Suit Up | Chad Bruegman

You might be wondering what is on the screen. We are in a new sermon series called "The Locker Room." It is day one. We're excited. Let's stand to our feet. We're going to sing some songs together this morning. Are you ready? Is anybody ready? Come on, let's sing. ♪ Wash the blood ♪ ♪ I'm as good as them ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ I've been washed in the water ♪ ♪ Wash the blood ♪ ♪ Oh, because of you ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ Nice together. Come on. ♪ Hey ♪ ♪ You're not clean ♪ ♪ The same ones they don't need ♪ ♪ The shame was running deep ♪ ♪ Your love was filled ♪ ♪ Don't count away ♪ ♪ And oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Oh, please ♪ ♪ Oh God, how can it be? ♪ ♪ A lambda melody ♪ ♪ I'm standing in your victory ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ I've been washed in the water ♪ ♪ Washed in the blood ♪

♪ As good as them ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ I've been washed in the water ♪ ♪ Wash the blood ♪ ♪ Oh, because of you ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ I'm clean ♪ ♪ It's not what I had done for my sake ♪ ♪ But it's what you ♪ ♪ Hey ♪ ♪ You played it all upon that tree ♪ ♪ And oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ I'm clean ♪ ♪ Your love has overcome ♪ ♪ And the mercy is shut free ♪ ♪ You can't see your victory ♪ ♪ Oh, we stay singing ♪ ♪ I've been washed in the water ♪ ♪ Washed in the blood ♪ ♪ And the pain ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ I've been washed in the water ♪ ♪ Washed in the blood ♪ ♪ Oh, the feeling ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ I've been washed in the water ♪ ♪ Wash the blood ♪ ♪ As good as them ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ I've been washed in the water ♪

♪ Wash the blood ♪ ♪ Oh, because of you ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ 'Cause you took away my sheep ♪ ♪ Come on, every voice ♪ ♪ And you kneeled it to the cross ♪ ♪ You caught me running up the grave ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Where I come ♪ ♪ Come on, say ♪ ♪ 'Cause you took away my sheep ♪ ♪ And you kneeled it to the cross ♪ ♪ You got me running up the grave ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ You're on the edge ♪ ♪ 'Cause you took away my sheep ♪ ♪ And you kneeled it to the cross ♪ ♪ You got me running up the grave ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ You took away my sheep ♪ ♪ And you kneeled it to the cross ♪ ♪ You kneeled it to the cross ♪ ♪ You caught me running up the grave ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ You got me running up the grave ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ You're on the edge ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪

♪ You're on the edge ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ ♪ Oh, come on, come on ♪ ♪ Everybody, come on ♪ ♪ Come on ♪ ♪ Come on ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ I've been washed in the water ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ I've been washed in the water ♪ ♪ Washed in the blood ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah ♪ (audience applauding) ♪ ♪ Let's see the shadows ♪ ♪ Jesus is mine ♪ ♪ He's been my fourth man in that fire ♪

♪ Time after time ♪ ♪ Born at least fear ♪ ♪ Washed in his blood ♪ (audience applauding) ♪ And what he did for me on time ♪ My Savior, oh, the Lord, who will never fail? He will never fail. The perfect submission while he's at rest. I know the author of tomorrow has ordered my steps. So this is my story, and this is my song. Raising my raising, cleansing, all the day long. I trust in God, my Savior, the one who will never fail. He will never fail, I trust in God, my Savior, the one who will never fail. He will never fail, he will never fail, I trust in God, my Savior, the one who will never fail, I trust in God, my Savior, the one who will never fail. He loves all the Lord, and he hurts, and he ends. He loves all the Lord, and he hurts, and he ends. He loves all the Lord, and he hurts, and he ends. ♪ That's why I trust Him ♪ ♪ That's why I trust Him ♪ ♪ My song, the Lord ♪ ♪ In He heard and He answered ♪ ♪ I saw the Lord ♪ ♪ In He heard and He answered ♪ ♪ I saw the Lord ♪ ♪ In He heard and He answered ♪ ♪ That's why I trust Him ♪ ♪ That's why I trust Him ♪ ♪ My song, the Lord ♪ ♪ In He heard and He answered ♪ ♪ I saw the Lord ♪ ♪ In He heard and He answered ♪ ♪ I saw the Lord ♪

♪ In He heard and He answered ♪ ♪ That's why I trust Him ♪ ♪ That's why I trust Him ♪ ♪ My song, the Lord ♪ ♪ In He heard and He answered ♪ ♪ I saw the Lord ♪ ♪ In He heard and He answered ♪ ♪ I saw the Lord ♪ ♪ In He heard and He answered ♪ ♪ That's why I trust Him ♪ ♪ That's why I trust Him ♪ ♪ That's why I trust Him ♪ ♪ The Lord ♪ ♪ In He heard and He said ♪ ♪ The Lord ♪ ♪ In He heard and He said ♪ ♪ In He heard and He said ♪ ♪ In He heard and He said ♪ ♪ In He heard and He said ♪ ♪ In He heard and He said ♪ ♪ In He heard and He said ♪ ♪ I trust Him ♪ ♪ In He heard and He said ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ You will never fail ♪ ♪ You will never fail ♪ ♪ I trust in God ♪ ♪ My Savior, oh, oh ♪ ♪ You will never fail ♪ ♪ You will never fail ♪

♪ You will never fail ♪ ♪ I trust in God ♪ (audience applauding) (gentle piano music) ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ I find you at the lowest place ♪ ♪ I find you feeling me in the crowd ♪ (audience applauding) ♪ I find you feeling me in the crowd ♪ (audience applauding) ♪ I find you at the lowest place ♪ ♪ I find you at the lowest place ♪ ♪ I find you at the lowest place ♪ (audience applauding) ♪ What a guy, what a guy ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ What a guy, what a guy ♪ ♪ That's who you are ♪ ♪ What a guy, what a guy ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ I find it so hard to fix things ♪ ♪ It's good kind of God's voice ♪ ♪ Then you say it's over for a second ♪ ♪ What will you be saying ♪ ♪ No, it's not, no, it's not ♪ ♪ You say it ♪ ♪ But it's not, no, it's not ♪ ♪ What a guy, what a guy ♪ ♪ What a God, what a God ♪

♪ What a God, what a God ♪ ♪ What a God, what a God ♪ ♪ What a God, what a God ♪ ♪ What a God, what a God ♪ ♪ And then the God that we're singing to this morning ♪ ♪ He's here, and He's full of compassion ♪ ♪ The God that we're singing to this morning ♪ ♪ Is full of compassion ♪ ♪ I want to encourage you not to leave ♪ ♪ The way that you came in ♪ ♪ Leave your burdens here, He cares for you ♪ ♪ Leave it all here as we sing to Him ♪ ♪ This morning, remind your own heart ♪ ♪ That we've got a trusting God ♪ ♪ That we've got to start believing ♪ ♪ Every single word that He says ♪ ♪ So as we sing this ♪ ♪ Let's put our focus right on Him ♪ ♪ Come here as crazy as you ♪ ♪ Come here as crazy as you ♪ ♪ If the highest place I reach is at your feet ♪ ♪ Then I've done it all ♪ ♪ If the best thing that I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ Then I've seen it all ♪ ♪ Your love has changed my life ♪ ♪ Forever sad is my life ♪ ♪ You are my everything ♪ ♪ Come on everybody ♪ ♪ If the highest place I reach is at your feet ♪ ♪ Then I've done it all ♪

♪ If the best thing that I've seen is your glory ♪ ♪ Then I've seen it all ♪ ♪ 'Cause your love has changed my life ♪ ♪ Forever sad is my life ♪ ♪ You are my everything ♪ ♪ One, one ♪ ♪ If the one where is the only thing is me ♪ ♪ Then I've put it on ♪ ♪ I feel your heart and never see your heart ♪ ♪ I feel your love ♪ ♪ Don't judge me like this life ♪ ♪ Forever sad is my life ♪ ♪ You are my everything ♪ ♪ You are my everything ♪ ♪ You are my everything ♪ ♪ You are my everything ♪ ♪ You are my everything ♪ ♪ You are my God, you are my everything ♪ ♪ You are my God, you are my ♪ ♪ You are my everything ♪ ♪ You are my God, you are my ♪ ♪ I'm me ♪ ♪ Come on, let's sing it together ♪ ♪ My heart is playing starry shoes ♪ ♪ I love you ♪ ♪ And I've done it all ♪ ♪ Make a best thing that I've seen ♪ ♪ If you don't know ♪ ♪ Then I've seen it all ♪ ♪ 'Cause your love has changed my life ♪

♪ Forever sad is my life ♪ ♪ You are my everything ♪ ♪ One way is the only thing that I've seen ♪ ♪ Better burn it out ♪ ♪ You are my God, you are my everything ♪ ♪ I've done it all ♪ ♪ No treasure in this life ♪ ♪ You're never sad is my life ♪ ♪ You are my everything ♪ ♪ You are my everything ♪ ♪ You are my everything ♪ ♪ The highest place I reach is at your ♪ Your love has changed my life. Forever sad is life. You are my way. Come on, tell him this morning, you got it. Don't hold back. Don't hold back, tell him. We are starting a new series. This is going to be a six week series. A couple months ago we did a series. We're still getting really good feedback about this series, which I love. It was called "Intersection." And we looked at the intersection between two different studies about humanity. One was the theology, right? Theology is just two words put together. Theo means God, and ology means the study of, right? When we get up here, we're studying God. We're looking at theology, looking at his word, and we intersected that with this beautiful gift God gave us called the brain. And that study is called neurology, neurobrainology, right? The study of the brain. This next six weeks is another intersection type series. We haven't titled it that, but it really is going to be the intersection of theology, the relationship and the study of God, and then this thing. You guys ready for a new word for many of you? If you're a note taker, a nerd like that, write this down. If you're not a note taker, write this down because it's really important to the series. It's a word called ecclesiology. And ecclesiology comes from this Greek word echleosia, which is mentioned 114 times in the New Testament, which means this is a really important word when it comes to the story that God is telling with the world and us, his church. When you put ecclesia in the study of what that means, we get ecclesiology. Ecclesia is this. It's the study of us, the church. What's the church? What

makes the church? What makes a healthy church? What makes a strong church? What makes a church that is truly not perfect, but God honoring? I can't think of really too many more of an important series that we could have than a series about, hey, why do we gather? What's the point here? You all could be at home right now getting ready to eat some nachos and watch the Houston Texans whoop whoever they're about to play, right? But you chose to be here. Most city, West End, you chose to be here, which shows me there's some faith, there's some expectancy in this room. So let's define what the word ecclesia means because this is really the root of this series. Ecclesia is a Greek word and it simply means this. It means to call out of and to assemble together. Like when God called Israel out of Egyptian slavery after 400 years and they went through the Red Sea, the waters of baptism if you will, and they went into this new land on the way to the promised land, the wilderness. God was calling out His chosen people, right? Calling them out to do what? Finally with freedom, be able to assemble together. Anytime you hear the word ecclesia in the New Testament, you're going to see the English translation translated either the word church or the word gathering or the word the assembly because we the church are simply one person after another person after another person who has what? By the grace of Jesus and the finished work of Jesus been called out of death in this life to eternal life, to something new. And now He says, I want all of you who have given your life to Jesus to gather, to galvanize, to come together. And there is a hundred or more different reasons the Bible tells us why we come to church on Sundays. Why we come and I shouldn't even call it church, right? Because let me remind you, this building is just brick and mortar. These walls are lifeless. These walls have no soul. The parking lots out there. All of the amazing facilities at our campus, they have no soul, but they are a blessing. Why? Because it allows us to call out ones to gather, to galvanize, to put our hopes, our dreams, our faith, our hurts, our wounds, our brokenness, our beauty, our talents, our skills, and our resources together. Why? So ultimately, and we'll talk about this coming up in the series, we can go. We can go and not just go, but we can go with the strength that only God gives us when we come together and when we meet. So let me give you just one example, and I'll tell you the title of this series and make some sense of it. Just one of the 114 times it's mentioned, it's this. It's Matthew chapter 16 verse 18. Jesus is in a conversation with the disciples specifically Peter.

"Hey, Peter, on this rock," and he's talking about him. Not Peter, he's talking about Jesus. He says, "Peter, on this rock, I will." Everyone say, "I will." That means when Jesus says it, it's happening. No matter what, no matter what this world looks like, no matter what you're watching on the news right now, no matter how you feel about things are going, and there's a lot of things that are going, what feels like in the wrong direction, but my hope is in this, when the creator of this world and the creator of you and I says, "I will build my what?" Echlea Sia, there's that word. "I will build my church," and I love this, and the gates of Hades, the opposition, the opposing team, he says, "will not." So not only does he say, "I will," he says, "your enemy, the devil," who the Bible says, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone he can devour. Jesus said, "The enemy of your soul, the devil, wants to kill from you, steal from you, and ultimately destroy you." I grew up playing sports. When I hear that language, I'm like, "Okay, let's go. Let's go, we gotta fight on our hands. Better pack a lunch, all right?" But he says, "The gates of Hades are hell. We'll not prevail."

And this is hope we draw from. Man, I look around and go, "God, what's going on? Where are we headed? Do you ever feel that way?" Well, what's going on, man? There's some really dark things happening in our culture, in our nation, in our society, around the globe. God, where are you at? And he says, "Hey, if you guys will keep gathering and galvanizing, if you'll keep coming together, praying together, believing together, resourcing together, building your faith together, I am gonna use you in ways that you don't even fully realize to go into the world and let my story prove itself true, that I will build my church and in the end, we will get the W. But we gotta go and we gotta partner with God as the church. He has in his kindness, not just forgiven our sins and made us new creations in Christ. He then, as any good father would says, "Hey, I want you to participate. I want you to be about my business. I wanna do this together as a family." And so, we titled this series, The Locker Room, for a couple different reasons. The first one's not spiritual at all. It's that I love sports. And I told you when I first got here, anytime I can intersect Jesus in sports as a metaphor, it's gonna happen.

Football season just started and so I'm like, "What a great time for a series like The Locker Room." Now, here's the real reason I'm using The Locker Room as a metaphor for the echlea seah, for the church, for us. Why do we gather? What's the purpose? 'Cause come on, I've said this a couple weeks ago, Texas is like the buckle of the Bible bell, right? Like, it's so easy for people just by default to being born or growing up in Texas to just go to church whether you want to or not. And I just picture God going, "Hey, I love you, I appreciate your consistency, but don't go just 'cause you grew up doing that. We're not here for that. There's too much at stake, there's too much going on in the world. When we gather, it's to strengthen each other. It's to borrow faith from each other. It's to re-up on having expectancy that although this world is sometimes dark and difficult, God is good. It's to show up together and remind each other, greater is he that is in us than he that's in the world right now. Like, we get to choose. Yeah, we can clap for that. We get to choose as a church how we want to show up. We get to choose as a church what kind of spirit we want to walk into this locker room with.

God has given us Riverpoint and West End. He's given us our little plot of ground in the Houston metro area. And he says, "This is your team." And listen to me, a locker room is a huge fundamental part to the success of a team and they actually go out in front of people and play the game. This is why we gather. The only thing that makes the echleosia, the gathering that we have right now, is not the buildings. It's not the amenities. It's not the stuff. I'm so grateful for the amazing facilities that we have at every one of our campuses. But listen to me, the only thing that makes these facilities worth it and the only thing that makes these facilities sacred is that you're here. That's it. It's that I'm here and you're here and you're here and you're here at every campus. The church gathering that we do in America, typically on Sundays like we're doing today, should act and look a lot more like a locker room than the football field. But y'all, come on. This room's full of people right now. We got other campuses full of people right now. Thousands of people that come to just this church, one of millions of churches all over the globe, and what's happened, and nobody did this maliciously.

It just kinda happened is the church gathering has started to feel sometimes more like a football game than the locker room. Nothing wrong with lights and camera and action. We wanna sing, we wanna root for Jesus. We wanna say, yes, we love our team. But this gathering was what we do so that we can go to where the real game is being played, which is out there in your neighborhoods, in your schools, and in the marketplace, and in our city, and in our community, where lost people who Jesus is just waiting to connect you with, because they are on the verge of like you giving their life to Jesus. We come here to get ready to play the game, right? And here's what we do in the locker room. There's pre-game locker room, right? You get fired up. I remember playing football, and before games, and I played in the late '80s and early '90s, we would play some horrible music now that I'm not even gonna mention, but it would fire us up a bunch of young dudes who thought we were bigger and stronger and faster than we really were, and like gladiators, we'd start hitting each other's heads and start punching lockers. Soon as the music came on, man, something in us started going, right? Like that was the beauty of the locker room.

It's like we're about to go out and play a violent game. We gotta get ourselves fired up. We don't come here and sing a few songs because that's what we were taught you're supposed to do in church. We come here to get fired up because we're gonna walk out of these doors in about 30 minutes, well, I'm preaching, 30, 40 minutes, and you're gonna be entering into a violent game again. And we come here to sing to God, to get fired up, to let our emotions go out in the most beautiful of ways, right? Yay, baby, she said, yay. Someone's talking back to the preacher, I love you. That kid's going places, good job, mom and dad. The locker room is not just where we come to get fired up to go out and start the game again next week. The locker room's where we come like at halftime. You know what the big reason for the locker room, what's so important about the locker room at halftime, is two things. Number one, you gotta come in and make adjustments. From now until we meet again next week, guess what? The enemy who wants to kill, steal and destroy from you and your family, he's not gonna tell you what his scheme is. And when his scheme isn't working like any good team, guess what they're gonna do, mix it up, try something new. So why do we gather consistently?

It's not for religious purposes. It's because there is a crafty enemy who hates you, hates what you're about, hates what you believe, hates where you've put your hope, hates where you've put your conviction, hates when you start to ask God that you would be able to do his will, hates when you start to obey a little bit when you didn't before. So we gotta come in at halftime, sometimes the purpose of a church, when we gather throughout the year, a series we do is simply like more of a halftime type series where we're doing adjustments on the fly, something just happened in culture, something just happened in our community. So we gotta talk about it, right? We gotta make some adjustments because this wasn't on the calendar, but then the second fundamental reason of halftime, and this is so important, and we have to do this as a church as well, this is a big part of why the ecclesia gathers together, is we bandage wounds at halftime. We put ice where we got hurt, where we got hit. We take care of each other. We look at each other's pain and we don't dismiss it. We minister to it. That's a huge part of this, and then there's the post-game locker room

where two things happen. You either want or you lost. You either in there celebrate, and then we always have plenty of things throughout the year as a church to celebrate. We'll have some sermons where we celebrate what God is doing at River Point in West End Church, but sometimes you come in and that week felt like an hell, a loss, and we'll come in and we'll have talks where we, as I always say, we're gonna start again smarter next time. We get to play again next week because of the grace of Jesus Christ. So let's learn from where it went wrong and let's start again smarter. So we titled this series The Locker Room, and I'm just gonna do this for the last remaining few moments that I have with you guys or the church is supposed to be when we gather. And I had to pick this one first because this, to me, is the ultimate purpose of the locker room. If this thing we're going to talk about for the next few minutes isn't what happens here all the time, every weekend, in some form or fashion, then we've gotten this thing called the church wrong. The ultimate purpose of the locker room pregame is what? You suit up. In fact, if I was titling a message today, I would simply title at that. We come here to suit up. We come here to put on the things yet again that keep us safe, that allow us to play at the highest level, that allow us to not get as hurt and wounded from the enemy, the adversary, the opposing team, right? We suit up. And so I'm just going to do a few minutes for this week one of a suit up talk. And I'm fired up today because I've been looking at like the greatest locker room speeches of all time this week. And so if I get up here and I'm talking like a coach in the locker room, that's how I feel right now based on this series. But the first thing we do when we come to church and in some form or fashion, no matter what series we're in or what we're

talking about throughout the year, this should happen every single time we suit up. And I'm going to start with an Old Testament verse speaking to this, and then we'll go and finish with the New Testament. Before I read the one verse, let me give you some context. Isaiah chapter 61, if you're newer to the Bible, I want to challenge you this week to go read it because it's one of the most important moments in all of the Old Testament or chapters because it's this incredibly intricate prophecy about why Jesus would come here to do what He did for you and I. And it starts out famously like this, "The spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me." He was talking about Jesus. So the spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me Jesus because God has anointed me or empowered me and sent me down to earth to preach good news to the poor. Every time we come into this locker room, there should be good news coming out of whoever's preaching mouth because Jesus came to preach good news to the poor, not just literal poor, the poor in spirit, right? Blessed are the poor in spirit. Those who don't know Jesus yet, for the kingdom of heaven can be there, theirs. Says, "For the spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up, I love this, the broken hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners." Says, "He came to proclaim the year of our Lord's favor and the day of the vengeance of our God." He said, "To comfort He came, comfort all who mourn and to provide for those who are grieving in Zion, that He might bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes and the oil of gladness." He says, "That He would give us a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair." You ever came to church a hot mess and left feeling pretty okay? It doesn't happen every time. I'm not going to talk about all the reasons why it doesn't happen every time, but I have had so many services in my walk with Jesus where I just walked in and was about to quit. I walked in and was about to give up and by the time we were done with singing to God, getting our eyes off ourself, lifting Him up and hearing a message of truth again from the Word, I went from a spirit of despair to a garment of praise that shouldn't shock us. We should come to church expecting that. Man, when you're going through it and everything in that mind of yours says, "Man, don't go to church. You just need a break. You just need to sleep." You just know that's when you need to be here the most because what's making you most tired is that spirit of despair from the things life has handed

you. When we come here and we start to just get our eyes off the situation and we start to just praise the name of Jesus, the one who's keeping us breathing and here and useful and full of purpose, man, something starts to happen and all of a sudden you're suiting up. Now all of a sudden you got a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. It goes on to say, "Plat for that." And he finishes by saying, "Here was the purpose Jesus came, that we would be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord. Why? For the display of His splendor." It's His splendor that's at stake which means all those things Isaiah said Jesus was going to come and do. It's God's best interest to do those for you. So we want to be a church that believes these things are going to happen. We want to be a church that comes expecting that all of these attributes of why Jesus came are going to happen because when they do happen, guess what? We become more oaks. It's a win-win for the kingdom of God. So then, we usually stop there when we preach on this text, but then a few verses down in Isaiah 61, 10, it says this, talking about suiting up, right? It says, "He, Jesus, has clothed me with what?" Garments of salvation, there it is, suit up. He has covered me with what? The robe of righteousness. And let me preach the gospel for a minute. I'm never gonna stop saying this because this isn't something you learn and then move on to deeper things. This is as deep as it gets. Because of the finished work of Jesus Christ, every one of you here and within the sound of my voice, every one of you who have put your faith, you've called on the name of the Lord, you've believed in your heart that Christ died for your sins and that God raised him from the dead.

The Bible says you have crossed over from death to life. You are a new creation in Christ. The old is gone. (congregation applauding) And you know what it says? Not just in Isaiah, but all kinds of other verses. Go read the Corinthians, or excuse me, Colossians chapter three. We are clothed in righteousness. Here's the good news. You are perfectly righteous if you were to die today and be in the presence of God because you have accepted and walked into the saving work of Jesus Christ. This is why we come here to praise. This is why we come here to lift up his name. This is why we don't come here to make it about a person or a man or a church. We come here to focus and fix our eyes all the time on Jesus because he's the author. He's the perfecter. He's the one who bestows on us, right? The robe of righteousness and the garment of salvation. So that's the Old Testament prophesying what Jesus would come and do. And now Paul's writing to an Echlea Sia in a church called Ephesus, which is in now modern day Turkey. And he's writing this book we call the Ephesians. And as he's concluding his letter, he sums it up this whole idea of what it means to suit up. This is to me the ultimate suit up passage.

Are you guys ready to read some scripture? All right, let's go. We're suiting up here. Paul says this, finally, in other words, based on everything I just wrote to you church, he says, finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on, what's that mean? Suit up. Put on the full armor of God, why? So that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers and against authorities and against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly or unseen realms. That's a lot of stuff there. Let me just sum it up real simply. You are every day taking your head off your pillow. You have an opposing team that wants to take your head off. You have a devil that is a schemer, that the Bible says is a liar. Says when he speaks, he speaks lies. It says in the Gospels, when he speaks lies, it's his native language. He's a deceiver. We in the modern therapeutic world call it, what do we call it, our inner critic. That's not a bad term. I use it all the time, but you want to know what it is?

Lies from the devil. Bringing shame, bringing condemnation to you, constantly reminding you of everything you're not. And our job is to suit up with the robe of righteousness and say, "No, I am who he says I am." Not what I say I am. And definitely not what you say I am, devil. I am who he says I am. And then we suit up and what's that look like? He says, "Therefore, put on the full armor of God." Why? So that you may be able to take your stand, so that excuse me, you may be able to stand your ground. And he says, "After you've done everything to stand, "after we've done our work in the locker room this morning, "stand firm then, when you walk out of these doors "at any one of your campuses today, "we came here to read up on what it looks like to stand." He says, "When you walk out, you stand firm then, "how, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, "with the breastplate of righteousness in place, "with your feet fitted with the readiness "that comes from the gospel of peace." He says, "In addition to this, "take up the shield of faith with which you can "extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one." He says, "Take the helmet of salvation." And I love this one. We finally get in an offensive weapon. Take the sword of the spirit,

which is the word of God. (cheers and applause) with all kinds of requests." He says, "And He doubles down with this in mind, guys, we have to stay alert and always keep on praying for each other. Why are we the ecclesia to gather consistently, not for religious reasons, because we're called to pray for each other, minister to each other, bear one another's burdens." Roman says, "When things are good, celebrate church. When things are rough, mourn together, grieve together." I said this probably sometime last year around football season, and I don't mind being repetitive. I'm repeating this not because I don't have new material. It's because we have to constantly remind ourselves, let's use some locker room and some football language to go back and think about what we just read. Matt Stafford was last year's NFL MVP, meaning for last year at least, he was the best player in the game playing it at the absolute highest level. He plays for the Los Angeles Rams. Miles Garrett was the reigning defensive MVP player last year, best at what he does on the planet at his side of the ball. He also now plays for the Los Angeles Rams. This has nothing to do with the Scriptures or the Sermon, but I grew up in the Bay Area and I've been a passionate 49ers fan since I was born 52 years, and we whooped them Thursday night. I got to move on. That was just me taking some liberties. Here's my point though. If Matt Stafford or Miles Garrett went out and played that game last Thursday and never put on the uniform, they're not making it five minutes before they're getting carted off and on their way to the hospital. Doesn't matter that they're the best in the world. Doesn't matter that they're bigger, stronger, faster than everyone else. Doesn't matter that God gave them this incredible natural ability mixed with their hard work and sacrifice to get to where they've gotten. If you do not put on the uniform, if you do not suit up the other team, the enemy, the opposition is going to knock you out to the sidelines and to the hospital faster than you know what to do with. None of us here are talented enough or rich enough or beautiful enough or strong enough or charismatic enough to not have to think that we don't have to get up every day and suit up. And so he says, and I'll just go over them real fast in them. I'll get you out of here until we meet again, but he says, therefore put on the full armor of God so that when, everybody say when, not if, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you've done everything to stand, stand firm then, first thing he mentions

is what? The belt of truth. You might be the fastest running back in the NFL. You might run a 4-2-40 and if you don't wear a belt, you're not running fast at all because your pants are coming down. You're falling the minute they say, "Huh, huh, huh?" And you've got this incredible God-given talent with so much work and effort put towards that speed and running the ball and advancing it, right? But you just fall down because you never wore a belt. You didn't suit up. All that wasted stuff because you didn't wear the belt. What's the belt? It's the belt of truth. The Bible says in John 1 that Jesus came full of what? Grace, but equally he came full of truth. Jesus would say later in John, "You shall know the truth and the truth will what? Set you free to run. If you can run a spiritual 4-2, it's the truth that's going to allow you to do that. It's the belt of truth. It's knowing truth. It's proclaiming truth. It's waking up every day. And when you're getting that adversary lying to you about you, you don't speak your truth. You speak the truth over yourself. You speak the promises of God. You open this thing up. And if you're newer to Scripture, let me tell you, you should get out a highlighter or pen. And anytime you see an attribute of God or a promise from God, just start highlighting it. It's not your job to prove it or to see how it plays out. It's just your job to get your mind to this when the devils want your mind to get everywhere else in the world. You speak what God says about you. You know what your identity is because of Jesus Christ, not because of you or your performance or your lack thereof, not because of how much you're crushing in life or how much life is crushing you on the best days of life and on the absolute hardest, darkest days of life. One thing that never changes is the Word of God. You are who He says you are. (audience applauding) I gotta hurry, we put on the belt of truth and then the next one I've talked about it already, we put on the breastplate of righteousness, right? King Solomon say, above all else, guard your heart. For out of it flows every issue in life. The breastplate of righteousness, the breastplate was what? Guarding your heart. You are the righteousness of Christ.

And it was a gift freely given to every single one of us and it was to his joy and honor to go to the cross for you to be the righteousness of Christ. Best way to guard your heart is to wake up every day and renew your mind back to what God says you are. Not what you say you are, not what the world says you are, not what your biggest haters says you are. Put on the breastplate of righteousness, have your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. Not gonna say a word about that 'cause that's all next week, right? Says in addition to this, take up the shield of faith, shield of faith, why? So you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. I love this imagery. Bible says without faith it's impossible to please God. Romans 10 says faith now comes from hearing and hearing from the word of God. Take up the shield of faith, open this thing. Not to impress anyone, not to look like a good Christian, not so you can weaponize it against other humans 'cause your battle is not if Paul was right against flesh and blood, it's to open it up so that you can confront principalities and powers and rulers of this dark world. In the unseen heavenly realms. Man, if you do this for just religious reasons it'll get old, it'll get stale. You'll be frustrated, you think I'm not self-disciplined

enough, it's too big and hard of a book. You know, the word of God is alive and active and sharper than any double-edged sword. For all scripture is God breathed second Timothy 3 16 and useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking and training and righteousness so that the man or woman of God would be thoroughly equipped for every good work. Faith is our shield against the flaming arrows of the evil one and faith comes from hearing and hearing comes from the word of God. That's what suiting up practically looks like. Says take the helmet of salvation and then I love it, the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. This is if we're talking football, this is the football. This is the one thing outside of our uniform that actually scores points, that advances us down the field and it comes back to what? Which is the word of God and then he finishes and says and pray in the spirit which is the word of God. Pray in the word of God on all kinds of occasions. Be a praying church. You ever gonna get mad at me? I say this non-stop. When I came here I said I don't know what we're gonna do moving forward but we are by God's grace gonna be a praying church. I don't think prayer is the thing that gets us to the thing. I think prayer is the thing that just simply is the thing. We don't ultimately pray to get God to do what we want him to do.

We pray and it's so powerful because prayer is forming us, right? It's guarding our hearts. It's stirring up affection. It's stirring up expectancy. It's stirring up and rejuvenating and reviving our faith. So he says pray all the time with all kinds of prayers on all kinds of occasions. And he doubles down with this in mind. Be alert and guess what? Always keep on praying for everybody else. When a month back when I said we're calling a pivot and we're not gonna get up and preach, we're gonna have a service that's full of worship and prayer. We're just gonna minister to each other. We're gonna pray for all the saints because I know a bunch of you are walking in here with some madness happening in your life and you deserve to be seen. You deserve to be prayed for. You deserve to be honored in those difficulties. Not judged, not given a bunch of to-dos to get out of it. No, we are gonna pray the power of God to do what only God can do. We're gonna be a church that is gonna believe for miracles. We'll never be able to understand God's sovereign hand. We'll never be able to fully try and formulate out how miracles work or don't. That's a waste of absolute time. But what we will do is say,

God is sovereign, with that comes some mystery. But here's what we're gonna do, obey what we've been told to do and leave the miracle working power up to him. But we will be a church that prays miracles for each other. You guys down for that? (audience applauds) I'm so excited for the next five weeks. We're gonna get in the weeds with this. We're gonna look at five more different things that the locker room or the ecclesia the church is supposed to do. But we had to start here. pray for each other, that this would, like, more than ever as the times get a little bit darker. More than ever, we would be a church of faith. We would be a church that doesn't come and talk about days of old and God's power. We would be a church that is experiencing God's power. It's vulnerable to stand up here and declare that. It's vulnerable to stand up here and say, "This is who we're gonna be," because I can't manipulate or make that happen. But I will quit my job tomorrow if we quit believing that God is through with us or that this is all it is. There is more for us, but we have to be people that come together, that unify, not uniformed, but we unify around the cross. It is the only thing that will make us agree, even in this room, is the cross of Jesus Christ.

We're gonna keep coming back to Him, fixing our eyes on Him, the author and the perfecter of our faith. And I have so much hope (audience applauds) for the miracles, for the breakthroughs, for the change, for the sanctification that God's gonna keep progressively doing this. And here is next week, and I'm just ending with the teaser. We're gonna end pretty bad. Okay. (audience laughs) Here's the teaser for next week. One of the reasons we come here and treat this as a locker room, not the football field, is number one, it's not, but number two, is because you've gotta start in the locker room before you get out on the field. So next week, we're doing evangelism 101. We're gonna talk about going into all the world and preaching the gospel. Actions first, word second. So I'm gonna give you a teaser quote that I'll start with next week, and it's from the late great Mother Teresa herself. I love this. She says this about every single one of us. She says, "You are the pencil in the hand "of a writing God." So please do not miss next week because we are gonna come to the locker room

and we are gonna get fired up to go out into the world and I am going to demystify how easy God has made evangelism. The only thing hard about it is availability. You're gonna see by the time you leave next week that you and I, we all qualify. God isn't looking for ability. He's looking for availability. I better stop or I'm gonna preach my whole sermon. All right, let's go. (audience laughs) Let me pray a blessing over you, all right? God, I pray at every single campus right now. Everyone at the sound of my voice, God that you would bless them today, that you would keep them in the grip of your grace. God, that you would cause your face to shine upon all of us this week. God, in your kindness, would you turn your countenance towards us this week? Would you be radically gracious to every person here and our families, God, our homes? And God, more than anything, I ask that we would all walk out of here with a peace that passes understanding, that guards our hearts and guards our minds. In Christ Jesus, we pray this blessing. And everyone said, - Amen. - Amen, go Texans, go home. Eat some nachos and watch some football. You've earned it.