SPEAKER_00: Nice.
SPEAKER_00: We are talking about being always optimistic today.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't just mean like kind of like a fake optimism.
SPEAKER_00: I mean like having a posture that despite the fact that there's hard stuff in the world, we always come back to I'm going to start this day optimistically, believing great things can happen because God is a great God.
SPEAKER_00: It's really, it's it's a it's a statement of faith to be optimistic that God is gonna be good today, that God's got great things in store.
SPEAKER_00: And to do this, we're gonna go back to the book of Esther.
SPEAKER_00: We've got two more messages that we never finished from before Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: We left Esther and Mordecai in the crew hanging a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: And so I just want to catch up.
SPEAKER_00: If you weren't there or you haven't uh been part of those messages, go ahead to our website, Fierce.church.
SPEAKER_00: If you click on the videos or sermons or something, uh there's a little section about for those to come.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Esther series.
SPEAKER_00: So here's where we left everybody, the people of God, the Jews, they are a minority living in an evil empire.
SPEAKER_00: And there's been a decree made over them that there's gonna come a day, it's it's gonna be March 7th.
SPEAKER_00: They wouldn't have called it March 7th, but it would have been March 7th.
SPEAKER_00: On March 7th, the Jews are gonna be wiped out.
SPEAKER_00: It had to do with there was this kind of mid-level uh administrator in the kingdom named Mordecai, and he offended the highest ranking official other than the king, and that was Haman.
SPEAKER_00: And so Haman said, We're just gonna wipe all you guys out in one day.
SPEAKER_00: He kind of tricks the king into signing this decree so that all these people will be taken out.
SPEAKER_00: Now, God is in the story, he's operating providentially in the background, and so all this time he raises up Esther into being the queen.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't come about through a great way, but it still happened because God uses even the hard stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody say God uses the hard stuff.
SPEAKER_00: God uses even the hard stuff to fulfill his purposes.
SPEAKER_00: And so Esther becomes queen.
SPEAKER_00: She takes a great risk, she's gonna risk her own life, walk into the king's chamber, and reveal to him essentially through a couple of banquets, Haman is a villain and he's putting my people to death, and he's been working nefarious purposes all along, King.
SPEAKER_00: And so the king finds this out.
SPEAKER_00: The very things that Cayman wanted to do more to Mordecai end up happening to Haman.
SPEAKER_00: He gets hung on the gallows, all the stuff is given, all of his stuff is given to Mordecai, but there's still a problem for these people.
SPEAKER_00: You'd think it's kind of like over, right?
SPEAKER_00: But it's not because there was an edict made.
SPEAKER_00: There was this law that Haman got signed into being that on March 7th all the Jews are gonna be wiped out.
SPEAKER_00: So there's still a giant threat.
SPEAKER_00: Haman is dead, but there's a giant threat yet.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we get a little bit of justice, we get a little bit of victory, we get a little bit further down the road, but it's not complete.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't all happen, and so we can get weary in the waiting.
SPEAKER_00: We can grow weary in well-doing, and the thing isn't resolved, it's it's it's a little resolved, but it's not entirely resolved.
SPEAKER_00: So God got you a job, but you're still in debt.
SPEAKER_00: It's resolved, but not totally resolved.
SPEAKER_00: You got out of that destructive toxic relationship, but you're finding out some of that toxin is still in you, and you're bringing that everywhere you go.
SPEAKER_00: And so you got out, but you're not out of the trial.
SPEAKER_00: The diagnosis, you've gotten a little bit healthier, so the prognosis is better than it was, but you're still not totally healed.
SPEAKER_00: There becomes a tension when justice has happened, victory has happened some, but man, it just hasn't happened all the way yet.
SPEAKER_00: Should I just give up?
SPEAKER_00: Should I give up?
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I got this little bit of ground.
SPEAKER_00: Should I give up and just take this and go home?
SPEAKER_00: We all know what this is like to feel weary because the whole thing hasn't happened yet, and we forget the very character of God is that he is a God of reversals.
SPEAKER_00: We've seen this through this entire series.
SPEAKER_00: If you go back and look and we'll listen to this series again, he's a God of reversals.
SPEAKER_00: Meaning, he doesn't just like, I'm just gonna get rid of the opposition.
SPEAKER_00: No, he reverses it on the opposition.
SPEAKER_00: So he doesn't take the trial away, he reverses things about the trial so that now you're winning.
SPEAKER_00: You were losing and now you're winning.
SPEAKER_00: But he does it slow, and so it's hard to discern.
SPEAKER_00: And it's so easy to get weary, and he does it really, he does it, as we've seen with Esther and Mordecai, if you weren't here, he does all of this on his own, but he also uses very courageous people to bring about his purposes.
SPEAKER_00: So let's start back up.
SPEAKER_00: Haman is dead.
SPEAKER_00: Esther 8, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: On that same day, King Xerxes gave the property of Haman, the enemy of the Jews, to Queen Esther.
SPEAKER_00: Then Mordecai was brought before the king, for Esther had told the king how they were related.
SPEAKER_00: The king took off his signet ring.
SPEAKER_00: Now he's seen like Mordecai's turned out to be a good guy.
SPEAKER_00: This whole family's pretty good here.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so Mordecai saved his life earlier, saved him from an assassination plot.
SPEAKER_00: Um, Esther's his wife, there it turns out they're related.
SPEAKER_00: So this is all like, well, this is a good family.
SPEAKER_00: All right, maybe these Jews are all right.
SPEAKER_00: Um he takes off his signet ring, which he had taken back from Haman, gave it to Mordecai, and Esther appointed Mordecai to be in charge of Haman's property.
SPEAKER_00: Then Esther went again before the king.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because she still has a problem, falling down at his feet and begging him with tears to stop the evil plot devised by Haman, the Agagite against the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: This whole Agagite and Jews thing, this is this is being pronounced, this is this is emphasized because what we're really seeing, and we're gonna see we're gonna explain it more completely next week.
SPEAKER_00: We're seeing again, there's an ancient enemy, the Agagites, against the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: And they're so it's it's it's like this national fight that has been going on that the the ancestor didn't finish hundreds of years ago, and now it's come to a head.
SPEAKER_00: Now finally, this Agagite is dead.
SPEAKER_00: So all that's saying is there's a larger story in the Bible story.
SPEAKER_00: There's a whole giant thing happening here, and it's cool.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm a Bible nerd, so I want you to know about it, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Esther, this is her second time going to the king uninvited, so she's risked, and then she risks again, and this time through tears.
SPEAKER_00: I think she was pretty poised the first time, now it's through tears, and she says, King, we still have a problem.
SPEAKER_00: And what I like about Esther is she's a woman of action.
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't just wait around, she does all like the waiting part, like she fasts with her people and she she prays and she gets ready, but then at the right moment, she acts, and we've got to act.
SPEAKER_00: My friends, Esther and Mordecai, like they take some big action steps and it pays off, and that's just true of life in general.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to take action.
SPEAKER_00: You can't just sit around and wait for stuff to happen.
SPEAKER_00: There is waiting on God while we're actively doing.
SPEAKER_00: And so I just want us to just take a hint from their playbook.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to remain, even when it's hard, even when things are falling apart.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but stay on that offense.
SPEAKER_00: Stay aggressive, stay optimistic that you still can be part of the change.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4, and again, King held out the gold scepter to Esther, so she rose and stood before him.
SPEAKER_00: Esther said, If it please the king, and if I found favor with him, and if he thinks it's right, and if I'm pleasing to him, let there be a decree that reverses the orders of Haman, the son of Hamathetah the Agagite, who ordered the Jews throughout all the king's provinces should be destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: For how can I endure to see my people and my family slaughtered and destroyed?
SPEAKER_00: Justice hasn't quite happened, king, and Esther knows it's sometimes once just isn't enough.
SPEAKER_00: See, we live in the we live in the age of superhero stories where there's one final epic battle, there's one last thing to do, you can just turn one key and boom, the whole thing's over.
SPEAKER_00: But in the real world and in Esther's world, nah, it doesn't always work like that.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta be super bold, risky once, and then you gotta do it again.
SPEAKER_00: And you might have to be faithful multiple times, again and again and again.
SPEAKER_00: So you might have to go back to the work that you don't like.
SPEAKER_00: You might have to, okay, we just saved up enough money to get the thing, and then we went into debt again.
SPEAKER_00: And now here we are, and we gotta be faithful again.
SPEAKER_00: We have to have multiple obediences all in the same direction, despite the fact that, yeah, well, I back up a little bit, but my God is powerful, and I'm gonna remain always optimistic because a little justice was done, but that doesn't mean there's not an entire reversal later on.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna stay faithful and stay in faith and stay operating and stay going forward.
SPEAKER_00: And I can't believe there's not more amens from both sides of this room right now.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna keep on advancing.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna keep studying, I'm gonna keep engaging in the conflict that I see it getting slightly better, but we're not all the way out of the woods.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna keep going.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 7 the king Xerxes said to Queen Esther and Mordecai the Jew, I've given Esther the property of Haman, and he has been impaled on a pole because he tried to destroy the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: Now, he's essentially saying, I'm done with this.
SPEAKER_00: If y'all want to solve it, you go solve it.
SPEAKER_00: Now go ahead and send a message to the Jews in the king's name, telling them whatever you want, and seal it with the king's signature ring.
SPEAKER_00: Essentially he's he's saying, Mordecai, here's my pen, sign my signature, to whatever you want.
SPEAKER_00: Just, I'm not a really pay attention kind of a king, so y'all just go solve this, please.
SPEAKER_00: But remember that whatever's already been written in the king's name and sealed with his signature ring can never be revoked.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, I'm not going to erase the old edict.
SPEAKER_00: I can't erase the old edict.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have to come up with an additional edict.
SPEAKER_00: And often there's things in our life where God, we're we're saying, God, why don't you fix this?
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you change this?
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you erase this?
SPEAKER_00: And God says, I'm not going to erase it.
SPEAKER_00: Not going to erase it, but I'm going to give you faith and courage to keep on going, and we'll see what else I can do.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see how I can reverse it.
SPEAKER_00: Not by altering the past, but by changing the future as you walk in optimistic faith.
SPEAKER_00: Someone just say, Glory.
SPEAKER_00: So Mordecai goes to work, he writes down this decree.
SPEAKER_00: He can't change the old one, but he writes down this new one, and they he gets ready to send it.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11 The king's decree gave the Jews in every city authority to unite to defend their lives.
SPEAKER_00: They were allowed to kill, slaughter, and annihilate anyone of any nationality or province who might attack them or their children and wives and take the property of their enemies.
SPEAKER_00: It's important to notice they were already going.
SPEAKER_00: So this March 7th, it's the day that everybody who hates the Jews go kill them.
SPEAKER_00: And what the what this order is saying is okay, Jews, you you can all like get together and you can get armed and you can take out any sucker that rolls up and tries to take you out.
SPEAKER_00: You can do it.
SPEAKER_00: And you can even take their stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what we're gonna see, and this is important for next week, they don't ever take the stuff.
SPEAKER_00: They defend themselves, but they don't steal anything from any of these people that are trying to kill them.
SPEAKER_00: And that's really important as it relates to hundreds of years earlier when King Saul, what he did was he didn't kill the Agagite.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he kept all his stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And now these people are learning hundreds of years later, you know what, we've been in exile.
SPEAKER_00: We now get the lesson, just honor and fear God.
SPEAKER_00: Just do whatever we're supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00: Aren't you so glad that sometimes our parents made mistakes, or our grandparents or our great-great-grandparents, and God doesn't hold us accountable for those things, but he allows us to make up for them.
SPEAKER_00: He allows us to learn things over the generations to get better and better and better, and that gives us a lot of optimism and praise God.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 9, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: So on March 7th, the two decrees of the king were put into effect.
SPEAKER_00: On that day, the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, but quite the opposite happened.
SPEAKER_00: It was the Jews who overpowered their enemies.
SPEAKER_00: The Jews gathered in their cities throughout all the king's provinces to attack anyone who tried to harm them, but no one could make a stand against them, for everyone was afraid of them.
SPEAKER_00: God works through imperfect systems and sometimes crappy laws to still bring about his purposes, his justice, and his reversals.
SPEAKER_00: And you really just don't have to worry about it.
SPEAKER_00: God has got a plan and he knows what to do.
SPEAKER_00: Now the problem is we get weary because God's justice is slower than ours sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: God's justice, dude, it's it's not even very necessarily, there's not fireworks with it.
SPEAKER_00: It's not like, oh, there it is.
SPEAKER_00: Like it's very under the surface sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: It's very quiet.
SPEAKER_00: This this little law that Mordecai writes, it's it's no one even knew about it while it's happening, but it's happening behind the scenes.
SPEAKER_00: But you know the thing about God's justice, when God finally breaks through, when we're optimistic enough to stay in faith, when God finally breaks through, baby, it's done.
SPEAKER_00: Like God, when God says that it's done, it's happened.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what happens for these folks.
SPEAKER_00: So, what do we need to remember?
SPEAKER_00: Here's number one God eventually brings justice through number one, the reversal of the decree.
SPEAKER_00: The reversal of the decree.
SPEAKER_00: On that day, the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, but quite the opposite happened.
SPEAKER_00: I think you've probably got some enemies, you've probably got some trials, some difficulties that are against you.
SPEAKER_00: And I just want you to like fast forward into the future and just picture this possibility.
SPEAKER_00: You're fearing this will happen, but quite the opposite happens.
SPEAKER_00: Quite the opposite happens.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because God is good and God is powerful and God is sovereign, God is well able to do whatever the heck he wants, and he's a god, this is his character, he's a god of reversals.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he does.
SPEAKER_00: You know, right in here, right in the book of Esther, we've seen it, but I want to get really explicit with it today.
SPEAKER_00: There's a pattern here of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: There's a predictive pattern of the cross if we've got eyes to see.
SPEAKER_00: God is a God of reversals, and there's a reversal at the cross.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 5.21 says this God had Christ, who was sinless, take our sin, take our sin so that we might receive God's approval through him.
SPEAKER_00: Take our sin so we might receive God's approval through him.
SPEAKER_00: See, there there really was a death sentence.
SPEAKER_00: There's a death sentence, a death edict against each and every human that has ever sinned.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 6 23 says the wages of sin is death.
SPEAKER_00: There's already something written.
SPEAKER_00: There's already something written down.
SPEAKER_00: But see, God knows even though there is something written down, there's something else that was written down before the foundation of the world, and that was if an innocent will come and die in the place of the guilty, the condemned will go free.
SPEAKER_00: That's what was deeper.
SPEAKER_00: C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis does a great job explaining this figuratively in Narnia.
SPEAKER_00: Chronicles of Narnia, the White Witch, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: We got some super fans up in here.
SPEAKER_00: The White Witch, she knows what what they call the deep magic.
SPEAKER_00: And the deep magic is just it's the law that everyone who betrays needs to be put to death.
SPEAKER_00: There's no exceptions.
SPEAKER_00: If you betray, you need to be put to death.
SPEAKER_00: If you do it wrong, you need to be put to death.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what Edmund does.
SPEAKER_00: Edmund is guilty.
SPEAKER_00: He really has he really has betrayed Aslan the lion.
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, Aslan knows more than the witch.
SPEAKER_00: And so Aslan, while she's bragging that it's true, Edmund must must be put to death because she knows the deep magic.
SPEAKER_00: Aslan, or Jesus, he represents Jesus, he responds to her Don't you tell me about the deep magic witch.
SPEAKER_00: I was there when it was written.
SPEAKER_00: And he says this if a willing victim, here's the deeper magic that he reminds her of, or educates her in.
SPEAKER_00: If a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's steed, the stone table would crack and death itself would begin to work backward.
SPEAKER_00: The stone table is the law's condemning power.
SPEAKER_00: That stone, the law's condemning power, that stone table will crack, and death itself would even work backwards.
SPEAKER_00: The deep magic says sin must be punished.
SPEAKER_00: But as Lan, and Jesus know there's a deeper man at a deeper magic, sin must be punished, but love will pay the price.
SPEAKER_00: And it was always there.
SPEAKER_00: And this is why you and I can be optimistic even when we're feeling guilty, even when we're feeling condemned.
SPEAKER_00: Because if it's really true that Jesus Christ died on the cross and that bloodstained cross was there, and then he rose from the dead, what that means, my friend, is it doesn't really matter who accuses you.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see?
SPEAKER_00: Because while the enemy of your soul is trying to step on your head and your own conscience bears witness against you, you did it wrong, though.
SPEAKER_00: You really did it wrong.
SPEAKER_00: You need to hear Aslan's voice say, Don't you talk to me about the law, which, because I was there when it was written, but there is a greater law.
SPEAKER_00: And listen, this is what Paul says.
SPEAKER_00: Who dares accuse us, whom God has chosen for his own?
SPEAKER_00: No one.
SPEAKER_00: For God Himself has given us right standing with himself.
SPEAKER_00: Who then condemns us?
SPEAKER_00: No one.
SPEAKER_00: For Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God's right hand, pleading for us.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one that would condemn us, but he's the one who defends us.
SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't matter who accuses you, even you.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter because Aslan himself rises up and defends you.
SPEAKER_00: So you never have to wonder if God is on your side.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to wonder that.
SPEAKER_00: Never ask that question in the shadow of a blood-stained cross.
SPEAKER_00: He's proven his love.
SPEAKER_00: You are not condemned, and he is for you.
SPEAKER_00: And this doesn't just have to do with our consciences, it really is about everyday life.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul and Silas, they're on a journey, and this demon-filled little girl, fortune teller, starts following them around.
SPEAKER_00: And she, this fortune teller girl, she's got owned, she's a slave, and her owners make a lot of money off of her telling fortunes.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Paul gets sick of her and casts these demons out, and that makes these slave owners lose a lot of money.
SPEAKER_00: And so what happens?
SPEAKER_00: Paul and Silas get beaten and thrown in jail.
SPEAKER_00: And you just think, wow, man, it looks like the devil really won that one.
SPEAKER_00: He won that round.
SPEAKER_00: You try to cast those devils out and slapped you in the face and kicked you into jail, beat you up on the way in.
SPEAKER_00: But you know, Paul and Silas, they're a little bit more optimistic than maybe you and I would be.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so Acts 16, 25, around midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and other prisoners were listening.
SPEAKER_00: Other per other prisoners were listening.
SPEAKER_00: We never know who's listening.
SPEAKER_00: We never know who's watching as we're going through our difficulty, when we're going through our trial, when we're going through our pain, we never know who's watching.
SPEAKER_00: These guys were singing.
SPEAKER_00: What the heck are they doing?
SPEAKER_00: They're singing over there?
SPEAKER_00: Well, what happens?
SPEAKER_00: There's a reversal.
SPEAKER_00: Suddenly, there's an earthquake, and the whole thing springs open.
SPEAKER_00: They get to go out, and instead of running away, what do they do?
SPEAKER_00: They minister to the jailer who's about to commit suicide because he just lost these prisoners.
SPEAKER_00: They minister to him, he gets saved.
SPEAKER_00: They go to his house, his whole family gets saved.
SPEAKER_00: And what do we find out?
SPEAKER_00: The devil is like, don't gun it.
SPEAKER_00: I was trying to get rid of him, and now there's more of them.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because God is a God of reversals.
SPEAKER_00: God is a God of reversals.
SPEAKER_00: If we'll stay optimistic and stay in faith and say, God, this looks bad for a minute, but you're the God of reversals.
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know how you might not change the past, but you can write something new that changes the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna stay in faith and keep on believing and keep on praising.
SPEAKER_00: Guys, this is why it's so important every day just to wake up with a posture of, I'm not gonna believe the devil, I'm gonna believe God, that God is a God of reversals, and he can still do stuff, and it might be today, it might be next Thursday, but God can move and he can rewrite the whole thing, and it is not hard.
SPEAKER_00: God is absolutely able to do it.
SPEAKER_00: We need to we need to get up every day and insist, I'm gonna stay optimistic.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean I don't have trials, but I'm gonna believe God.
SPEAKER_00: God eventually brings justice.
SPEAKER_00: This is who he is.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't sometimes God moves this way and ends up bringing justice.
SPEAKER_00: No, we don't see it.
SPEAKER_00: He's working through often human systems, but he's working, he's stitching everything together, bringing it together to bring reversals and bring justice for his people, especially those he finds faithfully praying and believing that they're gonna see the goodness of God in the land of the living.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 9, verse 5, we're gonna skip down to there.
SPEAKER_00: So the Jews, so the the day comes.
SPEAKER_00: So the Jews went ahead on the appointed day and struck down their enemies with the sword.
SPEAKER_00: They killed and annihilated their enemies and did as they pleased with those who hated them in the fortress of Seuss itself, so that's the capital city.
SPEAKER_00: The Jews killed five hundred folks.
SPEAKER_00: There was a reversal, and now they're not feeling threatened anymore.
SPEAKER_00: They've taken care of their enemies.
SPEAKER_00: And three times the text keeps pointing out they did not lay their hands on the plunder.
SPEAKER_00: So what we know is they're not greedy, like they're not just killing for greed, they're not killing because it's sweet revenge.
SPEAKER_00: They're killing their enemies to defend themselves.
SPEAKER_00: And it's hard for us to imagine this because you gotta remember this is before the new covenant.
SPEAKER_00: This is a barbaric age.
SPEAKER_00: We can't imagine a time where like you have to defend your nationality lest you die.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, some sometimes we can think that we understand that a little bit, but the entire world is this way at this point, and that's what they're dealing with, and so but we take the lesson of God can defeat my enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, and God does defeat my enemies.
SPEAKER_00: And this is can you just what must it be like to be the devil?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, every day you just be like, dang it.
SPEAKER_00: He did it again, dang it.
SPEAKER_00: He reverse the whole thing again.
SPEAKER_00: I had this whole plan, and he did it again.
SPEAKER_00: John 12, 31.
SPEAKER_00: At that time, the time for judging the world, Jesus is about to go to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: The time for judging the world has come.
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus talking, when Satan, the ruler of this world, will be cast out.
SPEAKER_00: Now the devil, he's got this plan, he's like, oh man, it's so good.
SPEAKER_00: It's so good.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get The humans that deserve judgment.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get them to bring judgment on God Himself, and then they're gonna put them to death.
SPEAKER_00: And Satan doesn't get that the very moment he's doing that, he's bringing judgment on himself and being cast out no longer as the ruler of this world, in one sense, and definitely no longer as the ruler of hearts, because every time a new Christian is reborn, that devil is booted out of the heart.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus Christ is taking ground more and more and more, and Satan is cast down, and he just can't win it.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what we we gotta understand, Christians, Christians, sometimes we think like the devil's a little bit beaten.
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, Jesus kind of squeaked by, like, whew.
SPEAKER_00: Or like the Holy Spirit wakes up every day and he's like, Well, I'll do my best.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, of it was a total beatdown, like that's what it was.
SPEAKER_00: The devil is beaten, and we can rejoice that that's the kind of God that we serve, and it starts right now, it was it happened on the cross, but there's there's a culmination day.
SPEAKER_00: Right now we're in the waiting.
SPEAKER_00: The decree has gone out, but it hasn't reached its full effect yet.
SPEAKER_00: That the devil is defeated.
SPEAKER_00: He's still resisting it, is a different way to say it.
SPEAKER_00: But here's what I found about the enemy, because he can get a punch in on you, he can get a punch in on me, but you know what he can't do?
SPEAKER_00: For 2,000 years, he can't change the story.
SPEAKER_00: It's right in the Bible, just like it was 2,000 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 19, 11.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna read it to you just because I want the devil to hear it.
SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
SPEAKER_00: Then I saw heaven opened, and a white horse was standing there, and its rider was named Faithful and True.
SPEAKER_00: That's Jesus, by the way, for he judges fairly and wages a righteous war.
SPEAKER_00: His eyes were like flames of fire, and on his head there were many crowns, and a name was written on him that no one understood except himself.
SPEAKER_00: He wore a robe dipped in blood.
SPEAKER_00: That's his own blood, by the way, and his title was The Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: The armies of heaven, dressed in the finest of pure white linen, followed him on white horses.
SPEAKER_00: From his mouth came a sharp sword to strike down the nations.
SPEAKER_00: He will rule them with an iron rod, just like Psalm 2 said.
SPEAKER_00: He will release the fierce wrath of God of the Almighty, like juice flowing from a winepress on his robe at his thigh was written the title, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just skip forward a little bit because I want you to hear it because it's still true and it never changes.
SPEAKER_00: Then the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the fiery lake of burning sulfur, joining the beast and the false prophet.
SPEAKER_00: There they will be tormented day and night, forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the real final word.
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't matter in a lot of ways.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so whatever the devil says to you, it really doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, this is going on with my family, yes, and and this is going on in my neighborhood, yes, and this is going on in the country, yes, and this is going on in the world, yes, but the final word is still the final word.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but devil, did you read that?
SPEAKER_00: Like whatever I'm seeing, however chaotic it is, however bad it is, however evil it is, this still happens.
SPEAKER_00: It still happens that, bro, you lose.
SPEAKER_00: You lose.
SPEAKER_00: I can look around and say, well, this is temporary because there's already been another decree and it's already on its way.
SPEAKER_00: And you people that watch football games, you get this occasionally.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what happens there's like three minutes left in the fourth quarter, and the winning team is ahead by like 30.
SPEAKER_00: And when they're ahead by 30, you know, like they're gonna be faithful, they're gonna stay on the field, and they're gonna, you know, do their defense and they're gonna run the plays, but ain't none of them panicking.
SPEAKER_00: Because they know, dude, in three minutes you cannot get past our 30 points.
SPEAKER_00: And so they're just there's a little bit of a like, okay, well, I'm too honorable just to walk off the field.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna wait a little longer, but I've already won.
SPEAKER_00: My friends, that's where we are right now.
SPEAKER_00: We've already won.
SPEAKER_00: We're just waiting for this thing to get over.
SPEAKER_00: But you can walk around with your heart soaring because your God is the God of reversals and the threats.
SPEAKER_00: They're real in one sense, but they're super temporary in a different sense.
SPEAKER_00: Our world is a little bit grisly right now.
SPEAKER_00: It is.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the danger for us.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be very cautious that we don't start to think that the final word of God is fragile because it is not.
SPEAKER_00: You see a lot of the current word.
SPEAKER_00: Every time you pull this thing out, every time you're looking at this, it says, Here's the current word.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta know that's what it is, though.
SPEAKER_00: And you gotta say, you stupid little screen, you are only the current word.
SPEAKER_00: I know the final word.
SPEAKER_00: I know the final word, I know how this thing happens, I know how it rolls out, and I know my God is the God of reversals, and He can't be stopped.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody say, Can't be stopped.
SPEAKER_00: So why don't this week let's be optimistic?
SPEAKER_00: Let's wake up knowing we've already won the game.
SPEAKER_00: And let's, for some of us, maybe one of the reasons we're so exhausted sometimes is because we're still operating from the place of I'm trying to get victory instead of I'm operating from victory.
SPEAKER_00: If I'm operating from victory, baby, it's a whole lot easier to remain optimistic.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, you're you're the one who did all the work.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, you are the one.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for the deeper magic that you would die in our place so that the condemned can go free.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are perpetually not optimistic, but we know you came to change hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna throw open the doors of our heart again and ask you to change it.
SPEAKER_00: God, would you make us optimistic?
SPEAKER_00: God, some of us, the truth is we're relying on ourselves a whole lot more than we should be.
SPEAKER_00: We're relying on our own cleanness and we're relying on our own strengths.
SPEAKER_00: I pray today, Lord, that we would just have the sense to know that we can't scrub ourselves clean enough.
SPEAKER_00: And really, strength is knowing that we're weak.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we fall completely on Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to just be optimistic without having the reason for optimism connected to our hearts relationally.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, if there's any of us here that have never trusted you entirely with our lives, with our destiny, with our sin, with the things we've done wrong, we're asking today that you would forgive us.
SPEAKER_00: Give us a brand new, fresh start, a permanent, eternal fresh start, walking hand in hand with you, born of the Spirit above, sins cleansed and healed and forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: We trust that because you died on the cross, that is for us, and we take it by faith, and you alone get the glory.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name, amen.
SPEAKER_00: All right, folks, that's all the time we have, but thank you so much for listening to this sermon.
SPEAKER_00: If you got a lot out of this, feel free to share this with somebody who might need it.
SPEAKER_00: Also, there's a ton more content on our website, on our YouTube channel, on our Instagram channel, on our TikTok channel.
SPEAKER_00: Feel free to check all that kind of a thing out.
SPEAKER_00: Also, if you're interested in leadership type stuff, go ahead and check out another podcast or any other blogs or videos or anything over at BibleLeadership.com.
SPEAKER_00: And whatever else you do, make sure that you believe God for something big today.