The After Sermon /// Are you in a battle you can’t see?

Welcome to The After Sermon by Plum Creek Church.

This bite-sized discussion is where we get to sit down with our communicators and ask a few follow up questions connected to the weekend message, unpack it on a deeper level, and explore how it all relates to our journey of following Jesus more fully.

What if the biggest challenges in your life aren’t actually the battle?

In this episode of The After Sermon, Tomy sits down with Eric Parks to unpack one of the most misunderstood passages in Ephesians. Together they explore what it means to “wrestle not against flesh and blood,” why most of us naturally rely on our own strength, and how shifting our focus from the enemy to Jesus changes everything.

Whether you’re navigating stress, conflict, grief, or uncertainty, this conversation is a reminder that we’re invited to stand in a victory that’s already been won.

This conversation is also available on our YouTube channel along with the full sermon that this discussion is based on.

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@plumcreekchurch

You can learn more about Plum Creek Church by visiting our website as well.

Website: https://plumcreek.church/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Well, welcome to the after sermon. We are so excited to sit down with our communicator here, get some additional thoughts from the sermon that we just heard. I'm not your usual host here. You might have seen me here a couple times. Usually I'm on that side of the table. My name's Tommy. I'm our lead student pastor here. And Eric, what an incredible job in your sermon today. Yeah, absolutely. Maybe for those that haven't had a chance to watch it, which if you haven't, you should go back, find the full thing. But give us just kind of a quick recap of where we went today.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Well, we were in a series, Ephesians chapter, or we today is Ephesians 6, but you kicked us off and we've been walking through each chapter, sort of pulling out uh not verse by verse, but pulling out the main theme of the chapter, and then highlighting the entire letter to the Church of Ephesus. And I was in chapter six, and I highlighted the singular idea that Apostle Paul says in Ephesians six, midway through, that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers. So this idea that there truly is an unseen spiritual world, and it's as real as the table. Yeah. So for sure. That was the that was the message in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Yeah, and it's so good because I think, yeah, we find ourselves so often of like, well, I gotta figure this out. And like it's kind of up to me. And I think this kind of a mindset shift could make such a difference. But what do you think it would practically begin to look like? How would it change the way that we lived if we really reminded ourselves constantly of this truth that we're not wrestling against flesh and blood?

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Well, I mean, it's it is hard. I recognize that as a pastor, because when you're in this is when the rubber hits the road, when you're in a pickle, like right when something's not going particularly well and you can see it and and taste it. Yeah. Whether that's like you know, a blip in the marriage or the not enough zeros on the bank account or whatever is real, right? Um, what our default is, and we've been taught this as Westerners and particularly as Americans, like, well, then that's on you, buddy. Like, you have to figure out how to get another zero in that bank account. Like, you need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and you figure this out. And while I'm not suggesting that hard work uh should be ignored, what I am saying is that, and what the Apostle Paul is saying is, hey, do you know like a lot of your problems, they're not just physical. I know you can see it, but we're wrestling against something else. There's an unseen world that's happening all around you all the time. And um if we were to maybe lean a little more into that reality, that hey, this is maybe beyond my pay grade skill set and strength level, um there's actually something pretty beautiful in that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Well, it at the very least starts to pull so much of the pressure off, right? Totally. But I I love the way you started this out of like, hold on, let's actually back up to Acts because there's a whole lot of context that we see happening in the world. Big old story that that now all of a sudden it helps us to see what he's speaking into or through the book of Ephesians here. And I loved what you said. You said in their day, they saw the spiritual everywhere, they were looking for spiritual solutions for everything, but they were also looking in every direction for it, right? Whereas we maybe have the opposite problem where we look at that too little. How do maybe we try to find the balance so that we don't swing the pendulum back to where they were? It actually reminds me of C.S. Lewis at the beginning of the screw tape letters, right? Where he's like, there's two big mistakes we can make here when it comes to like the powers and principalities. And the first is to act like they don't exist. And I think that's probably where we as Western Americans tend to live more often. But then the second problem is that we get so fixated on them that it's like giving them more power in some way, right? Where it's like we're praying the demons out of the carpet or whatever. And and so, how do we find that balance where it's like, oh, there actually is more going on here without swinging the pendulum to kind of what you were saying, where it's like, well, now it's there's nothing on me. I'm just gonna sit on the corner of my house and wait for God to show up.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Dude, that's a really good point because we do know people who are so spiritually minded they're of no earthly good, right? I mean, that that's the truth. I think the difference is um focus on when you think about the spiritual world, the focus isn't on the demons, the focus really is on this God of the universe, right? Uh Orperg used it, he had this, and Doug's done a message on this. He talks about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's at work around us all the time, all the time, like all the time, and that the job of us as believers is to find out where he is at work and join him there. And it's a little bit like um the book uh Where's Waldo, where the more you look for the Holy Spirit, the more you'll see him. But it's not, I think we get off track when we're looking for the devil instead of the Holy Spirit. That is not to say that there are not principalities, it's pretty clear. But if you notice, a majority, he has one line that says, This is true, this is real, and then he goes through hey, here is how you sort of gear yourself up to live in this reality, and it's all God-centered, right? It's like this breastplate, the true, the the shoes of peace, the helmet of salvation. He begins to, and then he says, like, in in all things in prayer and supplication, like always coming before God. I think the key is understanding in this spiritual sense, how does the pendulum not swing the other way? I actually think being focused on the God of the universe in that spiritual conversation versus oh, there's a devil gonna get me. The devil's gonna get me. Um, I I think that's also a major difference between what was happening in Ephesus and then this these followers of the way. They weren't focused on trinkets and gizmos and incantations and spells, they literally were focused on the way, yeah, Jesus, learning how to walk with this master of the universe, pardon the um, you know, movie pun. So it's not good. Yeah, so I mean, I think it's all about focus, right? Like, um, God is real, yeah, he's at work. How how do I see him? You know, and I do think I do know for me, when I'm looking for God at work in spiritual ways all around me, it changes everything about my day, right? Absolutely. I'm not really all that worried about all the other things, whether physical or spiritual. Like these things that are coming again. Here is a God who can do more than I can imagine or think, immeasurably more. So it's learning how to live in that truth and trust that.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

I think that's so good because you could focus on the threats and still try to do it out of your own power. 100%. It's like I'm aware that these threats are here, but again, it's still kind of up to me, versus like, yeah, no, if we keep our eyes on Jesus, it it actually reminds me of of uh Matthew 5 in the message paraphrase where he was like, You're blessed when you're at the end of your road. Oh, I love that. Because with less of you, there's more room for God. Yeah, and so it's it's this reminder of like, hey, yeah, we actually have to just get out of the way a little bit, learn to turn towards gods in those moments, or towards God in those moments. And I love like the three practical steps that you gave to help us to practically learn how to do that so that we aren't like, yep, there is a God, he is good, and yet so much of our life is not ever oriented towards focus our focus being on him. Right. And so again, maybe give us like a practical example, walk through something that would show us, hey, yeah, I have been putting this on as armor, but it's time to let go of that so that I can find the real armor of God.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

And that's really important, Tommy, because I think when we hear something like this and we hear, oh, those people were putting on trinkets, I mean, think about what they were actually doing, they were just grabbing onto something for safety and control and some security. Well, you may not wear a trinket, but we do that all the time. Absolutely. And our chat my challenge this weekend was hey, what's one thing, as the apostle Paul sort of said to put what's a trinket you could lay aside? What's a thing that you have gone to for security, support to soothe, right? Something physical. Um, what could you identify and lay aside? The one thing, and what's one thing from the armor uh that you need to put on this week? Is it like do you do you need that helmet of salvation where you're reminded, okay? Um, the apostle Paul says, it does not matter how far, how long, how you cannot escape the love of God. You can't. So, like, is that what I need? Do I need a little bit of breastplate of righteousness? In other words, like, hey, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna do the right thing. I'm gonna walk out these things this week. Is it peace of the shoes? And I like the shoes because it's like shoes sort of say, where are you? You know, we often say like, um, where your feet are planted. And um, I think we get ourselves in in trouble when we take our current situation and project it forward a bunch. But either way, but it's particularly negatively, we're like, well, it's not good right now, so it's always gonna not be good. And he said, No, no, just stand in this moment, yeah, understand the truth in this moment. And so I don't know what someone needs to put on this week, but it was what is one thing I can lay aside that this week I've held to for comfort. What's one thing I can put on? And then the invitation is this is the beauty of the church, we do it together. I think um what was really cool to me is underlying that verse in Acts chapter 19 is 25,000 people, Paul was not actually by himself. There were two other disciples that were hauled into the arena, and the disciples grabbed him and pulled him away. In other words, like they were together. They're like, Well, we're in this together. I think that's the beauty of the church. And so tell somebody this week, what is the thing that's maybe not going great in your marriage, or maybe there's some struggles with finances, or maybe there's um a wayward child, or some grief that you've held on to. Uh, share it with someone.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Yeah, so good. I I mean, all honestly, all of this is going all the way back to follow of like how we rearrange our lives around what he said was true. Yeah, and what he says is true here is that the battle is not ours to fight. Not ours. We will be the ones fighting, and yet not out of our own power, out of his geared up through the truth, through the righteousness that really is Jesus' righteousness at work in our lives, all these ways.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Dallas said this, he said, Um, we often live with in this reality that we are um permanent physical beings having a temporary spiritual experience, but in actuality, we are permanent spiritual beings having this temporary physical experience. And when we can live in that, we can know, hey, yes, there was a battle. Yeah, it actually has already been one. And I fight whatever I'm I stand in, not for victory, in victory. It it's it's already been done, it's already in the pages of the book. So good. What a great reminder. Well, thank you. Yeah, man. Appreciate you.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Appreciate you. Hey, if you did not get a chance to watch this full sermon, do yourself a favor, go check it out. In fact, the entire series as it builds on itself so well, you can find those episodes anywhere you listen to your podcast. So make sure you check those out. But thanks so much for tuning in. We cannot wait to see you back here again soon.