Fight The Battle!- Part #1

This is Rodney from the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we explored manhood within Jesus Christ. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Sit back, enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network.

This is part one of a special two-part episode. Do you feel like you're on a religious treadmill? Do you feel like Christianity is just a system of rules and regulations?

I can do this, but I can't do that. Do you feel like your efforts to reach God, find God, and please God are futile? Do you feel like your faith is dead or alive? Today, Pastor Russ Andrews will walk us through Scripture to answer these questions. Join us on Finding Purpose, glorifying God by helping men find their purpose for living.

For more information and to connect with Russ Andrews and Finding Purpose, you can visit us online at findingpurpose.net or connect with us on Facebook. Now, let's listen to Russ Andrews as he teaches us how to be a Christian without being religious. Oh, so tonight I want us to focus men and we watch the battle take place around the world, but did you realize that we're also in a battle? It's a spiritual battle and we're going to be, we've been in this battle since the moment we were born and it intensified the moment you got saved and we will be in it then until we take our last breath. Paul says in Ephesians 6 verses 10 through 14, Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full arm of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For I struggle, men, it's 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. Therefore, put on the full arm of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground.

And after you've done everything to stand, stand firm, then we can make some connections to the spiritual battle, men, that we find ourselves in every day as men of God. As I think the whole world knows by now, Coach Hebert Davis is truly a follower of Jesus Christ and he makes no apologies about it. In the post-game press conference, here's some of what he said.

Coach Davis was asked by a reporter, Does this win provide a sense of validation for you? No, not at all, he said. I told you guys I'm not on Twitter. I'm not on message boards. I'm not on chat rooms. I'm not on any of that.

I'm just not. I do this job because I feel like Jesus has given me the opportunity to be in these kids' lives and to help them, to coach them to be the best that they can be on the court, in the classroom, and in the community. It's a place that I'm very humbled and thankful to be. That's where my focus is. He was also asked, How do you feel the team responded to the bright lights of the game and all that, you know, all the hoopla that was taken away around, you know, someone like Coach K, who was certainly one of the greatest coaches of all time right after Dean Smith.

Here's how he responded. One of the things that we always talk about is to focus on the things that we can control. We weren't part of all the festivities. We weren't part of game day. Our focus was on our preparation and our practice to put us in the right place.

Put us in a position to play our best. I kept giving them Proverbs 4 25. Keep your eyes straight ahead. Ignore all sideshow distractions. Every day on the practice plan, I put in, he wrote it on the board, Proverbs 4 25.

Every day, every day, every day of the week. And I said, You guys just focus on the things that we need to focus on. Let all that sideshow stuff go on and let's focus on what we need to do to put ourselves in a position to be successful. And guess that's what I want us to do.

I want us to get off the sideshow out there. And I want us to do the things here in order that we can be successful, not in the eyes of the world, but in the eyes of God when we leave this place. He went on to say, This is what I want you guys to do. These are the three things that he's, again, this is Hubert Davis speaking. These are the three things that I wrote on the board in the locker room. That's it. I said, plant your feet, stand your ground and fight back.

That's exactly what we need to do. We're here to prepare for game day. Game day is the moment you walk through that door and enter that dark, evil world. It's the moment you get up in the morning and you stand up and you walk out your door and you're headed to work. So what do you do when you walk out the door of your house every morning and head to work? Here's what you're going to do. Start now, OK?

You think about this every morning when you walk out. Plant your feet upon the solid foundation of Jesus Christ. Stand your ground upon the word of God and fight back by the power of the Holy Spirit who lives in you. And so, guys, that's what I want us to do.

Guys, that's what I want us to do. Stand, plant our feet, stand our ground and fight back. But you don't fight back in your own strength. You fight back in the strength of the Holy Spirit in you. And you use the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of the God. That's what that's the sword of the Spirit. It's the only offensive weapon. If you go read through Ephesians six that you have in your arsenal.

All the other ones are defensive weapons to protect you from the flaming arrows of the enemy. And I want you to remember this, guys, every time you walk out the door. In fact, every time you get in bed and your mind begins to wander, maybe to some thoughts you shouldn't be thinking about. OK, you know what I'm talking about?

First Peter, five, eight, nine says, Be self-controlled and alert. Your your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. And you know who he's looking for?

Christians. He's our God, everybody else. He wants to devour you.

And it says, resist him standing firm in the faith. And that's why we need each other. You see, men, Satan is out to get us. And he will use every weapon in his arsenal to come after you. And most often those weapons come stressed in a beautiful package, gift wrapped. And it's got a bomb in it that's ticking. It's often an image on the computer or, you know, something that, you know, just something you see on television or thought you see something you want more than you.

And you don't have the money to afford it. He's trying to tempt you guys to do something you shouldn't do, to have something you don't need, to go somewhere you shouldn't go. Our enemy, Satan, he operates just like Putin. See, Putin sent out his mighty army against little country, well, not a little country, but a country that was not as big as him.

And he sent his forces out to literally destroy the people of Ukraine, who are desperately trying to stand their ground. And here's what Satan wants to do. He wants to send out his mighty forces of evil. And you know what he wants to do? He wants to destroy us.

And catch this in three areas, mind, body, and soul. And one of the names for, it's either for Satan or one of his chief demons. By the way, when I read that list of, you know, spiritual forces of evil and rulers and authorities and powers, they're the different ranks that Satan had in an army. He's got some fallen angels who used to be archangels. In fact, Satan was probably an archangel, like Gabriel and Michael. And so these are mighty evil warriors.

We have no chance against them without God. And one of the names for, it's either for Satan or one of his chief demons, is Abaddon or Apollyon. You ever heard of that? Abaddon, Apollyon? You ever heard those names? Revelation 9 11 says they had his king over them. He's talking about these demonic forces. They had his king over them, the angel of the abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon. In Hebrew, the name of Abaddon means place of destruction, while the Greek title, Apollyon, literally means the destroyer. Why do you think they call those ships out there destroyers?

Because they can do what? Destroy you. Satan is the destroyer. And for the moment you're born, and particularly the moment you place your treasure, and place your trust in Jesus that you're born again, Satan comes after you with every weapon he possesses.

So what are we supposed to do? Plant our feet, stand our ground, and fight back with the sword of the Spirit. And this brings us to Luke chapter 8 verses 19 to 39. And from this chapter, I want you to, again, I want to show you from this chapter the three sections we're going to look at. The Satan is out to get you, all of you, your whole being, mind, body, and soul.

I'm not going to have a lot of time to focus on the family, and I'm not going to have a lot of time to focus on the demon-possessed man. I'm going to hit them, you know, a little each, but I want to focus primarily on the storm that these disciples went through on the Sea of Galilee. And I want to show you, men, the three storms that rage against us, day and night.

Here's the first storm. We see this with Jesus's family. And so I want to show you that the first storm we face in life, I call it the storm of unbelief, that rages against our mind. You see, the battle for our souls begins in our mind. That's where the battle begins, and it never leaves the mind.

You've always got a battle in your mind going on. Now look at verse 19. Now, Jesus's mother and brothers came to see him, but they were not able to get near him because of the crowd. And someone told Jesus, hey, Jesus, your mother and brothers are standing outside at the front door, and they want to see you.

Now, why did they come to see Jesus? Well, I'm not sure about Marianist. I believe Mary believed, but her faith is still growing.

It's got a long ways to go. She doesn't fully understand exactly who Jesus is. She knows he's a special child.

And she knows that God has great plans for him, but she doesn't have it all yet. I think she came along to observe what her four other sons were going to say about her eldest son, Jesus. And so but the but I do know this, those four brothers thought Jesus was what? Crazy. A lunatic. How do we know this?

Because of Mark three twenty one, the comparable passage in the other gospel. It says, when his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him for they said, he's out of his mind. He's got a screw missing. So what was their problem?

Unbelief. So what did Jesus do? Did he get run to the door and say, hey, gosh, family, come on in? No, he didn't do that, did he? Did he say, hey, y'all, come on in? No, he didn't do that, did he? Did he say, hey, y'all, come on in? Did he say, hey, y'all, bring him on in?

No, what did he do? He basically ignored them. That was his physical earthly family. But he wanted to address people who want to be a spiritual family, the family that will last forever. And so he looked at everyone around him to teach them this most important lesson, man. It's the most important lesson in the Bible. Look at verse twenty one. He replied, my mother and brothers really want them, they are those who hear God's word and do what?

Put it into practice. In other words, they trust and what? Obey. Trust and obey for this what?

Another way to be happy in Jesus. But they trust and obey. He said, listen, man, if you want to know that you belong to God's family and I mean the family that's going to be in heaven, you better believe what he says and you show that you believe what he says by obeying what he tells you to do. Jesus says, those who love me do what? Keep my commandments.

They obey me. You see, we're not born God's children, we're born God's enemy, according to Romans five, eight, and we're under his wrath, according to James three thirty six. So how do we come out from under his wrath? We come to Jesus by faith. John one twelve says, yet you all received him received to Jesus, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to what? Become children of God. Children of God. If you become something that means you were not it before. And so the next time you hear somebody stand up say we're all God's children, I would challenge you to stand up and say, minister, can you tell me what it says at the Bible? And of course, everybody will, you'll be, you'll embarrass yourself.

But you know that you'd be doing the right thing. Here's the second storm. And this storm includes all the storms that rage against our physical bodies, our families and our possessions, such as financial storms like the 1987 stock market crash, which I lived through, suffered through, or the real estate debacle that a lot of you real estate developers went through back in 2005 and 2007. Well, it could refer to a financial storm personally in your life.

We have a business, you know, it doesn't make it and you have to follow chapter 11. That's a financial storm and it's a real storm and it happens to believers all the time because we live in a fallen world. Natural storms such as hurricanes, tornadoes and floods destroy, they come out of nowhere in the middle of the night and destroy our property. Physical storms, cancer, COVID-19, famines have been happening since the, since the fall back in Genesis 3 and famines that are, they say that Europe right now is going to have shortages of food because of what's taking place in Ukraine. We could have shortages of food here. We could have shortages of food here.

You better stock up. You see, these are all the result of the fall that occurred back in Genesis 3 and Satan is ultimately behind all of it because what he wants to do, he wants to destroy everything God created. He wants to destroy the physical world that God created and said it was what?

Good. And he wants to destroy you and me because we are image bearers. We bear the image of God and he wants to make sure that you don't have any of that image left in you by the time you die and the only way you do that is he's got to get your mind and then he's gonna get your body and then he's gonna get your soul. So here in Luke, we find these disciples out in the midst of a storm in the middle of the Sea of Galilee. Why, where's Jesus? He's asleep in the back of the boat having probably sweet drinks, not worried about a thing. Look at verse 22, one day Jesus said to his disciples, let us go over to the other side of the lake. So they got into a boat and set out.

As they sailed, he fell asleep. A squall, literally a mini hurricane, came down on the lake suddenly so that the boat was being swamped and they were in great danger. Literally, they were in great danger.

But not really. The disciples went and woke him up saying, master, master, we're going to drown. He got up and rebuked the storm and the raging waters, the storm subsided and all was calm. You ever seen the ocean after the storm passes through?

It's like glass and if you got some swells, it's the best time to go surfing. Where's your faith? He asked his disciples. Where's your faith? He asked his disciples and then it says in fear and amazement.

They asked one another, who is this? He commands even the winds and the water and they obey him. Now listen, from this one story, I want to show you four truths about the storms in life that we all have encountered, maybe encountering right now. You may sit here right now dealing with a horrible storm and you don't even know what you're doing right now.

You're lost and in turmoil. And listen, if you're not, hadn't faced a storm, hadn't been in one, guess what? Storms are coming for all of us.

Here's truth number one. These storms often come suddenly and with little warning. By the way, the Sea of Galilee is actually known for sudden and violent storms that, that come out of nowhere. And so that's why sailors, they always check just like we do down at the beach. You check to see what the wind's doing, what the forecast is, and when you're at the other water, you're always looking to see where the clouds are and if any thunderstorms coming up.

And if you see one, you kind of keep an eye on it and you move your boat away from it, don't you Lee? And you can get trapped out there. The Sea of Galilee is a fresh water in the lake and it's only about 12 miles long and about six miles wide. And the River Jordan flows through it from north to south and then it empties itself into the Dead Sea. Now, the thing that's so unique about the Sea of Galilee is that it's almost 700 feet below sea level. Therefore, in the summer months, the water temperature can get almost too hot.

You don't even want to be in it. So when you have the warm water and you have these cool layers that come blowing in over the hills and literally, I stood right there on the Sea of Galilee for about two or three days back in 2018. It's glorious. We never saw any storms, but there are hills across things called the Golan Heights on the other side. And those cool winds will just come rushing down. And if they're forceful, they can cause, you know, it hits that warm air.

And also you've got wind ripping through there. I mean, with hurricane force and huge waves. And listen, all it takes is one wave, a good wave to break over a boat. I was talking to Mike about that, and you boaters know that, and that boat can be swamped in a minute because there's so much volume of water in one wave.

And that's what happened here. They got swamped by at least by probably multiple waves and they were filling up. And that boat was probably on the verge of sinking. What was Jesus doing all this?

He's asleep in the back of the boat. Here's truth number two, but he was in the boat. Here's truth number two, for believers, I have to emphasize this. For believers, the storms that come in your life are divine storms. And there's always a purpose in the storm. You see, nothing, listen, this is so true. Nothing can come into a believer's life that doesn't first pass through the hands of God. And he says, it's okay, let it be. I have a purpose in that storm. You may not like that, but this is the same reason you discipline your children.

You're trying to make them what? Good sons and daughters. I want you to notice that Jesus, he didn't say, maybe we should go there. He said, what? Let's go to the other side. In other words, he sent them into the storm and he knew full well, what was getting ready to take place. Verse 22 says, one day Jesus said to his disciples, let's go over to the other side of the lake. So they got into a boat and they set off for the other side of the lake. Looked like a beautiful day probably.

Maybe some storm clouds in the distance and then bam. So here's the question, why? This is the question that leads many people astray. Why does God allow storms, difficult storms into the lives of his children? Those whom he loves. I thought he was our children, our refuge. I thought he was going to protect us. I thought when you come to Jesus like Joel Osteen said, and every day is a Friday.

This must have been a Friday when the storm came, probably a Monday morning. Well, Warren Wysbick is about the best answer you can give. Faith must be tested before it can be trusted.

And you know who needs to trust your faith? You do. And if it hasn't been tested, that's why these basketball teams go through great practice because they test to see how good they are against the defensive players on the same team or maybe all American defensive players. And if you can go hard against your teammate who's trying to stop you. Well, maybe I can win that test when I go over there to Cameron. That's why you work hard in practice and you test yourself. And if it hasn't been tested, that's why these basketball teams go through great practice because they test to see how good they are against the defensive players on the same team or maybe all American defensive players. And if you can go hard against your teammate who's trying to stop you. Well, maybe I can win that test when I go over there to Cameron. That's why you work hard in practice and you test yourselves and you put yourself through rigorous workouts.

Here's from an anonymous source. The diamond cannot be polished without friction nor the man perfected without trials. Johnny Erickson taught a man who is one of my heroes. She's been through so much suffering that it's ridiculous. When she was 17, she dove into the Chesapeake Bay thinking that it was about 10 feet deep and it was about three feet deep and she snapped her neck and she was floating upside down. The only thing that saved her was her sister Dari was walking up on the beach, the shore and she stepped on a crab and she turned around. Hey, watch out for the crabs and she saw a sister back there floating. Now I think God put that crab there. But you could say, well, why didn't he just stop her from jumping?

I don't know. That's the way God works. I'm not God. His ways are higher than our ways. We cannot understand God.

But for some, I know why. We would never have heard of Johnny Erickson taught if she hadn't broken her neck. She might not be a believer if she hadn't broken her neck. Johnny Erickson taught her, she's been a quadriplegic man for 50 years. And then recently, not too long ago, she had breast cancer. She says God uses suffering to refine, perfect, strengthen you and to keep you from falling. Did you hear that?

To keep you from falling later when you have a horse test. Hebrews 2 10 says, now listen to this carefully. In bringing many sons to glory, you and me, it was fitting that God for whom and through whom everything exists should make the author of their salvation. Who's he talking about? Who's the author of our salvation?

Author of our salvation, Jesus, that God, the father should make God the son, the author of the salvation, perfect through suffering. This is above my pay grade, but apparently Jesus had to go through suffering to be made perfect. You know what it was?

It didn't. He was already perfect. This is why you take an automobile and you test it. So that Ford can tell you it's perfect.

The test was not for the automobile. They already knew it was perfect. The test is for you. I mean, nothing's perfect. That's why Jesus was tested so that we would know he's perfect. He stood the test, the onslaught of Satan.

Said that he was going through a test so that you and I would know he's perfect. Being a Christian is not about being religious, but about having a dynamic, alive relationship with Jesus Christ. You've been listening to Finding Purpose with Pastor Russ Andrews, glorifying God by helping men find their purpose for living. You can discover more about finding your purpose in life by checking out the resources at findingpurpose.net or connect to Finding Purpose on Facebook. Pastor Russ would also like to extend a special invitation for you to join him in over 300 other local men to study God's Word together every Tuesday night at 7 p.m. in downtown Raleigh. Find out more at findingpurpose.net.