It's a Battle

have you ever seen/met someone who is completely situationally unaware?

Situational Awareness is simply being able to see and understand your surroundings and situation you are in and respond accordingly.

big difference in how we act in a funeral vs football game.

We have all seen the people who aren’t situationally aware. If you can’t think of anyone, it may just be you.

People in the grocery store stopped in the aisle talking with 25 people not able to get around.

going slower than the speed limit in the left lane.

Quiet room but shouting on the phone. (i’m guilty)

Situationally unaware. Without understanding where you are, what’s around you, you don’t respond in the right way.

Military is trained in situational awareness. Understanding what threats are and are not present. This understanding can be the difference survival or not.

As believers we have to have situational awareness in how we live.

Too many of us don’t live with a right view of our reality.

Billy Graham said it best

The Christian life isn’t a playground its a battlefield

You live and respond a whole lot different on a playground than a battlefield.

There is a war, and aware or not, we are a part.

We have to live in light of that reality.

At the heart of every war there is conflict of some kind.

From my kids fighting in the backseat to the great world wars.

Could be over land, people, ideology, religion, technology, etc.

What is the battle that we are in as Christians?

The most subtle but the most consequential war of all time.

The conflict for the conquering of souls.

We are the soldiers in this battle, not a very good battle is the soldiers don’t know they are fighting and what they are fighting for.

How do you fight this kind of war?

Ephesians 6:12 (NIV)

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

2 Corinthians 10:3–4 (NIV)

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

We can train to fight someone in the octagon, we can train to fight home invaders, but how do you fight something on the spiritual soul level...

We need to understand:

THE OPPOSITION

THE OPERATION

THE OUTCOME

THE OPPOSITION

If there really is a battle, we better know what we are fighting against.

Not much of a fight is we don’t know who the enemy is

Imagine a football game, but all teams the same color and you don’t know who is who.

(getting onto zane, but I found out he didn’t do it. picking fight with the person who didn’t create the problem)

You can begin to defeat what you can define.

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.

The world, in this context in the bible - Systems, ideologies, a thinking that is opposed to the ways of God.

the world is Satans counterfeit to the Kingdom of God.

We are in a world that is counter to what Gods ways and desires are.

Just look at the political world,

Our Flesh - our own internal desires (sinful nature) and pull toward sin and toward worldly thinking. We are not inherently good.

Demonic - External forces of evil that temp, distract and distort our thinking to get us out of Gods will and off his path.

2 camps - one that doesn’t see the devil in anything, one that sees him in everything. (the devil made me do it)

We need a balanced approach.

Knowing my opposition is to recognize where my fight is.

Is this of God, does this come from him or not?

THE OPERATION

The operation is the plan of action.

It’s what to do.

We know where the fight is and against, not what do we do?

The military doesn’t just blindly sent troops into an area and hope for the best.

There is a plan and strategy for the mission.

As we are fighting this spiritual war, we need to remember this 3 step strategy.

1. THE RIGHT POSITION

We have to get into position.

I learned early on that position matters.

T-ball, the coach would have us in specific positions to be ready for the play.

I generally wasn’t in the fight spot.

You better believe that each member of that seal team knows there exact position.

We lose the battle when we are in the wrong spot.

Ephesians 1:10 (NLT)

And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth.

James 4:7 (NIV)

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Not like UFC where if i train enough, study enough, do enough, I’ll be good enough to win.

There will never be enough in and of myself.

No real authority on their own, but power because of what was given.

the Position is submitted under the headship and command of Christ.

He gives us authority, power and strength.

Dependence isn’t a weakness but the source of our strength.

As I submit to God, I have the ability to walk in the spirit.

When we step out of our position of submitting to, trusting in and depending on God

We forfeit our power and authority.

All satan has to do to win is get you out of position. Out of dependence on God. out of trusting.

Putting on Christ as my Lord, my commander, my source of strength and power is putting on his armor.

Ephesians 6:14–17 (NIV)

Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Walk in truth, and righteousness, peach with faith.

2. THE RIGHT WEAPONS

IN ware there are weapons.

And like 2 Cor said earlier, we don’t wage war like the world, our weapons are different.

We have 2 pieces in our Arsenal and it’s all we need.

1. God’s word.

It’s the only piece of armor that is means for offense.

The word of God isn’t just a good read, encouraging literature, or an interesting historical document.

It is the sword of the spirit.

it is our opposition.

It is how we fight.

the bible isn’t about passing time, but doing war.

When Jesus went into the wilderness to fast, Satan came to him tempting him, and every-time he was tempted he responded to the devil by saying it is written and quoted a scripture.

2. Prayer

the secret sauce, the glue

imagine a war without communication.

nazis.

Ephesians 6:18 (NIV)

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

We far underestimate the power of prayer.

This is our connection with our commander in chief.

Prayer is essential in the life of the believer.

if we aren’t praying, we aren’t winning.

Connect with God, talk with him.

Pray with others. Pray for others.

Pray scripture.

THE OUTCOME

In the end, Jesus wins.

Jesus defeated death and sin and hell on the cross.

One day it will all be wiped away.

We know it will happen!

But we are caught between the already and the not yet.

Jesus has already won, but it’s not yet complete.

and our battles are very real.

We still have to go through battle. And sometimes its still hard.

Eph 6 it says to stand 4x.

To not give up ground.

It’s easier to not quit if you are assured that you are on the winning side.

Stand firm.

Ephesians 6:13 (NIV)

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.

What’s the battle look like for you today?

Get in position.

Take up your weapons.

and don’t quit. Won’t quit.

We win.

Remember this isn’t a playground this is a battlefield, and we win!

Ephesians 4:16–18 (NIV)

From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.