
an Elohim is not a specific name. It's just a, it's a category more or less. It's a being that lives in
the spiritual world. And it's like, you know, how do we know who's who when we're reading the word
Elohim? And that comes from the context. And the other thing I want to share about grammar before I'm
done boring you is think about the English word sheep. And in singular, we would say the sheep is
lost. And in plural, we would say the sheep are lost. See, the word hasn't changed. It's the verb that
tells you the number of sheep is lost, are lost. Well, there's one sheep or many sheep.
So we see this all throughout scripture with the word Elohim. Now, Yahweh is a type of Elohim,
a type of God, like, much like a king is a type of citizen. Well, yeah, he's the king, right?
The king is a citizen, but not every citizen is the king. There's only one king. Yahweh is unique
among all the spiritual beings that exist. He's Lord of Lords, Lord of Lords, King of Kings over
everything, over every spiritual being. So Yahweh created all of it. We're not talking
about a polytheistic worldview. We're talking about a group of spiritual entities that exist,
angels, demons, principalities, all these things that exist in the spiritual world that are all
subject to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. But because they're all unseen, they all fall under
this word at times in scripture, Elohim. So the Bible calls angels, demons, even calls the gods of
the nations. It's in Deuteronomy 32. I think I have a slide for that. Deuteronomy 32, 8, 9 is actually
talking about what happened at Babel. It says,
So this is a good reason to study multiple translations of the Bible. Your Bible might say
sons of Israel. And that sounds like it may be referring to people. I think the King James,
New King James, I'll say that. But when we found the Dead Sea Scrolls, we found much older manuscripts,
that actually said Bnei Elohim, or it said sons of God in the ancient Hebrew. So when the King James
relied on the later manuscripts that had been, things had been lost or changed over the years,
that was the best text that they had available. And the translators at that time were not aware that
maybe the ancient scribes had lost this word or replaced it with something that protected
Yahweh's monotheistic reign over everything. They were a little uncomfortable with the idea of there
being a spiritual realm, perhaps. And honestly, I think we are a little bit too. I think we're a
little uncomfortable to think, wow, there's other spirits out there, but God, there's angels,
there's demons, there's principalities, there's all these different spiritual entities that exist.
They're subject to God, but they exist along with him.
Now, why does this matter? You see, I think Ephesians 6 is telling us, and this other passage
from the Old Testament is telling us, that nations were somehow governed by a spiritual entity or a
principality. And at a time, these spirits rebelled against God, and we're going to get to that in a
minute. So when Paul is talking about these rulers and these authorities in the heavenly realms,
he isn't using metaphors. He's being very literal. He's talking about other spiritual beings that
rebelled against God. And I think to understand this, I brought in Psalm 82. And I think Paul's
worldview is anchored in this, and one other passage I want to share. I'll just read the scripture.
Psalm 82 says,
God stands in the assembly of El. In the midst of the gods, he renders judgment. He says,
How long will you make unjust legal decisions and show favoritism to the wicked? Selah. Defend the
cause of the poor and the fatherless. Vindicate the oppressed and suffering. Rescue the poor and
needy. Deliver them from the power of the wicked. They neither know nor understand. They stumble around
in the dark while all the foundations of the earth crumble. I thought, you are gods. All of you are
sons of the most high. Yet you will die like mortals. You will fall like all the other rulers. Rise up,
O God, and execute judgment on the earth. For you own all the nations. Hallelujah. So this isn't
polytheism. This is God allocating authority, like he did after the incident at Babel, to other gods.
And when you read the Old Testament, God warns his people, the Israelites, don't worship other gods.
Well, why would you warn somebody about something that you couldn't really do?
Right? So this is all kind of painting this picture of Yahweh as the authority over these
spiritual beings who had delegated authority, and some of them rebelled.
And in verse 2 through 5 there, he's looking at these spiritual beings, or principalities,
you could say, and they were meant to shepherd the nations. They had a purpose.
And he tells them that they're losing their eternal life. He's actually taking that away from
them in Psalm 82. He says, how long will you make these unjust decisions and show favoritism to wicked
people? And instead of leading people towards Yahweh and following the directions that Yahweh gave
them, they were actually accepting worship for themselves. And they were creating chaos and
injustice and twisting culture. And we see this all throughout the Old Testament in the other
cultures. They were worshiping other gods. They were performing child sacrifice. We see that in
Scripture, we see all sorts of wicked activities that these other nations were doing. And that's why
Yahweh God set Israel apart from the other nations. And in verse 6, he says, you are gods. He uses the
word Elohim, sons of the Most High, all of you. So he's saying, you had this, you are spirits. And then
the punishment, he says, nevertheless, like men, you shall die. So I think this is why this can't be
talking about humans. Some people try to say, well, these were human judges. But there were no
Israelite judges appointed over other nations, which is what this text is implying. And you may
have footnotes that say that this does refer to a human king, but I disagree with that. I think that's
been a historical view because the idea of there being these spiritual beings that had some amount of
influence over the world makes us uncomfortable. But that's exactly what Paul is teaching in Ephesians.
And if we look at the Old Testament, we start to see the breadcrumbs of this all throughout
Scripture. So there's always been this historical view of reducing that. And that's what we saw in
that passage in Deuteronomy, where your Bible may say sons of Israel. So the punishment, if God says
to a human, you will die like a human, I don't think that's punishment. It's biology. It's like telling a
dog, well, you're going to die like a dog. It's like, well, yeah, I'm a dog. I'm going to die.
So the punishment only means anything if you were immortal and now you're not.
That's silly to think that that would be any different than that.
So God is stripping these rebel spirits at this meeting in Psalm 82. He's taking away their
immortality. And he's basically sentencing them to death. Isaiah 24, 21 says, at that time,
so he's talking about the end of times, he's talking about judgment at the end of the world.
And Isaiah writes, at that time, the Lord will punish the heavenly forces in the heavens
and the earthly kings on the earth. So you see that there's a punishment for the heavenly beings
as well as the earthly beings. You see that in Isaiah 24, where he's talking about judgment.
So let's connect the dots back to our passage in Ephesians. So God is sentencing these rebel
spirits to die, but it's not happening in that moment. They aren't dead yet. And here,
Paul is writing to the church, kind of living in the middle of all this chaos that's going on.
And he says, hey, you should be aware that this is the spiritual reality. You should be aware that
there is good and evil in the world. That evil isn't just this idea, but it's a real thing.
It's a real force. It has some amount of influence and power over people if they choose to allow that.
And I think that explains a lot of why our world looks like it does today.
You know, we look at what's going on in the world and we see wars that don't make any sense.
We see sex trafficking. We see all this systematic evil. And we think, man, maybe this is just bad
humans. But when you think about how powerful some of these ideas have been over generations of
humans, the grip of communism, the grip of all these different types of evil, it seems like it
goes beyond that. And I think that's what Paul is trying to teach us here. Paul is saying that there
are spiritual architects behind the physical chaos and the sin that we see in our world.
And on a personal level, I think we see it in illogical human behavior. I think we see it in
some of the afflictions that we face physically. We see it in mental illness on an individual scale.
I think that if you've ever interacted with someone who was completely irrational about something,
maybe they're perfectly intelligent people, but then there's this one area of their life where
you talk to them about it and they're completely irrational. You know, maybe when you talk about
money, the tone changes, their face changes, their demeanor changes. Well, I think that could be an
indicator that they're influenced by a spirit. Everybody okay? Okay. Got real quiet up here.
Um, so I think that there's illogical things that happen in, in humans because of, uh, spiritual
influence. But Jesus had authority over this. And we saw as he, as he encountered people that face
mental illness, um, he had the authority to cast those things out. And, uh, the Holy Spirit gave us that
authority over demons and over evil. And that's an authority that's been delegated to us by God
through the power of the Holy Spirit. And I think what Paul is trying to say here that if you're
fighting humans, you're fighting the wrong enemy. That, you know, these are, these are the real powers
that are influencing culture. They're influencing the media and politics. And, you know, when people are
divided and angry and irrational or protesting, they're really acting out in a way that may be
influenced by a higher spiritual power. And those are the real enemies. And I believe that those
are the enemies that God has placed his people here to stand against. So back to our passage in
Ephesians, he says, uh, in verse 13, he says that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and
having done all to stand. He's not telling us to, to hunt or go out on the offensive. He's just
telling us to stand in the victory that Christ has already won for us. You know, Jesus has already
won everything. And we're just occupying this territory. We're occupying this place until he
comes back. It's already ours. Colossians 2.15 says, this is, uh, talking about Jesus,
disarming the rulers and authorities. Here's those words from Ephesians.
He has made a public disgrace of them, triumphing over them by the cross. So I don't think this was
about government. I don't, you know, he didn't come and overturn the government. So I don't think
we can say that that was the rulers and authorities he was talking about. He was talking about these
spiritual entities, uh, that we're talking about in Ephesians 6. And I think it's an amazing thing
to know that, uh, we can walk around knowing that Jesus has already won on our behalf. He's already
defeated all the evil that exists in the whole world. And he's empowered us and placed us in this
place to defeat evil. Hallelujah. So why am I up here talking about this? Here's the application.
Um, can we put that scripture back up there? Not the spreadsheet. Nobody wants to see that again.
Uh, but just the scripture. I liked it too. Thank you.
Um, or sorry, the one in Ephesians, Ephesians 6. Sorry. Uh, I think it enables us, this first one,
it enables us to identify what's going on behind the scenes. Or it enables us to identify the
puppeteer, as, as I would say. And I think that when we encounter conflict and we encounter evil,
we can look at it and we can ask ourselves, is this flesh and blood?
Or is it something more? Is there something behind this that's pulling the strings?
Is there a spirit operating here? Is there a spirit of division?
Is there a spirit of fear? Is there a spirit of greed?
And I think one way we can do that is we can look at this thing. Does this make any sense? Is this
logical? You know, why, like, why would someone cut themselves? We see this in scripture. We see Jesus
encounter somebody who's harming himself. You know, oh, that's a spirit of suicide. As soon as that
spirit was cast out of that man and it went into the pigs, all the pigs killed themselves.
There's a spirit operating behind the things that we see in our world.
And Paul is asking us to be very aware of that.
The other thing I would say is don't focus on the person so much.
You know, we can be so focused on people that do evil. We say, well, this person's doing this or
this person's doing that. And I think about, just to give a modern example, what we see with
the conflict with Russia, we see this person. We see Vladimir Putin declaring war on a nation that
he probably has no business attacking. And I disagree with what he's doing. But more importantly,
I believe that there is a spiritual power behind him because what he's doing is so irrational.
It doesn't make sense. So I believe that there are forces that are behind a lot of the things that
we see. You know, why has that mentality existed in that nation for so long? And I think if we read
the Old Testament, we see how God gave the nations to all these rebellious spirits. We can see why that
nation has been in bondage for so long. And I believe that the solution to that is the spread of the
gospel. And it is the power of the Holy Spirit to cast these things out. And I believe that's what God
put us here to do, both on a national or an international stage, but also on an individual
level. So I believe that we can pray against these influences. We can pray against the individual
demons that are influencing people. We can cast them out. We have that power. Jesus clearly demonstrated
that we have that power. And the other thing that we can do is we can put on the full armor of God.
God. The best Sunday school lesson ever. We counter the lies of the enemy with God's truth.
We counter the enemy with God's truth. I believe that knowing the word of God is one of the most
powerful weapons of war that we have against evil. I believe it's powerful against mental illness,
disease, conflict. I believe it's powerful against all these things because it's the truth.
And the amazing thing about God's truth is if you take it and you apply it in your life, it always
works. It may not change things today, but eventually it's going to start to work because
it's going to push back the evil that has laid hold of whatever situation it is or whatever
misunderstanding that we have about the world around us. And it's going to change the way that
we think. That's out of Romans 12. He's changing. He's renewing our minds. So the power of God is to
renew our minds. We can wear the blessed plate of righteousness and we can counter whatever
accusations come up against us with all we're righteous in Christ. And that's a powerful weapon
against shame and against victimhood. And we say, well, this happened to you, that happened to you,
or you're like this, you're like that, but none of that's true. The word of God is true about me.
And the shield of faith, it says that we can extinguish the flaming darts. And I think those
flaming darts are panic, fear, emotions. Those are the flaming darts. Those are the things we feel,
right? I believe that faith enables us to extinguish those things. So I believe that's
what Paul is talking about here when he talks about, for this reason, take up the full armor
of God so that you may be able to stand your ground on the evil day. Hallelujah. So we live
in a world that is populated, I believe, by spirits and us, that they're everywhere, that God is here,
angels are here, there's other spiritual beings here, there's other spiritual beings influencing
the world around us. And I believe that all of these spirits that have rebelled, they want to get us
into an agreement or a covenant with them. You see, I think that every relationship that we enter into
is a type of covenant or it's a type of agreement. So if we shake hands, that's a type of covenant or
an agreement or a friendship. Or if we say, well, I'm going to meet you for lunch, and we meet for
lunch, there's a type of covenant or an agreement there. And there's terms that go with those things.
And some of them are implied and some of them are written. See, if you buy a house, you have to sign
off on this whole pile of documents. And that's a very clear covenant. It's in writing. And it has
legal force if you really want to play around with it and not pay for your house, right? Soon it won't
be your house anymore. You'll find out it was never your house. But then there's agreements that
we enter into that not everything's in writing, but culturally or just on a human level, we know
that. And that means if I'm your friend and I said I would help you and I don't show up, how are you
going to feel, right? Well, there's an expectation. Well, we're friends, so I'm going to be there when you
need me. You're going to be there when I need you. Well, how many of you experienced the other
person? You're there for them, but they're not there for you. We've all experienced that before.
And that shows you that that is a type of agreement or a type of covenant that we enter into with
people. And all of these evil spirits, they want us to enter into those same types of agreements.
I believe that's why the Bible says the wages of sin is death. Because when we agree with these
covenants, when we say, well, I don't agree with what God's word says about this issue in my life.
I don't agree with that. So now you're all of a sudden, you're entering into a covenant,
whether you realize it or not, whether you write it down or not. So let's say you go consult a
fortune teller. Well, now all of a sudden you've entered into a covenant that said that God's word
was insufficient. You see it? Or let's say that you decided to be unfaithful to your spouse. Well,
all of a sudden you've entered a covenant. Sex is a sign of a covenant. It's a sign of the covenant
of marriage. So now all of a sudden you've entered a covenant. Or let's say that, you know, you decide
that you want to break any of the Ten Commandments, to lie, to cheat, to steal, to covet. You know,
there's God's commandment. He put it in writing. He made it very clear. But then when we violate those
things, well, now we're disagreeing with that. So we're entering into a different covenant. Well,
what's that covenant? It's the wages of sin is death. And if you follow, take any sinful behavior,
anything. If you take that and you think, well, what if this thing just played out to its logical
conclusion? Where's it going to go? Death. If I'm going to lie, well, then you become known as a liar.
Well, then I probably won't be able to get a job or have a business or people won't trust me.
Well, then I'll end up alone. Well, then what happens? Well, now I'm depressed and I can't pay
my bills and, you know, nobody wants to be around me because I'm a liar. So eventually you can see how
the idea of the enemy is to kill us, to get us to renounce our faith in God and to kill us. That
is what it means when it says the wages of sin is death. It's physical death. It's also spiritual
death. It's mental death. It's all of it. So I want you to understand that what Paul is talking
about in this passage is that the devil has a strategy to bring these things into your life,
that he has a highly organized system, that there are principalities over certain parts of the world,
that there are acting agents under that that are organized and they are coming after you
specifically. They want to harm you. They want to take you to hell. They want to take away the presence
of God in your life. They are organized. Paul wanted us to be acutely aware of that.
But the response to that is what? We have the armor of God. It's more powerful. It can deflect
everything that the enemy throws at us. And that is the victory. So I think in closing, you know, it's
often we can unknowingly align ourselves with things that are not true.
And I think that, you know, communion is an opportunity to reflect on that. I think studying
the Bible as a group is an opportunity to talk about that and reflect on that. And I think we
can all ask ourselves the question, is there any area where I'm trusting a system more than I'm
trusting God? Maybe it's in my career that I'm trusting in my career and my own skills and
ability more than I trust God. That brings panic and fear. Maybe it's in politics. Maybe you don't
like what you see in the world and you wish it was better. And you don't think that God's powerful
enough to overcome all that nonsense. Well, maybe you trust in men and established authority on earth
more than you trust in God. Or maybe it's just your own status that you think, well, if I was just
good enough or smart enough, I could take care of myself and I could have this career or I could have
this job or I could have this spouse. And in your heart, you would come out and say it, but those
things are more powerful than God. But I encourage you to reflect on those things. I encourage you to
give your entire life to God. And like I said in Psalm 37, commit your future to the Lord.
And commit all these areas to the Lord. You see, Jesus has a plan to set you free of everything.
Everything that the enemy meant for evil in your life, God has a plan to turn it around and get
it out of your life so you can walk in victory. Amen? You see, Jesus has a plan to set you free.
He has a plan to set you free from addiction. He has a plan to set you free from worry,
from fear, from anxiety, from lack, from poverty. But most importantly,
He has a plan to set you free from your sins. And I encourage you that if you've never known Jesus,
if you've never committed your life to Him, and if you've never received forgiveness of your sins,
today is the day. So dear Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are King of kings and Lord of lords,
that there is no other God greater than you, that you are powerful over all evil.
And Lord, we thank you that you're the one that sets us free,
that you can set us free from anything. So Lord, we receive your forgiveness,
we receive your Holy Spirit power in our lives, and we commit our futures to you, Lord. We trust you.
Lord, I pray for each and every person here that they can reflect on this, in this moment,
or while they're at home, Lord, that if there's any area of their life that they have not surrendered,
that this is the time to surrender and to trust you because you are good. You are always faithful,
and you're always turning the evil around for good in our lives, Lord. We thank you for that.
We celebrate that. Lord, I pray over each and every person here today, Lord, that you can bless them,
that you can care for them, that you can bring healing into their lives, physical healing,
mental healing, spiritual healing, Lord, that you are the great physician.
So Lord, I just thank you for each and every family represented here. I pray that each and every
person here is successful in the things that they set their hands to, and I pray that peace and hope
and joy follows them all the days of their lives. In Jesus' mighty name, amen.
Amen.
