Living By the Sword- UCR AACF

INTRO
Chronicles of Narnia.
Some of you have been Christians for a while. Some of you more recent. The moment you became, a Christian, realize that you have stepped into a warzone.
There is a war going on. It is a spiritual battle between the Kingdom of Darkness and the Kingdom of Light. It’s war between Satan and the evil forces of sin, and God, his Holy Spirit who deeply desires that we have Freedom in Christ.
EX: Capture the flag.
Satan has strategy. He has some tricks up his sleeve. Don’t underestimate the ability of Satan when it comes to war. He is no rookie.
He’s not this guy who wears red and carries a pitchfork around. The bible says he has evil schemes.
In Ephesians 6, it talks about this War that is going, this spiritual War. For Paul says:
In v10 “Put on your armor of God so that you may take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground.”

There is a war going on. And realize that this isn’t a fight against another human being. It’s not a war against one demonic spirit. Realize that when you joined the Kingdom of Heaven, suddenly you have the entire forces of Hell against you.

And we need to equip ourselves with a full armor of God. And today I want to focus on part of the armor that we must never try to fight without.
EX: Alliance “Bad Words”
Well, I might have used to teach them the F Word, but today I want to teach you the S-word.
What is the S Word? … it stands for the Spirit’s WORD. The word of God.
Not that the words originate in the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit of God is He who communicates the word of God by expressing to the spiritual truths in spiritual words, according to 1 Cor 2.
It is he who teaches me the word of God
it is He who helps me understand the word of God
it is He who convicts me of the word of God
it is he who reminds of the word of God.
But you know, I get lazy, and you know me. So instead of saying “S-Word”, I just slur it together and say SWORD.
Brothers and sisters, in order to stand and fight in this spiritual war against Satan, we need to equip ourselves with the S-Word. We need to equip ourselves with the Sword.
Paul backs me up in this, in V. 17 he says take the helmet of salvation and the SWORD OF THE SPIRIT, WHICH IS THE WORD OF TRUTH. God’s word!
As we enter into battle, and we go up against the forces of the devil, we need to make sure our SWORDs are ready. We need to make sure we have the Spirit’s word.

The Message
Today, there is one point, but you MUST learn this… in order to fight against the schemes of the devil, against spiritual warfare, we need to Live by the SWORD.
See, because I have seen spiritual warfare in many different forms and fashions. I have been in the presence of people demon possessed. I have seen loved ones demonized. I have seen a small girl possessed and given incredible power to fight off 5 grown adults.
I have also seen spiritual warfare in more subtle forms. I have seen Christians accused, deceived, filled with doubt. I have seen Christians struggle with temptations and insecurity.
I originally wanted to come and talk about some of the crazy spiritual warfare that I have seen, such as demonic possessions and demonizations.
But I realize that those things don’t happen everyday here at UCR.
I think it is more appropriate for me to address how the Sword of the Spirit can help us fight against the more subtle, common ways that Satan attacks here and now.
I think one of the most common ways Satan attacks us here in So. Cal is by making us captive to our own Flesh.
The devil gets us to fall by tempting you and getting you to give into your sinful, fleshly desires.
EX: Eskimos
Eskimos are wise and shrewd hunters. They are patient, because they know if they let their prey seek what it desires, it will allow itself to be killed.

Again in Galatians 5, a chapter dealing specifically with freedom, says in v 16 “Live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”
And though the main point of this message is to live by the Spirit’s word, I want to give you three practices of how we can sharpen our swords.

Read the Word
EX: Two brothers eating from the fruit tree.
The first brother is like those of us who only take in the word at church on Sundays or from the speaker you heard at AACF.
You might have enough food from the encounter and even some when you come home for a while, but in the long run it doesn’t compare with having your own tree.
Having your own tree is like the one who takes home the word to read it in the secret place, during his quiet times.
Let’s be real. You’re probably going to forget much of what I and others who teach here at AACF say.
But if you take the word home and read It everyday, it’s blessings are endless!
I want to challenge you, as you begin this new quarter, to commit every single day to reading God’s word. If you do this, your sword will be sharp and ready for battle.
Why do we need to read the word? Otherwise how will we know the what weapons are available to us in times of battle?
It’s when we commit our time daily to read God’s word that we come to really know and understand the truths and promises of God that are made available to us. The more we read, the more exposure we have to the vast resource of God’s word.
EX: Let’s say you’re talking to a friend, and they start to question their salvation. Like they have these accusative thoughts in their head saying that they aren’t really saved, and continuous feelings of guilt because of their sin.
What promises of Scripture would you be able to offer them to fight against Satan’s deception?
This actually happened recently when my fiancé started to have all these doubts. This is the girl I want to marry because I saw godliness in her.
Recently I noticed that she’d been having difficulty reading the Bible or even uttering out prayers.
She was sharing with me one night that she has this reoccurring thought that God was going to give up on her and take his Spirit away from her.
Immediately flags went off in my mind and I knew this was clearly spiritual attack from the evil one. It was the Father of all lies.
And in that moment, I didn’t go online to Google scripture passages or I didn’t run to grab my concordance to see what the Bible says.
I already knew what it said, for I had been exposed to the much of the truths of the Bible before through my reading of it.
I turned to passages like 1 Cor 1:8 that says that God will keep us strong until the end, and Eph 1:14 that says the Holy Spirit is in us as a deposit of our inheritance of eternal life and John 5:13 that said that those who believe in the Son can know that they are saved.
That night we prayed over her, and had her verbally proclaim these truths of Scripture by reading the passage aloud, and she experienced deliverance and freedom.
The Sword gave us victory that night, but because we knew what was in there from earlier commitment to reading it.
Joshua was Chosen by God to lead the Israelites into battle, into war. The Lord himself instructs Joshua and tells him how he is to prosper
Josh 1:7-8 Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.”
If living by spiritual words will bring physical prosperity for the Israelites in physical battle, how much more will living by spiritual words bring spiritual prosperity in spiritual battles?
EX: Kansas city man who learned to read bible with his tongue.
How committed are you to reading the word?

Meditate on the Word
EX: Tea Bag. Have you ever taken a tea bag and dabbed it in a cup of hot water? Some of the water absorbs the tea. Each time we read the word, it’s like dabbing a tea bag. The tea bag is the word, and our mind and heart is the water.
But what happens when you let it sit and soak? All the flavor of the tea is allowed to seep and spread throughout the water until its full or flavor and color. Meditation is the letting the bag sit in the hot water, it’s letting the word soak up into your heart and mind.
Meditation is deep thinking of what we have read from God’s word.
Many people don’t like the idea of meditation because it reminds them of yoga or other religions like Buddhism.
However, other forms of meditation often have you empty your mind. You’re supposed to try to empty yourself and not think about anything.
However, Christian meditation is a filling of your mind. You are filling your mind with the truths of God’s word, and actively thinking about His word and applying it to our lives.
But many of us do read the word of God during our quiet times, but sometimes it’s just read a section or a chapter, and then pray, and then go off and do whatever.
EX: Hiking Yosemite. Me and my friends love to go camping and hiking.. We were doing this hike along this stream. One time and we were all just amazed at some of the trees we saw. They were big and strong looking, but what amazed me were they were busting through the rocks! It would be like granite, and then trees shooting through. And I knew they were strong because they were fed by the stream of water that ran along it.
You know what those trees reminded me of?
Ps 1. “Blessed is the man… (whose) delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water (Strong), which yields its fruit in season (Fruitful), and whose leaf does not wither (Persevere). Whatever he does prospers (prosperous).”
These trees have strength, fruitfulness, perseverance, and prosperity. That is like the man who meditates on God’s word.
How can we meditate on God’s word, rather than just read it?
Pray over it.
Have a journal or notebook, and then rewriting the passage in your own words, just to see if you understand it.
Write down what the passage means to me and how I can apply it in my life.
These are just a few ideas, but the point is to take time to actively think about the passage rather than just read it and close in prayer, and call that a QT.
_______________________________________________
Let’s do an exercise:
What goes up…
What goes around…
Oops I ….
Hit me baby….
Shorty got low, low
“In the beginning, God created _______________ and the _____________.”
“For God so loved the world…”
“Do not be anxious about anything…”

Memorize the Word
I understand why most of us know so well these slogans. They’re drilled into us by our culture. We are exposed to these things all the time, on the TV, in the movies, around our friends, all around us.
But what if we exposed ourselves to the Word of God just as much? What if we decided to surround ourselves with the Word of God? What if we decided to read it daily? What if we decided to memorize it and were able to respond with it so quick, just like we did with the worldly stuff?

Many of us hate memorize scripture because it’s like school. It takes work
Why is memorization so important? Because it is stored in our mind and ready for use.
The truth is most of us don’t carry the word of God in our back pockets. It’s not like we can just whip out a bible whenever Satan tries to tempt us.
And especially as we’re talking about battling against Satan and his evil schemes, it is crucial that we have God’s word hidden in our hearts at all times.
Psalm 119:9,11 writes that addressing our battle against sin, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word…I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”
The Holy Spirit can use what we’ve memorized to bring to mind what we’ve kept in our hearts in times of need.
EX: Teds Eph 4:29.
I don’t know if it’s God’s setting up, or coincidence, but the Holy Spirit took something that he memorized and used it in a time of battle where Satan would have otherwise caused him to fall.
I can actually go on about the benefits of scripture memorization but I want to stop here and tie it in with reading, meditating, and memorizing.

The point of the message today is that we are in a spiritual battle. Satan wants to trap us…We must live by the Sword.
And in order to live by it, we must equip ourselves with it
John 14:26 says that the Holy Spirit teaches us all things and reminds us of all things
He will reach into the stored armory of our heart, and bring to mind in opportune times appropriate Scripture that we have read, meditated on, or memorized.
EX: Military armory. In every war, armies have an armory where they store their weapons.
Imagine if you only stored up hand knives…or bazookas…
In the same way, we need to store up the armory of our hearts with different swords.
EX: Heart Armory. Imagine you’re sin is materialism and you find Gen 1:1…
So the idea today is that we need to continually fill our arsenal with a supply of swords that the Holy Spirit can use in all sorts of battles.
A huge way in which the Spirit fights is by bringing to mind what we’ve heard, read, memorized.
But we need to give the Holy Spirit something to work with! It’s not very often that the Holy Spirit will bring to mind a scripture that I’ve never seen or heard before!
He can’t RE-mind us of what’s never been brought to mind in the first place!
EX: Do you remember the time of when I sanded off my toe?
That is how the Sword of the Spirit works. We need store up our armories.

CLOSING

The following is from the US Government Peace Corps Manual for its volunteers who work in the Amazon Jungle. It tells what to do in case you are attacked by an anaconda. Now an anaconda is the largest snake in the world. It is a relative of the boa constrictor, it grows to thirty-five feet in length and weighs between three and four hundred pounds at the maximum. This is what the manual said:

If you are attacked by an anaconda, do not run. The snake is faster than you are.

Lie flat on the ground. Put your arms tight against your sides, your legs tight against one another.

Tuck your chin in.

The snake will come and begin to nudge and climb over your body.

Do not panic.

After the snake has examined you, it will begin to swallow you from the feet first. Permit the snake to swallow your feet and ankles. Do not panic.

The snake will now begin to suck your legs into its body. You must lie perfectly still. This will take a long time.

When the snake has reached your knees slowly and with as little movement as possible, reach down, take your knife and very gently slide it into the side of the snake’s mouth between the edge of its mouth and your leg, then suddenly rip upwards, severing the snake’s head.

Be sure you have your knife.

Be sure your knife is sharp.

6-week commitment
In closing, I want to challenge you today to be still. To find that time to be quiet before the Lord.
We talked about meeting God, seeking, hearing, praying, and the word in our quiet times.
I want to challenge you to a 6-week commitment.
You’ll pick a:
Partner
Place/ Time
Plan
Prize
Punishment