1-To The Rule Of The Enemy | Series: No Longer Slaves | Rick Atchley

Welcome to the hills all of you online and in person at Keller West Fort Worth, Dallas and North Richland Hills I'm thrilled you're with us today Because we're starting a new series and for the next about six weeks. We are going to talk about Freedom now the problem with that topic is that it means different things to different people Perhaps you heard the story of the young Man from Russia visiting in America and he met a young man from our country and they got into a debate about Which country offered the most freedoms and the young American said, of course My country does like freedom of speech in my country I can stand right in front of the White House and I can shout Joe Biden, I think you're a terrible leader and I wish you were gone and the young Russian man said I have the same freedom of speech in my country I can stand right in front of the Kremlin and I can shout Joe Biden I think you're a terrible leader and I wish you were gone So the question we really want to explore is what did freedom mean to our? Rabbi, you say why do we want to talk about that? I'm glad you asked our mission as a church We exist to make and grow followers of Jesus and we do this together about being with Jesus becoming like Jesus and doing what Jesus Did and so all year we've been asking the question. What did Jesus mean when he said? Follow me and what we've been saying is that that doesn't mean accept me. It was Jesus Invitation to come and apprentice under him to become like him so that you could do what he did That Jesus had in mind for his apprentices more than just their own spiritual development He was doing something to them so that he could do something through them that they would continue The movement he was beginning So again that raises a great question, what did Jesus do? And I've been reading the Gospels this past year through that lens what did Jesus do and I've summed it into two big ideas that he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and he reclaimed People who were in bondage to the enemy's empire The call to follow Jesus is an invitation to no longer be

slaves now Let me show you that in three texts of spirit led me to that in our short Summaries of what it is that Jesus really did the first is Mark chapter 3 It says Jesus appointed 12 that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and Have authority to drive out demons notice those two big things. I want you to proclaim good news I want you to reclaim people that are in bondage to the enemy Now as preachers sometimes we get to visit churches and preach and sometimes they say just preach whatever you want You pick the topic that happened to Jesus one time He was in the synagogue and they gave him a large scroll of the book of Isaiah and said you've preached wherever you want Look what it says in Luke 4 The scroll of Isaiah the Prophet was handed to him He enrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written. So this is what he wanted to preach on He found the place that explained what he was about The Spirit of the Lord is upon me for he's anointed me to bring good news to the poor He sent me to proclaim the captives will be released The blind will see the oppressed will be set free and at the time of the Lord's favor has come you see those two themes again, I've been sent to proclaim and I have been sent to reclaim and set people free And then in Acts 10 Peter who apprenticed under Jesus for three years summed up his entire ministry in one sentence God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power and he went around doing good and healing all Who were under the power of the devil because God was with him So what we see is that Jesus didn't come just to redeem people. He came to release People you might think of it like this that Jesus was a freedom fighter Now in a few months, we're going to celebrate the birth of Jesus and when you think about that see it as D-day in the spiritual realm 80 years ago some incredibly brave men crossed the channel and they established a beachhead So they could take

the war to an enemy that was governing a land they did not have a right to possess. Well in the same way when Jesus was born he was coming into enemy territory because that territory and its inhabitants were illegitimately ruled. John in his little epistle summed it up like this, the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. See Jesus had to make war in order to make peace he had to destroy strongholds that were destroying people. And here's the thing you need to know, the illegitimate sovereign knew that the true king was coming for him. So for example Luke 4 in the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an impure spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, go away! What do you want with us Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. The dark powers knew Jesus true identity and they knew his mission. In Matthew 8 two men with demons approached Jesus. What do you want with us Son of God? They shouted. Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time? So when you read the Gospels and you see all the things that Jesus did, all the miracles and the healings and the exorcisms, these things were acts of war. And it's interesting every time Jesus encountered the demonic it was one-sided. No dark power ever said to Jesus you can't make me. In the power of the Holy Spirit he overruled the claims and the chains of the enemy and everywhere Jesus went captives were set free. This is what he wanted his apprentices to continue to do. And they are all over the world. I've mentioned we're living in amazing times in the last 40 years more Muslims have left that faith and converted to Christ than in the previous 1400 years. And they've asked them why. Fuller Seminary interviewed 750 former Muslims from 30 countries. And you've got to understand in many of these countries it's dangerous to convert. It's illegal and in some places it's fatal. Why did you leave Islam to start following Jesus? And I've told you one of the reasons they give most often is dreams and visions. We saw Jesus. He appeared to us and we're being obedient to that vision. Another reason they give Christians are authentic. They walk their talk. You've got to understand in those parts of the world there's no value in being a cultural Christian. Because proclaiming Christ could cost

you. And so they said the Christians we know they really believe this stuff and they live it out. Another reason they give was Christian marriage. They said we notice in Christian marriage women are honored and treated as equals and given dignity. But another reason they gave was Christian prayer is more powerful. When Christians pray people get healed and demons are told to leave and they obey. So I ask when we use the word freedom are we using it like Jesus did? Are we preaching and offering the kind of freedom that our rabbi took to people? So that's what we're going to talk about for the next six weeks. But I want to ground it with two absolutely core theological understandings. And here's the first. That bondage has a spiritual dimension. What I'm advocating today and the next six weeks is a unique and distinctly Christian worldview. That behind the problem of evil is the problem of a devil. And I know in the West some will scoff at that. Some will think that is silly. But you've got to know this. What we know about Jesus comes from this source we call the New Testament. And every single New Testament author acknowledges a real devil. Do you know why? Because that was the worldview of their rabbi. Read the Gospels. Jesus mentions the devil 25 times. In fact, his ministry begins with three very personal encounters with a very personal spiritual enemy. Evil to Jesus was not just some generic reality. Behind evil was a malevolent evil being. He knew that there was a very real conflict in the invisible spiritual realm that's being manifest in the visible physical realm. And this is what he taught his apprentices. And so Paul would write, for example, in Ephesians 6, we're not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. And here's what I want you to remember. While in the West we may not take this kind of language seriously, the global church does. You do not have to convince your brothers and sisters in Christ in Africa that there are dark powers at work that you can't see. You don't have to convince the church in Latin America or in Southeast Asia that there are evil powers at work in the world. More than

Christians in the West, the global church knows to put the blame where it belongs. See, we're in a war we didn't start, but that we cannot escape. And we need to get better at recognizing the powers behind the problems. We got problems. We all recognize that our communities have big problems, and I am grateful for anyone, regardless of their worldview, that spends their life trying to fix problems. But I think sometimes what we're addressing are the symptoms and not the disease beneath it. That there are powers behind our problems. Consider, for example, the breakdown of the nuclear family. So much of our poverty, our imprisonment, our crime, our drug addiction, all come back to the fact that our families are coming apart. Do you think perhaps there are powers behind the breakdown of the family? That there are powers driving the prevalence of so much anger and vitriol in our politics? That there are powers behind the spread of destructive ideologies about sex and gender among our children? Or think about the predominance of hyper-individualism. The most common philosophy today is you have to find your own truth and look within and be whatever you want to be. And yet an irony is our rates of loneliness are skyrocketing. Our Surgeon General says it's the number one health crisis in our nation. That we value the individual and we're starving for community. Do you think the powers might be behind some of this? The secular worldview wants to assign fault without recognizing we're under assault. You've got to know it is the nature and the mission of the dark powers to want to destroy. And this is why Jesus' mission was not to wrestle with flesh-and-blood enemies. He came after the powers. He had a different name for the bondage that he saw. In fact, sometimes he would come up to oppressed people and say, what's your name? Because he knew behind their problem there was a real being that had a real name. And I tell you what I believe is that the powers even in the West are becoming bolder. They're revealing themselves more and more. You can ask any minister on our staff in the last few years, have you had an encounter with a person oppressed by dark powers? Just recently, a few weeks ago, Doris Tacks who works with Hills Español answered a phone call and a man was desperate and saying, I need help.

I've lost everything. I've lost my health. I've lost my marriage. I've lost everything. And he revealed that for a number of years now he's dabbled in the occult. He's practiced Santeria, which basically is the worship of Satan. And it's destroyed his life. And when he told the group that he was going to leave they said you do and we will put a curse on you and the powers will kill you and He was hearing all these voices every day Threatening to kill him and he had called a sister that was a believer and said you need to find a Christian Church You need to get baptized and break that bond And so he called it he met it came to the church and a couple of our elders met with him and talked to him About what it means to name Jesus and the whole time the voices are saying don't you dare get baptized We will kill you. Don't you get in that water? But manual did as you can see manual named Jesus Christ and he was baptized into Jesus Christ And The voices stopped And now manual is coming to our church and the good news is with his wife because they have been reunited And They are walking in freedom See I want you to know I Believe the powers of darkness are real. I believe they really do harass and oppress and bind people and I believe that Jesus really is stronger than the powers His name is a light the shadows cannot deny His name cannot be overcome darkness must bow to the light of the world because he sits on a greater throne and so Bondage does have a spiritual dimension. This is what the rabbi taught his apprentices, but he taught him something else That freedom requires a power

Encounter Jesus was a freedom fighter, but here's what he knew to bring Liberation would require his execution That it would be the power of the cross that would be the undoing of the powers Right Before his crucifixion Jesus said now is the time for judgment on this world now the prince of this world will be driven out and I when I'm lifted up from the earth will draw all people to Myself and he said this to show the kind of death. He was going to die Jesus knew that it was going to be my being lifted up and Executed that is going to break the bonds that allow people to come to me and find the life They're wanting to have that to find life. It's going to take my death See freedom is not The capacity to just do whatever you want and be whatever you want Freedom is the capacity to pursue who your creator intended for you to be Freedom is the ability to to chase after what God wants for you And what happened at the cross is that Jesus took away Satan's authority to stop that And nowhere is this new reality illustrated in inaugurated more than at baptism Listen to Colossians 2 with me For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized and With him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God who raised Christ from the dead You were dead because of your sins and because of your sinful nature was not yet cut away And then God made you alive with Christ for he forgave all our sins He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross and in this way He disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross See something happened at the cross that your baptism Connects to I like how that verse is reads in another version God stripped the spiritual rulers and powers of their authority with the cross He won the victory and showed the world that they were powerless. I Don't know where we got the idea that baptism was just some kind of a religious symbol

It's not in the New Testament in the New Testament in baptism. You unite with the death and resurrection of Jesus And here's what that means. You can't break bondage just by mustering your own willpower You break bondage because you are in Christ whose death and resurrection overthrew the powers I've told it many times, but I love the story a preacher. I know is told about a Woman, she was a wit. She lived in California She flew out of state to see some former friends not knowing they had become Christians on a Saturday night They took her to her church. She came under conviction of the Holy Spirit. She studied with the pastor all night that morning he baptized her her boyfriend was a sorcerer when he found out he was livid he flew to that state monday morning he barges into the pastor's office and says you can't have that woman she is satan's woman and she is my woman and you can't have her and he's cursing and he's making threats so much that the pastor gave him the address where he could find her and as he's storming out with more cursings he says tell me one thing tell me you didn't baptize and the pastor said i baptized her myself yesterday morning and all the color left his face and he said then it's too late i can't touch her now and he flew home this is one reason why we have things like baptism sunday that we're celebrating next sunday if you have not been baptized you scan that qr code you sign up for one of our services you call your friends you call your family you just have witnesses and let's see people take that first step toward the life god wanted them to have and that jesus has enabled them to have because he in his death and resurrection has defeated the powers that's what's going to happen next sunday every conversion is a power encounter where satan is obliged to release his hold on someone's life and acknowledge the sovereignty and the superiority of jesus and yet so many people live a life incarcerated by a warden who has no legal authority to keep them in prison you probably don't recognize this picture but 100 years ago he was one of the most famous men in the world his name was harry houdini well-known magician and escapologist he claimed i can get out of any prison in the world now i don't know if the story is true i tried to research his story and say we think it's true houdini told it on himself but he was a bit of a showman here's the story that a little town in england took him up on the challenge and said we've built an escape proof jail and you can't get out he took the challenge he showed up they put him in the cell he pulled out a few of the tools that he had in his clothes and he began to work on that lock and

he worked and he worked and he couldn't get it to click not after one hour not after two hours in exhaustion he gave up leaned against the door and it flew wide open see they had tricked him they had never locked the door and you and i know people who sadly stay inside a prison they don't have to remain in the door's been unlocked the powers have been broken the authority of darkness has been overridden and this is what jesus taught his apprentices to do to go be ambassadors of freedom our rabbi sends us into the world with the message that the way it is is not the way it has to stay and we continue jesus ministry of bondage breaking we don't evade the enemy we invade enemy territory we point to a cross into an empty tomb and we declare jesus is in charge now this is what paul heard when he was commissioned by jesus i'm sending you to the gentiles to open their eyes so they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of satan to god people need to know this they need to know they don't have to live intimidated and incarcerated i've told a number of times a story about general wainwright captured by the japanese because of his status he was harassed more than any other prisoner of war he was a beaten defeated man and then one day allies showed up at the camp and said japan is surrendered he went back to his barracks those guards tried to intimidate him again but this time he stood up strong and he said no we won the war i'm in charge and these are my orders we're not fighting for victory we're fighting from victory and our great privilege and responsibility is to bring the reign of christ to others i put it like this followers of jesus deliver deliverance in jesus name and i say that on purpose notice i'm not saying that we deliver jesus delivers he has the power but we have the authority to yield this power in his name we deliver emancipation whenever we preach the gospel whenever you share your faith with anybody whether it's one or one thousand You are defying the powers and giving a better narrative to the world We deliver emancipation when we forgive We let people out of the bondage of guilt we let ourselves out of the prison of resentment We deliver emancipation when we bless instead of curse and when we love instead of Hate because our battle is not against flesh and blood We deliver

Emancipation when we speak truth because truth sets people free and lies keep them in bondage And so we speak scripture over each other and the Holy Spirit gives us words of prophecy that we could speak over each other and Especially when we pray the enemy has no way to stop our prayers he could do nothing to keep your prayer from going straight to the throne room of God because of the blood of Jesus and so we Intercede for the sick. I'll talk more about that in a couple of weeks and we pray for deliverance of the oppressed and for those caught in Sin, we do what Jesus did and set captives free Oz again, this is a well-known British Lecturer author and theologian He tells a story not long ago. He was in going to deliver some lectures on Christianity at Essex University and He knew there were some students on campus that were threatening to protest And so the night of the first lecture He looks out into the auditorium and there is a woman sitting right in front of the lectern on the front row and there is hate all over her face and All he can do is think to say Lord just please allow me to say the things tonight you've given me to say And he gives his lecture and it goes fine. But afterwards she finds him and says what did you do? What spell did you put on me? I? Don't know what you're talking about. Yes, you do. You know, I'm a witch You know, I came here to curse you and I couldn't open my mouth And he said all I did was pray in the name of Jesus but a month later he's in America and There was a sister in Christ that knew about those lectures said how did it go? He said I think it went well why? Because the day of your first lecture I had a vision and on that vision I saw you and I saw a woman full of hate sent by the enemy to stop you And so I prayed in Jesus name that she could not do that Now when you hear that story What's your reaction?

The first century Christians would have said, of course Jesus defeated the powers The global church would have say, of course What do you say I Hope we will say That doesn't surprise me That's normal We're apprentices of Jesus and the powers cannot stop what he has sent us out to do When Christians show up The demons in the room should ask have they come to destroy us And so Let's live like the kingdom has actually come And let's do what Jesus did Would you pray with me, please father? I'm praying right now very specifically for two groups of people and the first is people who fill in bondage Who simply can't seem to will themselves to the life that you know, they're called to have I Pray father you will give them the courage today to step toward Jesus. I don't know if that means seeking prayer for deliverance I don't know if that means deciding to be baptized But but father the enemy is speaking right now and saying stay where you are It is what it is, and I'm praying they will have the courage and the faith to believe No, Jesus wants better than this and they will step toward Jesus. I'm also praying for our church that we will be bolder in Proclaiming freedom in Jesus name will be bolder in our prayers and bolder in our witness bolder in our Stories that we tell believing that the death and the resurrection of Jesus has brought a new reality into being and That everything God wants for us can be pursued Because the powers have been publicly Displayed to be powerless by Jesus

And I'm praying this boldly because I think everything I've asked for is in alignment with your will, so boldly I ask for these things in Jesus' name, amen.