The Fight's Too Big For You
"The Fights Too Big For You" Brian Loveless Sermon on June 25, 2017 at Calvary Baptist Church, Grand Prairie, Texas. Part 1 of the series "Before The War"
Ephesians Chapter six. If you've been keeping up with the news you know that it's been an interesting week with all that has been going on in regard to Syria. Our fighter shot down a Syrian jet, Syrian drone. We had the Russian military fly within about five feet of one of our planes in a show of aggression. An article in The Guardian, the title of it this week was “As Syria's War Enters Its Endgame the Risk of a US Russia Conflict Escalates” We're always kind of living in the shadow of, it's not really if, it's just sort of when, right? Whether it's Russia, whether it's North Korea...
The Washington Times had
an article a couple of months ago entitled “Is War With China Inevitable” and
it noted in the article that half of China's public believes that military
conflict between China and the United States will occur within the next 10
years. We're kind of always living in that shadow of what may come next, always
in the shadow of war.
That shouldn't be a big
surprise to us Jesus told us in Matthew 24 “you
will hear of wars and rumors of wars” He said especially as I'm preparing
to return. It's almost like birth pangs, those contractions are going to get
closer and closer. You're going to see more wars, you're going to see more earthquakes,
you're going to see more confusion, and you’re going to see more violence. Here
in the month of August, God willing, leading up to judgment house I'm going to
start a series on the end times; a series on the book of Revelation where we'll
talk more about that war at length.
This morning however, I
want to talk about a different kind of war. You see it is my belief that every
single person in this room has a war to fight this week. Every single one of us
on the floor, in the balcony, those working back there with our kids. Every
single one of us in one way or another is going to go to war this week. Now
bear with me just a minute, I want to cast this net exceptionally broad and see
if maybe one of these fits you, so bear with me just a moment.
Your war may be external. Your war may be financial, this week is just another
struggle with debt, and debt collectors, and unpaid bills and “how are we going
to make ends meet”, and the car went out, and this happened, and that happened,
and we got to send the kids to college one day... we got just a war every day
not only in the bank account but between your ears - Financially. Your war may
be financial in the sense that you have got to go to work and earn a living,
but you hate your job. You can't stand what you do, and every day you feel like
it's war with an unfair boss, its war with conditions that are so taxing you
drive home every night thinking “I can't do this again”. You got to make a
living so you find a way.
For some of you, your
war this week is going to be physical. Some of you are fighting a war with your
health, okay? Cancer, arthritis, trouble with your back, one of ten million different
things, you have daily pain, daily struggle. You're in this brand-new phase of
life with aging where you're not able to do the things you used to do and it
bothers you. Every single day you have struggles you've never faced before, and
that's your battle every day, to just make it through the day physically. You
know what? For a whole lot of us it's a battle with our weight. I say that when
we don't talk a lot about that in churches, I talk more about it because you
know it's been a struggle for me. You know you see me up here or on that video.
There's up, then there's down, and [with] these two eye injuries I got on the
wrong side of that thing. Now I'm working to get back. I'm telling you this
week it'll be a battle because there's good food everywhere and I really want
to eat it! Right? But it's a fight. I want to live to see my kids grow up. I
want to have a healthy body to serve in the ministry and I believe that's
honoring to God in this temple. Some of you share my fight. That's a battle
every week for you.
Some of you, your war
this week is relational. You may be at war with your spouse; you may be at war trying
to save your marriage. Nobody may know it in here, you may be keeping that a
real safe guarded secret, but you are incredibly unhappy and you're just
fighting every week to make it work. Some of you it is a war and raising your
kids. Every new age has a new set of difficulty, some of you got little ones
and they've got issues, and it is a fight man! Every week it's a battle, it's a
war, to try to get them shaped into the human beings you hope they can be. Some
of you, your kids are entering those teenage years and there's all those things
that go with that. With the cell phone, and with the rules, and with online,
and with all those things you know it's going to be war this week yet again. For
some of you it's with grandkids and you're raising them, or maybe just worried
about them. For some of you it's war and it's in relation to your parents.
There is all this past stuff, all this drama, and all this baggage, and every
single week it's a fight. For some of you, let's be honest, your war is you are
flat exhausted. You feel like you don't have any resources to go through the
week. You are so tired, but you make yourself go, but you know this week it's
going to be a war. External. Some of you feel that don't you? I can see you do.
For some of us the war
is internal, for all of us may I say, in some way or another. Its emotions; I'm
going to fight a war this week with anger. I don't want to, but it's just in my
DNA. I'm going to lose it a couple of times, I don't want to, I want to contain
it, but every week I have new resolutions and every week I break them. Maybe
for you, you were in a war with fear, scared to death of something out there on
the horizon that might happen. Maybe it's a war with worry, just worried about
the people in your life. You're worried about your marriage, worried and you
just can't really help it. You wake up with it, you go to bed with it, just
your mind turning, and turning, and turning, and trying to figure things out
and you can't. Maybe, I understand this one, it's a war with depression. You
know what? There are a lot more people fighting that battle than we think there
are; a lot of people living under that cloud of “I just can’t”. This week is
going to be another week where I'm struggling to get out of bed in the morning,
with this cloud, this imminent hopeless thing over my head. For some of you,
it's the emotion of shame; you just don't like yourself much. Somewhere way
back, when you were kid maybe, you had all the self-image stuff and so you try
to project a good image to people, but it's such an effort, it's so exhausting.
You know “here we go again another week of trying to look the part because I
just not crazy about me.” For some of us, listen I'm almost done, your battle,
your internal battle is with temptation, or addiction, or some habit. I don't
care if it's alcohol, I don't care if it's tobacco, I don't care if it's prescription
drugs, I don't care if it's illicit drugs, I don't care if it's pornography, I
don't care if it's sexual, I don't care if it's food... the battle is some thing
you started out using and now it's using you. And you know this week you're
going to war again and you just pray to God you can come out the other side of
this week still sober. Maybe you have an internal battle this morning with
apathy. I just can't seem to care. I go to war every week, but just being numb.
I want to feel God, I want to care about something... I don't! It's going to be
a war just to keep going when I feel nothing! I believe every person here has a
war to fight this week.
Here's what I want to
tell you. We ought to come to the house of God and be able to open up this book
and not stay in the realm of the academic, and the realm of the one day. So much
of this is telling you God's saying I know where you're at, I know what you're
going through, there's nothing new under the sun, let me help you! So this morning,
let's let him help us. I want to make a couple of statements and if you don't
get anything else from this sermon I want you to get this. I don't know what
your war is, for some of you I do, for a lot of you I may not, but I want to
tell you: the outcome of your particular
war will be determined every day before you even get out of bed. Whether
you're going to have victory, whether you're going to have defeat that day in
your particular war, I'm telling you the outcome is going to be decided before
you ever swing your feet off the bed and they touch the floor. And it's going
to be decided by your answer to one question. You ready for the question? Merl
is. How many of you ready for the question say amen. The outcome of your battle
will be determined by your answer to one question; tomorrow morning when you
wake up, who will you give up on today? Who will you give up on today? You
haven't even set foot out of your bedroom, will you give up on God or will you
give up on yourself? My friends that will determine everything about how your
war this week turns out.
I want to entitle my
sermon this Morning This Fights Too Big for You. This fight, this war, is too
big for you. Would you turn to Ephesians 6:10? We're going to be hanging out
for the next four weeks, God willing, right in this passage just dissecting it,
unpacking it, and finding out what God has for us. Ephesians 6:10. I’ve
preached this, I've taught this, I've studied this, and every time I revisit it
and go back, God gives me something new. It is a powerful section of scripture.
Ephesians 6:10,
10 Finally, my
brethren [my brothers and sisters in Christ], be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.
11 Put on the
whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles [some of
your translations say schemes] of the
devil.
12 For we [brothers and sisters in
Christ] wrestle not against flesh and
blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the
darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high [or literally,
heavenly] places.
13 Wherefore
take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to [here’s that word again] withstand in the evil day, and having done
all, to stand.
I want to note a couple of things in this passage.
The first one is this, whatever your war is this week, whatever I said there
that you were like “that's me”, or maybe it wasn't on my list, but you could
say exactly “that's my war this week, I'm going to fight that one” let me tell you
this: Your physical war has spiritual roots. Your physical war, worry,
depression, family problems, work problem, right whatever it is, your physical
war has spiritual roots. What you're seeing and dealing with is rooted in stuff
you can't see.
Verses 11-12 says it like this
11 Put on the
whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the
devil.
12 For we wrestle
not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers,
against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness
in high places.
One translation put it
like this:
We're not fighting
against flesh and blood enemies, we're fighting against evil rulers and
authorities of the unseen world. We're fighting against mighty powers in this
dark world. We're fighting against evil spirits in the heavenly, the spiritual,
the unseen places.
Your physical war has
spiritual roots. A lot of you know this, but I want to reiterate it, this isn't
mythology. This isn't like red thing running around with with cloven hooves, and
a and a pitchfork, and little horns, and it's adorable and he stands on your shoulder...
The Bible says, and if
this is true and it's more than mythology, there is a powerful fallen angel who
leads an entire hierarchy of lesser fallen angels. They are working behind the
scenes to pull the strings of this visible world. There are devils working
behind the world systems, pulling the strings in ways you can't see, affecting
the things you can see. C.S. Lewis once said there's no neutral ground in the
universe. Every square inch, every split-second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed
by Satan.
So the first thing I
want you to note is that whatever you think your war is on the surface, well my
problem is my wife, my problem is my husband, if they could just change things
would be better. My problem’s my job, if God would just grant me a higher
paying job with a better boss, we can fix this. My problem is my illness, if God
would, just like Paul prayed, “take it away, Lord”, if he just remove it from
me I'd be okay, and there'd be no more struggle. My problem is this depression,
and if he just give me better circumstances, and lift this cloud...
God says don't think
your problem is just here [around your body], you're not wrestling primarily
against flesh and blood. There are spiritual forces at work directing traffic
in the visible world. There's an enemy who has an agenda for your life. We're
going to get more to that here in just a moment, I want you to notice something
else, verse 11, this is how he's going to carry out his agenda:
11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand
against the wiles[it’s the Greek méthodoi] of
the devil [diávolos]. The méthodoi
of the diávolos. The deceptive
schemes of the accuser. The deceptive methods of the slanderer. Whatever his
agenda is in your life here's how he's going to carry it out:
He doesn't usually attack he, narrates. He's
going to come along and he, and his associates, are going to whisper to you. You
having trouble in your marriage? They're going to tell you why. You're having
problems with your health? They're going to tell you why God allowed that to
come to you. You're having issues with depression? They're going to be right there
to whisper to you how sorry you are, how life is hopeless, and God doesn't care.
They're going to use the circumstances of your life and narrate those
circumstances to bring about a certain purpose.
Do you understand 2 Corinthians 11:14
tells us that Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light? His main
goal is that you think my main
problem is external or internal, and I've got to solve it. The Lord helps those
who help themselves, I've got to work on this, I've got to beat this, and all
the while he's behind the scenes narrating, whispering, keeping you down! Listen
to me, his goal, here's what he's after, he wants to keep you occupied,
pacified, distracted, addicted, anything to keep you from being the image bearer
God created you to be. He's terrified that you will realize you are a son or
daughter of Jesus Christ and you will get to know God, and God will start
shining through, you he ain't afraid of you, he's terrified of Jesus, so if he
can distract you, if he can pacify you, if he can occupy you, if he can addict
you, if he can whisper to you that he's not the problem, they're the problem,
it's the problem, God's the problem... He can hold you down for the rest of
your life!
My dear friend, I don't know what your war
is. I do want to tell you your physical war has spiritual roots. Now let me be
careful to say this; there are denominations out there, there are folks out
there, and God love them, I just have to disagree with them. I don't question
their sincerity, but like everything that comes in life is a demon, okay? Like
a dog barks and you’re like “demon dog!” If you get a cold “the demon of cold
has entered me”. I don't think that's it all. I think we live in a fallen world.
Things are going to happen, but I promise you the devil will be there to
narrate your illness. “God must not care about you, why even continue fighting
this battle”, right? All those things. Whatever your war, your physical war has
spiritual roots.
How many of you with me now say, “Amen”. And
that leads us rapidly to a second conclusion. If your war on the outside is rooted
to the spiritual, if Satan himself and powerful fallen angels are working behind
the scenes in your life, the second point is this: then this fight’s too big
for you! You get what I'm saying? I don't know what your fight is, but I'll
tell you this, it's too big for you.
1 Peter 5:8 - 8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the
devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
One author said this, “the devil takes no holidays,
he never rests, and he never sleeps. If beaten he rises again. If he cannot enter
in the front, he will come around the back. If he can't enter at the back, he'll
break through the roof or enter by tunneling under the threshold. He labors until
he's in. He uses great cunning and skill. When one plan miscarries he has another,
and another, and another at hand until he wins.”
Do you really think you're going to beat
him on your own? Do you really think you stand a chance? Preacher doesn’t the the
Bible say resist the devil and he'll flee from you? No it doesn't. The Bible
says in James 4:7 7 Submit
yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee
from you.
He’s not running from you, he's running from
the one behind you when you submit yourself to Him.
I shared a very little-known scripture with
my kids the other day warning them about taking spiritual things too trivially,
about taking this enemy of ours too lightly, okay? They weren't doing it, but I
think it's one of those moments when you're driving along and the topic comes up
and it's a teaching moment. The book of Jude (1:9) talks about people who scoff
at supernatural things. Here's what it says, but even Michael one of the
mightiest of the angels did not dare accuse the devil of blasphemy, but he
simply said the Lord rebuke you. This took place when Michael the Archangel was
arguing with the devil about Moses body but these people scoff at things they
do not understand.
You see what that saying? It's incredibly mysterious.
You remember the story of Moses, that God took him up on the mountain. He said
Moses you're not going to get to go into the Promised Land, but I'm going to
let you see I; and God said Moses you are going to die and I'm going to bury
you. The bottom line is, very mysterious, apparently the devil himself wanted Moses’
body for something and Michael the Archangel, much like Gabriel one of the power
most powerful angels we see spoken of in the Bible, resisted the devil but even
Michael wouldn't rebuke him! He said the Lord rebuke you. If that angel, that
archangel, wouldn't take the fight lightly, do you think you stand a chance?
I remember some years ago, Jenny and I and
our kids were at Disney World, and we'd taken a vacation to Florida. We were on
the Tom Sawyer raft. We just left Tom Sawyer land, and we were on that big raft
with a motor and the whole thing, and we're going across. I'll never ever forget
a woman there with her two kids, and I don't want to judge her I don't know
what all was going on in their life, but she had a four-year-old little boy who
was effectively trying his best to beat his mother up. If he'd have been 18 he
had killed her. He's four years old and punching her in the legs, slapping her,
screaming at her; and she's just standing there. I got to be honest with you, I
have all sorts of stuff go through my mind, and half of its just crazy I'm sure.
I'm thinking man when she turns I bet I could give that kid a little [smack] right?
I'd give him a little trip when he goes... right? You know here's the thing; you're
30, he's four. Like, put a hand on his head, right? Do what my dad used to do
to me.
My dad never beat us, but I guarantee he
could get our attention. He would grab our sideburn and give that sideburn a
yank. No permanent damage, but I guarantee you he had your undivided attention.
I thought how insane for a four-year-old to take on a 40 year old? How insane,
my brothers and sisters, for us to try to take on the devil? Matt Chandler a
pastor at the village Church in Denton, and that have campuses all over, a
brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, preacher, brilliant mind, brilliant writer, he
got brain cancer. Had all these surgeries, you could see the scars, and you
could see when he cut his hair down, and I watched sermons of him online. I'll never
forget, man it stopped me in my tracks, he was saying in a sermon he stopped at
one moment just looked at the crowd and he said “you are so easy to kill”. We
get this idea sometime because all these songs and all this poetry, and I'll do
it my way, and nothing can stand... do you understand? That’s all talk! We are so
easy to kill! Who do you think you are that you somehow are going to win the war
by yourself against the devil? That leads us to the third point.
Your physical war has spiritual roots, this
fight’s too big for you, and now we get down to it. Every morning you must
choose: fight, run, medicate... or pray. Every morning you must choose. I must
choose will I fight, will I run, will I medicate, or will I pray?
Look at Ephesians 6:10, whoo a strong one:
10 Finally, my
brethren...
We read it too fast because the want to get to the
armor. We want to get to the object lesson. Let’s not miss it!
10 Finally, my
brethren be strong in
the Lord...
Not in yourself, not in your willpower, not in your
resolutions, not in your best intentions, in the Lord], and in the power of his might.
The outcome of your battle will be determined every
single day by your
answer to one question: who will you give up on today? Will you give up on God
and roll out of bed and try to do it yourself or will you, before you ever start
that day, come before Almighty God and just own up to “I can't do it!” and give
up on yourself. Here's the thing, I don't know that any Christian here would
ever lay in bed and think “you know what? I think I'm going to give up on God today.”
In our lowest moments maybe we would think something like that or the thought
would pass through our mind, that's really not the point. It's not you saying God
I refuse to trust you today, it is you saying “you know what, I'm going to
worry today. I'm going to figure out how I'm going to deal with this problem relationship.
I'm going to go into another interaction with my spouse without talking to God
at all and just see how it goes. I'm going to try to avoid that person and
maybe it won't ignite today. I'm going to manipulate my kids and lay down all
sorts of regulations, and rules, and guilt, and and maybe I can twist somewhere
I want them to go”
Somebody defined worry like this, and I
didn't like it at all because I worry sometimes, you know what worry is? Trying
to personally shoulder the burdens of life while effectively ignoring the
presence and power of God. Worry is saying “I'm going to figure out some way to
deal with these problems. I'm going to change that loved one. I'm responsible
for keeping my business afloat. I'm on my own.” You would never lay in bed and
say that to yourself, but listen when you don't come to God that's exactly what
you're saying. What if before our feet ever hit the floor we said “God, I don't
want to get out of bed today just to lose again this week. God I got a war, and
you may not take the circumstances of this war away, you may not give me a new
job right now. I’d love that. God you may not allow some kind of transfer out
of my physical pain. God you may leave me in the middle of it, but God I know
if it's me against these powers, if it's me against these devils, if it's me
against these forces, I'm gonna lose! So God don’t want to try to do that. I'm
coming before you this morning saying Lord, it's all yours. You're my only hope.
You're my only strength. You're my only power. Do what only you can do.”
I want close with this. You say “I don't have
any idea how to do that”, the next four weeks we're going to talk from this text
about exactly how to pray, exactly what to do. One of my very best friends in
the world pastor Doug Rife, he's preached here at Calvary, and he's over at
Temple in Fort Worth. He was telling me a story that just frankly kind of broke
me down. He has a lady in his church named Christy. Christy's a young mom,
she's in her 30s, she has three kids, twin boys and a little girl. Her husband
was a war veteran, came back from war and was a helicopter EMT. So a lot of
action, a lot of difficulties, a lot of danger, but this young couple just
raising their babies and doing life. [Then] just that lightning bolt that comes
in life. Christy’s husband got sick, he got cancer. Before they knew it this 30
something year old vibrant man was gone. So here's Christy this 30-something
mom and she has these two twin boys; and one of them is a daddy's boy. So he's
just wrestling, and struggling with this in his own little way, and he can't
come to grips with the fact that daddy's gone. Christy is doing her best to be
a single mom and raise these three kids and follow Christ, etc. all that goes
with that.
Well here's the thing, she works for an
organization that provides housing and resources for the aged and disabled. They
had a certain office, and Christy would come in and these clients would have to
come and sort of check in periodically to continue to receive these resources
to help them in the struggles of life. Well Christy's office moved, just a
couple of blocks away. They closed the former office, they opened a new one,
and they put signs on the door. They tried to alert everybody to the fact that
they were moving, but some didn't get word. They put a sign on the door that
said we're just a couple of blocks away. There was one client, a lady who was
elderly, she had cerebral palsy, and she had arranged for a special transit
vehicle to take her to the office for her check-in to get these essential
resources. This lady gets dropped off at Christy's old office and she's on a
cane, she's incredibly feeble, and she reads the little sign that says the
offices moved a few blocks away but the transit is already gone and she's
incredibly hampered in her ability to get there. Christy tells my friend Doug
that this lady comes walking in the doors of the new office and as they're
greeting her and they notice her knees are just torn apart; blood running down
her knees, her poor little knees just torn up. Christy and some of the workers
there immediately shuffle her off and get her into a chair, get some water, let
her drink. They start washing off her knees, cleaning them up, and giving her
medicine, putting on the bandages. Christy told Doug that while they were
working that little lady leaned over and put her hand on Christy's arm and she
literally said “Sweetie, I need you to understand that I didn't fall. I've just
come to realize that in my condition, it's easier to get where I'm going on my
knees.” In my condition, it's easier to get where I'm going on my knees. You
know what? That broke Christie down because that was a word directly from the
Holy Spirit.
This mama who's trying to make it all work,
that this battle’s too much for... you see in her condition she'll get where
she's going an awful lot faster from her knees. And my friend so will we.
