So if you're new here, I wanted to start just a little bit different. If you ever wonder, if you've ever asked yourself if this whole spiritual warfare thing is real, like here's my challenge to you. I challenge you to prepare a sermon on it. Because it's been a rough week anyway, but I sat in those chairs over there during the first gathering and I just hardly composed myself because I can just feel it. Like I can feel this battle going on. And I'm not like fearful, like I'm not fearful that the enemy's winning. I'm actually blessed by it in a way. The thing I'm blessed by is that I can feel. I got, for a moment, for a moment, I'm given a window into something that we can't see and I can feel that there's this force against me that wants me to say none of what I'm about to say. And that he's coming hard after me to make sure that I don't say the things that God put on my heart. And he's been telling me all morning that I'm not good enough to do this message. And I've had people praying over me and praying over me and the beauty of it is, is I know. I know that I'm already victorious. I know that Jesus has already won, and so I get to sit in this moment, and it sucks, if I'm being honest. It doesn't feel great to not feel good about stuff and to feel this pull back and forth, but man, for a moment, I get to feel, and that's really my hope for you, and if this is your first time here, seriously, we don't normally start, but we're gonna get to the fun stuff in just a second. I got some funny stuff, you'll laugh, whatever. But before we do get started, I did wanna take a moment, and I just wanna pray because I think what God has to say for us is super important, and I think that the enemy wants to try really hard to make sure you don't receive it, that you don't hear it, that you think it's crazy, that you think the things that I'm saying aren't true or can't possibly be real, and he's gonna come hard. And so I just wanted, this isn't my notes, I didn't plan to start this way, but I just felt heavy that that's the way we should start this morning. So I'm gonna pray for our time, and then we'll get started with the real thing, all right? God, I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful that you are working and moving. I'm thankful. I'm thankful for the moments that I've been able to feel this morning. Feel the weight of the enemy coming after me, but God, the blessing of feeling you fight and knowing that I stand victorious because of you. This isn't about me anyway. These words have nothing to do with me. I'm not good enough. to deliver this message on my own. And so God, would you speak? Would you move? And would you do something awesome in this place this morning? We love you, amen. Okay, here we go, let me start again. So I have this confession to make. It's a confession I'm not super proud of. I actually feel pretty bad about it, but I have punched a girl in the face. Like, and don't worry, it wasn't like last week or anything. It was a while ago. There's been some transformation that's taken place since then. But kind of the backstory that I think I need you to know is I had these two really good friends. We lived in Colorado Springs, and I lived on a cul-de-sac. They lived across the street from me, and they were my best friends. In fact, if you're my age, or maybe even a little bit younger, you might remember that prior to phones and video games where you played with your friends all the way across the world, your neighbors were your best friends. And these girls were my best friends. Now, these happen to be two black girls. And I only mention the color of their skin, honestly, because I think it's important for the story. I want you to get the full picture. Their names were Shirklin and Rekita. And I love Shirklin. Shirklin and Rekita, they were my closest friends. And the things that I remember most about Shirklin and Rekita is that they loved R&B music. And early 90s R&B music, man, it doesn't get much better than that, I'll tell you. You should look it up on Spotify. But what they also loved about R&B music is they loved to dance. And this is why it becomes important that you know more about who we actually are, because that's what they loved to do with me. They would love to invite me and my brother Billy, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Billy. So are you getting the picture? It's Matt and Billy going to dance with Shirklin and Rikita. Like, are you with me on this one? Anyway, it's a great visual. And what we used to do is that Shirklin and Rikita, they'd make up the dance moves, of course, because we weren't doing that. We'd come over, and they'd teach us the dances, and we'd dance. And I was good. I'm telling you I was good. But we would do this often. We even made a dance video. We even made a dance video. I think I might even remember some of the moves. Would you want to see some of them? Here we go. I'm not really dancing. If you thought for a second I was going to dance, you don't know me that well. Shirklin and Rekita, we were all really good friends, but I just kinda wanna lay the groundwork, because just as good friends do, we got into scuffles, we'd fight and bicker back and forth, and I do remember this one time, we were out in front of my house in the cul-de-sac, and I don't remember the scenario or the situations as to how it happened, but Shirklin had my arms kinda pinned back behind my back, and she had her arms through my arms, and Rekita and this other girl, Jessica, they were kinda making fun of me and slap fighting or whatever, and eventually, I had enough. I had enough being picked on, I had enough being pushed around and I broke free and I punched Rekhita in the face and she went down. And I want to tell you, I stood over her and I was like, yeah, but I wasn't, I ran like a girl. I mean, I ran all the way up the street. The funny thing is my house was right behind me. I could have run right into my house, but I didn't. I ran all the way up the street with these three girls chasing me because I just punched a girl in the face. I'm sorry. It's not my proudest moment. Probably not God honoring, but I just wanted you to know, just so you know a little bit about me, you can only pin my arms behind my back and slap me in the face so many times before I'm gonna fight back. I'll come back to that idea, maybe, I don't know, we'll see. I'll come back to that idea in a little bit. But we've been, in the past six weeks, we've been kinda dissecting this small portion of a first century letter written by a guy named Paul to the church in Ephesus. We know it as the book of Ephesians in our New Testament. In this letter, Paul, he starts off by kinda giving a prayer of praise. and blessing to the church and the followers of Jesus in Ephesus. And he goes on to talk about the beauty of the work of Jesus in their lives and kind of the mystery of salvation and the ministry of the church and how to be united within the body of believers. And he even throws into the very end, hey children, you might want to obey your parents or it won't go so well for you, which as a parent, I'm grateful for. And then out of nowhere, out of nowhere, he drops this line of like, oh, and by the way, everything I've just told you, it's going to be really, really hard because you have an enemy who's trying to keep any of that from happening. This is what he says in Ephesians 6 verse 10... You see Paul is saying there is a powerful, evil, deceptive force, an enemy at work in the world and that enemy is the devil, whose name is Satan. For a struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers and authorities and powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. As weird as it may sound and I don't know how everyone came in here, I don't know where you are on your faith journey. An enemy that's always fighting to attack you, to accuse you, and who's constantly working to keep you from experiencing the life that God intended for you. He's constantly working to keep you shackled and bound. But what Paul's really saying to us, what he's really trying to get us to understand is that we're in a battle daily, and so we must daily prepare for battle. But Paul goes on to tell us how we're supposed to prepare. He says this. Therefore put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you've done everything to stand. And we've covered the first five pieces of armor in the past few weeks. The first one is this, stand firm then with the belt of truth, number one. The breastplate of righteousness, number two. The feet fitted with the readiness of the gospel, number three. What's the next one? Shield of faith, number four. And then number five last week was the helmet of salvation. And just like I said before, I don't know where you came in here. I don't know how you came in here. I don't know what your belief is. I don't know where you're at on the spectrum of faith. But I can be honest with you, you don't get to choose a battle. The battle is there and it's coming. You're being attacked. You probably feel it, you probably just don't use those words. To stand firm and not be devoured by our enemy, we have to daily be prepared to stand firm. But we can't stand firm on our own strength. But thankfully we, as followers of Jesus, we don't have to. Through his death and resurrection, Jesus already won. So all we have to do to stand firm is put Jesus on. Put Jesus between us and the enemy and his mighty power by putting on the armor of God daily will help us to stand firm. And here's a promise for you. When you put on the armor, As a follower of Jesus, when you ask Him to be the forgiver of your sins and the leader of your life and you place Him between you and the enemy, when you put on the armor, the enemy has no chance. The enemy will be disarmed over and over again and you'll stand firm and you won't back down. You'll experience His presence and His power in your life and in the midst of the battle. And you'll be able to stand in defense against the attacks of the enemy, but today, Today is where things begin to shift. After all, it is called spiritual warfare, not spiritually ready to take a hit. You see, football players, they don't put on pads just so they can be a protected tackling dummy. We even read in Romans 8 last week that in all things, we are more than conquerors. Well, nobody's conquered anything by hiding behind a shield. See, there's times in my life where I'm sick and tired of being pushed around, when I'm sick of being attacked, where I want to fight back, So what about you? Like, do you ever find yourself there? You're just tired of it. You're trying to be protected. You're trying to place the arm around, but you still feel chained and shackled to something. Maybe it's an addiction in your life or it's a shame or guilt that you feel chained to. You've been working over and over again to put the armor on each week to feel protected. But you actually need to break free of something. You need to be active, not just passive. And finally, Paul gives us the one piece that is offensive when he says this in verse 17. He says, take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Earlier this week, I was in a text conversation with my buddy Ben. I don't know if he's in here today. But he kind of gave me something that I was really interested in. And then I researched it to make sure he wasn't lying or wrong, because you never know if your friends are lying or wrong. And so I went and looked. And he said that the Greek word for sword was actually makara. I don't do this often, break down Greek words. But I thought this was really important. Because I thought of the sword of the spirit like the brave heart sword. Like knights of the round table, giant sword. The funny thing is this word wouldn't have meant that to the church in Ephesus. It would have meant more like a little dagger. More like 6 to 8 inches if you will. Sharp on one side. Used for chopping or slicing. Not as much for poking. Or thrusting. And the thing about this sword that they would have understood is it's something that you have with you all the time. It is at your side and at the ready at all times. You wouldn't carry around a big Braveheart sword with you. It'd get a little clunky, a little cumbersome to carry that around. The cool thing is that I went and looked at this as well, it's the same word used when Peter was in the garden of Gethsemane. You may have heard this story that when Jesus came to be arrested, Peter grabbed his sword and cut the ear off a guard that was trying to arrest Jesus. Number 2, if Peter had said sword and he was trying to cut the ear off of a guard and he swung to cut the ear off, wouldn't he also catch the shoulder a little bit. So wouldn't the story be Peter cut the ear and arm off of a soldier. That would have been a cool story. But anyway that's what sword actually meant. So Paul tells us we have a sword. But what he's really telling us that we need to be ready at all times. We need to be ready for hand-to-hand close combat. See, the devil will shoot arrows at us for sure, just like we looked at with the shield of faith. He'll shoot arrows at us from afar and we can block those, that's great. But if he gets close enough, if he's close enough and he won't leave you alone, you are ready to fight in this spiritual war with the weapons of the word. But to fight with the weapons of the word of God, you have to know the word of God. And that's really what I'm hoping to show you today. What the word of God actually says about the weapons at our disposal and how to be offensive in this spiritual war that we're in. Paul actually ramps up his talk about war and battle in another letter that he wrote to the church in Corinth. We know it as the book of Corinthians in our New Testament. And I love the language here. You see, Paul does a really good job of reminding us, giving us kind of the severity of the fact that we are actually in a battle in the language that he uses right here. He says this in verse three, for though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does, meaning we don't use bombs and guns and et cetera. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. Strongholds isn't a word that we use very often. And so I kind of wanted to do that same thing. I wanted to know what this word might have actually meant to the church in Ephesus. And when I looked it up, the Greek word, the original Greek word is actually akuruma. And a kubera, the definition is meaning to fortify through the idea of being held safely. See, this word actually describes somebody who is chained to something, but the chain doesn't even have enough power to hold them. They just believe it does. See, they're passively being held captive when all it would take is a little action to be free. In fact, if you think about elephants in the zoo, this is actually one of the ways they train them. To train an elephant to make sure they know what their area is, where they need to stay, they'll put a chain around their leg that is strong enough that they can't break it. But once the elephant believes and knows that the chain is too strong for them to break it, they can replace that chain with a rope that he could snap in an instant. But he doesn't, because he believes it has the power to hold him. And in fact, just earlier this week, I was at Jimmy George's house. We were planning a series that we're gonna be doing in January. And we were talking in his basement and his dog comes down and it's yelping, little tiny yelper dog. And he grabs the dog and he says, here, let me put this shock collar on you. This fake shock collar is what he said. And I'm like, what do you mean fake shock collar? He said, well, it's a real shock collar. The battery just doesn't work, but the dog doesn't know that. And I'm like, I'm using that. That's a Kurama. I didn't say that. He wouldn't know what it meant. He doesn't speak Greek. But anyway, that's the word picture right here. That's an area of your life that doesn't have as much power as you think it does. But because you're convinced it does, it has power. Because you believe it can hold you, it holds you. It could be the addiction that you live in. You just believe that you're never gonna get free, and so it holds you. It's a habit that you're stuck in, and you're never gonna break that habit, and so that habit can hold you. It's a wound, it's hurt, it's pain from the past that you just can't get over. You don't think you're ever gonna get over it, so hold you captive, where the enemy is constantly working to keep you bound. Paul goes on, and I love the language here. Pay attention to the words that he uses. He says this, we demolish arguments. So he's saying, we demolish arguments. So it's not true. He just lied. He just lied and convinced you it's true. Whatever the it is for you, it's just a lie. We demolish arguments in every pretension. He goes on like, in other words, the devil is just pretending. He's just pretending to have power in your life that he doesn't have. We demolish arguments in every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. And we take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ. See Paul's words in that passage, what I love about it is they're very offensive. They're very active. See to win the battle against the enemy, we cannot remain passive. With the weapons of the word of God, we must fight to take ground in this battle. But to fight with the word of God, we've got to know the word of God. A good definition I found for stronghold is this, a prisoner locked by deception, living by something that just is not true. I don't know how many of you remember this story. You kind of have to be my age or so to remember. But back in 2002, there was this girl named Elizabeth Smart. I don't know if you heard about that in the news. Elizabeth Smart was a 14-year-old girl who, by knife point, was abducted from her home. A man came into her bedroom at night and took her by knife point away from her home, took her way out into the wilderness of Utah, and raped her repeatedly. He starved her. He beat her. And he lied to her. And he told her over and over again that if you say a word, I'm going to kill you. And he held her for nine months. During that time, he got kind of cocky. He thought he was bigger than the situation. And so he would take Elizabeth right out into public. Now, you got to know, like, if you don't remember the story, everybody knew who Elizabeth Smart was. Her picture was everywhere, not just in Utah, it was everywhere. Her story was being told on every news outlet. And yet he got cocky enough to take her out into public. Now he would dress her up in garb so all you could see were her eyes. And they'd just walk around town, even town when police officers would be walking around downtown. And Elizabeth tells this story now, years later, she tells a story of, she remembers specifically at one point, she was two steps away from a police officer. Two steps away, he's right there. All she has to do is say the words, I'm Elizabeth Smart, and she's free. Free. And she says nothing. Two steps away. If you know the story, thankfully, finally, a police officer recognized her, pulled her away. I think one crazy thing about the story is when that police officer found her and began to question her, she still lied. She was still caught in the lie that he was telling her that if she said a word, he'd kill her. And she didn't even admit she was Elizabeth Smart right away. But eventually they found out who she was. She was rescued. That man spent the rest of his life in prison as he should. But I thought about this idea, what a picture. Maybe you'd resonate with that picture that you're just a step away from freedom. All you have to do is step over there. But you bought into this lie. You bought into this lie that this addiction will always have you. You bought into this lie that your attitude, it's just who you are. And it's just not true. You haven't bought into a devil that actually has power to hold you captive and bound, but you've bought into a lie. He just lied to you. And Jesus tells us that when he lies, he's speaking his native language because he's a liar. But when we believe the lie, we empower the liar. That's what spiritual warfare really all it is. It's just exposing the lie and replacing it with truth. And we find truth in the word of God. So how do you identify these strongholds in your life? I got a list of kind of what strongholds do. Maybe you would resonate with one of them. Strongholds steal your focus. You find yourself constantly focused on that thing you believe to be true that's holding you captive. Again, I've used the example many times. It could be an addiction or a habit or wounds, hurts from the past. But you're so focused on it that it steals all your focus and then it becomes something that you feel controlled by. It causes you to feel controlled. So you say things like, I could never or I will never. You take on this stronghold as your identity. You become what that stronghold is. And that's just not true. That may have been what you did, but it's not who you are. That may have been what happened to you, but it's not who you are. And I debated whether or not to say this. I even took it out of my notes, but I think it's true. I don't know enough about 12-step programs. So please, give me some grace here. What they do is great. I believe they help to save people's lives. Hear me on that. What I don't agree with is for the rest of your life, you have to stand up in a room and say, I am that, I'm a. No, you're not. No, you're not. Jesus has come into your life and he's transformed you from one degree of glory to another. We're always being changed. We have a new identity, it's not who you are. If you have kids, like we're having to remind our kids of this all the time, if we're trying to punish them and raise them and bring them up in the right way, that, hey, you made a mistake, but that's not who you are. In fact, I told Carson at breakfast, he can attest to this, just this past week, I said, Carson, you have a tendency to lose things, but you're not a loser. Another thing that strongholds do is they consume our emotional energy. You just have nothing left to give. You become increasingly more and more hopeless, which in turn distract us from our purpose. And this could seem a little bit backwards to you, but I do kind of want to tell you the truth about something. There's a passage in Romans that says this, it says, don't think of yourself more highly than you ought. And so here's a little piece of truth for you. The devil's desire to destroy you, it has nothing to do with you. You're just not that important. I'm not that important. The devil's desire to destroy your life has nothing to do with you. He ultimately wants to keep you. He wants to rob you of the life that God has intended for you, which because living the life that God has intended for you brings God the most glory. So the devil's desire to destroy you has nothing to do with you, it has everything to do with God. It always has and it always will. All he wants to do is steal God's glory and he can do that by destroying you. This is what strongholds do in our lives. This is why it's so important. This is why we need to fight. To pick up the sword and fight with the weapons of the word of God, we have to know the word of God. And so I want to show you what the word of God actually says about how to be successful in this spiritual battle that we're in. And I'm going to give you three lists of three. And I always like to give credit where credit is due. There's a pastor named Chris Hodges in Birmingham, Alabama. He's great. You should go listen to him. He's awesome. But he had these three lists of three and a different message that I kind of adapted, but I loved it. I thought it worked really well for us. So the first one is three realities you need to believe. Three realities you need to believe in your life, three weapons in the word of God to use to take ground in the spiritual war, and three things to do every day. The first one, three realities we need to believe. The first one is this. The devil's actually real. He's real. He's not a metaphor. He's not a Sunday school story. He's not running around in full body red spandex with a tail and horn. But he wants you to believe he is. He wants you to believe it's all pretend and fun and games. In fact, there was a study back in 2009, so you can imagine it's probably pretty different now, a Barna study that showed that 74% of professing believers in Jesus did not believe in a literal devil. And let me tell you, that doesn't make him go away. 2 Corinthians actually tells us that that's who he is, he's masquerading. He's pretending in hopes that you would think it's just all fun and games. But he's a real created being. He's a real created being by our creator God who got kicked out of heaven. I don't have time to go into all the amazing story about all that, but Revelation, it does say it this way. Then a war broke out in heaven and Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon is just another word for Satan. And the dragon and his angels, his demons fought back. But he was not strong enough. That's an important, important little phrase for us. But he was not strong enough and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down. That ancient serpent called the devil or Satan who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth and his angels along with him. So that actually happened. I don't know if I can say it strong enough, and I know my words aren't gonna make you believe that. You have to make that decision for yourself, but let me just tell you, it's just true. It's not an epic Hollywood scary movie script. It is a real thing, and it's not meant to scare you. It's meant to prepare you. The second reality we need to have in mind at all times is the devil's goal is to destroy you. We've referenced this verse so many times over this series, and I would assume we would continue to next week. But John 10.10 says, the thief comes only to steal, only to kill, and to destroy you. And the last reality we need to know is that the devil responds to a higher authority. That should bring you some joy, that the devil responds to a higher authority. Now, we do know our main verse for this whole series, Ephesians 6, in verse 12, it does talk about rulers and powers and authority. And so we know that it shows that he does have some power, but that there's a name above his name. There's power above his power. 1 John says it this way, the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. Those are three realities. Again not to be scared of but to be aware of. Three weapons. Three weapons in the word. The first one is this, the name of Jesus. See all you have to do is say the name of Jesus and all the other names have to bow to that name. The name of Jesus carries more power than you can imagine, whether you have a relationship with Jesus or not. I challenge you, if you don't have a relationship with Jesus and you feel weight on you and attacks on you, whatever word you want to use, I dare you to try the name of Jesus. But make this deal with me, if you try the name of Jesus and you experience something. If you say the name of Jesus and you feel that power leave you, you might want to consider putting your faith in that power. If Jesus has the power to push away the darkness in your life, you might want to rethink your thoughts about who Jesus is. That's all I am asking you to do. There is a name above his name and I love it. And where am I at? I don't know where I am at. Luke 10. Yeah, Luke 10. The 72 returned with joy and said, now the 72, so there were more than 12, there were 12 disciples, but there were a lot of people that followed Jesus. He had a lot of work to do, couldn't do it with just 12. So he told the 72 to go out and begin praying for people. And this is what happens when they come back. The 72 come back and they say, Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name. And Jesus is like, well, of course they do. Of course they do. I was there. I was there when he got kicked out of heaven. When there was a battle in heaven, it wasn't like a Star Wars movie, right? It was like the good come, and then the bad fight back, and then the good fight, and then the bad fight, and then the good win, and credits, right? No, it wasn't like that at all. It was like intro song, battle, boom, done, credits. He replied, he said this, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. And I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions, just another word for demons, and to overcome all the power of the enemy. Nothing will harm you. Philippians tells us this, that the name of Jesus, at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow. Every knee in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And so you have the power of the name. Pastor John, he actually implements this in his life all the time. Pastor John, who was our host this morning, he has a thing where if he has to get up in the middle of the night and walk down the hallway, he just, in the dark, he's Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. And you should ask him if it works for him. That wasn't funny enough? I'll cut that for next time. All right. The second weapon at our disposal, the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus. See the act of the cross was the ultimate defeat of the enemy. We read about that in Revelation 12. It says this, they triumphed over him, over the enemy, by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony. And the third weapon, the third weapon at our disposal, the knowledge of the word of God. You may know this story whether you have been a part of the church or not. But there was a story where Jesus was taken out into the wilderness and tempted. We read about the story in Matthew 4 and Luke 4. And Jesus was tempted by the enemy. Three different times. Every time Jesus defeated the enemy by quoting scripture back to the enemy. There is power in the knowledge of the word of God. You have to know the word of God to use the word of God. is the word of God. We know the teachings of Jesus because we can read it in scripture. If you hold to my teachings, you really are my disciples and then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. See, when it comes to spiritual warfare, these are the weapons that we can use. See, the word of God is not just some cute coffee table devotional book. It's a weapon in your hand. But to fight with the weapons of the word of God, you have to know the word of God. And so we have three realities that we need to believe. And we have three weapons at our disposal to use. And now here's three things that you can do every day to help you be victorious in this spiritual battle. At least three things according to the word of God. And the first one is this, commit yourself to God. Commit yourself to living under the authority of God's umbrella. See, your authority with the devil is only as strong as your relationship with God. We say that again, your authority with the devil is only as strong as your relationship with God. Your authority to be able to use the name of Jesus. In fact, there's a story in Acts 19 that I love where we see that. Some Jews who went out around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon possessed. They would say, in the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out. Well, the seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. One day, the evil spirit answered them, I love this, Jesus I know, and Paul I've heard of, but who are you? And the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them, overpowered them, and gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding. I don't fight much. I don't know much about fighting. But I know if you came into the fight wearing clothes and you left without them, you lost the fight. I know that. The more you stay committed, the more you stay committed to God and live under the authority of His power, the more authority you have in your spiritual warfare. And you're like, prove it, Matt. And I'm like, okay, fine, I'll prove it. If that's what you want. James tells us this way. Submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil and he will flee. Submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil and he will flee. The second line doesn't happen without the first line. Your authority with the devil is only as strong as your relationship with God. Second thing we can do every day, close any open doors. If you're a follower of Jesus, this isn't a salvation issue. Your salvation is sealed and done. You're gonna go to heaven, don't worry about that. But by decisions you make, you may create some cracks, you may create some open doors where the enemy can come in and do his work. Paul tells us in Ephesians, in your anger, do not sin, do not let the sun go down while you are still angry and do not give the devil a foothold in your life. So what are those cracks for you? Where are those doors open for you? Where have you allowed the enemy a foothold? I cannot tell you what those things are. The Holy Spirit tells you what those things are. He can show you. But for me, every day, every day I submit myself to God and His authority and then I ask God, where have I left the window open? Where am I living, where in my life am I leaving cracks in the door and opportunities for the enemy to grab hold of me and try and bind me? Three things to do every day. The third one is this, confront the enemy in prayer. We're actually gonna dive deep into this next week. It's the last message of the series, but every day confront him. Every day remember that this whole armor thing that we're told to put on, it's not just about passive protection. No, it's about an active advance. We have a weapon to take ground in our spiritual battle. We have a weapon to break strongholds in our lives. We are in a battle, but here's the best news for you, follower of Jesus, that we don't fight for victory. We fight from a place of victory because of the work of Jesus. See, I believe the easiest way for us as human beings to practically see the impact of spiritual warfare in our lives is when we do identify strongholds, when we identify the places where we've been held captive. The places where the enemy has tricked us, that he has lied to us, caused us to believe that he has power over us that he doesn't have. We can see the work of the enemy. We can see warfare taking place and we can break free from those strongholds. We can experience warfare in our lives. So what are those strongholds for you? What strongholds can you identify in your life? Some of them are blatantly obvious. That they're easy for other people to see. They can help you out with. They can help call them out in your life. Those things like addictions that they can just see ravage your life. But for most of us, they're very hidden. Most of us, they're strongholds like bad self-image. Terrible self-talk. The things like past hurts that that we were hurt in the past, and we allow those hurts to impact our lives today, and other people don't see that, but it impacts everything about who we are. It's shame, it's guilt. What are they for you? To take ground in this battle, to break those strongholds, you'll need to fight. But with the name of Jesus, and with the blood of the Lamb, and the knowledge of the word of God, you have everything you need to win the daily battle. Would you pray with me, church? Before I pray, if anybody in the room has yet to put their faith in Jesus, I'm so glad that you're here with us today. I hope it wasn't too weird for you. I hope on some level you connected with the thought of there being a battle in this world. But the tools, the weapons that I mentioned, they're available for those of us that follow Jesus, which means they're available for you too. All you need to do is put your faith in Jesus and ask him to lead your life. And if you're feeling a stirring to do that this morning, all you have to do is pray a simple prayer that I'll pray and you can repeat with me. It just goes like this, Jesus, I know I'm a sinner. Jesus, I believe that your death and resurrection paid for those sins. Would you come and be my forgiver? And Jesus, would you lead me for the rest of my life? God, I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful that we have you with us. That because of the work of Jesus, We can put on the armor and we can be protected. And because of the knowledge of your word that we can take ground in this battle, we can fight against the enemy. We don't have to sit back and take blows over and over again. But God, to know how to do that, everybody in this room needs to know where we're being held. Would you reveal that to us? God, would you work in the hearts of your people? And would you draw the hearts of those that don't know you? And when we walk out these doors, could we do so ready to live more like you and for you? We pray all these things in your name, amen.