Becoming a Man/Woman of God

(Excerpts from a sermon preached at Journey Baptist 09/20/09. To hear that sermon go to www.journeybaptistchurch.com it is dated and titled, "Boys and Girls".)

It is interesting the degree of fear and timidness that I am struck with concerning this topic. The only way in which I have been able to approach it is through personal prayer and the prayer of others. I have also studied as hard for this sermon series as any I have ever preached. This is an incredibly difficult topic to teach on because of the incredible sensitivity about it. I also believe strongly that the enemy of Christ followers does not want to see us living out as men and women of God.

From the outset let me assure everyone that I do not believe that women should be "barefoot and pregnant". My mother was a working mom my entire life and I believe her to be one of the most Godly women I have ever been associated with. I also am not focusing in this series on the lines of authority in the church and home. I do believe that there are lines of authority within the Godhead (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) itself. I believe that the authority given us in life is meant for our good, is set up by God, and has the potential to be used for great good or great evil. These are not sermons about authority however.

The purpose of this sermon series, "Boys and Girls" is to teach us what the world, family, and church need most from women and from men.

2 truths we must believe to be Men/Women of God

1. Men and women reflect the glory of God in equally important ways; yet unique and differently!

Genesis 1:26&27 ²⁶ Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." ²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Both men and women reflect the image of God! This is critical to understand. When men are not living out the story that God is calling them too; then something of who God is goes untold. The absence of men living out His purposes means that their is a living sermon that is not preached, there is an awesome wonder that goes unseen, His fame and wonder is not known in the way that He wants it to be known.

Also, when women do not live out the purposes of God as He wants them too, living sermons go unpreached, awesome wonder goes unseen, and something of the image of God is unknown the way He desires it to be.

Men and women are different in physiology. That is obvious by simply opening your eyes. They are different in many other ways as well. We are different mentally, we are different emotionally, we are different relationally, we are different at the core of our being. Notice I said we are different; not better or worse. The reason we are different is because God made us differently to accomplish different aspects of the grand story He is telling in history (His story).

2. We need each other!

Genesis 2:18 ¹⁸ The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."

Genesis 2:24 ²⁴ For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

I Corinthians 1:11-12 ¹¹In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. ¹²For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.

I know that our culture has taught us that it is weakness to say we need anyone. If you really want to be weak then just say you need a woman as a man or you need a man as a woman. True strength according to our culture is to be John Wayne and just do everything by yourself, for yourself. This is the same culture that would tell us that dependence on God is also weakness! We know they are wrong about dependence on God being weakness. Paul said, "When I am weak then I am strong because God's strength is perfected in weakness". Many times until we realize we need God we will still try to do life without Him which leads to our weakness; not strength.

Somehow to say that you need somebody still seems weak to many Christ followers though. God is telling us through His word that despite what culture teaches us we do need one another. The unique strengths and weaknesses of men and women work best together in the home, the church, the government, and everywhere else. God has created men and women to need one another. Little boys need a momma and a daddy. Little girls need a momma and a daddy.

Unless you are given the gift of singleness then God wants you to be married. God said "it isn't good for man to be alone". We need men and women in the church, in the home, in government and everywhere else. Listen to the sermon for clarification here. I am not saying all single people should run out and get married. Use the common sense God gave you as well as His guidelines for marriage. What I am saying is this incredible push toward being independent in our culture is not from God. This is not the story God is wanting to tell. This is us trying to tell a different story.

So that is it in the way of preliminary truths for this series. This weeks sermon is titled, "Wounds and Curses". We will look at the barriers that keep us from living out Gods specific plans for our lives as men and women. The following 2 weeks will be, "What the world needs most from men" and "What the world needs most from women".

In Jesus Name

Jarrett Jamieson

Spiritual Warfare: Recognizing it and fighting back!

Ephesians 6:12 ¹²For 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.

The first step to recognizing and fighting spiritual warfare is believing the Bible when it says that spiritual warfare takes place! There really is more going on in this world than what you and I can see. See the blog post just before this one titled, "Are Satan and demons active in our day?" Most Christ followers are simply unaware that anything other than what they can see is going on. This is exactly Satan's plan.

Once we are willing to acknowledge the fact that the forces of all Hell are waged against Christ followers then we need to learn how to recognize Satan's schemes. We need to actually live as people at war. We need to do more than just say, "Okay Satan and demons exist". We need to realize that all Hell is gunning for us, our families, our friends, and those who are yet to be converted and changed by the power of Jesus.

Recognizing the schemes of Satan

Three different enemies attack us in our journey to follow Christ. The Bible identifies the three enemies as: The flesh, the world, and the devil. It is important to understand that these 3 enemies are working together against us in our attempt to be Christ followers. Although the enemies are working together they have different ways in which they work.

The Flesh

The flesh is called the old man and sinful nature in the Bible. These terms describe the old thoughts, habits, feelings, and desires that defined you before you became a Christ follower. These old ways do not leave when we become Christ followers. They are at war with the new thoughts, habits, feelings, and desires that the Spirit of God brings when He sets up residence in our life.

The World

The world refers to the world system that is set in direct opposition to the calling of God. If you simply float along in life the world system will take you directly through the gates of Hell. It takes a conscious decision followed by the power of Jesus to walk in the completely opposite direction than everyone else in culture. It is not just this culture that is walking the other direction. Every culture on earth is walking in the opposite direction from the Lord. If we are to follow Christ we must recognize we will be walking the wrong way to everyone else.

The Devil

The devil is a real person. He is incredibly powerful. He is not a beast with a pitch fork. He is probably quite beautiful in appearance if we were able to see him. He is also completely evil and his purpose is to kill, steal and destroy. He is served by an unknown number of fallen angels called demons. They are also incredibly powerful. There are different ranks of power and authority within his army just like any army. He uses these officers of evil as well as any skilled general who has ever fought a war to accomplish his will on this earth of killing, stealing, and destroying.

Identifying an attack

In general I know that I am being attacked by the enemy when I find that the nature of my problem is much larger than it should be. In other words, when I begin to have feelings of despair and depression that feel like a cloud being pressed down on me by an unseen hand. When those feelings are so powerful that I don't have the will to pray or even get up I begin to question, "Why these incredibly powerful feelings?" When my feelings seem out of my control and too big for me ...... they usually are!

Likewise when I find that I am having intrusive thoughts that seem out of my control. I think things that seem so evil. I can not seem to stop the thoughts of worry, lust, or violence. If my thoughts seem to big and powerful for me .... they may just be.

If my circumstances seem to pile up on me; if they are too big for me. If it is a flat tire, a sick baby, conflict at work, financial difficulty, the car breaks down, etc. If all this starts happening at once then maybe ....

When I begin to confront situations in my life that are overwhelming, seem too powerful for me, and are stealing my peace; I know that it is war! If you are a Christ follower; Satan can no longer steal your soul. He can steal the fruit of the Spirit from you though! So he wadges war on love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and all the rest. I have noticed in particular that he will go after my peace. These fruits of the Spirit are much like domino's; if he can steal one of them the rest are usually quick to follow. It is difficult to have joy and not have peace!

Satan hates a Christ follower who is like a fruit tree to the world displaying these fruits of the Spirit. Within every piece of fruit you have ever had, unless it was altered, you have had to work around something ..... the seed. Fruit is made not for itself; it carries with it the fruits seed. The fruit of the Spirit carries with it the seed of the Holy Spirit. The most powerful witness to the world is a Christian full of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and the rest when life is throwing all it has at them.

The weapons of the new war

Paul identifies the armor of God for us in Ephesians 6, which is to be prayed on, but I have also found it helpful to see how Jesus fought the war. Jesus life was driven by the purpose of God and not His own purpose. There is no strategy or substitute for being Spirit driven and not self driven. However, there are two bread and butter practices that we see Jesus use at the moment of attack. We should use these as well.

We see Jesus use the Scripture when He is tempted by Satan in the wilderness. Later, the night of His betrayal, we see Him praying with earnestness as He is attacked. His simple statement in prayer, "not my will but yours" is the most powerful act of the will that a Christ follower can employ. Not what I want God, but what you want is a weapon like no other against the attacks of the enemy. Trusting Gods love even when the circumstances seem horrible and telling Him so is powerful!

Sorry I have no new ideas on this, but it really is powerful to pray and read the Bible. Digesting the Bible in all its various ways: Study, reading, memorizing, meditating, and obeying. Praying in faith, persistently, out loud, with others, writing it out, asking others to pray. These are the basic weapons for warfare. These should be employed at the moment of attack, as well as, in preparation for the attack.

It is one thing to have the knowledge that this is what should be done and it is another to recognize the attack and go to the Word, or go to God in prayer, or go to other Christ followers who will pray for you. There is no substitute for actually fighting rather than just knowing about fighting!

II Corinthians 10:3-5 ³For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. ⁴The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. ⁵We 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.

In Jesus Name

Jarrett Jamieson

Are Satan and demons active in our day?

(These thoughts are excerpts from our discussion at our Wednesday N The Word meeting on 8/19/09)

In Mark 1 we see Jesus cast a demon out of a man in the synagogue at Capernaum. Where are demons and the demon possessed in modern day America? Was this something only for Jesus time?

Demons, Satan, and the demon possessed are just as active today as they ever were. The thing that is different is their direct approach. Demonic activity takes an indirect approach in the United States and the rest of the western world. However, demonic activity is still direct in other non-western nations (ie the nations in Africa, India, etc.)

The term direct or indirect approach means simply that in Jesus day Satan did not try to camouflage his activity at all. People in Jesus day knew those that were possessed. In the western world Satan seeks to work under the radar to accomplish his purposes. He is not direct and open with his activity.

Why are the activities of Satan indirect and disguised in the west?

The nations of the west are secular nations. By this I do not mean that these nations have no religion or are all atheist. It simply means that the cause and effect of everything is credited to the secular and not the spiritual. By contrast many of the nations of Africa, India, Central and South America are spiritual. This means that the cause and effect of everything in their culture is credited to the spiritual; even if the spiritual forces credited are not the Judeo-Christian God.

If you ask a person in the United States why it rains they will likely respond by talking to you about high and low pressure systems, barometric pressure, the evaporation of water, and so on. If you ask a person in Congo why it rains they will say because God made it rain. If you ask a person in any western country about illness they will talk to you about germs, viruses, the condition of the heart and lungs, blood pressure, medicine, etc. If you ask someone in a village in Honduras they will tell you that God is angry at them.

The point of this explanation is not about who is right or wrong. It is simply to show why Satan operates differently in different cultures. Most people in the United States would be scared closer to God if they ever saw demonic activity in an open and direct way. That is obviously not Satan's purpose. His purpose is to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10). In the United States the best way he can do that is to allow people to go on thinking that spiritual things are only important at church or philosophy class. Practical, everyday issues can not be helped by a discussion of the spiritual. Most in the west do not believe that spiritual forces influence their lives. It should be obvious then, why Satan would take a very indirect approach in this country. Satan does not want to scare us out of a belief that is clearly helping his cause.

How can we observe the work of Satan and demons in the United States?

A few months ago I saw a T.V. show that was about gang activity. There was a leader of the Mexican Mafia gang who was in solitary confinement because he was so dangerous. No one from the outside was allowed near him. His only contact was with prison guards who were closely monitored. He was allowed the privilege of sending and receiving mail as part of the rights offered every inmate. He was so intelligent that he would write letters containing codes giving orders to the gang on the inside of prison and outside. Expert code breakers had examined his letters and could not break the code. Each time a letter was sent out people would carry out his orders by killing people. Here is a man who is completely confined. He can not hurt anyone on the inside or out. If no one ever listens to him again he is powerless to do anything. Yet somehow he still holds great power and influence over many people. He is also using that influence to do great evil.

Whenever I see someone in any area of life who has a disproportional amount of power and influence that is also using it for evil; I believe it is often the result of demonic activity. I believe that there are men and women who are religious leaders, mob leaders, pimps, political leaders, and so on who are just as possessed as anyone in Jesus day.

Another way that Satan expresses demonic control and influence over people in the west is through drugs. The Greek word for witchcraft in the New Testament is pharimicia. This is where we get our word pharmacy. If you think about what a witch doctor would do in Jesus day it is similar to what is done with modern medicine. People went to the witch doctor for sickness, emotional problems, to conceive children, to fall in love, and a host of other things. In each case, the witch doctor would prescribe a regimen of things that should be ingested and stir up something in a black cauldron for them to take.

I am not against taking medicine. I take antibiotics, claritin for allergies, and just about anything else that the doctor tells me to take when I am sick. However, it is also clear that the west has an incredible drug problem. We take drugs for everything! The use of prescription and illegal drugs is rampant in the west. I believe that if someone in Jesus day saw someone in our day that was high, or addicted to drugs; they would immediately conclude they were possessed.

The activity of demons is not absent from our day and our country, but it does look different. Satan is still trying to accomplish the same things he was 2000 years ago; stealing, killing, and destroying. He uses an indirect approach in the west because it better suits his needs, but we would be foolish to ignore his work.

Stay tuned for further post in the future about spiritual warfare in the life of Christ followers.

In Jesus Name

Jarrett