JUL 22 2020 | Holy Spirit Workshop S1E6 | Spiritual Gifts

Sea Change Church · Holy Spirit Workshop Ep 6 · July 22, 2020
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

We are passing the test at this church. I'm excited. Things are great. Bruce got a prayer language last week, which was awesome. So that was really cool. I know. Very, very cool to see that happen. Welcome to the Holy Spirit workshop. I think we are in episode six and we are looking at the armor of God. And this week we are looking a little bit more at spiritual warfare. What it means to see breakthrough in your own personal life, how to see breakthrough in your home, how to see breakthrough in your relationships, in your city, in your nation and throughout.

And one of the things that I heard a preacher say one time is new level, new devil. And it's interesting that as you raise up and you go to new areas, there are levels of authority. You see this in the scripture. I can't do a total breakdown of that right now, but there's levels of authority of the demonic strongholds and different levels of demons in this. And as you move and take more territory, we have to be mature and equipped to move to that next area in order to clear that out as well.

And so, you know, some people, when you hear that statement, new level, new devil, they get worried. Oh my goodness, goodness, there's a new level, new devil. I'm worried. I don't need any more issues or problems in my life. But also, as we see in the scripture, the Holy Spirit is fully equipped and desirous to move you to a level of authority in your life so that you can actually take that next level before you move to the next level.

And God continuing to give you maturity and let you walk in your faith so you can walk in more authority. We want to walk in authority as believers. We don't want to walk constantly worried, fearful, in doubt, not knowing what the devil is up to. We'll see by these notes tonight that the scripture says that we are not unaware of what the devil was planning. And if you are not on a somewhat regular basis understanding, hey, this is an attack of the enemy.

This is an attack of the devil. And I can see it clearly right now. And I'm aware of it. If you have not had that thought for a very long time, then I want to challenge you to think through how you strategically walk through your life. The enemy is, especially if you're posing a threat, is always strategically trying to find a way to take you out. To take you out of the game. To take you out with depression. To take you out with illness, possibly.

We don't know how he always does that, but the Bible is clear. The devil can bring illness. We know that God can protect us from that as well. He's always looking strategically. And the scripture says that the Holy Spirit will let us know what the enemy's plans are. So today we're going to this classic passage in Ephesians 6, looking at the armor of God. Some really powerful statements about this. And then for our workshop time, we're releasing you into the streets for about 25 minutes tonight.

To walk down the block, to maybe walk up to Pearl Street. To begin to go pray, use some of the things that I'm speaking about. Write down any words the Lord has given you. Any houses where you feel like God spoke to you about a house or a spirit you feel in the area. I know that as I walk down Pearl Street, one of the things I noticed is there was, when I first moved here, there's a lot of mental instability on Pearl Street.

Pearl Street feels very different than if you go over to Girard. Or you go down to the business district or the Cove. Different areas of La Jolla have different feelings about them. And I can actually, because I have a spirit of discernment, it's one of my spiritual gifts, you might as well. But as I go through La Jolla, it doesn't all feel the same to me. Some of it feels spiritually more dark. Some of it feels spiritually more light.

And many people, when they have come to this campus, it's been here for 100 years, you know, knocking on, pounding on the ground in prayer for God. God has established an encampment here. The angel of the Lord encamps near the righteous, the scripture says. And as people come by, they say, hey, this feels like home. We have people walk in all the time or walk by. And they'll come in and say, hey, I just felt something here.

Especially people that are really into new age. They can definitely feel that spirit, that presence. They'll oftentimes come. But we're going to look at this Ephesians 6 passage and get right into it and talk about this armor of God and how we want to use the tools and the weapons that God has given us. So it starts with, 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.

Just quickly, when God calls us to attack, he doesn't call us to run into battle. When Jesus speaks, he's always the one who does the fighting for us. He calls us to fully equip ourselves and to stand. It's a horrible strategy. It reminds me of the British strategy against the Americans in the Continental War when the Americans would hide as the militia and the British would stand in these lines and stand up and stand up.

It was horrible. And, you know, one of the reasons they lost is because the Americans used the tactics of, you know, what they learned in the French-Indian War that the Native Americans used as well. It's a horrible strategy unless God's fighting for you. One of the things we need to do is really stand before the Lord. Alex, would you do me a favor? Would you close those down and then maybe open that far one over there for me and kind of monitor that for me if you could throughout the evening.

So we want to stand. But you want to stand fully equipped. Fully equipped. And so what does it mean to be fully equipped in the armor of God, knowing that he will fight for us? Now this is a key verse. It's a key verse in Scripture. This is one of the hinge-pin verses in all of Scripture. 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.

If you're thinking, oh, that Boris Johnson over in Britain, if we could just get him out of Parliament, then everything would be all right because he is the one that is just stopping everything. Or maybe it's Putin. Or there's your next-door neighbor. Or maybe it's this other person. The Scripture is very clear that our battle is not against flesh and blood. It's not against people. If you want to win spiritual battles, if you want to win relational battles, if you want to understand how to relate to people, whether they're your enemies or whether they are your best friend, we do it in a spiritual context, and we win the battle in the spirit before we take the ground.

It says, you know, that God will, we want God to take the victory, and we don't want to make the victory. God is the one who makes the victory, and then we take the victory, if that makes sense. And so we see God moving here and saying that our battle is one that he wants to fight, and that we fight with spiritual weapons. Going on now. God, therefore, your response to this, knowing, therefore, that's a key word, put on the full armor of God.

Not just part of it. The full armor of God. If you're missing a piece of the armor, because you don't want to walk in righteousness, because you have this one area of your life, you're not willing to surrender to God, then you are putting on part of the armor of God. You do not want to go into battle with the enemy without being fully equipped in the armor of God. But if you're going to move into battle, if you want to take territory, if you want to move forward in maturity, if you want new areas of relationship, new areas of authority, new areas of providence, of provision from God, of understanding, of insight, then we have to be fully equipped and be willing to surrender these things to God.

The full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground. And after you've done everything to stand, everything to stand, stand firm then, with the belt buckle of truth buckled around your waist. Now, before we move on, have you seen that battle call? When you've done everything to stand, stand. It says when you do these things, when you understand where the battle's coming from, when you are fully equipped, he'll give you the armor here in just a moment, that when the day of testing comes, you will not wither.

We're seeing a lot of people wither right now. I'm looking around, I'm seeing a lot of people wither. But I've seen other people begin to stand. One of the things, we just came out of our elder meeting right now, looking at the state of the church. I'll be doing a state of the church address on September 6th, about where we're going as a church, what God's doing. And this church has never been more active, more clearly focused, more engaged with its people, more able to care for its people in relationship with its people, and cared for by the people in the way that they have given their time, their treasure, and their talent in the seven years that I have been here.

It's never been stronger. We are in a season where we easily could have withered. Matter of fact, we're the only church right now, besides the Catholics, there's a couple Catholic churches, in all of La Jolla, I think there's 12 or 13 churches in La Jolla, that is actually opened right now. That doesn't mean that they're withering. But we are able to do that, and God is strengthening us as we stand. And as a congregation, this moment of testing has come, and we have found that this group of people, you included, have been able to stand.

Why? Well, there was a lot of covering, and there was a lot of protection, and many of us were filled with the armor. But the other thing is, is if we weren't, many of us stepped into that armor over the last multiple months, and we are very encouraged as a church. You will be very encouraged about where we are going. So it says that when you can stand, stand firm then. And then it speaks about truth. It speaks about righteousness.

It talks about readiness. It talks about peace. It talks about prayer on all occasions. Let me read through that. Stand firm then with the belt buckle of truth buckled around your waist. The belt buckle, as you've heard, is often holds together everything else. It keeps everything together. They used to have the belt would go through the vest, I mean the breastplate. It would hold the sword. It would actually hold what girded their loins.

Everything was held together by truth. We live in a society that no longer understands truth. The most basic truths, even biological truths, are no longer understood and up for debate. The value of human life, all of these things are being seen as, some things are being called evil that are good, and things that are good is being called evil. We've lost truth. And this is why we need to speak truth and be willing to stand and speak truth.

I, myself, have been more and more encouraged to speak truth, but to try to do so in a way in which we can still win some and not just offend everybody. I don't want to just speak truth like a bright light and so bright that you're blinded. I want to speak truth and be attractive in that as best that we can. Stand firm, then, with the belt buckle of truth around your waist. The breastplate of righteousness in place. First question is, how's your truth?

Do you feel like you're walking in truth? Do you feel like you have a good understanding of who God has called you to be? What God has called you to do? How much he loves you? How much he cares for you? Do you have that understanding of truth, that you're okay in this situation, that he has got your back? Understanding the truth of scripture. How's your truth? Righteousness. How's your righteousness? Are there little areas for fudging?

Are there little areas of, I'm just going to allow this or allow that? Or are you committed to righteousness as a breastplate that just covers up your heart? Righteousness will protect your heart. Scripture says, guard your heart. One of the ways you do it is through walking in holiness and in righteousness. And with your feet fitted with readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. A readiness, like you were ready to go.

With a gospel of what? With a gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. The enemy is full of flaming arrows. He can do everything from, I don't know how he does it, but he can do things we know with the physical world. We saw that with Job. He can do things with attack, with thoughts. He came to rob, kill, and destroy. He can influence people to physically attack.

He can influence people to verbally attack, to emotionally attack. The good thing is, is we're always protected by God. And God will protect us and will never allow anything to happen to us. That is not for our benefit, or he will always be with us. So he has these flaming arrows. It says then, take up the helmet of salvation, which guards your mind. Helmet of salvation. Based in truth. Understand that you are saved.

That saves your mind from anxiety, from depression, from negative thoughts. This idea of the scripture of truth. All these things go together to guard your mind. And then the sword of the spirit. Now we're talking about the spirit tonight. Spirit of God. The sword of the spirit. So we talk about, when we talk about the Holy Spirit, and the tools that the Holy Spirit equips us with for battle. Because tonight, I'm calling you, and challenging you, to see yourself as a warrior in God's kingdom, and in his army.

That the spirit of God has tools, which he equips us. And one of these, the sword, is the Bible. It is the word of God. That God's word is meant as a sword, that you actually can fight with, to knock down and cut through, like a machete, as you go through the jungle, to clear the way, to threaten an enemy, to protect yourself. I mean, if you've ever seen sword play, there's so many uses, to protect yourself. The word of God is meant to protect you.

Why do we want to be in the word of God? Because it is living, it is active, and it is filled by the spirit. Why is the Bible the sword of the spirit? Because Jesus tells us, that the spirit, is a counselor of the word. That he uses the word, that he will counsel the word. He has wisdom, we'll see that tonight. He has knowledge, he gives us knowledge. He gives us power. The spirit gives us authority. You're going to see all these ways, the spirit equips you tonight.

But he uses the word to do it. That's one way he uses it. So as we fill ourselves, with the word of God, as we binge listen to the word of God, or whatever it is, we employ that into our life. We give the spirit the necessary fuel to burn brightly in our lives. And so we want to be filled with the word, and then ask the Holy Spirit, Spirit, comfort me with the scripture today. Spirit, teach me with the scripture. Give me knowledge in the scripture, what the enemy is trying to do.

Give me hope. Give me peace. Give me joy. Spirit of God, come alive. And you use the Holy Spirit, this living spirit, to wield this flaming sword of God in your life, to take ground, to protect yourself, to give you all that you need, the spirit of God, and the word of God. If you don't currently, have a Bible reading program of some kind, or a Bible listening program, I want to challenge you to do it. Go to the dailyaudiobible.com, and you can listen to it audio.

I just downloaded the NIV on audible.com, and so I listened three days in a row, I listened to, or two days in a row, 50, no, I listened to 100 chapters, 100 psalms. So I listened to 150 psalms, all the psalms, in a 48-hour period. I just binge listened to the psalms. It took me a while to do it, but I was just cleaning my house. I don't know, maybe it took me three, four hours, I don't know, three hours, something like that.

But I just filled my life with it, you know, and just tried to surround myself. Kai, our elder, him and his wife, turned the word of God on very lightly at night, and they call it washing, washing word, where they just sleep with the word of God in their room, creating a sanctuary, the word of God lightly, just so they can sleep, just over them. Now I did that with my daughters with worship. I put worship on, but the word of God became like this pillar in their life.

It just becomes something that is, you're just surrounded by the word of God. The spirit uses that. So it says, in addition, let's take up the shield of faith. It goes on, in verse 18, down to verse 18, and pray in the spirit on all occasions. Now that can mean praying in tongues, but it also means being, praying, being led by the spirit, asking the spirit, spirit, what are you, you know, sitting quietly, listening, what do you want me to pray for?

As your mind comes to different thoughts, and you follow thoughts, and ideas, and different, you know, just like you would think and dream up. If I were to say to you, hey, I want you to plan a summer camp for kids, or a restaurant menu, whatever you're into, whatever your thing is. Steve's a swimmer. If I said, Steve, I need you to plan a swimming, a one month swimming workout. Steve would sit down with a cup of coffee, and start working on it.

He'd be able to put it together. He would dream. He would think, what do they need? How can I make, you know, the sprints, or the long term swimming? How do I get their lung work to get better, their cardiovascular? He'd think through it all. Prayer is the same way. It says here, we pray with all types of requests, but we ask the Holy Spirit to guide us as we plan. Very few believers pray strategically. They actually sit and take a strategic plan to how am I going to pray over my family?

A strategic plan of what does my wife actually need? Holy Spirit, what does my wife actually need for her life? What does my husband actually need? Or perhaps, what kind of wife do I want? Or what kind of husband do I want? Or whatever it is, you sit, and you begin to write out a strategic plan. God, I need this. I need to be equipped with this. Let's say, you know, in regard to dating, maybe there's a lack of courage, or a fear.

God, I need that stronghold to be, that's a stronghold. I feel it within me. God will bring things up, and you'll be surprised as you experiment with prayer, how God will confirm the experimentation. You know the way to learn how to pray? Pray. That's exactly right. The only way to learn how to pray is to pray, and to pray in the Spirit. So, this can mean praying in tongues, but if you don't have the gift of tongues, then how you pray, you say, Spirit, lead me.

You take out the Psalms. You can pray through the Psalms. Sometimes I pray through the Psalms. You just experiment. The Holy Spirit will teach you and guide you. Whenever you submit yourself to the Spirit, you are praying in the Spirit. So, when you go to prayer, you sit in the morning, and say, Spirit of God, I'm inviting you here. I invite you to pray with me, and I'm going to pray, and lead me, and you do the best you can.

And as you pray, God will begin, and as you experiment with it, He will begin to confirm, and you will begin to know His voice. It says, Pray also for me, no, I'm sorry. It says, and pray with the Spirit in all occasions, with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert. Always keeping on praying for all the Lord's people. Be alert. Sometimes I just sit, and I take 15 minutes, and whoever comes to my mind at the church, I just pray.

So it would be, Hey, Glenda, just pray for Glenda. Just pray you just bless her home. And then all of a sudden, I'll think of Brian, and I'll think, well, I pray for Brian, and next thing, after I'm praying for Brian, I'll think, well, he's a youth leader, and I'll think of Sam. Oh, Lord, pray for Sam, and we just cover, say, oh, Pastor Harry. Pray for Pastor Harry. Oh, and then this other kid, next thing, I'm just flowing, just flowing, just praying for people, just taking some time to cover the church, cover people, cover you, cover this class, always praying, always doing those things.

Pray for me also, that whenever I speak, words may be given to me. Who gives them? The Holy Spirit gives them. The Holy Spirit gives those words. So that I may fearlessly make known to the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should. Now, as we go into the scriptures here, we're going to see that warfare is a strategic theme of scripture. It's all through the Old Testament.

It was perhaps overplayed during the Crusades, as you look at some of the things that Christians have moved into, because our battle is not against flesh and blood, often, but we might have to stand up on occasion with flesh and blood, but it is against the spiritual realms. And warfare is a strategic theme of scripture. And the Holy Spirit is a strategic theme of scripture. Jesus is our captain. Jesus is our captain.

Jesus is our captain. But the Holy Spirit is portrayed as the equipper, the supplier, and the trainer of God's troops. I have found that the only way that I get supplied by the Holy Spirit, not the only way, I don't want to be that definitive, but I get supplied when the troops move out. So, when I try to go out into God's country, when I try to do something for God, when I try to work with God, when I try to pray, when I move out, then the Holy Spirit shows up and equips me.

Rarely does he equip me when there's no movement. Now, this is different than standing firm in the faith, like I talked about earlier. I'm talking about apathy, I'm talking about not moving forward, but when I move forward, the Holy Spirit equips. So, one of the things we want to do is where you want to take ground, start trying to take ground. You'll see that there will be pushback when you try to take ground. You can actually see this, you know, I have found that the Holy Spirit comes in waves.

I actually see it in history. You'll actually see it in the news. You'll see the news cycle sometimes. It'll just sway back and forth. Then it'll feel like, whoa, things feel like they're getting a little bit better. Whoa, then it goes back the other way. I see it come in and out like the tide. I've seen this over and over again. As a matter of fact, when I was struggling with drug abuse, one of the things I did was I was doing LSD down here in PB, or mushrooms actually, and I had this really bad trip.

And in the trip, I had a lot of demons attack me. I had a really bad trip, and all of a sudden, I actually saw physical demons. That happened three times when I was doing hallucinogenics. So I was having these really bad panic attacks. I was about eight hours in my car overnight. I had kind of OD'd on them, and these demons would come, and they would crawl all over my truck. They were black, and they were just like really skinny, and they were just like spidery, and they would crawl.

And when they did, it would be really, really, I'd be scared. I'd be having panic attacks. This went on for like eight hours. And then I would pray because I knew Jesus. I would be like, Jesus, save me. And all of a sudden, they would kind of like, and all of a sudden, these tall, golden figures with robes would like come and walk around the car, and they would just really slowly, kind of like a sloth moves. They were golden.

I couldn't see faces or anything, and all of a sudden, I would feel this incredible peace, and I would just be there. Now, this went back and forth. I don't know, probably four hours. Back and forth. It was miserable because it was so tiring. But what I found out, there was never like a, what I didn't see, and this doesn't mean it's true. It's just my experience, but I found it to be true in other areas for myself personally.

I never saw where the angels and the demons went and did all this. It was like this. And the next tide would come in. Then one would vacate the area, and the next one would come in. Back and forth, back and forth. What is so interesting is I was talking to a woman six years later. I was saved. I was a leader with young life. And she said, I had a dream last night about my son. I was petitioning for my son. He's a drug addict, and he lives in Texas.

And I was petitioning for him, and in the dream, I saw these demons, and she described these demons, these black figures, and they were just like the ones she described. She described this to me. It's exactly what I saw. And then she said, all of a sudden, they would kind of wash out, and this next golden figures would come. They were real slow, and they had robes, and they would walk. And she explained exactly, exactly to a T, what I said.

And I didn't tell her that I had experienced that before. And I said to her, what do you think that was? She said, actually, I think it was the battle for my son's soul. And she says, as I prayed, she said, I felt the spirit of God would move in and protect him, and there was a battle going on. And she said, I think that I got to see the enemy battling for my son's life and my son's soul. Then I told her what had happened to me.

It was the exact same thing. Now, maybe it's coincidence. I don't know. Maybe it's coincidence. I feel that in that moment, because when you do things like, you're not supposed to do mushrooms. You're not supposed to do, that's why they call them spirits, because it removes the barriers that God has placed, because we're not supposed to live in that world now. We're not supposed to see those things, unless it's through the spirit, and he does it through visions, and God can allow that.

But when you take it into your own hands, through witchcraft or drug use or these other things, you all of a sudden go into places you shouldn't go. But I do believe that I got to watch literal demons and angels fighting for my soul and for my life. This is how we see this thing's moving, at least how I've experienced it, and as I see battle. And so as we pray, we can all of a sudden, I believe that we can, you know, push the kingdom of God, can take ground.

You'll see this in cities. In America right now, you see cities that are very dark. I mean, just you see this incredible destruction. And that comes with the demonic. The demonic comes as like this beautiful thing. It shows itself as an angel of life, but it always comes with destruction. It always comes and defiles and breaks down, and it cannot sustain, because the enemy cannot sustain. If left to his own devices, the enemy always goes towards death.

You know, Satan has defect. He always goes towards death. So it might start out as beautiful, but it'll always break down. It'll always degrade. We want to pray over things like cities. I've been praying over cities. I've been praying over like Portland, Abilene, Texas, San Diego as a whole, Orange County, Los Angeles. Been praying over these cities in the spirit that God might move in our lives. So we're called to be equipped and trained soldiers of God.

2 Timothy 2.3. Therefore, thou, therefore, endure hardness as a good, endure hardness or hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Right there in 2 Timothy. It's saying one of the understandings that we need to have as a Christian is as a soldier. We need to employ this on a somewhat regular basis. Now, I don't want to say, you don't want to live in the soldier mentality. It'll wear you out. I have been in movements where it's all about deliverance.

It's all about taking ground. It's all about authority. It's all about fighting demons. Jesus never went demon hunting. You just don't see him demon hunting. They came across his path and he dealt with it as it came about. But we also don't want to ever, we don't want to have a reality in Christ that we're never in battle. If you never experience yourself in battle or have a plan to battle the enemy or take back ground or to fight him, say you're not living in Christian reality.

You're actually being taken advantage of. And one of the things the enemy loves to do is attack you and keep you from knowing that you're being attacked. When I was living in Pacific Beach, I remember I had these pictures on the wall and I had a bunch of drug addict friends and they were thieves and I would know that I'd come home and I'd be like, well, where is this? I had a picture on the wall, this really cool picture my brother got me.

All of a sudden one day I came home and the picture was gone off the wall. You know, I finally noticed it. I was like, I wonder how long that's been stolen. Somebody had climbed up, it was at the Oakwood Apartments in Pacific Beach. Somebody had climbed up two balconies and come over my back balcony. It was some friend of mine, you know. I guess it was a friend of mine, you know. But stealing from the enemy wants to steal from you.

Wants to steal and rob and kill and destroy. So as we look at verse 10 here, it's God's intention as we look at verse 10 that you walk in strength and power and are fully equipped to make a stand against the plans of the enemy. You're fully equipped. The enemy has plans and we want to ask God, what are the plans of the enemy? This is a great prayer. God, how is Satan attacking me? Holy Spirit, how is Satan attacking me?

Great prayer. That God will teach us that prayer that we can understand that. It says, put on the armor of God. This is an act of the will. This is making a decision that I will equip myself for battle. Now, we also, I think you want to live in the sonship or daughter of God or child of God identity way more than you want to live in the warrior. Okay? It's like basketball. I play basketball, well, when I could, three times a week and I play basketball and I, you know, or when I surf, it's a thing that I do, but I don't want to live in the warrior mentality.

But I do want to be able to employ it when it's necessary. I don't want to lead a church of constantly in battle. You'll wear your church out that way. There'll be a lot of emotional highs. People are drawn to the emotional impact that we have of winning battles and in war. You can grow a church on that theme, but it's not where we want to live. We want to live in your fatherhood identity that you have a father God who loves you.

He's a king. He's a savior. He's gentle. He's kind. That's where we want to live. But we also got to know that this exists and the spirit of God is the equipper of this battle. And let me just say again, if you're not understanding or living in this understanding, then you need to begin to employ it into your spiritual life and begin to study it. Verse 10 says, God intentions that you walk in that. It's an act of the will.

Put in the notes, when we understand who the true enemy of our soul is and this, of our souls and this world is, it changes our mindset. When we understand that there is an enemy, he is attacking you, like Jesus has a plan for your, loves you and has a plan for your life, the devil hates you and has a plan for your life. It is, you know, the exact opposite and he has a plan and we want to have a plan as well to stand.

Ephesians 6, verse 12. I already spoke about this. It says, our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, the authorities, powers of this dark world, spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm. Understanding and standing against the schemes of the enemy is an acquired and learned skill. Understanding the attacks of the enemy, understanding how he attacks you. You know, I'll tell you this one interesting story.

There was a gal that lived down the street from us and I remember all of a sudden she just kept, I was married, I think I was like five years married, six years married, all of a sudden I just started having these thoughts all the time like, oh man, she's pretty awesome. That gal is amazing, you know, she's pretty good looking, you know, that kind of thing. And just battling it. Like I don't want to go any further than that but it was just, it kept showing up, kept showing up over and over again.

So one of the things my wife and I have made since we've known each other is if there was ever some unnatural attraction that could be a threat to our marriage, we tell each other. We just thought like, she's not insecure, I'm not insecure in that and we know that things come out into the light. So I said, I pulled her aside, I said, hey, you know, haven't acted on this, I haven't taken it further than I should but I've just had this like crazy, I don't even know where it's coming from because I don't find myself like super attracted to the person but this person just keeps showing up in my mind and my heart and I just thought I needed to tell you so we can pray about it.

She goes, you know the weirdest thing? I had a dream the other night that like you, that you left me for that woman. And she goes, and I actually started thinking, you know, like thinking maybe I'm not adequate enough and maybe it's better if you were with her. I'm like, whoa, whoa, that was so heavy. Now, you can see how the devil could parlay that into me keeping it a secret. Me, you know, hey, you need some help, oh, you need some help carrying those groceries in, whatever it is, you know, and then my wife kind of just in agreement with it.

He's probably better off with her anyways. You know, we're not getting along, whatever it is. We prayed, it was gone. Like, it never, like I never had a thought. That gal actually moved out a few months later. Like the thought never, we just got in unity together. We got in authority together and it just went away. It was the weirdest thing. She'd had a dream and actually begun to think afterwards, gosh, that gal seems really cool.

It seems like she'd be a better fit for Adam than me. That was such an attack from the enemy. But it's because in that instance I was able to go to her and she's not terrified. Like there's some women and men that if their spouse came to them and told them that, they would freak out. It would be such a threat that would trigger them and so, you know, you probably need to be careful and know who you're dating or who you're married to before you employ that.

But for us it worked and it's really worked. There's probably been three or four times, five times in our marriage where we've had to say, hey, I just feel like there's this attraction there and I just don't want it. you're not human if that doesn't happen. I'm just, I mean, maybe you are. Maybe you're just, your spouse is so amazing and maybe you're awesome but part of being married is being able, I think, to understand when other attractions come and then being able to say, no, that's not where I'm going with my life.

I think that's a normal part of being human and so I think it's something that we need to work on and it's something that has been really powerful for us to keep things in the light. But that was just one of the enemy's attacks. So, understanding and standing against the schemes of the enemy is an acquired and learned skill and as we acquire it, as we ask the spirit to lead us, to guide us in how we're being attacked, to reveal things like that, you get experience and maturity.

That experience made me more available in the future. There's actually, I can't think of another time, that happened more earlier in our marriage. I think there was a, I think of all the times where we've had to share something like that, it was really early in our marriage. Like, probably the last 10 or 15 years, I don't think that that's, I don't think we've had that conversation, at least in 10 years. That maturity has created, that experiential maturity got us to a point where I think the enemy kind of just stopped doing that.

You know what I mean? Like that, he just moved on to the next thing. But that comes from an experience. It's just like being sober, sober, you know? I remember when I would cry in my bed because I didn't think I could get sober. But once I got sober, and I was sober for a few days, and then a week, and then a month, and now it's been 31 years, I don't get much attack in regard to sobriety anymore. But when I do, if I do, I know where to go.

I was watching a TV series, there was a mini series on TV, and the guy was always drinking scotch. Just scotch. I was never into scotch. I didn't drink hard alcohol much. And I remember as I was sitting there watching this show, I thought, I kept starting thinking to myself, man, scotch is kind of cool. Like it's aged, and you could really get into it. You know what I mean? It seems like something you could really get into, like models or something, you know?

And about halfway through the show, I'm like, I need to quit watching this show because I'm just going to stop watching it, you know what I mean? Because I was just, I found a natural attraction. This is something that Ignatius of Loyola speaks about, and the Holy Spirit wants to make you aware of on a regular basis. Jesus, what are these unnatural affections? These affections of the heart, of the flesh, of the mind, we get so attracted to them, they get in the way of our relationship with Jesus.

So one of the exercises I'm doing right now on a regular basis, right now for this last week, I mean, I talked about it on Sunday, the first week of the spiritual exercises of Ignatius of Loyola that I'm going over, is you sit for an hour, I only did a half hour today, but you sit for an hour, and you ask the Lord, where are there unnatural affections? My watching of the news cycle lately during COVID is an unnatural affection.

I get up in the morning, first thing I do is check the news. How's things going? How's the stock market? How's this? How's that? What do people on Facebook think? My friends, he works for the CDC. What did he put on Facebook? I immediately am up. Why does the Lord say, hey, dude, back it off? That's an unnatural affection. You're getting way too affected by that. Unnatural affection. These are the things that the Holy Spirit will lead us to, and if we slow down, begin to think, okay, what is a barrier between me and Jesus?

I want nothing between Jesus and I. When you have that, you start taking ground. That's when you start not living in survival mode anymore, but you start acquiring. Look at King David. King David's kingdom grew. I mean, you want your kingdom to grow. You want your dominion over what it is. It might just be your little apartment is your kingdom. It might be your neighborhood, your dominion, but God wants to give you more and more dominion.

Dominion in people's lives. When you speak, you have authority. One of the things with my mom is her authority in people's lives has grown and grown and grown, and as she speaks to people, they listen. They listen to her. I've seen that with even Alex. Alex is much younger than my mom. Others, you know, throughout the church, God grows that authority as you walk in favor. He wants to grow that in your family. He wants to grow it with your children.

children. We've seen that with our own children. We have, we've seen our children grow closer to Christ. We've seen them grow as we've, I mean, we really dug in. We dug in to, you know, pancakes Sunday morning, Saturday morning with the scripture. Hardly ever missed a quiet time at night to tuck my kids in until they were probably in their teens. I started missing when they were in their teens. I was playground dad every Friday for seven years and my daughter's from kindergarten all the way through until she was in sixth grade.

I showed up every single Friday for both of my daughters as playground dad, met all their friends just because of what God told me to do. That kind of showing up actually started building dominion in my children's lives. They still want to hang out with me, surprisingly. I think that's available to most of us or all of us but on occasion, I mean, God's a perfect father and even his children rebelled. So if children rebel, even God is a perfect father and his children rebel.

So there are, you know, exceptions to the rule and people will go their own way. But you can build this dominion and we want our church to build dominion. We want to see you build dominion in your life. I want this church to be known all over the country and all over the globe while we still say a small corner church. Moving on and coming in for a landing here in just a moment. as we look at these weapons, I want you to understand experience and maturity learning how to pray.

I want you to see prayer as a weapon. Prayer and especially battle prayer is an acquired skill. Prayer and battle prayer. There's different types of prayer. There's meditative prayer. There's healing prayer. There's petition prayer. There's battle prayer. Battle prayer is taking ground. I pray against the authorities. We bind. It's kind of that binding up and releasing. We release peace. We bind chaos. We bind destruction.

So when I pray over Portland right now, I bind destruction. I bind chaos. I bind any leader that would allow chaos. I pray for freedom. I pray for law. I pray for order. I release those things. The peace of God. I release. That's battle prayer. We want to have that battle prayer. Sometimes marriages need that. When you're fighting to save that marriage. When you're fighting to save that kid who's on drugs or has left the fold.

This is battle prayer. To use my mom, my mom and her friends began to pray for me. They had a group of women and they finally, when it wasn't working, they said, we're going to start praying that every time Adam does drugs, something negative will happen to him. That is a tough prayer for a mom to pray. But when you get to your wit's end, well, Glenn understands that too, you get to your wit's end, it's like, geez, you do whatever you need to do short of death.

I had a heart attack after that. The reason I quit doing drugs is I could not do drugs. I was terrified. Every time I did, I would smoke marijuana and all of a sudden I'd start having heart seizures. Every time I smoked marijuana, like the last 15 times where I thought I was going to die from marijuana. Who dies from marijuana of a heart seizure? God just started saying, nope, not going to allow you to do that one. I would have panic attacks during meth.

I would have demons chase me when I did. The only thing I could do was alcohol. So I told myself, I'll just become an alcoholic. It'll take a lot longer to die anyways. That was my reasoning. That was my incredible reasoning as a 19-year-old. I thought, these drugs are going to kill me, so I'll just drink. My dad drank until he was like 76, so that's a longer road and I'll just pass out. And then that wasn't going well either and I finally just got sober because there was nowhere else to go.

Battle prayer. Praise God is right. Battle prayer. Hopefully, if we continue to pray a fortification prayer, you don't have to have battle prayer. Right? You build up fortifications to the point where the enemy tries to have a siege, but you have a deep well and you have all the, you have, you know, gardens inside your castle and inside your keep. God has protected you. It becomes like, Job, I can't protect him. The hedge of protection is too big.

I can't attack him. The hedge of protection is too big. Pray fortification prayer. The Spirit of God. Let him lead you. How to pray, how to pray for your health. How to pray for, you know, what to do, what measures to take. Some of you, God has been talking, some of us, God has been talking about some things he wants us to do with our health because he wants to give you fortification of health so you don't have to pray for salvific health 15 years down the road because you didn't listen when he's already told you what to do now.

A lot of us, if we just did what God told us, we wouldn't have to have a prayer chain praying for our lives in 25 years or for our marriages. It's a fortification prayer led by the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit tells you to do something, we want to do it. No, he tells me that all the time. Little things, we're still working on some stuff. Let me just say that. Let me just keep going. Battle prayer. Let me just read this scripture, Romans 8, 26 and 27.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For you do not know what we ought to pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans and he searches our hearts and he knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God. If you think you don't know how to pray and you're discouraged, let me assure you that you don't. The Bible says no one knows how to pray.

Mother Teresa did not know how to pray, but she had a lot of experience in prayer. See that when you pray, you experience God and you get maturity, but then God takes a right-hand turn or a left-hand turn. You do not know how to pray, but the cool thing is is that when you pray, what happens? You get prayed alongside with. The Holy Spirit starts praying words that aren't even understandable, begins to groan and he begins to pray alongside of you.

That goes before the throne of God where Jesus sits and intercedes for you. Just by praying, you can just pray ridiculous prayers that you don't even know what you're doing, but you're trying your best to, God, I just pray for my school and I don't know how this is going to happen. As you're doing that, this surgeon, the Holy Spirit is doing a spiritual calculus with your prayer where he's unbending them and turning them into pure gold and presenting them to Jesus who intercedes before the throne of God.

As long as you pray, just realize your prayers are perfect. They might come out of your mouth just ridiculous. You don't know what you're praying, but they get perfected on the way to the throne. That's why you just want to pray. You just want to pray. The more time you pray, the more perfected prayers get there. You do not know how to pray, Romans says, but the Spirit of God will intercede. This is why we trust the Spirit.

This is one of the rule, the incredible tools of the Spirit. Flipping over the notes, coming in for a landing. I won't be able to finish this. We understand that the devil is very smart and takes advantage of your ignorance. He does this if you allow him through a lack of skill and knowledge. Our enemy, the devil, is strategic. His real power is in his cunningness. He is a master planner and knows how to execute his plans.

One way he does this, what does this is to keep you ignorant. How do you stay ignorant? You don't ask God any questions. You don't spend time with God. You don't spend time in the Word. You don't spend time being edified by other brothers and sisters. You don't listen to worship. You don't spend time with God. He keeps you ignorant. If he can keep stealing pictures off your wall without you knowing it, if he can keep you in the thought of, hey, I'm just no good.

I'll never measure up to anything. My dad told me that, so it must be true. The longer he can just keep you into that, the better. The longer he cannot attack you. Sometimes I think the devil just won't even attack you. I've actually had the thought, don't press into God because then the devil won't attack you. Yeah, you've had that one too? Yeah, that's one of his favorite ones. I just kind of cruise here because at least I'm not getting attacked by the devil because that's a lot better than actually moving forward into the glory of God.

I mean, we've all understood, these are stupid, he uses them on all of us, but they work. Coming in for a landing here, 2 Corinthians 2, 9-11, he says, another reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. Anyone you forgive I also forgive and what I have forgiven, if there was anything to forgive, I've forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake. Why? Verse 11, powerful verse, in order that Satan might not outwit us for we are not unaware of his schemes.

We are not unaware of his schemes. That is powerful. I'm not unaware, I'm not unaware of how he wants to attack our cities, I'm not unaware of how he wants to attack our schools, I'm not unaware of how he wants to attack my life, and my marriage, my relationship with my mom, or my relationship with myself, and my own inner voice. I'm not unaware of it. I'm aware because I'm pressing in and the Spirit of God is leading me to an understanding.

He has so many schemes. This Word of God shows you that if we press in with the Holy Spirit that we will not be unaware. You know? So that is amazing. How the Holy Spirit equips you for battle. These are the final five things, I'll just say them quickly in the last three minutes before we have our time of experiment. One, atmosphere. This is how the Holy Spirit can equip you for battle. Atmosphere. He can make an atmosphere around you as he did as a pillar of cloud around the Israelites in the wilderness.

He controlled the atmosphere through the day and at night through a pillar of fire. Worship changes the atmosphere in your home. Binge listening to the Word of God. Sitting in peace changes the atmosphere of your heart. You can feel when someone walks into a room and they have that negative energy. You can feel it. Holy Spirit creates that atmosphere. Worship beauty. We have committed in our home to trying to create an incredible peaceful atmosphere.

I've been over to Kara's house and they have this incredible atmosphere in their house. It's just bright and clean and it has the values of their life up on the wall. The Word of God is often open. You just see it. Their whole home, I'm going to say it's you and not Alex probably. But it just has this beautiful, it's just a beautiful sanctuary that they've created. It's harder when you have kids. I was just cleaning all my cupboards today thanks to my kids.

Stuff everywhere. But it's an atmosphere. We want to create an atmosphere. Next thing the Holy Spirit gives us, He gives us knowledge in 1 Corinthians there. It says we've received not the spirit of the world but the spirit who is from God so that we can know the things freely given to us. No. There is this thought with so many Christians like I don't know what God's saying. I wonder what He wants. I don't know. No, the Bible is very clear.

If you just do what the Bible says to do, you have enough to go on for the rest of your life without knowing if you should turn left on Draper Street or right. Just do what the Word of God says and He will lead you. All things, not some things, all things work together for good for those that love God and are called according to His purpose. Even if you make the wrong decision on what you think God has called you to do but you did so with a right heart, even if you did so with a wrong heart but you repent, all things will work together for your good for those that love God and are called according to His purpose.

That is you. We want to go into that and He wants to give you knowledge. He wants you to know. Let's get away from this idea that God doesn't want us to know that He's playing hide and seek. Jesus didn't die on the cross so He could play hide and seek with you but He does want to walk in relationship. Knowledge. Holy Spirit gives you wisdom. Read the Proverbs. I read Proverbs every single day. I read the Proverbs every day.

Every single day I read the Proverbs. That's my main go-to. I don't know if I read other stuff but every day I love the Proverbs. 31, one for every day of the month. Holy Spirit supplies wisdom. The Holy Spirit gives strategic wisdom to win battles. I get that all the time. Right now the Holy Spirit has been speaking to me so much about how do I lead this church. We're in a meeting today and I just get these ideas. I'm tired of this.

I get upset. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this for the church. This for the church. And then my staff comes and says, well, you know, kind of what we've been doing is working. So maybe we shouldn't like get too upset and we just keep doing what we're doing and follow God. And God is enlarging us. Every decision we've made to this point as a staff has led us to enlarging, to growing, to reaching our people. But it's because I slow down sometimes and listen to the Spirit.

He so often gives me a different answer than I would have had on my own. The Holy Spirit gives me this different wisdom. What if you try this? What if you employ this? He gives us wisdom so that we can know the right time and the right season. Going on, He gives us strength. Romans 8, 11, Spirit raises Jesus from the dead to dwell in you, raised Him up so that your mortal bodies might be raised up in the Spirit that dwells within you.

If it raised Jesus from the dead, the Spirit can surely give you power to accomplish anything that He has called you to. And then the final one is power. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you should be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, in all Judea, Samaria, and even to the remotest parts of the earth. This is the Spirit. The Spirit of God wants to work as an equipper if we take the time to follow the Spirit of God.

If we take the time to engage the Spirit of God. Tonight we're going to do that. We're going to walk. We're going to give you 25 minutes to go out around the block, walk down to the beach, be back here by like 7.30, and then see what God has to say. And then I want to hear for about 5, 6 minutes. We'll probably be here by about 7.40. We need a couple more minutes tonight. But go walk the area, pray, see what the Lord tells you, any words for the church, any words over La Jolla, any words over San Diego, what God is saying, any words over your life.

We're going to release you. We'll be back here in 25 minutes. So we'll give you some time to go do that. Let's go seek the Lord over San Diego and La Jolla. Yeah, you can leave your stuff here. We go with like double.