I'm grateful for the care with which the songs are always selected, but particularly this morning, all preparing us to look into God's word. In Ephesians chapter six, a keystone passage on how the believer is to relate to the spiritual world, particularly the evil spirits that are really surrounding us. Ephesians chapter six, verse 10 is where we'll primarily be this morning. I'd like to read the whole section. And if you have one of those Bibles nearby, you can grab one of those. It's on page 931. If you want to use one of our new church Bibles. Ephesians chapter six, beginning in verse 10. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 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. 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. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace, In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak. Let's pray together. Father, you have not left us alone, but you have equipped us with your very armor. Lord, I pray that you'd use this time together to show us how you would have us live in this world that is full of evil, evil that we can see and evil that we can't see. And Father, we pray that you would protect your people. Guard us, oh God. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And yes, even the evil one. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, we are not unfamiliar with warfare. We see it in our world. We see it happening in key places in the world. Thankfully, as a country, we've been spared for many years from seeing it on our soil. And yet we know war exists, and we wonder at times what generates the warfare that we see around the world. It's not always hard to discern what causes warring nations to come together in battle. We see that two different nations, or sometimes multiple nations, have exclusive interests in the same territory or the same natural resources, and so they take up arms to benefit themselves at expense of others. Other times, we see wars erupt in our world simply because of pure and simple hatred. You see one group of people hate another group of people, and the hatred is so deep that they take up arms and try to slaughter, through genocide, a whole group of people. When that one group looks out on that group that they hate, they see no shared value, no shared culture, no shared heritage, no shared looks, no shared influence. They want complete and total separation. They have nothing in common, and so they might as well annihilate each other. The only outcome in the minds of the aggressors is the complete and total decimation of the other side. We see that kind of warfare in our world as well. It grieves us, doesn't it, when we see something like genocide happen? If you are a Christian, you're a follower of Jesus Christ, you are a hated and despised class, and you have an enemy who wants to annihilate you. Your enemy has absolutely no love for you, no shared values with you, and will show you no mercy at all. Your enemy will viciously attack you, withhold none of his power from being against you. He will not minimize any scheme in his mind to do harm to you. He will plot and plan and scheme for your destruction. He will not rest. He will not sleep and he will not tire. In other words, there is a war that is waging against you all the time out of hatred for you. Your enemy only wants your complete and total destruction. But there's good news. He can be thwarted. He can be resisted, and he is not invincible. His weapons are not always effective. In fact, his weapons are always ineffective when you have the right armor on. Although he's won many battles, it is guaranteed that he will not win the war. In fact, in many ways, in the most important ways, he has already been defeated. Strange way of thinking. You're in a battle and yet the war's already won. You have a super powerful enemy who intends to do you great harm and yet you can be invincible against him. This enemy has been defeated and will be defeated, but fights on nonetheless. And yet you are effectively invincible if you wear the right armor. You know what I speak of. You know what I'm talking about, of course. Your enemy is Satan, the devil, the accuser of the brothers, the slanderer, the liar, and the murderer from the beginning, the deceiver. And with him, he has legions in his army. These in our text are called rulers, authorities, cosmic powers over this present darkness, spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. And Satan is the general. The scripture really from the beginning to the end of the Bible is unabashed and showing us that there is a real spiritual enemy against God and against God's people. He's not just a figment of our imagination. We are not materialists as believers, only thinking that there's the material world that exists. We believe there's an immaterial world, a spiritual world. And in the biblical worldview, there is a real enemy who is out to destroy God's people, who hates God, hates his people, and really, in fact, hates all humanity. He is a fallen angel and his name is Satan or the devil. And with him are many demons who seek to steal, kill, and destroy. The evil that is perpetrated by the enemy of God is almost unfathomable. You can get a sense of just how diabolical the devil is by how you see him acting during the era of Jesus when he walked on the earth. During those days, while Jesus was on the earth, he seemed to encounter demons wherever he went. There seemed to be this spiritual influx of evil forces that were inhabiting the lives of people. And Jesus, when he was around them, by his sheer power and personhood, seemed to draw out their evil. There's one particular story in the Gospel of Mark 5 that shows just how evil the work of Satan and his followers actually is. In Mark 5, verse 1, it says that they came to the other side of the sea to the country of the Gerasenes. And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day, among the tombs and on the mountains, he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. Think about the life of this man called the demoniac who had legions of angels or legions of demons inhabiting him. He was born just like you and I. cute child. At some point in his life, he was exposed to the evil forces that we cannot see, and they came to dwell in him. And you see the kind of intention that Satan and his forces have in this world by seeing what happens to this man. He becomes almost sub-human, animalistic. He is driven to the tombs, and he lives among the dead. He is naked and he is shackled by those who are around him who try to constrain some of the evil that is going on in his life. But the supernatural forces in him and him are so strong that they rip apart the chains. And there is this man who is totally isolated from society and totally succumbed to evil. And he is day and night crying out obviously in misery and absolute anguish and cutting himself in stones. And you get with that the sense of the intention of the enemy against humanity. You get there a picture of what he is after. He wants to steal, kill, and destroy. He wants to make human life miserable. He wants to lead people to such a degree of living that it is, again, subhuman and animalistic. You look in our world and you see misery all over the place. Perhaps you don't see people who are cutting themselves with stones, but how many stories have you heard of people who cut themselves with steel? People who so hate their lives that they would rather take them than live. How many people who have been enslaved to sin that leads to absolute terror of humans, the sin that promises joy and delight, it becomes engaged in and it leads people down a path that is absolute destruction so that the person's life is so far from actual human life, it looks like an animal life. We see these things all around us. And with that, we see the intention of the enemy and the kind of harm and destruction that he wants to do in this world. Not saying that he is the one who is totally and completely responsible for sin in our lives. We have our own flesh that desires and craves the things that Satan offers. But there is a real enemy in this world. Satan is the one who Jesus says to Peter, demanded to have you and sift you like wheat. But Jesus says, I've prayed for you. Satan is the one who entered the heart of Judas to betray Christ himself. And it was Satan and his powers who were surrounding that whole time of the crucifixion of Jesus. So that in Luke chapter 22, verse 52, Jesus speaking to the chief priests and officers of the temple and elders who'd come out against him says this, have you come out as against a robber with swords and clubs? When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me, but this is your hour, then hear what he says, and the power of darkness. Jesus is saying that during that time when there were those people who came with clubs and torches to come and arrest Jesus, He says, this is your hour and your hour is marked by the power of darkness. And the power of darkness or the Prince over the power of darkness is Satan himself. And so that whole time period when Jesus is being arrested and put on a false trial and crucified is an era where Satan is showing how much he hates God and hates his people. And you get this explicitly stated in Revelation 12, 17, with imagery referring to Satan as a dragon. It says, then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. There it's told to us that Satan has set out to make war on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. I wonder if you believe this. You may acknowledge that there is a Satan, that there are demons, but they're all kind of out there and have nothing to do with you. But do you believe that there truly is an enemy who has set himself to devour you and destroy your soul? Do you believe it in such a way that it changes the way you live this life? Do you believe it like Noah believed a flood was coming and so actually built an ark? Do you believe it like one who believes there is a real battle that is raging around you that you cannot see with your physical eyes, but you have to be prepared for more than a physical battle? Do you believe it like that? If you had a physical enemy, a stalker in your life who you knew just wanted to harm you, how would you respond to that? If you knew it, you would take action. You would pick up your phone. You would call the police. You would hire a security service. You'd make sure that all of your doors are locked at night. You would make sure you had security cameras. You would do what it took to be protected from the enemy who is coming against you. And yet many Christians who say that they follow Christ, leave the door open and unlocked, and they take no precautions whatsoever against the enemy who is out there to devour you. You live like this world is a playground to enjoy every liberty that you can actually imagine. And you have no idea that there is a battle raging around you and you have a target on your back. There is a spiritual war that's raging. And Christians who have a stalker of their soul often act like all is well. Paul has been bringing to the attention of the Ephesians and to us throughout his book that we need to be, oh, so careful. Back in chapter four, verses 26 and 27, he says, be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. How many of us get into some sort of angry tiff? We don't settle in our hearts, but we let it turn into some level of bitterness and anger ongoing. And with that, we leave the door ajar for Satan to walk right into your life. And this is typical, not just of anger, but of all of these instructions for ethical and moral living that Paul gives us in chapter four. Back in 25, he talks about putting away falsehood. Let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor for we are members of one another. How often believers by their lies leave the door ajar to the deceiver and the father of lies. In verse 28, it says, let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Believers take on themselves laziness or even theft at times and leave the door ajar there for the thief to come into our lives. Verse 29, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. How often believers take on their lips words of slander or gossip and we tear people down rather than build one another up. And with that, we leave the door open to the slanderer himself. Verse 31, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you. How often do Christians act out of malicious intentions? And with that, we leave the door open to the malicious one in our lives. So it should be no wonder that coming to the end of this book of Ephesians, Paul addresses what we all need to hear, namely that we have to take heed to the fact that there's a battle raging around us and we need to be ready for this battle. Oftentimes, Christians think about spiritual warfare and engaging with Satan and demons as something that is supernatural in our activity. namely that we have to start speaking to demons in a certain way. Or we have to bind spirits and command the darkness to do our bidding. But as a matter of fact, spiritual warfare in the scriptures is much simpler than that. Spiritual warfare is not you going out and finding a demon that you can start talking to. Spiritual warfare is recognizing that demonic activity is all around us in the propagation of lies in this world that tell us to not follow God, but follow our own heart or follow the ways of the world. And so there's spiritual battles all around us. And the way you fight them is by believing what God has said in his word. That's the way you engage in spiritual warfare. It's not moralism. But it is following God's morality, rooted in believing that what God has said is true. Satan and his minions are liars and murderers, unclean and holy spirits. Unholy spirits. God's people, therefore, must be truthful, life-giving, clean, and holy. And the way you shut the door on the enemy is to resist his lies. Do not let him in your life. Now, of course, it's crucial to understand that the fundamental closing of the door on Satan is done not by you, but by the one who purchased you with his own blood. For there was a time in your life when you were living totally under the dominion of Satan. There was a time when you were following the prince of the powers of the air. A time where you were, even if you didn't acknowledge it or recognize it, you were a follower of Satan. Your life full of lies and debauchery looked more like Satan than the Christ. And so you were under his dominion. Your past relationship with him was one of slavery, where you would have Satan basically as your father, because you were engaged in his fittings. That was your former life. That's what Ephesians chapter two talks about. It talks about how you were dead in your trespasses and sins. It talks about how you followed the prince of the power of the air. And as Paul wrote to the people at Ephesus, they knew something about the spiritual forces in this world. They had a significant involvement in the occult. In Acts 19, As people were coming to faith in Ephesus in Acts 19, verse 18 and 19, it says, many of those who are now believers came confessing and divulging their practices. And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to 50,000 pieces of silver. For the Ephesians, they would say, you're right, Paul. We were under his sway. We were a follower of the Prince of Darkness, but we are throwing that all away and we are literally burning our allegiance to him. In our society, one of the things that the devil has done to propagate his ways is to convince us he doesn't exist. And so we think that we are independent, we're free, we go our own way, but as a matter of fact, the quality of your life, again, looks more like the devil than like God. And so you're actually a follower of a devil, even if you don't acknowledge his existence. And so you were trapped, you were enslaved. In 1 John 5, 19, it says, the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we're told here in Ephesians 6, verse 12, that there are these cosmic powers over this present darkness, indicating that basically the world around us is the darkness and there are rulers over it that are demonic in nature. And this was your life under this rule and in this darkness. But the decisive moment in your life was when Jesus Christ entered the door, entered your life and slammed the door on the devil. So decisive is this work that as Stephen referred to last week in Colossians chapter one, it says of Christ, verse 13, he has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son. So if you had a passport in your former life and it had a country of origin, it would say domain of darkness on it. But what has happened is Jesus has taken that passport and has done away with it and given you a new one and your new passport, guess what country of origin it is? The kingdom of God. And that's what you have now. That's what you belong to. And that was done by Christ when He went to the cross and it says there He carried your record of debt on the cross. It was nailed there on the cross. So all of those sins that you had committed over the course of your life were nailed to the cross with Christ Jesus and He bore the wrath of God against your sins. And do you know the main tool that Satan has against you? It's accusation. It's accusation. He is called the accuser of the brethren. And the way that Satan works is what you see in Job, where he comes into the presence of God and he brings some accusation against God's people. And he says, does Job worship you for nothing? Basically accusing Job of being a bribed follower of God. And they go through that whole test to show that Job actually was not a bribed follower of God. So too, Satan can come with your sins and accuse you, say, look, he is a blasphemer. He is an adulterer, he is a liar, he is a thief, and he deserves judgment. I say that of my life and your life. But Jesus Christ himself takes that record that Satan could use to accuse you, brings it with him to the cross, and with his blood writes, paid in full, so that Satan has no accusation against God's people anymore. That's why he's a liar when he brings accusations against you, because it's all been dealt with at the cross. And that decisive moment was not your doing, it was Jesus Christ's doing so that he delivered you from that domain of darkness and transferred you into the kingdom of God. So Jesus says in John 10, 10, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. So your life is no longer marked by belonging to the dominion of Satan. In fact, his dominion over you is done away with, but he still rages. He still hates you. He still wants to destroy you. First Peter tells us that he prowls around like a ravenous lion, seeking those whom he may destroy. And so Christian, though you have been delivered from the domain of Satan and you are now in the kingdom of God, you have to recognize that there is an enemy who still comes for you. And the way you resist him and the way you fight against him is not with your own tools and tactics, but rather with the very victory that Christ has already procured for you. This world all around us is so dominated by evil. that it really should not surprise us that there is an enemy against humanity. We see all of the evil perpetrated. We see horrible, horrible things. We see perhaps the most horrible thing of all, which is the propagation of false religion around the world. That is Satan's go-to strategy. False worship and false religion. He presents to this world false ways of living that convinces people that they will be righteous in God's sight. Deuteronomy 32 15-17 Moses writes this, Jeshua grew fat and kicked. You grew fat, stout and sleek. Then he, this is referring to Israel, forsook God who made him and scoffed at the rock of his salvation. They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods. With abominations, they provoked him to anger. They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded. And we could trace many other passages in scripture that show that one of Satan's tactics in this world is false worship. Falsehoods that are propagated about the Bible, about God, about salvation, about Jesus. And so he is an enemy of the truth. And the way then that we fight against him is with the very truth that God has revealed to us. The thickness of evil in this world is only cut through with the sword of truth that God has given to us in his word. So what must you do? If the door has been closed on Satan by the victory of Christ, and yet he still rages against you clawing to get in, and you know that he works through lying and murdering, how are you going to resist this enemy of your soul? And the answer is, well, Paul writes here in Ephesians chapter six, This is the go-to passage for believers to know how to fight against the enemy. It doesn't take you doing some sort of concordance search to find the deepest secrets of how to fight against the devil. It is in one of the most well-known passages in all scripture, the armor of God. This is how you fight. This is how you go against the enemy of your soul. Ephesians 6, verse 10, and this really is just an introduction into what we will dig into in future weeks with the actual armor of God, but to set our hearts and get ready for that, we want to look particularly at the command in verse 10, which says, finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. This is your command, believer. that as you consider fighting against the enemy of your soul, you need to be strong. You need to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. When you face an enemy of great strength, in order to come against him, you yourself are going to need some level of strength that would match his. This is why you don't want to meet large people in dark alleys, because you are not going to survive that encounter. Your tactic is to run away. This is just the way that we understand our world. We recognize the threat that's out there, and we try to have some sort of counter threat to the threat that we see. This is why people procure firearms for self-defense because they consider that they will perhaps one day face some threat where they will need that level of force to counter the danger that comes against them. They feel they need something strong and powerful to protect them from dangerous and powerful foes who threaten their lives. Perhaps this is why many study martial arts, so they don't have to rely on a weapon, they make their body a weapon. They want strength to be able to thwart attackers, know the right moves that they can use against their enemy. So at first glance, this command to be strong sounds very American. It sounds like what we love and hold dear as Americans, the independence and the self-defense that we have. But the kind of strength that is being referred to here is not a get a bigger gun kind of strength. This is a strength that is outside of you. This command is beyond physical assaults. It is not trying to get you into the gym. It is not just stick to your principles kind of strength in your own convictions. It's not saying stand up to bullies. It's not saying live confidently. It is rather saying be strong in the Lord. not telling you to carry weapons and to weaponize yourself or just believe in yourself more. The whole command is important. Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Some translations, I think rightly put it this way, be strengthened in the Lord. It's a passive imperative, something that is done to you. Be strengthened in the Lord. So this is not commanding you to find your inner strength, to weaponize yourself. It's not telling you that you can go out and find the spiritual forces and by your own strength, defeat them. It's rather telling you that you need strength from outside yourself. And that's a common theme throughout the Bible. To find strength, not really in yourself, but outside of yourself. One of the most famous passages on this is regarding Moses' successor, Joshua. Joshua was to be the commander of the armies of the Lord of Israel. As they go into the land that was promised to them, Joshua really had one of the greatest tasks in front of him that the people of God could have had, which was to go into this land that was promised and drive out those who currently inhabited it. Joshua was going to become really the greatest warrior in Israel's history. Joshua would be greater than David and Gideon because Joshua would lead the whole country into the promised land. His accomplishments are unique. But the very start of Joshua's command, God gave him a charge. He says this in Joshua 1, verses five through nine, no man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses, my servant, commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened and do not be dismayed. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." It's really an extraordinary thing to say to a commander of armies before he goes in to engage in warfare. Did you know what God is saying? Yeah, be strong and courageous, but do you know why? Because God promises to be with Joshua. And so he really shouldn't worry about the enemies that he's going to attack because he has God on his side, but really he makes it the charge of Joshua what he should do before he goes into battle, before he engages in this warfare that's going to happen. Here's what Joshua is supposed to do. Verse seven, be careful to do according to all the law that Moses, my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. Pretty sure that most generals in the modern world are not told, you know what, here's your job. As you lead the armies into battle, here's your job. Meditate on the Bible. That's not the strategy that modern armies take. But Joshua, his strategy, meditate on the word of God. Why? Because that is what actually strengthens you for the battle that matters. For us who live in this world with raging enemies all around us, the battle that matters is your holiness and your purity. How are you going to see that happen? through God's word active in your life. And so Paul commands, Ephesians 6, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might, not relying on your own strength. What is the strength of the Lord's might? What is that? Well, you get some taste of it earlier in the letter in Ephesians 1. Paul is praying for the Ephesians and he's praying basically that the Ephesians may know certain things that are true. And one of the things that he prays that they would know is in verse 19. Ephesians 1.19, that you may know what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe. According to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. That prayer that you would know the immeasurable greatness of God's power is explained by God's power being that which had Jesus Christ defeat the enemies and rise again in life in resurrection power and be seated at the right hand of God. And there at the right hand of God is far above every enemy that we will ever have. And so the point is that as you find strength in Christ, you look to where Christ is. You look to the victorious one who's seated at the right hand of God and has all of his enemies below him. And so if you want strength as you face the devil and his demons, you do not look to yourself. You do not look to earthly strategies. You look to Christ who is victorious already, and you find strength in him. Paul in chapter 3 verse 16 identifies this strength again. He's praying for the Ephesians once more. And he says, he's praying that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being. And he goes on in verse 18, that you may have strength to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. So our strength, once again, is outside of ourselves, in Christ, and then brought into us by the Spirit. And one of the ways that you access this is by prayer. This is what Paul intends for us to understand when he tells us to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. We look to the one. who has all power and all authority, and we expect that His power will be extended to us as we trust Him. What kind of strength does Jesus display? What kind of power does He have against the enemy? Well, you think about His life and His powers of such a different kind. He could have, we are told, summoned legions of angels to fight for Him. But his power and strength was of a different kind. You look at the life of Christ and what kind of strength did he have? He had a strength in humility, a strength in kindness, a strength in love, a strength in purity, a strength in holiness. And his strength became then a strength of an indestructible life because he didn't have a speck of sin upon him. That's real strength. abstaining from sin and obeying God is the strength of our Lord Jesus Christ. And he exercised that strength toward us in redemption when he purchased us with his blood, and in forgiveness when he cleansed us of all unrighteousness, and in giving us of his very spirit so that we might have life in ourselves. And then he unites one to another so that we together have the strength to fight against the enemy and he gives us access to God together through prayer and faith and by the Spirit. This is the strength of our Lord and we are strengthened in him. And with him then, as you trust in him, you have really every tool that you need to fight against the enemy of your souls. You therefore, once again, do not need to come up with your own tactics and your own methodologies. You need to find the strength that He supplies sufficient for you to fight against the enemy. In other words, you need to be strong in faith. You need to be strong and trusting all that Christ is for you. You need to be strong and trusting that Christ has died for you and risen again and given you his spirit and given you redemption and given you forgiveness. Isn't this the way that we fight? This is one of the hymns that we sing together. When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, what do we do? Upward, I look and see him there. who made an end to all my sin." That's the looking of faith. As Satan comes against you with the temptation to sin, you think, that's the very sin Christ died to ransom me from. I will trust him and not this temptation. When you think about the guilt you have for past sins committed, and you are tempted to despair, what do you do? You look to Christ, the one who died for that sin and took it to the cross and brought it with him to the grave and left it there in the tomb. And you think, I do not have to have guilt over this sin any longer because Christ has dealt with it for me. It's a life of faith where you trust all the strength that God has given to you through Christ, not your own strength. It's all in what Christ has done for you. So believer, do you know that you are in a battle? Or are you living like everything's just rosy? If you know that you're in a battle, do you know that you need strength? And if you know that you're in a battle and you need strength, do you know where to find that strength from? Do you know the source of that strength? Are you looking to Christ? We will look again in future weeks more to the very armor that God gives us so that we are equipped for this battle. But I want you to just know at this point, there is a battle raging around you and you have to be engaged in it. You are engaged in it one way or another. You're either being defeated or you're trusting the victory that Christ has earned for you. So I close with this. Where are the Christian warriors? Where are the Christian warriors of this day? Where are the mighty men? Where are the mighty women? There are strong men around, men who can lift weight over their head, men who are decisive and blaze a trail and take risks. But the kind of warriors that God is looking for, Are the kind of warriors who know that in themselves they don't have any strength to engage in this battle and all their strength is in Christ Jesus? Where are the men who get on their knees before a holy God and beg Him for strength and pray for their loved ones and pray for the church and the evangelization of the lost? Where are the warriors? Are they here? Are you one of them? Where are the mighty women? There are many women in our world who are strong women. They have opinions. They make them known. They think, anything anyone else can do, I can do. That's not the kind of woman God's looking for. The kind of woman that God is looking for is a truly strong woman who knows her strength is not in herself. The woman who knows that her redemption is through faith in Christ Jesus. The one who knows that Christ Jesus is at the right hand of God and is coming again for you. The one who gets on her knees and begs God for strength to go through the day in a way that honors Him. Who lives her life so that it speaks of the holiness of God by her virtue and her character. That's the kind of warrior woman that God's looking for. Is that you? Are you engaged in the battle in that way? This is God's call on every life who claims Christ as their Lord, that you'd be a true warrior, not one who pats himself on the back after a kill, but one who's on his knees or her knees before the mighty God who gives you the strength to fight against sin and temptation in this world. May God help us. Let's pray. Father, we ask you to make us the kind of people that are not complacent. Lord, I pray that you would waken us up to the seriousness of the battle that's in front of us, that we would see the lives that are at stake around us. Lord, we would not take it easy, that we would not just pursue comfort, Father, I pray that you would help us to pursue Christ. And as we pursue him, you would strengthen us for the battle that's in front of us. Open our eyes, Lord, to see the reality of the evil that is surrounding us and tempting us and the kind of things that our own flesh even craves. Father, please help us to see these things. And give us grace to be the kind of men and women that you want us to be. so that we're not steamrolled by the enemy, but take our stand. O Lord, help us, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen.