John 14:1 (A Warrior's Mindset)

The Shepherd's Church

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Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day sermon We pray that as we declare the

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Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who

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Christ is May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you

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One of the most profound things that my sergeant said to me when I was in the army Came right after a period of my whining and complaining

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Now the army, I don't know about the other branches, but especially in the army We did a lot of things that I felt like were totally asinine

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Extremely frivolous you whatever adjective you want to throw at it We've inventoried this equipment in the 95 degree weather at Fort Bragg, North Carolina ten times in the last two weeks

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Do we really need to do it again for one safety pin? My sergeant looked at me and he said

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Lankford or they called me Opie in those days in Andy Griffith reference

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He said Lankford if you ever heard about mind over matter I Said yes, he said well if you don't mind then it don't matter.

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I Didn't get the profundity of that statement at first. I just thought he was being sarcastic Maybe he was but I've never forgotten it and over the course of the years

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I've realized that what the statements really getting at is that if you have a sort of mental

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Toughness a fortitude about you then you can become unshakable Where nothing really bothers you if you're mentally tough and you make your mind up that that this situation is not gonna bother me then

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You can kind of become untouchable in a sense that I'm not gonna let this bother me I do this every winter at least once a year

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I walk in the snow barefoot and I'm like, I don't mind and it don't matter Just to prove my superiority to this

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New England phenomenon you call snow Our body follows our mind a lot of times our behavior follows our thinking if you want to change your behavior

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Oftentimes you have to change your thinking Because it's your thinking that's wrong about whatever it is.

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In fact much of our stumbling Mumbling bumbling and grumbling Come from either one of two things first We are ignorant of the truth and we don't know it or second.

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We know it and we're ignoring it Much of our problems in life come from those two things that we're either ignorant of God's truth or we're ignoring

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God's truth And I would say that this has been a massive problem in the evangelical church in the last 50 years

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There's so much in the Bible that tells us that we've been called into a war that we are soldiers of Christ that we're ambassadors that we are to conquer to be more than conquerors and Evangelicalism has spent its time in the middle of the battle throwing parties with light shows playing games

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Maybe we gather together and we complain about the government a little we struggle and snuggle with the same old sins

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But we do nothing to take back Territory that war that the

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Bible is talking about We're either ignorant of the fact that it's going on or we're ignoring it and we're trying to pursue our comfort

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We've forgotten By and large, maybe not this church, but the church at large has forgotten that we're in a war

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What is Christian warfare Christian warfare is not jihad Jihad Christian warfare is not

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Grabbing a 10 -pound Bible and whacking someone over the head with it Christian warfare is a war with our flesh

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It's a war against our sin nature. It's a war. The Bible talks about principalities and cosmic authorities demons

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It's a war where we show up even when we're tired to praise the name of King Jesus every Sunday It is a war where we fight for holiness

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It is a war where we fight for obedience and sanctification and to have our lives centered on the truth of Christ It is a war

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Where we wake up every day hoping to see Jesus Christ Kingdom expand in our town in this region into the ends of the earth where we joyfully

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Declare his gospel like soldiers on a run We're in a war

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But we've forgotten The world hasn't forgotten that it's in a war

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And in just two months or maybe a month and a half from now the largest ever Convention of Satanist will occur in downtown

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Boston. This is called Satan con They haven't forgotten that there's a war The LGBTQ activist an agenda has infiltrated schools so that now sex edge

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Curriculums are pornographic and disgusting They've permeated all aspects of government so that Transgender influencers are hanging out with the president

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Trying to set agenda and policy Making war against God's design of family sex identity

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They even write songs on YouTube we're coming for your children and they say it out loud

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They haven't forgotten that there's a war Christians are people of grace people of joy and people of mercy, but dear brothers and sisters do not forget that We're also in a war

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That there is an enemy there's a triad of enemies the world the flesh and the devil

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And the world around us is fighting for this battle much harder than we are

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Whole Bibles about warfare think about our salvation Jesus fought his way into the enemy's camp so that he could save you and I from our subjugation we were

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POWs we were POWs and in a concentration camp and Jesus came allowed himself to be conquered allowed himself to be killed in action so that you and I could be set free

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It's a war He came from heaven deployed to earth

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To save and rescue those who were lost Through his victorious resurrection.

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Do we not think that's warfare? While the demons were singing on the third day and while they thought that we have won the battle

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Christ exploded out of the tomb as the first fruit of a new creation as the

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Commander -in -chief of a brand new army to take back planet earth from the devil who he is now bound and who he is plundering his

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Kingdom, this is a war To bring his dominion and his government to the nation's

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Isaiah 9 says the increase of his government will see no end It's a war

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Now why do I say that we've forgotten this There's this term in the army called garrison and then there's this term in the army called deployment

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I'm sure the same thing in other branches in garrison you show up with shiny boots you show up with With the with the crease in your in your uniform that could cut through a slice of ham

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Your hair is nice. Your beret is perfectly pressed And you do that day in and day out

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Because you're at peace garrison means that you're not at war I Think Christianity has adopted a garrison approach where we show up and we have our nice clothes on our

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Instagram filtered life and we forget that we are at war the shiny boots are gone

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The reason I say that we forgot is because we are not Living as though we are engaged in a battle think about this

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Let's say all of us Everyone in this room by some stretch of the imagination is drafted into a war and we go to war with let's say

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China. I Think we're just being example

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Go back to the Jude series I predicted it Imagine all of us were there and you saw me with my feet propped up Drinking a really nice craft cold brew coffee

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Maybe I had a Dominican cigar I don't even smoke cigars very much But imagine I had one bullets flying bombs being dropped people are being pinned down and you look at me and you think that man

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It's crazy He's got his feet up, what is he doing he's reading a book You would grab me you would shake me and you would say get your head in the game

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Don't you know there's a war? Well, I want to say that to the entire American Church get your head in the game

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Don't you know there's a war? We say with our lips that Christ is Lord over everything over time and space and over all creation.

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We don't live like he's King We don't fight like he's King like this territory already belongs to him we act like we're imposters

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I Don't want to offend the world in their space. It's not their space

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When Christ rose from the dead, he said all authority and heaven has been given to me. That's they're borrowing our space

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It's Christ space cosmos belongs to him We don't praying like we're in war if we were in war and we were praying like more

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Let us take the next two and let us take the next two and what that sin in my life Let that sin die a thousand deaths

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Lord Wouldn't we pray differently if we thought we were in war? Do we live lives that threaten the soldiers of hell?

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Do we advance or Do we let discouragements reign over us?

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Do we let comforts captivate us? Do we allow the next gadget to distract us to our excuses to gain?

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Ascendancy, do we have our fear to cripple us? Because if we do we're in good company.

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It's the same thing. The disciples were doing maybe not the gadgets They did have nice new pots that came out every season though 2 ,000 years ago.

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Jesus is speaking into the same thing the tendency towards lethargy the tendency to live in the fields and to die in the discouragements you

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Remember the setting from the past couple weeks Judas has betrayed Christ Christ identified him as the betrayer through the dipping the bread and the wine or in the oil and he's left

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Satan has gone into him and Peter's like I'm willing to die for you. I'm willing to go to war and Jesus.

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It's like are you kidding me? You don't have a warrior's mindset right now Peter You're gonna deny me in front of a little girl in the temple courtyard three times

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Peter you're not ready for war Jesus understood That the thing that stood between his disciples and the calling that he was giving them was the

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Discouragements that would cause them to lay down their swords and give up as he was sitting in that room 24 hours before he died 53 days before he went back to heaven he realized

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That the discouragements that they were getting ready to face were their greatest enemy

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He had spent the last three years preparing them for this and yet they weren't prepared when the moment came Every sermon

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Jesus gave every miracle every late -night conversation around a campfire every parable every

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Bible study every Every time spent with them developing camaraderie with them all of that He was doing to prepare them for the war that he was calling them when he left to reign over the kingdom on his throne

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He was preparing them for this and yet at the moment that he was getting ready to leave They were ready to give up and give in and fall down So what we should see in these passages

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Is that Christ in his sovereignty Understands the frailty of the human heart and as they near the moment where Christ is going to die

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He's going to teach them how to have a mindset like a warrior

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How to live as a Christian in a battle Where the world the flesh and the devil is going to be attacking you constantly

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Jesus is going to speak into this and give us three things so that we will understand how to Fight against our sin fight for holiness bring

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Jesus's kingdom to all the nations reclaim territory for Christ plunder the dragon's kingdom one soul at a time

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Preach the gospel first to ourselves and then to the nations. He's gonna give us three things today

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To help us understand how to fight how to have a warrior mentality

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Those things are those three things are number one We have to forbid ourselves from getting discouraged because you're in a war

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It would be silly to think that the enemy won't fight back It'd be silly to think that you're not gonna get wounds and get shot and have missiles fired at you

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I was in Iraq on the internet one night. This is a silly story and the light from the browser

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Caused one of the Iraqis to see us and he fired an RPG right at me If it weren't for a brick wall,

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I wouldn't be here today And this was the area that the army had set up for us to email our folks

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So I was there thinking that this was a safe moment. I had my guard down I wasn't I didn't have a warrior mentality at that point and because of what

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I was doing The shot came and I was discouraged

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We have to forbid ourselves from being discouraged because the shots are gonna come The fight is here

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Second thing is we need to command ourself to believe The third thing is is we must persist in hope until Jesus returns those three things if you can grab hold of those three things

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You will have success in the battle You will fight you will not give up. Let us pray.

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Let us read from John 14 Lord God, we know

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We know that we are in a battle that began in the Garden of Eden When the enemy came in and seized control over Adam and over Eve Subjugated them imprisoned them and took control

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Over much of the history of the entire Old Testament There were beautiful moments

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Where your people were set apart for a purpose and yet Lord they continued to lose little by little until the

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Old Testament ends and What seems like certain defeat? and at just the right time

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Lord you arrived on the shore and You started the invasion and you brought the gospel the gospel of the kingdom to this place

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Where light would now shine out of darkness Where your kingdom would grow to where eventually it would cover like we sang earlier every square inch of the earth

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Like the waters cover the sea like the rivers to the ends of the earth Lord, I pray I Pray for us

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That we would not get caught up in the busyness of the day -to -day in The mundane tasks that we're doing and forget that all of this is our warfare

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Lord, would you help us today based off of these passages to help us to know how to fight to help us to know how To stay in the fight to help us to know how to persist in hope while we fight waiting for the day that Lord you return and You put away all enemies foreign and domestic you put them all under your feet

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And you bring us into your kingdom Lord, would you help us today in Christ's name? Amen?

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John 14 will be in verse 1 primarily, but we will dip into 2 next week. We will deal with 2 a little bit more

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John 14, this is how it begins Do not let your hearts be troubled

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You believe in God believe also in me My father's house has many rooms if it were not so would

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I have told you that I'm going there to prepare a place for you Now in this first line

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Jesus even admits that there are troubles Like a good general he's gathering his troops together and he's instructing them on what the battle is going to look like He is not promising them sunshine and meadows of tulips

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He's saying there are troubles That are coming in Fact the entire upper room discourse is like a great war manual

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This is what's coming This is how you live in light of it Jesus uses these final moments to prepare these men

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For the battle. He doesn't say men the enemy is going to be glad when you come He doesn't say that they're gonna throw you a parade

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He doesn't say that when you preach the gospel to your neighbor that they're gonna they're gonna say thank you so much for that Maybe praise the

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Lord if they do But what you're most likely gonna see is The nation's are going to rage at this gospel

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They're not gonna love you and celebrate your arrival They're gonna hate you because you love

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Christ He tells them that they're gonna have troubles. He says do not let your heart be troubled.

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Why would he say that? If there weren't gonna be any troubles He says do not let your heart be troubled because there are troubles that are coming that are gonna come after you and there's all

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Kinds of troubles that are gonna accost you and afflict you in every aspect of your life

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There's spiritual troubles that the enemy is going to fire at you when I say enemy I mean world flesh and devil.

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Sometimes your flesh is a greater enemy to you than the devil himself There's moments where discouragement comes on you and you have no idea where it came from and you're just in the depths of despair

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That's a spiritual attack Jesus would say do not let your heart be troubled

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Don't give in to that. Don't sit down in that don't receive that and live in that This is not an exhaustive list, but here's some other areas where we get attacked spiritually depression defeatism a loss of spiritual hunger

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Unusual bouts of doubt incessant negativity increased irritability heightened periods of temptation and giving into temptation excessive guilt and shame a prevailing sense of failure feelings of rejection

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Confusion over doctrine. This is ten things. There's millions of things that we could list that are spiritual

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Attacks upon you that Jesus is saying do not let that win the enemy's goal in attacking you.

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It's very simple We give the enemy a lot of credit The enemy's goal is that you will put down your sword.

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That's it If he can discourage you and frustrate you and get you to throw your hands up and say

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I can't do it anymore That's the goal. That's the win Jesus is saying do not let that happen.

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He wants to take you out of the battle and what happens when that occurs? You avoid time with God because of discouragement you deprioritize time in his

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Word You become prayerless you lose hope you lose faith you lose you give in to despair you become disinterested in the things of God You lose a zeal for Sunday morning.

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Maybe maybe for a while You're just you're trying to get here. But then all of a sudden you're like,

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I've got better things to do or I can't make it These are things that happen when we give up the fight Increase focus on entertainment worldly pleasures become more important to you than pleasures of God.

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We forget ignore Family worship we stop catechizing our children there's so many different things that we could say the enemy's goal is to depress you and to Discourage you and to attack whatever vulnerability you have in your armor so that you will lay down your sword and leave the battle because a

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Christian who is in the fight threatens hell more than anything else He wouldn't attack us so hard If we weren't threatening because the

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Holy Spirit inside of us Look at what Paul talks about in Ephesians 6 10 through 12 and also verse 16

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He says finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might put on the full armor of God So that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes and the wiles of the devil for our struggle is not against flesh

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And blood but against rulers against the powers against the world forces of darkness

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Against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places and in addition to all of this verse 16 take up the shield of faith

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With which you will be able to extinguish all of the flaming arrows of the evil one. He's saying the arrows are coming

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We might not like it, but they're coming Do you have the shield of faith?

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To extinguish those attacks. Are you letting them land? Are you letting discouragement in your job in your marriage in your family in your home in all of these here

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Are you letting those arrows land? Because if you are it won't be long before you're putting down your sword and you're getting out of the fight that's the goal

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The goal is for you to quit for you to stop for you to tap out and for you to give up We must resist.

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It's not just spiritual troubles. So they're physical troubles aching bodies. How many get discouraged by that?

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Not you Graham do not raise your hand You Got a couple decades before you can raise your hand on that Hormones addictions

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What about mental troubles discouragements and disappointments depressions anxiety fear cowardice fear of looking a foolish in front of other people insecurities worries

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They're all there to make you quit they're all there to make you stop they're all there to make you give up Think about the worldly troubles that we have the governments that create these laws that say

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You can't do this or you can't do that think about libraries who say you can't read a book to children and they want to kick you out

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All of these things are there to meant to cause us to quit or give up you think about persecution in America We don't really have persecution like they do in other countries and other countries like Nigeria Which is now the world's most dangerous place to be if you're a

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Christian, they will kill you for believing in Christ now they'll try to assassinate your character now, they'll dox you

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I Remember it wasn't even long ago The very first story hour that we did when people were releasing my phone number on social media

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Because we wanted to share Christ at the library These things are meant to discourage us

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These things are meant to make us quit We all have troubles in various areas of our life troubles at home troubles in our marriages troubles with our friends troubles with our singleness

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Troubles in the world at work the church even the church There are many troubles and all of these troubles are aimed at you to get you to stop

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Fighting. I think that's the greatest temptation

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Under every temptation is a temptation to quit and to stop pursuing

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Christ stop running stop fighting stop caring give up Everything in Scripture is predicated upon war.

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So why wouldn't temptation? Be the cessation of that You think about worship worship is warfare.

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Have you ever thought about it like that? We live in a spiritual world Satan demons all of that.

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Our worship is saying no. No, no. No, we serve a greater King Our worship is oriented to him.

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We're rejecting all of this. Our worship is warfare Our worship is fighting against our flesh that doesn't want to worship our worship is warfare you think about Repentance is warfare against yourself

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Repentance is I'm the problem this sin of mine is the problem and when I repent I'm turning away from it

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I'm fighting it Romans 8 13 says you put it to death. That's what warriors do. That's what soldiers do you're fighting you that's warfare

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Discipleship is warfare the world and their system is not right. So I want to help you understand how to follow

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Jesus. That's warfare Evangelism sneaking into someone else's camp telling them the gospel and doing what

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Jesus did for you and helping bring them out. That's warfare Love True Christian love is warfare.

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Don't let the world define that term for you. Love is not placation Love is not acquiescence

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Love is not I'm gonna agree with you to make you feel better. Love is doing what's right according to God in every situation for the one you're trying to care about and what's right sometimes hurts and What's right sometimes afflicts our ego

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The best friends I've ever had had the confidence to come up to me and say you're wrong

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They didn't say you do you that's unloving and that's despicable and I don't want friends like that in my life.

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I Don't want people in my life who say if it makes you feel good do it True Christian love is warfare

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Sanctification warfare You're growing out of the world's habits and you're growing into the habits of of a

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Christian Justification is warfare. Jesus came Jesus fault. Jesus bled Jesus died.

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Jesus purchased you He went to war Holy Spirit's indwelling and fueling you towards mission is warfare when you leave here on mission for Christ You're going into a world that hates

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Christ for the glory of Christ. That's warfare Every aspect of what the

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Bible is teaching is under the canopy of Christ sovereign pursuit of establishing his kingdom across every square inch of the cosmos

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It's all warfare Second Timothy 3 3 I'll give you a few examples.

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He says suffer hardship with me as a good soldier He didn't mean that right yeah, he meant that Philippians 2 25

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I Thought it necessary to send you a path for diet is my brother my fellow worker and my fellow soldier as A messenger and minister of the gospel

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Paul viewed his ministry partner as a soldier Ephesians 6 we're not gonna read all of it but put on the breastplate of righteousness the shod your feet with the gospel of peace dawn the shield of faith put on the helmet of salvation wield the sword of the

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Spirit Use prayer as an offensive weapon all these things are things that warriors use 2nd

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Corinthians 10 3 through 5 we do not war according to the flesh For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses

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We are destroying worldly Speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ We live in a culture and please hear me graciously here for the last hundred years that has rejected masculinity and has embraced

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Hyperfeminization and it said that warfare is not biblical so we've become passive we've become timid 70 % of people in evangelical churches are no longer men 70 % women

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Because for a hundred years we've made men Feel like that they're outsiders

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That their desires to see the Lord's kingdom grow to slay dragons.

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Why do you think boys do that? It takes some woke activist mother or father to dress their boy up in a dress to suppress that and even then

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It ruins their life We need

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Both sexes healthy There are aspects of the feminine personality and characters are glorious But they're not monolithic

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We need both masculine healthy Christianity as well as nurturing feminine faith together

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Paul says fight the good fight first Timothy 612 put to death the deeds of the flesh execute the flesh

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Colossians 3 Paul says at the end of his life. He could have said anything he wanted He could have said all kinds of things.

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He said I fought the good fight He tells us in Romans 8 that we are more than conquerors

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David says God is training his hands for battle and he's talking about spiritual battle James says resist the devil

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Which is warfare John tells us that we are going to overcome the world Which is warfare the entire

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Bible from beginning to end is a story of war Satan came in and conquered humanity so that now it's through Jesus Christ who comes and rescues us back

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That now the kingdom of God advances again to where we keep on fighting. We don't give in we don't give up We don't sit down.

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We don't sit on our laurels. We don't get distracted. We go. That's the gospel Now that he's done this for you go into all the nations teach them how to obey

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Teach them baptize them baptism is war when you say Christ is Lord, that's war

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Did you know that in the first century Caesar? Said I am

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Lord. Did you know that that's what Caesars called himself? He called himself Lord Caesar also said that he was a son of God Caesar Augustus believed that Julius Caesar was a god and that he was the son of God So when

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Jesus said I am the Son of God, he was making a declaration of all -out war

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When he said I am Lord he's saying Caesar is not I am King Caesar is not the entire

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Bible Until the very last chapter when peace reigns through victory

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It's a book of war It's a book of fighting. It's a book of extending

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God's dominion to the ends of the earth Now we know that we're gonna struggle

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Any war movie that you've ever seen there's two people fighting any basketball game you've ever watched and how

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Just watched an awful one yesterday Dukes out of the tournament It's because they didn't fight

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Should have came to church on Sunday There's things that are going to discourage us

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There's things that are going to cause us to want to quit and give up and give in and tap out Jesus gave his disciples three things

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To help them fight and those are the three things I want us to examine as we close The first is we have to forbid ourselves from living in discouragement

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Jesus says do not let your heart be trouble. We seem to not allow it Do not allow your heart to live in discouragement as hard as that is

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He's saying you are not allowed to throw in the white flag You are not allowed to give up I Forbid it

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When Jesus says do not let your heart. He is not giving you a suggestion

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He's not saying if you get around to it, he's not saying if you feel like it he is saying do not

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Let your heart reign over you Grab yourself is what he's saying

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Shake yourself is what he's saying command yourself to cease from your discouragements

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If the enemy wants you to be discouraged and that's the greatest attack that he can render on your life. Don't sit in it

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Don't let him win I've never seen someone I've been in Iraq before I've never seen anyone say here.

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I am Shoot me How often though do we stand up and we give up and we say

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I'm just gonna sit in this or I'm gonna be mad at This person and be discouraged or I'm gonna be bitter or I'm gonna hold on to this grievance for decades of my life

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It's just the same thing Here I am. Shoot me. I want to not be in the fight

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Jesus saying do not let that happen. Maybe you're here today and you're saying

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My marriage is not worth fighting for Maybe you're here today saying

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I can't win the battle of purity. I've tried I keep giving in Maybe you're here and addiction has got you a hundred times before and you're discouraged

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Maybe you don't want to go to church because you feel like nobody cares about you when you hear nobody says hello to you

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Maybe you don't want to read your Bible because it's confusing to you. Maybe you want to sing because you're out of key Maybe you don't want to pray because it doesn't feel like that.

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God is listening There's a billion examples that the enemy is going to throw up in your life, and they're not valid take the dagger of discouragement out of your chest and fight back

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Your marriage is worth fighting for not because your spouse is worth it And not because you're worth it because Christ the

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King is worth it Your purity is worth fighting for Murder your flesh again and again and again until you have victory because Christ is

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Lord and he is worthy Going to church and being in the presence of God with your co -belligerence is worth it fight

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Fight to not be absent when the troops gather

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Mothers I see discouragement hit mother so hard so many times

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Your kids may not be listening very well to you this week adult or younger

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You may be behind in your homeschool curriculum that never happens in our house The laundry may be piling up your husband

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Could possibly be insensitive and not notice how wonderful you are Do not let your discouragement quench your fight

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Women look in the mirror and say devil get out of my house get out of my heart shut up My flesh is gonna listen to me now

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Discouragement is gonna hunt you down ladies and gentlemen Discouragement is gonna make you want to give up tell your flesh to stop and to listen to the truth of the gospel

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Listen to what Jesus says. Do not let your heart be discouraged say to your flesh. No You will not afflict me any longer

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You have to fight back if you don't fight back your victim You're an open target

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I've let depression win in my life for seasons Six months twelve months

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Because I was feeling so sorry for myself that I laid down my sword and I didn't fight Every one of us have that potential

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Pick up your sword and hack away your flesh and get back in the fight Lay down your discouragements hope in God forbid yourself

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From disappointments disappointments that calls you to stumble John Piper it's an amazing quote

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I'm probably gonna say it in the exact same way. He says it on the sermon jam because it's stuck in my head

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The only possible attitude towards out -of -control desires is an all -out declaration of war

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I hear so many Christians Murmuring about their imperfections and their failures and their addictions and their shortcomings and I see so little war

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Murmur murmur murmur. Why am I this way make war? Don't lay your shield down.

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Don't let the arrows sink into your chest make war Make war

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That's the first thing the second thing is You've got to command yourself to believe

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There are many days where you're gonna have to command yourself To believe and I don't mean what we normally consider is belief which is mental

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Cognitive assent to a data point or a fact on My worst day when

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I am in the glums of melancholy sadness You can come up to me and you say to Jesus raised from the dead. Yeah I'm not talking about that kind of belief.

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I'm talking about what the word actually means in the Bible the word belief It's not an ordinary word.

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It's actually what's called an imperative in Greek you have case endings at the end of verbs that tell you what kind of word they are whether they're a regular verb a

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Past tense verb or an imperative an imperative is not a suggestion. It is a command believe

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Command Yourself to believe this word pisto is one of my favorite words in the

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Bible It's even it's even better than a 150 list as we talked about It's probably on my top three list of biblical words the word does not mean a

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Mental fact the word does not mean Something a precept or a concept that you that you say no

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I believe that that you can write down on a piece of paper. The word means loyalty The word means allegiance.

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The word is word used in war When a commander stands in front of you and you stand at attention and you salute and you say

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I'll follow you wherever you go That's what this word believe means We take it as a sort of yeah,

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I accept that fact. That's not what it is. It's whole body allegiance to Christ It's total mental commitment total bodily commitment.

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It's hey Jesus if you go and attack that hill I'm with you It's everything you've said about yourself now becomes mine

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It's how my whole life is committed to this thing this this Christ It's it doesn't just stop in your head

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It trickles down into your heart to your fingertips into your toes and every part of you and it changes you

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That's what biblical belief is We say

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I pledge allegiance to the flag what a silly thing To a piece of fabric I get that we are loyal to our country, but this word means loyalty to Jesus Christ Not just something we put our hand over our heart and say it means something and it matters and it changes us.

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I Love my country, too But the belief that we're supposed to have for Christ is

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Infinitely better than the allegiance we have to nations or to relationships or anything else It is an allegiance that trumps everything we read earlier

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If you're not willing to hate your own mother father brother sister children, you're not worthy to be my disciple.

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That's what he's talking about an allegiance that transcends everything

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So when Jesus says believe and he's commanding them to believe in God and also to believe in and me

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He's saying I want you to be loyal to me and everything you're going out into the war. You're gonna experience discouragements

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Take yourself in hand and say I am going to be loyal to Christ My allegiance is gonna be

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Christ. I don't care if hell or high water come I am following Christ It's not sitting at home

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Able to recite a catechism question. It's your entire body mind heart and soul

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Adoring pursuing chasing after Christ That's how you make war as a

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Christian, that's how you make war That's how you fillet your flesh

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And that's how we the final thing that I want to share with you is that's how we persist and hope look at what John says

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Again, we're gonna cover these verses a little bit more next week But John 14 to in my father's house are many dwelling places

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Doesn't say mansions. We'll talk about why next week If it were not so I would have told you for I go to prepare a place

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For you, how can you keep on fighting? That's the question How can you keep your head in the game?

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How can you keep your your sword always at the ready your gun drawn your your whole life fighting for holiness and fighting for?

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Repentance and fighting for your family and fighting for your children and fighting for your your war that impacts every area of your life

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How can you stay in the fight? You forbid yourself from being discouraged and giving up You command yourself to believe in Christ and being loyal to him over all things and you persist in hope because he's coming back

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He will return He left his home to come rescue us.

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That's the gospel and He saved us through war. He fought and he won and he bound and he stepped on the serpent's head to win you back

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Now he's going to rule over his kingdom and he promised you that he will return and he promised you

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That while you wait We see this in chapter later on in chapter 14 that he'll give the

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Spirit of God to you to make you like him So while you wait and while you fight you're not by yourself and you're not alone

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You have a comforter who is with you is helping you who is shaping you who is breathing life

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And he was helping you fight this fight this battle that you were in you are not alone. You are not forsaken

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This is Holy Spirit is gonna help you and make you look like Jesus. And what does Jesus look like?

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How does Jesus fight the war look at Hebrews 12? This is the gospel verses 1 through 3 Therefore since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us.

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Let us lay aside every encumbrance. That's weight Everything that's holding us back and the sin which so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance the race

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That is set before us fixing our eyes on Jesus the author and the perfecter of our faith who for the joy set before him endured the cross and despised its shame and Is set down at the right hand of the throne of God For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners

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Against himself so that you will not grow weary and you will not lose heart Jesus is not only the author of our faith.

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He's the example that we follow as You wait as you fight as you fight for your marriage as you fight to disciple your children as you fight

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To be in the word as you fight to pray as you fight to to ask the Lord to help you and open up opportunities for you to share the gospel as you fight to see

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Jesus's kingdom grow In your family and in your relationships and in your neighborhood as you fight the fight of faith remember that Christ has went there first and For the joy that was set before him.

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He endured it all for you and Now for the joy of God the

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Holy Spirit is working that in you So that you will not grow weary and so that you will not lose hope

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Brothers and sisters, I want to call you to arms today. I want to call you to fight today.

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I Want to call you to fight for holiness and truth and to love God more tomorrow than you do today

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And I want to call you to imitate Christ in that Because it's his finished work that enables that amen

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Let us pray Lord we thank you so much

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That the gospel of our salvation is you bringing war to the enemy to rescue us who are prisoners

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Lord we thank you that you have not only made us freed slaves But you have brought us into your camp and you have made us into not only citizens, but also soldiers who will fight

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Lord I pray that there would be no quit in us today Lord, I pray that if there's a sin that that we are struggling with that You would buy your spirit

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Help us to example Christ and for the joy set before us endure and fight and put down Those sins that are afflicting us

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Lord if there's relationships that are broken. Would you help us as a people to be able to fight for? Godliness in those relationships

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Reconciliation in those relationships or if their marriages that are broken. Would you help us not give up but to fight for the glory of Christ?

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Lord if there's brokenness of whatever kind if there's whatever it is physical mental emotional spiritual

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Lord I pray that you would make us a fighting people a people who don't give up and who do not grow weary because we are following Christ Lord, would you help us?

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Would you help us bring all of you into every area of us By your Holy Spirit It's in Christ's name.