Ready to Fight

And it's like in social media, it's like bait trying to get us mad, trying to get us to pick fights that at the end of the day do not matter. And Paul, as he comes into this, he's saying, "You're going to fight like Jesus." Jesus had a lot of fights he could have picked and he chose not to. And this first step of fighting with the wisdom, the gentleness, the meekness of Christ is we need to know. But if you have your Bible, go ahead and grab that or your phone. And we're going to be in 2 Corinthians chapter 10. And this morning as we dive into 2 Corinthians, we are coming back into our series ready for harvest, studying through this letter, through this book that we see in the Bible. And if you were with us last week, we kind of stepped out and we we stepped out with the current events that are happening in our world as we see the murder of Charlie Kirk that is being actually celebrated right now in our city uh just over in the Cardinal Stadium and as this that memorial is being happening. And we pray that the gospel we know is being proclaimed in that place. but that we also just the senseless violence that we've seen in our world, the evil that we've seen from school shootings like we saw in Colorado to the death of a young lady in Charlotte. In all this, we kind of stepped down, looked at Romans 12 and say, what does the Bible tell us on how we are to respond to the evil in our world? And what's amazing is as we kind of studied that passage and we saw how God calls us to something that's different than our culture, we come to today and here's what I love. We say in the sovereignty of how God works as we preach through books of the Bible. And this was the passage that we still had on our map for today as we go into 2 Corinthians chapter 10. And it's just so sovereign to what we need for today is Paul is going to write to the church and write to us today is how do we fight and how are we ready to fight the battles that are before us? And when you hear that there's different interpretations of what does it look like to be ready to fight? Some people when you say are you ready to fight, you're getting your gloves on. Maybe you got some old boxing background. You know how to jive and get those hips going a little bit. Maybe you're just stocking up on guns and ready for a zombie apocalypse or World War II, whatever that might look like. Maybe you think that ready to fight and get getting your dictionary out. We don't have those anymore, I know, but ready to be a social media keyboard warrior at this time. But here's what we're going to see is the Bible tells us to fight in different tactics than our worlds. I don't know if you can tell by looking at me, but um I am not a prolific or competitive weightlifter. shocking. That was a loud reaction, Tom. All right, I think the live stream heard that. All right, but it's just not me. All right, I'm brood strength. That ain't my thing. But I do like to be active and play some things. And some things I like to enjoy is pickle ball. And one of the things I like is pickle ball. It doesn't take brute strength. It takes some precision, some skills, some moving the ball, things I'm still not good at, but I think I'm good at. But one of the most humbling experiences of my life was actually our worship pastor Josh and I one time and we did this at our Phoenix campus. We were uh available in the middle of the day. So we're like, "Let's go down to the local rec center and let's play pickle ball." And we played against some 80-year-old ladies who smashed the ball in our face for 45 minutes and I was humiliated as we didn't even take like a point off of them. It was awful. Game after game after game of being beaten down. And I learned very quickly that as they took their walkers outside of that cafeteria, right, that some fights don't take brute strength. Some fights don't take psychological warfare. Some fights don't take the mental fortitude of pushing through. Some fights you have to do in different ways. And today as we come to 2 Corinthians chapter 10, here's what we're going to see that Paul kind of gives us the lens of how to view this passage is, are you ready to fight like Jesus? Are you ready to fight, not like our world says to fight? Are you ready to fight differently, to be in a different aspect? Are you ready to fight like him? And maybe you hear this, you like, I don't know if I'm called to fight the way Jesus fights. I don't know if I can fight those spiritual battles that he does. He seems um to be God. And and I don't know if I'm a super Christian like that. This past Sunday at 6:00 a.m. we do a 6 a.m. prayer group that meets every single week here. And as we were praying for that, then someone after gave me a gift and it said on there, pastor. And then under it says because n or devil stomping ninja warrior isn't a job title. All right. I don't know what that but here's the thing is that's not just a job title for a pastor. It's for all Christians as we fight the spiritual battle and we fight the principalities of darkness. And today Paul as we dive into our text is going to show us exactly how to do that. And it starts in 2 Corinthians chapter 10 starting in verse one. He says this. Now I Paul myself appeal to you by the meekness and the gentleness of Christ. I who am humble among you in person, but bold to you when absent, I beg you that when I am present, I will not need to be bold with a confidence by which I plan to challenge certain people who think that we are living according to the flesh. As we begin into this journey and as we see what kind of fight that Paul is starting to present, the first thing he shows us on this road map of how do we fight like Jesus? Are we ready to fight like him? The first point we see is we need to pick the right battles in our life. We need to pick the right battles. Paul starts with what must what might must be the one of the most important principles in all of spiritual warfare is he shows us off the bat that not every battle is worth fighting. Paul was in a little bit of a disagreement with some of the critics at the church of Corinth and they were claiming that Paul was really bold to him when he would write letters, but they said, "When you we see you in person, you're just you're meek and gentle and you're a nice guy." And in the second half of verse one, he almost says that sarcastically. Paul's kind of taking a little jabs at them. But here's the heart of what Paul is trying to say. He's like, "I don't want this fight to fester." He said, "I want to end this fight here in this letter before I get to you in person. Because when I get to you in person, I want us to rejoice. I want us to be on the mission. I want us to not be quling over things that do not matter." And as his opponents accuse him of being weak in person, but tough in his letter. They were trying to bait him into a fight that Paul was not falling into. But notice what Paul says here. He says he appeals to them out of the meekness and gentleness of Christ. He's saying essentially saying you think meekness is weakness, you are wrong. He says you think gentleness is cowardice, you are wrong. He says let me show you what this Jesus style fighting looks like. And I love this because Paul is trying to pick and end this fight before it ever starts. And here's I think something that we learn from this that Paul is showing us today is some fights are traps. You think about this in our world today is our world is full of trapping us to get into fights that just do not matter. We do this inside of the church as we fight over secondary issues instead of things that are primary. Sometimes we want to spend all our time and I can say this cuz we're not preaching through Revelation at least for the next year. So I can say this and push this down, right? But we want to talk about how the world is going to end instead of focusing on peoples whose world is ending every day and making sure that they know Jesus Christ. We want to fight about things that we think this theology matters. This sort of and we're not even preaching the gospel as people are dying and going to hell apart from him. And Paul is like, you got to pick the right battles. You got to focus on what matters. You go on social media right now and and it's just a hot mess of crazy, right? And you ever read a comment and be like, "Nobody's that stupid to say that and post it online." And you've thought that before. All right? And if you haven't thought that before, maybe you've wrote the message and other people have thought that about you. All right? But there's times when people say things and I'm like, why would they post that online? They're just trying to make people mad. And they are. It's funny. There's actually this Tom Hardy little meme that from him when he said Mad Max and he's pointing up at the comment and the line is that's bait. They are trying to bait people in to having these fights and sometimes they're real people. You you'll think I'm a conspiracy theorist, but I think it's actually been proven true. or it's just a Russian and Chinese bot trying to make us all mad and eat each other, right? And it's like in social media, it's all these comments. It's like bait trying to get us mad, trying to get us angry, trying us to pick fights that at the end of the day do not matter. And Paul, as he comes into this, he's saying, "You going to fight like Jesus?" Jesus had a lot of fights he could have picked and he chose not to. And this first step of fighting like with the wisdom, the gentleness, the meekness of Christ is we need to know what fights to pick. But he doesn't stop there. He continues in verse three. He says, "For although we live in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh." He said, "This is not a physical war." And I love this. He says, "Since the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, they are not physical, but they are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds." As Paul continues on this, he says, "Not only do we need to pick the right fight, but we need to use the right weapons." He starts this and this is just I I love this. This is just like a gamecher here. He's saying although we live in the flesh, we don't fight the same way that our world fights. So, we're physically here. We don't necessarily fight in physical things. And and what his shift here that he's moving towards is he's telling us is that we don't fight like the world fights. that the world fights with political power, with social pressure, with economic leverage, with personal attacks, with cancel culture, with manipulation, with intimidation. But Paul says our weapons are different. Paul says the way we fight is not the same. And he describes them. He says there are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. Now, it begs the question of what kind of weapons is he talking about? And let me give you three quick weapons. This is a sub point under the second point. So it don't don't worry. I'm only preaching for an hour today. So just get comfortable in this. But but let me give you just three little weapons that I think he gives us under this. The first one we see in the second half of verse four. He says, you know, these weapons are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. But I I love how this little line. He says, "We demolish arguments." We demolish arguments. Here's the weapon that we have available to us today that we use to defeat evil and push back the spiritual forces of our world today is we use apologetics. Now, you hear that word apologetics and maybe you don't know what that means or maybe that's different to you. This idea of apologetics, but here's what that is. It is the religious discipline of systematically defending religious doctrine through reason, arguments, and discourse. It is making a logical argument to why God is supreme, why God is the one true God, why Jesus is God. It's using our words and our logic and our arguments to make a path to Jesus. And and here's the thing is apologetics is not about winning debates. It's not about showing off how smart we are. It's about, as Paul says, demolishing false ideas that keep people from knowing God. Now, I love actually the word demolish that is used here. If you go into the Greek language is the same word that's used for tearing down a building. And what Paul is saying is that false worldviews, lies about God, deceptive philosophies, they're not just inconvenient. He says they're destructive. And he says our job is not to tolerate them. Our job is not to compromise with them. Our job is to dismantle them, demolish them with truth. And and every time, here's the thing. As we share the gospel with a coworker, we're using this weapon. Every time we give a reasoned defense of our faith, we're using this weapon. Every time we lovingly correct false teaching, we're using this weapon. And I love this because I think a lot of times you're like, I I don't know all the answers. Like people ask me answers from the you like they ask me questions about God or questions about the Bible and I and I don't know if I can answer everything. And here's what I I want you to hear. A couple things is first is you will never be able to argue Jesus into someone's heart. You can't do that. They need that heart level movement in them for them to accept Christ. They'll never be able to argue yourself into their heart, but you can explain away the hesitations they have. And not only has God probably equipped you more than you know to be able to do that, but also I would argue that we live in a golden age of apologetics. We have access to information like we never have before. And some of that is bad information, but some of that is amazing and great information. Some of the apologists we have today, you have guys like Wesley Huff. Uh he's just a Canadian uh buffer, less good-looking version of myself. All right, Google Google him and you'll agree. All right, but but Wesley Huff reads the original languages of scripture and dissects them and shows how this is the preserved word of God that we have in English today that's been traced throughout history and he does an amazing job of it. You have guys like Steven Meyer who from a scientific perspective is able to show God through science, who picks apart theories, who shows things and how God truly created and there's intelligent design behind everything. You have guys like Tom Holland, not Spider-Man, all right, not the actor, different Tom Holland. Um, and and he's not even a Christian, but he talks about how history has been shaped and formed by Christianity unlike any other religion. And you have so many more guys online we have access to that are showing why our God holds up. And you see you don't need to know all the answers but there is power when we can point people to those answers and have access like never before. But Paul keeps going in verse 5. He says not only do we demolish arguments but he says also in every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God and we take every thought captive to obey Christ. That was an amen. All right, there. I'll take it. We not only have the weapon of apologetics, we also have the weapon of discipline. And and in this Paul, he says we take every thought captive to obey Christ. That he says this weapon is aimed inward instead of outward before we can demolish strongholds in the world. We have to deal with strongholds in our own minds. You you think about this is is how many times have we made the mistake or how many times can Christians make the mistake where we are trying to fight spiritual battles while our own life is a mess that we're trying to demolish arguments against God even though we're believing lies ourselves that we're trying to take territory for the kingdom when we haven't even taken every thought captive of our own mind and this is why Paul spent so much time in the beginning half of 2 Corinthians talking about how we need to be rooted in holiness how we need to pursue Jesus how our life needs to be pushing towards him. Because if not, we're fighting from a compromised position. And here's what that means is when we talk about practically, how do we take our thoughts captive? Is when anxiety tries to dominate your mind, you capture it with God's promises. Anxiety says, "I don't know the answers. I can't know the answers." The Bible says, "Here are the answers. Here's what God has for you in your life." When we talk about bitterness that tries to take root in us, you capture it with forgiveness. Instead of letting it fester and destroy your relationships, you forgive people freely. And you see how God restores. When lust tries to control you, you capture with purity and accountability that God has given us through his word and his church. When pride tries to exalt itself, you capture it with humility. Paul is saying this idea of this discipline, it is a weapon we use in this spiritual warfare. And then he finish this section off in verse six. He says, "And we are ready to punish any disobedience once your obedience is complete." The last weapon we use, we use apologetics, discipline, but we also use sanctification. And he says this, that said, we are ready to punish this disobedience once your obedience is complete. Paul here, he's talking about church discipline, but the principle is broader. As the church becomes more obedient to Christ, it gains authority to then address disobedience lovingly with one another. And this is why both personal holiness and corporate holiness in this process of sanctification which is a big word of saying becoming more holy, becoming more like Jesus that as we take that road all of a sudden we start living lives of integrity and our words start carrying weight. All of a sudden the church demonstrates the transforming power of the gospel and we earn the right to speak into our culture. Think about this for example is sometimes I think we want to share Jesus with people but if our lives look like a mess I don't think they want anything to do with the Jesus we have like bro you're just as depressed as me bro your kids are just as messed up as mine bro your marriage is just as crazy as mine and if that is our lives then lost people who are far from Christ will look at us and say why do I follow your Jesus if your life is such a mess and and here's what there's a balance here because if you're like man my life is a mess now I feel really bad. It's right. It's okay. Like that's why it's a process of sanctification. We still live messy lives, but we also have hope. We point to I say like, "Hey, I might be in a rough patch, but this is why I have this God. I have this Jesus that I'm not depressed and going in a hole and burying myself because there is hope of something greater." And when our world sees something that is real and that is that they can see that is transparent but also has a hope in something greater all of a sudden there's this attractional nature of I want to know that God and you see all of this these are weapons that have divine power and this is important because this is not political maneuvering this is not social media outrage this is not boycott and protest those might have places in our world but our primary weapons as the church are spiritual And they are devastatingly effective when they are used properly. But using the right weapons means we also have to be the right people. Keep going. In verse 7, he says, "Look at what is obvious. If anyone is confident that he belongs to Christ, let him remind himself of this. As just as he belongs to Christ, so do we. For if we boast a little too much about our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not tearing you down, I will not be put to shame. I don't want to seem as though I am trying to terrify you with my letters. Paul's being a little sarcastic here. He says, and he addresses their concern in verse 10. For his set, his letters are weighty and powerful, but his physical presence is weak and his public speaking amounts to nothing. He says, "Let such person consider this. What we are in our letters when we are absent, we will also be in our actions when we are present." You see, Paul, he's saying, "How do we how do we know we're ready to fight like Jesus? We need to pick the right battles. We need to use the right weapons." But then he says, "We need to be the right person. We need to be the right person." Paul here, he he's saying to them, he's kind of starting to poke the bear a little bit. He's starting to address the question of his authority. There is some critics in the church at Corenth where they were questioning whether Paul had the right to lead them where he had the right to correct them to make kind of demands of them and kind to move their church in a direction. But Paul says here he's his authority didn't come from his personality. It didn't come from his credentials, even success. He says his authority comes from Christ and Christ alone. And here's what's so fascinating about this is Paul, he doesn't defend his authority by propping himself up. He could have easily done that. He could have been like, "Look, guys, I've started more churches than you can imagine, guys. I've led more to Christ than you can imagine. Guys, I've preached bigger sermons, guys. I've wrote that." He's like, "I'm I've wrote most the New Testament." He's like, "You guys," he's like, "Don't talk to me. I know what I'm talking about." He didn't do any of that. Instead, he said, "I have authority because Christ is flowing through me, not because of who I am." And what Paul shows us, this is an important principle, is that we fight from our identity, not for our identity. Here's what that means is I think too often we can fall into this trap as Christians and as non-Christians is we are fighting to prove who we are instead of fighting from who we already are. As a Christian, it's not you're not fighting to prove you're a Christian. You are a Christian now. You're fighting within that power. Here's what Paul knew. Paul knew he was an apostle chosen by God. He knew he was a servant of Christ. He knew he was a beloved child of the father. When you know who you are, you don't have to prove it to anyone else. If you are a follower of Jesus, if you are a Christian, if that's what you claim, who you find your identity and these are things the Bible tells us about ourselves is first it tells us that we are a sealed believer by the Holy Spirit. That if you've said yes to Jesus, the Holy Spirit has sealed your salvation. Has said you are saved. No longer are you bound by your sins and one day you will spend eternity in heaven. But not only that, it also tells us we are a soldier of Christ. That you are the demon stomping ninja, right? That you can put you put that on your resume, see how that works out. U put out some job applications. I don't know how it goes. But it's like you are a soldier of Christ. You are part of this church, this army, this family to do the will of God. But it also tells us we are a child of God the father. Paul is saying he's fighting from his identity, not for his identity. But notice how he shifts in verse 8. He says, "For if I boast a little too much about our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for tearing you down, I will be not put I will not be put to shame." What Paul is saying is when we are the right person in this battle is the right person fights to build up, not to tear down. Paul wasn't given this authority so he could crush the church at Corenth. Not so he could show how he was smarter than them. Not so he could put them in their place and and let them feel little. He was there to build that church up. And you think about this for a second. This is so different from how authority works in our world today. Is politicians use authority to gain power. Celebrities use influence to get attention. But Paul used authority and influence to serve the people around him. And he concludes this in verse 10 and 11 where he's addressing this idea that he is weak in p or weak in person but strong in letters and he kind of answers his critics who was saying that he was all talking no action that he was tough in letters but weak in person what he's saying in these end he says consider this that when we are absent as we are in our letters we will also be in our actions when we are present Paul said you want to know what I'm going to look like in person he's like I'm going to look exactly in person like I look in my letters. Paul's like, "My profile picture matches my life." He's like, "What you see on social media is the same thing you're going to see in person." This is something we strive for in our staff and we get compliments on or maybe negativity. I don't know, probably a little bit of both. But what you see on stage is the same person you're going to see in the lobby, is the same person you're going to see at Starbucks or Black Rockck. Same person you're going to see in my house. Same person you're going to see in my neighborhood. And that is probably obnoxious, talks fast, and a little crazy. Okay. But there is authenticity. There is consistency about that. We're going to show you we're broken as our staff, in our church, in our leadership because we're not trying to hide everything. And and Paul here is saying, I am the same when I am bringing you the word of God as I'm there when I'm crying in the trenches. And for us, when we look at that, are is that how our lives look? Are we the same person in the workplace, on social media, in our home, as we are at church? Are we the same no matter where we go? And they're like, "That's the same person I saw the other day, or are we different when we're in these different areas?" And Paul shows us that consistency of our character, of who we are, is crucial for having spiritual authority to be able to fight these battles. And this leads to our final point in chapter 12 as Paul begins to kind of get in this late section of here. He says,"For we don't classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves, but in measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves to themselves, they lack understanding." Read that one like five times really fast and your head will explode. All right? Um I promise it makes sense. You got to go through it a little slower. But he continues, "We however will not boast beyond measure, but according to the measure of the area of ministry that God has assigned to us, which reaches even to you, for we are not overextending ourselves if we had not reached you, since we have come to you with the gospel of Christ. We are not boasting beyond measure about other people's labors. On the contrary, we have the hope that as your faith increases, our area of ministry will be greatly enlarged so that we might preach the gospel to the regions beyond you without boasting about what has already been done in someone else's area of ministry. As Paul asks us this question and really frames this through this passage, are we ready to fight like Jesus? Do we have are we picking the right battles? Are we using the right weapons? Are we being the right person? He kind of ends this with, "Do we live the right motives?" Here's what Paul is getting to in the heart of this issue. And he's talking about the the critics and they were measuring themselves to other people. They're comparing themselves to other people in the church, to other churches in their region, and they're seeing, "Does my life stack up to their life? Am I ahead of them? I'm a little more spiritually mature. I'm smarter. I'm this." And they were comparing. And when Paul said that, he's like, "You're lacking understanding." He he's getting to the heart of the issue. He says, "You're playing this comparison game. You're constantly measuring yourself up against others. You're boasting about your own achievements. You're competing for status." And he says, "This whole thing doesn't make sense cuz you have the wrong motive in your heart." And he tells us the wrong motive is when we are fighting for human approval. When your motive is to impress other people and to win arguments, to gain status or to prove you're right, you're fighting the wrong fight with the wrong weapons for the wrong people. Paul says in verse 13 and 16, he says, "We however will not be boast beyond the measure but according to the measure of the area of ministry that God has assigned us." He's saying, "Hey, God gave me this ministry to love." He's like, "And I'm going to be faithful for it." He's like, "The wrong motive would be to fight to impress you." But then he tells the right motive and the right motive is fighting in God's assignment. You see, Paul understood his calling. God had assigned him to reach the Gentiles, to plant churches, to write letters that would later become scripture in our New Testament is he wasn't trying to be someone he was not. You think about this for example. This is such a freeing message for us cuz maybe sometimes you compare to other people in the church or you compare to other people on social media and you're like, I'm not them. I don't have that reach. I don't have this. I can't say that. And if it's on social media, just know it's all fake. None of it's real anyway. Okay? So, you don't have nothing to be feel bad about when you're comparing. But we see things and we compare ourselves others be like, "Well, I'm not this." And God's like, "I'm not asking you to be that. I'm asking you to be the best form of you, the most faithful form of you in the area I have given you." Everyone in this room is not called to full-time ministry, but everyone is called to do the ministry of the kingdom of God. And maybe you're in a workplace where you're surrounded by lost people. Where you get to openly share the gospel. You get to proclaim what is in your heart. That the reason you do the things is for Jesus Christ. And you get to make an impact that nobody else is making cuz that is your sphere of influence. That God has assigned you. God has called you. God has moved you in the place you are. And the right motive that he's showing us here is that we are focusing on that and not focusing on the other stuff of our life. And he brings all this to an end in these last two verses in verse 17. He says, "So then," so so all of this I've told you. He's like, "Let the one who boasts boasts in the Lord." You're going to have this fight. You're going to make sure you're focused on the right thing, but the one who is boasting, you need to boast in the Lord. Verse 18, he says, "For is not the one commending himself who is approved, but the one the Lord commends." As Paul is wrapping this up, as he's showing how do we fight like Jesus? How do we make sure we're picking the right fights? How do we make sure we're using the right weapons? How do we make sure that we're being the right people and doing this all for the right motives? Paul is moving us down this direction. that in a world that is telling us to fight in their ways that when we come up against a vision like we have right now where everyone is mad, everyone is angry, and it's expecting of how do we meet violence with violence? How do we meet vitriol with vitrial? How do how do we met hatred with hatred? Paul's like, don't do any of that. But instead of fighting for the approval of all those people out, here's how he's summarizing our response today through this chapter. And here's our key response. If you don't hear anything else, hear this about how we live out is we fight for the not for the approval of our Lord or our land. I'm sorry I messed that up, right? We fight not for the approval of our land, but we fight for the approval of our Lord. That Paul is saying, I know you're trying to impress people. I I know you're focused on the things of what is this person inside my church going to think? What is this person in my community going to think? What is this person outside of that going to think? and you're trying to play the political game of the day. And Paul is like, just run away from all of that. He's like, who cares about impressing the people around you if you're not impressing your father in heaven? He says, who cares about playing the games of the world if you're not fighting the way that Jesus has called you to fight? He says, if you're boasting, boast in the Lord. If you're being commended, commend by God. And this is the ultimate test of whether we're fighting like Jesus is whose approval are we seeking. I think right now we live in a time of history when there is immense pressure to choose a side. There is immense pressure to say, "Here's my tribe. Here's what I'm going with. Here's the post I need to repost right now. Here's the line I need to say. here's the stuff that I need to put out so that certain people will give me my approval will say that is what you need to hear in Paul is saying don't have any of that put it through the filter of whose approval are you seeking are you seeking the approval of God in heaven or the approval of the people who are here and gone tomorrow of the principalities the evil in our world that is trying to twist us that is trying to conform us to what they want instead of what God has called us to. And Paul is saying, don't play the games of the worlds, but fight like Jesus fought. And we see this throughout the life of Jesus. You talk about picking fights. Jesus had so many fights that he could have fought while he was here on earth. Satan took him to the desert and tempted him over and over and over again. And and Jesus could have called down an army of angels. He literally told him, but he's like, "This isn't the fight I'm picking yet. I got a bigger war I'm waging." When we talk about how Jesus fought, Jesus had at his disposal to be like, "Smite you, smite you, smite you. I didn't like that. You're a sinner." Boom. He didn't do any of that. Instead, he loved us. He pursued us. He taught us. He healed. He showed what restoration in the gospel looked like. We talk about being the right person that Jesus's identity, he didn't prove that he was the son of man and feel like he had to show us. Instead, when they were asking for signs, he's like, "I don't need to show you a sign." He's like, "I am God. You'll see it eventually." He's like, "But I'm not playing your games right now." And when we see ultimately the motive he did all this for was for the glory of God. How he took the ultimate symbol, the ultimate weapon of weakness that the Romans used in the cross and he flipped it upside down. I'm going to say, I'm going to make this a symbol for hope throughout the rest of history. I'm going to use the weapon of despair and hopelessness, and I'm going to show you how I'm going to change people's lives for all of eternity. Jesus fought the ultimate war, took on the shame of our sin, the shame of our world. He bore it on the cross, but he did not stay dead. He rose again to show us the victory is already won. And when we fight in that battle, the one we know how is going to end, we don't fight by division, by hatred, by anger. We don't fight the way our world fights. Instead, we fight for the approval of our Lord. We fight to be commended by the God who saved us. This past weekend, my wife went up north to a conference and women from all churches all over our state gathered together and they had a great time. But at home, she left me with four kids. soccer practice, school, soccer game yesterday, doing all this, making sure they eat and are alive. Um, all that was it was a really good couple days. I made it. But one of my favorite moments was my four-year-old Arlo got hurt. And when he got hurt, he ran to me. He wanted me to agree that his older siblings were jerks and hurt him. And I think he was faking it. But as he's crying in me and I'm kind of holding on, dude, it's all right. Come on. We'll get we'll get through this. My one and a half-year-old Alice came and she was jealous cuz she wasn't getting the attention and the approval from dad in that moment. So, she started pulling his hair, wanted to gouge out his eyes. And I'm like trying to separate both of them while trying to love both of them. And and I see saw that I had some limitations there. But what I saw in her eyes was this desire for the attention, for the approval, for the loving embrace of her father. And she was going to fight whatever she had to do to get there. Church, we don't have to claw anyone's eyes out to get to our father in heaven. But do we have that same passion righteously of fighting for the approval and the attention and the love of our father? And here's the great thing is he offers it freely. His arms are open wide. And when we're going through a time that feels so dark, that feels so messy, that feels so confusing, are we ready to put away the tactics of the world, to put aside the emotions how our world wants us to fight? And are we ready to embrace the approval? Are you ready to fight with the weapons that God has given us to be able to get more like Jesus and to be able to make Jesus known to the world around us? My prayer is that we get to sing in the victory of God, but that we get to leave knowing the war is won, but the battle for the lives are still out there. And as believers that we seize this moment, not to be of the world, but to be in the world, to be making Jesus known, to be sharing the gospel, to be seeing lives changed, to be seeing communities transformed, to be cities opened up, to see nations changed, not because of the tactics of our world, but because of the spiritual kingdom that God has established throughout history that is coming greater in our world and that we get to just be a sliver and a part of this greater picture. Church, are you ready to fight for the approval of your father? [Music]