Kelly Kinder: Good morning.
Kelly Kinder: It's great to be back.
Kelly Kinder: It's the one we uh we did have a great time away uh on sabbatical, and I want to thank you all for letting us uh do that.
Kelly Kinder: We had a time of restoration and rest, and uh just felt like we heard from God in several ways.
Kelly Kinder: But I just uh want to thank you again for that.
Kelly Kinder: You know, we're uh we're just excited to be back, and my opportunity to get up here and uh share God's word, I'm I'm excited about today.
Kelly Kinder: We've been in Ephesians, as you know, for uh a little while now, all the way back through last fall, even.
Kelly Kinder: And uh today we're in chapter six, and uh we're gonna talk about uh some things I think are relevant maybe to where we live today.
Kelly Kinder: And I know God is gonna speak to us.
Kelly Kinder: You know, uh this morning or last night, I uh I was going to bed and I ended up uh having a problem with my eye where I woke up this morning.
Kelly Kinder: My eye uh kind of drained all night and I couldn't hardly open it this morning.
Kelly Kinder: And uh just kind of like, Lord, what's going on here?
Kelly Kinder: And uh so you know, there's things that go on in our life like that that uh we just struggle with.
Kelly Kinder: And every day there's something seemingly new.
Kelly Kinder: I I was uh, you know, last week my my uh daughter, uh oldest daughter, was keeping my granddaughter, my three-year-old granddaughter, Lily.
Kelly Kinder: And uh I've mentioned Lily before, and but they were there sitting in the floor, pen and paper in hand, and uh my daughter was watching Lily draw.
Kelly Kinder: And she put this, all of a sudden put this little squiggly line.
Kelly Kinder: I wish I could show you the picture, but uh just a squiggly line, and she stopped and she just looked at it a little bit and kind of, and all of a sudden she suddenly suddenly she said, Well, that's my life.
Kelly Kinder: Three years old.
Kelly Kinder: I couldn't believe it, you know?
Kelly Kinder: Uh but I thought how true, how true that is.
Kelly Kinder: You know, it made me think that uh that's the way we sometimes we we see our lives.
Kelly Kinder: It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
Kelly Kinder: Um but today I want to talk to you about something that kind of relates to that.
Kelly Kinder: Could it be that some of the struggles that we go through really uh there's more going on there that meet than meets the eye?
Kelly Kinder: This is what Paul kind of is getting at as he goes through this passage.
Kelly Kinder: Paul would tell us, you'd better believe there is.
Kelly Kinder: And um, this world that we live in is uh is really larger than we imagine.
Kelly Kinder: And behind the scenes, really, our um reality is much of it is unseen.
Kelly Kinder: We know that there are angels that exist, good angels and fallen angels.
Kelly Kinder: And Paul talks about Paul now sees as we go through this chapter in chapter six, almost the way we need to take this perspective of what's going on in the in the other unreal, unseen realm on the dark side.
Kelly Kinder: And uh he's just talking about us in terms of soldiers.
Kelly Kinder: We need to think like soldiers, Christian soldiers.
Kelly Kinder: So this morning we're gonna talk about our struggles and how the dark side and the things that are real out there maybe impact us more than we might know.
Kelly Kinder: So uh let's just pray and ask God to help us.
Kelly Kinder: Father, we're thankful that you uh know what's going on in each of our lives this morning.
Kelly Kinder: And we're grateful that, Lord, above all, you were over everything, even the things that we're going through that we don't understand.
Kelly Kinder: And Lord, we acknowledge that there are uh just unseen forces in the dark side, as well as your good angels that watch over us, you watch over us, and you use them all to your purposes.
Kelly Kinder: And so, Lord, we just pray for that reality to sink in even before we get into looking at the armor, these weeks to come.
Kelly Kinder: Lord, teach us these truths and drive them deep into our soul.
Kelly Kinder: We pray in Jesus' name.
Kelly Kinder: So, what do we need to know and do to make sure that we're not taken out by this unseen enemy we've talked about?
Kelly Kinder: Um, when the dust all settles, we should be, as Paul says, standing and not falling, not failing in our abilities to stand and and remain in what God has given us.
Kelly Kinder: You know, let's just read the passage and just see what God says.
Kelly Kinder: It's Ephesians chapter 6.
Kelly Kinder: We're gonna begin in verse 10 and go through verse 13, just these three three verses.
Kelly Kinder: And Paul says, he's finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.
Kelly Kinder: Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
Kelly Kinder: For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Kelly Kinder: Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand firm.
Kelly Kinder: You know, the Bible says, Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.
Kelly Kinder: So I don't want, as we go through this message, to give you any idea that we need to be afraid of these dark forces.
Kelly Kinder: We just need to be aware of them and make sure we take steps to protect ourselves and not lose what God has given us.
Kelly Kinder: So we come now to this final section, and uh actually that first verse says, Paul says, finally.
Kelly Kinder: He doesn't mean I'm tired of talking.
Kelly Kinder: He's saying, This is the last thing that I want to make sure you get because it's so important.
Kelly Kinder: Paul says, finally, there.
Kelly Kinder: And um, what has he talked about so far in this letter?
Kelly Kinder: He's talked about, first of all, sitting in the heavenlies to see that we have realities that we might not be aware of, the riches and the resources that are found in Christ, sitting there and seeing that what God has given us is something we can grab hold of even right now.
Kelly Kinder: He's talked about walking, walking it like Christ did in this world.
Kelly Kinder: And we know the last few weeks we've been talking about how to live that out in our households.
Kelly Kinder: Practical stuff.
Kelly Kinder: How do you live like Jesus in your homes?
Kelly Kinder: That's practical, and we need to learn from that.
Kelly Kinder: And now, today, there's one more thing, and that's what these really, I think he's he's telling these believers, you really need to know this.
Kelly Kinder: You don't need to pass it off or ignore it, and all believes that he that it even exists, and that is that we need to stand to fight.
Kelly Kinder: Stand to fight for what the enemy wants to take from you.
Kelly Kinder: And that's so important.
Kelly Kinder: Therefore, as we look at his Paul's mind, what's he turning to?
Kelly Kinder: He's turning to the ultimate reason behind our struggles.
Kelly Kinder: You say, well, you know, you can blame that on the enemy, Satan, everything, but you know, we do struggle with sin.
Kelly Kinder: But behind all evil is a personal enemy.
Kelly Kinder: And God makes that clear in Scripture.
Kelly Kinder: And so we're looking at this, even though we struggle, even though we're looking at this in terms of something we can't see, it's real.
Kelly Kinder: And we need to take that into account.
Kelly Kinder: So I want to uh just before we get into it, kind of just to look at some of the background that kind of set the stage for this, because I think it particularly speaks to us about where Paul was.
Kelly Kinder: Think about where he was.
Kelly Kinder: Maybe you don't remember.
Kelly Kinder: He's in prison, right?
Kelly Kinder: And uh, you know, we're looking at this, and uh in the imagery he uses is really important.
Kelly Kinder: He takes this imagery from the from the prophet Isaiah, and Isaiah is pictured as uh as pictures God as a warrior dressed out for battle.
Kelly Kinder: And you can look at that in Isaiah chapter 11, 29, 49, and 52 if you want to go back and see that.
Kelly Kinder: But we're ourselves urged by Paul to prepare for the struggle by taking and putting on the same armor that God himself wore.
Kelly Kinder: This is the same armor that Jesus wore to take him all the way to the cross.
Kelly Kinder: So this is very practical and it applies to us.
Kelly Kinder: We're not wearing our own armor, we're wearing the armor of God.
Kelly Kinder: This is what he's talking about.
Kelly Kinder: Second thing, remember as I say, where Paul was when he wrote this letter.
Kelly Kinder: He's in prison.
Kelly Kinder: And uh, you know, most of us probably haven't been uh for any length of time, hopefully, but you in a prison.
Kelly Kinder: But you might imagine uh he was pretty probably pretty discouraged.
Kelly Kinder: Uh we know that during his, he was there in prison for for two whole years.
Kelly Kinder: And uh in A.D.
Kelly Kinder: 60 to 62, somewhere around there, where he where he wrote this letter.
Kelly Kinder: He wrote some other letters there too.
Kelly Kinder: But it says uh we know from scripture he he lived in his own rented apartment, and uh he but he was under constant supervision.
Kelly Kinder: In fact, Acts tells us uh he was allowed to live by himself with a soldier to guard him.
Kelly Kinder: Acts 28, 16.
Kelly Kinder: You think, well, that's just uh that's not really so bad.
Kelly Kinder: That's not like he's behind bars.
Kelly Kinder: But in reality, Paul was bound to a soldier seven days a week, 24 hours a day, for two whole years.
Kelly Kinder: Think about that.
Kelly Kinder: And he was bound by a chain that was about 18 inches long, referred to as a helosis.
Kelly Kinder: And this was a common way that prisoners were bound to to the person that guarded them.
Kelly Kinder: And so he didn't get very far away.
Kelly Kinder: And uh, I can imagine how hard that was, even for two years having that binding metal piece on your arms and just struggling with that.
Kelly Kinder: Um, one writer said it like this.
Kelly Kinder: He said he virtually had no privacy day or night, because the interesting thing with the Roman system is that it worked.
Kelly Kinder: They had a very interesting way of demanding loyalty from the Roman soldiers who were very undereducated for the most part.
Kelly Kinder: And that is, if a prisoner escaped on your watch, guess what?
Kelly Kinder: You die.
Kelly Kinder: You get early retirement at the behest of the Roman Empire.
Kelly Kinder: He goes on, he says, you know that put all these soldiers on alert.
Kelly Kinder: If I allow this prisoner they're thinking to escape, put all put all these soldiers on alert.
Kelly Kinder: If I allow these prisoners to escape while I'm watching him, then it's it for me.
Kelly Kinder: That's it.
Kelly Kinder: I'm I'm I'm done for.
Kelly Kinder: So even if you're a little sleepy, a little bit indifferent, or maybe even thought the inmate, the prisoner, was innocent, you weren't about to let him go because it meant your life.
Kelly Kinder: So these Roman soldiers were ruthless, but they were also very astute, and they had a way of ensuring that when you became a prisoner in the Roman Empire, you were a prisoner until they let you go.
Kelly Kinder: So Paul was constantly tied to this Roman soldier, to a different one every six hours.
Kelly Kinder: So they rotated, and Paul is constantly being introduced to a new prisoner, 18 inches at the short chain.
Kelly Kinder: And these are the elite guards of the emperor.
Kelly Kinder: And so they had access to the palace.
Kelly Kinder: And so we see what became of that.
Kelly Kinder: And sometimes we think that the struggles we're going through have no purpose or meaning.
Kelly Kinder: But I want you to listen to what Paul said about his own struggle.
Kelly Kinder: He writes in Philippians 1, 12-14, another one of the letters that Paul wrote from prison in Rome.
Kelly Kinder: He says, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ.
Kelly Kinder: And most of the brothers, having been confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
Kelly Kinder: You see the impact of Paul's struggle, and nobody probably really knew until they saw the fruit of it.
Kelly Kinder: And often we won't know the struggle that we go through.
Kelly Kinder: It has fruit too.
Kelly Kinder: If we'll just hang in in there.
Kelly Kinder: We'll just hang in there.
Kelly Kinder: So, in other words, his his his struggle was a was really a platform for the gospel.
Kelly Kinder: Um, and it was like a uh a chain reaction for the gospel.
Kelly Kinder: Uh-huh.
Kelly Kinder: Right.
Kelly Kinder: So with that in mind, let's so let's look at this.
Kelly Kinder: Paul um Paul's wanting to see and show us how do you respond to your struggles.
Kelly Kinder: If you really want to see something come out of them, how do you respond?
Kelly Kinder: And and um let me just kind of give these to you in summary, and I'll I'll go through them in detail.
Kelly Kinder: And just I think this is how Paul puts these points out here.
Kelly Kinder: The first, be strong.
Kelly Kinder: Second, wear the armor.
Kelly Kinder: Third, know your enemy.
Kelly Kinder: And fourth, never surrender.
Kelly Kinder: So let's look at this.
Kelly Kinder: The first one isn't found, it's found in verse 10.
Kelly Kinder: I just call it the essential preparation.
Kelly Kinder: The essential preparation.
Kelly Kinder: He says, Finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.
Kelly Kinder: And so Paul begins with our personal spiritual life.
Kelly Kinder: You want to you want to stand strong?
Kelly Kinder: Begin with your personal spiritual life.
Kelly Kinder: Make sure it's healthy.
Kelly Kinder: Make sure that you read in your Bible, make sure that you're praying, make sure that you're coming to church on a regular basis.
Kelly Kinder: You know, sometimes I think, you know, I love to tell the people who come maybe maybe every once in a while, you know, you need to be here more often because your spiritual life was suffering.
Kelly Kinder: But they're not here.
Kelly Kinder: So I can't tell them.
Kelly Kinder: Look at this word to be strong.
Kelly Kinder: It's a it's a present, in the Greek, it's a present passive.
Kelly Kinder: And you say, what does that mean?
Kelly Kinder: It literally means it reads like this to keep on being strengthened by someone.
Kelly Kinder: That's what it means.
Kelly Kinder: To be keep to keep on being strengthened by someone else.
Kelly Kinder: And guess who the someone else is?
Kelly Kinder: It's Jesus Christ.
Kelly Kinder: Keep on being strengthened by Jesus Christ.
Kelly Kinder: Don't let that wane and go away.
Kelly Kinder: And notice we're to be strong in two ways.
Kelly Kinder: He says, first of all, here in the Lord.
Kelly Kinder: In the Lord.
Kelly Kinder: In other words, be strong in your relationship with Jesus.
Kelly Kinder: Are you strong this morning in your relationship with Jesus?
Kelly Kinder: Or is he just something you do on Sundays?
Kelly Kinder: Do you get with him in a personal way every day?
Kelly Kinder: Paul said, I want to know him.
Kelly Kinder: I want to know him.
Kelly Kinder: Is that your heart?
Kelly Kinder: Because he's the source of our strength.
Kelly Kinder: So make sure you maintain an intimate relationship with Jesus, the Christ, the Lord Christ.
Kelly Kinder: Listen to what a couple of verses uh speak to that very thing.
Kelly Kinder: 2 Peter 3, verse 18 says, Grow.
Kelly Kinder: This is how you do this.
Kelly Kinder: Grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord.
Kelly Kinder: In other words, continually progress in the faith.
Kelly Kinder: Don't just be static and never changing.
Kelly Kinder: Let God change you.
Kelly Kinder: Let God mold you.
Kelly Kinder: God shape you.
Kelly Kinder: Because he wants to do that, and he will if you just give him your life and surrender.
Kelly Kinder: You know, one day one time David was struggling.
Kelly Kinder: He was distressed.
Kelly Kinder: They had been in a battle with the Amalekites.
Kelly Kinder: And uh the Amalekite army had taken the wives of the Israelites, taken them all, including David's own wives.
Kelly Kinder: And it says here in 1 Samuel 30, verse 6 what David did.
Kelly Kinder: It says, But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.
Kelly Kinder: Doesn't say he complained.
Kelly Kinder: He doesn't say, Well, that's your fault.
Kelly Kinder: He didn't say, Well, I know I could have done better.
Kelly Kinder: He didn't do that.
Kelly Kinder: He went directly to the Lord, got before him, and he strengthened himself in the Lord his God.
Kelly Kinder: So this is so important.
Kelly Kinder: Our relationship to Christ gives us, think of this, our relationship to Christ gives us access to his power.
Kelly Kinder: And if we're not with him, guess what we don't have?
Kelly Kinder: No power.
Kelly Kinder: That's right.
Kelly Kinder: Colossians 2, 6 and 7 says this, and it says it in a way that can bring home practically how do we do this?
Kelly Kinder: He says, Therefore, just as you received Jesus Christ, how did you receive Jesus?
Kelly Kinder: By faith and belief.
Kelly Kinder: Just as you receive Christ Jesus as Lord, as Lord means He calls all the shots.
Kelly Kinder: Continue to live your lives in Him, rooted and built up in Him and firm in your faith, just as you were taught.
Kelly Kinder: And then what you said, Tyler, this morning, overflowing with thankfulness.
Kelly Kinder: Is that you?
Kelly Kinder: Is that me?
Kelly Kinder: I say I've still got some things to work on in that.
Kelly Kinder: So build up your relationship with Christ.
Kelly Kinder: Second, how do you be strong?
Kelly Kinder: You be strong in your inner man or your inner person.
Kelly Kinder: I call this like kind of like a battle-ready heart, a warrior's heart.
Kelly Kinder: And this is interesting.
Kelly Kinder: It's the little phrase, in the strength of his might.
Kelly Kinder: Let's look at that just for a minute, because it's got a lot there.
Kelly Kinder: A couple of different words there that are kind of speaks to us.
Kelly Kinder: But strength is talking about the outward demonstration of what Jesus can do through our life.
Kelly Kinder: But there's another word that goes along with it.
Kelly Kinder: It's his might.
Kelly Kinder: Be strong in the strength or demonstration of his might.
Kelly Kinder: This is the inside part.
Kelly Kinder: In fact, it's an interesting word in the Greek.
Kelly Kinder: It's the word ischus.
Kelly Kinder: And what it speaks about is the potential that God has put in you for you to do mighty works.
Kelly Kinder: The Bible says those who do know their God will be strong and do exploits.
Kelly Kinder: Right?
Kelly Kinder: And so God is always at work trying to get us to be have a stronger heart, a warrior's heart.
Kelly Kinder: Thinking about this, maybe, and to get this on your mind is just think about a bodybuilder.
Kelly Kinder: And you look at him, and he's got his shirt off, and man, he's got muscles, but he's not lifting any weights.
Kelly Kinder: But what you know is that he could.
Kelly Kinder: That's inherent in him.
Kelly Kinder: And that's kind of this idea, this word.
Kelly Kinder: It's something that's there and it could be used that Christ has put in you.
Kelly Kinder: This means that we possess the inner character and quality and capacity to be, I just kind of say, tough in the fight.
Kelly Kinder: When we're struggling, the easiest thing in the world for us is to kind of give up.
Kelly Kinder: Just like somebody said, I'm I'm tired.
Kelly Kinder: Coretta said this morning, a lot of us are tired.
Kelly Kinder: Well, this is what gives you the ability to keep going on, keep going through it, through the hard things without giving up.
Kelly Kinder: Think of these words, resilience.
Kelly Kinder: This is a quality about resilience, it's about fortitude.
Kelly Kinder: And it's the quality think about this.
Kelly Kinder: This is Jesus having loved them, he loved them to the end.
Kelly Kinder: How did he do that?
Kelly Kinder: Because he had a warrior's heart.
Kelly Kinder: And that's what he wants to build in each of us so that we're not so down and discouraged and ready to give up.
Kelly Kinder: And I know a lot of us here are ready there.
Kelly Kinder: I mean, we're just feeling it.
Kelly Kinder: It's hard.
Kelly Kinder: Nobody said it wasn't.
Kelly Kinder: This Christian life.
Kelly Kinder: And he he's not talking then about something we just kind of work up in ourselves.
Kelly Kinder: This is not natural ability, this is supernatural ability that the Holy Spirit gives to us.
Kelly Kinder: And it rises up in us and sells us, I tells us, don't give up and don't quit.
Kelly Kinder: Keep on going, keep swimming.
Kelly Kinder: And God will carry you through no matter what.
Kelly Kinder: If you have that working in you, the Holy Spirit will do some amazing things.
Kelly Kinder: And you'll be surprised.
Kelly Kinder: I'll be surprised.
Kelly Kinder: 2 Timothy 2 3 3.
Kelly Kinder: Paul said this to Timothy.
Kelly Kinder: He said, Endure suffering along with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
Kelly Kinder: But we need God, we need Christ's power to do this, don't we?
Kelly Kinder: We can't do this on our own.
Kelly Kinder: Hebrews 13 5.
Kelly Kinder: This came to these to me this morning.
Kelly Kinder: He says, Don't throw away your confidence.
Kelly Kinder: Some of us are ready just to throw it all away and just say, I'm just gonna exist.
Kelly Kinder: Don't just exist in your Christian life.
Kelly Kinder: So we have, I think, seen two occasions in this letter that speak about the kind of power, spiritual power, that he's Paul is talking about here.
Kelly Kinder: And I'm taking some time for this point because I think it's really important.
Kelly Kinder: First is in Ephesians chapter 1, 1920, Paul states that this is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead.
Kelly Kinder: Same exact words he used there, he's using here.
Kelly Kinder: And this is the power, guess what, that Paul prayed that we would know in chapter 3, verse 16.
Kelly Kinder: Listen to this again.
Kelly Kinder: That according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being, in your inner man.
Kelly Kinder: So the inner man has a warrior's heart.
Kelly Kinder: He's urging us, appropriate this.
Kelly Kinder: It's available to you.
Kelly Kinder: And so, what does that mean?
Kelly Kinder: It requires an attitude of undying faith.
Kelly Kinder: You say, Well, I don't believe it, I don't see it.
Kelly Kinder: Start believing it.
Kelly Kinder: And what happens is, even though we still struggle, just like Paul did, even though we struggle, we do so with a confidence that we're gonna come out on top.
Kelly Kinder: Right?
Kelly Kinder: So many of us think of ourselves as victims.
Kelly Kinder: We're not victims.
Kelly Kinder: We're we are victors through Christ.
Kelly Kinder: We have to believe that and live through that.
Kelly Kinder: And how is that so?
Kelly Kinder: Because what what he says in Colossians, he says, He, Jesus, disarmed the rulers and authorities, and he put them to open shame by triumphing over them through the cross.
Kelly Kinder: Yeah?
Kelly Kinder: And then in 1 Corinthians 15, 57, he says, Thank God for that.
Kelly Kinder: Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Kelly Kinder: Do you believe that?
Kelly Kinder: So Paul wants us to understand this power, this strength and might that is so completely available to us is not our own.
Kelly Kinder: We can't work this up.
Kelly Kinder: You know how Paul said this happened to him?
Kelly Kinder: How did he get this power?
Kelly Kinder: It comes when we're humble enough to admit that we are not capable in ourselves.
Kelly Kinder: So we put our faith in what Jesus can do.
Kelly Kinder: It's a whole different mindset.
Kelly Kinder: It's a transformation in the way we think.
Kelly Kinder: I can fix this.
Kelly Kinder: Well, go ahead and try.
Kelly Kinder: And here's an example.
Kelly Kinder: Paul experiences himself.
Kelly Kinder: You remember when he says, he says, um, in Acts, he said, I had a thorn in the flesh.
Kelly Kinder: This is the way he describes it.
Kelly Kinder: A thorn in the flesh.
Kelly Kinder: And we don't really even know what it is.
Kelly Kinder: Some people think it was his eyesight.
Kelly Kinder: Could have been something else.
Kelly Kinder: We don't really know.
Kelly Kinder: Maybe some kind of physical physical problem.
Kelly Kinder: But guess what?
Kelly Kinder: He prayed three times.
Kelly Kinder: God, would you take this away?
Kelly Kinder: Would you take my struggle away?
Kelly Kinder: Would you please take my struggle away?
Kelly Kinder: Maybe like we pray.
Kelly Kinder: And what did God say?
Kelly Kinder: My grace is sufficient for you because my power is perfected in weakness.
Kelly Kinder: So therefore, I will glory in my weakness so that the power of Christ can rest on me.
Kelly Kinder: So when you're in a struggle and in a weak place, you know this is the hardest thing is to say, this is probably a good place to be.
Kelly Kinder: Because then I can see God work through me in something that I can't claim to have done myself.
Kelly Kinder: And you can give him all the glory for it.
Kelly Kinder: This is what Paul said to me, My grace is sufficient.
Kelly Kinder: Therefore, for the sake of Christ, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.
Kelly Kinder: For when I am weak, then I'm strong.
Kelly Kinder: That may be a total upside down the way you think about life.
Kelly Kinder: But that's the way the Christian life is.
Kelly Kinder: So when I ask you this morning, what are your weaknesses today?
Kelly Kinder: What are my weaknesses?
Kelly Kinder: Are you honest enough to admit them to God and to confess them to God and maybe to share it with someone you trust?
Kelly Kinder: Maybe you're a fearful person this morning.
Kelly Kinder: That's a struggle.
Kelly Kinder: Maybe you struggle with some kind of addiction and you're just like, I can't get over that.
Kelly Kinder: Maybe you get angry all the time and you can't seem to control that.
Kelly Kinder: Maybe you have a problem with pride, and you think you're always right, but then you realize, oh, that was bad.
Kelly Kinder: That was so bad.
Kelly Kinder: Why did I say that?
Kelly Kinder: We'll give it to Jesus.
Kelly Kinder: You see, some of our struggles are not just about what's going on and what happens to us, it's what's happening inside of us.
Kelly Kinder: And what's happening inside of us may be the very thing that God wants to allow so He can make you look like Jesus.
Kelly Kinder: So we see this is the essential preparation for winning in our struggles.
Kelly Kinder: It begins with building our relationship with Jesus and training our heart so that it is a strong heart, an enduring heart, a heart that doesn't give up in the battle before it comes.
Kelly Kinder: Because guess what?
Kelly Kinder: The battle is gonna come to you one way or another.
Kelly Kinder: It doesn't decide between any of us.
Kelly Kinder: So Paul moves now from his struggles, our strengths, to I think I could just call it the prime instigator of our struggles.
Kelly Kinder: And he tells us, how are you gonna deal with this, this unseen force?
Kelly Kinder: And this is in verse 11, the vital protection.
Kelly Kinder: Look at it.
Kelly Kinder: Verse 11, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
Kelly Kinder: The whole armor is the English way of saying it.
Kelly Kinder: It's really just one word in the Greek, it's panoplea.
Kelly Kinder: It's like it's the whole kit that a soldier was assigned, and he was given different pieces of equipment, which we're gonna be talking about in a few weeks.
Kelly Kinder: But he says, don't just put on the a piece of it.
Kelly Kinder: Don't just carry your sword around thinking that's all you need, or your helmet.
Kelly Kinder: Put the whole kit on, because you're gonna need all of it.
Kelly Kinder: You're gonna need all of it.
Kelly Kinder: And this is the this is the armor that was used by the heavily uh like the heaviest armed foot soldiers.
Kelly Kinder: Um so we're looking at this, and Paul's emphasis here is not really yet to describe all that armor.
Kelly Kinder: That comes in the next few verses in verses 14 and following.
Kelly Kinder: What is he trying to do?
Kelly Kinder: Would you just put it on?
Kelly Kinder: Just put it on.
Kelly Kinder: And I think partly, and I think as we go through the Christian life, we we get used to doing this as our routine, and we forget things that the scriptures said, you know how important this is?
Kelly Kinder: It's more important than you think.
Kelly Kinder: And then maybe we just need to revisit this as the church.
Kelly Kinder: Paul is highlighting just how serious this warfare is for us and the danger we put ourselves in in our spiritual lives if we just think it really doesn't matter.
Kelly Kinder: Because the threat is real.
Kelly Kinder: And God so He provides the armor.
Kelly Kinder: And as I said earlier, it's God's armor, and he wants to give it to you to put on.
Kelly Kinder: So why is this so critical?
Kelly Kinder: Well, the armor, the spiritual armor, covers those areas where we're vulnerable.
Kelly Kinder: Do you know where you're vulnerable in your spiritual life?
Kelly Kinder: We're gonna find out.
Kelly Kinder: But here's the thing I know our enemy is he's crafty and he's shrewd and he's cunning.
Kelly Kinder: Uh, he's opportunistic.
Kelly Kinder: He takes advantage of you when you think you are okay, and he takes advantage of a weakness that you you have in your life, and he capitalizes on it, and sometimes brings us down.
Kelly Kinder: You know what a lot of times, and this is how he came to Jesus, wasn't it, in the wilderness?
Kelly Kinder: Jesus in the wilderness 40 days.
Kelly Kinder: And when did the when did Satan approach Jesus?
Kelly Kinder: When he was weak and hungry.
Kelly Kinder: Hangry.
Kelly Kinder: Does the enemy come to you when you're hangry?
Kelly Kinder: He does me.
Kelly Kinder: Wife said, What's gotten into you?
Kelly Kinder: It's like, no.
Kelly Kinder: But he's opportunistic.
Kelly Kinder: The Bible says Satan prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
Kelly Kinder: You think, well, he pays attention to, he can't pay attention to me.
Kelly Kinder: He watches.
Kelly Kinder: He has destructive intentions.
Kelly Kinder: The Bible tells us what is his MO to steal, to kill, and destroy.
Kelly Kinder: And we we wonder if this is all that important.
Kelly Kinder: Some of the stuff that happens to us, I'm afraid, is because we haven't done what Paul is telling us here.
Kelly Kinder: I mean, I talked about my eye this morning.
Kelly Kinder: I told Tyler this morning, I think it I thought it was maybe a spiritual attack.
Kelly Kinder: Or maybe God wanted to teach me and test me to see how I would respond in it.
Kelly Kinder: God tests us, folks, to see how we'll respond.
Kelly Kinder: You know, I was watching, uh well, I can say I have watched numerous times, speaking of Memorial Day, uh, this series called Band of Brothers.
Kelly Kinder: Maybe you guys have some of you guys have seen it.
Kelly Kinder: It's it's a series by Stephen Ambrose, and it's about a real group of men who went through World War II.
Kelly Kinder: They were together in all the battles that they fought, and they fought some of the most famous battles in World War II that we still remember.
Kelly Kinder: Many of them died.
Kelly Kinder: And they all, I think, were really into doing what was asked of them.
Kelly Kinder: But I don't know that they saw the outcome of it really immediately during the battle.
Kelly Kinder: Well, they they won the battle, but what does this mean about the whole war?
Kelly Kinder: Maybe they didn't know.
Kelly Kinder: And until one of the later episodes in this Band of Brothers series, in an episode called Why We Fight.
Kelly Kinder: And I thought of this.
Kelly Kinder: I thought, what happens?
Kelly Kinder: They're kind of relaxed, they're not in a battle, they're kind of in an old French town, kind of taking it easy.
Kelly Kinder: And they decide to go out just kind of driving around, and one of the guys comes back and says, Sir, you need to come see this.
Kelly Kinder: He said, I'm busy.
Kelly Kinder: You need to come see this.
Kelly Kinder: So they get in a Jeep and they drive down the road and they come to the first concentration camp that was discovered in Nazi Germany.
Kelly Kinder: And these guys are behind the bars and emaciated, and many of them lying, as you've seen pictures, lying on the ground just in an awful condition.
Kelly Kinder: And they rescued them.
Kelly Kinder: And the same is true for what Jesus wants to do with us and for those who don't yet know him.
Kelly Kinder: He wants to rescue us from prison, from our sins, from our struggles.
Kelly Kinder: I said the devil's out to exploit us as Christians if he can do it.
Kelly Kinder: We saw some specific examples in chapter four.
Kelly Kinder: I'll just kind of refresh your mind here.
Kelly Kinder: Because he mentions a number of sins that the devil is able to exploit in us.
Kelly Kinder: In verse 27, it says Satan tries to gain a foothold in your life.
Kelly Kinder: And he does that as he exerts his influence through things like uncontrolled anger, falsehood, stealing, unwholesome talk, or any conduct that that is out of character or is in it looks like your old life.
Kelly Kinder: And Satan says, I can capitalize on that.
Kelly Kinder: So Paul is telling us, wear the armor.
Kelly Kinder: Just put it on.
Kelly Kinder: So then we've seen this essential preparation.
Kelly Kinder: We have to have a relationship with Jesus.
Kelly Kinder: It says has to be strong.
Kelly Kinder: We need to put on this vital armor that's God's armor for our protection.
Kelly Kinder: But the problem is we don't often know or recognize who the real enemy is.
Kelly Kinder: We think it's our husband or our wife.
Kelly Kinder: We think it's our boss.
Kelly Kinder: We think it's the nosy neighbor or the hard-to-get along friend that's causing us problems.
Kelly Kinder: And Paul says, no, it's not.
Kelly Kinder: It's none of that.
Kelly Kinder: I mean, Satan can use people like that.
Kelly Kinder: He can use a husband or a wife, he can use a person at work, a boss to do evil things.
Kelly Kinder: That's possible.
Kelly Kinder: But as I said, behind all that is one who puts thoughts in our minds to do things and say things that we know are not right.
Kelly Kinder: And so this is the real conflict.
Kelly Kinder: Verse 12.
Kelly Kinder: He says, For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Kelly Kinder: So he talks about here the nature of the battle.
Kelly Kinder: This is a battle that's spiritual.
Kelly Kinder: We do not wrestle against flesh and blood.
Kelly Kinder: In other words, it's not the people, folks.
Kelly Kinder: Your people, the people are not the enemy.
Kelly Kinder: Who are we fighting with then?
Kelly Kinder: And it's difficult, isn't it, to see that?
Kelly Kinder: That it's not the people, but it's an unseen spiritual force that's an evil force, a dark force.
Kelly Kinder: In the moment, we don't think that way.
Kelly Kinder: So we have to train ourselves.
Kelly Kinder: Maybe I need to stop here just a minute.
Kelly Kinder: Instead of getting all upset, I need to think, what's really going on?
Kelly Kinder: It's all up here.
Kelly Kinder: In fact, this is the main base of Satan's operations, is in your head, my head, the battleground is the mind.
Kelly Kinder: But it's spiritual, not physical.
Kelly Kinder: Second, he says the power of the enemy is significant.
Kelly Kinder: So don't underestimate him.
Kelly Kinder: Do not underestimate him.
Kelly Kinder: He says, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Kelly Kinder: We can probably, if we go through that, uh kind of identify four characteristics here about these forces.
Kelly Kinder: They're evil, they're organized, they're powerful, and they're invisible.
Kelly Kinder: This makes it a hard fight to fight.
Kelly Kinder: By extension, that means they're deceptive, right?
Kelly Kinder: It's like you don't always know.
Kelly Kinder: Is this God putting me through a test?
Kelly Kinder: Maybe he's just allowing this to happen.
Kelly Kinder: So I'll get some things in my life that need to be looked at and changed.
Kelly Kinder: But he always uses the enemy.
Kelly Kinder: He's over the enemy.
Kelly Kinder: God and Satan are not equals.
Kelly Kinder: God created Satan and his forces.
Kelly Kinder: But Paul's intention then here is not to name these powers and explain all about who they are.
Kelly Kinder: It's not important here.
Kelly Kinder: What's he doing?
Kelly Kinder: He just wants you to know they exist.
Kelly Kinder: And then sometimes they are involved in people's lives, sometimes they're involved in government, sometimes they're involved in in political organizations.
Kelly Kinder: This is a personal force.
Kelly Kinder: And he influences people in every place, including the church.
Kelly Kinder: It's like, well, this is crazy.
Kelly Kinder: This guy's nuts.
Kelly Kinder: But we would be really making a big mistake not to know that these things exist.
Kelly Kinder: Here's what Klein Snodgrass says about this.
Kelly Kinder: He says, understanding worldviews, that's the way you see the world, is key to breaking free from the ways the powers control people's minds.
Kelly Kinder: A worldview dictates the way we see the world, it provides a picture of the nature of things.
Kelly Kinder: Through the lens of our worldview, we make sense of our experiences.
Kelly Kinder: So if you don't allow for the fact there's a real devil, you're gonna be really at a disadvantage.
Kelly Kinder: So what we have to do, we have to embrace a biblical view of reality if we want to overcome the struggles.
Kelly Kinder: That's what I'm saying.
Kelly Kinder: That's what Paul is getting at here.
Kelly Kinder: So we've seen this essential preparation.
Kelly Kinder: Have a relationship with Jesus that's strong.
Kelly Kinder: Where the duds, put on the armor.
Kelly Kinder: But if we just kind of left it there, we could easily get discouraged because the battle, as you know and I know, it just never ends.
Kelly Kinder: Jesus said, every day has enough trouble of its own.
Kelly Kinder: That means there's trouble every day.
Kelly Kinder: The enemy sees to that.
Kelly Kinder: We get tired, we want to give up.
Kelly Kinder: But you need to know, and I need to know as believers, you can take and hold the ground that Paul has talked about all through this letter, and you can hold on to it and not let the enemy take it from you.
Kelly Kinder: The only thing you have to do is fight for it.
Kelly Kinder: And so we come to the last point, the believer's victory, verse 13.
Kelly Kinder: He says, Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having all done all to stand firm.
Kelly Kinder: He said, When's the evil day?
Kelly Kinder: Today, it's the day evil comes to you.
Kelly Kinder: It's the day evil comes to visit you.
Kelly Kinder: None of us, I said, are immune to this.
Kelly Kinder: You have a bad day.
Kelly Kinder: None of us gets to decide that we're going to take a pass from having a bad day.
Kelly Kinder: Or go through some hardship, but maybe have a struggle in your health, in your finances, in your relationships.
Kelly Kinder: We don't get to decide that.
Kelly Kinder: It just comes to us.
Kelly Kinder: It's the evil day, it's the struggle.
Kelly Kinder: But if it comes to you, you'll be glad, and I'll be glad that we learn to put on the armor.
Kelly Kinder: So look at look at what he's saying here.
Kelly Kinder: When the evil day comes, we will stand victorious over it.
Kelly Kinder: And that's just really just a promise that the evil one loses his power when we take on the armor of God.
Kelly Kinder: Because it's God's armor, remember?
Kelly Kinder: And that's why Jesus taught us to pray.
Kelly Kinder: Deliver us from the evil one.
Kelly Kinder: So here's the thing: don't give up.
Kelly Kinder: Don't surrender.
Kelly Kinder: Don't think I'm too tired to keep on going.
Kelly Kinder: This is why the church exists.
Kelly Kinder: So that if you fall down, you've got people to say, I'm gonna help you up.
Kelly Kinder: It's not the end, it's not over.
Kelly Kinder: Let's let's get up and keep going on together.
Kelly Kinder: Don't retreat, don't surrender.
Kelly Kinder: So this is Paul's notes here.
Kelly Kinder: Let me let me kind of give you some lessons that we need to remember, I think, as we go through this.
Kelly Kinder: There's just three quick ones.
Kelly Kinder: Number one, the struggles of our life test our faith.
Kelly Kinder: The struggles of our life test our faith.
Kelly Kinder: The Bible says that in 1 Peter 1, 6 and 7, in this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.
Kelly Kinder: So that the testing tested genuines of your faith, more precious than gold, that perishes, though it's tested by fire, maybe may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Kelly Kinder: The struggles of our life test our faith.
Kelly Kinder: And one of the ways God tests our faith is to see what we'll do when things get hard.
Kelly Kinder: Okay, big boy, let's see what you got.
Kelly Kinder: And what does it do?
Kelly Kinder: It shows us where we're weak in our faith.
Kelly Kinder: Maybe we've lost a job.
Kelly Kinder: Maybe we've got an issue with our health, as I said.
Kelly Kinder: God just wants to see if we will trust him or not.
Kelly Kinder: Second, the struggles of our life build our faith.
Kelly Kinder: The struggles of our life build our faith.
Kelly Kinder: Count it all joy, he says in James, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Kelly Kinder: See, God will let us come into times where we really have no answers.
Kelly Kinder: And we want to escape, don't we?
Kelly Kinder: We want to run, but God wants to get us to trust Him more, even in the middle of it.
Kelly Kinder: And then the third thing, the struggles of our lives allow us to glorify God.
Kelly Kinder: That's hard to learn and hard to do.
Kelly Kinder: But it's possible.
Kelly Kinder: You know, years ago, I found myself in a in a pretty confusing place.
Kelly Kinder: I was um I was without without a church and no place to go.
Kelly Kinder: And um, I remember it well.
Kelly Kinder: We we were driving down Kingston Pike.
Kelly Kinder: I can still picture.
Kelly Kinder: We were in the in the van, and my wife for some reason was was that day was driving.
Kelly Kinder: I was just sitting in the passenger seat and I was just talking to God, and I said, Lord, how um how long is it gonna be before I find a place to serve again?
Kelly Kinder: I just remember clear as day.
Kelly Kinder: And and guess what?
Kelly Kinder: I heard a response, not an audible response, but it came right into my head.
Kelly Kinder: And the the the word was, would it bother you if it was eight or nine months?
Kelly Kinder: I'm you know, God, is that you or am I making this up?
Kelly Kinder: You know how we do.
Kelly Kinder: And I sat there thinking, eight or nine months, how are we gonna make it till then, God?
Kelly Kinder: And then a verse, another verse, a verse of scripture popped into my head.
Kelly Kinder: It was from, and I later found out this is from Deuteronomy 29 5, but it was like the here were the words.
Kelly Kinder: The children of Israel were 40 years in the wilderness, their clothes did not wear out, and Her sandals never grew old.
Kelly Kinder: Right there, driving down Kingston Pike.
Kelly Kinder: I said, God, that's you.
Kelly Kinder: And I just said, Wow, out loud.
Kelly Kinder: My wife is kind of like, wow, what?
Kelly Kinder: And I told her.
Kelly Kinder: And she sat there a minute and she said, you know, eight or nine months, that's how long it takes for a baby to be born.
Kelly Kinder: And I thought, what are you talking about?
Kelly Kinder: I was like, you didn't hear what I said, did you?
Kelly Kinder: But she said, that's how long it takes for a baby to be born.
Kelly Kinder: And I said, That's all I said.
Kelly Kinder: You know, well, from that time on, we never lacked a thing.
Kelly Kinder: And we found money show up in the in the most odd places.
Kelly Kinder: One time we found $1,000 in our locked van, just in an envelope, and found it in our mailbox.
Kelly Kinder: Just, and I'm thinking, nobody knows this.
Kelly Kinder: But there's money coming from nowhere.
Kelly Kinder: Well, it sounded like it was from somewhere.
Kelly Kinder: And here's the thing: nine months to the day, because we counted it back, nine months to the day that I heard that from God.
Kelly Kinder: I had a friend of mine approach me and he said, I got something I want to ask you.
Kelly Kinder: He said, I feel like God wants me to help start a church.
Kelly Kinder: He said, I feel like I'm supposed to be the worship pastor.
Kelly Kinder: And I feel like he wants you to be to be the pastor.
Kelly Kinder: And I hope God taught me something.
Kelly Kinder: I could never have learned if I had not gone through the struggle.
Kelly Kinder: And he does that with us, folks.
Kelly Kinder: The struggles of our lives allow us to glorify God.
Kelly Kinder: Let me finish up with this thought and we'll be done.
Kelly Kinder: We shouldn't be surprised by the struggles we go through.
Kelly Kinder: We just shouldn't.
Kelly Kinder: As John Calvin put it like this, he said, It is no new thing for the Lord to permit his saints to be undeservedly, undeservedly exposed to the cruelty of the ungodly.
Kelly Kinder: And so what we have to do in the middle of the struggle, struggles, we have to remember the goodness of God.
Kelly Kinder: The goodness of God, which never changes.
Kelly Kinder: Anchored in the truth, not swayed by culture, not moved by emotion, not pressured by circumstances or just the difficulty itself.
Kelly Kinder: Through Christ, we are not victims.
Kelly Kinder: We are victorious.
Kelly Kinder: Amen.
Kelly Kinder: So would you stand?
Kelly Kinder: I'm just gonna pray for us.
Kelly Kinder: And I want you to listen to this verse.
Kelly Kinder: And I'm gonna have one thing while you're standing, just so you could get up and move.
Kelly Kinder: I had this verse come to me.
Kelly Kinder: Romans 8 37.
Kelly Kinder: It says, In all these things, we have complete victory, or we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Kelly Kinder: And um I'll tell you this little quick story.
Kelly Kinder: If I just wanted to get you standing up here so you kind of pay attention.
Kelly Kinder: You know, when I was a kid, uh they had tennis shoes out, uh athletic shoes, and they were called PF Flyers.
Kelly Kinder: Who many who remembers PF Flyers?
Kelly Kinder: And I uh I was so excited, I was like six or seven years old, and my mom was gonna take me to Buster Brown and get a pair of PF Flyers because you know the promise.
Kelly Kinder: Not only did you get a whistle, which I was so excited about, the promise was that you could run faster and jump higher.
Kelly Kinder: And I was thrilled that I was gonna be able to run faster and jump higher.
Kelly Kinder: Of course, that didn't pan out, but it made me want the shoes.
Kelly Kinder: And then PF Flyers were eventually replaced by a shoe we called Nike, right?
Kelly Kinder: Nike?
Kelly Kinder: And it's the word here: Nikkei.
Kelly Kinder: In fact, it's not really Nikkei, it's Hooper Nikoman.
Kelly Kinder: You say, what does that mean?
Kelly Kinder: It's hyper victory.
Kelly Kinder: Hyper victory.
Kelly Kinder: Victory beyond victory.
Kelly Kinder: And could be translated, we are winning the most glorious victory.
Kelly Kinder: Yeah.
Kelly Kinder: So you get the picture.
Kelly Kinder: God is gonna bring you through so you can glorify him and know him like you've never known him before.
Kelly Kinder: This is his plan, and I want to pray for that for us today.
Kelly Kinder: Father, we're thankful for your word this morning, how it calls us to higher places, help, helps us to understand the unseen realm that you've created, even the dark forces that are against us.
Kelly Kinder: Lord, I pray for every person who's struggling this morning, Lord, that you would visit them in a personal way today.
Kelly Kinder: There's people that don't know you.
Kelly Kinder: Lord, I pray that they'd come to you and trust you with the faith that you've given them to trust you and believe in you as the Lord Jesus Christ.
Kelly Kinder: Lord, and I pray for every person, Lord, whatever struggle, if it's in the job, in a relationship, in a uh just a hard place, maybe it's a health thing, Lord, I pray that right now they would just give that to you.
Kelly Kinder: So if you're there by faith, whatever your struggle is today, would you just silently there just for a moment, give that to God?
Kelly Kinder: So, Jesus, according to your promise, Lord, you promise that we have the victory through you.
Kelly Kinder: Would you honor these requests and help us to come to a higher place in our walk with you because of our struggles?
Kelly Kinder: And we pray this in the mighty name of Jesus.
Kelly Kinder: Amen.