Episode 043 || Don't Fight Alone

What's up, Pando family? We are excited to be starting a brand new sermon series, or at least discussing the new sermon series, with you starting today. We're not starting the series. We're not starting the series, we're not preaching, but we're gonna be talking about it. We're gonna be talking about it. And so we were super grateful that we get to have Pastor Kyle back preaching with us. We hope that you guys enjoyed the past series with Bryson Cook and Lucas DeVries. If we've never met before, my name is Derek, this is Brandon. We're on the online team. But Brandon, it was so good to be able to hear from Bryson and Lucas over the past couple of weeks. Yeah, it really was. And I really liked getting to dive into the story of Moses, and particularly since we had them as guests on the podcast. It was nice to go a little bit deeper in that story and talk about some of the observations they had. And I think it's been a great reminder to all of us that even if we're not... If we don't feel like we're leaders, we're still leading somebody. We're influencing somebody. Even if that person is just ourselves, at the very least, I have to lead myself to do the things that I know that God would have me to do. And I think the sermon series was just a great and powerful reminder of that for us. Mm-hmm. Yeah, no doubt. And like you said, it was so good that we were able to have Bryson with us, albeit on the TV here in the middle of the table, and have Lucas, our Blankenbaker Campus Pastor, at this very table with us. But today... Well, I guess this past weekend, we're transitioning from walking through the Old Testament, going

through the story of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph to Moses. Now we're kind of changing it up a little bit, and we're talking about a couple of passages in the New Testament, starting with Kyle's message. Yeah. Yeah. So we're talking about the Kingdom of God, and this concept that Jesus really begins His ministry with. And I was thinking back... I had my small group online yesterday. I was thinking back to something that I said during the Eating to Eternity large groups that we've had, where so often today, we wanna boil Jesus's message down to something, and it normally has to do with our own agendas, right? Like, oh, Jesus came to talk about holiness, or Jesus came to talk about love, and things like that. And it's really not... What it comes down to is Jesus came to talk about the Kingdom. And does that affect those other things? Yes, the Kingdom will affect how we love others. The Kingdom will affect the way we live in holiness. But I think Jesus's primary message was about the Kingdom of God. In fact, that's what Kyle pointed out. The very first thing He says in His public ministry in Matthew 4.17 is, repent for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near. That's in Matthew 4. Matthew chapter 5, He begins the Sermon on the Mount by saying, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. So He's coming back again and again to this idea of the Kingdom is here, the Kingdom is now, the Kingdom is coming, the Kingdom is expanding and growing in the world. And so many of the parables in Matthew's Gospel begin as Kingdom parables, the Kingdom of Heaven is like.

And He's trying to catch us into this reality on what the Kingdom of Heaven is, what it means for us today. And I think that's where so many of the people who heard Jesus in His initial audience, in His contemporary day, they kind of misunderstood that. When they heard the word Kingdom, much probably like many of us do, they think of a land and a place. Yeah, for sure. Like a country or something. Yes, yeah. And it's very easy for them because you think about the Old Testament. When they talked about the Kingdom, they were talking about a Kingdom. Well, yeah, like a promised land or like all of these things. Yeah, they're talking about like, oh, King David and King Solomon. And when Jesus talks about the Kingdom, the Greek word He uses there isn't so much about the place, right? It's about the ruler. It's about allegiance, right? Is that He's not talking about, oh, I'm establishing a country. It's like, no, I'm establishing a people. I'm establishing that the Kingdom of God is the people of God who live under His kingship and His reign and His rule. But we see even among Jesus' disciples in the book of Acts, they misunderstand that, right? They've heard Jesus talk to them so much about the Kingdom and they get to Acts 1 and Jesus is about to ascend and they're like, hey, are you gonna restore the Kingdom to Israel? And I think Jesus just had to facepalm a little bit like, guys, no, that's not what we're doing right now. So when we talk about the Kingdom, when we think about the Kingdom, we're thinking about the reign and the rule of God. And that mainly begins, right, in our own lives is, am I living in the Kingdom of God?

Am I living in a situation where God is reigning and ruling in my own? heart, where he is my king. You know, it's not about imposing that on someone else. You know, we can share the good news of the kingdom, but it's about this idea of, am I submitting myself to the king the best I know how? Am I living under the reign and the rule of God? Yeah, because it's, you know, I remember even when I was in college, I took like, I went to a school, it wasn't a, you know, a Christian school or anything like that for college, and I took a religious, I took a world religion class, and so they taught us about different religions and what they were all about, and I vividly remember when our teacher, who was not a Christian, spoke about what the message of Jesus was specifically about. He had specifically said that it was about the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God being at hand. So there's still, like, when you even just read, you know, the words of the New Testament, right, it sticks out. Like, no matter kind of what our, you know, presumptions are of whether, oh, Jesus came to speak about holiness or about love or whatever it is, that this idea that the kingdom of God is here, and oftentimes we misunderstand that, and even as disciples did. Yeah, yeah, and I think what's so significant for us to think about is that, you know, when Jesus is talking about the kingdom of God and building this kingdom, he is talking about a kingdom that transcends borders, right? Like, it is not a kingdom of Israelites, it is not a kingdom of Americans, it is not a kingdom of any nationality, right? It is a kingdom that he is breaking down all human borders for all the people who pledge allegiance to God, who say, you know, this is my king. And Paul will talk about that, you know, multiple times in his letter. You know, I'm trying to think which church he's writing to, I think it's Philippi, when he talks about, you know, our citizenship is in heaven, and we await a Savior from there. Like, our citizenship, we may be citizens of our country, but we are first and foremost citizens of the kingdom. Our greatest allegiance is to God as our king, and I think it's just incredible to think of that, right? Like, we're 2,000 years right into the church age now, so that we are part of a kingdom today. We are part of a

kingdom today that transcends borders, we are part of a kingdom that transcends time, that we have the same allegiance, we live under the same reign and rule as Christians 1,500 years ago did, and they are our fellow citizens, they are our fellow countrymen, because of our shared allegiance in Jesus. And I think that's so neat to think about, because like, there are times, and I'm sure you feel this way, being online and all that, there are times where I'm just struck by the global nature of the body of Christ, right? Yeah, for sure. And you're like, oh man, like we are, no matter where we're at in this world, we're all trying to follow Jesus. But to think of it in terms of just the people of God throughout time, like I am connected through the kingdom of God, I'm connected to all these people who have ever put their faith and trust and allegiance in Jesus, like I'm connected to those people as my brothers and sisters, and like, it's amazing to think about. It's mind-blowing to think about, you know, but one question I would have, Brandon, is that like, you know, we've been going through the past couple of months talking about sermons where we have seen God clearly working in the Old Testament, where it's not like He hadn't shown up, it's not like He wasn't working or speaking or using people, like what's the difference now? Like when Jesus says here in Matthew 4, repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near, like what's the big difference between what we're talking about now and maybe what God has already been doing or has already done? Yeah, well, you know, I think some of it comes down to, you know, first of all, like the New Testament makes it clear, well, what was going on in the Old Testament was a foreshadowing and a pushing towards Jesus, right? Like they didn't know it, but when they were offering sacrifices, they were pre-enacting the sacrifice of Jesus, right? Like they're pointing towards that and they don't even know it. So I think what makes this different, and actually this was something we talked about in my group last night, I think why Jesus is able to say that the kingdom of heaven has come near is because the King is there now. Like, you know... Say that again? The kingdom is near because the King is there. That's like, that's the kingdom bumper sticker. You can put that on your camel.

So Jesus physically come... put it on your camel. So Jesus is physically come... Yes. Okay. So I think that's ultimately the distinction is that we, you know, the Old Testament is always kind of looking forward to this Messiah and this king-like character who's gonna come on the scene and save the world. And I think what makes the distinction is that that Jesus has been revealed now and that the King has come. The King is here, so the kingdom is arriving and coming. And in fact... you know, not only that, you could say not only is the King present, but the events that are going to open up the kingdom are about to happen. Like the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is, at the time Jesus proclaims this in Matthew chapter four, it has never been closer than it is at that moment. Like, oh, the kingdom is coming. The kingdom is on the precipice of being brought into existence through the sacrifice of Christ, through the preaching of the church starting on the day of Pentecost. And I think that's the image, excuse me, of when Jesus talks about Peter's confession of Christ and he gives Peter the keys to the kingdom. I think what he's talking about is that Peter's going to be the one who opens up the gates on the day of Pentecost. And it's like, no, this is the good news of the kingdom. This is the gospel. The invitation of the good news of what Jesus has accomplished and what he's done. Yes. So that's what you're saying by opening up the gates. Yes, yes. So... For all people. For all people, yes. Not just Israel, all people. Right. And when you think about that, like Peter is present on the day of Pentecost, he's present at the house of Cornelius, who's the first Gentile convert to the faith in Acts chapter 10. So I think all that is to say that when Jesus is saying the kingdom has come near, it is because the king is there. And he has come, they can see who he is, they're, in the course of a couple of years, going to see what he's come to do. And that is going to make the kingdom of heaven a reality from... In our world, I should say it that way. Like in our temporal time-bound world, the kingdom of heaven is going to be open. Fascinating. Fascinating. Well, it is going to be a good sermon series to venture over the next,

what, four, five, six weeks talking about this topic and looking at Jesus's words and some of the New Testament letters that we have here in Scripture. But the sermon title for this week is The Battle is Real. The Battle is Real. And so, on one hand, you would think that, okay, the kingdom... When you think about a kingdom coming, typically, maybe in a biblical sense, or maybe even in a world sense right now, that if a kingdom is coming, then something else has been defeated. But what we're seeing here is that not only is something defeated, but there is a continual adversary. There is a continual opposition to the kingdom of God. And we see Jesus come against that many times in the New Testament, but Kyle gave us a look at what kind of that looks like for us, and a reminder for us in the letter to the church in Ephesus. Yeah, so Paul is... He's wrapping up his letter to the church in Ephesus, and he spends... Ephesus is kind of the quintessential Pauline letter because it is... It's structured so well in terms of it's six chapters. The first three chapters are about our identity in Christ, and then the last three chapters are about what I would say our activity in Christ. This is who you are, this is what you do. And he comes to the end of Ephesians, and he's warning them about what we would call spiritual warfare. It's like, you are in the midst of this battle between kingdoms. And here's what he writes. He says, the final word, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power, put on all of God's armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil, for we are 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 then he goes on to talk about what the armor of God is, the shoes put on, the piece that comes from the good news, put on the shield of faith, put salvation on as your helmet, that very classic picture of the armor of God, the whole armor of God that you put it on, because you wanna be able to resist the enemy, you wanna be able to stand firm in the midst of the attacks of the enemy. And it's interesting, we don't... I don't think we always... Well, let me back up. We were talking about this a little bit earlier, is when we hear spiritual warfare, I think we normally have one of two reactions that are both troublesome in their own right. One is that we read spiritual warfare and we're like, oh, that's not a thing, right? Like... Just completely dismiss it. Just completely dismiss it, like this is superstitious, this is just the way

they understood the early world of being this clash between forces. So we would dismiss it and think, well, nothing is spiritual warfare. The other extreme, which is, I think, a categorical error as well, is to say, well, everything is spiritual warfare. And I'm sure you've... I mean, you've probably encountered people like that. Well, everything is just, oh, I'm under attack, I'm under attack. It's like, well, no, you're under attack from your bad decisions. like maybe not Satan. Sure, yeah. So I think there's an element where we can look at spiritual warfare and say, well, it's nothing, and we can look at it and say it's everything. But I think the biblical thing is to be discerning about it and to recognize it for when it's happening and how it's happening and things like that. So Paul wants us to be... He wants us to have our eyes open about it. He wants us to be able to see like, hey, this is the reality of what's going on around you, that the kingdom of heaven, as it expands and grows in the world, it is meeting conflict from the kingdom of darkness or the kingdom of evil, or Jesus referred to Satan as the ruler of the kingdom of the air at one point, like the ruler of this present world, that he has tried to make himself a dominion here, and now the kingdom of God is covertly and very strongly overcoming the kingdom he's tried to establish. Absolutely. And so what we're learning, just to recap this and what you said in this text, is that, okay, so there is a kingdom of heaven that is at hand that has come through King Jesus, right? Yeah. And on the other hand, there is also this kingdom of darkness that we firmly believe is real and is true. And even as we look at this text in Ephesians, a few things that we learn is that there is an enemy, right? And he has schemes, right? He has schemes to harm us, to steal, kill, and destroy. That when we're wrestling through this thing, through life, it's not always just that we're fighting against flesh and blood, but there is this cosmic power, right? This spiritual force of evil, this tension, this battle that's taking place. And what Paul's encouraging is not putting on even some of the armor of God, putting on the whole armor of God. And I think that oftentimes... Gosh, even as I read that, I find my mind going to a place where I'm like, but really? The whole armor? Come on. Yeah. And I think we are so in our modern day thing that the idea of spiritual warfare and

things like that just strikes us. Sometimes it's like, really? What is that? What is that about? But I do think at the end of the day that understanding the world in that way helps us make the most sense of some of what we see, right? When we think about, well, how are people so easily deceived by things that are clearly lies? How do people fall into snares and traps? Why is sin so addicting at the end of the day? Why do people become addicted to things that when they started, they would have been like, I would never do that. Oh, sure. How is it that people fall into things they say they would never, ever do? And I think spiritual warfare explains so much of the world we live in is like, hey, there is an enemy who is set against God's design, who's set against God's children, who is set against the way God has impacted... Or God has designed, I'm sorry, who has impacted the way that God has designed this world to function. And I think it's John Elridge in one of his books talks about the fact that if we live as though we're not in a battle, we're not gonna understand life as we see it. We're gonna have an idealized picture of, oh, I think life should be easy and it's all gonna be sunshine and rainbows or whatever. And it's like, no, we are in a battle zone and that affects the way we live. Characters in movies don't wander around like, oh, this is gonna be easy. They know like, hey, there's a struggle going on, there's something that I'm a part of and I'm going to face opposition because there's an enemy that's in the story. That's so interesting, because even what you said a few minutes ago, oftentimes we find ourselves on this spectrum of one end to the other of like, hey, we either think that everything is this spiritual warfare experience or nothing we ever experience is. And even as I replay certain things in my mind, I find myself... I've known people, been in situations, whatever, where it's like, oh my gosh, yes, because I went through this specific thing, that because my car broke down, oh my gosh, that is a scheme of the devil. And it's like, well, you never changed your oil. Like you never... The devil did it. Like you never took a step to actually deal with the problem. But then there are other times when it's like, man, I keep making this bad decision over and over and over and over and over again, and I can't quite break free from this, right? For us to then say, well, there's probably no sort of spiritual element to this.

would say we should probably reconsider that, right? And that's where there's this middle ground of having discernment over whether it is or whether it isn't, but what we do know biblically is that it's real, right? It's real, but it takes discernment in the moment, and I think with the help of others too, to kind of see like, oh my gosh, that actually seems like something that's legit. Yeah, yeah. I think there's an element of when we feel ourselves in those seasons of spiritual warfare, I think that's part of where, I mean, the truth of God's word comes into play, but there's also the element of community in that. It's like, hey, I'm seeing this in my own life. I'm sensing this. Do you have any sense of that? I think that's part of why spiritual life is not something we do alone. No one is a one-man army, and that's especially true in the Kingdom of God, is this idea that we need people around us to be like, hey, is this a season where you see this attack going on? Is this a season where... Or am I just... Am I making mistake after mistake? Yeah, and I think one of the reasons why this sermon, especially for someone like me, that sitting in church on a Sunday and listening to this message from Kyle, like, I can absolutely be someone who does not take the battle seriously, right? That if I were to fall on the spectrum, right, of either over-spiritualizing everything or just not taking it seriously, well, probably most of the time I don't take it very seriously. And this is where Kyle was reminding us on Sunday that Paul's picture of the church in this part of Scripture is of an army, right, to where we, or I, act more like an audience. But I want us to listen to this. He said there's a war for our marriages, there's a battle raging for our families, there's a war for our peace, a war for our integrity, a war for our church. And gosh, I read that and I remember back to his sermon, and I think, gosh, I do act like an audience member, where it's just like, oh, like, when it's convenient for me, you know, I'm going to show up. But like, to have the posture of being on the ready is different than just, you know, watching and waiting for whatever may happen. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's kind of... It's a view of, like, why are you... Why do you watch on Pando? Why do you attend church in person? Like, why does anyone become a part of a congregation? Is it to be entertained or is it to be equipped for battle? And I think, you know, that's the... We are so driven in our American culture by, like, consumerism and entertainment and

things like that, that we kind of come in with that natural posture of an audience, right? Like, oh... I mean, I've pastored in churches of all sorts of different sizes, but in every size church, you have that, well, you know, this isn't meeting my needs sort of thing. And it's like, well, that's not, you know, that's not what we're here for. Like, we're not here to help you feel that, you know, to feel a certain way. We're here to equip you in a certain way and to help you prepare for battle in a certain way. And I think that's like, what do we come to the corporate gathering expecting it to do for us? What do we come to the Word expecting it to do for us? Am I looking to the Word to be like, oh, I really want this to hold my attention? Or are we looking at the Word to be like, no, I really want this to hold me up? You know, there's a big difference there in those two mindsets is, am I preparing myself as though I'm in an audience or am I preparing myself as if I'm in a battle? And I'll tell you, like, those seasons where we're in, like, real spiritual warfare, those are the seasons where it becomes most apparent to us, like, I think what the church is for. Like, oh, I need this because I'm getting the snot kicked out of me the other days of the week, right? Like, I need to be encouraged by the Word, I need to be encouraged by my brothers and sisters in Christ, because if I'm not getting that, then I'm not gonna be able to stand up anymore. And for those of us who, you know, tend to take this battle lightly, there are many times when we end up being a little surprised, you know, when these symptoms show up in our life as Kyle so eloquently put it on Sunday, that he had given us several of these symptoms that occur when we don't tend to take this battle seriously. And so, it's even crazy to think about knowing that, like, okay, biblically that battle is real, but there are so many of us that don't take it seriously. He said, one of the symptoms is that you're shocked when temptation shows up. Number two, he said, you have no doubt about it. defense plan for your weakest hours. Number three, you treat spiritual disciplines as optional. Oof, man, that one hits me right in the chest. Your response to sin is always behavioral and never spiritual, all right? We just assume that our problems

can be solved through willpower. You don't filter what you watch or you listen to. That's a big one. Prayer is your last resort instead of a necessary weapon. You're unbothered by isolation, so not necessarily that you should never have time to be by yourself and focus on God's word, and for introverts like myself, I need my alone time, but when there are seasons of isolation and I am purposely pulling away, I cannot be surprised when I tend to fall into sin in those seasons. And then here's one that probably hits all of us. You use words other than sin, right? You talk about it as an accident or as a struggle. So as you listen back through those, Brandon, where do you see kind of the schemes of the enemy interwoven in and through those? Yeah, I think Kyle did such a great job kind of calling us back again and again to that 1 Peter 5 passage, right, where Peter talks about kind of the schemes of the enemy and how he operates. And 1 Peter 5.8 says, stay alert, watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him and be strong in your faith. Like, I think that word picture that Peter gives us is so incredibly insightful into how the enemy works

because you think about, you know, he prowls around like a roaring lion. Well, like if a lion is prowling, it doesn't roar, right? But there's this imagery of, like he's just trying to scare you, right? Like it's just all noise to try to get you to jump, to kind of get you out there. But there's also the idea, as Kyle talked about, he prowls around looking for someone to devour, that there is this strategy, I guess, that Satan has of just making us feel that isolation, of making us feel alone. He's not looking for a group of people to devour. He's looking for one person. You know, I think Kyle said it in a way that, like predators don't look for the herd, they look for the stragglers, right? They look for someone who's been- Someone who's away from the pack. Someone who's away from the pack. And I think like one of the strategies the enemy uses against us is he just makes us feel like we're alone and stuff, right? Like I don't have anyone who could understand this. I don't have anyone who would accept me because of this. I don't have anybody to lean on in all of this. And the more he makes us feel that, the easier we are to pick off. Because there's more of that, it becomes kind of self-fulfilling.

It's like I feel like nobody can understand me, so I isolate, and then it becomes nobody can understand me, or that nobody's connected to me, because I've put myself in that situation. And I think, you know, probably, yeah, I'll say probably, that's probably fair. Probably his greatest strategy in a culture like ours that's already kind of individualistic is to convince us that we're on our own. When, you know, that's not true. We have the Holy Spirit with us. We have other believers with us. But he just wants to make us feel like there's nobody there. And I think that's such a sobering thing to think about, because I know that there are probably so many of you that are watching this right now that feel like you are all alone, right? Whether it's that your family has stopped communicating with you, or you don't have close friends, or even close acquaintances where you're at, that there's really no one that's looking out for you, and you may have had to learn that, well, only I can look out for myself. And in a certain regard, in a certain circumstance, I understand that for so many of you, and to put myself in the best way that I can in your shoes, Brandon. But I think that's why we also encourage

so many people on this podcast so many times to connect with a chaplain where they're at, to find other brothers and sisters, wherever you may be located, in all circumstances of life, to be able to do life with. Because again, it's not just about having friends that you can cut up and laugh with and share stories with. And that's great. That part of fellowship is awesome. But there's also part of this conversation where, man, there is a battle. There is a battle. Even when we are following. Christ and close with Him. I mean, the enemy is just looking for opportunities. I mean, I think of even Adam and Eve in the garden. They were right there with the Lord, right? God gave them such specific instructions, and yet the way that the serpent was able to ask and probe, right, got them both to a place where it was like, well maybe God is actually withholding something from me, and I need to go after this. And actually where God said that would lead to death, well maybe it'll actually lead to something good and something that He's taking away from me. Yeah, yeah. Well, and I'll say, you know, you kind of made me think, we were talking earlier about the layout of Ephesians, right, where it starts with the first three chapters of this is who you are in Christ, and four through six is this is what you do in Christ. I think another strategy that he employs so often is just to get us to question our identity, to question who we are, or to make us think that we're lacking something, right? Like you're saying is like, well, I mean, yeah, he'll just make you think, well this is who you are, and it's never gonna get any better, and you're lacking this, and if you could only achieve this, if you could only do this, if you could only make yourself this, then you're going to become somebody or something, or you're gonna be worthy, or whatever. And that is, I think there's a reason why, I mean, it's just interesting to

think about Paul writing in Ephesians so much about our identity in Christ, and then being like, no, you need to suit up with that, because if you don't suit up with that sense of, hey, this is who I am, these are the people I belong to, this is the God I belong to, then temptation is gonna be incredibly difficult, because that's, I mean, his strategy from the beginning is to make us feel like we're not enough, that God is holding out on us, and that if we could just go get it for ourselves, well then everything would be fine. For sure, and so we've talked maybe several times on this podcast about what it looks like, I think maybe even with Lucas a couple weeks ago, about what it looks like to walk with Jesus every single day, right? This word of abide, to abide in Him, that apart from Him we can do nothing, that if He is the vine and we are the branches, apart from Him we'll just be a withered branch on the ground. And I think this is another reason why that's so important, that man, like, when we start to drift from spending time with the Lord every day, like, we're already broken people. All of us. Like, it doesn't matter which side of the tablet we're on right now. Like, we're all broken people, and when we are not consistently spending time with the Lord, with Jesus, in prayer, in Scripture, in community with other people, and we start drifting, right? We start drifting, some of those spiritual disciplines start lacking, and it's not just that, you know, we haven't checked this box of spiritual disciplines, it's that, man, we're not spending time with our Creator. In learning and being molded, having our minds molded and our hearts shaped into what is good and what is pure and what is life-giving, and when we start drifting away over the course of time, what happens is that our version of good starts getting a little bit warped, we stop calling sin what it is, we start... And what happens is we look up one day and we find ourselves at a place, like you had mentioned earlier, where, you know, years ago we would have said, oh, I would never do that. I would never do that. And I think the enemy loves a phrase like that. Oh, for sure. Right. Yeah, well, and you make me think, and Kyle emphasized this, I think, in that second or third point where he talked about spiritual disciplines as optional. We don't recognize, when we stop thinking about anything as a battle, spiritual disciplines lose their significance to us because they become something that we're just checking off, like a grocery list thing. Whereas if we're really in a battle, if we're really

suiting up here, it's not shopping, it's training, right? It's like, oh, we're getting ready for this. I'm spending time in the word because it is... Paul talks about it as the sword of the spirit. We spend time in scripture because it is what we're gonna use to fight lies off. It's how we're gonna know the truth. We spend time talking with God in prayer because that's how we understand his heart and know where he's leading. We spend time in community because we're all in this battle together, and if we're not unified, we're gonna get picked off. So I think that drift just happens naturally when we start to take our eyes off the battle and we think, well, I don't really need to do this. I don't really need to spend time practicing these things. It makes me think there's this... Like in the James Bond movies or other spy movies, you get those movies where the spy's been out of the game for 10 years, and they're like, oh, Oh, I don't know how to do this anymore. It just makes me think of that. We have that sort of a spiritual disciplines. Like we, we're suddenly in a time of battle and we just not, we're not been ready for it. Well, for sure. Because what it does is that when we don't take the battle seriously, it makes us lazy. Yeah. Like for all of us, it would be like, gosh, it would be like waking up every, like if, if I believed that the battle was real, like I, like if I were thinking about like, okay, I am going to protect my home from these invaders. Right. Right. And I just knew that at any point they were going to have the opportunity to attack myself and my family. Well, I like my mission every day would be to make sure that I am spending time on the things to make sure that my defenses are ready. You would, you would Kevin McAllister up your house. Oh my gosh.

Home alone. Yeah. Like you would have everything, everything ready on the guard. But if you, but even if there's like, I think about this for me, like even if there's any chance of, they're like, well, maybe this is just a rumor. Yeah. You know, maybe this is just like hearsay. Well, maybe, maybe that, you know, that news report didn't really know what they didn't know. They didn't know what they were talking about. And so what's going to happen? Like, I'm going to wake up one day and I'm going to have no ammunition. Yeah. There's going to be no security system. Right. Because you're going to wake up and it's going to, or we're all going to wake up and it's going to be like, we did like, we hadn't prepared for any of this and then we're shocked that it happens. And then we almost feel like a victim of like, I can't believe this happened to me. And it's like, you start looking back and it's like, well, hold up a second. You know? And then I, that's where I look back at so many of these symptoms and I'm like, gosh, like I can, I can identify with every single one of these at a certain point in my life. Oh yeah. And that's what makes them so, that's what makes them so convicting, you know? And, but that's where, you know, it asks the question of like, okay, like we listen to all of this, we watch this podcast, we watched, you know, Kyle's sermon. What do we do with it? And Kyle's, the thing that he left us with was this word called repent. Repent.

Yeah. What does that mean? I'm sure that's for people watching this, that's probably a lot of different connotations of that. Right. What does Kyle mean when he says, okay, at the end of the day, we need to repent. Yeah. Well, you know, the thing I love that Kyle talked about that I've, I've, I've heard people say that all that you will repent is, you know, it's a military term for about face, things like that. But the thing I've never heard anyone talk about with repentance is the idea that repentance is not an emotional word. It's not about feeling shame. It's not about feeling guilt. Although guilt and shame may lead us to repent. Part of it. Yeah. Yeah. Or leading to it. But the repentance itself is like an action word, right? It's the changing of your mind and then changing your direction. And I think that's so helpful for us to think about. It's like, it's not about, Oh, I feel really bad about that. That's like, no, I recognize that I've been walking towards things that are ultimately destructive. I've been living in a way that's ultimately leading me away from life. And if I'm going to repent, then I need to do an about face. I need to realize like, Hey, these things I've been chasing, they're not great. They're not helping me. And I need to turn back around to, to follow God.

And I think that's the best way to think about it. Like if sin is walking away from God, then repentance is turning around and saying like, no, I got to walk back. Uh, it, it doesn't mean we're not going to stumble. It doesn't mean like, Oh, I'm complete. Because we all do. Right. Like, it's not going to mean like, Oh, I'm going to beeline to God and I'm never deviating from the path. No, but it means like, I have recognized this for what it is. I've recognized sin for what it is. I've recognized the battle for what it is. I've recognized my own faults and failures for what they are. And now I got to get back to him. Uh, and I think that, I mean, that's where it starts. That's why Jesus is calling them back to repent is the first word of his ministry is like, Hey, come back, come back. You've, you've been wandering, you've been walking away. You've been trying the old Testament images. Like you've been trying to, to fill your well that's empty at the bottom. That's just the water's leaking out of it. It's like, you know, stop, stop doing that. Repent, turn back, come back to the God who can fill you up. That is so good, because in a very real sense is that, um, you know, Jesus, in a very real sense, Jesus saved us from something, right? He saved us from something that we were all, because of our decisions, because of our brokenness, because we are unholy and broken, like what the Bible teaches is that we, because of that, are destined for an eternity apart from God, right? And because of what Jesus has done, he has saved us from that. But not only that, even in Ephesians, he's given us a new name and identity, right?

A, uh, we're new creations in him, but yet, like we've mentioned, there's a battle going on continually, that even as Christians. we can't just view our life as a Christian as Jesus has saved us, so now we have a ticket to go sit on the beach somewhere and put our feet up. Right, because if we're gonna go sit and put our feet up somewhere, well, our home's gonna get attacked, our family's gonna get attacked, we're gonna get attacked, right? And it's not that we need to live in fear. Right. It's not even that. It's that we know that ultimately the battle is won, that Christ has won, that the sting of death is defeated, that Jesus has overcome the world and so can we. Yeah. But not by ourselves, it's through him. And that's what our encouragement would be for you today, wherever you find yourself. Maybe you are discovering for the very first time who Jesus is, and we want you to know that he has come specifically to save us from our sin because he loves us, he cares for us, to display what God's love is for his children, to make you go from a life of sin to repent and then go to a life that is actually leading to the life in its fullness. And the way that you start that process is by repenting, like Brandon said,

of literally turning from sin in the way that you were headed and turning back to God. And so that's a step that you can make today. But for those of us that know Jesus, right, we don't have to live in fear knowing that there is an enemy, right? Because God is infinitely stronger, right, than the devil ever could. But there is great wisdom in what the Apostle Paul shared here in Ephesians, that there is an enemy who wants to steal, kill, and destroy and tear apart the kingdom of God as much as he can. But we don't have to be afraid, right? Because we serve a king who is stronger, who loves us and cares for us and knows us by name. And Brandon, I think that's an encouragement for all of us that we're not living in fear, we're not looking to over-spiritualize every single thing that happens to us. But as Kyle reminded us, that there are some of these symptoms that we just need to be, there's some wisdom in being aware that each of us can kind of fall into these categories. Yeah, and I think this message is kind of the ultimate bad news, good news, right? Like the bad news is the battle is real. Like this is gonna be hard. There's gonna be a struggle, there's gonna be an enemy,

there's gonna be opposition as you seek to follow Jesus. But the good news is the kingdom is real. Like everything you've ever believed in about Jesus, everything you've ever hoped for in Christ, like it's all real. The kingdom is real and at the end of the day, like that's the ultimate reality we step into is Jesus is making all things new, he's making all things right. And the kingdom is real and the king is coming and that's all that matters. Amen. And ultimately, that's what connects all of us no matter which side of the screen that we're on together, that if you've placed your faith in Christ, we are a part of a family of God together as part of the global church, his family, that we can be brothers and sisters in Christ together. But y'all, we're so grateful for you. Thank you for walking with us through our Pando exclusive podcast today. We're talking about week one of this new sermon series called The Kingdom is Real. Y'all, we will see you next week. Brandon, thanks for being here as always. Yeah, always a pleasure, yeah, it's great. As always. Y'all, but we're grateful for you and please feel free to write us, would love to respond back to that.

If you have questions that you'd like for us to ever address in this podcast, we would love to know that. And so you can find the address to our church in the description of most of our videos. Y'all, we love you and we'll see you next time. Bye-bye.