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Do You Put the Same Value on Unity that Jesus Does? Christian Life Shannon Popkin Author & Podcast Host Live Like It's True Podcast Published On: January 19, 2024 Meg and I had been friends for several years and enjoyed a sweet relationship. She was part of a group I helped lead at our church. One day, Meg called to tell me that she disagreed with a decision that had been made for our group. In fact, she was hurt and offended that we would even consider a decision like this. Well, this surprised me. It was a small decision, involving a slight change. We had not anticipated that anyone would be hurt or offended. I shared with Meg the thought process behind the decision, but as often is the case, some of the data points were private and I couldn’t mention them. Meg was not satisfied with the reasons I gave, probably due in part to the gaping holes in my explanation. She again told me that she was hurt and offended—this time with more edge in her voice. Well, this made me angry and frustrated! Sharing the goodwill behind the small decision had made no difference. Things escalated quickly. I unwisely told Meg that I was hurt and offended over the fact that she was hurt and offended! Didn’t she trust us? Didn’t she know that we loved her and were trying to do what was best? When I raised these questions, Meg raised questions of her own. What did I have to be hurt and offended about? She had done nothing wrong. She was in a position of being hurt and offended, not me. Oh, what a circular, tangled mess it quickly became, sparked by a small, insignificant decision made for our group. After several rounds of, “But I’m hurt and offended!” I excused myself from the call. Nothing was being resolved. It was clear that I needed to do something differently, but what? Promoting Unity at Church Conflict is like a spidery crack through the unity of the Church. Left unchecked, conflicts can fracture relationships that took years to build, and they can split close-knit groups of Christians into “sides.” Sometimes the division can even outlive the disagreement. The “sides” still exist, but no one can remember how the dispute began. I’m sure men have their ways of holding onto conflict, but women in particular, hold onto things. We tend to take disagreements personally—especially at church. When someone tells us that the way we’re trying to serve Jesus is wrong or that our viewpoint is invalid, we can be easily provoked. Emotions boil over and divisions form. Tempers flare and gaps widen. Hurt feelings abound and resentment grows. As conflict spreads, we feel threatened and confused, wondering, Why is everyone against me? I was only trying to serve the Lord! That’s how I felt about my conflict with Meg. She was overreacting to something so small! But now I was overreacting. I spent hours thinking about and crying over the issue. I dreaded having to see Meg on Sunday at church. I didn’t know how I would even make eye contact. What a far cry from God’s blueprint for His Church. Read Ephesians 4:4–6 , and count how many times you see the word “one”: There is one body and one Spirit . . . one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. The Church is not supposed to be filled with women who avoid eye contact in the atrium after the worship service. So how can we as women in leadership help cultivate unity when the women around us (and including us) are so prone to conflict? Humility’s Effect Jesus’ life was spent drawing people from conflict into unity—both with God and each other. And how did Jesus accomplish this? If I had to choose a one-word description of Jesus’ birth, life, and death, it would be humility. The exalted One emptied His regality and veiled His glory. Rather than coming to earth demanding we serve Him, our King served us and sacrificially laid His life down. And what was the purpose in this? Jesus died in our place so that we could be reconciled to God. We, who were far off and hostile toward God, were brought near and given access to the Father! And we weren’t just welcomed as individual daughters; we became members of the household of God—part of a family with brothers and sisters ( Eph. 2:13 – 19 )! As members of this family, our work is to continue Jesus’ work. We are to build each other up in love and cultivate unity among each other. And like Jesus, we accomplish this through humility. Pride in Conflict Conflict naturally draws out our pride , not humility. In conflict, we’re compelled to show how wrong the other person is. We pick up a millimeter stick (appropriate for measuring specks) to count up the 762 flaws that we see in the other person. And then we pick up a yardstick (appropriate for measuring logs) to minimize our own speck-sized flaws. But Jesus said: “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” ( Matt. 7:5 ). It’s pretty humbling to learn that a log, which you were unaware of, is sticking out of your eye. It’s even more humbling to be told about the log by the person you were just offering your eye surgery services to. Conflict forms when two people say, “No, you’re the one who isn’t seeing clearly!” But unity forms when one of them says, “You might be right.” Women who want to cultivate unity are the ones who lay down the millimeter stick. They stop taking inventory of their sister’s flaws. And if their sister is the one picking up the millimeter stick, they choose to listen rather than becoming defensive. Either way, massive quantities of humility are required if unity is ever to be restored. Putting to Death When I called Meg back, I was committed to not defending myself—not even once. I wanted to be humble and listen to her concerns with an open heart. This was not easy. Meg was even more hurt after our first conversation and even more critical of me than before. Her words flowed freely as she listed out my flaws in detail. As she talked, how I longed to cut in and defend myself. She was listing out the very things I saw in her! I ached to repeat how hurt and offended I was and to offer my own list of criticisms. But I didn’t. Instead, I took careful notes, thanked Meg for her input, and promised to prayerfully consider what she had said. I hung up and groaned privately to the Lord, saying, “Surely this is what you meant by ‘putting to death the flesh!’” It was one of the hardest conversations I’ve ever had. But you know what? There was some truth in what Meg said. I didn’t see it right away, but as my emotions subsided in the days following, God used Meg’s input to show me some things that I needed to work on. Now, I didn’t put more emphasis on Meg’s perspective than God’s. I reminded myself that I am loved and accepted by Him and that His grace is bountiful enough to cover each of my flaws. But I did pray carefully through Meg’s complaints. I repeatedly refused to focus on her flaws and instead focused on my areas for growth. In the end, I apologized to our group about some of the concerns Meg had raised and helped revise our earlier decision. Conflict was averted, unity was restored, and all was well. A Worthy Calling Now, that is just one example. I could tell of ten other conflict situations in which I tried to humble myself yet unity wasn’t restored, groups still split, and relationships were never the same. Unity is not something we have ultimate control over — leader or not. We can only do our small part, with the influence that God has allotted. But even as a small member of the Body of Christ, it’s good for me to remind myself of my calling. Ephesians 4:1–3 says: Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. I once was far off and alienated from God. I had no hope and was without God in the world ( Eph. 2:12 ). But by the blood of Jesus I have been brought near and included into the family of God! My attitude toward maintaining unity within this family is a reflection of how I feel about being called inside. How Much Is Unity Worth? Unity is costly. You might even have to take dictation on your list of flaws. In my instance, Meg never came to see things my way. She never apologized. And I never got the satisfaction of defending myself. But maintaining unity with Meg, and ultimately our group, was worth it. Maintaining unity in your church or ministry is worth it, too—even if it’s costly. Jesus, our preciousSavior, died to bring us into this family. He said that our unity with God and each other was worthy of His death. If you’re a leader, your role is to go first. You can’t lead others to have extravagant humility unless you first display extravagant humility. This is what Jesus did for us! So how much are we willing to spend on unity? Will we put to death the desire to be honored, to defend ourselves, and to have our own way? Do we value unity the same way Jesus does? Consider a conflict you’re facing as you pray these verses to the Lord: Lord, I choose to do nothing from rivalry with ______________ or conceit toward ___________. In humility I’m counting _______________’s needs, perspectives, and desires more significant than my own. Lord, I choose not to look out only for my own interest regarding __________________. I will also look out for the interests of _____________________. I want for my _______________ (group/church) to have the mindset among ourselves which Jesus had. May we be people who make ourselves nothing, who humble ourselves, and who become obedient—like Jesus who even died on a cross. (From Philippians 2:3–8 ) More Blogs You'll Like Is Prioritizing Love Un-Christian? What Does The Bible Say? Read More More Than Meets the Eye Discovering God’s Purposes for Motherhood Read More Mom Guilt and How to Fight It Read More

What kind of counseling should you expect from your pastor? Christian Life Jon Delger Multiplication Pastor Peace Church Published On: November 21, 2023 You’re looking for counseling. You want a Christian perspective. Who better to ask than your pastor? However, you know that your pastor has a lot of other things on his plate. He doesn’t just do counseling, he also preaches, teaches, and leads your church. Wait… does he do counseling? Does he charge for counseling? I really need some help. What should I expect from him? I can’t speak for all pastors, but let me try to speak for “the average pastor” on this one. Let me share my standard response when asked for pastoral counseling from someone in my church and suggest some next steps you can take if you are interested in pastoral or Christian counseling. “Pastor, I am struggling, I think I need counseling, can you help?” Each time I hear these words, I have two reactions. First, my heart breaks. I want to respond: “I am all yours, I will do whatever it takes, and I will be with you every step of the way.” I want to solve all their problems and heal all their pain. However, by God’s grace, a second reaction then strikes me. A voice inside my head reminds me: “I am neither Jesus nor Superman, I don’t have all the answers, and I can’t do it all.” Over time, I have come to a few realizations about pastoral counseling: 1) I do a disservice to people by promising too much. Have you ever been promised a lot by someone (doctor, financial adviser, mom, dad, spouse) only to have them not deliver? Would it have been more or less painful for them to tell you realistically what they could do for you, even if it wasn’t all you hoped for? This leads to my next two realizations. 2) I keep people from receiving stronger support when I promise too much. When someone promises to deliver exactly what you need, what do you do? You stop searching for further help. Most pastors are not trained counselors. Sure, we took a couple of counseling classes in seminary, but that is a far cry from being a trained professional. Some pastors may be uniquely gifted, have special training, and feel equipped to provide more than average. However, in many cases, the average pastor is best suited to do triage, not provide full treatment. 3) Giving people realistic expectations from the start is important. When I overpromise or am unclear about what people can expect from me, it leads to broken promises, hurt feelings, strained relationships, and often prevents someone from getting the help they really need. As a rule, I offer people a realistic sense of what they can expect from me, right from the beginning. When asked for pastoral counseling, I let people know that I can offer three things to them: 1) I can listen. Sometimes the best medicine is someone to listen to our story, ask good questions, and let us work our way through the issue. This may sound small, but it is a valuable resource. 2) I can pray. I cannot solve their problems, but God has the power, wisdom, and goodness to do whatever is needed in the situation. I am always happy to pray with people in person or over the phone. 3) I can share Scripture. I still try to be careful here. I am not promising to show you the answers to your problems in the Bible. Scripture doesn’t work that way. God’s Word offers us principles to think through our situation as well as encouragement and hope. I offer 1-3 meetings of one hour. During these meetings, I seek to do the three things listed above, assess their needs, and direct them to further help as needed. Sometimes this means referring them to a professional counselor. Sometimes I direct them to a support group, mentor, or Christian brother/sister to walk with them through their situation. Professional counseling is a great resource and no one should be ashamed to take advantage of it. However, the church should also be a community of people who can help each other (not just the pastor or the professionals). In recent years, some of the best biblical counselors around have created [great resources]( http://ccef.org ) to equip Christians to help each other. “Pastor, I am struggling, I think I need counseling, can you help?” Here is my standard response: I am so sorry to hear that. I would love to hear more about your situation and see how I can help. Because I care about you and want to make sure you receive the help you need, let me share up-front what I can offer as a pastor. I am not a trained counselor. As a pastor, there are three things I can offer you: I can listen, I can pray, and I can share Scripture. I typically meet with people from one to three times to do those three things. During that time I also try to help you arrange further support as needed, whether that is a professional counselor, a small group, or a Christian friend who can walk with you through this time. I would be happy to get together so I can listen to your story, pray with you, and share Scripture. Can I connect you with my assistant to schedule a time to meet? You’re looking for pastoral or Christian counseling, what are your next steps? 1) Ask your pastor what he offers. Don’t hesitate to reach out for help, but give your pastor the chance to be clear about what he has to offer. Consider sending him a link to this article and give him permission to be clear about what you can expect from him. 2) Ask your pastor for a referral. If you know already that you want ongoing counseling, ask your pastor for help finding a counselor. Not all “Christian counseling” is equal, unfortunately. Ask for help finding a Bible-saturated, gospel-centered, Christ-focused counselor who will share God’s Word with you, rely on the Holy Spirit, and use the best of what psychology has to offer. A word to church members and leaders looking on… If your pastor does not offer all the counseling you think he should, it is not because he is heartless, impersonal, or lazy. If he knows how to say “no” to some requests, it is because he knows his strengths and weaknesses and is seeking to help people in the most effective way possible. This is wisdom. Praise God that he has given it to your pastor. More Blogs You'll Like Is Prioritizing Love Un-Christian? What Does The Bible Say? Read More More Than Meets the Eye Discovering God’s Purposes for Motherhood Read More Mom Guilt and How to Fight It Read More

PODCAST That's a Good Question Embracing the Mission: A Conversation with Jim Essian November 11, 2024 Jon Delger & Mitchell Leach Listen to this Episode On this episode of That's a Good Question, Jon and I interview Jim Essian, the founder of a church planning network in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in Texas. The goal of our conversation is that Christians would grow in their faith and their hearts would grow in desire to see the gospel advance in their communities. Without further ado, let's jump into this week's episode. Hey everyone, welcome to That's a Good Question, a podcast of Peace Church and Resound Media. You can find more great content for the Christian life and church leaders at resoundmedia.cc. That's a Good Question is a place where we answer questions about the Christian faith in plain language. I'm Jon. I serve as a pastor as well as a part of this show. You can always submit questions at peacechurch.cc/questions . Today I'm here with Mitch, as always, as well as special guest, Jim Essian. Yeah. A few little things about Jim that might be interesting for you as a listener. Jim played many years in the minor leagues and left baseball and felt the call to become a church planter, planted Paradox Church in 2011 in Fort Worth, Texas, where he continues to serve as lead pastor. Jim founded the church planning network, Plant Fort Worth, which has planted 15 churches in the last six years. Also, he's an author of many different books including his last, Send, loving your church by praying, giving, and going. Jim, if you would, I just want to say a special thank you for hopping on and a welcome. If you would, tell us a little bit more about yourself outside of baseball and church planting. What do you occupy your time with now. Yeah, thanks for having me, guys. Absolutely. Married to my wife, Heather, now for almost 21 years. And we've got three girls. Love their ages, 14, 12, and 9. We're just having a blast with marriage and family. And obviously, ministry is a big part of what we do. And our kids and my wife is involved. And so I love where we're at right now. I love loving life. So things are well. Jim, before we get going, you mind tell us a little bit about what made the transition for you from life in baseball to life as a pastor and a church planter? Well, I mean, baseball decides for you, typically. I mean, there's a few guys out there in the world that get to decide what they want to do. But typically, you know, in professional sports, you're done when they say you're done. You know, I could have kept playing and chasing a dream, but after eight years in the minor leagues and I've been married for a couple of years, it was time. And, you know, I'm not going to over-spiritualize it. It wasn't because I was going to move immediately into pastoral ministry. That was not exactly what I had in mind. So that was just the Lord dragging me out of something that I had known really my whole life. You know, my dad was a professional baseball, still is in fact, six decades. And so that was all I knew baseball, but the Lord had something better. And so he dragged me out and here I am. That's awesome. That's how he does it all the time, right? Drags us, kicking and screaming. Oh man, yeah, yeah. He's got a calling for us. Well, on that note, are all believers called to be on mission? This is something you talk a lot about in your book. I'd love to just hear your thoughts about this. Are all believers called to be on mission? And if so, why is it important that all believers consider themselves sent on mission by Jesus? Yeah, I mean, I love the process of writing the book to sort of organize some of those thoughts. You know, we have, as pastors, we have theological categories and then hopefully we're good at taking those theological precepts or ideas or categories and placing them in the hands of our people in a way in which they can actually do something with. And so, the first two chapters of the book are all about God's vision for the world. Why is there a world? Why is there a universe that exists at all? What is God doing? And then the second chapter is God's vision for us. And the big idea there is just that those two things are pretty inextricably linked. That God's vision for the world is to cover the world with the knowledge of His glory. And we are, in part, I mean, we are image bearers of his glory, and then we're called to be witnesses to his glory. And so, yeah, I mean, whether we know it or not, or whether we are intentionally doing it or not, if you are a follower of Jesus, you are on that mission, the mission to make much of Jesus and his glory known. It's really just a matter of how much, how how intentional do we want to live on that mission? And do we know? And I've just found, this is real general, not just specific to the mission of God or the book itself. I found that, specifically in the American church, if we have a problem with the American church, pastors should stop blaming the people and we should start taking responsibility for ourselves as leaders. It is our job to teach them. It is our job to set an example. It is our job to tell them. And in part, the book is written as a way to help pastors help their people see the mission that God has called them to. Yeah, amen, totally. What are some symptoms or what are some side effects of Christians not knowing that mission and trying to live out the Christian life? What are some things that you've seen as a lead pastor in that? Yeah, I mean, we're gonna, I said this yesterday in a sermon, and I'm sure you guys have quoted it as well, D.A. Carson, just talking about how we don't drift towards holiness. We don't drift towards God's mission. We don't drift towards feeling near to God. We don't drift towards a healthy marriage. We don't drift, it's just not the way that that works. We are fundamentally still broken, sinful, learning how to live out our new nature in Christ. And so, yeah, I mean, if we're not moving in that direction, we'll be moving towards something. We were made to be...we were made to be glorious. We were made to desire beauty. We were made to have purpose and meaning. And we're going to find the counterfeit of that if we don't...if we're not on the road to the way God has designed that for us. So, you're going to find yourself chasing after God's stuff and not God. And of course, that's just where we end up wrestling, struggling, and in the places where all of us can find ourselves in. Right. It's like the second law of thermodynamics for spirituality, right? Everything tends towards decay. That's true in the spiritual world, too. If you sit still, you're drifting in the wrong direction. You don't actually stand still. Totally. And there's also just, I mean, there's also a great joy to it. I think we can have a tendency to do, you know, we ought to, and we do, we ought to be doing certain things and a part of certain things, but there's also the promises that there's great joy in all of that. Yeah. You know, Jesus doesn't say, you know, in his parable, you know, hey, good job following the rules. Now, you know, now go to heaven. He says, you know, well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master. A man finds a treasure buried in the field, in his joy goes and sells all that he has that he might buy the field. So there's also, the promise is there's great joy in all of that as well. Yeah, totally. Jim, I loved the way that you opened your book. If you don't mind, I'm going to read actually just the first two paragraphs here quick for everybody just because I loved the way that this started. This is the beginning of Jim's latest book. He says, you are in the midst of a global movement, a movement that is advancing in every culture and place across the millennia, a spirit-filled, gospel-armed people who will not stop or even slow down until we break through the gates of hell and welcome our King and His Kingdom. We will not lose because He has already won." Amen. I love that. I was hooked right away in the first couple of sentences there. So speaking of that, Jim, do you mind just talking a little bit about how is our theology of Jesus' victory through the cross and the resurrection. How does that affect how we think about the church, and especially church planting? Yeah, I mean, I was joking about it with my team this morning in regards to something else. But it was kind of, if you watched the Lions game last night, it's kind of like that. It's like, man, things are not going well, but it just feels inevitable. We just knew somehow they were going to pull it off. And the Christian life is much like that. Here's a free sermon illustration for you guys for next Sunday. Yeah. The Christian life is so much like that. I mean, there are seasons, there are quarters, there are moments, there's time. There's this particular drive where man, it doesn't feel like we know what we're doing. And five picks in one game, I need to stop this analogy, I'm sorry. But you know, there's just, we know, we know that things are going to be hard and there's going to be times where it doesn't feel like it's going well, but to know that we have already won just pulls, like all of the weight gets pulled out from that moment. I mean, it just keeps everything in perspective. And so I do think people in the Reformed camp can have a tendency to not focus on the victory that we have. And instead we're focusing on the depravity of man or something else. Whereas we can learn from the black church or even some of the charismatic churches that we are meant to live from victory first. The battle has been won. And so we know how this thing ends. And Revelation was written to encourage us. We know how this thing is gonna go down. And so that should just give us a lot of confidence when we think about the mission of God, the multiplication of His church, our part in that, our role in that, our money, our prayers. I mean, we're the ones that believe that it's God who saved, so why wouldn't we be the most bold in our proclamation of the gospel? I mean, all of those things should give us a lot of confidence. Yeah, amen. Man, I gotta tell you, this is like, I feel like the tides have turned here. It used to be that all of our analogies about the lion were very negative. That was the most optimistic analogy I've heard. Yes, it brings a choice, that's right. A different season in Michigan. Well, you know, usually I also say that you can only insult the Lions if you're from Michigan. But Jim, you're from Detroit, so it's OK. We'll go with it. I grew up watching Barry Sanders on the 50-yard line, man. Yeah, that's awesome. There you go. That's awesome. Well, hey, so to pivot to talking a little bit more specifically about church planning. So let's tackle this from a couple of different angles. If somebody listening is in a church that is healthy, that is growing, and that is maybe thinking about church planting in the near future, what are some things that they could do to help foster that culture that leads to church planting? Maybe they're a pastor, maybe they're an elder, maybe they're just a faithful member volunteer serving. How can they contribute to the sort of culture that leads to multiplication, planting more churches? Yeah, I mean, a couple of things. One, I think you have to start with vision, which is why that's how I started the book. I mean, I think for anything when it comes to church, when it comes to the mission of God, when it comes to the glory of God, we start with vision. You know, we tell our team this, like we don't want to recruit to need. We want to recruit to vision. And, you know, I need you might get somebody to show up next Sunday or next Saturday or, you know, whatever, but when they are captured by a vision of God, the glory of God, and the mission of God, you have them for life, not just a Sunday. And so I would just always start with vision. You know, that's going to sustain us. That's going to be the thing that endures us in ministry, whether that's vocation ministry, vocational ministry, or not. You know, I've got people in my church, we're about 14 years old now as a church plant, and I've got a couple of dozen people that have been around about 14 years, ministering, leading, serving, and they're not here because I'm some sort of great leader or because, you know, standing in the midst of the churches, ruling and reigning, and they're captured by that vision. So one, you've got to have a vision. It should be the vision that God has. Don't come up with your own. And then two, I think they need to know that this is, like, anyone can get in on this. One of the reasons I, you know, everything I've just told people about this book, like what is the book about, what is the book about, the book is about I am a ex-jock preacher with no seminary degree, no college degree, and I've been able to be on the front lines of Jesus's mission, watching Jesus flex in church planting here in Fort Worth, throughout the country and throughout the world. I've seen churches planted in Brazil. I've seen the darkness pushed back in my city. I've been able to be at the front lines of God's mission, and if I can, then anyone can. And so anyone in our churches can be a part of this, and they can get in on it. And I just think that's amazing, that if you paint this big, beautiful vision of the glory of God and the mission of God and the victory of God, and then you say you can be a part of that, no matter who you are or what you can get in on this, that's a great start. And then from there, I think it would just be championing multiplication. You can't, I mean, there's, I won't remember it, but there's a quote in the book from Tim Keller, because you have to quote Tim Keller if you're going to be able to take it. He says some of the effect of like, if you don't have a multiplication culture and you just go plant a church, it's going to be like, that's almost dangerous to a church. There has to be already a culture of multiplication. This has to be something that's being championed and celebrated. It's a culture that's created where multiplication is just normal. We're going to multiply disciples. We're going to multiply small groups. We're going to multiply leaders. We're going to multiply campuses, services, churches. The gospel is always moving. It's not static, it's dynamic, it's news, it's meant to be shared, it's meant to be moved. And so I think developing a culture of multiplication is really important. Amen. So, you know, so the vision is so exciting, I think, and so easy to grab onto for so many people. But one of the objections that I have heard sometimes that I'm sure you've experienced as well. So we at Peace Church by God's grace, where Mitch and I pastor, we got to plant a campus that will become an independent church just a year ago. And so we saw this as well. Maybe you've heard this before, but people will say, well, man, that means I've got to say goodbye to some brothers and sisters in Christ because either they're leaving to go be part of this new church plant or I'm leaving to go be part of a new church plant. You know, you go from a church that's probably of a decent size, usually when you plant, you're a healthy size and now you're gonna go start this much smaller thing. How have you handled that as a pastor and church planner, helping people go through that, saying goodbye, realizing, man, there are some people that you're not gonna see every Sunday morning anymore. You know, there's some downsides, but obviously there's a much bigger upside. Yeah, totally. Yeah, there's a whole chapter in the book called Gospel Goodbyes for this very reason. You know, if you have a multiplication culture you immediately realize you learn very quickly that that means you're saying goodbye even if you have a small group of somebody in my small group multiplies our relationship is now changing to some degree and you know this is the paradox of the gospel at least one of many, and that's that this goodbye is both a grief, excuse the city noise behind me, but it's both a grief but also a celebration. We are sorrowful yet always rejoicing, the Apostle Paul said. And so we're celebrating because the gospel is going forward, we're multiplying, but we also acknowledge the grief. And that's just kind of one of the things you want to do is just acknowledge, yeah, this stinks, that our relationship's gonna change. This stinks, that you're not gonna go to this church, or you're not gonna be a part of this small group, or you're not gonna go overseas, and I'm gonna be missing my friend. And our relationship is going to change. You think of Paul in Acts 20, when he's leaving the Ephesian elders, and everyone is weeping. You think of the disciples when they finally realized what Jesus is saying, that he's going to go. And Jesus said, sorrow has filled your heart. So there's just an acknowledgement, I think, to the grief that would be healthy and mature and would make sense. All while we understand the joy of the celebration in the multiplication that's happening there. Yeah, yeah, totally. One of the language things we've tried to use is to try to talk about, you know, people are really tempted to say well our small group is splitting or our church is splitting. No, no, it's not a split. It's a multiplication, you know, different math term, right? It's multiplication not division. That's what's going on. Yeah, we started talking about actually our small groups don't even multiply, they just plant. We call them city groups. Just to, again, we want one of our strategies, you know, we have three strategies, preach the gospel, plant churches, and push back darkness. And we wanted people to see that they're actually a part of planting churches, even if they don't go to one of our church plants. Because, you know, it's that multiplication culture that breeds a new church. And so even if they never are a part of one of our church planting teams, or even the lead church planter, they're still a part of church planting. And so I do think language is important. Saying gospel goodbyes, would you say that that's maybe the hardest part of planting churches, or have you seen something else in your experience as a church planter that makes it difficult? Yeah, I think relationally, emotionally, that's the hardest part. No, I think, I mean, it's hard to say what is hard about it because we've just been so blessed by it and it's almost like breathing for us. It's just not something that we, you know, consider a loss at all. Sure. So the hardest part is just the work of, it's the work afterwards. I think the hardest part, I'm really good at starting things, I'm not great at the details, I'm not great at, I'm really good at starting things and handing them off. Plant Fort Worth, the network, the city network here that we started, that's run by Ben Connolly, he's world famous in doing, working for church planning organizations and running church planning residencies, that's something I would be terrible at. So I've got wonderful people that do a great job of all of that, but this is just, you know, it's once the church is off the ground, how do you continue to come alongside that church and it grows, it grows in all the ways in which it needs to grow and should grow. That's probably the hardest part for me personally is, you know, these are all my buddies, but it's a lot of them and it's a lot of work and I've got other work. Yeah. And just, you know, continuing to build that family and our family of churches and caring for these men and their teams and seeing them grow and flourish and get healthy and all of that is, that's a lot of the hard work. It's easy for us to raise up a guy, because that's something the Lord does anyways, and then send him out with, I mean, Caleb, our next church plan, he'll be headed out here in January, here in a couple of months. He's got right now 85 committed. And so that'll probably grow to about 100 or so by the time he gets to January. So that's really easy to just say, this is what we do guys and this is what we're about and so go. And they go. So that part, easy is maybe too strong of a word, but the harder part is how do we get these churches to continue to grow and get healthy? Yeah. Hey, this is Mitchell and I wanted to butt in and interrupt our amazing interview with Jim Essien to bring you an exclusive offer from our sponsors today, Moody Publishers. Outside of them giving us this deal, Moody Publishers has been a resource that I've always run to. They're an amazing group of people that publish great stuff. If you're looking to dive deeper into faith and grown wisdom, discover books that will inspire, challenge, and transform with Moody Publishers. From trusted authors to fresh voices, Moody offers resources that equip you for life's journey with Christ. And now we have an exclusive offer for you. That's a good question, listeners. An offer for you if you use promo code RESOUND40 to get 40% off with your next purchase. Whether you're searching for devotionals, study guides, or impactful reads, Moody Publishers has something for everyone. Don't miss out on this. Visit moodypublishers.com and use code RESOUND40 at checkout. Again, that's moodypublishers.com and use RESOUND40 at checkout. Enrich your faith today. And now let's jump back into our interview with Jim Essien. I wanna ask one more question about those gospel goodbyes. How have you seen that impact the sending church in a positive way? We've done this at so many different stages. It's really, it changes at the different stages of church size that we've been at. Our first church we planted, we were maybe 600, 700 people. And so, that kind of gospel goodbye, and we sent out 100 people with that one. Yeah. So that sort of gospel goodbye, you have a lot of relational ties. And of course we're planting just down the street. So it's not totally, you know, we're never gonna see them again, but it's definitely a thing where these were pastors that were planting that had deep impact in the lives of our people. And so it's not just the people that are going, it's the pastor that is going. They married some of our people, they've counseled them, they've prayed with them, they've cried with them, they've visited them in the hospital, and now in a lot of ways they think of him as maybe their pastor. And for whatever reason, maybe they're not going with him for some, you know, because typically it's geographic. There's a lot of... it can definitely have an effect on, we've had a few instances where it's, you know, that was the person that really pastored me and these other elders, I just don't really know. And so you have, you know, things like that, but all of that is just create shepherding moments. Yeah. Every moment is a shepherding moment is kind of one of the things that we say. And so there's, that's not a bad thing. That's just an opportunity. Yeah, totally. So another experience that we have here in West Michigan, I imagine you can relate to in Texas as well, is that you'll hear people say, well, man, why would you guys plant another church? There's so many churches. You know, there's churches on every street corner, people will say, around Grand Rapids, Michigan, where we're at. You know, why do you think, Jim, why do you think we need more churches in areas that do have lots of churches, and why do we need more churches? Yeah, interesting enough, typically those people, I don't know if you found this to be true, but typically those people are people that have been at a lot of the churches in the city. And so, you know, I would gently push back there and say it seems like you liked, you know, all of the options and you've enjoyed, you know, dropping your feet into different churches and seeing which one fits for you. Man, you know, there's so many ways, so many reasons why it's still right and good to do this that I could probably list off 10. One would just be, again, I would just keep going back to vision. The very nature of the gospel is that it multiplies. And so, in a healthy place, this should just be natural. It's just going to happen that the gospel continues to just move and do what it does. Two, unless, you know, unless, I mean, if a guy wants, if a guy on my team or if a guy comes to me and says, not going to give him my job. He's going to have to go to another church to have my job. And so why would we keep, you know, my, why is the lead pastor role or any role in the church off limits to anyone else? I mean, if God is raising up another great kids minister, if God is raising up another great worship pastor, if God is raising up another great lead pastor, why would we not want to multiply that as well. Three, church closings happen all the time. Four, population growth is happening in certain areas of the country. And so there's reasons for wanting to do that. Another great reason, I'd probably put this at the top as well, is just there's something about a new church that tends to attract new kinds of people, is a little bit stronger in evangelism, is going to just create another expression of the local church in a city that's going to be helpful to the church in that city. And one of the things I love about Plant Fort Worth is that we are a network of churches in one city, Fort Worth, and you look at like the guys on our lead team, for example, you've got Presbyterian Church and Pentecostal Church and Black Church, and you've got this sort of broad swath of the church in Fort Worth. And you talk about unity, like everybody wants unity in the church, that's how you get it. And I just think there's so many benefits to it. Nobody really wants their church to get bigger except for the lead pastor anyways. So it's not just, why are we wanting one church to carry the evangelical, I'm sorry, the evangelistic and discipleship load of a whole city. I just don't understand that strategy, that theology, or that philosophy. Yeah, yeah, totally. Well, and one of the things that we've heard is people saying, well, there's already churches in that place where you're going to plant. Why plant another one in that place? And there's a lot of different answers to that. One would be just that statistically, new church plants have a much higher ability to reach new people than existing longstanding churches do. That's just, we could talk about the reasons why, but the data just shows us that. That if somebody who's not currently part of a church is more likely to attend a brand new church plant than a longstanding church. That's just kind of how it is. From our experience at Church Plant, too, in the most recent plant that we did, we didn't see a ton of people leave other churches and come to that church. It was people who weren't part of a church, and they started coming. Or they were people from the sending church that went with to be part of that. I don't have any data on this. You get a lot of specialized mission as well. You know, there's, you know, I mean, so much of our DNA obviously goes with the sending churches or with the church plants, but they're, you know, I mean, Pillar Church is in a very unique part of Fort Worth and the ministry that Canaan can do there is gonna be much more specific and contextualized than what we could try to do as the mother church in center city Fort Worth. So our church plants end up in very specific, unique neighborhoods with defined geographic boundaries and they have their own different unique ministries that they can emphasize and put energy towards that maybe we wouldn't as just a large mega church in center city Fort Worth. Yeah, yeah, totally. Well, so we've got to talk a ton about church planting, so I think people listening are in different places. Some getting to be part of a church, part of a church plant, which is awesome. Some, maybe not, maybe asking the question, all right, so if I'm not part of a church that is planting or if I'm not part of a church plant, how can I still be part of God's mission, what he's doing in the church? So let me ask you this, Jim. How can the average Christian dream big for the glory of God and for the mission he might have for them? Yeah, that's my, I mean, the last chapter in the book is called Dream Big. And really it's just an opportunity for, again, so I'm going to go back to that question I brought up earlier. If I can get in on God's mission, then so can you. You know, anyone can. And, you know, there's a couple of things. One is just talking about finding your place. So part of the book is also, what is my role in all of this? How do I figure out what God would have for me? And there's local missions, and there's church planting, and there's global missions. And so Dream Big is just really about you sitting before the Lord and actually believing Ephesians 3 is true. That God is wanting to grow your heart in such a way that you would be able to comprehend with all of the saints the fullness of God's love for you and for the church. And that he would then do anything, right? Anything. He would do more than you could ask or imagine because he wants his glory known through the church. That's just Ephesians 3, 20 and 21. And so, the opportunity to sit down and actually pray and sit before the Lord and just say, God, I wanna dream big for how I might be a part of this huge thing that you're doing and to know that you've just promised that you would do more than that. You know, Jesus prays or tells us in what, John 15, John 16, maybe John 14, whatever you pray for, if you pray in my name, I will do. And we, you know, everybody's, you know, everybody's had that, every pastor's had that question asked them, how is it that I pray about things and God doesn't do them? Well, because what he's talking about there is praying according to his will and his word and his promises. And so there's a promise in Ephesians 3.20 that if we are praying that God's glory would be known through His church, He will give us more than we can ask or imagine. And so just dreaming big about your role in the mission of God. And for some of you, it's going to be underwriting. Great ministry and great mission. I've got great stories about over the course of history, the revivals of the church, and you have these great leaders that have been a huge part of these revivals and movements of the church. But there are unknown men and women, typically women, very often they're women, that are underwriting, that are paying for financing those movements of God. Some of you, that's going to be you, and you have no idea what that's going to be like, and it's going to be amazing that God would use you and your finances for his ministry and mission. For some of you it's going to be prayer. I've been saying this for years. I'm going to find out in heaven for sure that some probably single woman who has been so faithful to pray for our church for decades was actually the reason why God did all the things that God did in our church. And we're going to get to heaven. She's going to have a gigantic house. Mine's going to be this little tiny house and hers is going to be a huge mansion and, you know, she's going to have this bottle of prayers in one of her many, many garages and barns. And it's going to be the prayers that she had for the Paradox Church. And that's why I did all that stuff. And so just what does that look like for you to sit before the Lord and just dream big about what He might have you do, the role that you might play for the mission of God. Yeah, amen, that's awesome. Yeah, I've gotten to have that conversation with a few of our senior saints, even here, even in the church. They are so overjoyed that they get to be part of the church planting, not because they're going, but because they get to support it through prayers and through their faithful giving. Yeah, totally. All of us have a role to play. Total. Jim, as we're kind of wrapping up, I've really thoroughly enjoyed your book, Send. Could you tell us a little bit more? We've kind of been teasing around these questions around that book, but could you tell us a little bit more about that book or any other projects that maybe are on the horizon for you that we should look out for? Yeah, I love the book for, again, just it's written to the church member. And so it's meant to serve the church pastor, but it's written to the church member. I've told my pastor friends, we all want so much, we want more for our people. We want them to really be captured by the mission of God and to want more for the Christian life. And it's just hard for us to download and disciple, for me, 14 years of experience in ministry to everyone. So to be able to have a book that is meant to be written specifically to the church member and hopefully doing some of that, that's the way it's meant to serve your churches, your ministries. It's written to the church member. And then, two, I'm really excited about what I hope to be a next project about basically just written to men, a very specific ministry towards men. I started an email newsletter. It's called When a Man is Needed. And I've wanted so much to multiply my ministry here locally to our men, to more just super practical, super easy. But really, the younger generation, I'm 45 now, I just turned 45, the 20s and 30 year olds, men, I know them well, I have conversations with them all the time, and they just need very simple, practical help, and they're gonna go find it somewhere. And so I've just been really excited about doing that with them. And so I started that newsletter recently. It's sort of taken off, and I'm excited about what that's doing, and I hope to write a book about that soon. Yeah, if people are looking to find that newsletter or any other resources, is there a place that they can search to find that information? Yeah, they can just email me. The best way to do that right now would be email. But yeah, follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. I post links there about it all the time. Jim at theparadoxchurch.com . I can get them that information as well. Awesome, awesome. That's great. Well Jim, thanks so much for the conversation today. We're so thankful to get to talk and get to share with our listeners. Everybody, thanks so much for listening. Have an awesome week. You can always follow ReSound Media on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Subscribe, follow, like. Have a great week everybody. Bye!

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Angelic Proclamation; Our King is Born! Sermon Series: Fit for a King Ryan DB Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: Luke 2:8-15 Transcript Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone said with all your heart, amen, amen. So, one thing that is always monitored around the holiday time is holiday travel. For some reason, we like to monitor how much people are moving around during Christmas time. So here's the question I have for you. Where are you going for Christmas or for Christmas celebrations? Here's what I want you to do. Take a moment with the people around you, share where you are going for Christmas this year. Take a moment and do that. All right, so as you think about where you're going to go for Christmas, let's just hold on to that thought for a second. We'll come back to it. Today we are continuing our series called Fit for a King as we are looking at the reality that Jesus is not just Emmanuel, God with us, He's not just the Savior, but Jesus is the King of kings who has been born. And so His birth, while very humble in nature, it was still a truly royal event. And I think one of the most grand parts of Jesus' birth that really demonstrate and announce the fact that it was a royal event is with the angelic proclamation. When the angels come and announce that Jesus has been born. And that's what we're going to be looking at today. And here's what I'd say. For those who know the story, you know the humble means by which Jesus was born. I'm hoping that you can hear anew the angelic announcements because I think it's very timely with everything that's going on in our world. And so to look at this very familiar passage, I'm gonna ask you to turn in your Bibles to Luke 2. Luke 2, we'll look at verses 8 to 15. If you are newer to the faith or you don't know the context, let me just clarify for you. As we read this passage, here's what's going on. Jesus Christ had just been born. He had been born in Bethlehem to Mary and Joseph. It was a completely underwhelming event by human standards. He's born in a manger made for animals because as the Bible says there's no place for him in the inn. Bethlehem, while an extremely famous town nowadays, it was a small town and nearby, the Bible says that there were shepherds out tending to their flocks. It's a well-known story and so here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna pick up from this point. Jesus has been born and there's shepherds out in the field and that's where we're gonna pick up our story. So would you hear God's Word? Luke chapter 2, we'll read verses 8 to 15. Would you hear God's Word? Luke 2:8-15 8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” 15 When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” This is God's word. Let's pray and we'll continue. Let's pray. Father in heaven above, Lord, today we remember, we give thanks that we celebrate the birth of your son, the incarnation of our God and Savior and the King of kings who rules and reigns. And we ask here and now by the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit that you would not only bless our time, but help us to know your truth, that we would receive it into our hearts and into our lives. And we ask these things in the name of the newborn King, in the name of Jesus. And everyone said, amen. So for those of us gathered here and online, as we are here on Christmas Eve, if I give you one thing to think about today and especially tomorrow as we celebrate the birth of Jesus it would be this here's our main point for today what the angels proclaim is what we all need to hear and so as we look at our passage today there's three things I want to draw up draw out from this angelic announcement and it'd be these three things. 1. The truth is found in a moment 2. The miracle is found in the mundane 3. The purpose is found in the message The purpose is found in the message. All right. So as we get going, let's just state the obvious here. I know many people would say that we live in a quote unquote heavily churched area. Many of us grew up knowing this story. Or even if you didn't grow up going to church, it's such a cultural celebration. Many of us just know the story of Christmas by osmosis to some extent. So here's what I'd say to you. If this passage is familiar to you, if you've heard this passage a thousand times, here's my challenge to you, especially if you call yourself a Christian. Do you live out this story as well as you know the story? Do you live out this story as well as you know the story? I recently heard someone say this about the American culture. They said that we are educated beyond our obedience. That we know all this stuff. We have all the Bible studies. We have all the resources at our fingertips. We know everything we can, but we don't actually live it out. We're educated beyond our obedience to God's word. And so again, here's my challenge to you. If you know this story, if you've heard it a thousand times, do you live it out as well as you know it? Are you filled with hope? True hope? Are you filled with hope every single time you hear this? Or are you just filled with nostalgia? Are you challenged by this story? Are you comforted by this story? Does this story inspire you to live more fully to God? You may know this story, but have you truly heard it? 1. The truth is found in a moment So first thing, Christmas proclaims what we all need to hear. The first one is this, the truth is found in the moment. Let's go back to our passage. What we say we know so well, let's look at verses 8, 9, and 10 again. Luke says this, it says, Luke 2:8-10 8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. All right. Let me ask you you got to be honest. This is church. Got to be honest here when I read this passage How many of you thought of Charlie Brown? Let me see. Oh, most of you. Okay. All right. Okay. Yeah, you know Whether we think of the Christmas celebration when we read this passage, we're missing something so much. This is an entirely underrated passage. Remember what's going on here. These shepherds were among the lowest of the low, and yet they, they were the ones that God chose to reveal the birth announcement to. They were the first ones to get to hear about the birth of Jesus. These shepherds out in the field, the lowest of the low, the forgotten, and they're the ones who got to hear first the message of Jesus. They were not kings. They were not rulers. They were not social media influencers. They were not rock stars. They were working men. And add to that, they were working the night shift. Nothing but love for third shifters. I worked on third shift for two years of my life. My body’s not wired for it. Two years of my life, I never saw the sun. I just, I can't handle it. But I can tell you this about working the third shift. That crew of people that I got to work with, we were a ragtag group, and nobody was looking to quote us. We were the forgotten, but it was a fun group I worked with. And one thing I can tell you about working the third shift is that we understood that the boss was never going to show up in the middle of the night to say, well done everyone. Keep it up. Boss wasn't walking in at 2 am to give us an attaboy. If the boss showed up in the middle of the night, someone getting fired. No one showed up unless we did something wrong, but I can't imagine being those guys working out at night and God's angel showed up. I can't imagine working third shift and have an angel of the Lord show up to not just tell us news, but the greatest news the world had ever heard. Mary, the mother of Jesus, and I say this with all due respect, she was a nobody by the world's standards. See, in our day and age, where everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame, we live in a world where teenagers' dying wish is to go viral and get some attention. I'm telling you, this is not how God works. God is not impressed by this. He's not impressed by how many likes we get on social media. God's standards are not ours. He goes by his own. Some of you out here, you may feel forgotten, either by your families or by society. But I'm telling you now, it's the lowly, it's the forgotten, it's the mourning, it's the third shifters, it's the people without influence. Those are just the type of people that God reveals big things to. And he calls us to respond. This is how God works. He doesn't wait for the big grand events to reveal his plan. He does it in the moments we'd never expect. This eternal truth that God incarnate had been born, that eternal truth was found in the moments. God does things when we never expect, not just what we don't expect. Like telling a bunch of poor farm boys working the night shift the greatest news the world had ever known. Like a teenager who stands apart not because of her massive social media following. She stands apart because in her heart she is one thing, and that's faithful to God in her simple life. The truth is revealed in a moment, so don't be so preoccupied with the big things in life that we forget to see the way that God moves in the small things. The shepherds were just living life. They were just doing their thing, and that's when everything changed. The angel appeared to them and said, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. See, Christmas proclaims what we need to hear. The truth is found in the moment, and also the miracle is found in the mundane. 2. The miracle is in the mundane Go to verse 11 and 12. Says this, Luke 2: 11-12 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” Christ has been born to you, unto you. He came for us. We celebrate the one who came to save us, to redeem us. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord and this will be a sign for you you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger okay we know this story we know it and because we know it so well I think we've forgotten what we just read an angel shows up with the glory of God shining around them. These men are absolutely terrified. And what's the news? You're gonna find a baby. You're gonna find a baby just wrapped up in swaddling cloths. That's a big grand sign I came from heaven to share with you. What? Don't be so familiar with the story that you forget to know the story. What is going on here? You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths. That phrase there, wrapped in swaddling cloths, is a very wordy phrase in English, but it's actually one word in the original language. You'll find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying, not in a crib, not in a hospital, not in his mother's arms. You'll find a baby wrapped and lying in a manger. So mundane, but yet a miracle. These guys were working outside in the night shift, mundane, but then a miracle happens. And just think about these guys. I mean, remember, this was a real thing that happened. These guys were just standing out in the field and I can imagine these guys doing what they do every single night. I can see them kind of just leaning on their staff, just talking to one another, just meaningless, mindless conversation like they've had day in and day out. And then something happens. A night where they normally would have just forgotten what happens. Everything, everything changed. A miracle happened in the middle of the mundane. It says, you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. Our Savior was found wrapped in rags. Rags, mundane. The king of kings was not born in a bassinet made of gold in some palace. He was born in a barn, in a manger made for faint farm animals. Now that that word manger there, I found myself this past week as I was thinking about this passage, I found myself doing something that I wonder if you do as word manger I think crib I think the crib that Jesus was born at Chris born in at Christmas time but let me remind you that's not what a manger is a manger here here's here's the definition here a manger is a long open box or trough for horses or cattle to eat from see I found myself being so familiar with this story that when I heard manger, I think that's where Jesus was born. I thought crib. Like when you hear the word manger, you need to think farm animals and hay. That's what Jesus Christ, the Christ was born in. He was not born in a nursery. It doesn't explicitly say this, but Jesus was born in a barn or at least a first century Jewish version of that, whether it was like a cutout cave or just a small little enclosure, but it was a place where animals would eat. I'll tell you this, anyone who's, who spent time in a barn, you probably resonate with what I'm about to say. I grew up spending a lot of time in a barn. If you have to, then you know, something barns are pretty special, magical places. Do you know what I mean? Who's ever spent some real time in a barn? Right? You know those are special places for some reason or not. And one of my favorite lines about barns comes from a book called Charlotte's Web. I'm sure you've heard of it. Anyone read Charlotte's Web or seen the movie? I'm not sure if this line is in the movie, but it's in the book. And line. Here's what it says about barns. It says, It smelled of hay and manure. It smelled of the perspiration of tired horses and the wonderful sweet breath of patient cows. It often had a sort of peaceful smell, as though nothing bad could happen ever again in the world. If you ever spent time in a barn, you know what the writer is saying here. But here's what I'm going to tell you. Bad things still happen. But the greatest thing that could have happened did happen. And it happened in a barn. And it's the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. See, barns are awesome places, but cows are born in barns. Horses, sheep, goats are born in barns. People are not born in barns, but our Savior was. And this just reminds us of something incredibly special from the life of Christ, that miracles don't just happen on the mountaintops. Miracles can happen in the mundane. But unfortunately, we are the most distracted society of all time, and I don't think we ever look up from our phones long enough to see it. The angel shows up and he says this. He doesn't announce the birth of Savior to princesses or kings, not to presidents or popes, but rather God speaks to the working man. God does not speak to self-proclaimed boss babes or the guys in the corner office. He speaks to the lowly, and more than that, to the faithful. To the faithful who day in and day out rely on the patience of God as the priority of their life. That they may not understand why God does what he does, but they give themselves to him knowing that he is good. Because Christmas proclaims that miracles don't just happen on the mountaintops, they happen in the mundane. Do you have the eyes to see it or are you too busy scrolling? Look up from time to time and I promise you, you might just see a miracle. Because Christmas proclaims that miracles are found in the mundane. 3. The purpose is found in the message And lastly, Christmas proclaims to us, the angels proclaim what we need to hear, and it's the truth that the purpose is found in the message. So not only does the one angel show up, look what happens. Luke 2:13-15 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” 15 When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” Verse 13 says, And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts. Okay, what's that? I'll tell you what that is. That's the angelic army. The king had been born, so God sent his entire angelic army, a multitude of them, a great number of them, to come and they were praising God. Now before I say and read what they said, remember, this is an enormous army of angels. But I'm willing to bet something here. If you know this story, I'm willing to bet something. In your mind, maybe not everyone, but I think many of us in our mind, when we think about those shepherds, we think about them doing this, looking up. I think for many of us, we just kind of like assume that the angels were in the sky. The Bible don't say that. In fact, the Bible goes at great lengths to clarify these were shepherds out in a field, in fields. I actually kind of think that they actually were on the ground, standing in a royal salute to the birth of the King. I imagine that field full of angels, the angelic army, standing, praising God and announcing this. And what did they come to announce? The birth of the Savior. And let me remind you, this is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. This is the birth of the King. This is God incarnate. How in the world do you announce that? What do you say to that? Like a thousand years worth of prophecy being fulfilled in one awesome, amazing moment. How do you announce that? Well, this is how you do it. God sends his army of angels and they say, glory to God in the highest. I don't think we fully understand the weight of that phrase. The glory of God is the weightiest thing there is. And we have the highest amount of that in the birth of Christ. Glory to God in the highest. This is what the angelic army announced. I can't even imagine what that must have sounded like. Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among those with whom He is pleased. That's how you announce the birth of the Savior. See, in our world, at least in our culture, in our society, people are looking for meaning within themselves. We are the culture that says live your own truth. Which I just gotta say is pathetically hypocritical. For a culture to say live your own truth and then what do we do? We turn around and seek external validation from strangers online. We are an incredibly lost culture. If you would just take a step back and survey what we are saying and what we are doing. Live your own truth but make sure everyone online who you don't know validates that. Okay, let me tell you something about the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel of Jesus refutes both of that. The gospel does says, no, the truth and the message and your purpose is not found within you, it's found externally, but you don't seek validation from strangers. See, the gospel message, which begins at Christmas. Now listen, while our purpose is found in the gospel message, while the meaning of our life is found in the gospel message, the gospel message is not about us, it's about Jesus. It's the good news given to us. And the good news is about Jesus, who he is and what he's done for us, that he died in our place, paying the penalty for our sin, so that we wouldn't have to. This is the good news. But in the gospel, we find our purpose. And you know the gospel, I'm willing to bet many of you do. But when we look at our lives and the interactions of so many Christians, I want to ask them, and I know this is gonna sound judgmental, but I wanna ask them, do you really know the gospel? Do you have, like, I know you know it up here in your head, but do you know the gospel like in your hearts? Because our lives are a manifestation, our lives are a manifestation of what's in our hearts, not just what's in our head. And I want to ask Christians, has the gospel made the track from your brain of what you can recite to your heart of which you live out? Does it actually change the way you interact with scriptures? Does it change the way you interact with people? Do you know the gospel? Because here's the reality, the gospel starts with Christmas, that God so loved the world that he gave. That's the Christmas story right there. That's Christmas, that Jesus, the son of God, came from heaven, born a baby boy, God incarnate, or as the Bible says, Emmanuel, God with us. And so going back to the notion of God telling the shepherds first, they first got the message. Now, the Bible doesn't say this, but I have a guess as to why God chose to tell the shepherds first. And I think it's found in verse 15. Let's go to verse 15 together. So now, when the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ìLet us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us. Why did God tell this first to the shepherds? I think itís at least in part because He knew that they would actually respond to the message. They would hear the message and they would actually do something about it. See, the birth of Christ, Emmanuel, comes with the necessity of a response for those who have the ears to hear. And the shepherds show us what the response is. When we hear the Christmas message, what's our response? To go to Jesus. For wherever you are going for your Christmas celebrations, for those who have the ears to hear, for those who have the heart to respond, we go to the manger. We go to our Savior to adore Him, to cherish Him, to worship Him. Our purpose is to know Christ and through Him to know the love of God. You see, I think if the angels went to some royal court and told this to a bunch of officials or princesses or kings, I can imagine they would probably sit there on their high thrones and they would think, wow, this is wonderful news. How wonderful I must be that the angels would tell me. And then they wouldn't do anything with it. But the shepherds, they drop what they're doing and they went to Jesus. Okay, go back to verse 15. When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing had it happened. Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that had happened. Making no mention that they just were witness to the angelic army before them. You think they might have said, what just happened? But they said, let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that had happened because they knew what they just witnessed pointed to something even greater. And so here's my question for you. You are now hearing the Christmas message. Are you going to respond like a high and mighty affluent person who thinks you're special because you heard this message, but you're really not going to do anything with it? Or are you going to be like the shepherds who hear the Christmas message and you respond by going to Jesus? My prayer for you is that you understand the beauty of God's love for you in what happened on that Christmas morning. That God sent his son to come to save you. And he did that by living a full human life, perfectly faithful to God, perfectly loving to others. And by doing so, that made him the perfect sacrifice to die in your place for your sins so that you wouldn't have to, so that you could respond and know the love that God has for you, so that you could be brought back to God through the blood of Jesus. That's my prayer for you this Christmas is that you're not just exchanging gifts, but you are being reminded again of what Christmas is. It is your Savior coming for you unto you. So which one are you? The one that's too busy to respond or the one that's going to? The shepherds dropped everything to go to Christ in that moment. And so let me make it clear again, this is what the angels proclaim, that the King has been born and we all need to hear this, that Christ, our Emmanuel, has come for us. And again, Emmanuel means God with us, right? This is a two-way street here. God with us, so we respond by going to him so that we can be with him, so that we can be with God again. So that sin that separates us from God, that is removed in the Gospel. Our Emmanuel comes to be with us so that we can go to Him. So we started this service by asking, where you go for Christmas? The one place we need to go back to is back to Christ. We need to go back to the manger, back to the story, and remember again that the King who has come to save us has been born. And that's what we get to celebrate. So let me remind you what the angels proclaim is what we all need to hear. So go to Jesus. And one of the ways we do that is by responding in worship. So would you please stand as we prepare our hearts to worship. Amen. Would you please bow your heads and let's pray together. Father, we come before you on this Christmas Eve, and I just ask God, in Jesus' name, that here and now by the power and presence of the Spirit, Lord, that you'd give us the heart of those shepherds to respond, to go and see, that we might look upon the newborn King, the one who has been born unto us to save us, that this child would grow into the man who would die on the cross and then triumph over death, triumph over sin, and he would rise again. So Father, I pray that here and now, Lord, as we sing the words of this old Christmas hymn, Father, I pray, God, that we'd sing them anew, we'd sing them true. We pray these things in Jesus' powerful name. And everyone said, amen. And everyone said, amen. Church, let's worship together.

The Lie of "Live Your Truth" Sermon Series: Calling Out Cultural Lies Ryan DB Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: John 8:31-36 Transcript Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone said, amen. Amen. Well, if we haven't met yet, my name is Ryan Kimmel. I'm the lead pastor here at Peace. And my family, I'm married to Tiffany. We've got four kids. We have two boys and two girls. Our girls are our oldest and our youngest, and we have boys in the middle. And this past summer, my family and I, we did something for the first time. This past summer we went to family camp together. Now I should actually preface and say it was the first time we did family camp where I wasn't the speaker. We just got to go as a family and just hang out with each other. We went down to Camp Mishawanna. It was a great week of fellowshipping with other believers and worshipping the Lord and having a lot of fun together. The only thing was we decided to family camp during the hottest week of the entire stinking summer, to be honest with you. It was incredibly hot. Now we stayed in a cabin that had kind of air conditioning, but we don't go camping to stay in a cabin, right? We go camping to hang out and do camping stuff. And if there's one thing I'm gonna do when I'm camping, no matter what, is I'm sitting around a bonfire, because that's what you do when you go camping. Except it was like 95 degrees. And so I still sat around the campfire ring without a campfire, enjoying the heat, and our campsite had zippity-doo-dah for shade. The sun was just beating down on us, and I'm sitting there, absolutely miserable, but telling my kids I'm having a wonderful time, I'm sitting there sweating around a campfire without a fire and I'm seriously questioning my life choices at this moment. And so I am sitting there trying to enjoy what I could, sun beating down on me, and I look over to the picnic table and I notice that my youngest daughter's little princess princess umbrella is sitting right there. And because I have no shame, and because my identity is in Jesus Christ, because I was hot, I grabbed that umbrella and opened it up, sat there, my feet upon the fire ring, and joined my week at family camp. Because I'm secure in my manhood, as you can tell here. And I look up and I'm like, no surprise there, Elsa and Anna, yep, you guys know who Elsa and Anna are, you know, from Frozen? If you said no, you just became my hero. Elsa and Anna from the Disney princess movie Frozen. And I'm sitting here with a little shade, a 95 degree summer day, and I look up and I notice that there is something written on this umbrella, and it's written all over this umbrella. Joel, can you tell me what that says? Live your truth. Live your truth. And I looked at that and I said, live your truth, live your truth, live your truth, live your truth. And I realized we can't escape the cultural lies. Live your truth is a cultural lie and we're gonna explain why. Here's the reality, I think for many of us, we think live your truth, especially when you put it on a Disney princess umbrella, it seems so sweet, right? But here's the reality. It seems so innocent, but it's not. It seems innocent because we think that it means you be you and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. We think it means fight the system and pave your own way. And to our American ears, that just sounds so inspiring, doesn't it? But this little statement, live your truth, which is accepted by so many. It's extremely, extremely misleading. It's founded upon lies and falsehoods that keep us in a worldview that we think is empowering, but I'm going to argue today is actually extremely detrimental to ourselves and to our culture. Because here's the lie that's actually underneath this little pithy statement. The lie that's underneath it is, is truth is what you make it and make truth fit for you. Live your truth is the meme version of truth is relative. Live your truth sounds heroic. It sounds inspiring. It even sounds freeing to people who want to throw off the shackles of old traditions, right? It feels freeing, but I'm telling you right now, it's the opposite. It keeps us from freedom. It keeps us from true freedom, and the culture is buying it, and we're giving it to little girls. And it's time it's called out. And that's what this series is all about, calling out cultural lies that so many in our society have bought into. But I want to underscore something real quick. I really want you to hear me on this, because we're gonna hit it hard in this sermon series. But I want you to know that everything we do in this sermon series is done in love. This is a sermon series that's birthed out of love. See, Jesus calls us and commands us to love people, and as Christians we do. I love people. I may not always agree with them, I may not always like them, but I love them. I love people. And I don't know about you, but I hate it when people who I love are lied to. And people I love, the people in this world, they're being lied to. And so you may hear some righteous anger come out during this sermon series, but I'm telling you, it comes from a place of love that wants to protect people from lies so that they can know the truth. And to tell someone to live your truth is telling them to do something that's based in a lie. Truth, my friends, truth is not yours to define. It's actually better than that. It's to be discovered. Truth is not fabricated inside our mind. It's found outside of ourselves. Author Elisa Childers says that live your truth is the mantra of the day. And it's because this is the lie that supports and validates all the other lies that we believe. It's very symbolic that I found live your truth on an umbrella as it covers, because that's what this lie does. It covers all the other lies and validates them. And so, I'm going to encourage you, if you have your Bibles, as we look at the lie of live your truth, would you turn to John chapter 8, the gospel of John chapter 8. As you're turning there, here's what we need to understand, that if truth is ours to define, then we can believe whatever we want. But we know this isn't the case, deep down we know this isn't right, but we hear it all the more. Especially with the election coming on right now, you know that the internet is flooded with debates going on right now. And I was listening to this one debate happening between these two groups of people, and this one woman said to this other woman, in the midst of a debate, this one woman said to this other woman, she said, your truth may not be their truth. And I sat there thinking to myself, what? How are we supposed to discern right and wrong if people respond with your truth may not be their truth. How are we supposed to ever have any sort of social cohesion when everyone is just running in their own directions with their own truth? And so this series is about calling out the lies that our culture has bought into so that we can know the truth and by the truth, as Jesus so famously said, we could know the truth and the truth will set us free. That line is quoted all the time. The truth will set you free, the truth will set you free. It's even quoted in Marvel movies. But what we do is we ripped it out of context to make it mean what we want. What we're gonna do here this morning is we're gonna put it back in context from the one who actually said it to see what he actually meant. So John chapter 8, we find Jesus in the temple. He's debating and he's discussing and he's teaching. And there's his followers there and there's religious leaders there. And the religious leaders begin to challenge Jesus and what he's saying. They're challenging what he's saying and they're challenging his identity, his claims of who he actually is. And when they start turning up the heat on Jesus, do you know what Jesus does? Do you know what Jesus does? Do you think he backs down? No, because Jesus never backs down. This is why I love to follow this King Jesus, because he never backs down. In fact, when the heat gets turned up, you know what he does? He doubles down. That's how amazing Christ is. And so they start challenging him, and rather than backing down, Christ presses in even harder. And so that's what we're going to pick up in our story. John chapter eight, would you hear the word of the Lord? John 8:31-36 31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” 34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave[a] to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. How is it that you say we will become free? And Jesus answered them, "'Truly, truly, I say to you, "'everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. "'The slave does not remain in the house forever, "'the son remains forever. "'So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed. Amen. This is God's word. Let's take a moment. Let's pray and then we'll continue together. Let's pray. Father, we come before you, Lord, and we want to lay claims to the promises and to the teachings of Jesus here that we'll know the truth and by it we'll be set free. So Holy Spirit, we ask that you'd be with us here and now. Open our hearts and minds and ears as we open up your word. Help us to know the truth so that we will be equipped to know when we are lied to and also so that we will be set free for it's in Jesus' powerful name we pray these things and everyone said amen. All right, so I mean at first glance when you start reading this passage here there's some things that immediately jump out that fly right in the face of this mantra of live your truth. One thing that is so clear is that live your truth is not compatible with following Jesus. Jesus, he's so kind to us. Jesus does not place the burden of truth into our hands to discern ourselves. See, he does not put it into our hands for us to make up on our own. The notion of coming up with,the notion of inventing truth, that's too weighty of a thing for us. To tell someone to live their truth is an incredible burden that you place upon people. No, no, no, Jesus doesn't do that. He doesn't put it in our hands. He keeps it in his own hands. He's saying you don't get your own truth. Jesus is saying I will reveal it to you. But here's the reality. We, you and me, you and me and the person next to you, we like live your truth. We like that short, witty, pithy statement. Why? Because we're simple people and we like simple statements, whether they are true or not. This is why so many people's political opinions are formed by memes rather than by reading actual policy. See, we are prone to believe short statements that inspire us rather than the detailed ones that actually make us think. And so the challenge here, the challenge for us this morning, you got to follow me on this. The challenge is this. See, the culture says, live your truth and we eat it up. But if we, the truth bringers, if we want to counter that argument, then it's most tactful if our counter argument is as short and catchy as the lie is. But that's really hard to do. But the beautiful thing is, I think Christ has already done it for us. I think Christ delivers here. The culture says, live your truth, but Jesus responds with this epic and eternal line, no, no, no. The truth will set you free. So we're going to look at our passage to see exactly what Christ means as we look at all this. So our main point here this morning as we think about this, we think about this lie, this lie of live your truth that we said is the lie that validates all the other lies. Here's our main idea here this morning, that truth is not fabricated, truth is found. As we look at our passes, we're going to pick up three things here this morning. Truth is found in the teachings of Jesus, that we'll look at verses 31 to 32. The next thing we'll look at is truth is found in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, that's verses 33 and 34, and then we'll close it up with verses 35 and 36 by looking at how the truth is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. So let's get into it. Truth is not fabricated, it's found. And the first thing we're going to see is that truth is found in the teachings of Jesus Christ. So back to our Bibles. John chapter 8 verse 31. Keep your Bibles open, please. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Okay, now listen, I know that when you come to church, it is much easier just to sit and listen and even doodle on your phone. But I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to think of an answer. I'm going to ask you to share it with the person next to you. And this is for Christians and non-Christians alike. I'm going to give you a question. I'll give you a very brief moment to think, and then I want you to share your short answer with the person next to you. So here's the question. What is a defining characteristic of a true Christian? Think about it. Share your answer with the neighbor next to you. Okay, now I'm hearing a lot of talking going on because my assumption here, and I think I was just proving, was that everyone has an answer for that. Whether or not you're a Christian, everyone has an answer for what you think a Christian should be like. And so, you know, I went to the place that answers every question. I asked Google, Google, what is the defining mark of a true Christian? And here's what the great prophet said. According to the Bible, a true Christian is someone who has received Jesus as their Savior, who trusts in Jesus' death and resurrection for forgiveness, has the Holy Spirit living within them, and lives their life in a way that reflects their faith in Jesus, one who is not ashamed to say that Jesus is Lord, and has a genuine love that rejects evil and seeks peace, and grace to others. Score one for Google. Now, hold on a second here. Before you go and make Google your pastor, let me just say one thing. I wonder, I wonder what you said. Because here's the truth. When you search the Bible, and certainly the New Testament, there are clear defining markers that are said in black and white about what it means to follow Jesus. Pick up your cross and follow Him, and these sorts of things. But while we definitely could pick things together and search Scriptures and point to verses, I wonder what Jesus actually said about it. I mean, the red letters, what does it mean from Jesus' point of view to be a true believer in him? Because if you noticed, he says it in our verse. Jesus tells us what it really means to follow him. He said, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples. You are truly my disciples if you abide in his word. If you abide in the word of Christ, meaning if you keep his teaching, if you remain in his teaching, if you stay and stay connected to his teaching, because Christ teaches us truth and what truth is. And so, as we think about this, and we think about what Jesus said, it's not just how you live. It's not just that you believe in the life and death and resurrection of Christ, although those are absolutely mission critical. To be a true Christian, a defining marker of what it means to follow Jesus is that you abide in His word. His word, not your word. His truth, not your truth. I'm sure you notice this, but when Jesus begins this, there's a sequence of things that He says that compound on one another. That's very important. We got to follow what He says here. He says, if you abide in His word, you are truly His disciples. And then if you are truly His disciples, you will know the truth. And if you know the truth, then you are set free. Why? Because the truth is not found within ourselves. It's not fabricated based on how we want to live. Truth is found in the word, in the teachings of Jesus Christ. And a true follower follows his teaching. And what does Jesus say? That this person walks in freedom. But this begs the question, freedom from what? Freedom from what, Jesus? That's a great question. And the people who are standing there, listening to Jesus as he was saying this, they asked the exact same thing. Look what they say. Verse 33, they answered him. We are offspring of Abraham. Again, this means they're of Jewish descent. We are offspring of Abraham. We've never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say we will become free? And Jesus answered them. Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. So what does the truth set us free from? From sin. When you hear people quote that, that the truth will set you free, now you know the answer to that. Free from what? Free from sin. So if your truth doesn't bring you to a freedom from sin, if the truth that you listen to doesn't bring you to a freedom from sin, it's not truth. Because truth brings us freedom from sin. Truth is not found within ourselves, it's not found within our grand personal vision for life, it's not found in anything the world has to offer. It's found in what Christ teaches and how he teaches us to live. Because truth is found in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. So here, here's where it starts to get really thick. Live your truth is a mantra. Now follow me. Live your truth is a mantra for those who want to live their life any way they please. Live your truth is the great rebuttal for a prideful people who don't ever want to be told that they are wrong in their beliefs. Now right there when I said that, I'm willing to bet there are a number of people who can hear my voice. You just, you kind of had an emotional reaction to that. Something just came up within your gut. It was like, wait a second, no, we can't tell people that what they believe is wrong. Let me tell you something, my friend. That's not moral goodness speaking out of you. That's cultural conditioning. You've been culturally conditioned to think you can never tell someone they are wrong in their beliefs. And I know you know it. I got no problem telling any Nazi I meet that what they believe is wrong. We can tell people they are wrong in their beliefs if they are wrong. Now, listen, of course, we need to, as Christians, do this with the utmost charity and love and wisdom and strength and kindness, of course. But if your knee-jerk reaction is, oh, wait, I just can't, oh, no, we can't tell people they're wrong, my friend, you are culturally conditioned. And let the truth bring you to a freedom, a freedom from this. And so, for some of us, that was like a whisper into our hearts. And if you heard that whisper that you can't tell people they're wrong, I'm telling you, that is the spirit of the live your truth mantra whispering to you. But some of you, you don't need that spirit to whisper to you because you openly embrace it and promote it yourself. Live your truth is a guiding principle, not just for those who don't want to hear they're wrong, but it's for those who actually want to live apart from God. But life apart from God is sin, and sin is slavery. Like, shouldn't we, as people, be trying to save people from slavery? Like, isn't that a morally good thing to do, to snatch people out of slavery and save them from that? There's no way for us to do that without some point expressing to them what you believe is wrong, what you believe actually keeps you in sin, and it keeps you enslaved. And I know that's not a culturally popular thing to do, but as Christians, we have to bring the light, and the darkness will recoil from it. But we have to bring the truth, we have to bring it. If we wanna save people from slavery, we need to bring them the truth of Christ, because the truth of Christ is the only thing that'll free us from this. Sin is slavery, but righteousness, righteousness is freedom. See, sin is brokenness, but righteousness is when things are made right, unbroken. And the irony, oh my friends, the palatable irony in all of this is that live your truth, that mantra, that mantra is the straightest path away from truth. And it moves us towards a worldview that is full of lies and dangerous and destructive. So what I want to do for just a moment is I want to take the live your truth and I want to show you how it doesn't even hold up against its own weight, let alone the truth of Scripture. Let's take just a few moments and explain why this lie is so destructive. So firstly, the lie of live your truth, it may excite us, but it keeps us separated. If we are all just living our own truth, then we're not coming under one unifying truth that can bring us all together. And again, I get, I get the whole to each his own mentality, but I happen to think a culture and a people are stronger when we are united. For it was Jesus who said a house divided against itself cannot stand. And as I think about what's going on in this world, I just have to tell you, I think the live your truth, that lie, it sounds like just the type of lie a devil would want a people to believe to keep them running away from each other. Second thing, the lie of live your truth may motivate us, but it keeps us immature. Here's what I mean. We can't grow if we're never told that we're wrong. We cannot grow if we never face opposition or never actually have to defend our own beliefs. And let me just call out my brothers and sisters in Christ here. This is why you need to be sharing your faith, because you're going to come up against some opposition that actually will help you grow in your faith. As people come to you with questions that you may not know how to answer, and you've got to go and find out. But, the live your truth is a lie that keeps us immature. Now, there's so many videos of this on right now, especially right now with our political climate. I know you've seen them, these street side debates, where you've got these two groups debating and you've got one group, one group is presented with reason and logic and facts and all the other group can do is scream. I know you've seen those videos. Do you know what that is? That is a product of the live your life mantra. The product of the live your life mantra is immaturity. Because it's immature to sit there and scream in the face of a healthy debate. Next thing I'll say is this, is that the lie of live your truth may inspire us, but it keeps us lost. Now, let's say you decide to go on vacation to a major city. I don't know why on God's green earth you'd want to do that, but let's just say you go to a major city for a weekend away, and you decide to go out for a stroll and see the city lights. You go out and you start walking around and you realize at one point you're lost. You know you can't just make up your own way back to the hotel. If you try to do that, you'll stay lost and get more lost. Live your truth is just as helpful as make your own path. It sounds inspirational, but it will just keep you lost. Next thing is this is the lie of live. Your truth may influence us, but it keeps us in sin. And that's Jesus whole point here. You do things your own way. You keep following your own path. You keep living your own truth, then you will not know the real truth and you will not be set free. You'll be kept in sin. Live Your Truth is so influential, we even put it on princess umbrellas. It influences us, all right. It influences us to stay in our sin, in our brokenness. And lastly, the lie of Live Your Truth may embolden us, but it keeps us rather than frees us. Live your truth may speak those sweet nothings to your pride, but you will not be led to where you truly want to go. Living your truth is not freedom from family, religious, or cultural expectations. Live your truth is a lie that keeps you from the freedom that your heart truly needs, freedom from sin, because sin is brokenness, but following Jesus sets us right, because that's righteousness. Now, please, my friends, please don't hear righteousness and think of stuffy religious people. Righteousness simply is about living the right way, the way that we were designed to. We are creations made by a Creator who has designed us to live. That's righteousness. Again, simply put, righteousness is about living right according to His design. And I know, I know that flies right in the face of the live your truth, the live your truth mantra. That flies right in the face of that, but all I can say to you is exactly. Amen, brother. Following Jesus leads us to truth, and truth sets us free from sin. Freedom from what? Freedom from sin. And that's called righteousness. Church, but as we think about closing up here, please, you cannot miss the foundation of this. This is the most important thing that everyone misses who loves to quote the truth will set you free. The foundation here is Jesus himself. Jesus said, if you abide in my word, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples. Jesus Christ is the fundamental principle of truth that is revealed to this world. Jesus made a bold claim in John 14 when he said, I am the truth. He said, I am the alatheia, the truth. Jesus is the wisdom and the truth that has come into this world. And listen to me, think about it. Just think about it for a moment. What better way for God to make wisdom and truth knowable than through a person, through the person of his son, Jesus Christ, who calls us to abide, abide in his word. Do you know abide is a connection word? It's a relational word. We're meant to have relationship with the one who is himself truth. And this leads to the last part of what Jesus said about how truth sets us free, and it's the gospel. If you don't know what the gospel is, please, please hear me, because truth is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And what Jesus says here in verses 35 and 36 helps us to know what the gospel is all about. So when Jesus is talking about those who are enslaved to sin, he paints this picture of a household. And let me ask you, here's how I want you to think about it. What is a household other than a series of relationships? Jesus says in verse 35, the slave does not remain in the house forever, the son remains forever. But then he kind of takes a weird turn in verse 36, and almost seems like he's going in a different direction. But you're going to see here in a minute, he ties it all together. So verse 35, he says, The slave does not remain in the house forever, the son remains forever. Verse 36, So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed. So what's going on here? So Jesus is using this to point to heaven, to God's house and God's household. He's saying on earth, a slave isn't truly part of the family, but a son is. Now listen to me, the son has the rights and the authority of the home, but a slave does not. The slave doesn't have the right to set himself free, but the son does. The son can set the slave free. But we, the Live Your Truth people, we are enslaved to sin, and we have neither the power nor the authority to free ourselves. We need the master of our existence or his son to set us free. And God has sent his son to do just that. To give you freedom not to live out your own desires, but something even better. To live out how you were designed. We've talked about this before. When you follow your desires over God's design, you're choosing something lesser. The better thing is to follow God's design. When you choose your own desires over the way that God has designed us, my friends, you are choosing a lesser version of yourself, and God wants more for you than that. We have to follow His design, the way we're meant to be. Life that's free. Let me end with this question. How do we know that Jesus is the one who can do this? How do we know that Jesus is worth putting our trust into? How do we know that Jesus can make good on his claims? How do we know that Jesus is this Son who can set us free? Christians, you know the answer. You should know the answer to this. What is the key point of validation that Jesus is the truth? What is the thing that validates the claims of Christ? I'm telling you, it's not found in rock-solid logic. It's not found in social acceptance. It's not found in majority opinion. The thing that validates the claims of Christ is found in a historical moment. Something that actually happened, a concretely real moment that actually occurred in a real day in history. The thing that validates the identity and the claims of Jesus Christ is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is the thing that is the authentication of the true identity of Jesus. The resurrection proves that Jesus Christ truly is the Son of God, that He truly is God incarnate, that His death on the cross really was a sacrifice that atones for our iniquities, and that His words truly do bring freedom from sin. And this is the gospel, and this is where truth is found, that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and on the third day He rose again. That is the actual, objective, factual, historical, and eternal truth. It is such a profound truth, you can hang your entire eternity upon it. And because of this, I'm going to ask you to let go of the lie of live your truth, and place your faith in the Son. The one who the Son sets free is free indeed, because the truth sets us free. Amen? Amen. Amen. Would you please stand?

Present Darkness vs. Spiritual Strength Sermon Series: Withstand Ryan DB Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: Ephesians 6:10-13 Transcript Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone said with all your heart, Amen. So in many ways, video games are our modern day epics. They're the great tales of our time that people just get to play with. And there's this one video game that I think really does a good job of kind of highlighting the zeitgeist of our time, the worldview or the cultural narrative. And so there's this game, and so for part of the game, you go to this underground realm called the depths. And in the depths, one of the things that you do is you collect these floating blue lights. They're all over the place. You collect these floating blue lights. And as the game unfolds, you come to realize that these floating blue lights are actually souls. And one of the things that you do in this game is that you collect these floating blue lights, these souls, and you give them to this statue. It's like an idol. It 's like a spirit. And even as I'm describing it, it sounds incredibly demonic, doesn't it? And when you give the souls to this idol, to this spirit statue, it said something. And it says something that I really think hits at just the heart of our culture right now. It says this, when you give these souls over, and it says, they are pitiful beings who have lost their way home and wander this land. I am the one who returns all souls to the afterlife without prejudice, good, evil. That's the feudal perspective of narrow-minded beings. There is no such distinction in wandering spirits. Now I'll tell you, I think that summarizes our worldview, the worldview of our culture. We will not call things evil. We don't like to talk in terms of good and evil in our world. We'd rather talk about things that are helpful or hurtful. We'd rather talk about things that are safe or offensive. But I will tell you now, good and evil, that is a distinction in the spirit realm. That is a distinction that we need to see and understand in our world. Evil does exist. The spiritual realm is real, and you could never convince me otherwise. It was about 2004 in the springtime and I went to call my wife, she was then my girlfriend, late one night. It was around 11 o'clock, she was working, she was working late, so I knew she wasn't going to answer, so I went to leave her a voicemail. Because she was working late at a restaurant. Anyone here remember Sam's Joint? Christmas lights all year long, wasn't that awesome? And so I knew she was working late, so I went to leave her a voicemail for her to get out, for her to listen to when she got out of work. And I remember starting to leave the voicemail, and then something happened that I can, the only way I can really describe it to you is that I fell into like a trance-like state. It's the best way I could describe it. And I began to mumble. Again, that's the best way I can describe it, but I began to mumble. And when I got, I got at some point during my like rambling, I said, amen. And that like snapped me out of it. And this was my girlfriend. I felt incredibly embarrassed. This was a voicemail. There's no, there's no one doing it. So I said, amen, that snapped me out of it. And I was like, Oh, I'm, I don't know why I said that. I meant to say I love you, okay, bye. And I hung up the phone real fast. Now, and then I went to sleep. And the next morning, she called me, and she was like, what was going on at your house last night? And I was like, what are you talking about? She said, you need to listen to the voicemail you left me. So I listened to the voicemail and yep, sure enough, I start the voicemail then I start to kind of like mumble slash ramble. You can't really understand what I'm saying. But over the top of me mumbling, all around me was demonic screaming that was happening, that was recorded. I didn't hear it in live time. It wasn't my voice because I was clearly saying something else. And when I said amen, the screaming automatically stopped. Now, I'm always hesitant to share that story. Right? Because in our modern scientific world, we want to rationalize everything. We want to view everything through a scientific lens. We have no ability to see beyond the very small window of knowledge we have scientifically. I'm scared to share that story because I don't want people to think I'm crazy or to have people to try to tell me how to rationalize it. When I'm the one that heard it, I will tell you now, you will never convince me that there's not a spiritual realm. You'll never convince me that what I heard was anything less than something demonic. And I was being protected by the Holy Spirit. Now, I'll be honest with you, as a Reformed theologian, there are parts of me that's kind of like, OK, how do I reconcile that with my Reformed theology? Interesting thing to try to do, but I cannot deny what happened. And I'll tell you what it did do. It revealed something to me that forever and will ever change my life. That this is not simply a material world. There is an unseen, unseen spiritual realm, and it's not simply good. There's a battle happening, there's a darkness all around us. And today, we're starting a series called Withstand, as we look at how the culture war around us is truly a spiritual battle. So we're going to be looking at a section of scripture, and we're going to see how this section of scripture gives us the eyes to see how we can be prepared for and how we can engage the battle that's happening around us, that we can fight the right fights knowing who the true enemy is. My prayer is that by the end of the series that you truly see that something larger is at play about us. And today we're going to start at the 30,000 foot level. For the rest of the series, we'll get more ground level, but we kind of have to start higher up today as we look at the present darkness versus the spiritual strength available to us. So would you please turn in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 6. Now you can go ahead and just put a bookmark right there in your Bibles because that's where we're going to stay for this entire sermon series. But as you turn in there, here's a context real quickly. Ephesians is a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to a church in a town called Ephesus. Ephesus was an important city in the ancient world. It was a port city on the Aegean Sea, located on the western coast of what is modern day Turkey. Ephesus, if you do your history, Ephesus was a place that was rife with occult practices, meaning people there didn't need to be convinced that there was a spiritual realm. And as people in Ephesus began to become Christians, Paul writes to the church that was meeting there, to the Ephesians there, and he's writing to clarify certain tenets of the Christian faith, certain Christian doctrine, and he's also explaining how are we supposed to live in response to all these beautiful truths. How are we supposed to live as Christians? In chapter 6, he begins to close up the letter, and he does so by talking about the armor of God. And so, with that, would you hear God's word? Ephesians chapter 6, verses 10 to 13. Would you hear God's word? Ephesians 6:10-13 10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. This is God's Word. Let's pray and we'll get to it. Let's pray. Father, we come before you. We know that the spiritual realm is real and so we would ask, Father, that you'd give us the eyes not just to see where the enemy is at play, but help us by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, by the truth of your word and by the assurance of the gospel, Father, that you would prepare us with your armor that we may be able to stand in the day of evil. We pray these things in the name of our mighty Savior. In the name of Jesus, we pray. And everyone said, Amen. Amen. So again, church, as we kick off this series, we're going to start up high. Here's today's main idea. It's this. Main Idea: We need the whole armor if we are to stand strong. Let that be a theme for today, but also throughout the entire series. And yet, as I talk with so many Christians, they either have no armor on or just partial armor. So my prayer is that you would be dressed with the full armor of God. And as we look at our passage today, here's how we're going to break it down. As we look at the present darkness versus the spiritual strength that is before us, first thing we'll look at is that we need to be all in because the enemy is all in. Second thing we need to see is that we need the right perspective to identify the true enemy. And thirdly, we need the whole armor for the whole battle. So let's get into it. We need to be all in because the enemy is all in (vv10-11) We need the right perspective to identify the true enemy (v12) We need the whole armor for the whole battle (v13) We need to be all in because the enemy is all in (vv10-11) First thing, we need to be all in because the enemy is all in. So after an entire letter where Paul discusses the Christian faith and how to live as Christians, Paul begins to close up this letter by looking at the armor of God. And he introduces this section in verse 10 with a beautiful word. He says, finally. Now, that's a fine way to translate that word. It's the right way to translate that word. All modern translations will use that word, finally. But there's another word that you could use that I wish some translations would use. And it's the word, henceforth. Now that for me just sounds like a more regal call to action as Paul introduces this final section talking about wearing armor. After talking about the beauty of the Christian faith, after talking about how to live as Christians, I wish it would say, henceforth, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Church, it's not your strength that will get you through. If you're going to be strong to face the battles that are before you, then you need the strength of the Lord. You do not have the strength in you to save yourself. There is no saving yourself. The spiritual strength that you need to face the battles that are all about us is not found within you It's not waiting to be discovered It's only from the Lord There are no bootstraps that are big enough and strong enough for you to pull up that will allow you to do this on your own We stand weak wholly needing the Lord and his strength. So men women you must rely on the power of God. Not the power of positive thinking, but the actual power of God. Now you may say to me, okay pastor, awesome, sounds good. What does that actually mean? How do we actually do that? Well, my friend, this is exactly what this entire series is about, so make sure you come back for every message. But Paul begins to tell us what it looks like in verse 11. He says, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to take your stand against the schemes of the devil. So let's take that phrase by phrase. Put on the whole armor of God. Sometimes the Bible is just so nice to us with our big, thick skulls. Did you, did you notice the gentle hint here? Put on the whole armor, not the partial armor, not the culturally appropriate armor, put on the whole armor of God. How many of you have kids or have ever raised kids who have gone through the elementary and middle school stage? Anyone? Let me see. Let me see. Okay, so then you know how much of a battle it is to get kids to wear their winter clothes at winter time. Right? You know what I'm talking about? Like, it is negative 20 degrees and a blizzard, but they will fight to put a winter hat on. I don't know what it is with you middle school students, why you're so afraid that your friends will find out you have a jacket, but just wear it. Because here's the thing about the cold. Here's the thing about the winter. It's going to attack every part of you It doesn't pick and choose The cold wants to attack every part of you and it's going to attack the parts of you that are the most exposed This is why we need to cover up Fully when it's winter time. I bought you but my kids I love them. We'll get them all bundled up. Snow pants, jacket, hats, gloves, the whole thing. We'll send them outside for a couple hours and you know what happens when they come inside? Their jacket's zipped open, they're missing a glove, who knows what their hat is, scarf's hanging from the basketball hoop. It's like you forgot it was cold outside or something. But when my kids come in like that, you know what I think? That is a picture of what has happened spiritually with so many Christians. We go out, we forget there's a battle, and we start dropping our armor. We may have the right intention when we go out to face the day, but throughout the day we forget there's a battle, and so we start dropping our armor, and by the time we get home we're half dressed. I think a lot of us may be sitting here wondering, something to the effect of like, I don't really feel like there's a battle going on. Well, my friend, then, it's because you've already lost. But here's the good news, that the eternal victory has already been won. Christ has already secured our salvation. Christ has already put the final nail in the coffin. That's why we just give ourselves to Him. We find our rest in Him and our comfort in Him, but we still have to be dressed for the battle because the day is not yet over. Evil is out there all the time, everywhere. And this is why we need to have the whole armor of God all the time. Paul continues in verse 11. He says that you may be able to take your stand against the schemes of the devil. To stand, that's the great call, that we would stand, meaning stand our ground, meaning face the fight, that we'd overcome the attacks and the temptation of the devil. Or as Paul says, the schemes of the devil. Now the word schemes here in the original language is the word methodēs, which is where we get our English word method method comes from that Greek word now method is a Neutral word in English, but Paul uses in his original language a word that has nefarious intent. This is why we often translate that word as schemes or craftiness or deceit The notion being here people. Do you understand that the devil is not just attacking you but he's strategizing against you. He's employing methods to attack you. Yes, on the one hand, there's nothing new under the sun. The devil's age old tactic is to get you to reject God and to deny his word. But I also think that the devil is studying you and he's going to strategize against you specifically for where you are the weakest. I may not know exactly where the devil is attacking you, but I know what he's trying to do. He's trying to get you to fall, which is the opposite of standing. And the enemy will use every available means to trip you up, to make you fall. Now football season is over, but if you watch a football game, like many of us were doing this past season, and you watch it on TV, you'll notice that one of the main things that the TV producers will show is the various coaches on the sidelines doing their thing. Head coach, offensive coach, defensive coach. I found out that there's roughly 12 coaches on any given NFL team. Now coaches don't play, but what they do is they strategize. They plan and they strategize in real time how to win the game as it's unfolding. I'm sure many of you have watched a game. You've seen this happen. They'll pan to the sidelines and you got a coach sitting there and he's doing one of these things. He's talking like this, so no one will see what he's saying because he's taking it very seriously. He doesn't want anyone to read his lips. You know, I saw that and I was watching that and I got to thinking those coaches are taking a football game more seriously than Christians are taking the spiritual battle that's around us. They are so intent, they're willing to guard their mouth so that people don't see what they're strategizing, what they're playing against. And I just think that that's what the enemy is doing. And Christians, are we in the game? Are we responding? Are we taking it just as seriously? Now, the Super Bowl was last week. It feels like forever ago, but it was just last week. And if you watched it, then you probably know that only for the second time in Super Bowl history did the Super Bowl go into overtime. And I tell you what, it was already the most important game of the season for them, right? But when things got narrow at the end and it went into overtime, I don't know if you're watching the coaches, everything changed. For however serious they were, they got even more serious. They doubled down on their intensity. They were all in. And so many Christians, so many Christians are out there playing, but we're not playing the game. And we're certainly not pushing the devil into overtime because we're just already lost. I recently heard a pastor say something like this. He said, he said, when I wake up, I want the devil to start sweating. Let me tell you something. The devil is not worried about you and your strength. You pose no threat. You wake up, the devil don't care. Until you put on the armor of God. That's when the devil starts shaking. When you dress yourself with the strength of the Lord, when you say to God, I know I can't do this on my own, I need you to come inside and do this through me. When you are dressed for battle, when you understand the war that's going on, when you walk out the door and you are ready to face the world with the love of God and the truth of God, that's when the devil starts shaking. Not when you wake up, but when you get dressed for battle. A soldier who's only wearing partial armor is only a partial threat. in a practical way. Saturday night comes. You had a busy Saturday. Staying up a little too late. And you're making decisions about whether or not to go to church the next day. You can sleep in or you can show up. I'll tell you what the world needs. What the world needs is Christians showing up. We don't need a sleeping in. Don't tell me you are awake to the battle when you're sleeping in. When you are waking up in the morning, go to prayer, put on the full armor of God, and the Bible says when you do that, then, don't miss the word then in scripture, then you'll be able to take your stand against the schemes of the devil. Because you need to be all in, because the devil is all in against you. 2. We need the right perspective to identify the true enemy (v12) And that leads us to our second point. We need the right perspective to identify the true enemy. And I'm going to tell you right now, I'll warn you right now, this will be the sharpest section of the whole sermon. I want to make something abundantly clear here. This will be hard for so many of us, but let's first see what Scripture says, verse 12. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Did you read what the Bible just said? Not against flesh and blood. Christians, our primary fight, our primary fight is not against other people. Let me say this as clearly as I can. Christians, your neighbor is not your enemy. We are to love our neighbor. The devil is our enemy. Our enemy is Satan and the schemes that he is using to lead people astray. The devil right now is working overtime, creating a world and a worldview that lead people to be against God and against the things of God. The enemy is twisting culture to instill in people a hatred for God and a hatred for the things of God and a hatred for the very thing that we show up to do every single Sunday. And people are falling into this. Left and right, a culture is falling prey to this. People are fighting against biblical truth and they're fighting against God's love for them. And when people do that, it's very easy to see them as the enemy, but no, they're not. They are falling prey to the schemes of the devil. We are to have compassion for those who are led astray. Compassion, not hatred. Hatred for the things they do, yes, but not hatred for them. They are being led by the enemy to be enemies of God. We all were enemies of God when we were lost in our sin until we were redeemed. But for those of us who are saved by Christ, we are to walk in the way of truth and the way of love as we try to redeem our neighbors from the clutches of the enemy. And before we talk about particulars, we need to get this understanding, not just in our heads, but in our hearts. So firstly, our neighbor is not who we are to fight against. Rather, we are to love them. Now listen, this doesn't mean that we don't fight for truth. We certainly do It just means that we need to realize who is really at work behind the scenes when we engage the cultural battles. Verse 12 says for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood and then Paul tells us what we do fight against against the schemes of the devil Which the which Paul describes in four different ways against the rulers against the authorities against the cosmic powers over this present darkness and against the spiritual forces in the heavenly places. Heavenly places just means the spiritual realm. Paul is speaking clearly about spiritual entities in spiritual realities here, but rather than giving us a hierarchy of hell or an org chart of the demonic, I think what he's doing here is he's simply helping us to understand the size and the scope and the seriousness of the spiritual battle that's all around us. The demonic forces have power and at this moment they have a level of dominion and it's cosmic and it's dark and it's spiritual and it's what we need to see if we're truly going to stand for truth. We need to see what is spiritually happening. We need to see what is spiritually happening behind it all. Transgender people are not our enemy, but the devil who is inspiring that movement, he is. Pro-choice activists are not our enemy, but the devil who empowers their agenda, he is. Illegal immigrants are not our enemy, but the devil who is corrupting governments that foster and allow this, He is. And listen to me clearly, I'm not saying everybody out there is a pure person with a pure, good motive. I know that there are wicked people who seek to do wicked things out there. But the enemy is the devil who's empowering what's going on with all the brokenness in this world. I'm not saying that people who do evil things shouldn't be brought to justice or held to account. I definitely think they should be. We need to live in a just society where when people break the laws they're punished for it. But here's what I want you to know. You can be a loving Christian and still want to see civil law upheld. Those are not mutually exclusive. We can love the foreigner and the sojourner and also want to see the immigration crisis get under control. These are not mutually exclusive things. We don't have the infrastructure as a nation to welcome the entire world. I'll just tell you right now, I'm watching real closely the presidential candidates, which one has a better plan to address the immigration crisis. Because if we fold as a country, we're not going to be able to help anybody. You can still be a Christian and want to see civil law upheld. You can still be a Christian who does not see someone as your enemy and still see them go to jail. You can still love people while they're in prison. In fact, we're actually commanded to by our Lord and Savior. And also, I'm not saying that you don't have a right to defend your home or your family. What we're talking about here, and this is what I'm saying to you, the problem comes when we stop seeing the humanity in other people. What I'm saying, church, is that we should never lose compassion for a world that's lost. When we have an actual human being standing before us and we no longer see them as a person made in the image of God, something's wrong with our heart. Jesus said if we hate everyone else just like everyone else hates each other, we're no better than them. We have an enemy and we'll never stand if we don't recognize who we are truly meant to fight. Yes, we stand in truth, in love. Of course we do. We stand in love and for the truth. And I'm not saying this will be easy. Following Christ can be very hard. In fact, this is why the Bible often uses warlike and battle language, because it's a fight, it's tough. But guess what? We have the power of the Holy Spirit, we have the truth of the Word, we have God's love, and we have the armor of God to face the battles that are before us. Listen, I understand the disagreements that are out there will lead us into very sharp disagreements with the world around us. Don't get me wrong, at times it will feel like we're fighting with other people. But remember, and we can never forget this, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil and the heavenly places. Because here's what I can tell you, if the devil can get us to stop fighting him and start fighting our fellow man, then he's already won. So here's what we do. I'm not saying just sit there on your duff not doing anything, just loving people. There's more to it than that. Here's what we must do. When it comes to the culture war, number one, remember what's really behind the battle, that there's a spiritual war going on. Remember who our true enemy is. When it comes to the culture war, remember it's a spiritual battle. And because of that, we don't attack people. Rather we attack the worldview. We attack their false narratives. We attack the worldview that is inspiring such brokenness in this world. This is why as Christians we must be able to articulate what's happening in our times. We must be wise to our times. This is why as Christians we must have a truly fully developed world view to understand God's Word to understand What's happening in the world so that we can also help our children to be able to process and interpret? What's happening on the world stage, but too many of us don't have a Christian worldview. We don't have a biblical worldview because we sleep in on Sundays. We're sleeping in while the battle rages. My call for you and those around you is at least for this next series, don't sleep in, show up. Show up and see how God has dressed you for the battle that's before us. When it comes to the culture war, remember, it's a spiritual battle, so we don't attack people. We attack the worldview the devil is fostering that tries to lead this world astray and make us fall. 3. We need the whole armor for the whole battle (v13) The battle is raging and our enemy is powerful, which is why lastly, we need the whole armor for the whole battle. Verse 13 says this, therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm. Yes, we live in evil days. Yes, we live in dark times and we'll never make it through if we don't bear and get dressed with the full armor of God because the battle is fully raging until the last day. And in this series, we'll look at each piece of armor and how it specifically gives us the ability to fight the battles that are before us. And I truly hope you come to every message. Christians, Christians, please, we don't just receive what God has done for us into our hearts. We are to respond with our entire lives with what to what God has done for us. This isn't just something in our heads, it's something in our lives. I once heard someone put it like this, he said, this isn't the armor from God, this is the armor of God. It's his armor, it's what he wears and he shares with those who follow him. The armor of God is the armor that God wears, it's what the Holy Spirit inspires us and equips us to wear. The armor of God is what Jesus Christ himself wore when he preached the gospel. I love how the book of Romans puts it. It says this in Romans chapter 5. It says, But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8 But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God? For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life." Let me clarify here. Jesus Christ, while they were spitting in His face and literally nailing Him to the cross, He was dying for the very people who were doing that. While we were actively sinning against God, He was seeking to save us. I don't know what God you worship, but that one's better. And Jesus Christ gave his life up for his enemies while they were literally killing him. And then he went on to rise again from the grave to rule and reign and take his place at the right hand of God. And he has the eternal final victory over Satan, sin and death. But until the last day, until the culmination of all things, until the great renewal of creation, the enemy still has power, he still has influence, and we must recognize this. 1 Peter chapter 5 verse 8 says, be sober-minded, be watchful, your adversary the devil, even the apostle Peter is reminding us that people aren't our enemies, the devil is. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. He's on the hunt, and he's looking for you, and he's looking for those Christians who are weak and exposed and not in the battle, and he's going to pounce on them. And even for those of us standing strong, he will come at us. But by the strength of God, by the power of the Spirit, as we stand united with the church, we are to wear the armor of God. And so Christians in the house, I will tell you right now, I already told you, I already said to you earlier, you will never convince me the spiritual realm isn't real. I wish you could hear what I heard, if you'd believe it too. And I know that preaching a message like this is opening up myself and my family and this church to not just the attention but the attack of the enemy. So I need to know who are going to pray for protection over this series. Let's go. Church, as you wear the armor of God, remember, please remember that the strength of the armor is found in the Lord himself. So find yourself in him and wear it because we need the whole armor, the whole armor of God if we are to stand strong. Amen. Would you please stand and let's get ready for battle. Because we have the armor of God, because we have the power of the Holy Spirit, we definitely can stand strong. But I just have to say, I think there's something very special when the church also stands united. And one of the ways we can demonstrate us being united is through worship. So here's what I'm going to say to you. There is no safe, aside from in your closet by yourself, there is no safer place to worship than right here and right now. So I'm going to encourage you to worship. I'm going to encourage you to raise your voice if you've never done it before. I'm going to encourage you to raise your hand if you've never done it before. the other Christians will see you worship? This is our chance to announce to the enemy and announce to the world that we don't stand on our own two legs. We stand on the solid rock. Father, we come before you. We just ask, Lord, that as you've so graciously poured out your Holy Spirit on us to give us power to stand, I pray, Lord, that the Holy Spirit would come now, be our worship leader, guiding us to unity with each other, also to worship of you. And so Father, I pray, Father, you'd fill the mouths and the hearts of these people as we stand united and we sing about our solid rock, our mighty Savior, Jesus. It 's in his name we pray. And everyone said, amen. And everyone said, amen. Church, let's worship together.

Cory Smith Cory Smith is the Associate Pastor to Families at Connection Church and holds a Masters in Pastoral Studies from Moody Bible Institute. Cory, along with his wife Olyn and their three children resides in Whitewood, South Dakota. Most Recent Content from Cory Smith Pick Up the Sword, Not Just the Gavel My purpose in this article is to help fathers to be described in a similar way as Mr. March — to act as the true head of the household. The head of the household is the leader acting as the “dynamic force” READ MORE