The Devil in Your Marriage
we thank you. The you are our Lord. I'm so grateful that we get to do what we do
presently. Be it in a multi-purpose room, a gym, our car. Goodness we got headphones
to do it on a run or a hike. God we get to worship you, we get to listen to your
word, we get to read your word, we get to gather together freely. What we get to do
now is amazing. And Lord I pray that you would give us the discernment. Now let me
go farther than that. The conviction. To do what we are called to do. Recognizing
that we live in a day and age, that we have luxury to do it. I pray this wouldn't
just be something we add on to our already busy week, but that you would be the
center of our lives. God we love you and we trust you. It is in Jesus's name that we
bring. God's people said, "Hey man on your way to your seat." Why don't you say, "Hey to the
person standing next to you." Let them know that you're grateful that they're here. I've
decided to stop saying neighbor. It reveals where I'm from too quickly in our
conversation. Some of you people need to know me a little bit. If we know where I'm from.
I appreciate your lap. Not everyone does it. It's your special today. I'm really excited.
We're going to be finishing our series. Our series was called Marriage Conversations.
Have conversations about marriage. It's pretty self-explanatory. I've learned that on YouTube
self-explanatory helps. I like these creative sermon titles, but none of y'all do. So we're
changing. I appreciate you. Don't suck out to me though because I'm just kidding. I'm just
kidding. It's been a good series. We went one week longer than I initially anticipated because
last week we had a sermon called We Have to Talk About Fight Club. I talked to you about
the practical aspects that God wants you to know when you're, I mean we're all fighting
at some level with our spouse. Whether it's iron sharpening iron, the super biblical
Christian spiritual way of doing it or you're frustrated at each other and you're just fighting
right now. Maybe you're just on the verge of something bad in your life or in your marriage
or maybe you're just struggling to get along with one another. I think we're all in a fight.
It's some season of our life. We need to know how to deal with that rather than getting
into a fight and thinking, oh my gosh it shouldn't be this way and I'm like, probably not,
but you live in a sin, you live in a sin-filled world and your partner and you, my sermon
title today will give it to you real quick. It's Fight Club part two. The devil in your
marriage because the enemy is roaming around seeking to steal, kill, and destroy and he's
very problematic to all of us. Last week I started with a verse in Ephesians chapter six,
verse 12 and it says this, "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 this heavenly realm." Lots of repetition. Let me remind you
of the repetition really quickly, not against flesh and blood, against the rulers, authorities,
powers of this dark world against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Paul's trying to help you understand that there is a fight and there's the one between
you and your spouse or you and whoever and then there's the one that is one layer below.
It's this cosmic war between good and evil, light and dark. God, the devil, and his
battleground is your life. Now it's interesting. I want us to keep something in mind because
the devil, I heard one pastor say it, "The devil's on a leash." Well, the devil's like
a lion, a roaring lion, but he's on a leash is what the pastor says. It was a really
well good way of putting it and I want you to know that what you're facing right now with
your spouse is but a skirmish. I read a story recently about World War II because I'm
38 years old, you know, 38 years old, dude, World War II phase. Anyone and we'll get it
like I'm a World War I phase, World War II phase, Civil War phase, just general history
phase. It's just a dude thing. Men, mostly women there, but men, you understand when you're
older and if not, what are you doing with your life if you're not learning about World War
II? But anyways, I was reading about World War II and there was a battle that took place
after the war ended. It was with a kind of disconnected battalion. They hadn't received
the memo and they're holding ground in Germany after America and the Brits had already
come in and conquered Berlin. And I'm reminded of that story that I read when I think
about Satan's ability to derail you because God's already won the war in the cosmic realm.
You don't know. But many of us and Satan himself have clearly not gotten the memo. The
memo is this that 2000 years ago, God sent his son Jesus to live a perfect life, die on
the cross that he didn't deserve, raise to walk three days later. He is now seated at the
right hand of the Father in heaven and he interseeds or petitions on our behalf. He also
sent his Holy Spirit to dwell in those of us who have confessed and believed that Jesus
is Lord and he has given us power and authority and the capacity to overcome and conquer the
enemy. But the devil didn't get the memo and many of you didn't get the memo. So the devil
is like that, that disconnected battalion who's still fighting a war that's already won.
So what he tries to do is he tries to embed himself into the fabric of your life.
You're parenting your marriage, the way you interact with the church,
what you go to work, the people you spend time with, the culture you were influenced by.
He tries to embed himself into all of that. And some of us, since we didn't get the memo,
we allow him to derail our progress. But because of what Jesus did,
it's in a different realm. You didn't see it physically. We see what's physical. We don't see
what's cosmic. The sermon's going to be a little more. It's going to be pretty weird. I'm going to
talk about heavenly beings and cosmic realities or behind the scenes of what we currently see.
It's like there's the sheep that we see the physical and then there's something else happening.
We'll talk about that today. I felt really nervous about it. It's what the Bible says.
I think it's going to be really helpful for you. But if you're brand new to church and you're like,
this is weird. Yep, I got you. Totally agree. At the same time, it's true. And the truth is, Satan's
trying to embed himself into every fabric or every aspect of your life so that he can derail you
from the progress if you're a believer that you've made in Christ. And for some of you, since you
didn't get the memo about what Christ did, he is already derailing you. And he thinks he's one,
he's just not gotten the memo. But I have, and it's a very encouraging one. I hope today
to encourage you and your marriages and encourage you in your faith. Because this series,
just like the AI series that some people thought they didn't like because it was all about AI.
No, I talked about AI. It was about the image of God. And if you missed that before, it's
things for you. This marriage series was not about just people who were married. This is about
people who are following Christ Jesus. What does it look like to follow him wholeheartedly in such
a way that when we get to this point and recognize that there is a cosmic battle being fought
that we don't presently see, are you going to stand firm or not? And in your marriages, I've been
trying to be really practical that Satan has embedded himself into it. You might not think it.
Yeah, he has like all of you. It may not be as strong in your marriage as he is in another person's
marriage. But trust me, he has embedded himself into your marriage. But I told you last week and
there's something to keep in mind if you weren't here, I want you to hear it. Because the way
Satan embeds himself is in you or in the other person in your marriage, or some Rando's
outside of your family and then they come in and start causing problems. He embeds himself
into physical situations. That has got to remind you, he's the enemy. Your spouse is not.
I don't care what they did. I don't care what they did. Your spouse is not the enemy.
Even if they wronged you deeply, your spouse is not the enemy. Now there may be things that you
got to deal with. There may be some significant things that would require you to make some
really hard decisions. Be it abuse or adultery or some other thing. I know there's really
difficult things you got to navigate. Even then your spouse is not the enemy. This is something
Jesus understood about us. That while we were hostile to him on the cross he still said,
forgive them. They know not what they did at your spouse is not the enemy. So I'm going to give
you my big idea. I'm going to walk you through a few different cosmic realities that have very
practical implications. Here's a big idea. You should write it down or type it or just record it
so that AI can give you a transcript later. Don't stress about the skirmish. Be it with your spouse
with your kids and your relationships when Jesus already won the war. I know you've been to
church and they talked about cosmic realities, but I'm a man. I really hope I can help you today.
There's a scene in the Old Testament that acts as a good microcosm that helps you understand this
bigger cosmic conversation. In the Bible when you hear this like angels and demons and all this
other stuff, you might as well lump it into a genre or category that we like to call apocalyptic.
We think of apocalyptic meaning in times. Apocalyptic actually means revealed truth. There's something
behind that when you dive into it, it shows you the character of God and what he intends to do.
That's a very simplified version of apocalyptic literature, but the best microcosm of that is a
story in Second Kings. I don't know if you've heard of Elijah and Elijah. Elijah was a prophet
of God to Israel and after him came a person. Apparently he had a double portion of what Elijah
had. So this guy was like doubly blessed compared to Elijah. Now Elijah was a pretty dope prophet
but Elijah even more legit. And Elijah had this servant dude like a sidekick young Padawan if you
will. His name was Gahazi. Sounds like a Jedi name, you know. His name was Gahazi and there's a
moment where the King of Aram is and camped against another group of people and Elisha and Gahazi
are involved in this entire conflict. And there's this one moment where there are a lot of people
that the King of Aram has brought against Israel. And what Gahazi, the sidekick, the non-profit person
sees, causes him fear. But Elijah encourages him to pray, take a pause and look again. And what
Gahazi sees after this moment is a revelation that though he sees the King of Aram and his armies
behind that he saw a swarm, a horde of angel armies, a heavenly host some translations might say.
That is apocalyptic literature and it's nutshell. That is the cosmic conversation in a nutshell.
It is what you see. They may cause pain, fear, suffering, frustration, stress and then behind it
and this is always true. You don't see it but there's something behind what you see
that is also happening. There's another scene in the book of Daniel chapter 10 where Daniel prayed
that God would work on his behalf and he waits 21 days and then one of the angels comes to him
and says, hey, paraphrasing here. Sorry, it's been a little long. We've been working on something
but now we're here. In other words, the heavenly host in the cosmic realm God was doing something
for 21 days before Daniel had clarity or revelation about what that was.
And in your marriage, two things are true at the same time. The devil is present.
But also, if I say, but also Christ is present. Both are happening at the same time.
Christ is present at the same time. Satan is present at the same time. One seeks to derail
you steel, kill and destroy, separate what God put together. The other wants to build you up,
wants you to honor the covenant and want you to live life in a way that is abundant and never ends.
Both are true. Yet we don't see either of them. So when I say it's just a skirmish,
what I mean is if you just see the physical fight you had with your spouse, if you just see the
physical realities around you, you are missing something so significant because we serve a God
who, behind what we see, is always working for the good of those who love him and are called
according to his purposes. I say always in your life, but it's been a long while. For Daniel, it's
21 days. It's a long time for him to wait when there's a pretty time-sensitive situation happening,
right? It's a pretty big situation. I heard about Lazarus. I'm not going to preach on him.
We're going to preach on him in the next series, but Lazarus, hey, there's a little time,
but Jesus was doing something. God was doing something on the other side of things that we don't
presently see. He's always working. So while Satan may be working and trying to derail your marriage,
God is working to restore it, to redeem it, to lift it up and perform miracles in it.
You don't see either of them, but you really need to understand what's happening.
Otherwise, you're just going to be stuck in a skirmish to a war that's already been won.
I want you to be stuck. You want to be stuck? Say, yeah, no, no, none of us want to be stuck.
See, that was an easy question for you to answer. That's why you did it. I want to talk to you about
what to do when you're stuck in a skirmish stuff. I try to give you these points briefly.
First off, when you get stuck in this skirmish, this is a fight between you and your kids,
fight between you and your spouse, just struggling with life in your present season,
whatever it is. When you get stuck in something like this, because we all struggle with it,
maybe your spouse did something to wrong you. Maybe they're just
have been annoying in a specific way for the last eight to ten years and you're like,
done with it. I don't know what it is. I'm just being, it's real. It could be the way they clip
their fingernails. It could be something they did to you that you never thought they would do to you.
It could be either or, you know, probably, it could be both. That's a terrible day, you know.
But we all get stuck focused on what's physical. So when you get stuck in that,
the first thing you need to do is you got to remember there are others present.
Like I said, the devil's present wants to destroy you and God is present, more specifically,
Christ is present. He intercedes on your behalf. And if you have believed in Jesus, even if you have it,
believe it or not, God's trying to draw you to himself. And as he tries to draw you to himself,
once you open the eyes that you have and see what he's doing, God will, man, he will be like the
father who met you out in the open when he could have just sat on the porch. No, God wants you
so much to come into a relationship with him that he draws you to himself. All we got to do is
open our eyes, receive the free gift of God, confess what our mouths that Jesus is Lord, believe in
our heart that God raised him from the dead. And we will be saved. And once we're saved,
God's trying to build you up. But that doesn't mean Satan's not still trying to attack. So in
your marriages, Satan is trying to attack. And God is trying to restore both or present,
both are relevant. Neither are seen because they are a part of the cosmic battle occurring.
But I found it interesting because the simple recognition of that reality actually changes quite a bit
pragmatically for you. Think about it. On one side, if you recognize that could be the devil
in your relationship. Now let me be kind of be careful for a second because I don't want you to
turn into those old ladies that I grew up around. I'm from the south. So I can say this,
you know, I'm not trying to be judgmental. Those old ladies who came up say, oh, it's the devil,
got me today. It's the devil. It's always the devil. I want you to know. The devil's always
present. He's always prowling. He's always roaming. You are also present and you got some stuff to
work on. So it's both, right? It's the devil. Look at your neighbor, tell him, look at him.
Come on. Come on. I'll see any heads moving to the left or right at all. It's you too.
You got some stuff to grow in. Yeah. I don't feel bad for you blaming the devil. He can get blamed
all he wants to, but that doesn't always help you. Sometimes you blame the devil and use him as an
excuse to not actually develop the way the guys called you to develop. So sometimes you got to work
on you. And in your relationship, I've learned that it's both, right? The devil's there. The devil's
trying to stress me and my wife out. And so when something may happen and he allowed for or caused
the situation, then I am responsible for the way that I respond. And when I gripe or get harsh
because I'm stressed, maybe you was Satan, but I'm the one who said that right, sweetie. Yeah.
Yeah. She's shaking her head. And vice versa. And vice versa. She said it too.
Y'all ready for me to be real about marriages in this place?
And I don't want you to be like the Maldives in the South. It's always the devil. It's both
but just simply recognizing that Satan's in it and taking long enough to think, oh, you know what's
happening behind what she's saying or he's saying. Pause helps. That's a very practical thing that
you should totally do. You say the first thing that comes to your mind. Definitely not going to work
out for you. I can't tell you how many times I've been like, are you crazy? And I didn't say it though.
I had to pause. I had to pause. I thought it's the devil. But you don't say that to her
because probably the devil in you more than it is the devil in them because at the reason you
don't fix your arguments is because you won't take responsibility for it. So it's probably the
devil in you before it's the devil in them, but the devil nonetheless and recognizing that
radically shifts the fabric of your marriage. It really does. It gives you time before response
and it gives you a perspective that goes beyond what's physically happening. And the only way
you solve your arguments half the time anyways is at some point when both that you were flooded
long enough, you're like, is this really that big of a deal? And you realize this is just a
skirmish. Do you love me? Yeah, I love you too. Let's work on the bigger thing that God wants
us to do. He wants us to engage in the real war and recognize he's already won and walk forward
in confidence and step on the head of the serpent rather than be stressed out about the serpent
biting my heel. I can't be stressed about it. There's also a truth. Satan's involved. But Jesus is
present too. Now once you close your eyes for a second, it's fun, funic thought experiment.
Picture that last fight you had. Even if you're not married, picture the last fight you had.
Jesus was there. Just recognizing that. My God, you'd have paused for a second, right?
You don't have to see him physically. It's not necessarily that Jonathan Romi guy in the chosen
series. You just, but but Jesus is right there in every argument you ever have with your spouse.
Yes, Satan, but Jesus is present. What if you just picture Jesus standing there when you're
fighting with your spouse? And this might be too practical for some of you, but like
about this, I love you, sweetie. I mean, if you took long enough to think about the fact that
cosmically God is there trying to work on your behalf and what happens is Satan derails it, but
also you look at him and you don't love him enough or you don't care enough or you're not like
cognizant enough to recognize he's present to look at him and be like, oh, I should pause because of
the fact that you died on the cross from me. You love me so much that you would take your lofty
throne and say, I don't need it right now for this season so that I can save them. You forgave
me in spite of all of my hostility and wrongdoing, yet I'm looking at this person and I'm about
to say something wrong to them because I need something from them, but you've already provided
all this necessary for me. You pause and think about the fact that that Jesus who covers you,
healed you, redeemed you, saved you is right there. It'll change the way you view your spouse.
You say, well, Pastor, you don't know what they did and I'm like, I don't care because I know what
he did. He did it and he's there remembering that Jesus is present in the room was
solved me a bunch of dumb words. I think it'd be helpful, but it's more than just recognizing
because I think it's not just we remain in our practical skirmish and then God and the heavenly
realm are over here on this other side of the sheet and they're fighting some cosmic battle
that I have nothing to do with. No, I think God wants you involved in that battle.
Let me prove it to you because Jesus does it himself in Luke chapter 22. He says right before
he's about going to be delivered to be crucified. He says, Simon, Simon, Satan has asked
to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.
What I want to say is this, when you're stuck in a skirmish, you not only need to recognize
that others are present, you need to use prayer as the gateway to interact with that cosmic fight.
Yeah, I don't get to do it by talking. I get to do it by engaging with my creator.
What Jesus is saying there is he's saying, yeah, I know that you're like,
Jesus is about to deliver me. You're going to slice the dudes ear off and then you're going to flee
and you're going to cuss some little girl out because she thought you were connected with me.
Like, oh, that's going to happen physically. Jesus went in concerned about that skirmish.
He said, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. The sifting was what Peter did,
but the bigger battle was what Satan did. And when you recognize that like Jesus did, what does he do?
So I called down the heavenly realm and they're physically going to protect me and protect you
and all this other stuff. No, no, no, no. He said, I prayed, I prayed, I entered into the cosmic
realm and that fight with prayer that you may have faith. And it's so interesting because we see
this throughout scripture. I already mentioned Daniel chapter 10, Daniel prayed,
heavenly host shows up and say, sorry for being 21 days late, Alisha and Gahasi prayed,
and then the eyes of their hearts opened up and they saw what was behind King of Erum's army.
All throughout scripture, we see this occur, including Jesus' prayer. Prayer is the literal
thing that connects you to what is happening in the cosmic fight. So once you recognize that the
cosmic fight is happening, use prayer as a weapon to engage in that battle, like pray that the Lord
would open the eyes of your heart, that you would see some of this stuff happening.
You wouldn't be so stubborn in the logic that we've all been taught, that you would think,
ah, it's just this. I don't know about you. I've gotten too old to think that it's just this physical
skirmish I'm dealing with. There is something at me, there's something at you, there is something
seeking to derail all of us. And God has won the battle, but Satan's still fighting a skirmish.
And it continues, once you get, like, once you start praying,
and when I say prayer, I'm not talking about this habit we all formed when we were younger,
this, you know, this base level prayer. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. I'm saying
prayer as a gateway into the cosmic realm to like start fighting battles that God's already fighting.
That is not some wrote memory thing. This is you on your knees in prayer, truly peering into the
cosmic and saying, God, I need you. God, I know you've won, but Satan's still attacking me right now.
He's attacking my wife. He's attacking my husband. He's attacking my kids. He's attacking so and so
and I need you to do this. I know I don't have the capacity to change them. And it doesn't look
like they got the capacity to change them. And even if they can start the habits right now,
it's going to be several years of incremental changes before it occurs. God, I need a miracle.
I can't perform it, but in the heavenly realms, it says you're working to my good.
You fight for me. That's why I love prayer warriors. It's mostly those different older women.
It's true though. I wouldn't let a lot of them up here to talk to you guys about a bunch of stuff,
but I'll let them in their prayer closet. Dude, I'm not kidding. I love prayer warriors. We call
prayer warriors because they see behind the sheet. I don't know how they do it. I don't know if
it's just a gift to God or just light brain damage that helps them see through it. But they do.
And I love it. I had a lot of people come in here this morning and they saw these little,
they're actually tables that the kids sit on. And so they, you know, they lift up into chairs or
booths. And people came in here this morning as I feel like I'm in a old school Pentecostal church
with these pews. And I told them to hold up with that. But then I thought about it and I was like,
you know what? I like that. I always joke around. I said, I need at least five Pentecostals in my
life. So somebody prays over me with authority. You know, I need some prayer warriors in this place.
People who recognize that like incremental habit production is not going to get you what God's
trying to do. It helps you fight the skirmish, but it doesn't win the war. That's what Jesus did.
So I got to tap into the heavenly plane and the way to do that. Prayer. It's time for us to start
praying, not just habits, but like like Paul says caught up in the third heaven. You ever prayed so
hard that it's like, you got this runner's flow? While you're praying, something's dead. Once you said,
yeah, you need to come pray up here on this prayer team. Ah, man, I love prayer. You might be
thinking, well, how does this help me in my marriage? Do you think you're going to fix your spouse?
You might think that good luck. The best you can get is habit formation by griping at him long enough.
That's I said, um, I didn't say him. I'm talking to both of you at the same time like nagging,
griping, like out of a stone walling until they feel bad enough to change a little bit,
making a feel guilty about all this stuff. Jesus says there's no kind or Paul says there's no
condemnation for those who have Christ Jesus yet. We'd be guilt tripping our people all the time.
It's not the way that we ought to live. But when you pray, I can do something way quicker than
you'll ever do it. You can sit there saying, I'm waiting on. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this.
It's like, I'll come to church, but I'm not going to encourage them to do it or I don't know.
I'm going to be frustrated at them for this frustrated at them for the man. Goodness gracious.
Just go to God about this and he will help you. He'll give you the words to speak to your husband.
He'll change you inwardly. It'll be this amazing prayer of meditation. That's what most of us learn.
Most of our prayers are like eastern meditation. It does absolutely nothing except
calm our spirit just a little bit. But the prayer I'm talking about is access heaven type prayers.
When you're so saturated in God's word that it changes the way you think about the world,
I love me some prayer ladies. That sounds weird. But when we started this church,
dude it's a weird thing for someone to text you in the middle of the night and tell some specific
thing that they were praying over you. And sometimes it's like, yeah, let me keep back to sleep.
Other times it's like, what? You were praying? It's because when we connect with God in that way,
over time, God starts to reveal to us. This is apocalypse. Prayer ladies get more apocalypse
than most of us. Because they're praying. That's been so much time on prayer.
If somebody go go home, you're going to try it. You just do it long enough. Beat your head against
the wall long enough. Gotta speak to you. I promise you that. Unless you just got some random like
me centered music in the background. I don't know. But like, dude, God will do it. And you're not
going to get these things done on your own anyways. That ultimatum isn't going to do anything
but cause them to stress and maybe change a couple habits. Yeah, God doesn't need an ultimatum.
It draws their hearts to himself with his love and kindness. And that's just where it starts though.
This is how you access the heavenly. But there are weapons that we've been given.
In Revelation chapter 12 verse 11, it's talking about those who died for their faith. But here's
what it says. It says, "They triumphed over the enemy or the beast or Satan by the blood of the lamb."
About the blood of the lamb. I think this is so much more practical than it sounds, though it
is cosmic. Because we're talking about like a beast, you know, a beast that God defeated and
you know, it actually drops him into this bottomless pit and all this other crazy stuff that
you read in Revelation. But Revelation started with just a call to God's people being faithful to
God through difficult seasons. And so that's the physical. But behind that physical turmoil that
is filled with persecution and even death of one of their his name, Antimus, guess what's happening?
A battle. And in that battle, it says that they triumphed over him by the blood of the lamb.
Now, the blood of the lamb, the best, the best way for me to describe it to you is to talk about
Passover. Passover in the Old Testament was when God was delivering Israel from the hand of the
Egyptians. And the last play was the death of the firstborn. Y'all've all seen it in the
Prince of Egypt, right? Well, the death of the firstborn, the angel of the Lord was going to come
through and every firstborn would die unless they had taken the blood of an animal or land and put
it over their door. And if there was blood over the door, they were passed over by the angel of
the Lord. And their firstborn was spared. So when we talk about covered by the blood of Jesus,
what we're saying is the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men. So because of our sin and we all fell short, we are destined, unless there's
a correction to spend eternity separated from God in hell. And then there's an enemy roaming
around trying to get us there. But when we confess what our mouths that Jesus is, Lord and
believe in our hearts that God raised him from the grave and we're saved, we're covered by his
blood on the cross. Your covered, it means it means the wrath of God passes over you. It means Satan
has no hold on you. Everything is different because we've been covered by the blood. So how do
they overcome by the blood of the lamb? We're walking around. Act in like we're not covered filled
with insecurity. When we interact with our spouses, we're insecure. I'm scared that they don't
love me like they said they did six to 10 years ago. I'm scared that my lifestyle is not going to
be the way that I want it to because this person has different habits than I anticipated.
I'm scared that my friends aren't going to like this person. My family already doesn't like this
person. I'm stressed to no end because I'm not happy.
Pause on that skirmish. I've been covered by the blood of the lamb and the cosmic battle between
good and evil. And I'm going to spend eternity with God and I can live in abundant life now regardless
of whether I ever get married. And when I do get married, regardless of whether my spouse ever
changes, I've still covered by the blood of the lamb. That ought to change the way that you interact
with your spouse. And it shows us that you spent time looking, peering beyond what you currently see
to understand that if I'm going to conquer the enemy, I've got to lock in and recognize that I'm
covered by the blood. But it doesn't stop there. They overcame by the blood of the lamb and anyone
know, word of their testimony. The word of their testimony. Have you ever realized sometimes you
got to speak something out loud before it comes to pass? I've realized that maybe you haven't.
So not only are we called to remember others that others are present in our skirmishes that
prayers the gateway into the cosmic fight, that the blood of Jesus is our covering in the cosmic
fight. But by the word of our testimony, will we get out of the skirmish and triumph over evil.
So the word of God and the word of your testimony is your weapon in the midst of the skirmish.
And I cannot emphasize how much God's word and the word he gives you through experiences is
amazing weaponry for you. This is why Paul says, think on the things that are true, right,
honorable, pure, lovely, and a good repute. And the peace of God will be with you.
He says this because Satan isn't giving you the truth of God. He's given you lie after lie after
lie after lie. He says they should be doing this, divorce him. He says if they loved you,
they would have done this earlier, divorce him. He says so many things to us.
But we got to go beyond that skirmish and recognize what Jesus has actually done.
And I know, I know, it's like marriage is hard. It's difficult. They may have wronged you. You
might be looking at me saying, well, you got lucky and married that girl. Yeah, she's a Christian
girl. Never never kissed a guy before me. I'm so blessed. But dude, like I grew up in it. And I've
known enough people in this room and at my other churches that I've seen it, there is nothing
other than the blood of Jesus and the word of your testimony that is going to prime you to have
a long lasting and successful marriage. Nothing better. I know they should work on their stuff.
But I can tell you this, they're not your responsibility. There is.
And your job is to go to him about them.
So stop looking to them for covering. Stop looking to them so that you can tell the stories
that these other randos who never fought once in their marriage tell you like, dude,
yeah, tell them the truth. Help them grow. Say what you need to say, but do it from the posture of
somebody who knows that they've been covered by the blood and who has a testimony that continues
to develop. Because when I know what Jesus did for me, it makes it way easier, easier for me to
interact with them. You've got to understand that your fight with them is but a skirmish. And Satan
is all up in that. But all you have to do is switch your posture. Start reciting some of God's word
a little bit. Get it so saturated within your brain that that comes out more naturally than all the
other dumb stuff you've been saying. And what's that happens? Dude, I cannot emphasize enough how
much if you just put God's word in, it'll start pushing out the office. It'll start pushing out
the game of thrones. It'll start pushing out. God knows how to the dragon and whatever you
have been watching these days. It'll push out all the stuff your dad said or your mom said,
it'll push out all the cuss words. It'll push out all the mean words. It'll push out all the
bad mentalities. It will shift everything as you are transformed from the inside out as God restores
your soul and sanctifies you to bring you into eternity with him. And if you can get on that trajectory,
your spouse will love it because they will feel loved and respected and cared for because when
you pursue Jesus first, this is what this entire series is about. It creates the best possible outcome
for you and whoever else. And so I just get the word of God in your heart. Get the word of God
in your heart. And the last thing that I'll tell you and I'll close with this Revelation 12 verse 11
right after the word of their testimony portion says they did not love their lives so much as to
shrink from death. This is what Jesus did for us. It started in a lofty place.
God on a cross because he considered your salvation more important than his lofty place.
That is what God has called each of us to. In fact, I'll say it this way, you have got to consider
yourself second or third or fourth or fifth or later as you operate in this world. This is how
Christ operated. He humbled himself to the point of death on a cross. You, let's humble ourselves,
just like these, these martyrs of old who overcame by the blood of the land, the word of their
testimony and recognized that even if I die in this skirmish, God is one of the battle.
That enables me to think of myself later than I think of my God, my spouse, my kids, my church.
In fact, I want to offer myself out as a drink offering. This is why Paul had the same mentality.
Why? Because when you love the gospel that much and when you see what he's done for you, you can't
help but offer yourself up in line with the calling he's given you. So do that with your spouse
and your life will change radically. But some of you, you're not there yet.
It might be that you're not there because you're only seeing the physical. There is a cosmic
plane. So pray to God right now to open their eyes of your heart that you might see the heavenly
things. And I know it sounds weird for those of you who have only been stuck in the scientific
logic. I'm not even going to justify it. It doesn't change reality. And so for those of you in
the room that are ready to allow God to cover you by the blood of the land, I want to give you
that opportunity because it will change everything. You may say something like God, I believe
that Jesus is your son. I believe he died on the cross and I believe right now you're fighting on
my behalf. Even when I don't see it, even when you're 21 days later, even when I don't know
why you haven't solved my problem yet. God, I believe in you, forgive me of my sin and help me
walk with you so that I might see all that you do. God, I love you and I trust you. God, I pray
for every person in this room, that they might see you and that it might shift their life.
It is in Jesus' name that we pray and God's people said. Amen. Hey, if you guys would stand,
we're going to do one more song. I thought it was just such an amazing opportunity for us to worship
God and think about the cosmic and recognize that though we fight a battle, he's won the war. Let's
worship.