Winning the War - Prepare for War

Life doesn't warn you before it swings. A medical scare. A marriage on the rocks. A kid who won't listen. The moment the punch lands, you find out what you were really prepared for. In this episode, Pastor Jason unpacks 1 Timothy 6:12 and Ephesians 6:10-13 to show that God never promised us an easy life — He called us to a good fight, and He's already given us everything we need to win it. You'll learn why comfort is quietly making you weaker, how to spot the real enemy (hint: it's rarely the person standing in front of you), and what it actually means to "stand firm" when the pressure hits. If you've been running from conflict instead of preparing for it, this one's your wake-up call.

Grab a notebook for this one — take some notes and honestly assess where you need to prepare for the spiritual battles in your life.

Visit us at Generations Cowboy Church for more info about our church or find ways you can support what God is doing at GCC!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:26

If you want to click or flip in scripture, we're going to go to Ephesians 6, is where we're going to land and we're going to build from this chunk of scripture over the coming weeks. If you are not a note taker, I might encourage you in this series, maybe for the first time, to take a few notes. Because if you've ever wondered how to learn to win some spiritual fights in your life, I believe scripture is going to give us a very great recipe, a very great set of instructions on how to begin to find those moments. And so if you have kids in here, I'm just going to preface this right now. I'm not condoning violence, but we're going to talk about how to win the fight. And here's what I do remember I remember the first time I got in a fight. I remember that there was a moment when I was riding around on my bike, and there were two neighborhood boys that like to pick and bully me. And I was riding by on a bike one day, and one of them picked up a rock and hit me in the back of the head with that rock and chucked it at me. And I remember putting my hand back there and I remember feeling the knot on the back of my head. And about that time, I learned whether I have the fight or flight mentality. And it was not the flight mentality. Everything went red. I got off of that bike and it was two versus one. And I picked the biggest one with one swing and hit him right in the jaw and knocked him to the ground. And his brother didn't know what to do after that. So he left his brother on the ground crying and he ran home. And then I got a home and I got an intervention with my mother and father for just a moment as to why I did such a thing until they saw the knot on the back of my head. And then they engaged in conversation with those two boys' mothers. And so here's what I can tell you. I'm not condoning violence, but in my house, my daddy told me, you don't start a fight, but you can dang sure finish it. That the reality is there are just moments where we're in this life, this might be like a new perspective for some of us, but we are actually called to engage in some fights. That there's a reality that for some of us we understand because we're in fights right now. Like maybe there is a medical emergency happening in your life and it feels like a fight. Maybe there is a financial crisis in your life and it feels like you're in a fight. Maybe your marriage is struggling or feels like it's falling apart. Maybe you have a relationship with kids that, as hard as you try to build it and be good, it just seems like it's a struggle and it keeps falling apart. Maybe you wrestle with anxiety, maybe you fight depression, and it seems like no matter what happens, it just continues to pour. And so many times we think in those moments, God, where are you at? And I want to suggest that I believe what scripture teaches us is that God is right there with us in the middle of the fight. And I believe sometimes God leads us to fights. But 1 Timothy 6 12, he says this fight the good fight. I mean, what did he just tell us to do? Fight. But he said, the good fight. Fight the good fight for the true faith. Hold tightly to the eternal life which God has called you, which you have declared so well before many witnesses. One of the things Paul told Timothy at the end of his life, fight the good fight. Like he's teaching us as well in this moment that as followers of Jesus, there are some fights he will lead you to. And if he leads you to a fight, he will lead you through the fight. And what oftentimes happens for us is we get to the opposition and we find out real fast whether we're a fight or flight mode. And many of us just kind of crumple and quit when opposition happens. I believe Mike Tyson said it best. The great theologian Mike Tyson once said, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Or if it was Mike Tyson, it was punched in the mouth because he had that lisp, right? I wish I could say it that way. Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Why? Because once that happens, you begin to understand how prepared am I for what's coming. And I believe God is trying to prepare us for what is coming in our life so that no matter what happens to you or to me, there will never be an enemy that we face where we can't step into that fight with confidence and know God is going to take me through this to the other side. As long as I'm fighting the good fight, some of y'all just like to fight. Like, that's dumb. Like, you realize you don't have to fight every fight that comes your way. As a pastor, I've learned there are moments where people attack my character and integrity, and I don't engage in those fights. Because if the history of my life and the character that I've lived out doesn't preach a good enough message, then you should go find another pastor that you trust that does have that. If I had to defend myself in every fight, I would be exhausted and I would never do the work God has called me to do. And so I'm trying to learn how to fight the good fights and not just get in a fight. There's a difference. Some of y'all's marriage would be a whole lot better if you could learn that. Not every fight needs to be fought. Honey, I told you to put the toilet seat down. I know. And then we just want to kind of go and point out everything she didn't do, right? And then she won't, and then some fights are just best left undone. Just flip the toilet seat down and roll on. And so we're gonna look in scripture. Paul gives us uh a recipe here that I believe that winning the fight starts by preparing for war. Everybody thinks that that when opposition comes, we will just rise to the occasion. But I'm here to tell you a really hard truth. You never rise to the occasion in those moments. You fall to the highest level of your preparation. If you ever served in military, they're not sitting around on a base eating ice cream just hanging out. What are they doing? Preparing so that when the fight comes, they don't rise to the occasion, they fall to the level of what they're prepared to do. And so if every time in your life opposition comes and you fall apart, then we have a preparation problem. Not an enemy problem. We're gonna see that in a moment. It's time to prepare for war. And I believe that's what God is calling us to do. And so let's look in Ephesians 6 because I believe Paul's gonna teach us how we win the fight, and it starts by how we prepare. Ephesians 6 10, he says this a final word be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. If you want to learn how to be prepared for the opposition the enemy is going to bring your way, it starts right here in verse 10. He said, Be strong. Now I don't know about you, but if I want to be strong, there's something I have to do to be strong. It's called, it's a dirty word exercise, and it involves this thing that nobody likes called discipline and consistency. That if we're gonna be strong, we got to do the things that make us strong. We keep waiting for the enemy to come and punch us in the mouth, and if that happens and it will, and you want to respond to that in a way that Christ has called you to, you got to be strong. And to be strong, you have to get strong. You have to do the things that will help you grow some strength spiritually so that you can be strong. It is an action that we are called to, it is a reality that we are decided, we have to decide ahead of time. I'm going to be strong. I'm going to do things to make myself strong. I'm 46 years old. I like to hit kettlebells in the morning. I don't do it inside in the air conditioning. I do it on my back porch in this heat and humidity because I don't want to just do hard things. I want to do really hard, sucky things. So that when it gets really bad, I'm conditioned to realize I can make it through it. The other day I went for a run at 9 a.m. I don't know how hot it was. It was terrible. And by the time I done, I hated every minute of it, but I did it because it was hard and it's making me stronger. And for some of us, if you hit opposition and life falls apart, then maybe it's time to start preparing by doing the things to make you stronger. Because for most of us, here's what happens when life is going good, this is just human nature in general, including me. We tend to coast, don't we? When life is good, I may or may not go to church. Everything's great. When life is going good, I may or may not open my Bible and read it. When life is going good, I'm I may on rare occasions have a conversation with God. And we should eliminate the ones at dinner where we say, God bless this meat, let's eat, because I'm not sure how much that really counts, but we rarely have a conversation with God when things are going good. But when stuff hits the fan, all of a sudden, where do we run? Where do we turn? Man, we come running to God at that point in church every Sunday, cracking open that Bible, trying to. The question is, why do we wait until it hits the fan? And how could our life be different if we actually prepared before it got there? You want to get stronger spiritually? Here's a really easy way. Open your Bible and start reading it. Because you can't know the voice of God if you don't know the word of God, because the voice of God sounds like the word of God. That's why we do a Bible reading plan. You're like, man, it's halfway through the year, I'm already behind. I don't care. Pick up where we're at. You know, the best time to read scripture was yesterday, the next best time is today. Start somewhere. You want to get stronger? Develop a prayer life. Have a conversation with God. You want to know why we invite people down at the end of service to pray? To get stronger. Because we don't have to face the things we face in life alone. Why are we going to talk about signing up for groups in August? Because when you find a community of people who are following Jesus, they help you get stronger. Here's what I know. Sometimes I have friends that say, You want to go run? Yeah. Because when I'm running with somebody else, it doesn't feel as bad. I went running with a teenage boy the other day and we got done, and he told his mom, Yes, I was going. She said, It went good, but I had to slow down for Pastor Jason. And he's right, because I kept trying to push to keep up with him, and I got done at the end, and I was sucking when. Because sometimes we need somebody to push us to do a little more than we would be comfortable doing. Sometimes we need somebody to pick us up. So don't wait till it hits the fan to get strong. Get strong now. And then when it hits the fan, you will be ready. You won't just take a punch from the enemy, you'll dish one back. That's what we're about to see that we've been called to do here. The invitation is to be strong before the fight. And he says, be strong in the Lord. Here's the beauty of it. He doesn't say you have to be strong enough. He said, Be strong enough in me. And if we in case we've forgotten, he never runs out of strength. Let me say that again. In case you've forgotten, Jesus' strength never wavers. He's yet to find a load that was too heavy that he couldn't lift. He carried the weight of the sin of all of humanity. And he said, Ain't no grave. I wish I could sing that. I'm gonna hold this body down. And he got out of that tomb. And he's alive. Be strong in the Lord. When you run out of strength, it's the time to lean into him and say, Give me strength. This is the way we prepare for the fight that he's called us into. Ephesians 6, 11 through 13, we're gonna keep rolling. But put on all God's armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all the strategies of the devil. For we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies. Hold that thought because we're coming back there. But against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against all evil spirits in heavenly places. Therefore, put on every piece of God's armor. If you didn't realize this, God has already equipped you for the fight. There's actually an amazing book if you ever want to read it. It's called Dress to Kill. Like you're not just made to endure a defensive posture in this life. We're actually dressed to be on the offensive by God. Therefore, put on every piece of God's armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle, what does it say? You will be standing firm. He doesn't say you may be. If you do this and you equip yourself with the right spiritual armor that he has called us to equip ourselves with, when the fight is over, you will be standing firm. If you're looking for a promise to underline or highlight in your scripture, it doesn't get any better than that. Whatever battle you're facing, you strap on God's armor, you get God's weapons for it, you'll be standing at the end still. And so, so how do we prepare for war? We got to get the right mindset. I think for some of us, we lose right away because our mind is not in the right spot. You want to know, again, why military trains the way they do. So the mindset is there to where they don't even have to think about what I should do in this moment. That I've done it so much that out of muscle memory and the rhythm of what I've done, I know how to respond without thinking. The mindset's already there. So when the fight comes, it's what comes out. And if you want to get the mindset that scripture has for us, then we have to understand that we can't lose. If you want to get a mindset that tells you that you are the winner, it is the fact that Satan has already lost. And if you're in the fight, you need to understand if Satan has already lost, that means you've already won. That's the winning mindset that Paul is telling us here. When you face opposition, God isn't sitting in heaven saying, I hope you win. He's sitting in heaven saying, I've already won. And if you would just do what I've asked you to do, you're going to come out the other side a winner. But one thing God never promised to do was remove opposition from our life. All you got to do is start in Genesis and read the revelation. And everywhere through scripture, God's people faced opposition. Everywhere. So if we're going to adopt the winning mindset, then you got to understand one thing: you're only defeated by yourself. Satan can't beat you. So I'm going to say that again. If you're taking notes, that would be a great thing to write down. You are only defeated by yourself. Satan can't beat you. You're undefeatable with Jesus. And so the trick with Satan is he gets you to believe a lie so that you will surrender victory to him. We often fear the things we face, and the reality is we've already won them if we would just trust Jesus. But we listen to the voice of Satan instead of listening to God, and we surrender the victory that God's already given to us, and we accept defeat when we do every time. It is not a question of will we win, it's when we win. And so many times we're defeated because we choose to believe we can't win. And if you're trying to fight it in your own power, you can't win. Let me just tell you right now, you'll lose every time. Hands down. That's why he said, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. And so the mindset that we have to adopt oftentimes that costs us the victory is we've somehow believed life should be easy and comfortable. Anyone else thought that? Man, when I give my life to Jesus, it's gonna be all rainbows and unicorns and all my problems are gonna go away. My marriage is just magically gonna fix itself, and my kids are just gonna listen to every word I say and always be excited about going to church and then reality hits and you get punched in the mouth by Satan, right? Because life was never designed to be about making you or me comfortable. And I would suggest comfort is our greatest enemy. There are psychological studies that happen right now, that we are one of the safest and most comfortable societies that has ever existed on earth, and yet anxiety and depression is at the highest levels it's ever been. That there is a correlation between our desire to seek comfort and safety that actually elevates the anxiety and depression in our lives. The more safe we make ourselves, the more comfortable we make ourselves, the more anxious and depressed we make ourselves. That is why God would say fight the good fight, because it was never about being comfortable. It was about engaging in the fight that you've already won. And here's how I know like you and I know this. Right now, there are underground churches in China and in the middle of East, in the Middle East. On a meeting like this, we don't even think twice. We pull in, we park our cars out front. We kind of hope people see that I'm here at this church, walk right through the doors proud. Over there, when they came to church today, every person had to walk or drive a different route to the place where they were coming to church. Because if the government found out where they were meeting, they would be arrested and shut down. And so you want to know to me why I say comfort is the enemy? That's why. Because in that church, in that moment, they're not upset that somebody took away their chocolate-covered donuts. They're not mad because the pastor walked by them and he didn't smile and say hi. But in our comfortable sanitized environments, it's funny the things that we start getting hung up on. They're right now, there are moments where they worship. Man, today worship Julie, Cody. I mean, like, man, it was great. They don't they don't get to sing out loud, they print off pages, hold the lyrics up, and one person stands up there to keep them in time without saying a word. They can't sing out loud because they're afraid if they do, they're gonna be hurt and get caught. All they can do is read the lyrics on a piece of paper and worship in their head. And we get mad because somebody sings a song we don't like. Because we're pursuing the wrong things. And we let them become the thing that hangs us up, and we let them become the thing the enemy uses to trip up what God is trying to do. Like, I don't say those things to make us feel guilty. It is the reality of what the enemy tries to do. And so, man, there are moments if if comfort is our goal, that there's gonna be things that are always in the way of that. I think a lot of times we believe lies instead of truth, and that's how the enemy gets us to give away victory. We believe that we can live in sin, knowingly embrace it as part of who we are, and still follow Jesus, and everything's gonna be good. We choose to believe lies that would say, I'm weak, I'm bad, I'm a failure, I'm not good enough, even though God has said the opposite about you. And so we exchange the victory God's trying to give us for a lie that the enemy is speaking to us. We avoid conflict hoping to be in peace with somebody, and all it does is create greater anxiety and struggles. Why? Because we're actually meant to engage in conflict and do what it takes to make peace. You can't lose, but the enemy will do all he can to convince you you already have. Because he needs you to surrender the victory that he can't take from you. Satan can't defeat. You so he gets you to beat yourself. That's what he does. Satan can't beat you, so he gets you to beat yourself. Because he knows that's the only way he can win. Why? Because you have all you need to overcome everything you face. Because the Spirit of God lives inside of you, because Jesus Christ has saved you, He's washed you in His blood, and there's nothing in your life that He can't overcome. That is the truth of God's word. And if we would walk in that victory and walk in that confidence. You know, one of the biggest reasons that Hitler was able to do what he was able to do at his time in history? Because people mistakenly believed that they could cuddle up with the enemy instead of doing what it took to prepare for war. People met with Hitler from every foreign nation in the world at that time. And every person that met with him, like you can study this historically, I'm not just pulling this out of thin air, were convinced that Hitler, they believed Hitler when he said, I'm not going to invade anything else. He spoke in such a way that he convinced people he was going to do nothing. And then he did the very thing that nobody expected. Satan does the same thing to you or I. He speaks lies to you to convince you that something's not as bad as you think it is, so you will surrender the victory that he wants to take from you, because he can't take it unless you give it to him. The other thing we've got to do is this we've got to identify the right enemy. Here's the part that gets terribly uncomfortable, but this is the golden ticket in this message. I need you to hear me. People aren't the enemy. Ever. Satan is. Every time. That's what Paul was saying. We're not fighting against flesh and blood enemies. That's what he just said. You can go back and reread it if you want to. People are never the enemy. And yet we are being fabricated by society to find a person to identify as the enemy everywhere that we go. The enemy is every conservative blah blah blah. The enemy is every liberal blah blah blah. The enemy is every church that doesn't think like me, or every person that doesn't look like me, or every person that doesn't act like me. And Satan gets us to put a person's face where his face should be. Because people are never the enemy. They're the goal, they're the ministry that we've been called to. And there's always somebody behind every person in an unseen world that's pulling the strings to those actions. Do people do evil things 100%? Are they influenced by an evil force that we can't see? 100%. Because people are never the enemy. It is the unseen world that's pulling strings that we can't see, and we make somebody the enemy instead of fighting the enemy. And so that's all Satan has to do to get us distracted. So he will help you find a person to get mad at. So that you won't focus on being mad at what he's doing. Because I can find somebody else to be mad at. And that's how he gets us to give away victory that he's promised to us. That he will manipulate, he will deceive, he will kill, steal, and destroy because we aren't familiar enough with God's voice to recognize the enemies and what he's doing. And I'm going to tell you right now, if you want to figure out what Satan's voice sounds like, hear me. It sounds a lot like yours. He will fill your head with a lie and get you to repeat it because you will buy whatever you believe. If we don't know the truth of God, we we miss the voice of God. And then Satan is really good at making his voice sound like our voice when he can get us to believe something that's untrue. And so we have to, in these moments, don't be your worst enemy. Don't leave the door open where you try to make a person the enemy when we walk right past the real enemy of our soul who's fighting in an unseen world. And we do this so many times. We run into church and we find somebody that annoys us. Can we all just say, how many people have found somebody in your life that annoys you? Everybody that didn't raise your hand, you're a liar. Liar. And so here's what he does: he gets you to so focus on somebody that annoys you that I can't stand that person and the thing that they do. And so I'm just gonna avoid them. I'm gonna make them the enemy because of the thing that they do that annoys me. And the funny thing about that is like that's the most selfish, narcissistic way we can approach anything. Because it's not like that person is supposed to exist to make your life as comfortable as you can. But we do it all the time. He gets us to be our own worst enemy because a lot of times we become angry or we become bitter and we get offended. Somebody hurt us in the past. Church hurt. Hear me? Church hurt is real. Not gonna deny it. But it staying hurt is your choice, not theirs. Forgiveness takes one person. You reconciliation takes two or more. Forgiveness only takes one. And so, yes, people do things in church that hurt 100%. If you stay hurt, that's your choice. We have to start taking ownership of some things. That's why I, for me, I try my best to live a life that's unoffendable. People will offend me, I don't have to pick up that offense and carry it. You can lay down an offense just as easy as you can pick it up. And I say this, and I know some people don't agree with me, and like that's cool. But just hear me. Like, I say things often. Uh, and and to me, one of those things is I truly choose to lay down offenses. I just I don't want to pick them up, I just give them right back. I don't want them. And I I say things all the time too, like like somebody can't hurt my feelings. Not because I'm cold or calloused, they will say things that hurt. But I only way somebody can hurt your feelings is if you give away control of your feelings to that person, and then you become the victim in that moment because it's your fault because you hurt me. And it's like, well, they may have said some things that I didn't like, some of them may be hurtful, sometimes it's true, and I need to hear it, but whether I stay hurt is my choice. And you're like, I just listen, there's a scripture in Proverbs that says, guard your heart because it's the wellspring of life. And it's so funny because we know that, and that's why we say, Man, there's some relationships I gotta keep out of my life so I can guard my heart. Well, maybe you need to guard the feelings in your heart and quit letting people be in control of every feeling you have. And the best way to guard your feelings is don't give away the power to somebody else to control the way you feel. They can hurt you, choose to forgive. They can offend you, choose to let go. They can hurt you, recognize there might be a nugget of truth in there you needed to hear, and then move on. These are the ways we open the door for the enemy to work in our life. Insecurities, we have a need to people please, we have a need to, and so we want to blame everybody else, and the enemy gets us to fight people instead of recognize what it's like that we need to do to win the fight we're in. Because he needs to put a face in your life and in your mind to make an enemy so that you won't face the real enemy. That's the way he works. These are the ways he plays, and so if you want to be prepared for war, you gotta figure out how to identify the right enemy. You gotta learn how to focus on the real enemy and not the person that is behind you. The last thing we gotta do is you gotta prepare for war. Three times in that scripture from 10 to 13, Paul says this word stand firm. That word stand firm means to be immovable, to be fully prepared, to draw a line in the sand and say, I'm not moving from here. That means you don't back down from the fight, you don't run from the fight. Because the enemy will do all he can to intimidate you to back down, and we're called to draw the line and stand. And so, to me, in this moment, we have to we have to stand firm. Stand firm. Listen, Jesus isn't a faulty foundation, we have faulty preparation. Jesus isn't a faulty foundation, we have faulty preparation. If your faith can't withstand something that you're facing right now, that's not on Jesus. That's on you not being prepared to face what you're up against. That's on you pretending to fight an enemy that's the wrong enemy, and so you're missing the real enemy that you need to fight. And so if we want to win in these moments, we've got to learn how to stand firm. We've got to learn how to fight the right fight, we've got to learn how to show up and be strong. For many of us, we expected easy and we gotta fight. We expected life to be fair, and if you haven't figured out yet, the enemy plays dirty. We expected God to do what we want, not surrender what we want to Him. And so, how do we make the shift? We're strong. Be strong. Do things that make you spiritually stronger now. Don't wait for the fight to come to you. Be prepared by doing what you need to do now. So when the fight comes, you're ready. You have to be prepared, eliminate what weakens you. If there is something in your life that is making you spiritually lazy or spiritually weak, acknowledge what's there and tell somebody and get it out of your life. Put in the work. If your marriage is struggling, put in the work in your marriage. Date your spouse again. If you haven't figured this out yet, I can tell you why every marriage falls apart. It's because somebody makes their spouse the enemy. Instead of the enemy, the enemy. Your spouse isn't somebody to fight against, your spouse is somebody to fight with. You're created to fight. Let me say that again. God has created you to fight. God has not given you a spirit of fear, scripture says, but He's given you one of power and of love and a sound mind. He's given you everything you need to overcome every battle you will ever face. He's given you everything you need to build the kind of marriage that God wants for you. He has given you everything you need to build the kind of family that you need to be and to be the parent that you need to be. But it's gonna be a fight. You gotta get the right mindset. Get the mindset that I'm going to invest in my kids' faith and do whatever it takes for them to have a faith in Jesus. Yeah, but you don't know my kids, they don't want to go to church. Cool, make them go anyway. Don't give them a choice. You're in my house, these are my rules, you're gonna go. Yeah, but I just want their faith to be their faith. Well, right now, when they're old enough and they pay the bills and they take care of themselves, they can make it their faith. Right now, they're your kid in your home that you're responsible for. They're gonna go to church and learn how to develop a faith, whether they want it or not. I can tell you how many times I did not want to be in church, and yet something still stuck in my life in moments. I did not want to be in church. I had a terrible attitude. I was mad at mom and dad for making me go to church. They were the worst parents ever. I said all those things. I'm thankful for it now. Identify the right enemy, man. Quit looking for somebody to be the enemy and fight the real enemy. Here's what I'll tell you. One story. We're gonna close. I promise. Here's how I know it's real. I could tell you a story of church hurt that would make you blush. I'd love to change the names, but I'm just gonna leave it at this. Somebody that wounded me deeply in in the church world that I worked for. And I was on staff with this person for almost five and a half years. And this went on for the better part of those five and a half years. And I reached a place where even though I was deeply wounded, I decided I wanted to be unoffendable. And so I used to go down to the altar every opportunity I got. Every morning in my time with the Lord, and every time feelings of anger and bitterness and resentment would rise up. I would pray this one prayer. I prayed this prayer for three years. I'd love to tell you I did it three times, three years. Almost a thousand days before it stuck. I would say, God, help me love this person the way you do. That's all I would pray. Nothing more magical than that. Help me love this person the way you do. Something shifted in me. This person never came back one time and ever acknowledged. Not once did this person ever take any responsibility for anything that they did. I never got the apology. I never got any of those things. But you know what I got? I got freedom from that hurt. And I got a love for that person. That was a supernatural gift from God. Because I decided to fight the real enemy. And this person was not the enemy. There was an enemy pulling strings that I couldn't see and trying to pull strings in my life. And I finally woke up and realized it. And decided to fight the right battle. And that was the one inside of me, not with that person. So if we can stand all across this place, I got some friends that are gonna come down today. The prayer team is here. Why? Because the reality is we need victory. The prayer team is here because why? You may be facing some things that you can't figure out how to overcome. Cool, you don't have to do it on your own. We have some people that would love to pray with you. That in this moment, as we sing this song of worship, if you need prayer at all, maybe there's a battle you're fighting inside. Here's what I can promise you. If there's a voice saying, I can't get out and go down front and pray, that's not God's voice, that's Satan's voice. Because he knows the moment you'll name what it is that you're fighting and confess it to somebody else and let them pray with you, it begins to lose power and you win. But as long as you keep it inside of you, you lose. Oh man, me and God, we got this. No, you don't. If you did, you wouldn't be stuck where you're at right now. We were never designed to have it between us and God. We were designed to have it together with each other. And so as they lead us in worship, if you need prayer today, if you're facing anything at all and you're in a struggle, I would encourage you, do the boldest thing you could do. Step out from where you're sitting, come down front, let one of us pray with you. And as we worship, if that's you, come down and let somebody pray. If not, just enjoy a moment of worship and enjoy his presence. But as they worship, if you need prayer, come down.