Angels, Demons & You [Unclean Spirits]

we have upgraded wednesday night so that it is an opportunity for the entire family really to give you an alternative to the weekend schedules are busy and i know this time of year there are many choices available and i think we think it is so important that the children not miss out on the the messaging that comes from church and scripture and faith that we wanted them to have those options even in the midst of your busy schedules so and once upon a time i imagine there were lots of sources that that gave the children and the young people a biblical worldview schools did and a lot of the media did and but that's not really nearly as much the case any longer and so the opportunities we have around church are of greater value so parents i want to commend you if you're here tonight so your children can be there i think that is a prudent investment in their future we can't replace your faith in their lives but we certainly can partner with you as you endeavor to raise those godly young folks amen you know historically revivals usually begin in the younger people they're far more receptive to change revolutions usually start with younger people because they're more easily manipulated towards dissatisfaction but it's equally true that the spirit of god stirs the hearts of young people so i'm believing we're going to have a jesus revolution hallelujah i know you know we're not passing offering plates just yet but we are doing an offering prayer every service it's important one to recognize god as our source because we are in a turbulent world and if you think there is stability because your little circle is flourishing right now it's deception folks the world around us is in turmoil and i'm grateful for the blessings of god but our only stability comes from him but for our prayer tonight i'd like to ask you to join me in praying for the people in afghanistan i don't want to talk about it too much i'll get agitated at the moment there are thousands of americans there without a clear plan of exit and that is not a good place to be the taliban is is not peaceful there may be some segments of islam that is peaceful but the taliban would not be one of those and the remainder of the muslim world is not coming to the aid of those people there that are threatened and our own government doesn't seem to have planned very well for this eventuality i've had multiple messages this week that there are christians there that are under great threat and if they're found and identified as christians they'll be executed and it won't be long before the world will turn their attention away from what's happening there and that's when those people will be most vulnerable the new cycle has to move but we need to pray for those people and then you need to pray for the afghani people in general well the taliban is brutal and oppressive please don't be confused it's been fashionable for quite a while now to to talk about our nation and how oppressive we are and there are things in our nation that certainly need attention but folks we celebrate other places in the world that are cruel you know that women under the taliban can't even choose their own wardrobe they can't even choose the clothing they're going to wear they have to wear the burqa a woman was murdered in the street this week for being inappropriately attired the women can't drive they can't be employed their education is limited to the eighth grade they can't go beyond that they can't be in public without a male escort that's tonight the ground floor windows are painted over so women can't be seen from the street they're not allowed on the radio or the television they're limited to their ability to be in a public gathering women can't ride in a taxi buses are segregated between men and women they have little recourse when they suffer abuse from a husband or another male figure i saw one statistic that said 97 percent of the women in afghanistan suffer from depression and under taliban rule they face public floggings and public executions they are worth the investment of our prayers and we have got to be delivered from our selfishness we we have to have an attitude change that we have flaws and things where we need god's help but we better find a way to be thankful for the freedoms and liberties we have but i think tonight we need to pray for those americans that are trapped abandoned there we worked through the weekend trying to help some people that we had connections with find a way out and it was a moment by moment i mean they were beaten this is not something reported to me by some third party it's a very very very difficult place and i get upset because of the traffic on highway 99 i repent and i'm sure i will again but i'll repent again why don't you stand with me can we pray with compassion for those people tonight i got a message at one point over the weekend we're hiding in a ditch we don't know if we can get through to the airport there's gunfire and i thought you know my big concern on sunday was what was i going to eat after church so i think sometimes we're so blessed we lose sight of how the rest of the world lives and it's not limited to afghanistan we had a message from south africa they said it seems probable there's going to be another wave of of riots and unrest so it's it's almost any place you put your finger on the globe father i thank you for our freedoms and liberties lord we have so much we have so much and yet we are so easily discontented i ask for you to be merciful to us but we stand tonight tonight in agreement for those people in afghanistan that are trying to find an exit strategy i pray you will open doors and win those in ways of possibility for those tonight that are terrified and frightened and threatened lord i pray you'll send your angels to stand guard around them i pray for those in our nation that have authority and influence and the ability to to bring relief that their hearts will be moved with compassion and they'll be willing to make the efforts to see that those people have a way out when we pray for that nation i pray that they wouldn't descend into brutality and murder and hate and darkness but let your light come there forgive us when we for when we have not believed that jesus truly does change lives forgive us when we've imagined that governments are more powerful than the blood of jesus teach us to fear you and honor you and revere you may we be willing to yield to you more fully than we ever have before and i thank you that we will celebrate the deliverance of those people there tonight in jesus name amen hallelujah you may have a seat i hope you got an outline when you came in if you're here on campus if you're joining us online you can download one from the app or the website the font's big enough tonight you can read it without borrowing somebody's readers we're going to continue our study on angels demons and you the and you part is the important piece i really have no interest in doing theoretical discussions or historical discussions or or abstract theological discussions i think the goal is to understand how the scripture impacts our lives and the choices we can make to give it greater authority in us and i have truly enjoyed the the sessions and the time i've had focused on the angels it's broadened my hope and my mind and my awareness of their role just the magnitude the number of angels involved with us you know jesus said he could call as many as 12 legions of angels and three to six thousands of legions so there could be as many as 70 000 or more just to sign to help jesus in one snapshot in the book of revelation there was a hundred million just one picture 100 million angels it says that the angels of the children have the father's attention so there's an angel attached to each child the numbers are getting up there and there's mighty angels and strong angels and powerful angels and angels with assignments to various regions of the earth and various groups of people in the earth i have no doubt there's a myriad of angels around us and with us tonight hallelujah now they're not there as some abstract ethereal creation of god the father they're there because we need them god is practical i've come to unders at least i've come to the conclusion in my life that that god is imminently more practical than i would ever be and if those angels are there if there are angels in that number in that quantity and they're ministering spirits to help us their messengers on our behalf it's because we have a need and i want to take a session or two or three and look at the reason why we need that help i don't want to glorify it i don't want to draw unnecessary attention to it but to be aware of the angels and not be aware of what they're standing against seems amazingly naive to me now it's a bit more fashionable to believe in angels than it is to believe in the devil and demons if you say you believe in angels you're kind of cool you can find pretty secular people to go oh yeah i believe in angels they'll take their pictures with them and or pictures of them maybe with them but if you tell them you believe in the devil and neiman's they're going to you're one of those people well as a matter of fact i am and so i want to start this evening we're going to start to unpack some of this by looking at unclean spirits and see if we can learn a little bit about what that means and the attitude and the posture that we'll need to hold in order to be triumphant in the roles we're asked to and i couldn't think of a better place to start than with jesus ministry in mark chapter 1 that's very near the beginning of mark and mark was the first of the gospels that we have the scholars pretty much universally agree that matthew and luke had mark when they wrote their gospels one of the sources that they had available to them and so they told some of the story that mark didn't tell mark is the shortest of the four gospels but i don't believe it's accidental that in mark the the first of the gospels that we have that's remains in the very first chapter mark begins with an account of a man who was demonized it was a very prominent part of jesus ministry and before we get too deep into this study and you're trying to make a decision what you're going to believe and not believe i would point out to you that jesus not only believed in he addressed demons now if jesus believed in then i'm just going to climb out on a limb and say maybe just on an outside chance we should if jesus imagined that they influenced people and an impact in his world enough that he spent time and energy and teaching around them that perhaps you and i should create some space in our own discipleship journey for an imagination of the role of demonic activity and how we would respond to it i don't want you to be frightened or weird or strange i've told you many times strange is not spiritual strange is just strange if you think acting weird makes you spiritual you're confused mark chapter 1 verse 21 they went into capernaum capernaum when jesus began his public ministry he moved from nazareth a little village in the hills of galilee to capernaum of a fishing village on the north end of the sea of galilee the sea of galilee is the largest freshwater resource in the region and thereby it's located on a major ancient highway so if you had a message that you wanted to communicate the greatest the most valuable resource in the middle east is fresh water and you'd want to locate on a busy road and that's exactly where jesus went so it's not surprising that his message is going to spread very rapidly but he begins in capernaum it says immediately on the sabbath he entered the synagogue and he began to teach they were amazed at his teaching for he was teaching them as one having authority and not as the scribes there's a difference in talking about scripture and talking as if scripture impacted our lives and if you spent your life talking about scripture and studying about the bible i would invite you to a new position to begin to think about the bible as if it impacted your life it's the difference in reading a cookbook and having a meal verse 23 just then there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit and he cried out saying what business do we have with each other jesus of nazareth you come to have you come to destroy us i know who you are the holy one of god and jesus rebuked him be quiet and come out of him and throwing him into convulsions the unclean spirit cried out with a loud voice and came out of him they were all amazed so that they debated among themselves saying what is this a new teaching with authority he commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him immediately the news about him spread everywhere into all the surrounding district of galilee it's an intriguing introduction to me before jesus begins a healing ministry before he's prayed for the sick he helps a man be set free from a demonic influence just a little bit of of definition that passage is taken from the new american standard now i preferred it because in verse 23 it says there was a man in the synagogue with an unclean spirit two or three words that are used interchangeably in the new testament unclean spirit evil spirit or demon or demonic spirit they're synonymous they refer to the same thing the king james put in play a definition that isn't helpful that it's been carried forward into some of the modern translations the new international version in that verse says there was a man there possessed with an unclean spirit in the new american standard it says there was a man with an unclean spirit i think the word possessed is inconsistent with the meaning of the original language because possession connotes the idea that you are controlled by dominated by under the total influence of i think a more accurate representation of what the language means is that there was a person there who was demonized and that's perfectly consistent with the original language there was a man there influenced by an unclean spirit by an evil spirit by a demonic spirit it's a point that i'm going to ask you i've been asking you with me for several sessions now to to consider the influence of angels they're not there in the abstract they're there because there's a spiritual conflict we'll look more at that but you know in this particular scenario there's a demonized man present in the synagogue so there's some things we can deduce from that he's a religious man he's a he's to some extent a faithful man he's in the synagogue on the sabbath he wasn't windsurfing on the lake he is a man living under the provisions of the all the covenant that's available to him he is an observant jewish man that's the only covenant available to him and even with that he is subject to subjected to demonic influence we would like to pretend that because we're christian we're not subjected to those influences that i'm going to submit to you we'll look at it in several other places that's not a biblical perspective so we start with that it's a demonized man present in the synagogue and the unclean spirit says to jesus what business do we have with each other jesus of nazareth have you come to destroy us i know who you are you're the holy one of god well there's not going to be an announcement of jesus who jesus is by any of his disciples for quite some time yet months and months and months nobody really knows who he is they may know the village from which he's came come but that's about as far as his his the insight has been gathered this unclean spirit has an understanding of jesus that the rabbi doesn't have that his new disciples don't have nobody has yet so the spiritual influences around us have some insight and understanding and awareness that we may not have not in my opinion it's biblical it's important i think to note that the unclean spirit is antagonistic to jesus the nature of the interaction is one of antagonism and i think we have to recognize there are spiritual forces in the earth active in the earth that stand in opposition to the purposes of god in your life you need not only an awareness of that you need to have some sort of an intentional way to respond to that in the same way we understand there are viral or bacterial threats to our well-being god designs you with a very elaborate immune system many layers many many it's amazing the effectiveness of your immune system what it helps you overcome and and and the the the challenges you face that you never know about but occasionally through some weakness or opening in your immune system a bacteria or a virus or something else will impact your physical health and well-being and then you need a plan on how to overcome that well in a similar way you have a spiritual immune system and if you give attention to it and watch over it it's a remarkable does a remarkable job of protecting you from any number of things but in the same way all of us know what it is to be sick all of us are subject to the influences of unclean spirits and we need a plan for that the same way you have a plan for staying healthy wash your hands don't hug strangers and you we've been learning a lot of lessons lately right three masks it's equally clear that this unclean spirit torments this man the man that's demonized we've talked a good deal about angels lately and we've said that they're ministering spirits sent here to help us they're messengers to help us understand god's perspective with greater clarity and we've looked at multiple examples where angels have have taken roles in the lives of individuals and brought them to points that brought strength or encouragement or hope well in the same way we have need to have clarity on the impact of these unclean spirits they come to torment to diminish to humiliate to destroy it's why it's not a casual thing it's why you can't afford to go just i just don't believe in that that would be if it were effective it'd be just wonderful i just don't believe in colvin that's goofy it's real you better have a plan for it and i also think in this passage we can see that the unclean spirit responds when there's an authority present greater than itself i know who you are i know who you are and when jesus says you've got to go he understood he had to leave he didn't like it the spirit didn't like it it objected and it didn't leave without adding some further humiliation to the man but it left so i'm going to suggest to you that it's worth the time and effort to at least pay attention to what the scripture tells us about these unclean spirits because we as we approach the end of the age the bible is clear it tells us that there will be uh unprecedented activity amongst those unclean spirits because our adversary knows they're coming towards the end of their time and there's a sense of desperation football season's not far away and the last two minutes of a football game take longer than the the whole previous part of the half right you've been waiting on somebody to get done with the ball game they say oh there's just two minutes left you know you've got time to bathe and shave and bathe the children because there's an intensity that comes in those last two minutes everything that happens becomes important and the end of the age will be like that there's a heightened significance to everything that happens because everything is coming to a culmination i think that's why god has begun preparing us with the shaking to get our attention to to teach us to refocus to to understand where our true security is to reimagine our lives a little bit not as a threat not as punishment to help us develop the strength we're having to learn how to stand in ways we've never had to stand before we've imagined that our futures could be secured by the bill of rights or constitution or truth or all sorts of things that seem to have been called into question and we're having to learn to stand and trust god for our futures and it's awkward and uncomfortable and some are trying to ignore it and some are just whistling as if it weren't happening and some are learning to stand that's the point of this study is that we will all come through this and understand the nature of what we are walking through where our where we have adversaries and where we have resources i would submit we've got two primary choices it's not really complex i'm a simple guy i like things to be as simple as they can and you have a choice you can be an overcomer or you're going to be overcome and i don't understand from scripture that there's a third option there's not like a neutral place romans 12 and verse 21 says do not be overcome by evil okay but it doesn't stop there it says overcome evil with good so overcoming is not just hanging on it's not just an endurance contest overcoming means we intend to overcome evil it's not that we just resist evil please we've got to expand our definition to be an overcomer means we're going to overcome evil so we talk about standing standing is not just defensive it's not just a an endurance contest it's not just about perseverance you know when the bible says that jesus said i'll build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it it's a little blind to us but in the first century the most common form of warfare was siege warfare important cities were defended by walls they would literally build enormous stone walls to protect them from invading armies so when there was a threat you'd lock the gates of the city and they would typically try to have a water source that was protected some of the most interesting archaeological discoveries or how the the cities in antiquity would would protect or hide their water sources because if you could cut off the water source you could obviously cause a city that was closed up to capitulate so jesus said i'm going to build my church and the gates of hell won't prevail against it well the most vulnerable part of a walled city is the gates the gates are typically made of wood you can set fire to them you can batter them with a battering ram when you could breach the gates you could overcome the city so when jesus said again i'm going to build my church and the gates of hell won't prevail against it he didn't describe for us a church that is besieged he described the church that is assertive that hell is withstanding the assault of the church we need an emotional change a heart change a change in our thoughts we're not just hanging on against the forces of evil there's an innumerable company of angels at work on our behalf and jesus said the gates of hell won't prevail against the church so in romans now it says don't be overcome by evil overcome evil but not with politicians or political parties or ideologies overcome evil with good. now that's going to take us right back to god because he's the only one that's good but i want you to understand the nature of this conflict so you don't get frightened or threatened you shouldn't be arrogant you're no match for the devil don't be flippant about that the book is filled with stories of our heroes and the the adversary was pretty good at tripping them up if you can't remember think of ishmael or moses the murderer or david the the adulterer we can go on and on so it's not something flippant that we're going to be overcomers or we're going to be overcome and i think it's worth noting when the book of revelation is written we just looked at that so i went back to that it it begins in those first three chapters with letters to these seven churches in asia minor modern day turkey and the message is similar to each church there's a diagnosis of their condition a remedy for where there are weaknesses and then instructions given on how to finish their course revelation 2 7 he who hasn't earlier to hear what the spirit says to the churches to him who overcomes i'll give the right to eat from the tree of life verse 11 he who has an ear let him hear what the spirit says to the church is he who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death verse 17 he who has an ear let him hear what the spirit says to the churches to him who overcomes i'll give some of the hidden manna verse 26 to him who overcomes and does my will to the end i'll give authority over the nations what's the one consistent prerequisite being an overcomer now i think in contemporary christianity we would we would rather be overlookers than overcomers overcoming suggest engagement acknowledgement recognition skin in the game overlookers is more of the ostrich approach hear no evil see no evil do no evil one of the challenges we face right now in our culture is because truth has fallen in the street to borrow the words of the prophet isaiah you know truth is just not held in high esteem there's a battle raging it's a spiritual battle underneath the surface but because of that we'll find very influential people make a presentation a speech or a report that is absolutely fabricated and then there will be an almost innumerable group of people going oh that was wonderful it's like the emperor's new clothes right it's it's overlooking it's overlooking the truth is inconvenient the truth is uncomfortable the truth is awkward so don't ask let's not talk about it but what we're called to be is overcomers which means we have to have an accurate diagnosis we have to be willing to look at the truth we have to begin by telling the truth about ourselves and acknowledging the place where we are we're going to look at some resolutions for that but don't avoid the challenges you have the temptations you face the the places where you're emotionally struggle or where your thought life is is not easy we've got to tell the truth because if we acknowledge our reality we can overcome it we can repent we can forgive we can choose a new path but if we just choose to be overlookers we remove ourselves completely from the arena i think if we choose to be overlookers we become like that unfaithful servant that buried his talents or we become like the the the bridesmaids waiting for the bridegroom and they're not prepared clearly the assignment is to be an overcomer it's not a passive response to life so we've got to find a way into the arena and i want to use one example i think most of you are familiar with the apostle paul i think all of us could agree to one he had a relatively effective run as a servant of jesus i hope two millennia after you're gone that your faith is still impacting the world i mean paul's still rattling the world didn't he so i think we could agree he had a pretty good run i mean he had kind of a bumpy beginning well second timothy chapter four is very near the end of paul's life the best we know from our biblical and historical records he's already been on trial for his life once and he narrowly escaped condemnation to death and he's anticipating he's awaiting his second trial so the outcome seems almost a foregone conclusion it's not delivered to us in scripture but it seems to be apparent and he writes this letter from a roman jail cell in rome to timothy a young man that he has mentored and it's the circumstances he's in that i want to draw your attention to because by every by every secular evaluation he's an abject failure and one of the things we're going to have to address as we walk through this spiritual conflict is who you're allowing to define what sex what success is for your life what's the standard you're using because if your standard is the same as the secular world if your standard of success is not distinguishable from the standard that somebody uses who pays no attention to the lord you have a problem it'll lead you into some destructive choices and paul by almost every professional evaluation is just not doing well do your best to come to me quickly i'm in prison by the way for demas because he loved this world has deserted me and he's gone to thessalonica so his leadership's a little squishy he can't even keep his team together crescens has gone to galatia and titus to dalmatia only luke is with me get mark and bring him with you because he's helpful to me in my ministry i sent tychicus to ephesus if you can say that three times really rapidly when you come bring the cloak that i left with corpus at troas and my scrolls especially the parchments it gets emotional to me when i read this every time you know tell me that you need to get here in a hurry and bring my coat i'm cold i think of the people who have mentored me in my life who've spoken into my spiritual life and its development if i got a text message from one of them said could you hurry to where i'm at i'm cold and i'm hungry and there's nobody to help me i know what that would stir on the inside of me bring my coat bring my laptop i need my parchments then 14. alexander the metal worker did me a great deal of harm the lord will repay him for what he's done but you too should be on your guard against him because he strongly opposed our message in my first defense when i stood before caesar the first time when i stood in the dock and my life was in the balance he said no one came to my support everyone deserted me he's in rome there's a church in rome there are believers in rome but paul is toxic he's been victimized by the cancel culture nobody wants to stand next to him he's out there on the end of the plank by himself timothy could you hurry last time i had to stand in that public dock nobody stood with me may it not be held against them but the lord stood at my side and he gave me strength who do you think was standing at his side some contingent of the heavenly host i don't know if it was the same angel that strengthened elijah in the desert cooked him a meal and said you're going to need this i don't know if it was the same angel that spoke to him when he was on board that ship when the the ship was about to be destroyed and said you're going to make it to rome but god sent messengers to strengthen him so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the gentiles might hear it i was delivered from the lion's mouth and the lord will rescue me from every evil attack and bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom to him be glory forever and ever amen doesn't sound like a defeated passage to me he will deliver me from every evil attack but you need to note the destination and bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom he doesn't say i'm not going to go through this place unscathed in another passage in corinthians he said five times i've had forty lashes minus one forty lashes from a roman scourge was believed to kill a man leather thongs with metal or glass woven into the leather thong so that it would tear the flesh off your back 40 lashes would kill you five times he had 39. can you imagine the amount of scar tissue that would build up after that beating five times the first time your back was laid open to the bone the muscles torn it would heal but it would heal you'd be disfigured when it happened the second time that would all be torn apart again and it would scar in in a far worse condition than it did the first time by the fifth time i'm relatively certain i haven't seen the picture but i'm relatively confident he couldn't stand erect any longer too much scarring but i'm confident he said that the lord will bring me through i think we can call paul an overcomer but i don't think you could call him passive he wasn't an overlooker we filled our churches with overlookers for so long we overlook sin we overlook selfishness we overlook greed we overlook immorality [Music] or we don't want to be critical we don't want to be harsh i'm not asking you to be agitated or angry or harsh i want you to be filled with grace and compassion but i want you to be filled with the fear of the lord and truth we're not going to overcome without it we're not jesus wasn't hiding you know what that that encounter in mark chapter one jesus meets in that synagogue in capernaum a demonized man and when jesus leaves the synagogue the man is there and the demon is gone right accurate portrayal i think we're more in the habit of removing the man and leaving the demon in place and god is asking us to be different in our places of work and where our children go to school and the ball teams they play on we're going to have to become overcomers we've been overlookers long enough it's a more assertive posture i brought you just a collection of verses i'll i'll read through them pretty quickly i'm not going to offer a great deal of commentary but colossians 4 and verse 12. epaphras who is one of you and a servant of christ jesus he's writing to the church in colossae it's where epaphras had come from he says he's one of you and a servant in christ jesus sends greetings he is always wrestling in prayer for you i don't believe it's a euphemism i think paul is describing the effort with which this man prays for the church in the city from which he's come wrestling in prayer folks that's more than a one sentence let's pray a moment wrestling is a full context but it's the most exhausting form of physical contact available to us because the moment you relent the moment you rest the moment you release your tension you're done do you think of prayer that way in a spiritual wrestling match we're going to look at some passages romans 15 i urge you brothers by our lord jesus christ and by the love of the spirit to join me in my struggle by praying to god for me he says i'm struggling and i'm asking you not for money or to organize i need you to pray ephesians 6 verse 12 our struggle is not against flesh and blood lots of us would like to change the punctuation and put a period after our struggle is not full stop but that's not what it says our struggle is not against flesh and blood the real battles of our lives or not with people or organizations or politicians or political parties but our struggle is against the rulers against the authorities against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms is describing a hierarchical order to a kingdom of darkness we'll look at it in a bit more detail in another session but in the same way there's a structure to the kingdom of god there are archangels and angels with realms of authority in the kingdom of darkness there's a hierarchy satan is a great imitator and he imitated what he saw in the kingdom of god and paul said our wrestling match is with against these spiritual authorities in the heavenly places first timothy 6 12 fight the good fight of faith take hold of eternal life to which you recalled when you made good confession in the presence of many witnesses i know all of us have seen pictures of those young men that were wading ashore on the beaches of normandy probably seen some video or you've seen it represented either in movies or in video that was taken i have a i have such a vivid imagination of that i i can't imagine what it was like i cannot imagine i've talked to some men who were a part of that invasion the courage you take the the moral courage it took the determination everything in you saying i'd rather not do this let somebody else do this and for us to have the renewal the awakening the revival whatever words you want to plug in if we're going to see a change in the moral trajectory of the world we're living in it's going to take that kind of courage from god's people we're going to have to find a different response than the one we've lived with the one we've lived with has watched us preside over the most precipitous decline of christian influence in the history of this nation and arguably in the history of the church our watch fight the good fight of faith second corinthians 10 4 the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world on the contrary they have divine power to demolish strongholds we've got the power of heaven to demolish those strongholds but heaven's waiting for us to engage to become overcomers to wrestle in prayer to take up the struggle first corinthians 9 don't you know then you know by now when that sentence starts with that the author imagines that you don't i'm reminding you he said that in a race all the runners run but only one gets the prize you see this was first century now everybody gets a participation trophy run in such a way as to get the prize don't do it casually same chapter verse 26 i don't run like a man running aimlessly i don't fight like a man beating the air no i beat my body and make it my slave so that after i have preached to others i myself will not be disqualified for the prize what's missing in paul's language is presumption he's not saying i'm the great apostle that i met jesus on the road to damascus and this is my curriculum vitae and the miracles i've seen he's saying no i keep myself under strict discipline because i don't want to have shared the good news and then miss its benefit i'm going to overcome we segment our christian journey into kind of the way we segment our chronological lives you know there's the our youth and it's kind of there's a lot of liberty in youth you know it's a youthful response we're young and we don't know there's peer pressure and then we get a little later in life and while they're just sowing their wild oats and then we get to another season and well they're they're a young family and there's a lot of liberties that go with that season and then you get to your senior years you know i'm entitled to do what i want to do and i think we kind of overlay that thing on our christian life well i'm young and there's a lot of latitude there's a lot i don't know and i'm allowed to have some discretionary room and then we get to another season of life well you know i've done my hard work i've done my heavy lifting i want to just sit back and enjoy this and have it easy but i don't think any of those parallels hold up under the direction of the coaching of scripture paul said i don't run like a man running aimlessly i'm living on purpose same chapter i took this from the message because i thought it was such a good description he said you've all been to the stadium and you've seen the athletes race everyone runs one wins run to win all good athletes train hard they do it for a gold medal that tarnishes and fades you're after one you're after one that's gold eternally i don't know about you but i'm running hard for the finish line i'm giving it everything i've got no sloppy living for me i'm staying alert and in top condition i'm not going to get caught napping telling everyone else all about it and then missing out myself that's not a bad passage to start your day with for a while now i'm going to submit you we're going to look at this in some more detail in the sessions ahead but the forces that determine human history don't begin with armies and empires and rulers or economics the forces that determine history from a biblical perspective fall into two categories visible and invisible the visible forces you know about you've studied those in school you can give a litany of those great leaders economic movements great business ideas breakthrough inventions those visible forces that shape history are obvious to you you're well schooled in those the invisible forces we're far less aware of and what i'm inviting you to imagine with me is that you and i have influence with those invisible forces that they don't just act upon us you see those invisible forces are at work in this realm they exercise a continuous and a decisive influence on the events in the visible realm that what happens with the world that we see and touch and feel the world that's available to us with our five senses that world is continuously acted upon by invisible forces this is not a reach folks you most of us believe that covert 19 is real and it has shaken the entire world it's changed how we do business how our children go to school how we travel how we vacation how we walk in public how we worship and you can't see a virus you can see symptoms of people who we're told are infected with the virus but you don't really know they said they took a test and the overwhelming majority of us couldn't explain the test or what was tested for we just accept what we're told and then we come to our bibles that clearly invites us to believe that god who is a spirit created the earth and everything that's in it and we go well you know i'm not sure i believe in those invisible things oh really you inconsistent motor scooter i'm quite happy to follow the science but as certainly as i want to do that more certainly i won't do that i want to follow the faith going to act as if god is true and he's told me the truth second corinthians 4 17 it says our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all that the difficulties we walk through in time have they present to us the opportunity to to develop a reward that far exceeds the discomfort or the displeasure that happens to take place in time because of that we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen well how do you look at something that you can't see we're going to have to learn to look with something other than just our physical senses we're going to need a perspective we're going to need a god perspective people say you know i don't believe in the devil he believes in you you're at a disadvantage well i don't believe in demons they believe in you you're at an enormous disadvantage so we fix our eyes not on what is unseen for what is seen as temporary but what is unseen is eternal now there's a couple of important features common to both realms those spiritual influences the impact of those spiritual things are very seldom limited just to an individual very seldom once spiritual forces are unleashed they typically impact far more than an individual a family a family system a family tree generations communities it's true for both good and evil jonah preached in nineveh and the entire city repented jerusalem when presented with jesus and the opportunity to acknowledge who he was shouted in the streets crucify him everybody in the city didn't scream that in reality it was a relatively small percentage of the population a few hundred perhaps a few thousand people but a relatively small percentage of the population most of the people were busy kids were playing soccer they were planning cookouts for the evening but that group of people that stood in the street streets and shouted crucify him brought a consequence on the whole city see i want you to imagine that there's a value in your life there's a significance in your life that reaches far beyond your income your balance sheet your education the people who you think care about your opinion because almighty god cares about your opinion and your choices for good or for evil to be an overcomer or to be overcome have enormous influence folks we are not without significance almighty god knows your name hallelujah those influences can extend to families tribes communities even whole nations once they're released they'll continue from generation to generation until something happens to cancel their efforts most of the things we observe in the physical world have their origin in the spiritual world we learn them as physical laws the law of inertia says a body in motion will remain in motion unless it's acted upon by some other force that means by by that law i could take a tennis ball and throw it towards nashville and make it the whole way what an arm unless it's acted upon by another force like say gravity so it won't make it to the back of the room and you and i have to understand there are competing forces in your life most of us get mad at god i don't know why god would and then we fill in what we don't like and we have a total lack of awareness or a lack of room for imagination that there is evil at work in the world what's happening in afghanistan tonight is evil it's not a cultural clash or an ideological diversion it's evil so let me close with just three spiritual certainties i want to give you kind of a place to land one okay i'm going to ask you to begin to imagine these things that the spiritual world is real okay that the spiritual world impacts your life because if you'll accept those two premises then it's in your best interest to begin to understand one how to cooperate more fully with the spirit of god than how to resist or to limit the influences of unclean spirits in your life and then the third one is that you have spiritual influence what you choose matters when jesus was in his hometown it says he could do very few miracles there was very little he could do because of their unbelief think of the difference if pilate the roman governor instead of condemning jesus because he was afraid of the political pressure that was pushing on him if he had the courage to say i believe i believe imagine if pilate had knelt in front of jesus and say i should worship you think of the difference i don't know where you're in a battle tonight i don't know where there's a tug of war in your heart but i'm pretty confident there is one if there's not there's one in somebody you care about think of the difference if we would yield to the lordship of jesus and unleash that spiritual authority in our lives on the other side of the equation think what happens when we yield to darkness to wickedness to immorality to ungodliness to greed to perversion think of what we unleash in our lives you have spiritual influence well i've never thought about it much i know it's why we're doing a few sessions i gave you a little spiritual inventory you can work on this at your leisure do i purposely involve myself daily in spiritual things purposefully not accidentally the answer is yes how what's that look like for you secondly how's the holy spirit involved in my daily life and that needs to be in a conscious intentional purposeful way in what ways do i extend an invitation to him in what ways do i engage in behaviors that would would give him a the possibility of engaging more fully and thirdly am i aware of satanic or demonic influences in my life not necessarily within you but are there places where you you realize that you bump against them maybe things you're watching maybe things you're listening to it may be authorities that are over you it may be people you're trying to lead and there's resistance that's illogical and irrational it's a question that would be a good question to live with in your prayer life or is there any place where i'm engaging satanic or demonic activity i'm unaware of it i'd help me be aware of it you want to know if you come in contact with somebody that's covered positive why wouldn't we want to be aware of when we were in encountering the activity of unclean spirits well i've never thought of it i don't know how i'd recognize one do they wear signs well it really begins by getting to know the holy spirit but really before that it's a desire it's the intent we're gonna make a little journey together for a few sessions i hope you'll make the effort to be a part why don't you stand with me i've been telling you now for a bit that there's kind of two postures when we talk about the spirit of god and the angels you want to be guilty we want to be guilty of extending invitations to them you're welcome in my life there's any hurtful thing in me i want to see it search my heart oh god those kind of prayers on the other end of the spectrum when we talk about unclean spirits and evil spirits and demonic spirits we want to know how to to rid ourselves from their influence we want to do everything we can to separate ourselves from their activity and we're going to talk about a set of behaviors to do that but we're still kind of in that transition so i think tonight we can extend one more invitation to the lord or if there's any hurtful thing in me or does we do this study together open my mind not to the ideas of a person not to the wisdom of somebody else help me see the world from your perspective god i've been an overlooker for too long i want to become an overcomer we filled our churches with overlookers god forgive us they took prayer out of our schools we overlooked it we've sacrificed 60 million children to abortion and we've overlooked it don't want to be a one-issue person yes i do god's asking us to become a generation of overcomers not to overcome the hurt in your life that's the narrowest definition of that but to be a generation that overcomes evil that has presented in our generation you up for that me too me too heavenly father thank you for your word for its truth and power and influence i pray tonight that by your spirit you will give it life within us or not the words of a person or the ideas of someone but your word may it come to life within our hearts help us to see ourselves and our families and our world from your vantage point or if there are places where we've been deceived or we have wandered off center lord i we invite you tonight lord to to give us a revelation of ourselves that we might turn to you lord we don't want to share with others and then miss the opportunities you created us for holy spirit we thank you for your presence that you're our teacher and our guide and that you give to us a revelation of jesus i thank you for the freedoms and the liberties we have to gather in public to worship and to pray to read our bibles that we never take those for granted give us a spirit of boldness let the fear of the lord grow within us may we become an overcoming generation we thank you for it in jesus name amen hallelujah god bless you i'll see you saturday

Channel: World Outreach Church

Views: 4,947

Rating: 4.9555554 out of 5

Keywords: World Outreach Church, World Outreach Church Murfreesboro, Pastor Allen Jackson, Pastor Allen Jackson Sermons, Online church service, live church service, christian sermons, Murfreesboro TN, Jesus Christ, Interdenominational Church, demons, evil spirits, is the devil real? are demons real? spiritual attack, unclean spirits, what do demons do, afghanistan, Taliban, overcoming. overlooking, overcomer, overlooker

Id: Z032hC5odPM

Length: 59min 20sec (3560 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 19 2021