In Christ - Struggles

Life does not always follow a straight line. Returning from sabbatical, Kelly Kinder begins Struggles in the In Christ series with a simple image from his three-year-old granddaughter—a single squiggly line—and names what many feel: ordinary days can quickly become complicated. From there, he opens Ephesians 6:10-13 and gives a different lens for what we face. Kelly explains that Scripture calls us to recognize an unseen battle without giving in to fear. The focus is clarity and preparation: be strong in the Lord, put on the whole armor of God, know your real enemy, and never surrender.

Kelly unpacks what it means to be strong in the Lord, not by forcing confidence, but by being continually strengthened by Jesus through a living relationship with him. Strength grows through prayer, Scripture, worship, and life with the church. He also describes the “strength of his might” as an inner, Spirit-formed capacity—a battle-ready heart marked by resilience and endurance. Drawing on Paul’s “thorn in the flesh,” Kelly shows how grace proves sufficient precisely where we feel least capable, and how God’s power often becomes most visible when we stop pretending we can handle everything alone.

Then comes the practical warning and promise. Kelly urges us to put on the whole armor of God because the enemy’s schemes are real and often target our predictable vulnerabilities—when we are tired, isolated, angry, or overconfident. He names the battleground of the mind and the everyday footholds that widen the opening, like unchecked anger, falsehood, and unwholesome talk. Just as important, Kelly reframes conflict: people are not the enemy. Behind the scenes are organized, invisible spiritual forces; misunderstanding this leaves us fighting the wrong battles.

Anchoring the message in hope, Kelly points to Paul’s own imprisonment and how God used it to advance the gospel, then shares a personal story of provision during a nine-month season of uncertainty. The thread is steady: in the “evil day,” the goal is not flash but faithfulness—stand firm, refuse to surrender, and remember that through Christ we are more than conquerors. If you’re weary, confused, or tempted to quit, this teaching offers honest realism, practical steps, and Christ-centered courage for whatever you are facing today.

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Transcript

Welcome Back And The Squiggly Line

Kelly Kinder 0:02

Good morning. It's great to be back. It's the one we uh we did have a great time away uh on sabbatical, and I want to thank you all for letting us uh do that. We had a time of restoration and rest, and uh just felt like we heard from God in several ways. But I just uh want to thank you again for that. You know, we're uh we're just excited to be back, and my opportunity to get up here and uh share God's word, I'm I'm excited about today. We've been in Ephesians, as you know, for uh a little while now, all the way back through last fall, even. And uh today we're in chapter six, and uh we're gonna talk about uh some things I think are relevant maybe to where we live today. And I know God is gonna speak to us. You know, uh this morning or last night, I uh I was going to bed and I ended up uh having a problem with my eye where I woke up this morning. My eye uh kind of drained all night and I couldn't hardly open it this morning. And uh just kind of like, Lord, what's going on here? And uh so you know, there's things that go on in our life like that that uh we just struggle with. And every day there's something seemingly new. I I was uh, you know, last week my my uh daughter, uh oldest daughter, was keeping my granddaughter, my three-year-old granddaughter, Lily. And uh I've mentioned Lily before, and but they were there sitting in the floor, pen and paper in hand, and uh my daughter was watching Lily draw. And she put this, all of a sudden put this little squiggly line. I wish I could show you the picture, but uh just a squiggly line, and she stopped and she just looked at it a little bit and kind of, and all of a sudden she suddenly suddenly she said, Well, that's my life. Three years old. I couldn't believe it, you know? Uh but I thought how true, how true that is. You know, it made me think that uh that's the way we sometimes we we see our lives. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Um but today I want to talk to you about something that kind of relates to that. Could it be that some of the struggles that we go through really uh there's more going on there that meet than meets the eye? This is what Paul kind of is getting at as he goes through this passage. Paul would tell us, you'd better believe there is. And um, this world that we live in is uh is really larger than we imagine. And behind the scenes, really, our um reality is much of it is unseen. We know that there are angels that exist, good angels and fallen angels. And Paul talks about Paul now sees as we go through this chapter in chapter six, almost the way we need to take this perspective of what's going on in the in the other unreal, unseen realm on the dark side. And uh he's just talking about us in terms of soldiers. We need to think like soldiers, Christian soldiers. So this morning we're gonna talk about our struggles and how the dark side and the things that are real out there maybe impact us more than we might know.

Prayer And The Unseen Battle

Kelly Kinder 3:08

So uh let's just pray and ask God to help us. Father, we're thankful that you uh know what's going on in each of our lives this morning. And we're grateful that, Lord, above all, you were over everything, even the things that we're going through that we don't understand. And Lord, we acknowledge that there are uh just unseen forces in the dark side, as well as your good angels that watch over us, you watch over us, and you use them all to your purposes. And so, Lord, we just pray for that reality to sink in even before we get into looking at the armor, these weeks to come. Lord, teach us these truths and drive them deep into our soul. We pray in Jesus' name. So, what do we need to know and do to make sure that we're not taken out by this unseen enemy we've talked about? Um, when the dust all settles, we should be, as Paul says, standing and not falling, not failing in our abilities to stand and and remain in what God has

Reading Ephesians 6:10-13

Kelly Kinder 4:10

given us. You know, let's just read the passage and just see what God says. It's Ephesians chapter 6. We're gonna begin in verse 10 and go through verse 13, just these three three verses. And Paul says, he's finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand firm. You know, the Bible says, Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. So I don't want, as we go through this message, to give you any idea that we need to be afraid of these dark forces. We just need to be aware of them and make sure we take steps to protect ourselves and not lose what God

Why Paul Says Finally

Kelly Kinder 5:12

has given us. So we come now to this final section, and uh actually that first verse says, Paul says, finally. He doesn't mean I'm tired of talking. He's saying, This is the last thing that I want to make sure you get because it's so important. Paul says, finally, there. And um, what has he talked about so far in this letter? He's talked about, first of all, sitting in the heavenlies to see that we have realities that we might not be aware of, the riches and the resources that are found in Christ, sitting there and seeing that what God has given us is something we can grab hold of even right now. He's talked about walking, walking it like Christ did in this world. And we know the last few weeks we've been talking about how to live that out in our households. Practical stuff. How do you live like Jesus in your homes? That's practical, and we need to learn from that. And now, today, there's one more thing, and that's what these really, I think he's he's telling these believers, you really need to know this. You don't need to pass it off or ignore it, and all believes that he that it even exists, and that is that we need to stand to fight. Stand to fight for what the enemy wants to take from you. And that's so important. Therefore, as we look at his Paul's mind, what's he turning to? He's turning to the ultimate reason behind our struggles. You say, well, you know, you can blame that on the enemy, Satan, everything, but you know, we do struggle with sin. But behind all evil is a personal enemy. And God makes that clear in Scripture. And so we're looking at this, even though we struggle, even though we're looking at this in terms of something we can't see, it's real. And we need to take that into account.

Paul In Prison Finds Purpose

Kelly Kinder 6:59

So I want to uh just before we get into it, kind of just to look at some of the background that kind of set the stage for this, because I think it particularly speaks to us about where Paul was. Think about where he was. Maybe you don't remember. He's in prison, right? And uh, you know, we're looking at this, and uh in the imagery he uses is really important. He takes this imagery from the from the prophet Isaiah, and Isaiah is pictured as uh as pictures God as a warrior dressed out for battle. And you can look at that in Isaiah chapter 11, 29, 49, and 52 if you want to go back and see that. But we're ourselves urged by Paul to prepare for the struggle by taking and putting on the same armor that God himself wore. This is the same armor that Jesus wore to take him all the way to the cross. So this is very practical and it applies to us. We're not wearing our own armor, we're wearing the armor of God. This is what he's talking about. Second thing, remember as I say, where Paul was when he wrote this letter. He's in prison. And uh, you know, most of us probably haven't been uh for any length of time, hopefully, but you in a prison. But you might imagine uh he was pretty probably pretty discouraged. Uh we know that during his, he was there in prison for for two whole years. And uh in A.D. 60 to 62, somewhere around there, where he where he wrote this letter. He wrote some other letters there too. But it says uh we know from scripture he he lived in his own rented apartment, and uh he but he was under constant supervision. In fact, Acts tells us uh he was allowed to live by himself with a soldier to guard him. Acts 28, 16. You think, well, that's just uh that's not really so bad. That's not like he's behind bars. But in reality, Paul was bound to a soldier seven days a week, 24 hours a day, for two whole years. Think about that. And he was bound by a chain that was about 18 inches long, referred to as a helosis. And this was a common way that prisoners were bound to to the person that guarded them. And so he didn't get very far away. And uh, I can imagine how hard that was, even for two years having that binding metal piece on your arms and just struggling with that. Um, one writer said it like this. He said he virtually had no privacy day or night, because the interesting thing with the Roman system is that it worked. They had a very interesting way of demanding loyalty from the Roman soldiers who were very undereducated for the most part. And that is, if a prisoner escaped on your watch, guess what? You die. You get early retirement at the behest of the Roman Empire. He goes on, he says, you know that put all these soldiers on alert. If I allow this prisoner they're thinking to escape, put all put all these soldiers on alert. If I allow these prisoners to escape while I'm watching him, then it's it for me. That's it. I'm I'm I'm done for. So even if you're a little sleepy, a little bit indifferent, or maybe even thought the inmate, the prisoner, was innocent, you weren't about to let him go because it meant your life. So these Roman soldiers were ruthless, but they were also very astute, and they had a way of ensuring that when you became a prisoner in the Roman Empire, you were a prisoner until they let you go. So Paul was constantly tied to this Roman soldier, to a different one every six hours. So they rotated, and Paul is constantly being introduced to a new prisoner, 18 inches at the short chain. And these are the elite guards of the emperor. And so they had access to the palace. And so we see what became of that. And sometimes we think that the struggles we're going through have no purpose or meaning. But I want you to listen to what Paul said about his own struggle. He writes in Philippians 1, 12-14, another one of the letters that Paul wrote from prison in Rome. He says, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having been confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. You see the impact of Paul's struggle, and nobody probably really knew until they saw the fruit of it. And often we won't know the struggle that we go through. It has fruit too. If we'll just hang in in there. We'll just hang in there. So, in other words, his his his struggle was a was really a platform for the gospel. Um, and it was like a uh a chain reaction for the gospel. Uh-huh. Right. So with that in mind, let's so let's look at this. Paul um Paul's wanting to see and show us how do you respond to your struggles. If you really want to see something come out of them, how do you respond? And and um let me just kind of give these to you in summary, and I'll I'll go through them in detail.

Be Strong In The Lord

Kelly Kinder 12:20

And just I think this is how Paul puts these points out here. The first, be strong. Second, wear the armor. Third, know your enemy. And fourth, never surrender. So let's look at this. The first one isn't found, it's found in verse 10. I just call it the essential preparation. The essential preparation. He says, Finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. And so Paul begins with our personal spiritual life. You want to you want to stand strong? Begin with your personal spiritual life. Make sure it's healthy. Make sure that you read in your Bible, make sure that you're praying, make sure that you're coming to church on a regular basis. You know, sometimes I think, you know, I love to tell the people who come maybe maybe every once in a while, you know, you need to be here more often because your spiritual life was suffering. But they're not here. So I can't tell them. Look at this word to be strong. It's a it's a present, in the Greek, it's a present passive. And you say, what does that mean? It literally means it reads like this to keep on being strengthened by someone. That's what it means. To be keep to keep on being strengthened by someone else. And guess who the someone else is? It's Jesus Christ. Keep on being strengthened by Jesus Christ. Don't let that wane and go away. And notice we're to be strong in two ways. He says, first of all, here in the Lord. In the Lord. In other words, be strong in your relationship with Jesus. Are you strong this morning in your relationship with Jesus? Or is he just something you do on Sundays? Do you get with him in a personal way every day? Paul said, I want to know him. I want to know him. Is that your heart? Because he's the source of our strength. So make sure you maintain an intimate relationship with Jesus, the Christ, the Lord Christ. Listen to what a couple of verses uh speak to that very thing. 2 Peter 3, verse 18 says, Grow. This is how you do this. Grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord. In other words, continually progress in the faith. Don't just be static and never changing. Let God change you. Let God mold you. God shape you. Because he wants to do that, and he will if you just give him your life and surrender. You know, one day one time David was struggling. He was distressed. They had been in a battle with the Amalekites. And uh the Amalekite army had taken the wives of the Israelites, taken them all, including David's own wives. And it says here in 1 Samuel 30, verse 6 what David did. It says, But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God. Doesn't say he complained. He doesn't say, Well, that's your fault. He didn't say, Well, I know I could have done better. He didn't do that. He went directly to the Lord, got before him, and he strengthened himself in the Lord his God. So this is so important. Our relationship to Christ gives us, think of this, our relationship to Christ gives us access to his power. And if we're not with him, guess what we don't have? No power. That's right. Colossians 2, 6 and 7 says this, and it says it in a way that can bring home practically how do we do this? He says, Therefore, just as you received Jesus Christ, how did you receive Jesus? By faith and belief. Just as you receive Christ Jesus as Lord, as Lord means He calls all the shots. Continue to live your lives in Him, rooted and built up in Him and firm in your faith, just as you were taught. And then what you said, Tyler, this morning, overflowing with thankfulness. Is that you? Is that me? I say I've still got some things to work on in that. So build up your relationship with Christ. Second, how do you be strong? You be strong in your inner man or your inner person. I call this like kind of like a battle-ready heart, a warrior's heart. And this is interesting. It's the little phrase, in the strength of his might. Let's look at that just for a minute, because it's got a lot there. A couple of different words there that are kind of speaks to us. But strength is talking about the outward demonstration of what Jesus can do through our life. But there's another word that goes along with it. It's his might. Be strong in the strength or demonstration of his might. This is the inside part. In fact, it's an interesting word in the Greek. It's the word ischus. And what it speaks about is the potential that God has put in you for you to do mighty works. The Bible says those who do know their God will be strong and do exploits. Right? And so God is always at work trying to get us to be have a stronger heart, a warrior's heart. Thinking about this, maybe, and to get this on your mind is just think about a bodybuilder. And you look at him, and he's got his shirt off, and man, he's got muscles, but he's not lifting any weights. But what you know is that he could. That's inherent in him. And that's kind of this idea, this word. It's something that's there and it could be used that Christ has put in you. This means that we possess the inner character and quality and capacity to be, I just kind of say, tough in the fight. When we're struggling, the easiest thing in the world for us is to kind of give up. Just like somebody said, I'm I'm tired. Coretta said this morning, a lot of us are tired. Well, this is what gives you the ability to keep going on, keep going through it, through the hard things without giving up. Think of these words, resilience. This is a quality about resilience, it's about fortitude. And it's the quality think about this. This is Jesus having loved them, he loved them to the end. How did he do that? Because he had a warrior's heart. And that's what he wants to build in each of us so that we're not so down and discouraged and ready to give up. And I know a lot of us here are ready there. I mean, we're just feeling it. It's hard. Nobody said it wasn't. This Christian life. And he he's not talking then about something we just kind of work up in ourselves. This is not natural ability, this is supernatural ability that the Holy Spirit gives to us. And it rises up in us and sells us, I tells us, don't give up and don't quit. Keep on going, keep swimming. And God will carry you through no matter what. If you have that working in you, the Holy Spirit will do some amazing things. And you'll be surprised. I'll be surprised. 2 Timothy 2 3 3. Paul said this to Timothy. He said, Endure suffering along with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. But we need God, we need Christ's power to do this, don't we? We can't do this on our own. Hebrews 13 5. This came to these to me this morning. He says, Don't throw away your confidence. Some of us are ready just to throw it all away and just say, I'm just gonna exist. Don't just exist in your Christian life. So we have, I think, seen two occasions in this letter that speak about the kind of power, spiritual power, that he's Paul is talking about here. And I'm taking some time for this point because I think it's really important. First is in Ephesians chapter 1, 1920, Paul states that this is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. Same exact words he used there, he's using here. And this is the power, guess what, that Paul prayed that we would know in chapter 3, verse 16. Listen to this again. That according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being, in your inner man. So the inner man has a warrior's heart. He's urging us, appropriate this. It's available to you. And so, what does that mean? It requires an attitude of undying faith. You say, Well, I don't believe it, I don't see it. Start believing it. Start believing it. And what happens is, even though we still struggle, just like Paul did, even though we struggle, we do so with a confidence that we're gonna come out on top. Right? So many of us think of ourselves as victims. We're not victims. We're we are victors through Christ. We have to believe that and live through that. And how is that so? Because what what he says in Colossians, he says, He, Jesus, disarmed the rulers and authorities, and he put them to open shame by triumphing over them through the cross. Yeah? And then in 1 Corinthians 15, 57, he says, Thank God for that. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you believe that? Do you believe that? So Paul wants us to understand this power, this strength and might that is so completely available to us is not our own. We can't work this up. You know how Paul said this happened to him? How did he get this power? It comes when we're humble enough to admit that we are not capable in ourselves. So we put our faith in what Jesus can do. It's a whole different mindset. It's a transformation in the way we think. I can fix this. Well, go ahead and try. And here's an example. Paul experiences himself. You remember when he says, he says, um, in Acts, he said, I had a thorn in the flesh. This is the way he describes it. A thorn in the flesh. And we don't really even know what it is. Some people think it was his eyesight. Could have been something else. We don't really know. Maybe some kind of physical physical problem. But guess what? He prayed three times. God, would you take this away? Would you take my struggle away? Would you please take my struggle away? Maybe like we pray. And what did God say? My grace is sufficient for you because my power is perfected in weakness. So therefore, I will glory in my weakness so that the power of Christ can rest on me. So when you're in a struggle and in a weak place, you know this is the hardest thing is to say, this is probably a good place to be. Because then I can see God work through me in something that I can't claim to have done myself. And you can give him all the glory for it. This is what Paul said to me, My grace is sufficient. Therefore, for the sake of Christ, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I'm strong. That may be a total upside down the way you think about life. But that's the way the Christian life is. So when I ask you this morning, what are your weaknesses today? What are my weaknesses? Are you honest enough to admit them to God and to confess them to God and maybe to share it with someone you trust? Maybe you're a fearful person this morning. That's a struggle. Maybe you struggle with some kind of addiction and you're just like, I can't get over that. Maybe you get angry all the time and you can't seem to control that. Maybe you have a problem with pride, and you think you're always right, but then you realize, oh, that was bad. That was so bad. Why did I say that? We'll give it to Jesus. You see, some of our struggles are not just about what's going on and what happens to us, it's what's happening inside of us. And what's happening inside of us may be the very thing that God wants to allow so He can make you look like Jesus. So we see this is the essential preparation for winning in our struggles. It begins with building our relationship with Jesus and training our heart so that it is a strong heart, an enduring heart, a heart that doesn't give up in the battle before it comes. Because guess what? The battle is gonna come to you one way or another. It doesn't decide between any of us.

Put On The Whole Armor

Kelly Kinder 25:47

So Paul moves now from his struggles, our strengths, to I think I could just call it the prime instigator of our struggles. And he tells us, how are you gonna deal with this, this unseen force? And this is in verse 11, the vital protection. Look at it. Verse 11, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. The whole armor is the English way of saying it. It's really just one word in the Greek, it's panoplea. It's like it's the whole kit that a soldier was assigned, and he was given different pieces of equipment, which we're gonna be talking about in a few weeks. But he says, don't just put on the a piece of it. Don't just carry your sword around thinking that's all you need, or your helmet. Put the whole kit on, because you're gonna need all of it. You're gonna need all of it. And this is the this is the armor that was used by the heavily uh like the heaviest armed foot soldiers. Um so we're looking at this, and Paul's emphasis here is not really yet to describe all that armor. That comes in the next few verses in verses 14 and following. What is he trying to do? Would you just put it on? Just put it on. And I think partly, and I think as we go through the Christian life, we we get used to doing this as our routine, and we forget things that the scriptures said, you know how important this is? It's more important than you think. And then maybe we just need to revisit this as the church. Paul is highlighting just how serious this warfare is for us and the danger we put ourselves in in our spiritual lives if we just think it really doesn't matter. Because the threat is real. And God so He provides the armor. And as I said earlier, it's God's armor, and he wants to give it to you to put on. So why is this so critical? Well, the armor, the spiritual armor, covers those areas where we're vulnerable. Do you know where you're vulnerable in your spiritual life? We're gonna find out. But here's the thing I know our enemy is he's crafty and he's shrewd and he's cunning. Uh, he's opportunistic. He takes advantage of you when you think you are okay, and he takes advantage of a weakness that you you have in your life, and he capitalizes on it, and sometimes brings us down. You know what a lot of times, and this is how he came to Jesus, wasn't it, in the wilderness? Jesus in the wilderness 40 days. And when did the when did Satan approach Jesus? When he was weak and hungry. Hangry. Does the enemy come to you when you're hangry? He does me. Wife said, What's gotten into you? It's like, no. But he's opportunistic. The Bible says Satan prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. You think, well, he pays attention to, he can't pay attention to me. He watches. He has destructive intentions. The Bible tells us what is his MO to steal, to kill, and destroy. And we we wonder if this is all that important. Some of the stuff that happens to us, I'm afraid, is because we haven't done what Paul is telling us here. I mean, I talked about my eye this morning. I told Tyler this morning, I think it I thought it was maybe a spiritual attack. Or maybe God wanted to teach me and test me to see how I would respond in it. God tests us, folks, to see how we'll respond. You know, I was watching, uh well, I can say I have watched numerous times, speaking of Memorial Day, uh, this series called Band of Brothers. Maybe you guys have some of you guys have seen it. It's it's a series by Stephen Ambrose, and it's about a real group of men who went through World War II. They were together in all the battles that they fought, and they fought some of the most famous battles in World War II that we still remember. Many of them died. And they all, I think, were really into doing what was asked of them. But I don't know that they saw the outcome of it really immediately during the battle. Well, they they won the battle, but what does this mean about the whole war? Maybe they didn't know. And until one of the later episodes in this Band of Brothers series, in an episode called Why We Fight. And I thought of this. I thought, what happens? They're kind of relaxed, they're not in a battle, they're kind of in an old French town, kind of taking it easy. And they decide to go out just kind of driving around, and one of the guys comes back and says, Sir, you need to come see this. He said, I'm busy. You need to come see this. So they get in a Jeep and they drive down the road and they come to the first concentration camp that was discovered in Nazi Germany. And these guys are behind the bars and emaciated, and many of them lying, as you've seen pictures, lying on the ground just in an awful condition. And they rescued them. And the same is true for what Jesus wants to do with us and for those who don't yet know him. He wants to rescue us from prison, from our sins, from our struggles. I said the devil's out to exploit us as Christians if he can do it. We saw some specific examples in chapter four. I'll just kind of refresh your mind here. Because he mentions a number of sins that the devil is able to exploit in us. In verse 27, it says Satan tries to gain a foothold in your life. And he does that as he exerts his influence through things like uncontrolled anger, falsehood, stealing, unwholesome talk, or any conduct that that is out of character or is in it looks like your old life. And Satan says, I can capitalize on that. So Paul is telling us, wear the armor. Just put it on. So then we've seen this essential preparation. We have to have a relationship with Jesus. It says has to be strong. We need to put on this vital armor that's God's armor for our

Your Real Enemy Is Not People

Kelly Kinder 32:48

protection. But the problem is we don't often know or recognize who the real enemy is. We think it's our husband or our wife. We think it's our boss. We think it's the nosy neighbor or the hard-to-get along friend that's causing us problems. And Paul says, no, it's not. It's none of that. I mean, Satan can use people like that. He can use a husband or a wife, he can use a person at work, a boss to do evil things. That's possible. But as I said, behind all that is one who puts thoughts in our minds to do things and say things that we know are not right. And so this is the real conflict. Verse 12. He says, For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. So he talks about here the nature of the battle. This is a battle that's spiritual. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood. In other words, it's not the people, folks. Your people, the people are not the enemy. Who are we fighting with then? And it's difficult, isn't it, to see that? That it's not the people, but it's an unseen spiritual force that's an evil force, a dark force. In the moment, we don't think that way. So we have to train ourselves. Maybe I need to stop here just a minute. Instead of getting all upset, I need to think, what's really going on? It's all up here. In fact, this is the main base of Satan's operations, is in your head, my head, the battleground is the mind. But it's spiritual, not physical. Second, he says the power of the enemy is significant. So don't underestimate him. Do not underestimate him. He says, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. We can probably, if we go through that, uh kind of identify four characteristics here about these forces. They're evil, they're organized, they're powerful, and they're invisible. This makes it a hard fight to fight. By extension, that means they're deceptive, right? It's like you don't always know. Is this God putting me through a test? Maybe he's just allowing this to happen. So I'll get some things in my life that need to be looked at and changed. But he always uses the enemy. He's over the enemy. God and Satan are not equals. God created Satan and his forces. But Paul's intention then here is not to name these powers and explain all about who they are. It's not important here. What's he doing? He just wants you to know they exist. And then sometimes they are involved in people's lives, sometimes they're involved in government, sometimes they're involved in in political organizations. This is a personal force. And he influences people in every place, including the church. It's like, well, this is crazy. This guy's nuts. But we would be really making a big mistake not to know that these things exist. Here's what Klein Snodgrass says about this. He says, understanding worldviews, that's the way you see the world, is key to breaking free from the ways the powers control people's minds. A worldview dictates the way we see the world, it provides a picture of the nature of things. Through the lens of our worldview, we make sense of our experiences. So if you don't allow for the fact there's a real devil, you're gonna be really at a disadvantage. So what we have to do, we have to embrace a biblical view of reality if we want to overcome the struggles. That's what I'm saying. That's what Paul is getting at here.

The Evil Day And Standing Firm

Kelly Kinder 37:53

So we've seen this essential preparation. Have a relationship with Jesus that's strong. Where the duds, put on the armor. But if we just kind of left it there, we could easily get discouraged because the battle, as you know and I know, it just never ends. Jesus said, every day has enough trouble of its own. That means there's trouble every day. The enemy sees to that. We get tired, we want to give up. But you need to know, and I need to know as believers, you can take and hold the ground that Paul has talked about all through this letter, and you can hold on to it and not let the enemy take it from you. The only thing you have to do is fight for it. And so we come to the last point, the believer's victory, verse 13. He says, Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having all done all to stand firm. He said, When's the evil day? Today, it's the day evil comes to you. It's the day evil comes to visit you. None of us, I said, are immune to this. You have a bad day. None of us gets to decide that we're going to take a pass from having a bad day. Or go through some hardship, but maybe have a struggle in your health, in your finances, in your relationships. We don't get to decide that. It just comes to us. It's the evil day, it's the struggle. But if it comes to you, you'll be glad, and I'll be glad that we learn to put on the armor. So look at look at what he's saying here. When the evil day comes, we will stand victorious over it. And that's just really just a promise that the evil one loses his power when we take on the armor of God. Because it's God's armor, remember? And that's why Jesus taught us to pray. Deliver us from the evil one. So here's the thing: don't give up. Don't surrender. Don't think I'm too tired to keep on going. This is why the church exists. So that if you fall down, you've got people to say, I'm gonna help you up. It's not the end, it's not over. Let's let's get up and keep going on together. Don't retreat, don't surrender. So this is Paul's notes here.

What Struggles Produce In Us

Kelly Kinder 40:32

Let me let me kind of give you some lessons that we need to remember, I think, as we go through this. There's just three quick ones. Number one, the struggles of our life test our faith. The struggles of our life test our faith. The Bible says that in 1 Peter 1, 6 and 7, in this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials. So that the testing tested genuines of your faith, more precious than gold, that perishes, though it's tested by fire, maybe may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. The struggles of our life test our faith. And one of the ways God tests our faith is to see what we'll do when things get hard. Okay, big boy, let's see what you got. And what does it do? It shows us where we're weak in our faith. Maybe we've lost a job. Maybe we've got an issue with our health, as I said. God just wants to see if we will trust him or not. Second, the struggles of our life build our faith. The struggles of our life build our faith. Count it all joy, he says in James, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. See, God will let us come into times where we really have no answers. And we want to escape, don't we? We want to run, but God wants to get us to trust Him more, even in the middle of it. And then the third thing, the struggles of our lives allow us to glorify God. That's hard to learn and hard to do.

A Nine Month Season Of Provision

Kelly Kinder 42:42

But it's possible. You know, years ago, I found myself in a in a pretty confusing place. I was um I was without without a church and no place to go. And um, I remember it well. We we were driving down Kingston Pike. I can still picture. We were in the in the van, and my wife for some reason was was that day was driving. I was just sitting in the passenger seat and I was just talking to God, and I said, Lord, how um how long is it gonna be before I find a place to serve again? I just remember clear as day. And and guess what? I heard a response, not an audible response, but it came right into my head. And the the the word was, would it bother you if it was eight or nine months? I'm you know, God, is that you or am I making this up? You know how we do. And I sat there thinking, eight or nine months, how are we gonna make it till then, God? And then a verse, another verse, a verse of scripture popped into my head. It was from, and I later found out this is from Deuteronomy 29 5, but it was like the here were the words. The children of Israel were 40 years in the wilderness, their clothes did not wear out, and Her sandals never grew old. Right there, driving down Kingston Pike. I said, God, that's you. And I just said, Wow, out loud. My wife is kind of like, wow, what? And I told her. And she sat there a minute and she said, you know, eight or nine months, that's how long it takes for a baby to be born. And I thought, what are you talking about? I was like, you didn't hear what I said, did you? But she said, that's how long it takes for a baby to be born. And I said, That's all I said. You know, well, from that time on, we never lacked a thing. And we found money show up in the in the most odd places. One time we found $1,000 in our locked van, just in an envelope, and found it in our mailbox. Just, and I'm thinking, nobody knows this. But there's money coming from nowhere. Well, it sounded like it was from somewhere. And here's the thing: nine months to the day, because we counted it back, nine months to the day that I heard that from God. I had a friend of mine approach me and he said, I got something I want to ask you. He said, I feel like God wants me to help start a church. He said, I feel like I'm supposed to be the worship pastor. And I feel like he wants you to be to be the pastor. And I hope God taught me something. I could never have learned if I had not gone through the struggle. And he does that with us, folks. The struggles of our lives allow us to glorify God.

More Than Conquerors Final Prayer

Kelly Kinder 45:51

Let me finish up with this thought and we'll be done. We shouldn't be surprised by the struggles we go through. We just shouldn't. As John Calvin put it like this, he said, It is no new thing for the Lord to permit his saints to be undeservedly, undeservedly exposed to the cruelty of the ungodly. And so what we have to do in the middle of the struggle, struggles, we have to remember the goodness of God. The goodness of God, which never changes. Anchored in the truth, not swayed by culture, not moved by emotion, not pressured by circumstances or just the difficulty itself. Through Christ, we are not victims. We are victorious. Amen. Amen. So would you stand? I'm just gonna pray for us. And I want you to listen to this verse. And I'm gonna have one thing while you're standing, just so you could get up and move. I had this verse come to me. Romans 8 37. It says, In all these things, we have complete victory, or we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. And um I'll tell you this little quick story. If I just wanted to get you standing up here so you kind of pay attention. You know, when I was a kid, uh they had tennis shoes out, uh athletic shoes, and they were called PF Flyers. Who many who remembers PF Flyers? And I uh I was so excited, I was like six or seven years old, and my mom was gonna take me to Buster Brown and get a pair of PF Flyers because you know the promise. Not only did you get a whistle, which I was so excited about, the promise was that you could run faster and jump higher. And I was thrilled that I was gonna be able to run faster and jump higher. Of course, that didn't pan out, but it made me want the shoes. And then PF Flyers were eventually replaced by a shoe we called Nike, right? Nike? And it's the word here: Nikkei. In fact, it's not really Nikkei, it's Hooper Nikoman. You say, what does that mean? It's hyper victory. Hyper victory. Victory beyond victory. And could be translated, we are winning the most glorious victory. Yeah. So you get the picture. God is gonna bring you through so you can glorify him and know him like you've never known him before. This is his plan, and I want to pray for that for us today. Father, we're thankful for your word this morning, how it calls us to higher places, help, helps us to understand the unseen realm that you've created, even the dark forces that are against us. Lord, I pray for every person who's struggling this morning, Lord, that you would visit them in a personal way today. There's people that don't know you. Lord, I pray that they'd come to you and trust you with the faith that you've given them to trust you and believe in you as the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, and I pray for every person, Lord, whatever struggle, if it's in the job, in a relationship, in a uh just a hard place, maybe it's a health thing, Lord, I pray that right now they would just give that to you. So if you're there by faith, whatever your struggle is today, would you just silently there just for a moment, give that to God? So, Jesus, according to your promise, Lord, you promise that we have the victory through you. Would you honor these requests and help us to come to a higher place in our walk with you because of our struggles? And we pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.