November 5, 2025 • 62 mins
Join Pastors Tim and Ryan as they unpack the early church’s practice of renunciation—turning from darkness and pledging loyalty to Christ—and explain why reclaiming that moment clarifies what baptism means. Baptism is a declaration of war so we dive into the New Testament’s clearest field manual on spiritual warfare: Ephesians 6. Piece by piece, we explore the armor of God with practical stories and concrete application.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:08):
Welcome and thanks for joining us on this episode
of the Midweek Podcast, broughtto you by a Fresh Wind Church.
Each week our team brings younew content to help you take
steps towards Jesus and discovermore in Christ.
Today's episode is hosted byPastor Ryan.
SPEAKER_02 (00:27):
Hey, welcome back to the Midweek Podcast.
Pastor Ryan joined as alwayswith Pastor Tim.
And Tim, yesterday was just anincredible day here at Fresh
Win.
SPEAKER_01 (00:37):
I'm still, I'm still riding high.
SPEAKER_02 (00:40):
Yeah.
Nineteen people uh got baptizedyesterday.
I think that might be Fresh Winrecord for one day.
SPEAKER_01 (00:46):
And then we we held up baptisms for until we got
that baptistry.
That first time we baptized waspretty big in the old building.
I don't know if it was 19.
Seems like it was pretty close.
SPEAKER_02 (01:00):
Man, a lot of people.
It was so so amazing to heartheir stories, uh, get to
celebrate new life with them.
Um and then one of the thingsthat was really cool is you
know, you would get ready tobaptize, but all these people
started coming up, take theirpictures.
So family just came out tosupport them.
Um and it might have beenShayland and Braxton's family, I
(01:22):
think.
I couldn't really tell because Iwas standing off to the side,
but after service was over,there's this whole family.
There's like 30 people, 40people, it looked like over
there that all came to justsupport them and celebrate their
decision.
So that was so exciting.
Um, and man, I was I had Iforgot my change of clothes out
in the car, so I ran outside toget my bag of clothes right
(01:44):
before service started.
And Dave looks at me and goes,We're full.
There's no more parking spaces.
And I was like, Oh boy.
I was like, Well, park them infront of the garage, put them in
the backfield over here.
Yeah, we were parking everybodyeverywhere Sunday.
Um, but man, it was that wasamazing.
And then at the end of it, um, Ithink what did you say?
(02:05):
Five people uh accepted Christyesterday on top of it.
What a day, what a day.
So exciting.
Uh so I I I think I talked aboutthis at one of uh the last
couple baptisms, but man, 17years or so of of doing this
together.
And you know, we've had theprivilege of baptizing quite a
(02:26):
few people.
I think in the past couple yearswe've baptized a hundred people
or more, um, which is amazing.
Yeah.
But it it's the one thing that,man, it never gets old.
No, you're never like, you knowwhat I'm sick of?
Baptisms.
I I brought the uh pump out tostart draining the baptismal,
and I was like, I wonder if Ishould you know send out an
email, see if we can get anybodyelse before I drain this thing.
(02:48):
Maybe we'll do it again nextweek.
SPEAKER_01 (02:49):
Yeah.
Yeah, we we've done that before.
Yep.
Oh, that's right.
I remember that.
Do you want me to tell thatstory?
I'll go for it.
Oh, man.
So this lady couldn't show upfor the baptism, something had
happened.
And then we're like, we'll justleave it up for you uh next
week.
And uh next week comes along andshe says, Oh, my family can't
(03:11):
come till next week.
Can we leave it up one moretime?
And we're like, Yeah, sure.
Because you know, we're dumb.
We know we don't know what'sgoing on.
So Friday of the next week, welook in there and there's things
growing in there, crawling onthe walls.
SPEAKER_02 (03:25):
Yeah, there's a reason they make filters for
pools.
Yeah, we don't have one.
SPEAKER_01 (03:30):
Yeah.
So yeah, that was um a veryslippery baptism.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (03:38):
We yeah, we we doused it with some uh chlorine
and everything we could tryingto get that thing cleaned up.
Um well before that, uh well,no, this the time before this
last time, they had must havebeen doing some work around
here, and it took us three orfour attempts to get the baptism
full because we kept filling itup.
Remember, it was all that brownwater, it looked like lake water
(04:00):
in there.
SPEAKER_01 (04:01):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (04:01):
I'm like, I can't put people in this water,
they're gonna wonder what kindof parasites are in there.
SPEAKER_01 (04:07):
The water line broke down on the corner, yeah.
And so we had a lot of sedimentin there.
SPEAKER_02 (04:13):
You and Joe were running all over the place
trying to piece and partsomething together, and we ended
up with a filter.
SPEAKER_01 (04:19):
We did.
We we Joe and I built a filter.
Joe mostly built the filter, andand it worked, it got all that
stuff out of there, and uh sonow you got the cleanest water
that you can be baptized in.
Every every baptismal fill-up isthrough that filter.
SPEAKER_02 (04:36):
So yeah, clean as clean as can be.
Um, but it was I made a littlebit of a mistake here because
Friday I sent Ty to school.
He can drive now, and so I senthim to school with you know all
of his siblings in the car, andthen about 10 a.m.
rolls around and I go, Oh, Ididn't set up the baptismal and
(04:57):
I can't go anywhere.
I'm stuck at home with no car.
And so Saturday morning I leftthe house, 6 a.m., ran up here,
set the whole thing up, filledit up, got it heating.
And usually it takes about 24hours to get warm, but I usually
have it heating up for two days.
Well, I had 24 hours on thenose.
And I told the people in thepre-service meeting, I was like,
(05:20):
Yeah, the water's one of themsaid, Is it warm?
I was like, Ah, it's usuallyright around 90 degrees.
One of the ladies gets in thewater yesterday, she goes, This
is not 90 degrees.
SPEAKER_01 (05:32):
You know what?
Here's here's a great plug forthat.
Right now, people, you need touh pray and ask God what he
wants you to do about this,because leaving Ryan in charge
of the baptism always ends up insome kind of panic right before.
So we need a baptism crew.
We only do it four or fivetimes.
(05:53):
And if you can't be at churchall the time, and this might be
the job for you if you want toserve here, is just put out that
baptismal and get it filled upand make sure it's warm.
Teresa said, Is that gonna beenough time to get that pool
warm?
And I said, I don't care.
SPEAKER_02 (06:09):
Yeah, I stepped in and I'm like, okay.
I mean, it wasn't cold, but itwasn't 90.
SPEAKER_01 (06:14):
Yeah, Teresa.
Teresa said, You need to takethat down.
I said, We need to leave thatheater on there for till the
last second.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (06:22):
Which we did.
And that's another thing we needwe need help with.
We need a baptism crew for sure.
Yeah.
If you're interested in that,please shoot us an email.
Stop Tim or I on a Sunday andsay, hey, I I can do this.
Uh because yeah, I walked inthere right before church
started.
We're still tearing out waterhoses and heaters and good
night.
SPEAKER_01 (06:40):
Yeah, if you would have done that on Thursday, it'd
have been nice.
But it's all, you know, we'realways uh we are under pressure.
We always have resistance, anduh there's always something
trying to stop what we're doinghere at A Fresh Wind.
And uh that's the easy stuff.
(07:01):
And so if one of you uh men orwomen say, Hey, I want to do
that, um come in and do it, andyou can solve a lot of
consternation over here amongstthe pastors.
SPEAKER_02 (07:14):
Either that or sell tie a car for real cheap.
Those are your options.
Yeah.
No, man, it to be honest, worthit completely.
When you witness all that,you're like, it was worth
getting up early, it was worthall the videos, you know, sit
getting those edited.
Because man, it's just soexciting.
Um, and then I know I told youbecause you were preaching that
(07:37):
day, I was like, man, you mightonly need to preach 10 or 15
minutes.
I mean, with all the videos,badges, this is gonna take some
time.
Um, and so I think you said youput three or four sermons
together and you're like, oh,I'll just start dropping them
off as needed.
SPEAKER_01 (07:51):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (07:52):
And so today uh you did, you had to drop some off.
And I thought we could pick upkind of where you left off on
Sunday.
Um, and so why don't you giveeverybody a little bit of a
recap in case they missed thesermon on Sunday, what we were
talking about, and then we'llwe'll kind of dive into what you
couldn't get into.
SPEAKER_01 (08:10):
Well, we started talking, uh started off talking
about renunciation, forsakingyour old life, and talked about
the early church and how theywould um start baptism before
they would even let you get inthe water.
Um they sent you to school tomake you really understand what
salvation was before they wouldlet you be baptized.
(08:30):
It's very critical to them thatyou didn't link your salvation
to your baptism.
It was a big deal.
And uh then they would have thislike renunciate uh renunciation
renunciation ceremony rightbefore you got in the water, and
they'd make you turn towards thewest as the sun, you know,
that's where the sun sets, sothat's towards darkness.
(08:53):
So it's a symbolism of facingSatan, not you know, standing
behind Jesus, you alone standingup there and forsaking him,
renouncing Satan, all his uhdemons or all his spirits in all
his ways.
(09:14):
And then you would turn um tothe north or to the east um
where the light comes from, andyou would uh pledge your loyalty
to Jesus.
And then they'd let you bebaptized.
Um so um I wanted to preach asermon, so we didn't do all
that.
We just got in water and got itdone.
(09:35):
But um it was it's it it'ssomething that we've kind of
left off uh uh baptism for Idon't know, it's been let's see,
Searle was in 300 AD, so we'retalking sixteen hundred years
ago, you know, it it started umpeople started not putting that
(09:59):
emphasis on it.
And it's something um the Lordreminded us the week before, and
uh, hey, what about this?
What about this?
It was coming from all differentdirections, and I'm like, Lord,
what are you trying to say?
And um and this is somethingthat is probably good for
everybody to renounce Satan.
SPEAKER_02 (10:20):
Yeah, I I think it's it's something that especially
if you grew up in church and youkind of have an idea of what
baptism is, um, you kindaunderstand that this is a part
of it, you know, it's kind ofpart of the package.
Um but baptism is is largely fornew believers.
And I mean, there's people beenfollowing Jesus a long time and
haven't taken that step yet.
(10:40):
Um but you know, for a lot ofpeople, it's man, I accepted
Christ and I need to bebaptized.
Um and I I remember you broughtthis to me, like, well, what do
you think about this?
Um and you know, my mindimmediately goes to Philip and
the Ethiopian eunuch, um, andPhilip shares the gospel with
them.
He says, Why shouldn't I bebaptized?
(11:01):
So you should be baptized, let'sgo down and do it.
And we don't read, you know,this renunciation thing.
But when we're saying Jesus isLord of my life, that means he
sits at the top, and I myallegiance is solely devoted to
him.
Um and so I thought, man, thiswhile it it's part of church
(11:22):
history and we don't necessarilysee it explicit as part of the
baptism ceremony in scripture,there's a whole lot in scripture
about this.
Um so one of the things we dobefore um anybody gets baptized
on a Sunday morning, have apre-service meeting, and so we
go over there, and this isprobably if you're being
(11:44):
baptized the third or fourthtime they've heard it, but we
talk about the meaning ofbaptism and it's how it's not
salvation, it's a you know, uhsymbolic act of what God has
already done and what you know,going under the water and being,
you know, brought out uhsymbolizes and um all that.
But one of the things we did umis we added this renunciation at
(12:04):
baptism to that pre-servicemeeting.
Um, and so I I read them to themfrom Second Corinthians um where
Paul wrote, Therefore, since wehave this ministry, because we
were shown mercy, we do not giveup.
Instead, we have renouncedsecret and shameful things, not
acting deceitfully or distortingthe word of God, but commending
(12:25):
ourselves before God toeveryone's conscience by an open
display of the truth.
And so there is this I renouncethese old, sinful, shameful
things, and I am openlydeclaring the truth that Jesus
is Lord of my life.
And so I thought, man, this isthis is awesome.
We need to, we need to havepeople make this declaration for
(12:47):
them so that they know, man,I've done this.
This is something I can standon.
And so I asked them on Sunday,question number one, do you
confess Jesus Christ as yourLord and Savior?
And they all said yes.
I said, if you can't say yes tothese two questions, you need to
see me after class.
Um But I said, as long as youcan respond in the affirmative,
say yes.
And they all said yes.
And then I asked them, Do yourenounce the devil and all he
(13:09):
offers?
And they all said yes.
And so there is this, I amturning away from my allegiance
to the enemy.
And scripture talks about how wewere slaves to the enemy.
Um, you know, we we walked indarkness.
The God of this air had blindblinded our minds, and so I am
forsaking all of that, and andI'm turning towards Christ.
(13:30):
And then when we baptize people,I added that little phrase
because you've accepted JesusChrist as your Lord and Savior,
forsaking all others, um, Ibaptize you.
And it again, just thatreminder, I have turned from
those things towards Christ.
SPEAKER_01 (13:45):
And it's uh kind of the package, it's it rounds off
the package.
We always talked about baptismbeing a symbol, uh, like a ring.
And um taking your ring offdoesn't mean you're not married
anymore.
Uh, but that ring tellseverybody else whose you are.
(14:07):
And uh this the Lord leaned onus a little bit and it and it it
plays right into what we'retalking about, because in every
marriage ceremony you forsakeall others, right?
And so this is actually adeclaration of war.
(14:29):
And uh because you're changingsides, you are standing up and
saying, I am no longer followingthis old way or following
whoever was leading in in thatold way.
I am changing sides, uh, and I'mI'm gonna declare for the Lord
and against Satan.
(14:50):
And that's what baptism is, anduh we need to re-grasp that as
the church.
unknown (14:57):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (14:58):
It's a declaration of war.
Well, when uh the sermon that Ididn't preach uh talked about
what happens when you when youchange sides, and because now
suddenly you've made a vowagainst the ruler of the prince
of the power of this heir,Satan, and uh all beings that
(15:22):
are against God.
So uh for those of you who arebaptized into Christ have been
clothed with Christ.
That's Galatians 3 27.
When you stand up and and bebaptized, you're just you're
showing off your garments.
You know, uh this is the uniformI wear, Christ's righteousness.
(15:45):
It's right here.
And you're basically saying,bring it on.
And that's where we get intospiritual warfare.
Renouncing your old allegiancemeans the fight is on.
SPEAKER_02 (15:58):
You know, it makes me think of man, this movie's
pretty old now, so dating myselfa little bit here, but The
Matrix, you know, when Neo takesthat pill and then he he sits
down in that chair and they popthat whatever thing into the
back of his head and twist it,you're like, ah.
Um, but all of a sudden he goesfrom sitting in this room to
boom, he's right in the middleof a fight.
(16:19):
And it's almost like that's kindof the picture I get as we start
talking about this.
You know, you you're baptized,you go down into the water, you
come out, you're raised to newlife, and it's like war.
And you are right here in themiddle of it.
Um, and I don't say that toscare you, because the same
spirit that raised Jesus fromthe dead lives inside of you.
(16:41):
Um you you have nothing to beafraid of, but you're at war.
Uh scripture says our our battleis not against flesh and blood,
but against these spiritualforces and heavenly realms and
heavenly heavenly places.
And the Bible teaches that thedevil prowls around seeking
those he can devour.
(17:02):
He he came to steal, kill, anddestroy.
And that's who he is.
And so we have to go to waragainst all of those things
every day.
Satan doesn't care thatChristians or people come to
church, that they hear goodsermons, that they put on it's
not the fish anymore, whatever.
What's that radio station?
Caleb.
(17:23):
He doesn't care.
But as soon as you say, Iidentify with Christ, I change
my uniform, I'm changing myallegiance, I'm switching sides,
all of a sudden now he's like,Whoa, yeah, you know, now I
care.
Um and we need to be prepared uhfor that fight.
SPEAKER_01 (17:40):
Erwin McManus wrote in his book, The Barbarian Way,
which I I suggest it's it's ahundred years old, but um well,
not a hundred.
SPEAKER_02 (17:49):
I was gonna say Irwin's not a hundred years old.
SPEAKER_01 (17:53):
But uh he said, we you know, we get this idea when
we hear you're born again thatyou know a little baby gotta
grow.
He says, When you're born again,when you're uh regenerated in
Jesus, it's like being thrownout of an airplane with a rifle.
He says that has nothing to dowith being a little kid and
(18:16):
growing up.
No, you're thrown right into thebattle and you're parachuting in
like a paratrooper, and you'relike, here I am, what do I do?
And uh but you've you've joinedthe fight on Jesus' side, and
he's gonna use you to dowonderful things.
And that's why I'm so excitedabout all these people who were
(18:36):
baptized yesterday, the justwhat God is gonna do for them in
their fight, in their in theirspiritual warfare too.
Now many churches engage indeliverance ministries that
teach you how to deal with uhauthorities, what what's the
(19:02):
Bible call them?
Authorities, the cosmic powersof this darkness, evil, and
spiritual forces in the heavens.
So when we say we renounce allothers, that's that's who we're
talking about.
All those um you know, we we tryto paint a broad picture with
one word, demons.
(19:23):
We call all angels angels, butthe word angel means messenger.
They're not all messengers.
Um but here Paul tells us thatthere's a lot of different
things you're renouncing here.
There's a lot of things you'reyou're going to war with.
And in the Bible, and this isinteresting, there is only one
passage of scripture that coversspiritual warfare as a specific
(19:48):
way to deal with supernaturalforces.
And it's Ephesians chapter six.
SPEAKER_02 (19:54):
Before you go into that, here's what I would
recommend.
If you missed a Sermon onSunday, go back and listen to it
because this is it's everythingthat's leading up to this point.
Um and so getting anunderstanding of what that whole
renouncing thing is and what youjust said, what we're renouncing
when we make this decision, um,that's an important concept to
(20:14):
grasp.
And then you get here, and thisis the okay, well, what is what
do I do now?
And that's what we're talkingabout.
Um I I think man, the we havenot talked and by we, I mean the
church at large, um about theseour our great enemy, you know.
(20:36):
We our our battles are againstyou know all this superficial,
and not that it's superficial.
I mean, I know people are goingthrough some stuff, and it, you
know, when I say superficial,you're like, well, yeah, it's
real to me.
Um but I mean scripture's clear.
There is another battle, and wejust we go through it blindly.
(20:56):
Um, you know, it m it what itmakes me think of is I was
talking to uh a local sheriffone time and he was talking
about all this gang activity inLorraine.
And I'm like, well, I grew up inRemillion, and Remillion's right
next door to Lorraine.
I'm like, I don't rememberhearing about any gang activity,
and it's all happening, but it'skind of underground a little
(21:18):
bit, and unless you're in thatworld, you don't even know it's
happening.
We go about it and we we assumethat's just what we read about
in you know books or we watch ontelevision shows or in the
movies, but that's not real.
And I think a lot of us we'vetaken that approach to the
spiritual fight that we'reengaged in.
Yeah, we hear about it inscripture, we've seen some
(21:40):
movies or some books about it,but it's not, I mean, it's it's
not real.
And it's no, this is as real asme and you sitting here having
this conversation.
And we need to be equipped andprepared on how to engage in
fighting that battle, and sothat's what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_01 (21:58):
And it's important um to have that um prelude to
what we're about to talk aboutbecause this is not what you see
in the movies, this is not whatyou see at a a church that's
having a deliverance um serviceor something like that.
This is this is something foryou.
(22:20):
Uh I I think sometimes we thinkthat we're in a battle with us
and our inability to eat toomuch or not to eat so much.
SPEAKER_02 (22:30):
I was gonna say I I'm definitely not in that
battle.
SPEAKER_01 (22:34):
But um, you know, and and those things look like
they're little things.
They're really not littlethings.
And anytime that you have aproclivity towards something
that um God has told you I don'twant you into, uh Satan's gonna
piggyback that proclivity andtry to make it possible for you
(22:56):
to do do that as much as he can.
Uh it's funny, I was um doingsome marriage counseling, and I
said, You're you you're gonnasee this that uh as you guys are
waiting to be married, Satan isgonna push you guys to to have
sex.
And your whole uh this time thatyou're engaged, you're gonna
(23:21):
Satan's gonna push you.
He's gonna want you guys to doit.
And then as soon as you'remarried, he's gonna try to pull
you guys apart so you don't doit.
You know, and I I said, this isthis is the kind of stuff that
Satan gets involved in and wedon't see him.
We think it's all us.
Right.
You know, oh I gotta I gottafight that temptation, and and
(23:41):
then you know, you get married,and then sudden, suddenly you're
mad every time it comes up, youknow.
And it's like, oh, I got aheadache or all that kind of
stuff.
But those are the things thatSatan counters the scripture, he
counters uh what God wants youto do and uh what God doesn't
(24:03):
want you involved in.
So he's he's always there, healways comes by to to to beef up
the temptation a little bit.
And uh, but when we get whatwe're gonna talk about here,
when we get this, I canguarantee you he's not gonna
mess with you.
SPEAKER_02 (24:24):
Right now, if he can get you to say no on those
things that you think are littleand it every time you say no, it
gets easier.
It just gets easier.
Every time you ignore theprompting of the Holy Spirit, it
gets easier.
I just told a guy this the otherday that when you're in a
situation um and the Holy Spiritsays this isn't for you, you
(24:44):
need to stop and you need toturn around and leave right now.
Because if you stay, the nexttime he tells you that, you're
gonna miss it.
And you are gonna get yourselfin a bad spot.
Um and so we this is importantto know how to fight.
SPEAKER_01 (25:01):
And we've only got this passage of scripture that
Paul laid down, and uh it's it'sexciting to me that you know we
don't have have it showing upall over the place.
Um but it it simply says inEphesians chapter six, starting
in verse ten, finally bestrengthened by the Lord and by
his vast strength.
(25:21):
Put on the full armor of God sothat you can stand against the
schemes of the devil.
For our struggle is not againstflesh and blood, but against the
rulers, against the authorities,against the cosmic powers of
this darkness, against evil,spiritual forces in heavens, in
the heavens.
(25:41):
For this reason, take up thefull armor of God, thus so that
you may be able to resist in theevil day, and having prepared
everything, to take your stand.
And this is this is what we'retalking about, baptism is to
take your stand.
Stand, therefore, with the truthlike a belt around your waist,
(26:02):
righteousness like the armor onyour chest, and your feet sandal
with the readiness for thegospel of peace.
In every situation, take up theshield of faith, which you can
extinguish all the flamingarrows of the evil one, and take
the helmet of salvation and thesword of the Spirit, which is
the Word of God.
(26:22):
Pray at all times, in theSpirit, with every prayer and
request, and stay alert with allperseverance and intercession
for all saints.
Now that is not the Spirit ofChrist compels you.
And um all the other thingswe've seen in the movies.
(26:45):
And we demonic influence hasbeen a part of Christianity and
Judaism from the beginning.
Solomon um had a uh a song bookthat was supposed to be the
songs that David sang to Saul toget rid of his demons.
(27:07):
And um they call it Psalm 51.
You know, Psalm only goes to150.
Um so uh there was all kinds ofthings in Judaism where they had
to deal with these things untilJesus showed up and he just had
the authority to command them.
And then when we're saved,suddenly Jesus says, I place
(27:30):
that authority on you, so youcan command them too.
But commanding them without thisbasic part of spiritual warfare,
you are gonna get into trouble.
And uh so let's let's go overthis uh the things that he says
here before you jump into that.
SPEAKER_02 (27:52):
What you just said was really important.
If you don't have this, you'regonna get in trouble.
Makes me think, remember whenthe disciples were trying to
cast out that demon, theycouldn't get it out, and it was
the apostles at this point,Jesus um had already been
resurrected.
But um those demons, look atthem say, Well, I know Jesus and
I know Paul.
But who are you?
(28:12):
Yeah, you know, and this idealike that was the seven sons of
schema.
SPEAKER_01 (28:18):
Schema, yeah, that's right.
And um they were casting out umdemons in the in the name of
Jesus, and some of them in thename of Jesus that Paul preaches
about.
And I guess they were kind ofsuccessful.
Then they went into this guy'shouse and that demon spoke for
(28:40):
them and said, Hey, I know Paul.
And I know Jesus, but I don'tknow you.
SPEAKER_02 (28:47):
And this you don't want to get in that situation
where you're out there andyou're you're not equipped for
the fight.
This is how you get equipped forthe fight.
And Paul says here, havingprepared everything, in the
middle of the fight, you know,when you've got yourself in a
situation, that's not the timeto start looking for the belt of
truth.
Right.
Absolutely.
Where's my belt?
(29:08):
You need to have that thing onand ready to go.
Uh so having everythingprepared.
And so this is uh this is howyou put on the armor of God and
what it all what it's all about.
SPEAKER_01 (29:18):
And I just want to say that again, verse the verse
13.
Um, so that you may be able toresist in the evil day.
That day's coming when you'regonna when you're gonna be
facing um a spiritual situationand having prepared everything.
(29:40):
Um you gotta you gotta be ready.
You gotta be ready.
You gotta be um confessed up.
You gotta have a yourrelationship with the Lord, you
should be living in truth.
We're gonna talk about that in aminute, but this takes
preparation and uh you don'twanna get out there if you're
not If you're not prepared.
(30:02):
I don't know um when it startedhappening in my life, but every
time I felt like I was gettingin a um a spiritual battle type
situation, I'd always stop.
Lord, anything between me andyou, I want to confess it.
You know, empty me out and fillme with your Holy Spirit.
(30:24):
Prepare me for this battle as Igo into it.
And um Teresa and I pray for ourentire team on the way to church
every Sunday morning.
We pray that um we'd be emptiedout and filled with the Holy
Spirit and prepared for thebattles that we're walking into.
And uh we pray that every Sundayon the way to church.
(30:46):
And it's something that uh youguys every Christian, I say you
guys, uh yeah, the thirty peoplewho listen to this, but I mean
every Christian should be reallythinking about what it means to
prepare.
Paul lays it out here.
If there's no question of whatyou need to do, it's all right
(31:10):
here.
This is spiritual warfare in theNew Testament church.
Um, first, the belt of truth.
When you hear the word belt oftruth, what do you think of?
SPEAKER_02 (31:26):
Not sure what you're looking for.
Sorry, I'm trying to help you.
SPEAKER_01 (31:30):
I think that's the the problem with the belt of
truth.
Everybody goes, What well, whatis the belt of truth?
It's learning to live in truthand integrity.
Why do you think that'simportant?
SPEAKER_02 (31:50):
If we're not living in truth every day.
We get bombarded by the lies andwe begin to believe and live
lies as if they are true.
SPEAKER_01 (32:01):
If I told a lie to my wife and it's okay, I was
late coming home because Ipulled over and went through
somebody's trash because Ithought I saw something that
looked good.
And that's kind of embarrassing,and I don't want to tell my wife
that.
So I tell her, it's a simplelie, right?
It's just simple.
(32:23):
And I say, Hey honey.
Um I'm late uh because so and sowanted to talk to me or
whatever, and and I just justtell her a lie.
And um but I've been seen.
Now you might think, by who?
By somebody.
(32:45):
Somebody, and if I wouldn't havetold her that lie, our
relationship wouldn't be atstake.
But now I've told her lie, toldher that lie.
I didn't live in truth and Ididn't live in integrity.
I should have just said I wasdoing some, you know, dumpster
diving and garbage picking.
I should have said that.
(33:06):
Now, it doesn't matter.
She don't really care if Idumpster dive or uh or anything
like that.
I mean, if I'm eating out of thedumpster, she had to have it
too.
But um she she doesn't she doesit this is not something that
would put our relationship atstake.
SPEAKER_02 (33:23):
It's not some deep sin you're involved in.
SPEAKER_01 (33:26):
Right.
But now, because I told thatlie, I didn't live in integrity,
I wasn't honest, suddenly it'ssomething that can affect my
relationship with her.
SPEAKER_02 (33:38):
And quite literally, you you you got caught with your
pants down because you didn'thave the belt of truth on.
SPEAKER_01 (33:43):
Exactly.
How's that for a visual?
I don't know.
I'm I'm trying to wipe it frommy head.
Um but the point is thatsuddenly something very small,
because you wouldn't live inintegrity, becomes something
that will deteriorate the trustthat your wife has in you.
And guess what?
(34:03):
Somebody was passing by on a carand says, Yeah, I saw your
husband out there diggingthrough some guy's trash the
other day.
And now she's gonna know.
Why?
Because Satan is gonna make surethat gets back to her.
Integrity, honesty, slipping inuh to someplace you shouldn't
go.
(34:23):
Um, somebody's gonna see you.
It's definitely gonna be onsomebody's camera, you know.
Um place on your computer thatyou know you shouldn't go.
So there's a bunch of people whoknow where you went.
Well, no, I use a VPN and I'vegot this.
No, come on, grow up.
(34:44):
Nobody is letting you goanywhere on their internet
without knowing exactly whereyou go.
unknown (34:49):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (34:50):
And so um, I mean, we need to understand that.
So uh suddenly the belt of truthholds the whole armor together.
unknown (35:02):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (35:03):
Because there's a demonic force out there who saw
what you did, and he's gonnamake sure somebody finds out.
unknown (35:10):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (35:11):
If and for so many of us, it's little things like
that.
You know, I I didn't murdersomeone and try to, you know,
lie about it.
No, it's these things.
SPEAKER_01 (35:19):
Dig a hole and bury them.
Have you ever have you everheard uh Nate Barkas?
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (35:23):
Just putt a leaf over it.
Um it's these little things, butman, it's it's that one thing,
you know, Jesus talks about howoh, what is it corrupts the
whole, a little bit of yeast?
It corrupts the whole thing.
You you get this little thing.
SPEAKER_01 (35:39):
A little bit of leaven.
SPEAKER_02 (35:40):
Yes, that's it.
I got it backwards.
Um it's these little things, butnow when someone says, Oh, your
husband liked that mirror, I sawhim get out of the garbage.
Well, when was that?
Oh, Thursday.
unknown (35:54):
Thursday.
SPEAKER_02 (35:56):
He said he was late because he was talking to
somebody.
SPEAKER_01 (35:58):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (36:00):
Well, what else is he not being truthful of?
Exactly.
And you have just opened up thiswhole thing.
Because if I couldn't trust you,what a little thing.
Yeah.
And I can't trust you that withthat.
How can I trust you with withanything else?
It's yeah, it it holdseverything together.
SPEAKER_01 (36:17):
And um, so how if you're living in lies, there's
somebody who knows.
The Holy Spirit is not gonna usethat against you.
He's gonna he'll give you aspanking every now and then.
But the truth is the enemy knowsyou're lying and he's gonna use
it against you.
(36:38):
Somehow, somehow, if the HolySpirit doesn't stop it,
somebody's gonna find out, andthen you're gonna have to deal
with that.
And we need to be uh the belt oftruth is first for a reason.
unknown (36:52):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (36:53):
And I just want everybody to know that we hear
that the belt of truth, huh?
Yeah, it's the truth of God'sword, and and we should tell the
truth, I guess.
All right, what's number two?
No, no, no, no, no.
This is the one that holds ittogether.
unknown (37:09):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (37:09):
If you're going into spirit if we weren't talking
about spiritual battle, it itwould probably be different.
But we're going into a spiritualbattle where there's beings that
can see your conduct, and youhave to be living a life of
integrity, or they will use itagainst you to destroy all your
relationships if they can.
(37:31):
So the belt of truth holdseverything together.
Number two, the breastplate ofrighteousness.
Christ's righteousness guardsour heart from guilt and shame.
We have uh the way we live theChristian life, and and I don't
know how it got like this, but Ican tell by reading through the
(37:56):
historic Christian church thatit's always been there.
It's always been there.
People dealing with guilt andshame.
Matter of fact, I saw that moviePaul that uh came out on Netflix
or whatever, and you know, hehad a a thorn in the side, he
called it.
He asked the Lord to take itaway, and and then the Lord
(38:18):
finally said, My grace issufficient for you, you're just
gonna have to live with it.
And some people say it was hiseyesight, some people say uh um
liver damage or whatever,whatever they say.
But in this movie, his thorn inthe side was remembering all the
(38:39):
families that he persecuted, putin prison, and that were
eventually killed.
And he could not it just hauntedhim.
And I don't know if that's trueor not, that's uh artistic
license there.
We don't know.
He didn't say what it was, wedon't know if it was eyesight or
anything like that.
But that guilt and shame thing,even in whenever that came out
(39:04):
2020 or whatever, um we're stillworried about it.
We're still dealing with ourguilt and shame.
But we are where in Christ'srighteousness, we don't
according to God, we don't haveany guilt and shame.
SPEAKER_02 (39:20):
You know, it makes me think of a a football team,
you know, and when you go outand you just you know, you start
the game, you're all kind offired up, you're ready to go,
and then they the other teamscores.
And then you go out, all right,we're gonna get this one back,
and you fumble.
And all of a sudden you look upand they're up three, four
(39:40):
touchdowns, and you just no.
How do you fight in thatposition?
Right.
When when you are just down andout mentally, you you you don't
play the same, you don't blockthe same way that you were
blocking.
You don't you don't run yourroutes as hard as you used to
run your routes.
(40:00):
Absolutely.
What's the point?
We're getting our butts kicked.
This is embarrassing.
And when you show up to fightthe Christian life every day
thinking, I suck.
Yeah, you know, I I can't getpast this thing, I can't let
that thing go.
Then you fight from a place ofweakness.
unknown (40:18):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (40:18):
And Jesus said, My my power, my strength is made
perfect in your weakness.
Let's go.
Right.
Let's go.
And you're like, Yeah, but doyou remember that time?
And it's like, I've forgiventhat.
I already paid for that.
Let's go.
But do you remember when?
Yeah, I mean, we just we keepbringing it up and it defeats
(40:40):
us, and it defeats us.
SPEAKER_01 (40:41):
It's not always us bringing it up either.
That's true.
We're getting help.
That's what we're talking aboutis this spiritual warfare that
we're in.
Now, the breastplate of therighteousness.
We don't have any guilt andshame.
Don't live in guilt and shame.
The other side of that isrighteousness matters.
I tell the forge, I must, I mustsay it once a month in there.
(41:04):
Righteousness, living arighteous life matters.
And we we a lot of people arejust, oh, we're free in grace.
We'll we'll do whatever we wantto do and ask God to forgive us
later.
No, you're in a battle.
And you are taking uh thebreastplate of righteousness off
(41:27):
and laying it on the ground,right?
You are vulnerable.
unknown (41:31):
Yep.
SPEAKER_02 (41:32):
I heard a pastor one time say, you know, God, God
saved you right where you're at.
He knew you wouldn't be perfect,he knew you'd never be perfect.
God's not waiting on you to beperfect, He's He'll save you.
And I'm like, well, that's true,but it's not the whole truth.
SPEAKER_01 (41:47):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (41:48):
Because Jesus Himself said, Be perfect as your
Father in heaven is perfect.
SPEAKER_01 (41:52):
Righteousness.
SPEAKER_02 (41:53):
Righteousness matters.
I we all the way back at David.
I'm not looking for thesacrifice.
I want your obedience more thanyour sacrifice.
Obey me.
Obedience and righteousnessmatters.
It matters in your life, mattersin the Christian life, following
Jesus.
And if you're gonna fight inthis battle, yes, why would you
(42:14):
willingly take off thebreastplate of righteousness,
the thing that's supposed toprotect your chest?
I mean, your heart is here.
Right.
And you lay it on the ground.
I mean, yeah, you're completelyopen, you're exposed, you're
vulnerable.
All because you want to engagein these things, um,
righteousness matters.
SPEAKER_01 (42:33):
If you have come to Christianity lately, um, I need
to explain this a little bitbecause uh the word righteous,
righteousness andunrighteousness has migrated.
That happens in languages, wedon't use the same term.
Uh now, if you get a moderntranslation, when it used to say
(42:55):
in English, righteous orunrighteous, now they use the
term wickedness.
And the reason they do that isbecause righteous and
unrighteous has turned intochurch things.
So when you hear that churchword righteousness, uh, you're
thinking about, oh, he goes tochurch and you know, he he takes
(43:19):
communion and and all that kindof stuff.
He's doing church stuff.
That's what righteousness is,doing church stuff.
No, no, no, no, no.
What these what this term is isunrighteousness is wickedness,
is being wicked, andrighteousness matters.
Hey, you know what we're we livein a society of cowboys, and I
(43:42):
was listening to um Forrest Hageuh teach um about the church
last night, and he had this hehad this great illustration, but
it's it's who we are in theUnited States.
He said we're not cowboys, we'reshepherds.
(44:05):
Shepherds don't want to kill andeat the sheep.
They'll kill and eat them whenthey get old enough and they
they're not growing the wool,but they want to keep them alive
and healthy and do the best theycan for them so they can give
wool every year as as much as hecan.
Cowboys, they don't shepherd,they drive the cattle to the
(44:28):
slaughter.
And he said, that's how weapproach church in um the West.
You know, we're cowboys, we'reindependent.
I don't have to go to churchthere.
I can worship God in the woodsand all that kind.
That's cowboyism in church.
We're supposed to be shepherds,which is completely different on
(44:49):
how you view your church.
Isn't that great?
And that comes right into thisrighteousness.
Who are you going to be?
Because if you don't chooserighteousness, your enemy is
going to use that against you.
SPEAKER_02 (45:06):
That's right.
That's right.
SPEAKER_01 (45:09):
So are we going on to the next one?
Number three.
Number three.
SPEAKER_02 (45:13):
It's a good thing you didn't try to fit this in on
Sunday.
SPEAKER_01 (45:15):
I know.
I know.
Well, I put these little caveatsto get me talking about them.
I'm realizing right now they'dhave been there forever.
There's so much here.
Then the shoes of the gospel ofpeace.
And that, first of all, that'sthe readiness to share the
gospel, but it's also stablefooting.
(45:37):
And we're talking about uh guiltand shame on righteousness, but
this is simply I have peace withGod.
What are you gonna do?
I know where I'm going.
Uh if you kill me, thank you.
If you beat me, I can take thatsuffering and offer it to
Christ.
(45:58):
Let's go.
You know, you have peace withGod.
And suddenly you're not afraidof anything.
So I love that.
SPEAKER_02 (46:08):
Sorry for all my sports illustrations, but here
we go.
You know, when when you havewhen you're down and out, and
then you get to halftime andyour coach comes and he gives
that speech, I still believe inyou, we still got this, and
you've seen it, they go out andthey turn around, second half,
come back, it's someunbelievable comeback story, and
you all started with some guywho said, I believe in you.
(46:30):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, when you have peace withGod and you can fight from a
position of strength, and you'renot constantly carrying around
that shame and guilt, oh mygosh, man, you're free to live
the life that God created you tolive.
And in part of that, the biggestpart of that, like going out and
bringing others in.
(46:51):
You know, I mean, we are on thisrescue mission.
There is a world who is who isperishing apart from Christ.
And we have been sent and calledout into that world to go into
all the world and makedisciples.
That's who, if you're a followerof Jesus, who you that's your
marching orders, it's who you'recalled to be.
(47:11):
And we go out, you can havepeace with God.
This this rebellion, thisanonymity that that exists now,
He's taking care of it all.
You can have peace with God, Hecan forgive you and set you free
from that guilt and that shame.
Man, what an incredible message.
Um, and and we're called to goout and bring that everywhere we
(47:33):
go.
How beautiful are the feet ofthose who bring the good news.
Amen.
Amen.
SPEAKER_01 (47:37):
Then there's the shield of faith.
I'm moving on because I justlooked at my watch.
We gotta go.
Uh, shield of faith.
Um your trust in God that He isnot gonna leave you out there
without artillery and air coverand and reinforcements.
(47:58):
We we need to use that shield offaith to quench the fiery dark
darts of doubt and accusation.
Because Satan is gonna come atyou with those things and you
need to believe to fight those.
SPEAKER_02 (48:13):
What does scripture call them?
The accuser of the brethren.
Right.
Um, and here's here's how why Ilove how Paul words this here,
because we think of the shieldas just something I stand
behind.
It's a very passive sort ofthing.
Right.
Um, it's a noun.
But he says, this shield offaith, which you can use to
extinguish all the flamingarrows of it, is a verb.
(48:37):
This thing has it has purpose.
I'm not just sitting here hidingbehind the my faith.
No, my faith is action, it doessomething, and it it takes those
accusations, it takes thosedarts, those um arrows that the
enemy slings at me and itextinguishes them.
No, my God is already takingcare of that.
Yeah, there is no condemnationbecause I'm in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01 (49:00):
In video games, it's called a shield bash.
unknown (49:03):
Nice.
SPEAKER_02 (49:04):
I I don't I can't relate to that.
SPEAKER_01 (49:06):
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (49:07):
Someone out there, I'm sure, is like, yes, I got
it.
SPEAKER_01 (49:10):
In the ancient sport of something, it's shield bash
there.
That works for you.
I love that because wouldn't,you know, we we take that the
idea that I believe in Jesus umas a a passive thing, that it
doesn't it doesn't do anythingmore.
Oh my gosh.
Oh, yes, it does.
(49:31):
Right.
It means you can stick yourbelief out and run right through
the enemy lines and they can'tdo anything about it.
So I love that too.
And then the helmet ofsalvation, that's your assurance
of who you are.
You know, you put that on and itprotects your mind from
condemnation, you know, itprotects your mind from shame
(49:51):
and guilt.
It it protect it's always onyour head, so you always know
it's you can't get used to it,you know, because you're you're
always thinking, I'm saved.
unknown (50:04):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (50:05):
I am his son, his daughter.
He's not gonna leave me out herealone.
SPEAKER_02 (50:10):
Well, and you know, the the helmet protects our
brain, protects our minds, youknow.
Um, and Paul, he he talks aboutdon't be conform to the patterns
of this world, but betransformed by the renewing of
your mind.
Um, this helmet of salvation isthe thing that protects that,
that that constantly um keeps ussafe from from those lies and
the patterns, the deceitfulnessof the world.
SPEAKER_01 (50:33):
And I'm moving on to verse 17.
Sorry guys, we we got hung up onthe first two.
Yeah, we get we're flying now.
Sword of the Spirit, the word ofGod.
Um, it's an offensive weapon tostrike down deception.
Jesus used it just like we'resupposed to.
Satan came to him and actuallyquoted scripture at Jesus, and
(50:55):
Jesus said, Oh, I'm sorry.
You misunderstood that.
This is what it meant in thisscripture.
And Jesus used the sword of the,the word of God, the sword of
the Spirit, to knock down umthese different deceptions that
are sent to us that sound good,you know, but we got to lean
(51:18):
back on scripture and say, ohno, I'm not falling into that
mess.
I already know the truth.
Here it is.
And you cut those web of liesdown.
And there's so many falseteachers out there today who's
trying to, I don't know, buildtheir own kingdom.
I don't know what they're tryingto do.
But they're under the influenceof your enemy.
(51:38):
And you need to know the word ofGod so you can know the truth
and let it set you free.
unknown (51:44):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (51:44):
And not even just within the church.
I mean, there's in our cultureand society and academia, you
know, there there is all kindsof people trying to to establish
all things as truth.
And it is the word of God thathelps us cut through those
things.
What is truth?
Your word is truth.
Um, and it's the thing that thatpierces between joint and
(52:04):
marrow.
It is alive and it is active.
I tell people all the time, youknow, what do you think about
and insert any hot topic there?
And I tell them all, you don'tneed to hear my opinion on that,
because my opinion doesn'tmatter.
God has already said.
He's already said, He's alreadydecided.
So I I go with him.
Yeah, but what do you think?
I think what he thinks.
(52:25):
Right?
And because if I don't, thenthere's a problem, and I have to
realign.
That's that, you know, beingtransformed by the renewing of
your mind.
And and parents, especially, youneed to model this for your
kids.
When they come home and they askyou, well, you know, we were
talking about this in classtoday, or man, I was out at the
mall or Crocker Park and I sawthis.
You know, what it what don'tgive them your opinion.
(52:46):
Yeah.
Don't just, don't even just tellthem what the Christian belief
on that is.
Open God's word and show themwhat it looks like to take the
topics and ideas of our day andgo to God's word to see what God
has said about those things.
We need, we need to model thatfor our kids.
This is the sword of the spirit.
(53:08):
It is, it's the thing that cutsthrough all the lies.
SPEAKER_01 (53:10):
When you come up on a baptism and you're identifying
yourself with Christ, you needto know that that means there's
no qualifiers in that.
You know?
If someone comes to you andsays, Are you a conservative
Christian?
Don't you dare say yes.
There's no qualifiers on Christ.
He is your identity.
unknown (53:31):
That's right.
SPEAKER_01 (53:32):
No, I'm a Christian who happens to be conservative.
Because if you say you're aconservative Christian,
conservatism comes first and itforces Christ into it.
So there's no liberal Christian,there's no left-leaning
Christian.
(53:53):
As soon as you say that, as soonas you accept that, then Christ
is not your identity.
And that's not truth.
You can't live in that, andthat's a whole nother
conversation.
So let's keep going.
Okay, so number six, that seemsto stop talking about the
warfare stuff.
And I think people make a hugemistake when they do that
because number seven, Paul isnot done writing.
(54:15):
He's still writing.
He says, pray at all times,being a constant attitude of
prayer.
My dad was talking to the Lordall the time, and I didn't I
didn't know who was talking towho.
And um, he would say somethingto me, and I'd just be quiet,
and he goes, Hey, are youlistening to me?
And oh, were you talking to me?
(54:37):
Yeah, yeah.
And and other times I'd say,What was that dad?
I'm not talking to you.
You know, and so it was can youplease distinguish who you're in
the middle of a conversationwith?
But I love that because we needto be in a constant attitude of
prayer, spirit-led prayer, andthat sustains all of the armor
in battle.
SPEAKER_02 (54:56):
Yeah, you've you've given this illustration before.
You know, when we open our eyesin the morning, it should be
dear heavenly father, and whenwe close them before we go to
bed, it should be in Jesus'name, amen.
Absolutely.
Live our life in a constantstate of prayer.
Man, one of the my kids havemodeled this so well because you
know, if we're driving down theroad and an ambulance passes by
or um a fire truck, um, they'lljust, hey, something's going on.
(55:21):
We need to pray for thosepeople.
And they'll write in the middleof the car and write, I mean,
we'll be singing or tellingstories, talking about our
school day, whatever.
And it's full on stop.
We got to pray right now.
And man, I love seeing that inthem.
And that's that's who we'resupposed to be.
SPEAKER_01 (55:37):
And that leads us right into number eight.
He says, stay alert.
You know, most people wouldn'teven see that ambulance, other
than the fact that, no, crap, Igotta slow down, you know.
Spiritual vigilance is soimportant.
You're watching for enemytactics and you're watching for
your opportunity to attack.
(55:57):
And there, your kids saw thatopportunity.
Hey, we can pray for them.
Satan wants their destruction.
Let's pray for their salvation,whatever's going on.
So uh that's number eight.
Number nine, intercede for allthe saints.
This is being a good buddy inthe foxhole.
I think uh we think about thechurch, we think about our
(56:21):
church.
We think about Christians, wethink about our friends in
church.
You know, we don't think aboutwhat's going on uh in Nigeria.
Finally, uh President Trump hassaid, this is getting ridiculous
over there.
You guys better knock it off orI'll knock it off, uh, which is
(56:42):
something that the UN issupposed to handle.
And they haven't they haven'tdone anything.
They're killing Christians leftand right.
And uh it's become a game forthe for the enemy.
So uh persistent prayer for thewhole church unites and
strengthens the whole body allacross the planet, and we need
(57:03):
to pray for them.
Yeah, but I I don't know theirname, and I like to be specific.
Okay, be as specific as you can.
I pray for the ChineseChristians, or I pray for that
hemisphere's Christians, but youneed to pray.
Yeah, prayer still changesthings, people.
Yep.
SPEAKER_02 (57:21):
We are we are in lockstep and arms-linked with
with believers all over theworld.
Um and you know, it's one of thethings that that we try to to
preach here all the time iswe're not in competition with
other churches.
We want other churches tosucceed.
It's not those Christians orthat church versus our church.
(57:42):
No.
Um we need to be praying,especially for for those who are
being persecuted.
Um, you know, at the women'sconference they uh supported the
voice of the martyrs.
Um and that is an organizationwho is all about trying to
provide um resources forpersecuted Christians around the
world and give them some of thethings that they need to try to
(58:05):
survive and live.
We need to be praying for thosepeople.
Um, pray for the missionarieswho are right now going into
some of the darkest places inthe world to try to share the
the light of Christ.
We don't even think about thosethings.
We're trying to, you know, Lord,you know, our benefits are being
cut off and there's gonna behungry people here, and we need
to be praying about that.
Right.
But in the midst of all that, wewe forget there are people out
(58:28):
there who are, I mean, lit everyday laying down themselves to go
put themselves on the line justto share the gospel with one
more person.
Um, don't don't forget aboutthem.
SPEAKER_01 (58:39):
Yeah, and and Paul put that in there for a reason,
guys.
This is this is how you getprepared to stand and then you
stand.
unknown (58:49):
That's right.
SPEAKER_01 (58:50):
You can't leave those last three off because he
put it in there uh in the sameconversation.
So a lot of people ask me, andwe'll wrap up with this, is
well, how do you put on the beltof truth?
How do you put on thebreastplate of righteousness?
Well, you do it in faith.
My dad used to pray everymorning.
(59:10):
In Jesus' name, I put on thebelt of truth.
I strap on my breastplate ofrighteousness, and I put on the
shoes of the gospel of peace.
And he would just pray throughit and he would declare it.
Because these are declarations.
You don't have to pray for thatto happen and wait for an
answer.
God's like, You want thebreastplate of righteousness?
(59:32):
WHAM! Done.
So these are declarations, andhe would pray it every day.
He had every day, and he'd leavethe house praying.
SPEAKER_02 (59:41):
I would say this pray it in faith and then live
like it's true.
SPEAKER_01 (59:45):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02 (59:46):
You know, I got the bell of truth on, I'm gonna live
that way.
I have the breastplate ofrighteousness on, so I'm gonna
live that way.
I uh can I get engaged in thissin?
No.
Why?
Well, I got his righteousness onme, I can't do that.
Um When you walk into asituation and it's chaotic, man,
I'm walking in with the shoesapiece.
Absolutely.
Live like it.
You put it on in faith and youlive like it's true.
SPEAKER_01 (01:00:09):
That's great.
Why don't you pray for us?
SPEAKER_02 (01:00:12):
Father, I thank you so much.
Um again for what we got tocelebrate on uh Sunday.
All these people um saying Iidentify with Jesus and
following you in baptism, Lord,we celebrate we celebrate their
decision.
And Father, I pray that youwould protect each and every one
of them as they step into thisnew life um of of obedience and
just following you.
(01:00:33):
And uh Lord, I I pray that thiswould just be the first step of
many um as as they uh they learnto uh to discover more in
Christ.
Amen.
And uh Father, I uh the thingsthat we talked about today,
these are these are big things,they're heavy things, they're
things that we'd we'd ratherignore and just go on about our
day.
Um but Father, you have you havecalled us to engage in this
(01:00:54):
thing.
And I and Lord, we don't wantpeople to be afraid.
Um we know you've already wonthe battle.
Amen.
We know that none of this isoutside of your purview or
control, that you are stillseated on the throne.
And Lord, we thank you for allof that.
And then, Father, I'm justasking that you would help
prepare and equip us to be thepeople you've called us to be.
We want to be people who walk inpeace, who who have the belt of
(01:01:17):
truth that holds all of thesethings together, who have the
breastplate of righteousness,the helmet of salvation to to
protect our minds.
God, we want to live like thesethings are true.
And so in faith, help us to puton the whole armor of God every
day and live like it's a realitybecause it is.
You've done it for us.
And then, Father, we we don'twant to forget these last
(01:01:37):
things.
Let us be the kind of people whopray at all times, who stay
alert, who intercede for ourbrothers and sisters here and
all over the world, knowing thatwhen the church is strong,
Father, we can push back againstthe darkness.
We are not a passiveorganization, Father.
We're storming the gates ofhell.
And we want to be that church inJesus' name.
Amen.
Amen and amen.
SPEAKER_00 (01:01:57):
Thanks again for joining us for this episode of
the Midweek Podcast.
We'd love to hear from you.
Let us know how God is usingthis resource in your life or
send any podcast questions ortopic ideas to podcast at a
freshwind.org.
If you would like to supportthis ministry financially and
help us continue offering newresources that equip you to
discover more in Christ, simplytext any amount to the number
(01:02:20):
84321.
We're so grateful for yoursupport.
Make sure to tune in next weekfor a brand new episode of the
Midweek Podcast.
Be blessed and have a greatweek.
Welcome and thanks for joining us on this episode
of the Midweek Podcast, broughtto you by a Fresh Wind Church.
Each week our team brings younew content to help you take
steps towards Jesus and discovermore in Christ.
Today's episode is hosted byPastor Ryan.
SPEAKER_02 (00:27):
Hey, welcome back to the Midweek Podcast.
Pastor Ryan joined as alwayswith Pastor Tim.
And Tim, yesterday was just anincredible day here at Fresh
Win.
SPEAKER_01 (00:37):
I'm still, I'm still riding high.
SPEAKER_02 (00:40):
Yeah.
Nineteen people uh got baptizedyesterday.
I think that might be Fresh Winrecord for one day.
SPEAKER_01 (00:46):
And then we we held up baptisms for until we got
that baptistry.
That first time we baptized waspretty big in the old building.
I don't know if it was 19.
Seems like it was pretty close.
SPEAKER_02 (01:00):
Man, a lot of people.
It was so so amazing to heartheir stories, uh, get to
celebrate new life with them.
Um and then one of the thingsthat was really cool is you
know, you would get ready tobaptize, but all these people
started coming up, take theirpictures.
So family just came out tosupport them.
Um and it might have beenShayland and Braxton's family, I
(01:22):
think.
I couldn't really tell because Iwas standing off to the side,
but after service was over,there's this whole family.
There's like 30 people, 40people, it looked like over
there that all came to justsupport them and celebrate their
decision.
So that was so exciting.
Um, and man, I was I had Iforgot my change of clothes out
in the car, so I ran outside toget my bag of clothes right
(01:44):
before service started.
And Dave looks at me and goes,We're full.
There's no more parking spaces.
And I was like, Oh boy.
I was like, Well, park them infront of the garage, put them in
the backfield over here.
Yeah, we were parking everybodyeverywhere Sunday.
Um, but man, it was that wasamazing.
And then at the end of it, um, Ithink what did you say?
(02:05):
Five people uh accepted Christyesterday on top of it.
What a day, what a day.
So exciting.
Uh so I I I think I talked aboutthis at one of uh the last
couple baptisms, but man, 17years or so of of doing this
together.
And you know, we've had theprivilege of baptizing quite a
(02:26):
few people.
I think in the past couple yearswe've baptized a hundred people
or more, um, which is amazing.
Yeah.
But it it's the one thing that,man, it never gets old.
No, you're never like, you knowwhat I'm sick of?
Baptisms.
I I brought the uh pump out tostart draining the baptismal,
and I was like, I wonder if Ishould you know send out an
email, see if we can get anybodyelse before I drain this thing.
(02:48):
Maybe we'll do it again nextweek.
SPEAKER_01 (02:49):
Yeah.
Yeah, we we've done that before.
Yep.
Oh, that's right.
I remember that.
Do you want me to tell thatstory?
I'll go for it.
Oh, man.
So this lady couldn't show upfor the baptism, something had
happened.
And then we're like, we'll justleave it up for you uh next
week.
And uh next week comes along andshe says, Oh, my family can't
(03:11):
come till next week.
Can we leave it up one moretime?
And we're like, Yeah, sure.
Because you know, we're dumb.
We know we don't know what'sgoing on.
So Friday of the next week, welook in there and there's things
growing in there, crawling onthe walls.
SPEAKER_02 (03:25):
Yeah, there's a reason they make filters for
pools.
Yeah, we don't have one.
SPEAKER_01 (03:30):
Yeah.
So yeah, that was um a veryslippery baptism.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (03:38):
We yeah, we we doused it with some uh chlorine
and everything we could tryingto get that thing cleaned up.
Um well before that, uh well,no, this the time before this
last time, they had must havebeen doing some work around
here, and it took us three orfour attempts to get the baptism
full because we kept filling itup.
Remember, it was all that brownwater, it looked like lake water
(04:00):
in there.
SPEAKER_01 (04:01):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (04:01):
I'm like, I can't put people in this water,
they're gonna wonder what kindof parasites are in there.
SPEAKER_01 (04:07):
The water line broke down on the corner, yeah.
And so we had a lot of sedimentin there.
SPEAKER_02 (04:13):
You and Joe were running all over the place
trying to piece and partsomething together, and we ended
up with a filter.
SPEAKER_01 (04:19):
We did.
We we Joe and I built a filter.
Joe mostly built the filter, andand it worked, it got all that
stuff out of there, and uh sonow you got the cleanest water
that you can be baptized in.
Every every baptismal fill-up isthrough that filter.
SPEAKER_02 (04:36):
So yeah, clean as clean as can be.
Um, but it was I made a littlebit of a mistake here because
Friday I sent Ty to school.
He can drive now, and so I senthim to school with you know all
of his siblings in the car, andthen about 10 a.m.
rolls around and I go, Oh, Ididn't set up the baptismal and
(04:57):
I can't go anywhere.
I'm stuck at home with no car.
And so Saturday morning I leftthe house, 6 a.m., ran up here,
set the whole thing up, filledit up, got it heating.
And usually it takes about 24hours to get warm, but I usually
have it heating up for two days.
Well, I had 24 hours on thenose.
And I told the people in thepre-service meeting, I was like,
(05:20):
Yeah, the water's one of themsaid, Is it warm?
I was like, Ah, it's usuallyright around 90 degrees.
One of the ladies gets in thewater yesterday, she goes, This
is not 90 degrees.
SPEAKER_01 (05:32):
You know what?
Here's here's a great plug forthat.
Right now, people, you need touh pray and ask God what he
wants you to do about this,because leaving Ryan in charge
of the baptism always ends up insome kind of panic right before.
So we need a baptism crew.
We only do it four or fivetimes.
(05:53):
And if you can't be at churchall the time, and this might be
the job for you if you want toserve here, is just put out that
baptismal and get it filled upand make sure it's warm.
Teresa said, Is that gonna beenough time to get that pool
warm?
And I said, I don't care.
SPEAKER_02 (06:09):
Yeah, I stepped in and I'm like, okay.
I mean, it wasn't cold, but itwasn't 90.
SPEAKER_01 (06:14):
Yeah, Teresa.
Teresa said, You need to takethat down.
I said, We need to leave thatheater on there for till the
last second.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (06:22):
Which we did.
And that's another thing we needwe need help with.
We need a baptism crew for sure.
Yeah.
If you're interested in that,please shoot us an email.
Stop Tim or I on a Sunday andsay, hey, I I can do this.
Uh because yeah, I walked inthere right before church
started.
We're still tearing out waterhoses and heaters and good
night.
SPEAKER_01 (06:40):
Yeah, if you would have done that on Thursday, it'd
have been nice.
But it's all, you know, we'realways uh we are under pressure.
We always have resistance, anduh there's always something
trying to stop what we're doinghere at A Fresh Wind.
And uh that's the easy stuff.
(07:01):
And so if one of you uh men orwomen say, Hey, I want to do
that, um come in and do it, andyou can solve a lot of
consternation over here amongstthe pastors.
SPEAKER_02 (07:14):
Either that or sell tie a car for real cheap.
Those are your options.
Yeah.
No, man, it to be honest, worthit completely.
When you witness all that,you're like, it was worth
getting up early, it was worthall the videos, you know, sit
getting those edited.
Because man, it's just soexciting.
Um, and then I know I told youbecause you were preaching that
(07:37):
day, I was like, man, you mightonly need to preach 10 or 15
minutes.
I mean, with all the videos,badges, this is gonna take some
time.
Um, and so I think you said youput three or four sermons
together and you're like, oh,I'll just start dropping them
off as needed.
SPEAKER_01 (07:51):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (07:52):
And so today uh you did, you had to drop some off.
And I thought we could pick upkind of where you left off on
Sunday.
Um, and so why don't you giveeverybody a little bit of a
recap in case they missed thesermon on Sunday, what we were
talking about, and then we'llwe'll kind of dive into what you
couldn't get into.
SPEAKER_01 (08:10):
Well, we started talking, uh started off talking
about renunciation, forsakingyour old life, and talked about
the early church and how theywould um start baptism before
they would even let you get inthe water.
Um they sent you to school tomake you really understand what
salvation was before they wouldlet you be baptized.
(08:30):
It's very critical to them thatyou didn't link your salvation
to your baptism.
It was a big deal.
And uh then they would have thislike renunciate uh renunciation
renunciation ceremony rightbefore you got in the water, and
they'd make you turn towards thewest as the sun, you know,
that's where the sun sets, sothat's towards darkness.
(08:53):
So it's a symbolism of facingSatan, not you know, standing
behind Jesus, you alone standingup there and forsaking him,
renouncing Satan, all his uhdemons or all his spirits in all
his ways.
(09:14):
And then you would turn um tothe north or to the east um
where the light comes from, andyou would uh pledge your loyalty
to Jesus.
And then they'd let you bebaptized.
Um so um I wanted to preach asermon, so we didn't do all
that.
We just got in water and got itdone.
(09:35):
But um it was it's it it'ssomething that we've kind of
left off uh uh baptism for Idon't know, it's been let's see,
Searle was in 300 AD, so we'retalking sixteen hundred years
ago, you know, it it started umpeople started not putting that
(09:59):
emphasis on it.
And it's something um the Lordreminded us the week before, and
uh, hey, what about this?
What about this?
It was coming from all differentdirections, and I'm like, Lord,
what are you trying to say?
And um and this is somethingthat is probably good for
everybody to renounce Satan.
SPEAKER_02 (10:20):
Yeah, I I think it's it's something that especially
if you grew up in church and youkind of have an idea of what
baptism is, um, you kindaunderstand that this is a part
of it, you know, it's kind ofpart of the package.
Um but baptism is is largely fornew believers.
And I mean, there's people beenfollowing Jesus a long time and
haven't taken that step yet.
(10:40):
Um but you know, for a lot ofpeople, it's man, I accepted
Christ and I need to bebaptized.
Um and I I remember you broughtthis to me, like, well, what do
you think about this?
Um and you know, my mindimmediately goes to Philip and
the Ethiopian eunuch, um, andPhilip shares the gospel with
them.
He says, Why shouldn't I bebaptized?
(11:01):
So you should be baptized, let'sgo down and do it.
And we don't read, you know,this renunciation thing.
But when we're saying Jesus isLord of my life, that means he
sits at the top, and I myallegiance is solely devoted to
him.
Um and so I thought, man, thiswhile it it's part of church
(11:22):
history and we don't necessarilysee it explicit as part of the
baptism ceremony in scripture,there's a whole lot in scripture
about this.
Um so one of the things we dobefore um anybody gets baptized
on a Sunday morning, have apre-service meeting, and so we
go over there, and this isprobably if you're being
(11:44):
baptized the third or fourthtime they've heard it, but we
talk about the meaning ofbaptism and it's how it's not
salvation, it's a you know, uhsymbolic act of what God has
already done and what you know,going under the water and being,
you know, brought out uhsymbolizes and um all that.
But one of the things we did umis we added this renunciation at
(12:04):
baptism to that pre-servicemeeting.
Um, and so I I read them to themfrom Second Corinthians um where
Paul wrote, Therefore, since wehave this ministry, because we
were shown mercy, we do not giveup.
Instead, we have renouncedsecret and shameful things, not
acting deceitfully or distortingthe word of God, but commending
(12:25):
ourselves before God toeveryone's conscience by an open
display of the truth.
And so there is this I renouncethese old, sinful, shameful
things, and I am openlydeclaring the truth that Jesus
is Lord of my life.
And so I thought, man, this isthis is awesome.
We need to, we need to havepeople make this declaration for
(12:47):
them so that they know, man,I've done this.
This is something I can standon.
And so I asked them on Sunday,question number one, do you
confess Jesus Christ as yourLord and Savior?
And they all said yes.
I said, if you can't say yes tothese two questions, you need to
see me after class.
Um But I said, as long as youcan respond in the affirmative,
say yes.
And they all said yes.
And then I asked them, Do yourenounce the devil and all he
(13:09):
offers?
And they all said yes.
And so there is this, I amturning away from my allegiance
to the enemy.
And scripture talks about how wewere slaves to the enemy.
Um, you know, we we walked indarkness.
The God of this air had blindblinded our minds, and so I am
forsaking all of that, and andI'm turning towards Christ.
(13:30):
And then when we baptize people,I added that little phrase
because you've accepted JesusChrist as your Lord and Savior,
forsaking all others, um, Ibaptize you.
And it again, just thatreminder, I have turned from
those things towards Christ.
SPEAKER_01 (13:45):
And it's uh kind of the package, it's it rounds off
the package.
We always talked about baptismbeing a symbol, uh, like a ring.
And um taking your ring offdoesn't mean you're not married
anymore.
Uh, but that ring tellseverybody else whose you are.
(14:07):
And uh this the Lord leaned onus a little bit and it and it it
plays right into what we'retalking about, because in every
marriage ceremony you forsakeall others, right?
And so this is actually adeclaration of war.
(14:29):
And uh because you're changingsides, you are standing up and
saying, I am no longer followingthis old way or following
whoever was leading in in thatold way.
I am changing sides, uh, and I'mI'm gonna declare for the Lord
and against Satan.
(14:50):
And that's what baptism is, anduh we need to re-grasp that as
the church.
unknown (14:57):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (14:58):
It's a declaration of war.
Well, when uh the sermon that Ididn't preach uh talked about
what happens when you when youchange sides, and because now
suddenly you've made a vowagainst the ruler of the prince
of the power of this heir,Satan, and uh all beings that
(15:22):
are against God.
So uh for those of you who arebaptized into Christ have been
clothed with Christ.
That's Galatians 3 27.
When you stand up and and bebaptized, you're just you're
showing off your garments.
You know, uh this is the uniformI wear, Christ's righteousness.
(15:45):
It's right here.
And you're basically saying,bring it on.
And that's where we get intospiritual warfare.
Renouncing your old allegiancemeans the fight is on.
SPEAKER_02 (15:58):
You know, it makes me think of man, this movie's
pretty old now, so dating myselfa little bit here, but The
Matrix, you know, when Neo takesthat pill and then he he sits
down in that chair and they popthat whatever thing into the
back of his head and twist it,you're like, ah.
Um, but all of a sudden he goesfrom sitting in this room to
boom, he's right in the middleof a fight.
(16:19):
And it's almost like that's kindof the picture I get as we start
talking about this.
You know, you you're baptized,you go down into the water, you
come out, you're raised to newlife, and it's like war.
And you are right here in themiddle of it.
Um, and I don't say that toscare you, because the same
spirit that raised Jesus fromthe dead lives inside of you.
(16:41):
Um you you have nothing to beafraid of, but you're at war.
Uh scripture says our our battleis not against flesh and blood,
but against these spiritualforces and heavenly realms and
heavenly heavenly places.
And the Bible teaches that thedevil prowls around seeking
those he can devour.
(17:02):
He he came to steal, kill, anddestroy.
And that's who he is.
And so we have to go to waragainst all of those things
every day.
Satan doesn't care thatChristians or people come to
church, that they hear goodsermons, that they put on it's
not the fish anymore, whatever.
What's that radio station?
Caleb.
(17:23):
He doesn't care.
But as soon as you say, Iidentify with Christ, I change
my uniform, I'm changing myallegiance, I'm switching sides,
all of a sudden now he's like,Whoa, yeah, you know, now I
care.
Um and we need to be prepared uhfor that fight.
SPEAKER_01 (17:40):
Erwin McManus wrote in his book, The Barbarian Way,
which I I suggest it's it's ahundred years old, but um well,
not a hundred.
SPEAKER_02 (17:49):
I was gonna say Irwin's not a hundred years old.
SPEAKER_01 (17:53):
But uh he said, we you know, we get this idea when
we hear you're born again thatyou know a little baby gotta
grow.
He says, When you're born again,when you're uh regenerated in
Jesus, it's like being thrownout of an airplane with a rifle.
He says that has nothing to dowith being a little kid and
(18:16):
growing up.
No, you're thrown right into thebattle and you're parachuting in
like a paratrooper, and you'relike, here I am, what do I do?
And uh but you've you've joinedthe fight on Jesus' side, and
he's gonna use you to dowonderful things.
And that's why I'm so excitedabout all these people who were
(18:36):
baptized yesterday, the justwhat God is gonna do for them in
their fight, in their in theirspiritual warfare too.
Now many churches engage indeliverance ministries that
teach you how to deal with uhauthorities, what what's the
(19:02):
Bible call them?
Authorities, the cosmic powersof this darkness, evil, and
spiritual forces in the heavens.
So when we say we renounce allothers, that's that's who we're
talking about.
All those um you know, we we tryto paint a broad picture with
one word, demons.
(19:23):
We call all angels angels, butthe word angel means messenger.
They're not all messengers.
Um but here Paul tells us thatthere's a lot of different
things you're renouncing here.
There's a lot of things you'reyou're going to war with.
And in the Bible, and this isinteresting, there is only one
passage of scripture that coversspiritual warfare as a specific
(19:48):
way to deal with supernaturalforces.
And it's Ephesians chapter six.
SPEAKER_02 (19:54):
Before you go into that, here's what I would
recommend.
If you missed a Sermon onSunday, go back and listen to it
because this is it's everythingthat's leading up to this point.
Um and so getting anunderstanding of what that whole
renouncing thing is and what youjust said, what we're renouncing
when we make this decision, um,that's an important concept to
(20:14):
grasp.
And then you get here, and thisis the okay, well, what is what
do I do now?
And that's what we're talkingabout.
Um I I think man, the we havenot talked and by we, I mean the
church at large, um about theseour our great enemy, you know.
(20:36):
We our our battles are againstyou know all this superficial,
and not that it's superficial.
I mean, I know people are goingthrough some stuff, and it, you
know, when I say superficial,you're like, well, yeah, it's
real to me.
Um but I mean scripture's clear.
There is another battle, and wejust we go through it blindly.
(20:56):
Um, you know, it m it what itmakes me think of is I was
talking to uh a local sheriffone time and he was talking
about all this gang activity inLorraine.
And I'm like, well, I grew up inRemillion, and Remillion's right
next door to Lorraine.
I'm like, I don't rememberhearing about any gang activity,
and it's all happening, but it'skind of underground a little
(21:18):
bit, and unless you're in thatworld, you don't even know it's
happening.
We go about it and we we assumethat's just what we read about
in you know books or we watch ontelevision shows or in the
movies, but that's not real.
And I think a lot of us we'vetaken that approach to the
spiritual fight that we'reengaged in.
Yeah, we hear about it inscripture, we've seen some
(21:40):
movies or some books about it,but it's not, I mean, it's it's
not real.
And it's no, this is as real asme and you sitting here having
this conversation.
And we need to be equipped andprepared on how to engage in
fighting that battle, and sothat's what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_01 (21:58):
And it's important um to have that um prelude to
what we're about to talk aboutbecause this is not what you see
in the movies, this is not whatyou see at a a church that's
having a deliverance um serviceor something like that.
This is this is something foryou.
(22:20):
Uh I I think sometimes we thinkthat we're in a battle with us
and our inability to eat toomuch or not to eat so much.
SPEAKER_02 (22:30):
I was gonna say I I'm definitely not in that
battle.
SPEAKER_01 (22:34):
But um, you know, and and those things look like
they're little things.
They're really not littlethings.
And anytime that you have aproclivity towards something
that um God has told you I don'twant you into, uh Satan's gonna
piggyback that proclivity andtry to make it possible for you
(22:56):
to do do that as much as he can.
Uh it's funny, I was um doingsome marriage counseling, and I
said, You're you you're gonnasee this that uh as you guys are
waiting to be married, Satan isgonna push you guys to to have
sex.
And your whole uh this time thatyou're engaged, you're gonna
(23:21):
Satan's gonna push you.
He's gonna want you guys to doit.
And then as soon as you'remarried, he's gonna try to pull
you guys apart so you don't doit.
You know, and I I said, this isthis is the kind of stuff that
Satan gets involved in and wedon't see him.
We think it's all us.
Right.
You know, oh I gotta I gottafight that temptation, and and
(23:41):
then you know, you get married,and then sudden, suddenly you're
mad every time it comes up, youknow.
And it's like, oh, I got aheadache or all that kind of
stuff.
But those are the things thatSatan counters the scripture, he
counters uh what God wants youto do and uh what God doesn't
(24:03):
want you involved in.
So he's he's always there, healways comes by to to to beef up
the temptation a little bit.
And uh, but when we get whatwe're gonna talk about here,
when we get this, I canguarantee you he's not gonna
mess with you.
SPEAKER_02 (24:24):
Right now, if he can get you to say no on those
things that you think are littleand it every time you say no, it
gets easier.
It just gets easier.
Every time you ignore theprompting of the Holy Spirit, it
gets easier.
I just told a guy this the otherday that when you're in a
situation um and the Holy Spiritsays this isn't for you, you
(24:44):
need to stop and you need toturn around and leave right now.
Because if you stay, the nexttime he tells you that, you're
gonna miss it.
And you are gonna get yourselfin a bad spot.
Um and so we this is importantto know how to fight.
SPEAKER_01 (25:01):
And we've only got this passage of scripture that
Paul laid down, and uh it's it'sexciting to me that you know we
don't have have it showing upall over the place.
Um but it it simply says inEphesians chapter six, starting
in verse ten, finally bestrengthened by the Lord and by
his vast strength.
(25:21):
Put on the full armor of God sothat you can stand against the
schemes of the devil.
For our struggle is not againstflesh and blood, but against the
rulers, against the authorities,against the cosmic powers of
this darkness, against evil,spiritual forces in heavens, in
the heavens.
(25:41):
For this reason, take up thefull armor of God, thus so that
you may be able to resist in theevil day, and having prepared
everything, to take your stand.
And this is this is what we'retalking about, baptism is to
take your stand.
Stand, therefore, with the truthlike a belt around your waist,
(26:02):
righteousness like the armor onyour chest, and your feet sandal
with the readiness for thegospel of peace.
In every situation, take up theshield of faith, which you can
extinguish all the flamingarrows of the evil one, and take
the helmet of salvation and thesword of the Spirit, which is
the Word of God.
(26:22):
Pray at all times, in theSpirit, with every prayer and
request, and stay alert with allperseverance and intercession
for all saints.
Now that is not the Spirit ofChrist compels you.
And um all the other thingswe've seen in the movies.
(26:45):
And we demonic influence hasbeen a part of Christianity and
Judaism from the beginning.
Solomon um had a uh a song bookthat was supposed to be the
songs that David sang to Saul toget rid of his demons.
(27:07):
And um they call it Psalm 51.
You know, Psalm only goes to150.
Um so uh there was all kinds ofthings in Judaism where they had
to deal with these things untilJesus showed up and he just had
the authority to command them.
And then when we're saved,suddenly Jesus says, I place
(27:30):
that authority on you, so youcan command them too.
But commanding them without thisbasic part of spiritual warfare,
you are gonna get into trouble.
And uh so let's let's go overthis uh the things that he says
here before you jump into that.
SPEAKER_02 (27:52):
What you just said was really important.
If you don't have this, you'regonna get in trouble.
Makes me think, remember whenthe disciples were trying to
cast out that demon, theycouldn't get it out, and it was
the apostles at this point,Jesus um had already been
resurrected.
But um those demons, look atthem say, Well, I know Jesus and
I know Paul.
But who are you?
(28:12):
Yeah, you know, and this idealike that was the seven sons of
schema.
SPEAKER_01 (28:18):
Schema, yeah, that's right.
And um they were casting out umdemons in the in the name of
Jesus, and some of them in thename of Jesus that Paul preaches
about.
And I guess they were kind ofsuccessful.
Then they went into this guy'shouse and that demon spoke for
(28:40):
them and said, Hey, I know Paul.
And I know Jesus, but I don'tknow you.
SPEAKER_02 (28:47):
And this you don't want to get in that situation
where you're out there andyou're you're not equipped for
the fight.
This is how you get equipped forthe fight.
And Paul says here, havingprepared everything, in the
middle of the fight, you know,when you've got yourself in a
situation, that's not the timeto start looking for the belt of
truth.
Right.
Absolutely.
Where's my belt?
(29:08):
You need to have that thing onand ready to go.
Uh so having everythingprepared.
And so this is uh this is howyou put on the armor of God and
what it all what it's all about.
SPEAKER_01 (29:18):
And I just want to say that again, verse the verse
13.
Um, so that you may be able toresist in the evil day.
That day's coming when you'regonna when you're gonna be
facing um a spiritual situationand having prepared everything.
(29:40):
Um you gotta you gotta be ready.
You gotta be ready.
You gotta be um confessed up.
You gotta have a yourrelationship with the Lord, you
should be living in truth.
We're gonna talk about that in aminute, but this takes
preparation and uh you don'twanna get out there if you're
not If you're not prepared.
(30:02):
I don't know um when it startedhappening in my life, but every
time I felt like I was gettingin a um a spiritual battle type
situation, I'd always stop.
Lord, anything between me andyou, I want to confess it.
You know, empty me out and fillme with your Holy Spirit.
(30:24):
Prepare me for this battle as Igo into it.
And um Teresa and I pray for ourentire team on the way to church
every Sunday morning.
We pray that um we'd be emptiedout and filled with the Holy
Spirit and prepared for thebattles that we're walking into.
And uh we pray that every Sundayon the way to church.
(30:46):
And it's something that uh youguys every Christian, I say you
guys, uh yeah, the thirty peoplewho listen to this, but I mean
every Christian should be reallythinking about what it means to
prepare.
Paul lays it out here.
If there's no question of whatyou need to do, it's all right
(31:10):
here.
This is spiritual warfare in theNew Testament church.
Um, first, the belt of truth.
When you hear the word belt oftruth, what do you think of?
SPEAKER_02 (31:26):
Not sure what you're looking for.
Sorry, I'm trying to help you.
SPEAKER_01 (31:30):
I think that's the the problem with the belt of
truth.
Everybody goes, What well, whatis the belt of truth?
It's learning to live in truthand integrity.
Why do you think that'simportant?
SPEAKER_02 (31:50):
If we're not living in truth every day.
We get bombarded by the lies andwe begin to believe and live
lies as if they are true.
SPEAKER_01 (32:01):
If I told a lie to my wife and it's okay, I was
late coming home because Ipulled over and went through
somebody's trash because Ithought I saw something that
looked good.
And that's kind of embarrassing,and I don't want to tell my wife
that.
So I tell her, it's a simplelie, right?
It's just simple.
(32:23):
And I say, Hey honey.
Um I'm late uh because so and sowanted to talk to me or
whatever, and and I just justtell her a lie.
And um but I've been seen.
Now you might think, by who?
By somebody.
(32:45):
Somebody, and if I wouldn't havetold her that lie, our
relationship wouldn't be atstake.
But now I've told her lie, toldher that lie.
I didn't live in truth and Ididn't live in integrity.
I should have just said I wasdoing some, you know, dumpster
diving and garbage picking.
I should have said that.
(33:06):
Now, it doesn't matter.
She don't really care if Idumpster dive or uh or anything
like that.
I mean, if I'm eating out of thedumpster, she had to have it
too.
But um she she doesn't she doesit this is not something that
would put our relationship atstake.
SPEAKER_02 (33:23):
It's not some deep sin you're involved in.
SPEAKER_01 (33:26):
Right.
But now, because I told thatlie, I didn't live in integrity,
I wasn't honest, suddenly it'ssomething that can affect my
relationship with her.
SPEAKER_02 (33:38):
And quite literally, you you you got caught with your
pants down because you didn'thave the belt of truth on.
SPEAKER_01 (33:43):
Exactly.
How's that for a visual?
I don't know.
I'm I'm trying to wipe it frommy head.
Um but the point is thatsuddenly something very small,
because you wouldn't live inintegrity, becomes something
that will deteriorate the trustthat your wife has in you.
And guess what?
(34:03):
Somebody was passing by on a carand says, Yeah, I saw your
husband out there diggingthrough some guy's trash the
other day.
And now she's gonna know.
Why?
Because Satan is gonna make surethat gets back to her.
Integrity, honesty, slipping inuh to someplace you shouldn't
go.
(34:23):
Um, somebody's gonna see you.
It's definitely gonna be onsomebody's camera, you know.
Um place on your computer thatyou know you shouldn't go.
So there's a bunch of people whoknow where you went.
Well, no, I use a VPN and I'vegot this.
No, come on, grow up.
(34:44):
Nobody is letting you goanywhere on their internet
without knowing exactly whereyou go.
unknown (34:49):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (34:50):
And so um, I mean, we need to understand that.
So uh suddenly the belt of truthholds the whole armor together.
unknown (35:02):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (35:03):
Because there's a demonic force out there who saw
what you did, and he's gonnamake sure somebody finds out.
unknown (35:10):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (35:11):
If and for so many of us, it's little things like
that.
You know, I I didn't murdersomeone and try to, you know,
lie about it.
No, it's these things.
SPEAKER_01 (35:19):
Dig a hole and bury them.
Have you ever have you everheard uh Nate Barkas?
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (35:23):
Just putt a leaf over it.
Um it's these little things, butman, it's it's that one thing,
you know, Jesus talks about howoh, what is it corrupts the
whole, a little bit of yeast?
It corrupts the whole thing.
You you get this little thing.
SPEAKER_01 (35:39):
A little bit of leaven.
SPEAKER_02 (35:40):
Yes, that's it.
I got it backwards.
Um it's these little things, butnow when someone says, Oh, your
husband liked that mirror, I sawhim get out of the garbage.
Well, when was that?
Oh, Thursday.
unknown (35:54):
Thursday.
SPEAKER_02 (35:56):
He said he was late because he was talking to
somebody.
SPEAKER_01 (35:58):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (36:00):
Well, what else is he not being truthful of?
Exactly.
And you have just opened up thiswhole thing.
Because if I couldn't trust you,what a little thing.
Yeah.
And I can't trust you that withthat.
How can I trust you with withanything else?
It's yeah, it it holdseverything together.
SPEAKER_01 (36:17):
And um, so how if you're living in lies, there's
somebody who knows.
The Holy Spirit is not gonna usethat against you.
He's gonna he'll give you aspanking every now and then.
But the truth is the enemy knowsyou're lying and he's gonna use
it against you.
(36:38):
Somehow, somehow, if the HolySpirit doesn't stop it,
somebody's gonna find out, andthen you're gonna have to deal
with that.
And we need to be uh the belt oftruth is first for a reason.
unknown (36:52):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (36:53):
And I just want everybody to know that we hear
that the belt of truth, huh?
Yeah, it's the truth of God'sword, and and we should tell the
truth, I guess.
All right, what's number two?
No, no, no, no, no.
This is the one that holds ittogether.
unknown (37:09):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (37:09):
If you're going into spirit if we weren't talking
about spiritual battle, it itwould probably be different.
But we're going into a spiritualbattle where there's beings that
can see your conduct, and youhave to be living a life of
integrity, or they will use itagainst you to destroy all your
relationships if they can.
(37:31):
So the belt of truth holdseverything together.
Number two, the breastplate ofrighteousness.
Christ's righteousness guardsour heart from guilt and shame.
We have uh the way we live theChristian life, and and I don't
know how it got like this, but Ican tell by reading through the
(37:56):
historic Christian church thatit's always been there.
It's always been there.
People dealing with guilt andshame.
Matter of fact, I saw that moviePaul that uh came out on Netflix
or whatever, and you know, hehad a a thorn in the side, he
called it.
He asked the Lord to take itaway, and and then the Lord
(38:18):
finally said, My grace issufficient for you, you're just
gonna have to live with it.
And some people say it was hiseyesight, some people say uh um
liver damage or whatever,whatever they say.
But in this movie, his thorn inthe side was remembering all the
(38:39):
families that he persecuted, putin prison, and that were
eventually killed.
And he could not it just hauntedhim.
And I don't know if that's trueor not, that's uh artistic
license there.
We don't know.
He didn't say what it was, wedon't know if it was eyesight or
anything like that.
But that guilt and shame thing,even in whenever that came out
(39:04):
2020 or whatever, um we're stillworried about it.
We're still dealing with ourguilt and shame.
But we are where in Christ'srighteousness, we don't
according to God, we don't haveany guilt and shame.
SPEAKER_02 (39:20):
You know, it makes me think of a a football team,
you know, and when you go outand you just you know, you start
the game, you're all kind offired up, you're ready to go,
and then they the other teamscores.
And then you go out, all right,we're gonna get this one back,
and you fumble.
And all of a sudden you look upand they're up three, four
(39:40):
touchdowns, and you just no.
How do you fight in thatposition?
Right.
When when you are just down andout mentally, you you you don't
play the same, you don't blockthe same way that you were
blocking.
You don't you don't run yourroutes as hard as you used to
run your routes.
(40:00):
Absolutely.
What's the point?
We're getting our butts kicked.
This is embarrassing.
And when you show up to fightthe Christian life every day
thinking, I suck.
Yeah, you know, I I can't getpast this thing, I can't let
that thing go.
Then you fight from a place ofweakness.
unknown (40:18):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (40:18):
And Jesus said, My my power, my strength is made
perfect in your weakness.
Let's go.
Right.
Let's go.
And you're like, Yeah, but doyou remember that time?
And it's like, I've forgiventhat.
I already paid for that.
Let's go.
But do you remember when?
Yeah, I mean, we just we keepbringing it up and it defeats
(40:40):
us, and it defeats us.
SPEAKER_01 (40:41):
It's not always us bringing it up either.
That's true.
We're getting help.
That's what we're talking aboutis this spiritual warfare that
we're in.
Now, the breastplate of therighteousness.
We don't have any guilt andshame.
Don't live in guilt and shame.
The other side of that isrighteousness matters.
I tell the forge, I must, I mustsay it once a month in there.
(41:04):
Righteousness, living arighteous life matters.
And we we a lot of people arejust, oh, we're free in grace.
We'll we'll do whatever we wantto do and ask God to forgive us
later.
No, you're in a battle.
And you are taking uh thebreastplate of righteousness off
(41:27):
and laying it on the ground,right?
You are vulnerable.
unknown (41:31):
Yep.
SPEAKER_02 (41:32):
I heard a pastor one time say, you know, God, God
saved you right where you're at.
He knew you wouldn't be perfect,he knew you'd never be perfect.
God's not waiting on you to beperfect, He's He'll save you.
And I'm like, well, that's true,but it's not the whole truth.
SPEAKER_01 (41:47):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (41:48):
Because Jesus Himself said, Be perfect as your
Father in heaven is perfect.
SPEAKER_01 (41:52):
Righteousness.
SPEAKER_02 (41:53):
Righteousness matters.
I we all the way back at David.
I'm not looking for thesacrifice.
I want your obedience more thanyour sacrifice.
Obey me.
Obedience and righteousnessmatters.
It matters in your life, mattersin the Christian life, following
Jesus.
And if you're gonna fight inthis battle, yes, why would you
(42:14):
willingly take off thebreastplate of righteousness,
the thing that's supposed toprotect your chest?
I mean, your heart is here.
Right.
And you lay it on the ground.
I mean, yeah, you're completelyopen, you're exposed, you're
vulnerable.
All because you want to engagein these things, um,
righteousness matters.
SPEAKER_01 (42:33):
If you have come to Christianity lately, um, I need
to explain this a little bitbecause uh the word righteous,
righteousness andunrighteousness has migrated.
That happens in languages, wedon't use the same term.
Uh now, if you get a moderntranslation, when it used to say
(42:55):
in English, righteous orunrighteous, now they use the
term wickedness.
And the reason they do that isbecause righteous and
unrighteous has turned intochurch things.
So when you hear that churchword righteousness, uh, you're
thinking about, oh, he goes tochurch and you know, he he takes
(43:19):
communion and and all that kindof stuff.
He's doing church stuff.
That's what righteousness is,doing church stuff.
No, no, no, no, no.
What these what this term is isunrighteousness is wickedness,
is being wicked, andrighteousness matters.
Hey, you know what we're we livein a society of cowboys, and I
(43:42):
was listening to um Forrest Hageuh teach um about the church
last night, and he had this hehad this great illustration, but
it's it's who we are in theUnited States.
He said we're not cowboys, we'reshepherds.
(44:05):
Shepherds don't want to kill andeat the sheep.
They'll kill and eat them whenthey get old enough and they
they're not growing the wool,but they want to keep them alive
and healthy and do the best theycan for them so they can give
wool every year as as much as hecan.
Cowboys, they don't shepherd,they drive the cattle to the
(44:28):
slaughter.
And he said, that's how weapproach church in um the West.
You know, we're cowboys, we'reindependent.
I don't have to go to churchthere.
I can worship God in the woodsand all that kind.
That's cowboyism in church.
We're supposed to be shepherds,which is completely different on
(44:49):
how you view your church.
Isn't that great?
And that comes right into thisrighteousness.
Who are you going to be?
Because if you don't chooserighteousness, your enemy is
going to use that against you.
SPEAKER_02 (45:06):
That's right.
That's right.
SPEAKER_01 (45:09):
So are we going on to the next one?
Number three.
Number three.
SPEAKER_02 (45:13):
It's a good thing you didn't try to fit this in on
Sunday.
SPEAKER_01 (45:15):
I know.
I know.
Well, I put these little caveatsto get me talking about them.
I'm realizing right now they'dhave been there forever.
There's so much here.
Then the shoes of the gospel ofpeace.
And that, first of all, that'sthe readiness to share the
gospel, but it's also stablefooting.
(45:37):
And we're talking about uh guiltand shame on righteousness, but
this is simply I have peace withGod.
What are you gonna do?
I know where I'm going.
Uh if you kill me, thank you.
If you beat me, I can take thatsuffering and offer it to
Christ.
(45:58):
Let's go.
You know, you have peace withGod.
And suddenly you're not afraidof anything.
So I love that.
SPEAKER_02 (46:08):
Sorry for all my sports illustrations, but here
we go.
You know, when when you havewhen you're down and out, and
then you get to halftime andyour coach comes and he gives
that speech, I still believe inyou, we still got this, and
you've seen it, they go out andthey turn around, second half,
come back, it's someunbelievable comeback story, and
you all started with some guywho said, I believe in you.
(46:30):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, when you have peace withGod and you can fight from a
position of strength, and you'renot constantly carrying around
that shame and guilt, oh mygosh, man, you're free to live
the life that God created you tolive.
And in part of that, the biggestpart of that, like going out and
bringing others in.
(46:51):
You know, I mean, we are on thisrescue mission.
There is a world who is who isperishing apart from Christ.
And we have been sent and calledout into that world to go into
all the world and makedisciples.
That's who, if you're a followerof Jesus, who you that's your
marching orders, it's who you'recalled to be.
(47:11):
And we go out, you can havepeace with God.
This this rebellion, thisanonymity that that exists now,
He's taking care of it all.
You can have peace with God, Hecan forgive you and set you free
from that guilt and that shame.
Man, what an incredible message.
Um, and and we're called to goout and bring that everywhere we
(47:33):
go.
How beautiful are the feet ofthose who bring the good news.
Amen.
Amen.
SPEAKER_01 (47:37):
Then there's the shield of faith.
I'm moving on because I justlooked at my watch.
We gotta go.
Uh, shield of faith.
Um your trust in God that He isnot gonna leave you out there
without artillery and air coverand and reinforcements.
(47:58):
We we need to use that shield offaith to quench the fiery dark
darts of doubt and accusation.
Because Satan is gonna come atyou with those things and you
need to believe to fight those.
SPEAKER_02 (48:13):
What does scripture call them?
The accuser of the brethren.
Right.
Um, and here's here's how why Ilove how Paul words this here,
because we think of the shieldas just something I stand
behind.
It's a very passive sort ofthing.
Right.
Um, it's a noun.
But he says, this shield offaith, which you can use to
extinguish all the flamingarrows of it, is a verb.
(48:37):
This thing has it has purpose.
I'm not just sitting here hidingbehind the my faith.
No, my faith is action, it doessomething, and it it takes those
accusations, it takes thosedarts, those um arrows that the
enemy slings at me and itextinguishes them.
No, my God is already takingcare of that.
Yeah, there is no condemnationbecause I'm in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01 (49:00):
In video games, it's called a shield bash.
unknown (49:03):
Nice.
SPEAKER_02 (49:04):
I I don't I can't relate to that.
SPEAKER_01 (49:06):
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (49:07):
Someone out there, I'm sure, is like, yes, I got
it.
SPEAKER_01 (49:10):
In the ancient sport of something, it's shield bash
there.
That works for you.
I love that because wouldn't,you know, we we take that the
idea that I believe in Jesus umas a a passive thing, that it
doesn't it doesn't do anythingmore.
Oh my gosh.
Oh, yes, it does.
(49:31):
Right.
It means you can stick yourbelief out and run right through
the enemy lines and they can'tdo anything about it.
So I love that too.
And then the helmet ofsalvation, that's your assurance
of who you are.
You know, you put that on and itprotects your mind from
condemnation, you know, itprotects your mind from shame
(49:51):
and guilt.
It it protect it's always onyour head, so you always know
it's you can't get used to it,you know, because you're you're
always thinking, I'm saved.
unknown (50:04):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (50:05):
I am his son, his daughter.
He's not gonna leave me out herealone.
SPEAKER_02 (50:10):
Well, and you know, the the helmet protects our
brain, protects our minds, youknow.
Um, and Paul, he he talks aboutdon't be conform to the patterns
of this world, but betransformed by the renewing of
your mind.
Um, this helmet of salvation isthe thing that protects that,
that that constantly um keeps ussafe from from those lies and
the patterns, the deceitfulnessof the world.
SPEAKER_01 (50:33):
And I'm moving on to verse 17.
Sorry guys, we we got hung up onthe first two.
Yeah, we get we're flying now.
Sword of the Spirit, the word ofGod.
Um, it's an offensive weapon tostrike down deception.
Jesus used it just like we'resupposed to.
Satan came to him and actuallyquoted scripture at Jesus, and
(50:55):
Jesus said, Oh, I'm sorry.
You misunderstood that.
This is what it meant in thisscripture.
And Jesus used the sword of the,the word of God, the sword of
the Spirit, to knock down umthese different deceptions that
are sent to us that sound good,you know, but we got to lean
(51:18):
back on scripture and say, ohno, I'm not falling into that
mess.
I already know the truth.
Here it is.
And you cut those web of liesdown.
And there's so many falseteachers out there today who's
trying to, I don't know, buildtheir own kingdom.
I don't know what they're tryingto do.
But they're under the influenceof your enemy.
(51:38):
And you need to know the word ofGod so you can know the truth
and let it set you free.
unknown (51:44):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (51:44):
And not even just within the church.
I mean, there's in our cultureand society and academia, you
know, there there is all kindsof people trying to to establish
all things as truth.
And it is the word of God thathelps us cut through those
things.
What is truth?
Your word is truth.
Um, and it's the thing that thatpierces between joint and
(52:04):
marrow.
It is alive and it is active.
I tell people all the time, youknow, what do you think about
and insert any hot topic there?
And I tell them all, you don'tneed to hear my opinion on that,
because my opinion doesn'tmatter.
God has already said.
He's already said, He's alreadydecided.
So I I go with him.
Yeah, but what do you think?
I think what he thinks.
(52:25):
Right?
And because if I don't, thenthere's a problem, and I have to
realign.
That's that, you know, beingtransformed by the renewing of
your mind.
And and parents, especially, youneed to model this for your
kids.
When they come home and they askyou, well, you know, we were
talking about this in classtoday, or man, I was out at the
mall or Crocker Park and I sawthis.
You know, what it what don'tgive them your opinion.
(52:46):
Yeah.
Don't just, don't even just tellthem what the Christian belief
on that is.
Open God's word and show themwhat it looks like to take the
topics and ideas of our day andgo to God's word to see what God
has said about those things.
We need, we need to model thatfor our kids.
This is the sword of the spirit.
(53:08):
It is, it's the thing that cutsthrough all the lies.
SPEAKER_01 (53:10):
When you come up on a baptism and you're identifying
yourself with Christ, you needto know that that means there's
no qualifiers in that.
You know?
If someone comes to you andsays, Are you a conservative
Christian?
Don't you dare say yes.
There's no qualifiers on Christ.
He is your identity.
unknown (53:31):
That's right.
SPEAKER_01 (53:32):
No, I'm a Christian who happens to be conservative.
Because if you say you're aconservative Christian,
conservatism comes first and itforces Christ into it.
So there's no liberal Christian,there's no left-leaning
Christian.
(53:53):
As soon as you say that, as soonas you accept that, then Christ
is not your identity.
And that's not truth.
You can't live in that, andthat's a whole nother
conversation.
So let's keep going.
Okay, so number six, that seemsto stop talking about the
warfare stuff.
And I think people make a hugemistake when they do that
because number seven, Paul isnot done writing.
(54:15):
He's still writing.
He says, pray at all times,being a constant attitude of
prayer.
My dad was talking to the Lordall the time, and I didn't I
didn't know who was talking towho.
And um, he would say somethingto me, and I'd just be quiet,
and he goes, Hey, are youlistening to me?
And oh, were you talking to me?
(54:37):
Yeah, yeah.
And and other times I'd say,What was that dad?
I'm not talking to you.
You know, and so it was can youplease distinguish who you're in
the middle of a conversationwith?
But I love that because we needto be in a constant attitude of
prayer, spirit-led prayer, andthat sustains all of the armor
in battle.
SPEAKER_02 (54:56):
Yeah, you've you've given this illustration before.
You know, when we open our eyesin the morning, it should be
dear heavenly father, and whenwe close them before we go to
bed, it should be in Jesus'name, amen.
Absolutely.
Live our life in a constantstate of prayer.
Man, one of the my kids havemodeled this so well because you
know, if we're driving down theroad and an ambulance passes by
or um a fire truck, um, they'lljust, hey, something's going on.
(55:21):
We need to pray for thosepeople.
And they'll write in the middleof the car and write, I mean,
we'll be singing or tellingstories, talking about our
school day, whatever.
And it's full on stop.
We got to pray right now.
And man, I love seeing that inthem.
And that's that's who we'resupposed to be.
SPEAKER_01 (55:37):
And that leads us right into number eight.
He says, stay alert.
You know, most people wouldn'teven see that ambulance, other
than the fact that, no, crap, Igotta slow down, you know.
Spiritual vigilance is soimportant.
You're watching for enemytactics and you're watching for
your opportunity to attack.
(55:57):
And there, your kids saw thatopportunity.
Hey, we can pray for them.
Satan wants their destruction.
Let's pray for their salvation,whatever's going on.
So uh that's number eight.
Number nine, intercede for allthe saints.
This is being a good buddy inthe foxhole.
I think uh we think about thechurch, we think about our
(56:21):
church.
We think about Christians, wethink about our friends in
church.
You know, we don't think aboutwhat's going on uh in Nigeria.
Finally, uh President Trump hassaid, this is getting ridiculous
over there.
You guys better knock it off orI'll knock it off, uh, which is
(56:42):
something that the UN issupposed to handle.
And they haven't they haven'tdone anything.
They're killing Christians leftand right.
And uh it's become a game forthe for the enemy.
So uh persistent prayer for thewhole church unites and
strengthens the whole body allacross the planet, and we need
(57:03):
to pray for them.
Yeah, but I I don't know theirname, and I like to be specific.
Okay, be as specific as you can.
I pray for the ChineseChristians, or I pray for that
hemisphere's Christians, but youneed to pray.
Yeah, prayer still changesthings, people.
Yep.
SPEAKER_02 (57:21):
We are we are in lockstep and arms-linked with
with believers all over theworld.
Um and you know, it's one of thethings that that we try to to
preach here all the time iswe're not in competition with
other churches.
We want other churches tosucceed.
It's not those Christians orthat church versus our church.
(57:42):
No.
Um we need to be praying,especially for for those who are
being persecuted.
Um, you know, at the women'sconference they uh supported the
voice of the martyrs.
Um and that is an organizationwho is all about trying to
provide um resources forpersecuted Christians around the
world and give them some of thethings that they need to try to
(58:05):
survive and live.
We need to be praying for thosepeople.
Um, pray for the missionarieswho are right now going into
some of the darkest places inthe world to try to share the
the light of Christ.
We don't even think about thosethings.
We're trying to, you know, Lord,you know, our benefits are being
cut off and there's gonna behungry people here, and we need
to be praying about that.
Right.
But in the midst of all that, wewe forget there are people out
(58:28):
there who are, I mean, lit everyday laying down themselves to go
put themselves on the line justto share the gospel with one
more person.
Um, don't don't forget aboutthem.
SPEAKER_01 (58:39):
Yeah, and and Paul put that in there for a reason,
guys.
This is this is how you getprepared to stand and then you
stand.
unknown (58:49):
That's right.
SPEAKER_01 (58:50):
You can't leave those last three off because he
put it in there uh in the sameconversation.
So a lot of people ask me, andwe'll wrap up with this, is
well, how do you put on the beltof truth?
How do you put on thebreastplate of righteousness?
Well, you do it in faith.
My dad used to pray everymorning.
(59:10):
In Jesus' name, I put on thebelt of truth.
I strap on my breastplate ofrighteousness, and I put on the
shoes of the gospel of peace.
And he would just pray throughit and he would declare it.
Because these are declarations.
You don't have to pray for thatto happen and wait for an
answer.
God's like, You want thebreastplate of righteousness?
(59:32):
WHAM! Done.
So these are declarations, andhe would pray it every day.
He had every day, and he'd leavethe house praying.
SPEAKER_02 (59:41):
I would say this pray it in faith and then live
like it's true.
SPEAKER_01 (59:45):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02 (59:46):
You know, I got the bell of truth on, I'm gonna live
that way.
I have the breastplate ofrighteousness on, so I'm gonna
live that way.
I uh can I get engaged in thissin?
No.
Why?
Well, I got his righteousness onme, I can't do that.
Um When you walk into asituation and it's chaotic, man,
I'm walking in with the shoesapiece.
Absolutely.
Live like it.
You put it on in faith and youlive like it's true.
SPEAKER_01 (01:00:09):
That's great.
Why don't you pray for us?
SPEAKER_02 (01:00:12):
Father, I thank you so much.
Um again for what we got tocelebrate on uh Sunday.
All these people um saying Iidentify with Jesus and
following you in baptism, Lord,we celebrate we celebrate their
decision.
And Father, I pray that youwould protect each and every one
of them as they step into thisnew life um of of obedience and
just following you.
(01:00:33):
And uh Lord, I I pray that thiswould just be the first step of
many um as as they uh they learnto uh to discover more in
Christ.
Amen.
And uh Father, I uh the thingsthat we talked about today,
these are these are big things,they're heavy things, they're
things that we'd we'd ratherignore and just go on about our
day.
Um but Father, you have you havecalled us to engage in this
(01:00:54):
thing.
And I and Lord, we don't wantpeople to be afraid.
Um we know you've already wonthe battle.
Amen.
We know that none of this isoutside of your purview or
control, that you are stillseated on the throne.
And Lord, we thank you for allof that.
And then, Father, I'm justasking that you would help
prepare and equip us to be thepeople you've called us to be.
We want to be people who walk inpeace, who who have the belt of
(01:01:17):
truth that holds all of thesethings together, who have the
breastplate of righteousness,the helmet of salvation to to
protect our minds.
God, we want to live like thesethings are true.
And so in faith, help us to puton the whole armor of God every
day and live like it's a realitybecause it is.
You've done it for us.
And then, Father, we we don'twant to forget these last
(01:01:37):
things.
Let us be the kind of people whopray at all times, who stay
alert, who intercede for ourbrothers and sisters here and
all over the world, knowing thatwhen the church is strong,
Father, we can push back againstthe darkness.
We are not a passiveorganization, Father.
We're storming the gates ofhell.
And we want to be that church inJesus' name.
Amen.
Amen and amen.
SPEAKER_00 (01:01:57):
Thanks again for joining us for this episode of
the Midweek Podcast.
We'd love to hear from you.
Let us know how God is usingthis resource in your life or
send any podcast questions ortopic ideas to podcast at a
freshwind.org.
If you would like to supportthis ministry financially and
help us continue offering newresources that equip you to
discover more in Christ, simplytext any amount to the number
(01:02:20):
84321.
We're so grateful for yoursupport.
Make sure to tune in next weekfor a brand new episode of the
Midweek Podcast.
Be blessed and have a greatweek.
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