Who Are You Fighting Series

Who Are You Fighting?

Supernatural, Part 3

We’re in part 3 of our series on the Supernatural.

The first week we did a broad overview

of spiritual warfare,

and what that means for us today,

Last week we looked at the Holy Spirit,

Who is the Holy Spirit,

How can we be filled with the Spirit,

and what does he do in our lives,

when we are filled,

what kind of blessings and benefits

come with that.

We saw that the Holy Spirit will daily do

three things in our lives,

these aren’t the only things he does,

but they’re some of the most important.

Daily he will

guide us, encourage us, and empower us.

And by the way,

if you were in one of our Supernatural Small groups.

then this week in your group

you got a wrist band,

that says GEE,

which stands for Guide, Encourage, Empower,

so each time you notice this during the day,

you can ask the Holy Spirit to fill you,

and Guide, Encourage, and Empower you.

(we have extras of these… pick one up as you leave)

Lets look at a story from Acts 16. (page 758, pew bible)

This story starts when

the Holy Spirit speaks to Paul in a dream.

Acts 16:9-10

During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

So they go to Macedonia,

and things start out great,

Paul preaches the gospel

to a wealthy businesswoman named Lydia,

and she becomes a Christian,

and then her whole household does,

they all get baptized.

But then it starts to change.

Verse 16

When we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, "These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved." She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, "In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!" At that moment the spirit left her. When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities…

Verse 22

The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison.

This story is an example of something

we see over and over in the bible,

and we also experience over and over

in our lives,

It illustrates a spiritual principle

that every Christian eventually has to learn.

Its the spiritual principle

of attack and counter-attack

that results from spiritual warfare.

Now, maybe you’ve never thought of this,

or understood this,

but I know you’ve experienced it.

You’ll be going along in life,

and you’re doing your best to follow God,

and do the right thing,

And then some kind of great opportunity comes along,

and it looks like it’ll be a real blessing,

Maybe you pray about it,

and it really seems like God’s will.

So you go for it,

but then, things seem to go haywire.

And now you’re saying,

“I don’t get it.

I prayed about this,

and I really thought God was leading me to

take this job,

or to move to this neighborhood,

start dating this person,

or to get involved in this ministry,

or to start this group,

I really thought it was God’s will,

but nothing has seemed to work out

the way I thought it would.

Doors have been slammed in my face.

Relationships have been really hard.

I’ve been hassled in so many areas of my life.

All kinds of stuff going wrong.

What is going on?”

What’s going on

is a clash of two opposing kingdoms –

Its the principle of

attack and counter-attack.

We see it in this story of Paul,

who is led by the Holy Spirit into a new area,

He’s attacking an area

that Satan thought was his,

and Paul has some initial victories,

but then there’s counterattack.

And you’ll see the same thing happen in your life.

Now, why does this happen?

Well, lets step back

and look at the big picture for a second.

And I need to give you a quick theology lesson here,

we’re going to dive a little deeper,