back to indexBerean Community Church Sunday Service 10/27/24
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to gather and to worship our God together on Sunday. 00:05:02.160 |
And I'm reminded today of just God's great love for us 00:05:28.160 |
that we would be adopted into the family of God 00:05:34.160 |
And so let us give thanks to him from our hearts. 00:06:01.160 |
♪ When your love reached down with sovereign hands ♪ 00:06:40.160 |
♪ We are as with Christ bought by his blood ♪ 00:06:50.160 |
♪ Oh, how great the love that we've been shown ♪ 00:08:01.080 |
♪ We are as with Christ bought by his blood ♪ 00:08:11.160 |
♪ Oh, how great the love that we've been shown ♪ 00:08:39.160 |
♪ We are as with Christ bought by his blood ♪ 00:08:47.080 |
♪ Oh, how great the love that we've been shown ♪ 00:09:23.080 |
we have a welcome table outside if you can join us there 00:09:45.080 |
kind of just giving their thoughts on things, 00:09:48.080 |
questions that we might have for them will be answered. 00:09:50.080 |
Secondly, we have a regional Thanksgiving dinner 00:09:55.160 |
That is going to be happening on November 24th at 5 p.m. 00:09:59.080 |
We want to invite everybody to sign up for that. 00:10:04.080 |
and it's an easier way to get to know people, 00:10:08.080 |
Third, we have Berean men's and women's flag football. 00:10:16.080 |
So if you want to be--if you want to sign up for that, 00:10:24.160 |
to the various things we do during the holidays, 00:10:28.080 |
we have the Brookdale Assisted Living caroling. 00:10:34.080 |
we're gonna be going to Brookdale in Anaheim, 00:10:36.080 |
and we're going to be singing Christmas carols to them, 00:10:47.080 |
if you could come and join us to be a part of that, 00:10:51.160 |
All right, well, if you have a physical offering, 00:10:54.080 |
there's an offering basket--or a box in the back, 00:11:06.080 |
Lord, even as our Taiwan team is out and about 00:11:24.080 |
And so, Father, I pray that our heart would be the same. 00:11:32.080 |
But, Lord, that we would have a broader perspective 00:12:31.680 |
and let us take this opportunity to greet those around us. 00:22:46.680 |
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 00:22:49.680 |
Put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm 00:22:54.680 |
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, 00:23:01.680 |
against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. 00:23:06.680 |
so that you will be able to resist in the evil day 00:23:12.760 |
Heavenly Father, I pray, God, that you would help us 00:23:18.680 |
that it might draw us to not simply fight in the war, 00:23:37.680 |
And so I might have had some of that conversation 00:23:48.680 |
I was trying to prevent myself from going too far into it. 00:23:51.680 |
And at the same time, I realized how much awareness 00:23:56.680 |
It just immediately caused me to be much more sober 00:24:01.680 |
And so that's how I ended up on this passage to share, 00:24:04.680 |
even though I know we've looked at this passage 00:24:09.760 |
I think the problem is not that we don't know 00:24:14.680 |
I think the problem is that because it's invisible 00:24:18.680 |
and we have a tendency to put our eyes on the visible 00:24:21.680 |
and especially in a westernized setting that we're in, 00:24:25.680 |
it's simple to attribute things to physical things 00:24:33.680 |
that there is a spiritual warfare going on around us. 00:24:38.760 |
because if we look at a passage, for example, 00:24:40.680 |
like 1 Peter 5.8, it says that your adversary, the devil, 00:24:46.680 |
He's seeking someone to devour is what it says. 00:24:49.680 |
And if you can imagine with me something like a cage, 00:25:02.680 |
but they have a cage here and it was right here. 00:25:05.680 |
There's a cage literally physically up here on stage 00:25:08.680 |
and there's a tiger in there or a lion or whatever 00:25:15.600 |
And the man comes and just opens it up, opens the door up. 00:25:20.600 |
Every single one of us, if we're not running out that door, 00:25:27.600 |
We're very aware of the danger that's being presented here. 00:25:33.600 |
and thinking about what they're going to eat after 00:25:35.680 |
or having small talk about the baseball game after. 00:25:47.600 |
If it is the reality, that's what comes up out of us. 00:25:54.600 |
that I'm not sure if we're fully convinced that this is true. 00:25:59.600 |
It says that the enemy is prowling around like a roaring lion 00:26:06.600 |
And other than just interesting and fascinating thoughts 00:26:10.600 |
we just kind of move on and continue to live our lives, 00:26:17.600 |
and it's not very intentionally understanding 00:26:48.600 |
And so today I'd like to bring us back to this reality 00:27:20.600 |
We're not going to have the ability to stand firm. 00:27:26.680 |
they say, "Be careful, be careful," like that. 00:27:29.600 |
I mean, it's just going to be a command that's given 00:27:34.600 |
"Oh, I've got to be careful about something." 00:27:40.600 |
And so we would be careful just by knowing that. 00:28:10.600 |
It's not very difficult to see the fruit of that 00:28:35.600 |
If you could look at Ephesians 6, verse 12 with me. 00:28:41.600 |
"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, 00:28:53.600 |
that we are not struggling against flesh and blood. 00:29:01.600 |
Because our eyes just draw to what is visible. 00:29:10.600 |
and we're trying to attribute it to something, 00:29:12.600 |
but he says, "Hey, it's not against flesh and blood." 00:29:17.680 |
And then he begins to describe the demonic realm. 00:29:21.600 |
The first word he uses to describe the demonic realm, 00:29:36.600 |
because they're powerful beings with great authority. 00:29:48.600 |
but one that has been bestowed to them by God. 00:29:55.600 |
Rulers can also be translated as the beginning or first. 00:30:01.600 |
Like there's something that would trigger in you 00:30:06.600 |
Now obviously we're thinking Christ is there in that place, 00:30:09.600 |
but there's a reason why Paul uses the language he does 00:30:21.600 |
Some will even say that they're heavenly beings 00:30:27.600 |
The second word used there is powers, against the powers. 00:30:35.600 |
This word can actually be used to describe a tribunal. 00:30:45.600 |
And then it goes on to say world forces of this darkness. 00:31:02.600 |
This is an angelic world that has this authority. 00:31:08.680 |
Spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places 00:31:15.600 |
And they're described as how or where are they 00:31:26.600 |
He doesn't just say, hey, be aware, Satan is here. 00:31:34.600 |
He doesn't say you're fighting against demons. 00:31:41.600 |
That evil co-mingles and that demons have a power 00:31:56.600 |
We're going to look at a number of passages here. 00:32:07.600 |
that some of these passages are not going to be new to us, 00:32:12.600 |
as some ancient text filled with fables or fantasy. 00:32:26.600 |
"they came to present themselves before the Lord, 00:32:30.600 |
"The Lord said to Satan, 'From where do you come?' 00:32:39.600 |
Now, that's frightening because who roams on the earth? 00:32:46.600 |
And Satan enters into, you know, the throne room of God, 00:33:07.600 |
Again, heaven to earth, cut down to the earth. 00:33:22.600 |
"All the foundations of the earth are shaken. 00:33:40.600 |
And this was one of the more surprising passages to me 00:33:46.600 |
the many times I've gone through the book of 1 Kings. 00:34:01.600 |
Micaiah said, "Therefore, hear the word of the Lord. 00:34:07.600 |
So the setting is heaven in God's throne room. 00:34:14.600 |
"standing by him on his right and on his left." 00:34:27.600 |
I don't know if funny is the right word for this. 00:34:32.600 |
these angels who are beginning to talk with one another. 00:34:54.600 |
"'and the Lord has proclaimed disaster against you.'" 00:35:07.600 |
some form of authority, power, dominion, and rulers. 00:35:35.600 |
So God sovereignly gives them authority to do this. 00:35:40.600 |
to deceive those who would place their faith in them. 00:35:43.600 |
And we see such passages in Deuteronomy 4, verse 19. 00:35:47.600 |
It says, "And beware not to lift up your eyes to heaven 00:36:00.520 |
and he says, "and worship them and serve them, 00:36:10.520 |
"and brought you out of the iron furnace from Egypt 00:36:12.520 |
"to be a people for his own possession as today." 00:36:19.520 |
of thinking, like, how would this actually play out? 00:36:25.600 |
and that they looked at the sun and the moon and the stars 00:36:28.520 |
and then they began just to bow down and worship to them? 00:36:31.520 |
No, when you see the way it actually plays out, 00:36:35.520 |
that there are deities ascribed to them, right? 00:36:38.520 |
There are deities that are connected to them. 00:36:40.520 |
And so the images that we unearth of the Baals, 00:37:02.520 |
Later on in Deuteronomy, it goes a little bit deeper. 00:37:07.520 |
"They sacrificed to demons who were not God." 00:37:18.600 |
new gods who came lately, whom your fathers did not dread." 00:37:23.520 |
And so imagine the great influence that this enemy has. 00:37:35.520 |
We see the lingering reality of this in the New Testament. 00:37:44.520 |
"Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature. 00:37:52.520 |
"The wisdom which none of the rulers of this age 00:37:57.520 |
"they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." 00:38:02.520 |
And my temptation was always just to look at words like this 00:38:15.600 |
But 1 Corinthians talks about the rulers of this age. 00:38:21.520 |
"When he had disarmed the rulers and authorities, 00:38:31.520 |
We know in Scripture that there's a cosmic war going on right now. 00:38:40.520 |
We know that the angels are there to aid men. 00:38:54.520 |
We're going to look at three different passages 00:38:58.520 |
Ephesians 1.20, "Which he brought about in Christ 00:39:02.520 |
"and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places." 00:39:21.520 |
And he raises Christ at the right hand where? 00:39:26.520 |
And he says in verse 21, using specific words, 00:39:39.520 |
"not only in this age, but also in the one to come." 00:39:42.520 |
"And he put all things in subjection under his feet 00:39:44.440 |
"and gave him as head over all things to the church." 00:39:47.440 |
And again, this is not just talking about humanity. 00:40:16.440 |
That Jesus came to disarm the rulers and authorities. 00:40:31.440 |
"according to the prince, the power of the air, 00:40:41.440 |
So it talks about Satan as the father of lies. 00:40:44.440 |
It talks about the prince of the power of the air. 00:40:59.440 |
"might now be made known through the church." 00:41:13.440 |
if we could kind of think about the reality of the enemy, 00:41:22.440 |
and the enemy is incredibly cunning, deceiving. 00:41:28.440 |
But the reason why we need to look at all these passages 00:41:32.440 |
We have to remember that this very same enemy 00:41:36.440 |
the very same enemy that we see in the New Testament, 00:42:26.440 |
There's a reason why he says this to the church. 00:42:53.440 |
The way we see what's going on in this world, 00:43:10.440 |
that's why they're called rulers and authorities. 00:43:12.440 |
They have some God-given level of power and dominion. 00:43:52.440 |
"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, 00:44:01.440 |
"so that you will be able to resist in the evil day. 00:44:16.440 |
And so letter A, the command is to be strong. 00:44:34.440 |
You wanna put on like weak, brittle cardboard armor? 01:02:18.960 |
We have to keep reminding each other of this. 01:03:21.960 |
And it was just kind of like fascinating to me. 01:03:53.960 |
but I'm like but you can get its butt right there. 01:04:07.960 |
He's just kind of looking around like a deer. 01:04:19.960 |
And then sometimes you're rooting for the hunter. 01:04:44.960 |
and finally he kind of comes out into the clearing 01:04:50.960 |
I took a moment to kind of paint that picture 01:05:07.960 |
that the enemy is waiting for that in our lives. 01:05:17.960 |
that sometimes it's when we are the most guarded 01:07:00.960 |
I say this because we have heard of men fall. 01:07:21.960 |
It's a lot less mysterious to me than I realize. 01:07:31.960 |
You will find a man who is not standing firm. 01:07:37.960 |
We are called to strive to enter the rest of Christ. 01:08:35.960 |
Note too that Paul has a particular sort of battle in mind. 01:08:39.960 |
His exhortation does not prepare soldiers to make a quick moving attack. 01:08:50.960 |
And the enemy must weary itself in constant uphill attack. 01:09:02.960 |
And the resurrection power of God at work in us. 01:09:05.960 |
Even the armor and weapons turn out to be a mixture of God's very own. 01:09:15.960 |
The decisive victory won by Christ lies in the past. 01:09:18.960 |
And the very fact that believers now fight on Christ's side. 01:09:22.960 |
But complete victory still lies in the future. 01:09:29.960 |
And by the way that's what it says previously in Ephesians chapter 5. 01:09:32.960 |
Make good use of your time for the day is evil. 01:09:42.960 |
That the strength that we have is found in Christ. 01:10:10.960 |
It's going to happen in a moment of indiscretion. 01:10:14.960 |
It's going to happen when your patience is done. 01:10:16.960 |
After your kids have been driving you crazy sometimes. 01:10:26.960 |
All of that effort turned into a force of anger. 01:10:33.960 |
The more patient you were the more angry you can get. 01:10:38.960 |
When you look at the things of this world and all that it might give to us. 01:10:49.960 |
It's not a fighting that happens just at that moment of engagement. 01:10:54.960 |
It's a preparatory fighting that is going on. 01:10:56.960 |
So that in the moment of battle we are ready. 01:11:06.960 |
It took him months of preparation to fight and get there. 01:11:16.960 |
"For this reason when I could endure it no longer I also sent to find out about your faith. 01:11:20.960 |
For fear that the tempter might have tempted you and our labor would be in vain." 01:11:27.960 |
That the tempter might tempt us and the work done is in vain. 01:11:33.960 |
"But I say to you the rest who are in Thyatira who do not hold this teaching, 01:11:39.960 |
very specifically he's talking about Satan as they call them, 01:11:43.960 |
Nevertheless what you have hold fast until I come." 01:11:54.960 |
"He who overcomes and he who keeps my deeds until the end." 01:12:15.960 |
Does not mean we are living in peace time right now. 01:12:20.960 |
Maybe we aren't interested in the armor because we're not engaged in battle. 01:12:28.960 |
It's a command to take up the full armor of God. 01:12:34.960 |
We can skip the quote there to go to letter A. 01:12:53.960 |
We can't stand against the enemy's schemes on our own. 01:12:56.960 |
We need him telling us his truth through his spirit. 01:13:05.960 |
In 1 Corinthians 10, 12 it says let the one who thinks he stands take heed lest he falls. 01:13:16.960 |
And we think that if we recognize our weakness then we would be dependent. 01:13:25.960 |
Or in our weakness we will turn our eyes to things. 01:13:35.960 |
Not be satisfied with the fact that I was clinging to him yesterday. 01:13:39.960 |
Not be satisfied that I'm clinging to him today. 01:13:41.960 |
Getting ready to cling to him tomorrow and the next day until he comes back. 01:13:45.960 |
That's part of the thing that magnetizes us to the return of Christ. 01:13:53.960 |
Until the day he returns we will continue to live in remembrance together. 01:14:01.960 |
And again for those of us who feel like this is exhausting. 01:14:03.960 |
There was a time when I saw this passage that we look at as exhausting. 01:14:09.960 |
Because what I realize is if this call to fight and to depend on God is not exhausting. 01:14:17.960 |
When the whole application then is to cling to Christ. 01:14:21.960 |
Because that's the very thing that I want to do. 01:14:37.960 |
It just boils it all down to this very, very basic faith. 01:14:47.960 |
If somebody comes and commands me to love my wife. 01:14:50.960 |
Who do you think you are commanding me to love my wife? 01:15:01.960 |
That means that everything we do in our disciplines is to cling. 01:15:08.960 |
You can see how quickly we can use our disciplines to use our own strength, right? 01:15:15.960 |
And we're like, oh, maybe but because I did there's an extra dose of blessing that God will launch at us from afar. 01:15:21.960 |
No, reading the word is because we're clinging to God. 01:15:31.960 |
We're reading books because we're clinging to Christ. 01:15:36.960 |
The time we spend with each other playing basketball, volleyball, watching movies together, to cling to Christ. 01:15:46.960 |
So even in these disciplines, we can't allow them to take control of us where we think that it is our strength moving us forward. 01:15:52.960 |
Our disciplines are meant to bring us to Christ where we find our actual strength. 01:15:57.960 |
Letter D, finally, we must remember the victory. 01:16:01.960 |
This isn't just a thing that we tag on at the end like, oh, yeah, Jesus won it all. 01:16:07.960 |
This is the thing that glues everything together. 01:16:11.960 |
When he says it is finished, it means that it's finished. 01:16:23.960 |
Stand strong in whatever it is that you've been doing in your life lately. 01:16:28.960 |
Ask yourself, what have I been standing strong in? 01:16:31.960 |
And let's move that to make sure that we're saying I'm standing firm in Christ. 01:16:38.960 |
Heavenly Father, we pray, Lord, for strength that can only come from you. 01:16:44.960 |
And I pray, God, that we wouldn't be asking you for strength apart from you. 01:16:49.960 |
But, Lord, that in our asking for strength, we are simply asking for you. 01:17:00.960 |
And, Father, we need that to flow to the top of our fellowship, our church. 01:17:19.960 |
God, I pray for all the churches that reside in this world. 01:17:24.960 |
God, that we would stand strong, clinging to Christ, engaging in battle, putting on the armor. 01:17:31.960 |
Father, recognizing that this all can only be done with a God who has already promised and secured victory. 01:19:03.960 |
He is my king. He is my song. He is my life. He is my joy. 01:19:18.960 |
He is my strength. He is my soul. He is my peace. He is my Lord. 01:20:51.960 |
He is my king. He is my song. He is my life. He is my joy. 01:21:06.960 |
He is my strength. He is my soul. He is my peace. He is my Lord. 01:21:40.960 |
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God our Father, 01:21:45.960 |
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all 01:21:48.960 |
to empower us to live in such an aware manner, 01:22:25.960 |
An empty grave is there to be my Savior then. 01:23:05.960 |
And life is worth the living just because He lived.