Pastor Cameron: 00:08

Heavenly father, we we worship you, Lord. We bring praise to you and honor to you, Lord, for who you are. For what you have done among us. Lord, I pray for pastor Luke this morning that as he shares your word with us, Father, that you would, look after him, look over him, watch over him, protect him. Lord, that either through him or in spite of him, Lord, the truth of your word would, find fertile soil in our hearts.

Pastor Cameron: 00:46

Lord, we thank you for your word. We ask Lord that you would use it to transform us, to inspire us, to encourage us, Lord, to lead us into a greater love of one another and you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Pastor Luke: 01:01

Amen. Thank you, Cameron. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, everyone. Let's make sure my is my microphone on?

Pastor Luke: 01:08

Yes, sir. I'm good. Alright. Excellent. Well, we are coming to the end of our sermon series.

Pastor Luke: 01:17

We've been coming here last month or 2. We've been going through the book of Ephesians, and today, we're gonna be wrapping that up. We're gonna be covering the last section of it, And then, next week, we'll be starting a new sermon series that we're rather excited about called asking for a friend. We had you guys text in a number of excellent questions, and we've taken those questions and turned them into a bit of a sermon series. And so, I think the first question we'll tackle and on Wednesday nights at 6 o'clock in our Wednesday night and on Wednesday nights at 6 o'clock in our Wednesday night classes.

Pastor Luke: 02:01

But, one of the reasons I mentioned that is because today we're gonna be dealing with a topic that will come up again later in that series in more detail. So if you're left with this sermon and you're like, I still have more questions, a message out of Ephesians chapter 5, particularly the passage that deals with the relationship between a husband and a wife. So Paul has been working in this letter and he's kind of been talking about what does it mean to live a life like a Christian to follow after Jesus, And then he goes into, and he goes through the, what's called a household code. You know, kind of the ancient equivalent to, you know, like those shirt those like signs, like in this household, we live, laugh, and love. Like like the the ancient equivalent to that.

Pastor Luke: 03:01

And so he's kind of going through, and he's saying, he's like, this is how you used to relate, but now because of the gospel, you relate to each other different. And he goes through all the relationships. He goes through husbands and wives and children and the whole family. And then as he's kind of getting there, he's kind of wrapping all of that up. He turns to, verse 10 in chapter 6.

Pastor Luke: 03:29

So go ahead and open up there with me, we're gonna spend the whole day in, whole day, the whole rest of the whole rest of the sermon in chapter 6 and we're going to start in verse 10 and it's going to introduce the topic that we're going to talk about today. If you don't have a physical Bible, we have plenty of Bibles in the pews, and we have some Bibles in the back on those shelves. If you don't have a Bible for yourself, those are for you. You can take one of those and keep it. And we pray that it would be useful and a blessing to you.

Pastor Luke: 04:03

So Ephesians chapter 6 verse 10, Paul, after having talked about how to relate to one another in the household, starts off and says, finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Well, that's quite the shift from what he was talking about. He's talking about how we relate to one another and all of a sudden, he's just like, alright.

Pastor Luke: 04:51

Let's talk about spiritual warfare, right. Drastic shift and we'll talk about why that drastic shift happened in the passage here in a moment. But before we go any further, I wanna tell you kind of a story that I thought of, and it's, I don't know that it's all that interesting, but it happened to me, so I'm going to share it. So I was, this was a couple years ago. I had started taking some medication and I knew that some of the side effects of the medication early on might be like a headache or 2.

Pastor Luke: 05:25

So when I started taking it, I started getting kind of, like, a headache throughout the day. I was like, oh, it must be the meds that I'm taking right now. I'm just like, okay. That's normal. So I popped some Tylenol, and I just had like, continuing, day after day, I would get up, put on my glasses, I do my work, and I get, like, partway through the day, I was like, I my eyes hurt.

Pastor Luke: 05:48

I can't, like, focus. I have a headache so bad I gotta lay down. And I was like, what's you know, this is awful. And I was like, oh, you know what? My eyes because my eyes were bugging me.

Pastor Luke: 05:59

I was like, I bet you my eyes are really dried out. So I went and got some, like, you know, like drops to put in my eyes or whatever. And I wear glasses for reasons because I I have a hard time putting anything in my eyes. And so I I labored through put eye drops in my eyes and all this stuff and it still wasn't getting any better. I was getting partway through the day.

Pastor Luke: 06:21

I'm just like, I cannot cannot just like hurts. Then I had to make kind of a last minute travel. I had to travel, a good 6 hours away. And I was driving and I was just like, I cannot focus on the road. My eyes hurt just so bad, like, what is going on?

Pastor Luke: 06:41

I pull over, I stop at the rest stop, I'm just like, man, like, and I take my glasses off and I just kinda, I kinda look at them and look a little bit closer because my eyesight's really bad. And there's all these tiny little scratches that are all clustered together right here where my left eye is supposed to come out of my glasses. So if I was looking straight, my left eye was gonna be looking at this really blurry scratches all on my glasses, and what that was doing is my eye was going, Oh, we don't like that, and it was bouncing all the time over to the left. And so anytime I tried to, like, focus or look straight, my eye was constantly being kind of like, it was wearing me out. And that's where my headaches were coming from.

Pastor Luke: 07:26

I was like, woah, took me like a week to figure that out. But the thing was is I tried all of these ways to try and cure my headaches. Right? I was trying to, what's going on? And I'm trying to put eye drops in my head, I'm just thinking this is the medication I'm taking, it's the whatever.

Pastor Luke: 07:46

And and all the time it was it was actually the cause was my glasses. Once I knew the cause, I could actually do something to address it. I knew what I was actually dealing with. And so our question for today is, we don't necessarily deal with, you're not dealing with headaches and we're not dealing with eye strain, but we do deal with evil. We do deal with pain and suffering that comes upon us.

Pastor Luke: 08:15

And the question that we have to answer is, what is the source of that evil? And how do we combat it? Right? How do we identify what's going on? And how do we actually then deal with it?

Pastor Luke: 08:30

How do we fix it? How do we go about dealing with it? And so, that's the questions that's gonna kinda frame our conversation today as we go through the rest of this passage. Because I think Paul has some answers for us. So before I go any further, I wanna answer that question that I very much started out with is, why in the world is Paul going from talking about how we relate to one another, how families are supposed to get along, to suddenly talking a whole lot about spiritual warfare and the armor of God in this passage that if you've been to any VBS, you've probably heard about.

Pastor Luke: 09:14

At least that's my memory of a VBS is somebody dressing up in Roman armor or something. And why is he talking about this? Because Paul talks about spiritual warfare, talks about spiritual realities in all of his books. But this is in the book of Ephesians, the longest and most extensive passage that he talks about it. And there's a reason for that.

Pastor Luke: 09:37

There's a reason that Paul specifically emphasizes it in the book of Ephesus. And if you remember a couple of weeks ago, I shared with you the story of the city of Ephesus. The city was known for being a place, where there were so many idols and false gods and witchcraft. It was had a reputation for that. It had for that.

Pastor Luke: 10:02

It had one of the 7, it had one of the ancient, 7 of the ink One of the ancient wonders of the world. And it was this temple dedicated to Artemis. And so many people worshiped at this temple. And when Paul was in Ephesus planting this church, Christians were beginning to say, you know what? Jesus is the one true God.

Pastor Luke: 10:26

We're not going to follow these false gods. And there were so many people coming to know Jesus that all the idol makers, the people who made idols, were getting mad. And they had a big riot because they were like, well, we can't be known as a place of Christians. We're the place that makes idols. And there was this big riot.

Pastor Luke: 10:44

And so and then even some of the believers who were in the church had come forward, and they said, we're gonna follow Jesus now. And they decided to burn all of their scrolls and manuscripts that were sorcery and witchcraft and they destroyed all of them. The church in Ephesus, he knows he's writing to people who are surrounded by the occult. He knows he's writing to people who have family, who are still involved in the occult. He knows he's writing to people who are involved in temple worship and awful practices and worshiping all of these false gods.

Pastor Luke: 11:27

In Ephesus, it was known. It was like a place where, like, everyone worshiped at least 10 different false gods. That's what it was known for. And this isn't this was recorded in history and people recorded that people from Ephesus were often involved in witchcraft and sorcery. It was something that was well known.

Pastor Luke: 11:50

And so Paul has had this in his mind surrounding you're in and what kind of culture you're in. And so he emphasizes it. And so he emphasizes it. But, he doesn't just hit it here at the end of the book. If you turn a couple chapters back, let's turn to chapter 1 of Ephesians, and let's look at verse 3.

Pastor Luke: 12:20

Paul's been talking about the spiritual reality through the whole book. He's woven it together. So Ephesians chapter 1 verse 3 says, praise be to God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Notice, he said, heavenly realms. That's gonna continue to be repeated and repeated.

Pastor Luke: 12:50

If we go down to verse 18, in the same chapter, says this, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his people, and his incomparable great power for us who believe. And that power is the same mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand. Where? In the heavenly realms. Far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked not only in the present age but also in the one to come.

Pastor Luke: 13:36

That should sound very familiar to what we were talking about in chapter 6. If we continue on, go to, chapter 2. Verse 1 says, as for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live When you follow the ways of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air. The spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them at one time gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts.

Pastor Luke: 14:12

Like the rest, we were by nature deserving wrath, but because of his great love for us. God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ Jesus when we were dead in our transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved. And then, notice here in verse 6, and God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms of Christ Jesus. Right?

Pastor Luke: 14:38

This is this power and this being in the kingdom of the air and being, the spirit of this age. All of this is pointing to a spiritual reality. If we turn forward to chapter 2 and we go to verse and we go to verse 10, says this, Paul says, his intent was that now through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to who? Who's going to be made known this power and wisdom? It is to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus, our lord.

Pastor Luke: 15:21

And then, if we go one last time, if we go forward to chapter 5 and we go to verses 8 through 11, Says this for you, speaking of the believers, we're once in darkness, but now you are in the Lord. Live as children of light for the fruit of the light consists of all goodness, righteousness, and truth. Find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. And so, when Paul comes to chapter 6 verse 10, and he says, finally be strong in the lord and his mighty power.

Pastor Luke: 16:03

Put on the full armor of God so that you can take stand against the devil schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but rather against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. He's summarizing something he's been talking about this whole time. He's been mentioning it over and over again. And so this leaves us with a couple of questions that I think we need to answer.

Pastor Luke: 16:38

And the first is, what in the world is meant by heavenly realms? Right? I don't know what comes to your mind when you think of like, heavenly realms or just that word heavenly. Right? Some sort of version of clouds and little like cupid angels and little wings or something like that.

Pastor Luke: 16:58

Like that's kind of what comes into our minds. And I don't know that that's really mentioning. Now there's a number of reasons why we conceptualize and we think about heaven as being far and above and up in the sky, right? We think of it having a location. We think of it being there.

Pastor Luke: 17:24

And there's lots of reasons for that. And that's because God is described as often being up in the heavens, being up and far and above and removed. And the question that we kind of have to ask ourselves is, is that communicating a quality or is it communicating a, a location? Right? Because, like, we've we've been up there.

Pastor Luke: 17:48

Right? Like, the space, you know, they went up there and landed on the moon, all of that stuff. And so we've got this, like, is it communicating a physical location or is it communicating a truth, a quality? That God is high and lofty above our thoughts and out of our reach and that he is above all things and in control of all things, the source of all things, from things where things come from. Because we also see here, even in the book of Ephesians, it says that you as believers are being built into a spiritual house where God dwells.

Pastor Luke: 18:31

And so God is not only far up and above, he is also near and present. This is one of the great paradoxes intentions in the Christian faith is that God is both transcendent. He is above and high and separated in some way, but he is also what's called imminent, means close, near, with us, and among us. We're his church. We believe that God is indeed present with us here today.

Pastor Luke: 19:02

And so our question is, is where do we conceptualize? Where do we think of the heavenly realms as being? Are they far away? Are they near? There's a couple couple of kind of options we could kind of think of.

Pastor Luke: 19:17

We could think of things in kind of a dualistic sense. Is anybody here watch the TV show stranger things or am I the only nerd in the room? Alright, okay, here we go, found my people. You know, so that television show is some kids, science experiments, scary things, and they, like, find this like way to go between worlds. Right?

Pastor Luke: 19:41

They go to what they decide to call the upside down, which it's like when they go to it, it looks like this world but it's not this world. It's dark and it's scary and all of that. And they go back and forth between those 2. And sometimes we're kind of tempted to think, Oh, well, there's this like the physical world that we're in. And then there's like this kind of spiritual world that kind of looks just like this one, but it's spiritual.

Pastor Luke: 20:07

We don't really know how to describe it. And that's not really what the Bible talks about. Bible doesn't kind of talk about this yin and yang type of idea. We could also kind of go towards this kind of gnostic way of thinking. We could mean that there's like, there's this spiritual realm that we can't see and has no effect on us, and there's this physical realm, which is us and here we can see and has no effect on the spiritual realm whatsoever.

Pastor Luke: 20:32

They're kind of separated and never do the 2 touch. Well, that's not what the Bible teaches either. And so we're left with this tension that says the spiritual and physical are connected together, yet distinct in ways that we do not fully understand. We can see that there's definitely spiritual implications to the physicality around us. And there's spiritual things that have implications on physicality.

Pastor Luke: 21:05

There's this tension. And trying to separate the 2 is not what the Bible tries to do. The Bible wants to emphasize that the spiritual realm is all around us, is with us currently, but we simply cannot see it. We are not always aware of it, and our knowledge of it is always going to be through a glass dimly. And so we have to live with that and conceptualize that.

Pastor Luke: 21:34

No. God is not just far and above, but he is also here and present with us. So if that's how we understand the physical or the heavenly realms, what does Paul kind of have to say? How could we kind of summarize Paul's main point from this book? Well, I would say that his primary thing that he was trying to get across to the Ephesians was this, the power of God surpasses any power of evil.

Pastor Luke: 22:05

That's the simple truth. He's over and over again, emphasizing that Christ has the authority, that Christ has the power, that Christ has been seated above all the heavenly authorities, that there is nothing that has more authority or power than Jesus Christ. Paul seems to be trying to convey this confidence and assurance to the people of Ephesians and trying to say, look, I know that you guys are surrounded by witchcraft. I know that you guys see evil all over the place, but you don't have to fear. You don't have to be anxious, because the one you follow is the one who is above all.

Pastor Luke: 22:50

And so that is his emphasis. If you were to come to me and you were to say, Pastor Luke, I wanna know more about spiritual warfare and like all of this kind of stuff is interesting to me. And you're like, what's the book I should read apart from the bible? And I would say, the books best book I know to offer to you or to suggest is, The Screwtape Letters by c s Lewis. Now it's not not it's not scripture by any means, but it most certainly is an insightful reflection on the schemes of the enemy, of the devil, and how demons perhaps try to influence and affect us, and it is chock full of wisdom.

Pastor Luke: 23:36

I was reading it this week and was very much cut to the heart by a handful of things. But at the beginning of that book, CS Lewis gives us one quote and we use I think we I know we've quoted this here several times but we'll continue to say it because we think it is quite important and it is this, that there are 2 equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. 1 is to disbelieve their existence. The other is to believe and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. So we've got these 2 opposite extremes that we kind of come into when we begin to have these conversations about evil and Satan and demons and spiritual warfare.

Pastor Luke: 24:30

We either we come over here and we say, ah, Satan, demons. Like, nah. No, no, no. Just like, this is fine. There's no spiritual implications behind anything.

Pastor Luke: 24:45

Really, it's just mostly the the physical that we deal with. No, there's certainly no spiritual attack that my family's under. No, that's not not a thing, not a thing. Or we're over here and we're just like, every rock has got a demon behind it. Right?

Pastor Luke: 25:02

We're just like like, whoop, my guy got traffic this morning. Right? Like that's that's Satan. Right? Like I'm going to Erie and I'm stuck on Peach Street, like, and like we're just, you know, we just find every excuse and we say oh that must be a demon or that must be satan and he's attacking me and all of this.

Pastor Luke: 25:28

Let me just make something real clear is that like, Satan is definitely a spiritual being, but he's not omnipotent. Omnipotent, which means he is not all powerful. He's also not omnipresent, which means all present everywhere, all at once. He's not. And so if you're like gonna claim that out of all the people in the entire world, Satan's right here right now attacking me personally, right?

Pastor Luke: 26:02

Like, let's just just think about that. Now, I don't wanna say that that never ever could happen, but and there's also just, there's at least seems to be that there's a limited number of demons in the world. And so let's just kind of think that there's not there's not there's a they're not everywhere, right? Because they simply can't be, if that makes sense. Now, if I could give you kind of one takeaway, like one thing that would be a really good thing for you to kind of sit with and wrestle with over the coming week, it's going to be this.

Pastor Luke: 26:42

If you are on this side, where which is admittedly where I kind of I kind of spend my time, where I'm kind of like, nah, is that really a spiritual thing? It's probably just, you know, a bad dinner I had or something. Like, we just kind of kind of tend to ignore the spiritual realm and the enemy, and his tactics, and we kind of tend to just ignore it. If you're kind of over here with me. My encouragement for you and for myself would be to ask the Lord to open our eyes.

Pastor Luke: 27:17

To say, Lord, perhaps give me greater insight into just exactly how the spiritual realm is impacting my daily life. And if you're on the other side of the spectrum, if you're over here and you're like, oh boy, I'm super jazzed that pastor Luke's talking about this. Like, if you tend to have a bit more of a fixation or an interest in this type of thing, I would say, I would submit to you to ask the Lord to give you a greater vision for him, for His power, and for His presence. That we might not lend ourselves into this this area of being overly concerned with identifying and naming and getting hyperly specific, but focusing again on how do we combat evil no matter where it comes from. Because this is what I would say is that, not all evil or suffering is the devil or a demon.

Pastor Luke: 28:25

The curse of sin is often enough to knock us down flat anyways. The Bible has a lot of different categories. The Bible certainly talks about demons, it talks about Satan, it talks about the works of evil, but it also talks about the consequences of sin, talks about the consequences of the curse that the whole world is under. It talks about humans doing sinful things and consequences with one another. There is just general suffering that happens.

Pastor Luke: 28:58

And so what I wanna kind of draw here to a little bit of a point is that regardless of the source of evil, the response remains the same, abide in Christ. Regardless of whether or not it's a demon, it's Satan, it's the curse of sin, it's our own stupidity, no matter what it is, the response remains the same, and that is to abide in Jesus Christ. Christ says we can do nothing apart from Him, right? Paul here in this passage when he says, finally be strong in the Lord. The emphasis isn't in the strength.

Pastor Luke: 29:42

He's not saying like, go do some bench presses with commentaries and bibles. Like, he's not trying to get you to like, we need to go do some sort of spiritual workout. He's saying, no no no, your strength comes from the Lord. The emphasis is on that phrase, in the Lord. And so we abide in Christ, we abide in the Lord, and that is where strength comes from.

Pastor Luke: 30:10

I found this quote that I think says something that is super important for us to get and it is this, Christ has left the devil only with what power unbelief allows him. That meaning that the devil, the enemy has only the power that unbelief allows him. I wanna submit this to you, I'm not, this is something that is in my mind, I'm kind of thinking about, and so if my opinion changes about it or you read the Bible and you think, nah, maybe pastor Luke, you might be a little wrong on that, I would I'd be willing to listen to that. But I think that primarily, that satan operates where we cooperate. If we look at the story of the bible, we look all the way even back to the garden.

Pastor Luke: 31:06

Right? What does Satan do? Satan doesn't bring evil into the world. He tempts Adam and Eve to bring evil into the world. What does Satan do when it comes to Cain?

Pastor Luke: 31:17

He speaks into Cain's ear and Cain listens. Right? Satan, over and over again, tries to get humanity to cooperate with his desires and his will. When evil flourishes, it's because we as humans are not pursuing Christ, we have turned our backs and are running our own way and we are participating with the kingdom of the air, the spirit of this current age. We are partnering with him.

Pastor Luke: 31:51

Paul says in here, he says, those who were, I'll just look at it. They are darkened in their thinking, in their understanding, separated from the life of God because of their ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Right? We we are in that place where we're participating with the enemy in evil. And so all of this needs to give us a little bit of of confidence.

Pastor Luke: 32:21

Not to frighten us. Paul is doing this. I can kind of see in the book of Ephesians, he's trying to say like, Look, I don't want you guys to ignore spiritual realities. But I don't want you guys to be frightened by them either or fixated on them. Because he again and again, he emphasis that the power of God surpasses any power of evil.

Pastor Luke: 32:47

But how do again, like I said, regardless of the source of evil, the response remains the same. Abide in Christ. But what does that look like? How does that feel? This quote here, I thought says it well.

Pastor Luke: 33:03

It says, power is not a current to be turned on or to be turned off. It is a continual relational empowering that results from living in Christ. Nor is that power to be used to our personal advantage. The power has one single purpose and that is to enable us to stand with God against evil. So we see that like this power, this standing strong in the armor of God comes not from us.

Pastor Luke: 33:43

It comes from abiding in Christ. It comes from being in relationship with him. One way of understanding the armor of God is to say, it's the armor that comes from God. Right? It's something that we gain ourselves.

Pastor Luke: 34:01

And so let's talk about that armor a little bit. Let's go to verses 13 in chapter 6 and read through the armor of God. Says this, Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground. And after you have done everything to stand, stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one.

Pastor Luke: 34:46

Take the helmet of Salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Now there's a lot that we could talk about and we don't have the time today, but since it's not the primary focus of the sermon today. We could go through each and every single one of those and we could talk about it. But sometimes, so this is just my opinion, is that sometimes when we go to interpret this passage and we talk about the armor of god, we can kind of over interpret it. And by that I mean, we begin to imply things that are in the metaphor that are maybe or maybe not there.

Pastor Luke: 35:25

Right? So the question is like, well, how is salvation like a helmet? I don't know that Paul really meant that. I I think Paul here is more trying to describe this main truth and we'll say it this way, The armor of God is made up of gifts given to those who seek God. And that's what I mean when I say that we gain this power that we are able to stand, the way we respond to evil is by abiding in Christ.

Pastor Luke: 35:57

When we are in Christ, when we are following after him, when we're living a life connected to him, these are the gifts that we receive when we seek God. The armor is truth. Right? The truth of who we are, the truth that God gives us. We can extinguish the lies that the enemy throws at us.

Pastor Luke: 36:20

The righteousness, right? We can stand affirm and we can say no to the accuser and say, no, I am no longer who I once was, I am righteous in Christ, and I'm not righteous because I did the right thing, I'm righteous because God loved me. And then we can look at the gospel peace that surpasses my knowledge, surpasses my understanding, that is beyond my checkbook, that is beyond my relationships, because I am saved by the prince of peace. And we then we can talk about faith. Faith is not something I have to conjure up or work myself up into a frenzy, but faith that is that sure the confidence that the spirit gives me, that I am indeed a child of God and salvation, that I have been saved, that I've been called into a newness of life, not of my own doing, but of Christ's.

Pastor Luke: 37:13

And then finally the spirit that is working through the word of God, that I can trust that the spirit is leading me and that he is guiding me into all truth and that I can stand on God's word and I can rest assured. Those are the things that we gain when we abide in Christ. When we stay in relationship with Christ, these become the daily things that we carry, that we work with, that we abide in. And those are the things that allow us to stand firm whenever evil comes our way. So I wanna talk just for a few moments about what are maybe some of the most common schemes of the enemy.

Pastor Luke: 38:11

These are my thoughts and reflections. They're not I don't have a scripture verse for them. They're just me thinking about the ways in which I think the enemy tries to sideline us, either directly or indirectly. The first scheme, I think, that is so so prevalent in our world, in our day and age, is distractions. Like, we live in a world filled to the brim with distraction.

Pastor Luke: 38:44

And just distractions to idleness. Right? Just anything to keep our boredom from from feeling bored, anything to keep us busy, whether that be a hobby, whether that be a project, whether that just be anything that we begin to put importance on that keeps us from the better thing. Right? If I'm putting my hobby, my distraction, if I am so busy because I need to get home and I need to catch the next episode of whatever show it is I'm watching, that I'm too busy to be involved in people's lives, to be involved and become a greater disciple, to love others, to be in community, then we are being distracted away from God's purpose.

Pastor Luke: 39:34

Now, I'm not saying that there aren't good things out there and that we can't enjoy them and that we can't enjoy entertainment, but when it becomes an obstacle to God's will, when it becomes an obstacle to community, to being obedient, to taking a step of faith, then it is a distraction that is from the enemy. The other type of distraction that I'll mention is what I call, things adjacent to God. These can be really good things but they aren't God himself. This is a really tricky thing that can happen in church life and in Christian life. Because we can become so passionate about our theological conviction or this particular ministry or this particular thing that we think we should have or the color of the carpet or the way the church should function or or whatever it is.

Pastor Luke: 40:32

But the thing is, is that it's not actually God. You can actually come here every single Sunday. And if you're like, oh, just the worship You can be so fixated on the things that are adjacent to God that you neglect to sit and to know him. That is what remains the most important thing. Do you know God?

Pastor Luke: 41:12

Are you connecting with him intentionally? We talk about this all the time here is that Sunday, we hope is a feast. But if this is the only meal you have a week, you are going to starve the rest of the week. We need to be connected and abiding in Christ, it is not a power switch that we turn on and off. We're not, you know, we're not a Tesla, right?

Pastor Luke: 41:39

We're not coming in here, charging up on a Sunday and then leaving and then dying halfway out there on the road, right? Alright. Anyways, so I think that distractions, distractions to idleness, distractions to things that are adjacent to God, but not God himself. And then, I think one of the other biggest schemes of the enemy is the attack on unity. You know, the reason why Paul shifts from talking about how we relate to one another in Ephesians to talking about spiritual warfare is because that's the primary thing the enemy attacks.

Pastor Luke: 42:25

Actually, if you were to look at this passage in the Greek and there's no good way for us to say it in English because we don't have verbs that translate this way. But every single verb in this passage is like we stand strong. We put on the armor. We fight against the schemes. It's plural.

Pastor Luke: 42:50

This isn't we often when we read this passage, we're like, Oh yeah, me individually needs to get suited up and then fight my own personal battle. Paul's emphasis here is on the community. On the community abiding in Christ and putting these things on and standing against the schemes of the devil. Of fighting against the evil in this world by abiding in Christ and being his love manifest in it. And so, so often, we come into places where we are attacked in our unity.

Pastor Luke: 43:25

We have conflict because of misunderstandings. Or we have conflict that we refuse to resolve. You know what? I'm just not gonna talk to that person anymore. We're gonna sit on the other side of the church and that's fine.

Pastor Luke: 43:38

We're just not gonna talk to each other when we pass each other in the hallways. Right? We we settle for that and when we do that, we're breaking up the thing that makes us the body of Christ. How did Christ say that the world would know we were followers of Jesus? By our love for one another.

Pastor Luke: 43:59

Attacks against unity is attack against our identity as who we are created to be. The final thing that I think is a scheme. I couldn't figure out how to best say this, but simply, the enemy loves to keep us stuck in habitual cycles and patterns in our lives because of fear and because of pride. We continue to do the same thing. Our relationships always end in the same way.

Pastor Luke: 44:29

I always burn bridges in this way. I seem to be stuck in this way. I seem to affect people in this way. And I'm not willing to change. Because if I had to change, I'd have to admit that I don't have it all together.

Pastor Luke: 44:46

That maybe I'm not that good at relationships. That maybe somebody out there knows more than I do. Or maybe I'm just not afraid to admit my imperfections. To be honest about the continual sin in my life. Fear and pride will keep us pretending that we've got it all perfect.

Pastor Luke: 45:08

It'll continue to say, put on your church clothes. Come to church and pretend it's all good. Fear and pride will keep us there. And the enemy will continue to accuse until we do what Paul says, expose things into the light so that they're no longer darkness, but they are light. They become a light of the gospel because we do not have righteousness that comes from our own, but comes from Christ alone.

Pastor Luke: 45:36

So Paul says all of this. I wanna read the last exhortation that he has in this chapter, Verse 18, Paul ends with this. Says, And pray in the spirit on all occasions, with all kinds of prayers and with and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people. Pray also for me that whenever I speak words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel Prayer should Prayer should be our first and constant line of offense.

Pastor Luke: 46:27

In spiritual warfare, it is not Hollywood has done us a disservice, because we've seen all the scary movies and all this stuff. And we think it's, oh, we gotta, like say some things in Latin and throw holy water, right? Like, no. Our dealing with spiritual warfare, dealing with the heavenly realms and the darkness and authority that's around us, is not you or me trying harder or yelling louder. It is us getting on our knees and praying to the Lord, our God and savior, who has all power and dominion over all things.

Pastor Luke: 47:03

Spiritual warfare is not fought by us. It's won by our savior. Prayer is our first and primary constant offense. We are tempted to think that prayer is just a thing that we're supposed to do. We're tempted to think it's boring.

Pastor Luke: 47:24

We're tempted to think it's about the things that we're trying to get out of the cosmic prayer vending machine. It is about connecting and abiding in Christ. It is about abiding in that power. So that no matter what evil faces you, whether that be suffering, whether that be the evil of others, or the evil of the enemy himself, You can stand firm amidst that trial. You can suffer as Christ did in humility, and you fit your faith can be purified into something that is so much more precious than gold.

Pastor Luke: 47:58

So conduit. With that in mind, let's pause and let's pray now. Heavenly Father, we come to you in faith. Lord, I pray that you would help us to know what it means that you have won the fight, that you have seated us with you in the heavenly realms. Lord, we awe at that mystery.

Pastor Luke: 48:34

Lord, I pray against any stronghold of the enemy. I pray against any scheme that he has active among our church and our body. I pray against any scheme against the families and individuals in this church. Lord, we know that you have the power and dominion, and we proclaim that power and dominion over our circumstances. Lord, we know that you are with us always.

Pastor Luke: 49:07

Lord, teach us what it means to abide in you. Remind us that we can do nothing apart from you. Lord, I pray that you would build us up in your spirit. That we would know the strength and the power of your love so that there might be no fear, That there might be no pride that keeps us from being your church. Lord, knit us together in Christ.

Pastor Luke: 49:40

I pray for those who are sitting today and are looking in themselves and feeling a need to repent. To now no longer partner with darkness, but to step into the light. Lord, I pray that you would give grace, that you would give a confidence that is beyond fear and shame. Lord, as we go into singing your praise, Lord, I pray that you would build us up in these truths. In Jesus' name, we pray.

Pastor Luke: 50:15

Amen. Conduit, as you turn your eyes upon Jesus, my prayer is that you would know the power of his love, so that you might stand against anything that comes your way. Go in peace.