Our Battle is Spiritual
The Armor of God • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 4 views[NOTE TO THE TEACHER] The central focus of this lesson is to shift the group’s perspective from fighting visible, physical battles against people to recognizing the invisible, spiritual war behind our conflicts. Your main goal is to guide the discussion away from venting about interpersonal grievances and toward identifying the spiritual deception that fuels bitterness and division. The key takeaway for the group is that because our true enemy is spiritual, we must stop attacking "flesh and blood" and instead use God’s armor and discernment to fight the real adversary.
Notes
Transcript
Sunday, January 18, 2026
Sunday, January 18, 2026
Intro
Intro
We are studying through Eph 6:10-17 to understand…
How to recognize the true nature of the battles we face
How to rely on God’s strength, rather than our own
Today’s Scripture
Today’s Scripture
12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens. 13 For this reason take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand.
Our battles are spiritual, and our enemy is spiritual
Therefore, other people are not our enemy (we don’t struggle against flesh and blood)
It may sound “easy to say” but remember that Paul and the early church suffered persecutions and betrayals from many different groups of people
The only way to be able to stand against our enemy is by the power of God
If we try to do battle on our own, our own strengths and abilities will prove useless
Our common problem…
Our common problem…
We live in a physical world - therefore…
We think in terms of what we can see and touch
We limit reality to what our five senses can detect
This causes us to…
Be blind to spiritual causes and forces at work
Think of our problems as physical, rather than spiritual
See other people as our enemy – a.k.a. the ultimate source of our problems
Attack the symptoms of a problem, rather than the cause
What we have to realize...
What we have to realize...
Other people are not our enemy / they are not the ultimate source of our problems
Other people are facing their own struggles, pain, and abuse
Other people are also loved by God and precious to Him, just like us
We should be seeking their healing and restoration, not battling against them
Our enemy is spiritual, literally invisible spiritual beings that we cannot see. They are opposed to God and opposed to what God is doing in and through us
1 Peter 5:8 “Be sober-minded, be alert. Your adversary the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour.”
He devours through using deception…
When speaking of the the devil in John 8:44, Jesus said, “He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies.”
And in 2 Corinthians 11:14 Paul talked about how Satan, “disguises himself as an angel of light.”
So the spiritual enemy we face, intentional conceals himself to…
Make it look like our problems are physical / other people
Make bad choices look like good choices
So we need discernment…
So we need discernment…
Which can only be acquired by relying on God’s strength and His insight into the battles we are facing
We gain discernment and insight by…
Scripture study
Prayer
Godly counsel
Putting on the armor of God – which is the point of what we’re learning in this series
Today’s challenge…
Today’s challenge…
Identify who you have been viewing as an enemy
Who have you allowed yourself to hate?
Maybe hate is too strong, but you harbor feelings against them
Who have you been denying forgiveness?
Who have you been blaming for your problems?
Go to God in prayer, confess your feelings and release that person
If we can learn to see through spiritual eyes…
If we can learn to see through spiritual eyes…
We can begin to address our problems at the root
We can release bitterness and anger towards others
We can focus our energy on the real enemy
REFLECT
REFLECT
Let’s take a moment to pray
Let’s take a moment to pray
Ask the Holy Spirit to guide our attention and lead our conversation, helping us see and understand what He wants us to apply in our lives.
APPLY
APPLY
Process the passage together with these questions:
Process the passage together with these questions:
[Allow the conversation to go where people take it - we want people to feel the liberty to explore the topics of the passage that stand out to them. Select the questions from below that you think are right for the conversation, or add your own. Questions should be focused, yet open-ended. Wherever the conversation goes, help your group “land the plane” on the core idea of the lesson when you wrap up.]
How does harboring bitterness toward a person actually help the spiritual enemy?
In what ways does the enemy use deception to make bad choices appear to be good ones?
What are some specific ways we can distinguish between a physical symptom and a spiritual cause?
Where we want to “land the plane”
Where we want to “land the plane”
We must fundamentally shift our worldview to realize that our battle is never against other people, but against the spiritual forces of evil that influence them. Because our enemy relies on deception to make us attack one another, we need God's discernment to see past physical symptoms to the spiritual root of our problems. By relying on God's strength rather than our own, we can release the bitterness we hold against others and stand firm against the true enemy. Ultimately, we are called to identify who we have wrongly viewed as an enemy and release them to God through prayer and forgiveness.
