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2 Corinthians 10
10:1 I, Paul, myself entreat you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away!—2 I beg of you that when I am present I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh. 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, 6 being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.
7 Look at what is before your eyes. If anyone is confident that he is Christ’s, let him remind himself that just as he is Christ’s, so also are we. 8 For even if I boast a little too much of our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for destroying you, I will not be ashamed. 9 I do not want to appear to be frightening you with my letters. 10 For they say, “His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account.” 11 Let such a person understand that what we say by letter when absent, we do when present. 12 Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.
13 But we will not boast beyond limits, but will boast only with regard to the area of influence God assigned to us, to reach even to you. 14 For we are not overextending ourselves, as though we did not reach you. For we were the first to come all the way to you with the gospel of Christ. 15 We do not boast beyond limit in the labors of others. But our hope is that as your faith increases, our area of influence among you may be greatly enlarged, 16 so that we may preach the gospel in lands beyond you, without boasting of work already done in another’s area of influence. 17 “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” 18 For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
I've asked Melissa Ritchie if she would come up and share with us tonight. Melissa has been a, a dear friend and and coworker actually over the years, to my wife and I, and she has, shown the gospel, to us in so many ways. And knowing that she's a mom of 3, she would have lots of time on her hands, and so I, I thought she would have no problem in preparing for tonight. So I asked her if she would come and share with us.
Speaker 2:And I'm here, but I came kicking and screaming. You can ask my husband. Talk to my kids a lot about obedience, first time obedience, and I'm obeying, but it is terrifying for me to be up here. I'm honored to get to share with you my testimony, and, it would be a lot easier for me to start at the beginning of my story and talk about where the Lord's brought me over the past, I guess, 25 years, 26 years that I've been a believer. But I feel, as if he's asked me to specifically share what he's done in my life over the past year, which is a lot harder because these thoughts are still really raw and in process, and I haven't had time to actually perfect them and make them sound all pretty and nice.
Speaker 2:And, so just bear with me. And, I'm a little scared. So I realized at some point over the past year that, I was living my dream. I had everything I'd ever asked for and longed for, like, as a kid and a teenager and even in college. Like, I have beautiful children and amazing husband.
Speaker 2:I have the best friends I've ever had in my life. I love my city. I love my neighborhood. I love my church. I have everything that I could ever imagine and what I have always longed for, and it doesn't satisfy me.
Speaker 2:And I realized that I'm not even sure at what point, this year. I don't know if it was at a high moment in my parenting career or it was when I was cleaning up throw up. I'm not I'm not really sure at what point. But at some point, it hit me. Well, so you have everything you've ever longed for.
Speaker 2:You're living the dream, and yet it doesn't satisfy. And I wanna make it clear that I love where I am, and I wouldn't trade it. And I love my family, and I love my my husband so much. And it's not I'm not saying that I would wanna change where I am, but my calling that God has placed in my life isn't what satisfies. It's Christ alone.
Speaker 2:And a little example of that is earlier in, 2013, our baby turned 1 and he started sleeping through the night finally. And I I remember thinking, alright, there's just one more thing that will make me happy, just getting 8 hours of sleep. Just just 2 nights in a row, please, Lord. Just let me have 8 hours of sleep, and then I'll be happy. I'll be obedient.
Speaker 2:Everything will be fun. And, so I got that. And it just, it didn't satisfy. Or then it's like, okay. Well, maybe if I lose the baby weight, and then I can exercise and, like, be back to what I was like before.
Speaker 2:And that will satisfy me. Or if I can just have some alone time. And, truly, my heart isn't satisfied with these things. And I'm thankful that the Lord has taught me that. And I think Joel's sermons over the past couple of weeks have really reiterated that in my heart that the spirit inside of me, pouring out living water within me is truly what satisfies.
Speaker 2:And I am human, so my biggest struggle and I I don't know if you guys are in the same position I am. I don't know what your dreams are, if you have the same dream as I do, if you have different dreams. But, I always want the next thing. And the Lord's been very gracious to teach me that. And I've come to realize he's opened up eyes that if if Jesus is not what who satisfies me, like it says in Psalm 16, the lord is my chosen portion of my cup.
Speaker 2:You hold my lot. The lines have fallen from me in pleasant places. Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. You make known to me the path of life, and in your presence, there's fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Speaker 2:If that's not true in my life and if I don't believe that, I'm not I'm always gonna want life to look a little differently. And I will just constantly be living in the state of dissatisfaction, and that's not what I want. And so I don't think this lesson for me has just been about having a content life, because I think even people without the spirit inside of them can one day learn the art of living contently. But for me, it's a constant turning from my selfish desires or even the good things in my life that bring me joy, and to realize that I need to be turning towards the Lord, who is truly the one that satisfies me, and, and that his his spirit within me welling up with springs of of of life, is what that satisfies me. So as God's been teaching me this and challenging me in this, I feel like he's also been opening up my eyes to be a little bit less selfish.
Speaker 2:And truly, that is totally the Lord because I am so selfish and my heart is really yucky. And, especially caring for 3 children, if I can get a snippet of time for myself, I'm gonna take it. And, but in the past month, really, the Lord has opened up my eyes to see that, again, because he satisfies me, I can pour out into other people. And it was actually on the day of 9 Lessons in Carol's service. I was on a run, and I'd spoken with my grandmother who has dementia, and she's 84.
Speaker 2:She lives in an assisted living home about 5 hours away from me. And I could tell she's just she's so lost in her mind. And so as I'm on this run and I'm thinking about it, god just in in, like, one mile, I remember exactly where I was in Crestwood on 7th Court, where god took my yucky heart that just would consider my grandmother a burden and totally changed it into this soft heart that just loved her so much. Backstory, my parents are divorced, recently divorced. My dad's really not in the picture caring for my grandmother, and my sister and I are the only grandchildren.
Speaker 2:She has no other children. So for a while, I've been thinking, like, maybe I should do something about my grandmother, but it was a burden. And in that one mile of my run, the Lord completely switched my heart. And I was basically crying as I'm running, like, yes, Lord. This is a blessing and not a burden.
Speaker 2:This is a blessing and not a burden. And I still don't know what that looks like, but I just I don't know what's gonna happen in my relationship with my grandmother. I don't know if we'll move her to Birmingham or if I'll just travel to see her more. I don't know. I have no idea.
Speaker 2:But I do know that the Lord has prepared me for that lesson, of opening up my eyes to seeing the needs around me because he's stripping away myself. I don't even think I followed a thing that I wrote after at all. So just be praying for us about that, as we make decisions for my grandmother. And but that's not really why I shared this. I specifically shared it because I wanna give God the glory for the radical change he brought up in my heart, because it's just not of myself.
Speaker 2:Like, it's just not. And I can see how selfish I am, and I can see how he's changing me. And so I want to leave you with a verse that, as I was preparing for tonight, it just kept coming up. It's Isaiah 30 4319. Behold, I am doing a new thing.
Speaker 2:Now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. And so I'm just so thankful. I wanna give God glory for taking my heart that was so dry.
Speaker 2:And even though I knew the Lord, but still just had this sadness and and dryness, and he's changed it. And so to him be the glory. Thank you.
Jeffrey Heine:Thank you, Melissa. If you would open in your bibles to 2nd Corinthians chapter 10. 2nd Corinthians chapter 10. We're going back to our study on 2nd Corinthians. We've only got a few weeks left.
Jeffrey Heine:The text should be in your worship guide before you. I'm not going to read all of it, but I wanted it all there as a reference. Let me just say your your eyes have seen a lot of things this week. You've read a lot of articles, blogs, papers, books, or iPads, but this is different. Other things you can casually read, but this is God's word, and it deserves and it demands all of our attention.
Jeffrey Heine:2nd Corinthians chapter 10 verse 1. I, Paul, myself, entreat you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. I, who am humble when face to face with you, but bold towards you when I'm away. I beg of you that when I am present, I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.
Jeffrey Heine:For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but we have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God. And take every thought captive to obey Christ. Being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete. Look at it at what is before your eyes.
Jeffrey Heine:If anyone is confident that he is in Christ, let him remind himself that just as he is in Christ, so also are we. For even if I boast a little too much of our authority, which the Lord gave for the building you up and not for destroying you, letters, For they say, his letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account. Let such a person understand that what we say by letter when absent, we do when present. Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.
Jeffrey Heine:Pray with me. Our father, I pray that in this moment, you would send your spirit. He would come and he would lift up high the name of Jesus. Just through the reading of your word, you might begin to soften our hearts and open up our minds to hear from you. Father, don't let me get in the way.
Jeffrey Heine:I pray that in this moment, my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. I need to make a confession that when I first, decided to preach on 2nd Corinthians and on this text, months back, I was going through 2nd Corinthians real quickly, and I was I was outlining it.
Jeffrey Heine:And when I came to this section in chapter 10, I wrote down verse 5 about taking every thought captive to obedience, of Christ. And I immediately began thinking of the ways that I could preach on it. Because it's a great verse, it's a verse I actually have memorized, one that I've heard preached on a number of times, and I thought I understood it. The the application was going to be really easy in this message. You know, it's about if you have an impure thought, maybe a lustful thought or a jealous thought that you are to, to take that thought captive and you were to get rid of it and have pure thoughts.
Jeffrey Heine:And so that's kind of what I had outlined and all I needed was my 3 points in a poem and I was done. You know, his sermon finished. But then, this past week, I really began digging in, and I realized that is not at all what this passage is about. And, honestly, I didn't like that. I I really didn't like that, because I was looking forward to doing a passage I should kinda was familiar with and I knew, and then I'm coming to this.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm like, I I really wow. I already had my mind set on what I wanted to preach, and it was it was a pretty good sermon if I I I do say so myself, that it it was ready to preach. The problem was the text didn't fit the the topic or the sermon. And I really tried to think of how can I get the text to actually fit what I want to preach? And I was like, what am I doing?
Jeffrey Heine:Flip it around. This is one of the reasons that we do expositional preaching here at Redeemer is because we let God set the topic and not us. And so this was the topic that God set and this is a good thing. And actually the more and more I began to study it, the more I began to see just how marks a major shift in the letter to the Corinthians. Up to this point, Paul's been talking to the majority in the church, but now he's going to focus on the minority.
Jeffrey Heine:If you remember, this church has been a church in chaos. They were full of sexual sin. They were full of debauchery. They were full of pride. They were absolutely obsessed over the spiritual gifts.
Jeffrey Heine:They were pretty much imploding. And so, Paul, he would visit them, he would write them. And over the course of time, the majority of these people repented. But there was a minority that did not, and and they were a very vocal minority that that was a pain in Paul's side. I remember one pastor, he came up to me and he said, you know, when you come into a church, there's gonna be some people who hate you and they leave.
Jeffrey Heine:And there's gonna be other people who hate you and they will stay. And those are the ones that you're going to have to guard yourself about. Well, there's people who hated Paul and they stayed and they were very vocal. This minority claimed that the Spirit of God was was now leading them in a new direction, away from the word of God into to different different teachings. They're they're moving them away from Paul's gospel to this new gospel.
Jeffrey Heine:And these leaders were, self proclaimed super apostles. That's the term we'll find out or that they use in the next chapter. And they were very charismatic leaders. They were tremendous speakers. They were persuasive.
Jeffrey Heine:They knew how to draw in the crowds and to grow the church with both their rhetoric and their feel good theology. The church was thriving. Last time that Paul came in to confront these people, they literally ran him out of town. He was embarrassed and shamed. So this led Paul to a very dark season when he was forced to leave and and people were embracing a gospel different than he preached.
Jeffrey Heine:And and this is during that time we looked at in 2nd Corinthians when he spiraled into depression, A depression so deep, he said, I despaired even of life itself. I mean, the guy went through every kind of beating and imprisonment and everything could imagine, but it was a church that brought him down to his knees into depression. And so this minority was hanging on and fighting. Now, Paul, he's turning his attention sharply on them now, and he's about to go to war. The language of war is is all over this passage.
Jeffrey Heine:He he talks about waging war. He talks about different types of weapons. He talks about destroying strongholds, taking things captive. And, and so if I were him, I'd be ready to fight too. If you had your name slandered, dragged through the mud, kicked out, you'd be wanting to fight.
Jeffrey Heine:But this is how Paul begins his fight. He says, by the meekness and the gentleness of Jesus, I entreat you. He doesn't come out with guns blazing. He says, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to come with gentleness.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm going to come with meekness. Then, look at verse 35 again. It says, for though we walk in the flesh, that just means he's human here. We're not waging war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but we have power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of god and take every captive, every thought captive to obey Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:Paul here, he's using this language of an army laying siege to a fortress or a castle. And Paul and the other apostles, maybe the majority of the Christians at the Corinthian church, they are the ones laying siege to the castle. The castle are these false apostles, are these self proclaimed super apostles. And both of these sides have weapons, but Paul says that his weapons are more powerful than their weapons, and he is going to break them down. His weapons are gonna be able to destroy their towers, destroy their strongholds, and will ultimately go in and is gonna take even their very thoughts captive.
Jeffrey Heine:Capturing their thoughts is the goal of this war. It's the goal of his assault is to capture their thoughts. He he's waging war with these false apostles not to run them out of town, not to humiliate them, not to win an argument, not even to get them to outwardly conform to what's good and what's right. What Paul is after is is the very way they think. He wants to change their mind here.
Jeffrey Heine:Let me just say, I'm not sure if there's any other place in scripture that so declares we're to take our thoughts captive, to obey Christ. We're to take our thoughts captive to obey Christ. I'm not sure of any other one because, I mean, there there's a lot of good verses out there that declare the sovereignty and the kingship of Jesus. You know, Philippians 2, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess Jesus is Lord. That's a pretty good one, but you could do those things outwardly.
Jeffrey Heine:You could bend the knee outwardly. You can confess outwardly, but what's happening here is in in the heart and in the mind, in which Paul is saying, your every thought must obey Christ, Not just what you do, not just what you say, but even what you think needs to submit to his lordship. I mean, that that is a a new type of lordship that we're just not familiar with. When when I think of the different powers over my life, every power has got a limit. You know, the the government has power over all of us.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, there's rules we have to live by. If you go out here and you're speedy, and you speed really fast, and you get pulled over, and you're caught, well, the power of the law, the power of the officer is gonna make you pay a fine, but his power stops there. He can't tell you how you're supposed to invest your money. He can't tell you who you're supposed to date or who you're supposed to marry. He he can't say, you know, this is how you need to be parenting your children.
Jeffrey Heine:The the police officer's authority stops there. The IRS tells you, you know, you have to pay your taxes, well, you have to do it. But they can't tell you how you have to feel when you do it. You're to pay your taxes, and I want you to feel really happy about it. I want you to feel positive thoughts.
Jeffrey Heine:The IRS doesn't care. They just want you to pay. And we're used to that kind of power and authority. But, but here, Christ is saying, I don't just want outward conformity. I don't just want your actions.
Jeffrey Heine:I don't just want your words. I want to be Lord over what you think Your every thought, I am going to capture. This mine must obey me. Jesus' power and his authority are unlike any we know. There's no limits to it.
Jeffrey Heine:That means that if you don't get to decide how you're going to use your mind, you certainly don't get to decide how you're going to use your money or your talents or your time because all of those things came from god and are at his disposal. So Jesus is to reign over every aspect of our lives, including our thoughts, and it's it's key to understand this. You have to understand this if you're going to understand what's really going on in this text Because there is only way, one way you could tell somebody, I want your very thoughts to obey me. Your your very thoughts, they have to obey. How can you command that?
Jeffrey Heine:How can you command somebody? You're supposed to rejoice in the Lord always. How do you conjure up rejoice? How do you make your mind rejoice? And what's happening here is Jesus is saying, I'm going to, I'm going to give you an affection.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm going to woo you because it's only out of love will somebody's thoughts ever really obey me. You can't oppress a person into making their thoughts obey you, you can only woo them with your love, and draw them in. And and that's how we talk about, you know, love. We use phrases like, I found this person irresistible. We were dating a while, took them a while to break through my defenses.
Jeffrey Heine:They really, they really captured my heart. We we use war language when we're talking about love. That's what's going on here. So how does Paul go about doing this? How does the Lord go about doing this, capturing our thoughts?
Jeffrey Heine:Verse 3, verse 4 again. He does this by contrasting 2 different ways of fighting. You can either have human weapons or fleshly weapons or you can have weapons that have that have divine power. This is where I really want us to focus on tonight is these 2 different types of weapons. And I'm not I'm not gonna take long because I want us to have a time of prayer.
Jeffrey Heine:Fleshly weapons are weapons that the false apostles were using. When they preach, they would try to persuade people through their cleverness or their eloquence. And we've looked at these people in the past, so I'm not going to explain all of this again. But these were the, you know, the the super apostles who were the showmen. They were the entertainers.
Jeffrey Heine:They brought in the crowds. Earlier in this, letter in chapter 4, he says that they were using underhanded ways. They were cunning, They tampered with God's word, or they watered it down to make it more appealing. They told people what they wanted to hear. You know, God really wants you healthy, and and he wants you wealthy, and he wants to prosper you in every way.
Jeffrey Heine:And so they would preach that to people. And say, Christianity is really about, you know, embracing power. It's not about embracing weakness. Paul, and all of his sufferings, and and all of his beatings, and all of his arrest, do you really wanna be like that? That's not that's not what Christianity is about.
Jeffrey Heine:That's a sign that that God is against Paul, not God blessing Paul. I mean, Paul is just embarrassing himself. He's embarrassing the church. If he was really an apostle, if he really spoke for the lord, good things will be happening to him. This is what they preached.
Jeffrey Heine:And Paul confronts them, and he says that all of those tactics that you use to to, to grow your church is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. That's all it is. They're powerless weapons. As far as weaponry goes, they're nothing more than pop guns or nothing more when those little those little phone darts that you can shoot at people. They don't really do any damage because they are useless when it comes to spiritual warfare.
Jeffrey Heine:You cannot fight darkness, you cannot liberate sinners, you cannot change people's minds with such tactics. You're you're shooting little phone darts at the devil, you know, try trying to get rid of him. It's like it won't work because human weapons have no effect over these things. The reason I'm hammering this home and I think it's so important for us, is because we're at a place as a church, I believe, where it would be easy for us to start using the wrong weaponry. We could start picking up the wrong weapons and entering the wrong battles.
Jeffrey Heine:And let me be as straightforward as I can. We are a young hip church that meets in the inner city. Alright? That's that's that's who we are. And there's a certain amount of sexiness to that.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, to be that that young hip church, besides its pastor, I'm like the anti hipster. I mean, like, as, I'm the yin to the yang right here. Okay? I'm If anybody says, you go to hipster church, just point to your pastor. Alright?
Jeffrey Heine:But but that's what we're, we're this kind of young, hip, inner city church that's just really appealing at times. And we can easily find our identity in that. We can begin to feel really good ourselves simply because of the way we look, where we're located, the way we sound, the fact that we're growing, and then we could begin to rely on these things. That's that's that's where we're going to find our identity and actually that's going to be our selling point as a church. That's how we're going to bring people in.
Jeffrey Heine:Man, there's a lot of people your age at our church. Man, you would love our music, you know? Oh yeah. We meet in the inner city. We're not liking all these other churches out there.
Jeffrey Heine:Yeah. We can use that as a persuading tool. We can compare ourselves with others. In verse 12 look at verse 12. Paul says, and and what I do, I will continue to do in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim.
Jeffrey Heine:But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding. When you begin comparing yourself to other ministries, other churches, or if you personally begin comparing yourself to other Christians, Paul says, you're a fool. You're an absolute fool. You're not, Don't pat yourself on the back because of how you're doing compared to others. That's not where your identity is.
Jeffrey Heine:Hear me. All of what the world would see as strengths of ours means absolutely nothing. Nothing when it comes to destroying the strongholds of the devil and taking every thought captive, which is the war we're to fight. Being, being young, being hip, being cool, being artistic, having great music, all of those things are great. If you want to sell cars, if you want to sell soup, if you want to sell people on your political party, if you want to do those things, but we are not selling a product.
Jeffrey Heine:We are proclaiming Jesus And that's that's who we are. We're declaring Christ because we want Christ himself to capture hearts and to change the way people think about him. In order to do this, we've gotta have some pretty good weaponry. Paul says that his weapons have divine power. We we know from other places in scripture, places like Ephesians 6, and Paul, he's talking about weapons like prayer or weapons like the spirit or weapons of faith, weapons of the word of God.
Jeffrey Heine:But here, particularly in second Corinthians, the weapon he is talking about is the gospel itself. The gospel itself is the weapon that Paul is going to use to capture people's thoughts. Let me read to you from 1st Corinthians 2 when Paul is addressing the church. He said, And when I came to you brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I determined to know nothing among you except for Jesus Christ And my message to you was not implausible words of wisdom, but in the demonstration of the spirit and of power that your faith might not rest on the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
Jeffrey Heine:Paul still believes this. He still declares this. He's telling these false apostles, you wanna fight? You wanna fight? That's fine, but it's not gonna be a fair fight.
Jeffrey Heine:I will go ahead and warn you. Your eloquence, your marketing, your rhetoric, all of your giftedness, all of your strengths. They are nothing compared to what I am coming to you with because I'm going to come in meekness and I'm going to come in humility and I'm not going to coerce you and I'm not going to manipulate you and I'm not going to try to trick you. I am simply going to preach the gospel. That's what I'm gonna do.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm gonna preach Jesus Christ and him crucified, and through the power of the spirit, He is going to break through every stronghold you have. He's going to conquer your your every resistance and I'm going to come to you in weakness and I'm going to come to you trembling in order to make you understand that it's not about me, but it's about Jesus. So I'm going to humble myself in order to get out of the way so you can see Jesus and he can do his work. That's what Paul is saying here. I'm gonna preach the gospel and we're gonna build this church on the gospel.
Jeffrey Heine:I want you to think back to your own salvation if you would. Think back to your own salvation. When Christ came to you, when Christ conquered your heart, if you will, and, with his beauty and with his love. Ask yourself what happened in this moment. Did Christ become beautiful to you because you were surrounded by beautiful people?
Jeffrey Heine:Did Christ become beautiful to you because you were surrounded by beautiful music? Did Christ become beautiful to you because the preacher spoke beautifully? Or was it simply through a declaration of the gospel, a clear declaration of the gospel? You saw Jesus as beautiful and that beauty forever changed you Because up to that point, you were so resistant, but then Christ disarmed you. He disarmed you with his love.
Jeffrey Heine:He broke through your defenses, and then he he he called you to himself, and he found that call to be irresistible. And then you joyfully were conquered by him. As a church, I want us to remember where our weaponry lies. Okay? And I want us to remember where the battle lies.
Jeffrey Heine:Our weaponry is faith. It is prayer. It is the declaration of the gospel. Have you ever noticed when you read through Paul's letters that he, he never talks about the strategies the church should be using? Never talks about, you know, here's some strategies for growth or here's some, some, some way that you could really market the church to make it more effective.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, when he gathered the the elders of Ephesus and acts, these like, all right guys, this is what we're going to do. You know, we really need to get the promos out there. We really need to organize this. It didn't talk about those things. When you read through the letters of Paul, you know what he talks about?
Jeffrey Heine:He talks about the gospel to a people who already have accepted the gospel. He's talking to Christians. They know the gospel, He's talking to Christians. They know the gospel. It's like, I know you know the gospel, but let's flesh out the gospel.
Jeffrey Heine:Let's really break it down. Let's, we're to live into it. Because if you understand the gospel and the resources of the gospel, it will overflow into every other aspect of your life. And that's where we really can wage the war that we want to war. It's by fleshing out the gospel and the proclamation of the gospel that you can take every thought captive Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:That's when he could change the way people think and not just preach some moral conformity. And so I want us to be a church that picks up the white rep weapons and goes into the right war, war, a church that understands and clings to the gospel and preaches it and declares it with clarity, trusting the spirit of God to do his work. Pray with me. Our Lord Jesus, forgive me of the times I get in the way, and I pray this would not be one of them. I pray that through the power of your spirit, you would make these truths real to us.
Jeffrey Heine:And if there's somebody who has been resisting your call right now through your spirit, may they find you irresistible and may you draw them to yourself. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.