MINISTRY IS WARFARE Leadership Lifter Ephesians 6:12 Rick Warren HOW TO FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT 1. ACKNOWLEDGE

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1 Ephesians 6:12 Rick Warren Eph. 6:12 (Ph) For our fight is not against any physical enemy; it is against organizations and powers that are spiritual. We are up against the unseen power that controls this dark world and spiritual agents from the very headquarters of evil. 1 Tim. 6:12 Fight the good fight of the faith. HOW TO FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT 1. ACKNOWLEDGE Be alert, be on watch! Your enemy, the devil roams around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Be firm in your faith and resist him, because you know that your fellow believers in all the world are going through the same kind of suffering. 1 Peter 5:8-9 (GN) In every battle you will need faith as a shield to stop the fiery darts aimed at you by Satan. Eph. 6:16 * * * * * Darts that Satan may aim at your Ministry: 2. ACCEPT Jesus said, `All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations Matt. 28:18-19 We are therefore Christ s ambassadors. 2 Cor. 5:20 (Jesus) You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain. John 15:16 (KJV)

2 (Jesus) I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Matt. 18: PUT ON Put on the full armor of God so you can take your stand against the devil s schemes (have) the belt of Truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of Righteousness, and have your feet fitted with the Gospel of Peace and take up the shield of Faith and the helmet of Salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Eph. 6:11, AIM The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world. On the contrary, they have divine power to tear down strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Chor. 10:4-5 POINT: The battlefield for spiritual warfare is primarily Our Weapons You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. John 8:32 Therefore, prepare your mind for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you 1 Pet. 1:13 the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. Eph. 6:17 God gives strength to the humble, but sets Himself against the proud and haughty. So give yourselves humbly to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. James 4:6-7 This is how we win the victory over the world; with our faith. 1 John 5:4 ii

3 They overcame him (Satan) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.. Therefore rejoice you heavens and you who inhabit them! Rev. 12: CALL ON You belong to God and have already won your fight because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 1 John 4:4 (LB/NIV) For the Spirit that God has given us does not make us timid; instead, His Spirit fills us with power, love, and self-control. 2 Tim. 1:7 (GN) 6. AVOID Take your share of suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ Do not let yourself become tied up in worldly affairs, for then you cannot satisfy the one who has enlisted you into His army. 2 Tim. 2:3-4 (LB) No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs he wants to please his commanding officer. (NIV) What is distracting you from ministry? iii

4 Ephesians 6:12 Rick Warren If you were to come to the church office, to my office, five full lengths of filing cabinets one after another and they re all jammed with different files I have and Bible studies, ideas, sermons, messages, research, things I ve done, things like that. But probably one of the most important files I ve got is a yellow file I call Warnings Lessons to be Learned. I m not going to read all the contents. It would be too discouraging. I ve kept over the year a file of fallen leaders in Christianity. Some of them I knew personally, some of them I didn t know. I ve kept a file of fallen leaders. I review this file every year at the end of the year, just to warn myself Let him who standeth take heed lest he fall. We are in a spiritual battle. That s why that kind of stuff happens. People let down their guard. If you don t take the Christian life seriously, if you don t take ministry seriously, the devil s going to. You may not mean business but he does. The Bible teaches that the Christian life is warfare. In fact, the most used analogy in the Bible for the Christian is that of a soldier. The words that are used to describe the Christian life are war terms fight, conquer, strive, battle, overcome, victory. They re war terms. We are living in enemy territory when you live in the world. Scripture makes it very clear. Ephesians 6:12 (Phillips) For our fight is not against any physical enemy. It is against organizations and powers that are spiritual. We are up against the unseen power that controls this dark world and spiritual agents from the very headquarters of evil. I saw this article the other day: Winning the Holy war Underneath, it says, Satan also has a missionary vision. We have the Great Commission. He has a great commission too. That is to defeat Christians wherever possible. In 1 Timothy 6:12, Paul told Timothy, Fight the good fight of faith. If you are in ministry, you are going to face opposition from the devil. If you get up in the morning and you don t face the devil head on, right at the start of the day, it means you re going in the same direction. He is opposed to everything you stand for. He hates everybody in this room. He hates anybody who s sold out to Jesus Christ. He will do anything he can to defeat you. I thought we d do a Bible study together on How to Fight the Good Fight. Six steps of spiritual battle because Ministry is Warfare. 1. ACKNOWLEDGE THE ADVERSARY Realize that he s real. 1 Peter 5:8-9 Be alert, be on watch. Your enemy the devil roams around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Be firm in your faith and resist him because you know that your fellow believers in all the world are going through the same kind of suffering. When you re being attacked, welcome to the club. It s proof that you re a believer. It s proof that you re making an impact. The fact is the more you make an impact for God, the more the

5 devil is going to fight you. You never outgrow it. It just gets more intense. If there were no devil, why would God send His Son to fight that which does not exist? The Bible says God sent Jesus Christ to defeat the works of Satan. The Bible says that Satan is the prince of this world. Jesus said so. He never disputed Satan s right to work all across the world. The Bible says in 1 John 3:8 Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. Jesus, at the cross, destroyed the devil s works. So Satan is now living on borrowed time. He s a lion, he s roaring, but if you are living and walking with Christ, he can t harm you if you re walking in the spirit, walking in the Spirit of Christ. He s a lion without teeth, a bee without a stinger. He s a snake without fangs. Ephesians 6:16 In every battle you will need faith as a shield to stop the fiery darts aimed at you by Satan. Circle fiery darts. It says that Satan is going to have some fiery darts to aim at you particularly as you re involved in ministry. What are some of the fiery darts that Satan throws up against Christians in ministry? Discouragement that s probably the biggest one. Failure nobody shows up for your ministry. Opposition all kinds of resistance. Rumors. Put-downs. Misunderstandings. Distractions. Temptation. Low self-esteem attacking your self worth. Compromise. Deceptions. Sin. Competition. Fatigue. Illness. Fear. (Does Satan ever throw a dart of fear at you? What do you think you re doing in ministry? Who do you think you are? ) Doubt. Division Does he ever get Christians working against Christians? Ridicule. Half-truths. Materialism. He s got quite an arsenal. He s going to throw these things at you. If you re going to be effective in ministry, you ve got to learn how to fight back with faith. Acknowledge the adversary. 2. ACCEPT MY AUTHORITY Most believers are very ignorant about the authority that they have to use against the devil. Matthew 28:18-19 All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations. How much authority did Jesus have? All. Where did it come from? Heaven and earth. That covers everything. All authority is given to Me. Then He says, Therefore go and make disciples Do you see the transference of authority? He says, I ve got all authority, therefore you go. Go and make disciples. 2 Corinthians 5:20 We are therefore Christ s ambassadors. When you send an ambassador to another country, that ambassador has the full authority to represent that country. The Bible says that you as a believer on ministry are Christ s ambassador. You re a Christian ambassador. You represent Christ. That means you are given the authority to represent Him in your ministry. Look what Jesus said, You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you. I have ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain. Circle ordained. Probably the biggest misconception today is this word ordained. The way most churches talk about it, whether Protestant or Catholic, is an unbiblical sense. The Bible teaches that if you re a Christian everybody s ordained. There really is no such thing as an ordained person and a non- 2

6 ordained person. Frankly, I don t care if somebody gave me a piece of paper that said I was ordained or not because the Bible says that every Christian is ordained to ministry. There s no special status of those who ve got it and those who don t. If anybody ever asks you, Are you ordained?, say Yes. Absolutely. I m an ordained minister of Jesus Christ. When did it happen? The moment I became a believer. There s no such thing as a first class and second class Christian. That s why I couldn t care less about a piece of paper. The Bible says you are all ordained to different kinds of ministries based on what your gifts are. Jesus says I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. That s strong authority. I don t understand all of what this scripture talks about but the Bible says if you are a believer you are given the authority of Christ in spiritual warfare. You have the right to fight back. You have the right to bind and to loose. Ephesians 2:6 And God raised us up in Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus in order to show that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. We re seated in the heavenlies, which means we re seated with Christ in heaven. Circle in Christ Jesus. Four concentric circles: In the middle circle put the word me. In the next circle out put in Christ. It says that we are in Christ. That is the phrase that is used most often to describe our position as believers. It s used over 130 times in the New Testament in Christ. The word Christian is only used a couple of times but in Christ is used over 130 times. We are in Christ. In the next circle out put hid with Christ in God. That s what Colossians 3:3 says. For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. The next circle out write sealed with the Holy Spirit. That s what Ephesians 1:13 says. And you were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having believed you were marked in Him with the seal, the promised Holy Spirit. I am in Christ and Christ is in God and we are sealed through the Holy Spirit. That means for the devil to get at you as a believer, he s got to go through the trinity. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. He cannot get at you as long as you are walking in His Spirit. We re in Christ who is in God who is sealed by the Holy Spirit. He d have to go through the trinity to get at you. You don t have to fear the devil. You just have to be alert to him. I understand who the adversary is. I identify him, I acknowledge him, I accept my authority. 3. I PUT ON THE ARMOR The famous passage on armor is Ephesians 6: Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil s schemes. Have the belt of truth buckled around your waste and the breastplate of righteousness and have your feet fitted with the gospel of peace. Take up the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God. There are six pieces of armor here. Circle truth, righteousness, gospel of peace, faith, salvation, the word of God. That s the spiritual armor that you re to put on. When Paul wrote this, he was in prison. He was chained 24-hours a day to a Roman guard. As 3

7 he wrote this, he sat there, chained to this man, looked at him and used the Roman centurion as a model for spiritual armor. He had on a breastplate a piece of metal to protect his chest from spear attack. He had on a strong, leather girdle around his mid waste to protect him. He had on boots, a shield, a helmet, a sword. Paul says just as the Roman soldier goes out and do battle, when you re in ministry you need to be dressed for battle. Two statements about this: If we had time, I d show you that every piece is mental warfare: truth, righteousness, peace, faith, helmet of salvation (which covers the head), and the word of God is the truth that goes into your mind. It s mental preparation for battle. These are things you need to put on mentally before you do your ministry because you expect attack. The other thing I want to say is that these six things is a perfect picture of Jesus. Jesus is truth, He is righteousness, He is peace, He is faith, He is salvation, He is the Word (the Word became flesh). And to put on the spiritual armor simply means to put on Jesus. When you put on Jesus in your life, when you let the Spirit of Christ live through you, you ve put on the armor. That s what Jesus Christ is. He is righteousness and all these things. You put it on, before you teach that Bible study, before you teach that Sunday School class, before you play that note in worship, you need to put on your armor of God. I do this every time I speak. I mentally run through this thing. I mentally run through it and put it on. I say, for instance, Lord, as I put on the helmet of salvation that will protect me from the thoughts the devil will try to give me. I want to think not the devil s thoughts. I don t want to think my thoughts. I want to think Your thoughts, that I may be a voice for You. I put on the belt of truth. Lord, I want to share the truth, not falsehood. I want to lead people into righteousness. All of these things. I mentally put them on as I prepare for spiritual battle in order to minister. 4. AIM THE ARTILERY Not only do we have some armor but we have some weapons to use when we re involved in ministry. Remember we re not fighting against physical people. We re fighting against spiritual forces. 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world. On the contrary, they have divine power to tear down strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. The battlefield for spiritual warfare is primarily in the thought life, in your mind. Notice it says the weapons we use, what do they do. Demolish arguments that s the way people think. We pull down pretension that s the way people think. We take captive every thought. When somebody is opposing you in your ministry, they re not the real problem. The problem is the thoughts the devil s giving them to oppose you. The problem is not that person. The problem is what they re acting on. You always act on what you think. They re getting thoughts from the wrong source. There are only two sources for thoughts. When we get thoughts from God, we call it inspiration. When we get thoughts from the devil, we call it temptation. Which are we going to accept? God s thoughts inspiration? Or temptation from the devil? 4

8 So the primary battlefield is in your mind. If you ever want to do a study, study the word mind in scripture. That s where the battle for sin is largely felt. Satan, the Bible teaches, holds people captive through the mind. 2 Corinthians 4:4 He blinds peoples minds. 2 Corinthians 11:3 He corrupts people s minds. Hebrews 2:14-15 He holds them in bondage through fear. Which is a mental attitude. There are strongholds in our mind. Other passages that talk about a defiled mind, a reprobate mind, a darkened mind, a puffed up mind, a vain mind. All of these things are descriptions God uses when we are allowing our thoughts to be influenced by the devil. In this battle for thoughts, what are our weapons? Four weapons. These things work. I use them every Sunday, every day. But especially as I m preparing when I get in the car and drive the twenty minutes it takes me to drive from where I live to the church, during that twenty minute period, I am putting on the armor, I am preparing my weapons. I do this every Sunday. I do it before every service. Go out and mentally go through these weapons. I say, Lord, I m about to go in here and what I m talking about on Sunday morning, eternity is in the balance. There may be somebody who's at in the worship service this morning who will never come again to church. If you ve got one shot, what are you going to do? Eternity is in the balance. This may look like we re all having fun here but behind the scenes there s a spiritual battle going on. We need to prepare for it and use the weapons. Four weapons you use in ministry: 1. The Truth. The Bible says You ll know the truth and the truth will set you free. The Bible says that the sword of the spirit is the word of God. The word of God is the truth. The truth is our sword. It cuts through all the mustard. It gets right to the point. When you are in a conflict, the question you want to ask yourself is this: What does God say about this? Because the truth is the first weapon. You ask yourself, How does the Lord see this situation? How does the Lord see this service? How does the Lord see this act of ministry I m about to do? So our first weapon 1 Peter 1:13 Therefore prepare your mind for action. Be self-controlled. Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you. What is grace? It s not only the power to save you, it s the power that enables you to minister. So before you minister, set your mind for action, be controlled, set your hope on the grace that s going to be given to you. Say, Lord, I know You re going to give me the power. You re going to give me the power to do this. 2. Humility. James 4:6-7 God gives strength to the humble but sets Himself against the proud and haughty. So give yourselves humbly to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. The more you humble yourself before God, the more power you will have in your life. That s just the way it works. As we walk before the Lord humbly and say, Lord, I humble myself before You. I can t do this ministry on my own. But You are the vine and I am the branch. Apart from You I can bear nothing but with You I can do what I need to do. It doesn t matter what you do. Whether you re being a Care Caller or a Greeter or Lay Pastor or Singer or whatever, you say, Lord, I m depending on You to help me as I deal with people. If you deal with people, you re in for a lot of surprises. Just stand on the patio and talk to people for three 5

9 weeks and you ll get the most off the wall things you can think of. People are strange. Humility. God gives strength to the humble. Humble yourself. I love the song by The Second Chapter of Acts called Humble Yourself Before The Lord. One of my favorite lines says, Don t worry or fret you ll get what you need. The flower He sows and the sparrow He feeds. You will receive a greater reward, by putting your faith and your trust in the Lord. Humble yourself before the Lord. As we humble ourselves, that s a weapon. As we submit to God, all of a sudden, all the power of God comes into our lives. 3. Faith. The Bible talks about the shield of faith. 1 John 5:4 This is how we win the victory over the world, with our faith. Without even talking to you in detail, I can tell you exactly what God s doing in your ministry. He s doing what you expect Him to do. You study the Scripture, you find out that every time God does a miracle He moves out of heaven and moves on to earth because somebody believes. Faith is a powerful, powerful tool. I don t know why, but in my case, when I m speaking, in the struggle for souls on Sunday morning, I don t know what it is but I know when I expect people to respond, they do. The devil s pulling one way and the Holy Spirit s pulling the other way and somehow my faith has a part in that warfare. I d say, get specific. If you want to see miracles, be specific. The more specific you are, the more miracles you see. All this week I knew I was doing this message on why you need to be connected to a church that I did this morning. All this week, I believed from the bottom of my heart that people need to tie in to a body because it s scriptural. I prayed specifically, God, give me one hundred people who will commit to membership today. I prayed that all week. Give me one hundred people who will commit to joining the Saddleback family and say they want to hook up with this church. I counted the cards today 205. It made me think of the verse in Ephesians God is able to do much more than you think, ask or imagine. Faith is one incredible tool. Whatever you want to see happen in your ministry believe it will happen. If you need more workers, pray and believe more workers will show up. If you need more people in your group, believe that God will bring them. Pray and believe and ask and expect in advance. 4. Praise. There is tremendous power in these four things in the truth of God s word, in humility, in faith, in praising God. Particularly praising God in advance. Revelation 12:11-12 They overcame him [Satan] by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony. Therefore rejoice, you heavens, and you who inhabit them. It says rejoice. How did they overcome the devil? By the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony. They were praising God. God says when people praise, the Bible says God inhabits the praises of His people. Sometimes after a particular worship service, I honestly feel like Mickey Mouse could preach and people would come to know Christ. The praise has cleansed the air. There s power in the praise of God. When I m driving to the service I do these four things. Lord, first the truth. What do You think about this service? I think about how Jesus Christ died for every person that s going to walk in the door that day. I think about how everyone of those people matter to God. Every one of those people matter to God. I think about the truth all of the truths that God is in control, He 6

10 knows already that the babies are going to cry in the third service, so why should I be upset about it? He already knows the truth. Then I humble myself before the Lord. And then I say, God, I want to thank You in advance for what You re going to do today. It would be a waste of time for me to walk in there and speak and not expect You to do something. But the fact is, You are going to do it, not because of who I am but because of who You are, because of what You ve already done. And I expect You to use me. He says He uses us by grace through faith. I expect You to use me. Then I praise Him. I ll sing for the last ten or so minutes to the Lord. Usually Amy is the only one who comes with my to the first service because she comes for all three services so she can help in the nursery the third service. I make a joyful noise unto the Lord, preparing my heart for ministry. 5. Call on the Holy Spirit. The Bible says in 1 John 4:4 (this is combination of the Living Bible and the New International Version) You belong to God and have already won your fight because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 2 Timothy 1:7 For the Spirit that God has given us does not make us timid. Instead, His Spirit fills us with power, love and self control. So you say, God, fill me with Your Spirit as I m about to do this. Whether it s stuffing bulletins, connecting the sound system, setting up, taking down, whatever it is God, may Your Spirit fill me! The Bible says, Whatever you do, do it heartily as unto the Lord and not unto men. I m doing this for Jesus sake. Call on the Holy Spirit. 6. Avoid all distractions. This is one thing I think the Lord has taught me and is teaching me over the years. If you re going to be effective in ministry, in battle, you ve got to focus yourself. 2 Timothy 2:3-4 (Living Bible) Take your share of suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Do not let yourself become tied up in worldly affairs for then you cannot satisfy the One who has enlisted you into His army. Don t get distracted. You know what s important in life. There are so many things that want a piece of your time. The reason why there aren t more people here tonight is because of this very thing. They ve chosen distractions over ministry. They ve got so many other good things. The good can be the enemy of the best. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs. He wants to please His commanding officer. We come to Jesus Christ and say Reporting for duty, Lord! There are a lot of good things I could be involved in, a lot of ways I could spend my time. But I have one person to please and only one the Lord Jesus Christ. And if I m pleasing Him, that s what is going to count at the end of my life. Avoid the distractions. If you get distracted the enemy is going to catch up with you, catch you off guard and devastate you. So the question is, what s distracting you from ministry? Prayer: As we close, many of you know that ministry is warfare from personal experience. You ve had the battle scars. Even in this last year, you ve experienced discouragement or disappointment or fatigue or frustration or ridicule or rumors or resistance or failure or fear. You ve been misunderstood and you ve put forth effort and seen little result. Maybe you ve experienced division people arguing. Or maybe Satan has tried to attack you with physical illness. We should not be surprised that he s throwing darts at people who are trying to make 7

11 a difference in a church like Saddleback. We need to, as a family, as the CORE, commit ourselves to praying for each other. Father, I want to thank You for these leaders of our church who love You, who came out tonight. They didn t have to come but they have their priorities right. They want You to be first in their lives. We know Lord that as we live for You, we re going to face the devil,. Help us to acknowledge that he is real, but also to acknowledge our authority over him in the name of Jesus Christ. Help us to learn to put on the whole armor of God and to use the weapons of faith and humility and truth and praise and expect You to work in our lives. Help us to trust You when things don t look right, to not get discouraged, to realize that when we get to heaven You re not going to look for awards on the wall but You re going to look at battle scars. Help us to appropriate the filling of God s Spirit on a moment by moment basis. You have given us a Spirit of power and love and self-control. Most of all help us not to get distracted in the battle because when we get off guard, Satan can attack us. Help us to just please You as our commander and chief. In Jesus name, Amen. 8