If the first thing you look at when you get up is your phone, then the foundation of your whole day is going to be the demands that others have on you, what social media thinks about you, how you don't measure up, or what some scientist in China or Seattle want you to be thinking about. I don't know about y'all, but I want Jesus, not Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk or Xi Jinping, shaping my thoughts each day. Welcome back to the Summit Life podcast with Jiddy Greer. I'm Molly Vitovich. Just in case you haven't heard, Pastor JD has a brand new book coming out in a couple of weeks called Every Day Revolutionary.
He wrote it to equip readers to live boldly for Jesus in a world of compromise. With biblical depth and cultural clarity, it will challenge you to move from silence or outrage to a faithful public witness rooted in grace and truth. Check it out and pre-order at jdgreer.com.
Now today, Pastor JD returns to the issue of spiritual warfare to show us the importance of putting on the armor of God. The truth is that if we try to fight out of our own strength, we will most likely fail. Only by properly dressing ourselves for battle, Armed with the strength of God, can we overcome our unseen enemy?
So let's join Pastor JD for today's message titled, Get Dressed and Get Out There.
So Ephesians 6, if you have your Bibles, Ephesians 6, one of the most well-known spiritual warfare passages in the Bible. and Paul's final words to the Ephesian church. Final words are important. Right? Several years ago, I had my wisdom teeth removed, and evidently, in the consultation leading up, to the operation.
The last thing that they told me was that I should not eat or drink anything. in the 12 hours leading up to the surgery.
Well, that morning when I woke up, I completely forgot about what they had told me, and I drank two sips of hot tea and took one bite of a piece of sausage, and then I remembered what they had said. Literally, just two sips. and one bite of sausage. In the little pre-op console right before the surgery, they asked me if I had eaten or drunk anything, and I dutifully said yes, thinking that I would just get a, you know, for that teeny tiny amount, I would just get a disapproving glance, and that would be it, kind of like when I tell the dentist that I don't floss enough, and they give me that look, and then we just move on. But they go back into the back room to whisper with each other, and they come out and they tell me, they're like, you cannot be put under anesthesia for this surgery.
If you want to go forward with the surgery, you're going to have to do it wide awake using local anesthesia only. I thought, well, I definitely don't want to put this off any longer. And I mean, how bad could it be? Short answer, very bad. Very, very bad.
Of course, they numb my gums, but that dentist had his pliers in my mouth. Pulling and yanking, and I'm hearing bone and teeth cracking, and his hands are pushing all up on my face for leverage. It was one of the worst experiences of my life. If you were a dentist here today, I don't hate you anymore, okay? God has delivered me from that, but for a long time, I did.
All right, just kidding. Just kidding. Last instructions are important. Last instructions are important, especially if you're headed into danger.
So we should take it really, really seriously when Paul ends his letter to the Ephesians with instructions. about spiritual warfare. Paul says Ephesians 6 verse 10 finally Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. and put on the whole armor of God. that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. But against the rulers and against the authorities.
Okay, Paul, you're saying we wrestle against the government and the media. No, no, no, no. I'm not even talking about those, he says. I'm talking about cosmic powers over this present darkness against the spiritual forces of evil. In the heavenly places, therefore, verse 13: take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day.
And having done all, to stand. We saw in our first week of this series that almost every New Testament writer. puts spiritual warfare right at the center of the Christian life. The New Testament books of Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1st and 2 Timothy, Hebrews, James. 1 Peter, 2 Peter, Jude, and Revelation, all of them present the Christian life as a struggle, warfare.
against forces of darkness. In fact, Jesus went so far as to summarize his whole ministry. He summarized it as proclaiming liberty to captives, Luke chapter 4, freeing people from spiritual bondage to the demonic. And so it shouldn't surprise us that in these final verses of Ephesians, Paul warns the Ephesians that their real struggle is not going to be against flesh and blood, whether their own flesh and blood or somebody else's. No, it's going to be against cosmic powers over this present darkness and spiritual forces of evil in high places.
In verse 11, Paul says these powers are scheming against us. You see that, verse 11? Scheming, a word that implies intentionality. You got somebody literally thinking about you. and your family.
And your weaknesses and their weaknesses, and plotting against you and them. How many of you have read C.S. Lewis's screw tape letters? Raise your hand. One of the things I love about that book is that it shows you what scheming might look like.
when a demon is thinking about an individual person. Write this down if you're taking notes. The Bible teaches that the power of evil in our world. or even in our hearts, exist in a threefold cord. A threefold chord, an unholy trinity, if you will.
The world. the flesh, and the devil. Or you could think of it as an external. an internal and an infernal foe. The power of sin first comes from our flesh ever since the Garden of Eden.
We have fallen natures that desire evil. It's not the devil's fault that I sin. I desire it. I choose it. But we are also, secondly, part of a world system.
This is the external foe that cultivates and facilitates evil in us. Injustice and idolatry and blasphemy are built into the very systems and rhythms of our world. They are built into our economic systems. Our educational systems, our entertainment, and our political systems, these things hum with the rhythms of sin so that sin feels inescapable. and holiness feels impossible.
Thirdly, we have the devil. We have the demons. That is an enemy, Paul says, who is scheming against us. An internal to the flesh, an external to the world, and an infernal foe. The demons who are scheming against us using the corruption of our natures and the pressures of the world to trap us in sin.
The world, the flesh, and the devil, a threefold cord that you cannot easily untangle. In contemporary American society, we only ever think about the first two. The world in the flesh. If you got a problem, then you need to go get counseling for your head. That's the flesh.
And you got to separate yourself from the bad influences, from the negative people around you, from all the things that are causing you to be a messed-up person. That's the world. But we don't ever really even consider the demonic. And that is because our Western post-Enlightenment worldview was shaped by people like Immanuel Kant, who said, all of our knowledge begins with the census. It proceeds then to the understanding.
and then ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason. We think in our society there's nothing higher than our senses and our reason. And so, if we're doing battle, we focus all of our attention on those. That is true whether you're talking about secular kind of world counseling or whether you're even talking oftentimes about the church.
But the Bible says there is a higher and even more sinister force that we are dealing with. And so Paul ends his letter by giving us instructions about how we are to do battle against those forces. Did you know, by the way, baptism in the early church always included the question, do you renounce Satan and all of his works? That was part of their baptismal confession. They recognized that struggling against the demonic should characterize, would characterize the entire Christian life.
What Paul is going to do is give us six pieces of armor that we are supposed to put on. But let me give you a preliminary comment before we go through these that will keep you from misinterpreting them like we typically do. Paul is not going to give us right here at the end of Ephesians, he's not giving us new content. Paul has spent six chapters in Ephesians talking about the importance of saturating our lives with the gospel and the importance of being filled with the Spirit. He does not take a hard right turn at the end of this book and say, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, these random pieces of spiritual armor, they're also important.
No, these pieces of armor are simply another way of saying, submit every part of you to the gospel and be filled with the Spirit, which is what he's been saying for six chapters. You see, I say this because when I grew up, I learned about spiritual armor by means of what I now refer to as flannel graft discipleship. Anybody else grow up with this? Right, so and for the spiritual armor, when we learned that, we had these little images made out of flannel that Mrs. Thomas would put on a board.
And so I thought of spiritual armor as these strange, kind of mystical things that you use to ward off demons, like they were horcruxes or an expecto-Patronus charm or something like that. But these six pieces of armor are simply a way of applying the gospel. They're just a way of applying the gospel. Jesus is every piece of the spiritual armor. In fact, here's something absolutely fascinating.
Most people think that Paul took his inspiration for these pieces of armor from what the Roman soldiers of his day wore. But Paul's main source of inspiration for these weapons was what Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah himself would wear. Speaking of the coming Messiah, Isaiah said, chapter 11, verse 5, Isaiah said, righteousness shall be the belt of his waist. And the faithfulness The belt of his loins. He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and he put on a helmet of salvation on his head.
He put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and he wrapped himself in zeal. You see, each of these pieces are what Jesus himself wears. And when he shows up in your life, he brings all of them. And so, when you get filled with Him, you get all the weapons, you get all the armor. Jesus is every piece of the spiritual armor.
And simply being filled with the Spirit is the way that you engage in spiritual warfare. And that's super important when we start thinking about this stuff. Because y'all see a lot of people, when we start talking about this stuff, they get into all kinds of weird ideas. They talk about identifying evil spirits and naming them. And praying against them.
I've been in places where maps came out, and we're talking about what demons had influence in what neighborhoods. Trying to figure out ancestral curses that somebody needed to break, anointing sinful places with holy oil, performing exorcisms.
Well, I could tell you some stories. And I'm not saying there's no place for any of that. Certainly, we see exorcism in the Bible. I'm just saying Paul doesn't emphasize any of those things when he talks about spiritual warfare here in Ephesians. Paul basically says, make Jesus the Lord of your mind, your heart, your habits, and your feet.
Know his word, and saturate yourself with his gospel, and you will have victory over the demonic.
Okay?
Now let's take a brief look at each of these pieces through that lens. Verse 13, our first piece. Take up the belt. of truth. Pick up the belt of truth.
A war belt in those days did more than just hold your pants up, like the belt that I have on. A war belt protected your entire midsection, your stomach and your kidneys, the most vulnerable and exposed parts of your body. Surround those things. Paul says, surround them with truth. You remember in the first week of this series, I compared your life to a house with a lot of rooms in it, and I explained.
That rather than thinking of demonic possession as an all-or-nothing thing, I explained it was more biblical to say. That a demon can indeed take over whatever rooms in your life you fail to submit to God in. Yes, it is true. As a believer, you can never be totally demon possessed. Jesus has bought you, the Holy Spirit is inside of you, which means you can never be totally owned by Satan, but you can be demonized.
Meaning a demon can take over whatever parts of your life are not submitted to God or in whatever room of your life you have failed to believe and apply God's word. Satan's very first line of attack in the Garden of Eden was just this. Did God actually say? That is a lie that he has been repeating ever since.
So, the question you need to ask yourself. How do you determine what is true and right in your life? For the vast majority of people, even people in the church. They rely on some internal moral compass. What feels right?
What feels right to me? Listen, when you're a pastor, People say truly crazy things to you sometimes.
Well Yeah, we're sleeping together, and I feel like God's cool with it. I'm like, really? Were those his exact words to you? I'm cool with it? Because weirdly, you know, he said in 1 Thessalonians, this is the will of God that you keep yourselves from sexual immorality.
And then again in Hebrews, God will not hold guiltless those who defile the sanctity of marriage. And that sounds like the opposite of the I'm cool with it vibe that you seem to be getting from him. When you have an area of your life That is not built on God's word. You allow the demonic an entry point. We got couples in this church.
Who you are basically taking the demonic straight into your marriage. Because you have not submitted to God in this area, and that is not the way for you to start. It could be regarding your dating life, your career, your sense of self-worth. How you think about money? How you respond when others wrong you.
When you fail to believe and apply God's word in a particular part of your life, He takes over the room.
So the question is, have you fortified every room in your life with God's word? There's the belt of truth surround all of you. And let's be honest, for most of us, the problem is not going to be that we got some area where we outright reject God's word. For most of us, the problem is going to be that we've just not taken time to learn what he says, right? That's why we have to be zealous about training our minds to think according to God's truth.
It doesn't just pop in there magically. You've got to study it, you got to discipline yourselves. Hey, let me give you a disturbing image. This summer my kids and I swam in this lake. And when I got out of the lake, I had all these little things attached to me.
I had to pick them off one by one, leeches. I just been standing in that water for a long time and they just attached themselves to me.
Now, here's the thing: most of my kids did not have any on them. Because if you just jumped in and swam from point A to point B, They wouldn't have time to attach to you. But if you just stood there, at my age, I don't, you know, thrashing around the water is less and less fun, and standing there is a lot more fun. But if you just stood there, like I did, Soaking in that lake. Then they came and they attached to you.
Do you see where I'm going with this? Swimming in the waters of our culture for long periods of time, absorbing its thinking, soaking in its values, it allows. demonic forces to attach to you like leeches. Which means some of you parents need to get really serious about helping your kids see their world through the lens of scripture. Otherwise, the demonic can set up camp in parts of their thinking and use those places for staging operations of destruction in their lives.
Yo, listen, my family is not. one that only listens to Christian music or only watches Christian entertainment. It's not like K-Love is on non-stop in our house or The Chosen plays on repeat on our TVs. We watch secular stuff also, but we also. try to take time to discuss what we watch and listen to.
And so I will ask questions like, what is this movie glorified? What does this movie present as our primary problem, and who or what does it point to as our primary savior? Recently, I did this for the Barbie movie and for the Taylor Swift Ares Tour. You say, Pastor, I am questioning your entertainment choices. Look, I got three girls, stop judging me, okay?
But we ask these questions. How does Taylor Swift see the world? What does she think is important? Who or what does she glorify? Where does the Bible present a different truth?
You may think that is being way too overbearing as a parent, but see, I know the schemes of the enemy. And he presents falsehood in creative, fun, lighthearted, whimsical ways. And when you swim in it uncritically, his demonic leeches attach. themselves, so beware his schemes and cover your life. and your family with the belt of truth.
The second piece of armor, he says, is the breastplate of righteousness.
Now when I read that My question is, is Paul here? Does he mean the righteousness of Christ? That we apply to ourselves as in, we're, you know, he's telling us to cover ourselves with Christ's salvation, Christ's righteousness given to us as a gift. Is Paul thinking about our righteous acts? Because you see, biblically, the word righteousness could mean either.
But I think in context here, it is best to read this breastplate of righteousness as our righteous acts. And I say that because in a minute he is going to tell us to put on the helmet of salvation.
So it makes more sense that he would be saying something different here and not just repeating himself. Paul is telling us to cover our lives in righteous behaviors. Listen, so there is nowhere that the demonic can penetrate. Because the demonic will use whatever part of you is not surrendered to God as their entry point. Let me say it again.
Anything you have not given to God becomes open season for the demonic. You may not be inviting him. You may not be intending to rebel against God. The point is: if it's not surrender to God, it is open season, and that's where he comes. Maybe that's a bad habit you have that you know is sinful, but you just won't break it.
a temptation that you just can't say no to.
Some sinful fantasy that you love to entertain. For some, it's a relationship or it's a part of your life that you just won't break off. Not breaking that habit. allows the demonic to attach to you like a leech. Through that sinful practice, what you're saying.
is you're giving place to the devil. Those are Paul's words in Ephesians 4. You're giving him a spot. You're giving him a foothold, some translations say, an entry point into your life. I'm going to make this really personal.
Over the past few months, there's been some anger and jealousy that I've let just kind of Fester in my heart. And I knew it was wrong. I knew it was wrong to kind of delight in their misfortune, but honestly, it just felt so good. And so satisfying to let my anger simmer. You know that feeling?
It felt good to despise them. It felt good to feel superior to them. And so I never really dealt with it. But then recently, as I was talking with Veronica, I noticed that my outlook on certain things related to these people was just getting darker and darker. My anger and my hateful feelings about them were starting to.
starting to bleed out into how I felt about others. I was becoming more and more of a hateful, bitter person. And all of a sudden he's Flaming Lies of Satan in this presence. were just taking over the place that I'd given them and I was magnified it into destruction. Friend, whatever area is not brought under obedience to God's word will be the demonic's focal point of attack in your life.
Whatever unconfessed sin you have, that's where He's taken a place. Third piece of armor. As shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness. That is given by the gospel of peace. Your feet.
are what carry you forward into battle. Paul tells us to cover them. with the readiness Given by the gospel of peace. It means, in short, that we are engaged in mission for Roman soldiers. The shoes that they wore only had real armor in the front.
And that's because Roman soldiers were never supposed to be running away with their backs to the enemy. In fact, if you were, you were essentially unprotected. The only way they would be protected is if they were going free. forward.
Now, there's a lot of things I could say here, but I'm just going to limit it to this. The important thing to see here is that the battle against the demonic is not just defensive. It requires being on offense also. The only way you will ever be truly victorious over the demonic is to get active in the mission of Jesus. We'll continue this message in a moment, but first, let me share a way that you can grow in your faith outside of today's broadcast.
Are you looking for a way to deepen your walk with God each day, but you're not sure where to start? I have good news for you. Summit Life offers a free daily email devotional. These devotionals bring a fresh word from the Lord each morning, helping you stay connected to Him even in the middle of life's chaos. Each short reading points you back to scripture and reminds you of God's promises when distractions and worries press in.
It's a simple, practical step to grow closer to Jesus and your discipleship journey.
So sign up today at jdgreer.com slash resources. That's jdgrear.com slash resources. And while you're there, check out our entire teaching library with transcripts, Pastor JD's blog, and many other tools and resources to enrich your faith and encourage your spiritual journey.
Now, let's finish up today's message. Once again, here's Pastor JB. We got a lot of people sitting right here. Whose lives are being infiltrated by the demonic because they're not active in the mission. I'm talking to a lot of men.
Whose lives are infiltrated by the demonic, and you don't even know it. But it's because your lives are more about hobbies and golf and watching sports and not about leading your family or serving in the kingdom of God. You are never going to overcome Satan when you are on the sidelines. You can only overcome him when you are marching forward in the battle. Fourth piece of armor.
Above all, Paul says. Above all, taking the shield of faith. By which we extinguish the fiery darts of the wicked one. Above all, means that this one's super important. Maybe the most important, he says.
A Roman shield was could either be circular like the one up here. I'm showing you, or it could have been an oblong slab, about four foot by two foot, made of, it's always made of two layers of wood. They were glued together, then they were lined with linen and leather. and bound at the top and the bottom with iron. One of the most important uses of those shields was to shield the soldier from these flaming arrows that were dipped in an explosive fuel and just fired into the army.
Our enemy will take lies, he will light them on fire, and then he will hurl them into your consciousness. That is such an accurate and helpful image for me. I told you that one of my favorite descriptions of a demonic lie is a thought. with a will behind it. It is a lie or a temptation.
Or an emotion. that seems to force its way into your consciousness. It's like an invasive thought that you just can't get rid of. You know what I'm talking about? A fiery dart.
Often these thoughts don't make any sense. They just press their way and they fill you with confusion and darkness and despair. You are so unattractive. Nobody's ever really gonna love you. You're never really gonna have any friends.
You're a failure. Nobody respects you. You don't matter to anybody. What you do doesn't matter. You're not special to anybody.
You've been completely overlooked. Everybody else has received their good things, but you've been forgotten. Nobody is concerned whether you live or die. Maybe those invasive, destructive thoughts, maybe they're about God. He doesn't care.
He's forgotten about you. He's not He's not really even there. Or maybe it's you're not really saved. You can't be saved. You're too broken.
You're too dirty. You're not predestined. Do you have thoughts like these? Do you have thoughts like these? I told you the first week.
that the way that you can recognize these Thoughts and identify them for what they are is by the feelings of despair and condemnation and confusion that come along with them. You see, Jesus said in John 10, this is really important. Jesus said, My sheep hear my voice and they recognize it. It means that we can tell the difference between his voice and the voice of a false shepherd. When one of the demonic realms speaks to you, it feels like chaos and condemnation and despair.
They point out your failures. They make you feel hopeless about your failures. You're never quite sure what you're supposed to change. You feel trapped. You feel defeated.
You feel like given up. That's not the voice of your shepherd. That's just not how Jesus speaks to you. And you need to learn to recognize his voice. When Jesus speaks to you about your sin, it will always be in the context of unconditional love and hope and forgiveness.
I told you to think of it like a scene in a movie where you see things happening on the screen, but the way you know what's really going down is about what the soundtrack is doing in the background. Picture this, a family. A family is playing in the shallows of the beach. Huh? People walking down.
Yeah.
Somebody's surfing. Like this is the Barbie movie right here. This is amazing, right? Just such a good day. If Taylor Swift is playing in the background, it's probably all good.
But if the music shifts to this, Ominous music, the Jaws theme.
Somebody's about to get eaten, right? It's not gonna go well. Same scene, different soundtrack. Totally different outcomes. When our enemy speaks It carries the soundtrack of death and defeat and confusion and despair.
Any voice creating those things in you is not your shepherd's voice. even if it is using Valid facts. And you gotta learn to say. That's not my shepherd. My shepherd would never speak like that.
When my shepherd convicts me of sin, he draws me toward himself in love and assurance. He speaks to me with encouragement and invitation and hope, and I know what I'm supposed to change. He speaks totally different. Can I ask you Are those lies coming at you right now? Those feelings of nobody likes you and you got no point and you'll never be good enough.
You're not really saved. Y'all listen, you cannot fight Satan's lies with logic. I know, I've tried. All you can do is hide from them. Under the shield of faith.
And so that fiery dart comes along and is like, you're ugly, you're unattractive, nobody will ever love you, and you just. Can't argue with it. You just raise the shield and say, no, I am. Fearfully and wonderfully made. And my Heavenly Father rejoices over me and dances over me with singing.
I know the plans He has for me to give me a future and a hope to use me as a blessing to others. You got no friends. No, no, no. I'm precious to him. And he made me a special part of his body to love and be loved by others.
I have worth and value to him, which means I have worth and value to others. God has forgotten you. No, for he has said, I will never leave you or forsake you. I could no more forget you than a new mother would forget her nursing child. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.
You've been abandoned. No, because you said, I will make with you an everlasting covenant, and I will never turn away from doing good to you. Where could I flee from your presence? If I made my bed in hell, behold, you'd be there. If I took the wings of the morning and dwelled in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there, your hand would lead me and your right hand should hold me.
Nothing can separate me from your love, either height or depth or principality or power or things present or things to come or anything in all creation could separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Well, this situation will never change in your life. You're going to be trapped in this forever. Your whole life is ruined. No, my God says. That he will never stop doing good, that his mercies are new every morning, Lamentations 3:24, and that the Lord fights for those who fear him and for those who hope in his steadfast law, Psalm 147:11.
Again, friend, do not argue with the lies of Satan. Do not reason with him. Run into what the gospel tells you is true about God. and just hide behind it. Rock of Ages.
Yeah.
Let me hide myself in thee. Let me pause here and talk about one specific lie that we, your pastors, Here a lot more frequently than you might realize. A lot of people have these moments. Where a cloud of darkness comes over them and they have this overwhelming feeling. that the world would be better off without them.
Or that the only way out of some situation they're in is to take their own life. Often it comes out of nowhere. A darkness and a despair that just invade you. And if you don't recognize it for what it is, Your enemy can use that to lead you down a path of destruction you won't come back from.
Some of you have heard that voice, this. Weak. Friend, that is not the voice of your shepherd. You need to recognize it for what it is. It is the voice of one who is intent on killing, stilling, and destroying.
Resist it. And flee to the hope of the gospel. Which leads me to the fifth piece. Take up, he says, the helmet of salvation.
Now you think, all right, well, I'm good on this one because I've accepted Christ. That's not what Paul is saying here. He assumes that you're already saved. He's talking about, listen, living with the assurance that salvation brings. Yo, listen.
in almost every spiritual battle. That I've been familiar with, whether my own or somebody else's, the enemy almost always makes somebody question their salvation. It's just where he starts. That's what Paul said, right? Satan's battlefield is the mind.
And he starts by making you doubt your salvation. Friend, listen, the gospel is that Jesus has done everything necessary to save you. All you got to do is believe it and rest in it and acknowledge Jesus as the Lord of your life, and there's nothing more to be done. Romans 10, 9 and 10 say, If you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. And you will believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.
Not might be saved, not could be saved, not one day hope to be saved. You shall be saved in that moment. When I was in college and I was doubting my salvation The enemy was just wreaking havoc in my life. Mike Calhoun, who is now on our staff, took me to John 3:36, where it says: He who believes on the Son has everlasting life, he who does not believe the Son will never see life. And Mike Calhoun said to me, he said, how many categories of people do you see in that verse, JD?
And I said two. He said, what are they? I said, those who believe on Jesus and those who don't. Which group are you in? He said.
I said, well, I believe on Jesus. He said, then put on this helmet of salvation and shut the enemy up and let's get out there. That's what some of you need to do. You need to put on that helmet of salvation and stop listening to the demonic. And listen, if you're confused by that, Come down here and just talk to us.
you're never going to be able to have victory over the demonic until you're assured of your salvation. Everything in my life I see through the lens. of God loves me and he's working for me. I recently saw this study by a neurologist at Stanford University that claimed. that the average person Thinks 60,000 thoughts every day.
Sixty thousand. She'd be like, I had no idea I was that smart. It ranges from 45 to 60,000.
So maybe you're down in the 30 range, whatever. But you think a lot of them. These are thoughts that range from the mundane to the profound. Thoughts about you, about your environment, about others. What was most astounding in this study though?
was that of those sixty thousand 45,000 of those thoughts are negative. See, I want my first thoughts. I want my foundational thoughts every day to be about. The gospel.
So every morning, every morning, I try to saturate my mind in the truth of the gospel before I start each day. Because I want the other 60,000 thoughts or 40,000 thoughts or whatever it is for me. I want them coming out of that foundation. And so I tell myself something like this: because I'm in Christ, there's nothing I could do that would make you love me any more. There's nothing I have done that would make you love me any less.
And then I tell myself, you are all I need for everlasting joy. I tell myself, I preach the gospel to myself: your love for me is assured and it is enough. That's how I put on the helmet of salvation every day, and I see the world differently because of it. Practically. Can I ask you?
Is spending time in God's Word the first thing that you do? It's what we In Christianity, we call it a quiet time, which is a dumb name, but it's what we call it. It's not some kind of ritual that you do to bring God's blessing onto your day. But it is probably, listen, the most essential Christian practice for having a successful Christian life that overcomes the demonic that I know of. If the first thing you look at when you get up is your phone.
Then the foundation of your whole day Is going to be the demands that others have on you, all the needs that need meeting, what social media thinks about you, all that you gotta do out that day, all that you're missing out on, how you don't measure up, or what some scientist in China or Seattle wants you to be thinking about. I don't know about y'all, but I want Jesus, not Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk or Xi Jinping, shaping my thoughts each day. So my personal rule is no social media before scripture. And Bible before breakfast. Before I turn that mind on to the world and before I turn that body on to food, I want God's word in the foundation.
That helmet on my head needs to be the first thing every morning because those fiery darts come quickly. All right, last piece. I'm taking the sword of the Spirit. which is the Word of God. Verse 18, praying at all times.
In the spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, Keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints. The only truly offensive weapon that we have is the sword of the spirit. And it has two components. Maybe you could think of them as the two edges of the sword.
The Word of God and prayer. You have to know the word. to do battle with the demonic. There is no other shortcut. I don't care what your personality's like.
You have to know the word. It's how cheese himself, Debal. It's what silences the enemy. And it's what cuts him off. All right, you are in for a real treat today.
Backstage before the first service, somebody came up. And they gave me this. Yeah.
Nicholas Cage from his latest movie. I have lots of little trinkets people give me and I love every one of them. But many people ask me, they're like, where? What is the thing with Nicholas Cage? Like, where does that come from?
That's just weird. And I'm going to tell you something that is.
Some of the truth that you just need to understand. It goes back 12 years ago. I'll tell you where it comes from. They're like, you just think he's the greatest actor ever? I mean, not.
Here's how it came about. I said, okay. I told our church what I'm about to tell you here in a minute. I just referenced a movie that Nicholas Cage had been in, and all I said was. I think he did a good job in a movie playing the character.
I got such hate back. From you people. That I just, I mean, I guess it's just a defect of my personality. I was like, I'm digging in. Right, so the next week, I upgraded it from like, you know, I was like, he is the most underrated actor of our generation.
The week after that, I think I said something like: you know, he is the greatest actor of all time. Then it became like, you know, he is our national treasure. And I was just working every week going all the way through it. Right, well, Jason Gasson, one of our pastors at the time, came up to me and said: if you can work Nicholas Cage into a message for 12 weeks in a row, I'll take you to the Angus Barn.
Okay, and I said, challenge accepted. I went to the Angus Barn, and here we are, 12 years later, okay? That's where it comes from. But it all started with this little story that I'm about to tell you right now. There was a movie that Nicholas Cage was in years ago.
It's called the Rock. And the basic gist of the movie is there's some bad guys that want to destroy San Francisco with these little like balls that contain green nuclear gas. And if you get in the presence of the green nuclear gas, it eats your face off and destroys you.
So Nicholas Cage is, of course, the good guy. And so, at like, you know, the climax of the movie, he's fighting with the bad guys in Alcatraz. I don't remember how they got there, but they're there. And Nicholas Cage is, you know, fist fighting with the bad guy. And Nicholas Cage takes one of the balls of the green nuclear gas and puts it in the guy's mouth, and he punches him in the face, and the ball breaks open and eats off the guy's face.
And you're thinking, oh, it's awesome, but oh no, you also are in the presence of the green nuclear gas now, so you're gonna die. I forgot to tell you an important part of the movie. The only way that you could escape if you were in the presence of the green nuclear gas is there was this antidote, and you had to put it directly into your heart. And so it had this needle, I'm not sure why, but the needle was like that long. And so Nicholas Cage happens to have one in his backpack.
And so after he punches the guy and the green nuclear gas eats this guy's face off and starts to come for Nicholas Cage, Nicholas Cage, you know, you can see in his face, has the realization, I'm in the presence of the green nuclear gas.
So he turns and he begins to run. Right, and the green nuclear gas that is somehow strangely personified begins to follow Nicholas Cage. And so Nicholas Cage runs to it, and here comes the green nuclear gas. And Nicholas Cage is on the corridor, and here comes the green nuclear gas. And he goes back, and there's nowhere else to run, and it's just him.
And here comes the green nuclear gas, and he reaches inside of his backpack, and he pulls out the needle. And you're watching this and you're thinking, you're thinking, don't do it, Nick. Just get eaten with the green nuclear gas. It is better. It is better than doing that.
And Nicholas Cage, who is unmoved by your pleas, and he is the man of courage, unseats that needle. And he takes it and he pulls it out and he punches it right in his heart and he pushes the antidote in. And he's fine, and the movie basically ends, okay?
Now. You probably can see where I'm going with that. The world, the flesh, and the devil is that green nuclear gas. It's the power of sin. everywhere.
And the only way to resist the destructive power of sin and death and the devil is to get the word of God in your heart. parts. And to have it flow out of you, it is the only way that you will overcome. The other component of The sword of the Spirit is prayer. Because, y'all, in order for the Word to be effective in your lives, it has to be accompanied by the life-giving power of the Spirit.
The word of God is the sword of the spirit, not the sword of the pastor. The Spirit's power is released through prayer.
So Paul tells us: prayed at all times in the Spirit. with all prayer and supplication. Samuel Chadwick, an old Puritan, he used to say, The one concern of the devil. The one concern. is to keep the saints from prayer.
He fears nothing. from prayerless studies. Prayerless work, prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil. He mocks at our wisdom.
But he trembles when we pray. Prayer turns ordinary mortals into men and women of power. Prayer brings fire. It brings rain. It brings life.
It brings God. There is no power like that of prevailing prayer. You know, we find at least 17 scenes of Jesus at prayer in the Gospels. The disciples recognized that as the source of his power, which is why they asked him, Lord, teach us to pray. They didn't say teach us to preach or teach us to raise money.
or teach us to counsel, or teach us to build crowds, they said, teach us. to pray. The one concern. of the devil is to keep the saints from prayer. He fears nothing.
From eloquent preachers. from amazing worship. If there's nothing from... organize media campaigns. Box.
Prayer brings fire. Prayer brings rain. Prayer brings life. Prayer brings God. There is no Power.
Like that. of prevailing prayer.
So take up the sword of the spirit. Which is the Word of God. prayed at all times in The spirit.
Some of we have done three weeks on the demonic. Because there is just no way to read your Bible. and not see this as an active part of our lives. And we ignore it only at our peril. It's affecting some of you right now.
And Paul's counsel to you is not to get weird. with spiritism. or superstition or exorcism. Or order some bottle of oil off the internet. And I just tell you, be filled with Jesus.
Jesus is every piece of the armor. Par started this whole section, you see, verse 10, with the words: Be strong in the Lord. Not be strong in you. Be strong in the Lord. In other words, put on Jesus.
All these weapons of warfare, all these pieces of armor are simply his presence. Put him on. Surrender every part of your life to him. Be filled with his spirit. Think through every part of your life through the lens of his lordship, and he'll bring his weapons and his armor with him, and the demonic will not be able to touch you.
Following Jesus is more than believing the right things. It's about becoming the right kind of person. That's what the whole disciple journey map is all about. Over six weeks, you'll explore five core identities of a disciple. worshiper, family member, servant, steward, and witness.
and reflect on how your heart, head, hands, and habits are being shaped by God's word. This study will help you identify where you're growing. where you need to take the next steps, and how to keep moving forward in your faith. This resource is designed to help you not just know about Jesus, but to walk with him every day. We'd love to send it to you with your gift to the ministry at jdgreer.com.
It's available only for the month of September. I'm Molly Vitovich. See you next time. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.
Yeah.
