Godly Warfare
Wearing a Bulls Eye
Genesis 2:16-17, 3:16, Isaiah 53:1-6, John 1:12, 3:15-16, 36, 6:40, 47, 11:25, 20:31, Acts 16:31,
Romans 10:9, Galatians 3:26, Romans 3:10, John 10:28 - 29, Ephesians 6:10-16, Romans 8:28,
1 Peter 5:6-10
I. How would you like to stand and have one of these hurled through the air at you?
A. Do you know that many Christians do it every day? You do it everyday that you put your feet on the floor without reminding yourself that your life is nothing with out God.
B. Every morning when we get up, we should take the time to remember where our faith should be.
C. Who is in charge of this day? Who is responsible for the for our safety?
D. Who is the one who can handle all problems? Should we trust, in our abilities to make things right? If we do we are painting a bulls eye on our chest.
E. Everyday that we get up and start our day without reminding ourselves of who is in control we walk out into life with a big bulls eye on our back and chest, that says here I am satan shoot me.
F. I saw a far side cartoon where there some elk were standing and talking, the one elk had a target on his chest and on the bottom it said, ooh bummer of a birth mark.
G. Every day of our lives satan is standing there waiting to nail us, with his flaming arrows.
H. But the things that satan shoots at us don’t look like these, but really they do more damage.
1. The flaming arrows that satan shoots at us are fear, Doubt, Worry, Hate, Lust, Anxiety, Anger, Depression, Feelings of Helplessness & Betrayal, Feelings of Worthlessness & Hopelessness, Feelings that we will never get ahead, and the list goes on and on.
I. Satan’s arrows are intended to pierce us and burn holes into our faith and trust in God.
J. Satan’s arrows are intended to make our lives miserable, to destroy our relationships, to make us feel that life is hopeless when really we are the adopted Children of God.
K. Satan wants to make us believe that we are the ones we have to depend on.
L. Satan wants to separate us from the trust and dependency that we have in God because our relationship with God is based on trust and dependency.
M. When Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, and God said don’t eat from that tree, the tree wasn’t the point. The point was, that God was saying "will you trust me".
(Gen 2:16-17 NIV) And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."
N. Now, if someone tells me not to eat a certain fruit or I will die and I eat it, then is there any way that I can say that I trust that person? I don’t think so!
O. What God was saying was, will you express your love to me by trusting what I say and doing what I ask even if you don’t fully understand it ?
P. And what did satan do? He said God didn’t really say that did he?
Q. He said God’s not telling you the truth, you can’t believe what he says.
(Gen 3:1-6 NIV) Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, ’You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ’You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’" "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
R. What satan did, was make them doubt God, and that what He said was true. He shot a flaming arrow through their faith in God.
S. And when satan was able to convince them that God was not trustworthy, he was able to destroy their relationship with God!
II. God took care of the break in our relationship with Him, He came down out of heaven, and he died on a Cross to take away our sin.
(Isa 53:1-6 NIV) Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
A. I don’t know about you but I think that its awesome that, that exact description of what Jesus was going to do for us was written over seven hundred years before he was born.
B. God erased the effects of sin on the lives of his people, by his own sacrafice.
C. And He says,"Now here is a way for you to give me your trust back again.
D. Here’s away for you to put your trust in what I say will make you right with me and nothing else.
E. Here is a way for you to give back to me the thing that Adam and Eve took away, that separated me from you.
F. If you believe, if you trust in what Jesus did on the Cross and nothing else, then you will be made right with me.
(John 1:12 NIV) Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--
(John 3:15-16 NIV) that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
(John 3:36 NIV) Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him."
(John 6:40 NIV) For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."
(John 6:47 NIV) I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.
(John 11:25 NIV) Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;
(John 20:31 NIV) But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
(Acts 16:31 NIV) They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved-
(Rom 10:9 NIV) That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
(Gal 3:26 NIV) You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,
G. In any book in the New Testament you can find a verse that points to the fact that salvation comes through and only through believing that Jesus is the Son of God, that he died on a Cross for our sin, and that if we will put our trust in Him, we will be forgiven and made right with God!
H. And the whole time Satan is saying all you have to do is be a good person. That’s a lie. Without Jesus there are no good people.
(Rom 3:10 NIV) As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one;
I. Satan says all you have to do is believe that there is a God. Let me give you evidence that, that statement is a lie.
(James 2:19 NIV) You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder.
J. Unless you are expecting to see the devil and demons in heaven, just believing that there is a God is not enough to get you to heaven, because that verse says that even the demons believe in God.
K. Satan says, you have to do this, and you have to do that, and the whole time God is saying, "I came to earth as a man and I died to give you a way to trust me again, can’t you just believe in me?
L. Now if there has been a time that you realized that you have to trust in what Jesus did on the Cross to make you right with God and not what you can do, then there is no one who can take that away from you.
(John 10:28 - 29 NIV) I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all ; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.
M. Some people say that we can decide to not be saved. Who does that say can take us away from God? NO ONE! Does no one include you?
III. There is no way that Satan can separate you from God again, but if your day to day life is not based on trusting God for what you need, you walk into life everyday with a bulls eye on you saying shoot me satan.
Ephesians 6:10-16 (NIV) Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
A. I want to clear up something about this passage in verse 16. If someone says above all do this, what does that mean to you?
B. Doesn’t it make you think that one thing is more important that the other. The NIV says in addition to all this. It’s hard to translate Greek into English and get the full meaning sometimes.
C. Saying in addition to, gives us a little better idea of what Paul is really saying. Paul was not saying that the shield of faith was more important than any of the other armor, but that this piece of armor is a cover for all the others.
D. The shield that he was talking about was a shield about as tall as a man, and it was big enough for a man to hide behind when the archers let go of a flight of arrows.
E. Let me us a clip from a film to make my point. Used Roman battle field film clip from Gladiator
F. When they fought back in those days, most of the time they would line up on opposite sides of a field in a wide line sometimes 50 men deep.
G. There would be many archers who would all shoot their arrows at the same time.
H. With the sky full of arrows you needed something to get behind, so they would plant this shield (Change Slide)on the ground and crouch under it.
I. Many times the arrows were dipped in tar and set on fire. Since the shields were usually made of wood they had to be covered in layers of leather, so when the arrow penetrated the leather it would smother the fire.
J. Paul is saying to carry this shield as a protection that goes over all these other things, because it was something that you got behind to protect you from the arrows and smoother their fire.
K. Our faith in God is the thing that has to be out in front, so when the wall of arrows that satan hurls at us come flying our way we can be protected from them behind our shield of faith.
L. When the burning arrows of satan come, when the doubt and fear, hopelessness and depression, anxiety and feelings of hurt and betrayal come, WHEN ALL THESE THINGS COME FLYING AT US FROM SATAN, OUR FAITH IN GOD IS THE THING THAT CAN PROTECT US, AND MAKE US ABLE TO GO ON IN LIFE.
M. If you live everyday of your life knowing and believing that God is in control, and that he loves you and will work out every situation for the best for you.
N. If you can trust your life to God in such a way that you are willing to believe that no matter what God is with you and that even when times or situations are hard God is working in your life for the best possible good, YOUR FAITH WILL STOP EVERYTHING THAT SATAN CAN HURL AT YOU!
O. Because, even when things aren’t working the way you would want them to, you can still trust that God is working the situation out for the best.
The bible says that God works all things for good to those that love him.
(Rom 8:28 NIV) And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
IV. We can’t love God the way we should and not trust him.
A. That’s what God wanted from Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.
B. He wanted them to show him their love by obeying what he said. He wanted them to show him their love by not eating from the tree.
C. And when they didn’t trust what God said it destroyed their relationship with Him!
D. If you have accepted the fact that you can’t be right with God any way except by putting your trust in what Jesus did to make you right with God, there is nothing that destroy your relationship with God.
E. But that doesn’t mean that satan won’t still shoot at you every day.
1. He still wants to damage your relationship with God.
2. He wants to try to make you believe that you can’t trust God.
3. Everything that he can throw at you that will make you doubt God, and his love for you, everything that will damage your trust in God, will damage the closeness of your relationship with God.
F. Every time you loose a little piece of that trust, that dependence on God, that belief that God loves you and will only do what is best for you, the quality of life that you live is less than it could be.
G. Every day that you wake up and don’t consciously and intentionally put your faith out in front of you by giving the day and everything in it to God, you make yourself a target, and satan will do his best to fill your life full of holes.
H. I there anybody who would like to take the place of one of those shields?
I. KEEP THAT PICTURE IN YOUR MIND BECAUSE ANY DAY THAT YOU START WITHOUT PUTTING YOUR FAITH IN GOD OUT IN FRONT OF YOU MAKE YOURSELF A TARGET AND THAT IS WHAT HAPPENS TO TARGETS.
J. TAKE THE TIME TO PICK UP YOUR SHIELD EVRY MORNING, THE CONSEQUENCES OF NOT DOING IT ARE NOT WORTH IT!
1 Peter 5:6-10 (NIV) Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith,
