Intro/Outro: Welcome to Garden Church Podcast. We're in a series in the book of Revelation. We're gonna spend the next 26 weeks doing a deep dive into both how to read and how to interpret this amazing book. Enjoy.
Darren Rouanzoin: We are in a series called Revelation. So grab your bible and let me see them. Let's hold up those physical bibles. I'm I always score it. Wow.
10 AM. Keep them up. I just wanna we should probably get a photo just to show some of you who aren't bringing them. Well, the youth is a 100%. Look at that youth.
Let's go. Revelation chapter 12, We are going, chapter by chapter through this book. Just side note, I really wanna preach this book. So after December 22nd, we're gonna do a a series to Sermon on the Mount. And then when I come back, we'll have Easter and then I'll start back in part 2.
And because I'm gonna preach, forgive my language, the heck out of Revelation. I guess the hell out would work in this context appropriately so. Revelation chapter 20. But anyways, I'm getting ahead of myself. Revelation chapter 11, we're gonna start with what we're calling apocalyptic Christmas.
So this is our apocalyptic Christmas story. You'll see when we get to chapter 12. Verse 19 of chapter 11 says, then God's temple in heaven was opened. And if you've been with us, you have to recognize that the story of Revelation that the book is not told chronologically. It's told through a series of literary structures, devices that are used so you can follow along.
And the key word to understand that this is a new event or a new vision is that word opened. So now we move from the seals and the trumpets to a different series of revelation where Jesus is revealing to John things that are happening. And so what do we see when this heaven, that God's temple in heaven is open within his temple was seen the ark of his covenant. So that, at the time of the old testament was the most sacred item on the planet. So the temple being the most sacred place in the world, the holy of holies behind it is where the ark of the covenant which represents the presence of God is the most sacred item on earth and there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and a severe health storm.
So the what we have is this revelation, this new vision, this new opening of heaven where we see the temple of heaven. We see the holy of holies. We see the ark of the covenant. And then with it following what is in Exodus 19, the manifestation of God's presence through lightning, through thunder, through hailstorm. That's all old testament imagery.
If you haven't been with us and this is your first Sunday, there's a lot I'm gonna catch you up to but it's such a fascinating thing. When you read the book of Revelation, this isn't a roadmap of the future as much as it is a retelling of what's already happened in the 65 other books of the Bible. So when you read Revelation, you read it with a lens of there are over 500, some say 800 references to the old testament within the 404 verses of Revelation. So you can't read this book without knowing the old testament. That's gonna be important as we read the next vision that's unveiled in chapter 12.
So let's go to chapter 12 and let's read this. Let's read our Christmas story. Ready? A great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun with the moon under her feet and a crown of 12 stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.
Then another sign appeared in heaven, an enormous red dragon with 7 heads and 10 horns and 7 crowns on his heads. Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.
The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God where she might be taken care of for 100 sorry, 1,260 days, the word of the Lord. We're gonna get a series of 3 scenes in chapter 12. Chapter 12, is the theological center of the book of Revelation. Now it's broken up. The next three chapters we're gonna see, that chapters 12, 13, 14, and 15, I'm sorry, the next 4 chapters use this word sign over and over again to reveal something.
Now the word sign John loves because if you've read the gospel of John, the entire book is organized around a couple of things. One of them is the 7 signs and that word is miracle or a sign. Now a sign in John's mind in the Greek, is always pointing to something greater. It's like I was driving to Yosemite a couple last week for, Thanksgiving before Thanksgiving went to Yosemite and, it rained the entire time. So we took hikes in the rain.
But as as we are driving, there were these road signs, Yosemite. Now the sign itself is not Yosemite. Have you ever been to Yosemite? It's like going to the gift shop at the Grand Canyon and you buy a picture of the Grand Canyon. The point isn't the picture.
The point is Grand Canyon. The sign is pointing to something greater than itself. That's the same for these signs. Each sign in Revelation is revealing a cosmic spiritual battle taking place in the heavenly realms. Each sign will reveal something beyond itself that you have to understand.
You have to have eyes to see. The entire book of Revelation is to get you as followers of Jesus to see the things that are happening behind the things. As the world presses on, you think it's just human institution. No, there's something else going on. Chapter 12 reveals what's going on.
At the center of revelation is this this one chapter that is the theological thesis for what we need to get into our minds and hearts. We need to have eyes to see and ears to hear as disciples of Jesus. And what is the central message of chapter 12? War. Now I just pause here for a second.
You need to understand this as a follower of Jesus because what's happened is you've been domesticated by a cultural form of Christianity which I will argue as we get later into this chapter is the result of the dragon. But that's a whole other conversation. Let's wait for a few moments. Okay? We've been domesticated.
Our our courageous spirit has been neutered by the need for comfort, safety, and pleasure. The idea of fitting in, of having a good reputation, of just going along with everyone else that's next to us. Comparison keeps us from the battle we're called into. We as disciples of Jesus are birthed into battle, birthed into warfare, discipled into warfare, but most of us today are not living with this. This is why John writes this chapter.
That there's been a war going on and it's not just war, it's the war. It's the cosmic war that causes all other wars that are affected on earth. What we'll see over and over again as John reveals the curtain, as he unveils the things behind the curtain is that there is a spiritual world and in that spiritual world, it's not a bunch of Casper like go sing songs and praise. No. It is a battle going on.
That in in the heavenly realms impact the earthly space. Now the the ultimate war has been won. And what John's gonna say is the the cosmic battle in the unseen realm impacts the the earthly realm as we know it, but there was a victory that happened on earth that has changed the cosmos forever and that's the cross. But in this chapter, we're we're we're ushered into this heavenly perspective knowing that something else is going on and we're introduced to these characters. The first is the woman.
And one of the artists in our church, Seth Hack, designed this for us. He's got these images we have and and I love it because it's done so well. It's showing the perspective that's taught, in Revelation and theologians debate this, but you have to understand that John is writing with such, imaginative freedom in apocalyptic literature. So who is the woman clothed with the sun, moon and the 12 stars? Well, that's a reference to Genesis chapter 37 when Joseph has a dream.
And in the dream, he sees the sun bowing, the moon bowing representing his dad, Jacob, and his mom, Rachel, and the 11 stars representing his 11 brothers. He has the 12th star. So in some ways, the woman represents Eve and the people of Israel, but not just Eve. The the woman represents Israel because Isaiah chapter 26 refers to Israel as a pregnant woman who's about to give birth, but not just Eve in Israel, the woman also is in reference to Mary and Jesus. It is the Christmas story.
It is our Christmas story, but not just Mary and Jesus because we'll see in a couple of moments later on in chapter 12, it's not just Mary, it's the church and the future offspring of the church. Those who hold to the testimony of Jesus that the dragon hates. And so we see as this narrative storytelling through apocalyptic style is revealed. It's it's telling the story of history. It's telling the historical story of Eve and Israel.
It's telling the story of the people of God throughout history. It's telling the story of Mary and baby Jesus on that faithful Christmas morning and it's telling the story of the church in present moment. You with me? I know it's hard for you to keep your attention like that, but just imagine multiple plots going on at the same time like every movie out there now. For those of you that were alive when Lost came to be, it's basically season 2 of Lost and the rest until it ended terribly.
And if you don't know how it ends, well, don't don't even watch it. It's not worth it because of the ending. But anyways, the second storyline is this character, the dragon. This enormous red dragon with 7 heads and 10 horns. Now I love I love this because I love scripture so much.
Now throughout the Old Testament, there is this phrase that we call the dragon in the New Testament that's used in the Old Testament for chaos monsters like Leviathan and Behemoth. These are found in Old Testament narratives to describe these spiritual beings, these mythological beings I suppose that are, working to bring chaos, death and destruction against God, God's good and beautiful world against his people. So these are This is a storytelling of kind of the the cosmic powers that work against God's creation. The dragon has 7 heads which is the number for completeness and ten horns which Horns represent strength. So he is completely, he is complete in power and strength and and he he is, this spiritual being.
But what's interesting about the dragon and specifically the number of heads and the number of horns is how it's that alone is a reference to the Old Testament in Daniel chapter 7. If you were to look at Daniel chapter 7, Daniel has a series of visions of 4 different beasts who have a certain number of heads and a certain number of horns and if you add up the total heads and the horns equals 7 and 10. So these in Daniel's vision represent earthly kingdoms that are operating to bring death and destruction to God's people and to creation. John is simply adding up the heads and numbers saying this is a supernatural being. This is a spiritual being, some type of mega beast that's in the heavenly realms working against and working through human systems.
We'll read about that next week when we talk about the beast of the sea and then the following week with the beast of the earth and the mark of the beast. By the way, all that is Christmas themed. You just didn't know. What apocalyptic does is show you the thing behind the thing. So as much as we wanna say, oh, the mark of the beast is me going to Whole Foods and putting my palm in front of the thing to be read and I know some of you are worried about that.
Or is it a is it a COVID vaccine and you have all these conspiracy things shaping your theology rather than the Bible shaping your theology, right? Because the mark of the beast which we'll talk about in 2 weeks, it does have to do with the economic system of its day. Will you participate in an economic system that worships idols? Will you opt out? Will you be a part of team dragon or be a part of team lamb which will cause suffering and hardship as a result?
Or we just go for with the cultural forms of Christianity. So is consumerism a threat to Christianity? Yeah. Is that a big theme at this time of year? Yeah.
Or the beast of the sea, you know, talks about nations and governments and empires rising up and their earthly systems empowered by the dragon. Anyone here put their hope in political systems lately? Yeah. Oh, yeah. You're I'm gonna go after all of you.
There's only one Lord and savior. Yeah. And the Christmas story is told because of the result of Caesar, an issue He issued a decree that forced this peasant couple to travel miles in her last moment of being pregnant to give birth in Bethlehem. What started in within the most with the most powerful human system on the planet forced this little peasant family to travel in hardship and give birth to the Messiah in the backwater country of Bethlehem. Bunch in in middle of nowhere only to realize that we sing songs not about Caesar, but Jesus because Christ conquers.
You with me? Are we preaching? The dragon comes from heaven but the, and the dragon is the personification of evil and death, fear, destruction and chaos. All throughout scripture, this watery chaos monster, leviathan, behemoth or dragon, this imagery is used all over the place. And this imagery in some ways is a costume that has real power, but what we'll find out is certain characters that are spiritual beings, the Satan, the Devil, the accuser, dress up as the dragon to use the cosmic force of death, evil, anxiety, fear, the the worry of scarcity.
These are ways the dragon entices you to compromise in your faith. This is just our Christmas story. So this the third character is the child. Now the child, is it the church? Yes.
Is it the people of God? Yes. But in this particular story there's a reference to Mary and Jesus and it's the child will rule the nations. That's a Psalm 2 reference and go to Psalm and Psalms chapter 2 and read that messianic Psalm and and it reveals that what what this story is referring to is there's this enormous dragon at the, you know, the night we sing, oh holy night, silent night is there's this beast of beasts working to devour the child, and we know that it's played out in human systems because we know that, Herod, we know the story, he finds out through the wise men that this child was born, and what does he do? He slaughters the innocent babies.
So when we talk about Christmas, the backdrop is war. Mary flees, which we read about in Matthew, but what's going on in this Christmas stories, this is from Eugene Peterson, and the Saint John's spirit appointed task to supplement the work of Saint Matthew and Saint Luke so that the nativity cannot be sentimentalized into coziness, not domesticated into worldliness. This is not the nativity story we grew up with, but it is the nativity story all the same. Jesus' birth excites more than wonder. It excites evil.
The Christmas story backdrop is one of war which is why one of you thank you so much that you sent me a 7 foot blow up dragon from my front lawn to put next to my nativity scene. I really appreciate your generosity, and the note that says I hope my wife your wife will let you, blow this up and I will absolutely blow it up. And I'll have a picture next week so all can see an accurate Christmas toast story. I'll just have a little quote. Revelation 12 at the bottom of my red dragon this year.
When we think of Christmas, we think of war. We have to think of what's being shown here is that there are, the wars that we've experienced this year are the result of the great war in heaven. Evil is persistent towards its destruction against God's good and beautiful world. Are you with me on this? So when you think of Christmas, I want you from now on not just to think of, you know, Home Alone and all the movies that you love, your eggnog lattes which I'm definitely falling victim to.
No one does eggnog lattes anymore. I ask every hot coffee shop, do you do eggnog lattes? No, they don't. So I have to do it myself. If you own if you have access to Starbucks, just tell them to bring them back, okay?
I want you to think, are you playing for team dragon or team lamb? Christmas is about recognizing the ways you're participating in the dragon's will or in the lamb's will. The story continues in chapter 12. Oh, let me just highlight this. I love this verse 5.
It's half of a verse, says, and her child was snatched up to God into his throne. That's essentially the life, ministry, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. In half of a verse, chapter 12 lets you know he was born for rule. He was born to reign. So in one half verse, you have the summary of all of Jesus because the point is something else is going on.
There's a sign. You need to see. We've talked about the throne. We've talked about Jesus. We talked about all this and we will continue to talk until he restores all things, things, but that's a reference to the this is why he exists.
So it's the ascension in 1 verse. There we go. Now there's a second scene. So now we're given a different image. Ready?
It's the same. A war is going on. It's gonna pull back further. Here's another image of this war. Then war broke out in heaven.
Verse 7. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. Now I just wanna say because I don't have time to go into all the rabbit holes here, but I love the rabbit holes. When you read Revelation and you read apocalyptic literature, so Daniel's apocalyptic, part of it is historical, part of it is apocalyptic. Part of Matthew 24 is apocalyptic.
Part of Mark 13 is apocalyptic. Revelation is apocalyptic. There was a this was a very popular genre of writing at the time John wrote this. About a 100 years before John and a 100 years after, you had a bunch of Jewish scholars who were immersed in the old testament, wrote apocalyptic style to that fascinated the Jewish audience by mostly Jewish audience. And there was all sorts of writing.
We the the Apocrypha which, is part of the the canon for the the Catholic church, not our church, has stories where you read about angels and lots of different stories about the angels. So people at the time would have been very familiar with Michael, Gabriel, and other angels, but they would have been over a fascination with the angelic. All to say we see there is some type of war going on. If you read Daniel chapter 10, if you read Jude 2, you recognize that Michael's in there. Michael is fighting against the dragon.
But he was not strong enough and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down, which in Greek, it's translated to bounced, and it's mentioned 6 times. Six times that the dragon or Satan was bounced out of heaven. That that ancient snake so here's who's behind the dragon. Who's behind the dragon?
That ancient snake or the serpent called the devil or Satan who leads the whole world, astray. He was hurled to the earth and his angels with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say, now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah for the accuser of our brothers and sisters who accuses them before our God day and night has been hurled down. And here's here's the key. This one verse is so important.
They, those who follow Jesus, triumphed over him by the blood of the lamb. Not by practice, not by earning, not by works, not by podcast, by the blood of the lamb. How do we triumph? How do we conquer? Through his blood.
And by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them. But woe to the earth and the sea because the devil has gone down to you. He is filled with fury because he knows that his time is short. Beautiful, right?
Another story of cosmic battle going on. We are ushered into the second story that's been going on from the beginning. Now if you were to go when did this battle take place? Well, as far as I can tell and according to scholars, this battle takes place between Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 and verse 2. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Great. And apparently, he created cosmic beings, angelic beings that could choose to follow his will and do his work or disobey and go their own way. And we know that there were a group of angels that went with Satan, the devil, the dragon, away from God's way and he's been thrown to have, to earth where he ruled until Jesus took back the rulership on the cross and the resurrection, and now his time as he goes after the church is happening now until Jesus comes and restores it until Revelation chapter 20 where the devil is, dealt his final judgment, which is what this book is about. This book is about, look, why are things so bad? Why are things on earth so bad?
Well, there's sin? Yes. Sin, of course. The consequences of sin is obviously death, but we see the effects of living outside of God's way, right? You don't have to look very hard.
You don't have to turn on the news to say life's not the way it's supposed to be. You don't have to turn on the news to go, some of us deal with anxiety and that's not right. We are dealing with self hate and doubt and fear and depression and some of us can't sleep at night and some of us, our body cannot do things it used to do when we were younger. We've been injured and the pain is constant. We know that our our literal experience is saying this is not the way it's supposed to be.
And there's hope that things will be restored once and for all. That's the story of scripture by the way, but it's not just sin. It's not just brokenness. It's not just sickness. It's that there's cosmic evil, spiritual beings working against your life, working against creation, working against human systems, working through human systems, working through your life to bring about the dragon's will.
And there are people on earth that don't know Jesus that are enslaved to the dragon. Let me say it another way. They have been held captive by Satan. And although our world is nice and peaceful, we've made Christianity be comfortable. We forget that our task is to go into the battlefield and wage war against the dragon the same way Jesus does and to fight the battle to liberate those who are held in his cap captive.
This is not about you learning to not be in a hurry. Yes. Don't be in a hurry for the sake of the world. This is not about you learning fasting for fasting's sake. Fast so you don't feed the flesh.
This is about you being raised up for battle and going straight into the dragon's lair, knowing that persecution and suffering's coming because your death will present to the world a witness to the world that he lives. That's what chapter 12 is about. Merry Christmas. I love this. We we find out that the the the the, dragon is bounced out of heaven, but we learn who the dragon is.
It's it's the ancient serpent from Genesis 3, the satan or the devil. The serpent is this character that wears the costume of the dragon to spread lies, to bring accusation, to slander your name and deceive the world. That's what's going on behind the scenes. That's what you need to see. That Has has anyone here been slandered before?
How's that feel? You wanna talk about it? Anyone have been publicly slandered in a way that you had chose not to defend your reputation? It's That's hard. There is a spiritual being in the heavenly realms that works day and night to bring accusations against you and to slander you before God.
Right? So Satan, who, is the father of lives according to John chapter 8, is working in the spiritual realm and he's fueled by his fury because his time is limited. And he is working to deceive the world because he wants to be God and he wants to move the world to belong to his domain. And so the enemy is working all the time and I wanna say I think the enemy is working very well in our church. So when I say merry Christmas, I think whose team are you playing for?
How are you participating in spreading the dragon's propaganda? By believing, by participating in his activity. How does the enemy work his will through us and in the church? Number 1 is he works through accusations. This is what spiritual warfare looks like.
Now we've done a lot of work on this. I don't have time to get into the depths of spiritual warfare. Satan uses sickness. He uses, all sorts of things to work in this world still to this day. But the primary ways is he's gonna come after your identity by bringing against you accusations.
Right? And he's gonna try to deceive you. It's all working together. So here's here's what happens. Some of you had a rough week.
Right? Maybe you participated in some habits that were not stuff you should have done. You you know deep in your heart that that's immoral. That's not the way of a Jesus follower, but this last week you're at home, you fell back into that family system trap and you had a little too much drink or you got on that website that you know you shouldn't go on or you said the thing that you didn't wanna say because you said you weren't gonna talk about politics, but you got heated and you wanna defend your case because it's a moral issue and you can't believe and then you're judging them and now you come to church and they're singing songs about holy and all you think about is all the dripping shame you carried in here. Right?
So you can't worship God because what you have is a list from Satan who's keeping you from the presence. More importantly, he's keeping you from being who you really are. Right. So he is angry and he's working to bring accusation day night and he's trying to deceive you to live out some type type of lie. So you don't feel this worth.
You don't feel worthy. Right. And then he's trying to deceive you to prove your worth. So now your motivation is to prove the value you have in this context or he tries to deceive you to say, like, just a little bit of poison is okay. Right.
That that little thing, like, it's not the big stuff you used to do, it's just a little bit. And so he's now got you trapped in a false identity and false behaviors that gets you working in his domain. And then you don't realize that you're influencing your brother and sister who's new new to faith and they're they're basing their judgment of morality, their lifestyle habits on your performance and you're just giving them permission to participate in the Dragons team. So you're playing team Dragon. Let's go.
I was reminded of a story earlier today. I was talking to the worship team of one of the most embarrassing moments of my childhood. Can I share it with you? I loved basketball. I was on the Bulls, 1994 4th grade.
For those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, you know what that means globally. K. I was a shorter kid. I don't need to describe myself. I wasn't tall and skinny, and I was good at dribbling, but I I was always nervous playing games.
I had to work through that sports anxiety, but doesn't matter. I was 4th grade. And I was I was at I was at the line. There's a free throw shot from the other team. They they shot it and I boxed my guy out and I got the rebound.
And in the excitement of the game, I just jumped up and shot it. And in a rare moment made it. And I ran back to my side to play defense only to realize what I did. And then shamefully run back because I was point guard point guard to get the ball and then drive down. And I was looking for the coach to sit me out.
Called the time out and I'm like, please sit me please sit me out. I was like about to cry. He's like, no. He's like, that's not who you are. Go out and play.
And And he made me go out and see this is what I think the enemy does. He tries to bench you. Yeah. Right? With shame and accusation.
And Jesus like, get out there and play. How you doing church? Devil is filled with fury. He's angry and things are getting worse until Revelation 20 as we know because his time is running out. And then we get the 3rd scene, verse 13.
Let's read this last bit and then we'll give you some practicals and we'll pray. You guys good? How many of you are really enjoying Revelation by the way? Yeah, okay. About half of you great.
Outside, I could see your hands outside. How are you guys doing? Oh, I see a couple of there. Yeah, great. I see it.
Bible's waving. I see you. The holy saints outside. I can tell you either sacrificed your chair for all of these brothers and sisters out here or you got here late, but doesn't matter. We're so glad so glad you're with us.
Verse 13, here we go. When the dragon saw that he had been bounced to the earth, he pursued the woman who had been who had given birth to the male child. The woman was given the 2 wings of a great eagle so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness where she would be taken care of for a time. Times and a half a time out of the snake's reach. From the mouth this is so interesting.
Then from his mouth, the snake spewed water like a river. This is the counter image of Revelation 21 and 22 where the temple 2020 and 21, the temple has a river of life flowing out of it. This is a a watery destruction. To overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent, but the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. This is a reference to Romans where it says, Romans 8 that creation eagerly longs waits for the sons of God to be revealed.
That there the creation is rooting for the woman and her children. Oh, man. Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring. Those who keep God's commands and hold fast to their testimony about Jesus. Who is the dragon waging war against?
Some of us. Some of us who hold fast to the testimony of Jesus. I'm not I'm not gonna assume all of you do that. I'm not assuming all of you are Christian or all of you are playing for team Lamb. But some of us have been living a contented life where every step is contested, where every step is challenged, not just because of the fall of humanity and brokenness and sin, but because there is an evil presence working against us.
And this is to give you eyes to see that your life matters. That what you do now matters. This isn't about wait and see what happens when you get zapped out of here and raptured up into heaven. That's not the story of revelation. Rapture rapture is not mentioned in revelation.
There's a tribulation and when did the tribulation start? It started on Christmas Eve. When we sing silent night, we sing, oh, violent night because Christ is born and the enemy does everything to end his work in the world. He does it through violence. He does it through death, and we read the seals and we read the trumpets and we see there are creative agencies out there coming up with creative ways to keep you down, to keep you shrinking from death, but you won't.
You will be the faithful remnant who challenge, who wage war, who take on the weapons that have been given to us in Revelation chapter 12. Rev Revelation 12 reveals to us the weapons we have in this war. You can go to Ephesians, you can go to 2nd Corinthians, you can go to 1st Peter, you can look at the ways of battling, but what are our weapons in this war? Verse 11 of chapter 12 says they triumphed, they overcame, they conquered over him, over who? The dragon.
How do we conquer over the dragon? Number 1, by the blood of the lamb. We don't play into the devil's game when he brings accusation. We plead the cross. We don't he some of you have made agreements about your value and worth with Satan and you don't know it's satanic, but it is.
That your value comes from performance, comes from what you do. There's nothing you can do to earn God's love. He already did it. What does it mean to plead the blood? It means every time you've made a mistake, you say thank you for your forgiveness.
I come under your covering again. Thank you for the moment you turned. He's running after you. There's no shame and condemnation. Romans chapter 8, which you should memorize, especially if you're young, is therefore there is no condemnation.
Is there some condemnation? Is there a little bit of condemnation? No condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because through Christ, through who? Christ. Christ Jesus, the law of the spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
Read the rest of the chapter. I'm not gonna read anymore. There's so much there. Romans chapter 8, what Jesus has done for you. When you understand this, when this gets into your mind, when this gets into the cellular level, the atoms that make the quirks that make you who you are, when your bones cry, Romans 8, the devil will come with temptation and you can laugh because you know nothing you can do, nothing you've done, nothing you do, nothing that you will do, nothing that he does, nothing what they do will keep you from his love.
Therefore, you can say with confidence, God loves you, but I'm his favorite. And I mean that I know he loves you, but I really am his favorite. And until you can feel that, you don't know the gospel. Therefore, you're living on team dragon because the enemy will use those subtle ways, those little serpent lies to whisper thoughts about what God's like. Is he really good?
Maybe you should eat the apple, Eve and Adam. Or what why is your brother getting more praise for his sacrifice and he whispers the lie to Cain, which leads to the destruction of humanity in the flood, which leads to the chaos until the cross. And we can comfortably say it's not by works, it's not by might, it's by his blood. So every time that accusation comes, every time that whisper enters into your mind, choose to come under the blood. But the second thing, the second tool we have is the word of our testimony.
We overcome the devil's deception by living out the truth of the gospel. This is so important today. I'm gonna really sit on this for a second because, I need you to hear. This is this is a really important moment for the church to recognize that you play on team dragon when you let lies live in your heart. When you when you allow lies to be entertained even if you're not saying but your friend is.
You participate on the team dragon when you allow lies to remain manifest in your thinking and in your body. About life, about people, about yourself, about the way the world works. When you participate in lies, you participate in the dragon's tactics of deception. So as Christians, we live truth. We live no lies.
We live in truth. I love what John 832 says, then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. There's something about naming the lie and proclaiming the truth in your soul that gets you realigned with team lamb. But so many of us are just a little bit off, a little bit, it's just a little bit off that gets us towards the road to hell where we're playing on the wrong team. We overcome the devil by being ruthless about the truth.
So when you begin to recognize that you're operating out of insecurity, you step back into the truth about who you are. You're more than a conqueror. You're a co heir with Christ. What what do you mean? You're worried about what people think about what you wear when you've been clothed with the power from heaven?
Are you kidding me? You're gonna define yourself by success? You're gonna define yourself by what people think about you? You're gonna define yourself by the world standards world standards which is corrupted by the dragon who we know when the mask comes off, it's the serpent, Satan, and devil? How are you gonna participate in that strategy when you've been given everything through the lamb?
So we learn to live in truth and when we when we learn to live in truth, you know what happens? Romans 16 says, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. Oh, I love that. There was a practice we did years ago where I I had you, take a Sharpie and write on your feet the lies that you've believed. Some of you need to do I'm gonna say this these 2 rows.
Why don't you take out a pen sometime on your favorite shoes that you wear more than any other shoe? On the bottom of the soles, write down the lies that you've embodied as a person. And then everywhere you go, recognize that soon the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet and every inch you take is a reminder. Every step you take is a reminder of the truth of Jesus and what he's doing right now behind the scenes of reality. You with me?
The third thing is really important. They did not love their life so much as to shrink from death. The enemy, we overcome the temptation of the dragon by living and preaching the gospel. Now this is an interesting one. This is important.
I hear you. Is that was that Who was that? Yes, over there. I Is my guy in the Okay. There we go.
We got some circuit writers probably. Love you guys. I I hear you. This one, can you put that back up? They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.
Now listen, I realized now when this was written people were being persecuted and slaughtered for their faith. They're losing homes. They're put into prison. They're they're being approached by the dragon with fear of death. Now, but the the dragon doesn't necessarily just bring about a fear of death for us today.
Like most of you aren't gonna go home today, some of you are gonna go to brunch. You're not thinking, oh, I'm gonna die because of my faith. But you do shrink back when it comes to your comforts. When it comes to your political allegiance. When it comes to your the pleasures of this world.
So your You compromise your convictions with the threat of scarcity. Alright. The dragon just brings this world view that there's not enough for you. So you have to earn it. You have to work hard.
You have to not be generous. You gotta hold some for yourself because you you so you shrink back from this active faith that's primarily in chapter 12, a a warfare faith. And you shrink back through compromising, through little tiny comforts that make you feel like, well, everyone else is doing. This is where you're participating in cultural Christianity, which is Dragon's team. What are the ways you've participated on the Dragon's team?
Through pleasure, through compromise. Here's what I know here's what I know without question, because the word of God is being preached. The Holy Spirit is convicting you. Like, there are things that have bubbled up in the last 15 minutes about things in your life where you're like, oh, yes. That's the thing.
And you're like, why are you preaching to me so specifically, Darren? I'm like, I'm not. The Holy Spirit is trying to get you to recognize that if you say yes to the invitation and if you confess, if you stand in truth, you will be set free. What you don't realize is that micro compromise leads to major macro sin issues in your life. It's the subtle things.
It's the it's the, hey, did you buy that thing on Amazon? No, I didn't. Hey, it's the clearing your browser history. It's the deleting of the text message because you don't want somebody to find out. It's the subtle things that the dragon wins on that leads you towards a path.
What is that that that It's not just that I plead the cross every It's that I plead the cross and then I live into the reality of that through the word of my testimony and I don't shrink back from scarcity or fear or compromise. I live this thing out because I was made for war. So much of discipleship today is about making you project self. Only Jesus says, you must learn to die to yourself. It's project Jesus.
That's team lamb. What project are you building? Your great future or his great new world? Because revelation is very clear. Jesus is coming back.
He wins and the faithful, those who are faithful to him, how will they know? It's like sheep and goats through the way you lived. You with me? So play for team Lamb this Christmas day. Let me just say this.
I wanna say one more thing and I don't I I I mean this sincerely. I really believe, that our church has been under warfare in an increased way. So some of you are not recognizing that the habits that came back couple weeks ago, couple months ago that you thought were gone is the result of the dragon. Some of you have an increased relational strife and you've done like the relational work of of psychology and habits and good communication skills and conflict resolution, but you don't realize that you're applying the communication skills to a heavenly problem. Right?
You're trying to apply earthly skills to a heavenly problem. Some of you don't recognize that the physical ailments that you've been suffering for a few months are not just you getting older, but there's an enemy trying to rob you of joy. And there's something that is it connected to the physical activity that you are not able to do that Satan is robbing right now. I believe God wants to heal. Not just heal, he wants to deliver you from the ailment.
I believe we need a mindset, a worldview of warfare, and we don't have to worry. We just have to remain play the game. So can we all stand? Part 1, we got 3 more parts of our apocalyptic Christmas. Before we pray and minister, I want to remind you, go take every tag out there for Franklin Middle School.
The the needs are unbelievable. Some people just want a new fridge for their family so that they're they can have cold food. Some people need uniforms because they don't have they have one uniform and they wash it every day or once a week when they go to the laundromat. Some people need shoes because they don't have enough shoes. So in this season of generosity, just get crazy generous.
Amen. Would you open your hands? Holy Spirit, come. The Lord was prompting you to just you wanna respond, would you just come forward right now? We'll create space.
We're gonna pray for everyone. But if that word about warfare or that word about that confession, I I was listening to a a Catholic podcast on exorcisms which is fascinating, but the theologian said one confession in his theology is worth a 1,000 deliverances. It is so true. Like, we just confess. We just bring it before the Lord.
Why? Because we're freed. So would you just come forward? Let's just come with a humble heart, come forward and respond to Lord right now. We want prayer for the things that we're covering.
We wanna go to war with you and cover you in prayer. For the ailments you face. You come all the way forward and come to the front where people are coming down. Thank you so much.
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