How to Fight Spiritual Battles You Can't See | Lakepointe Church | Pastor Jonathan Pokluda

Josh Howerton (0:00)

Hey guys, thanks for checking out This Bible Teaching. Every week we release a podcast that corresponds to the sermon. It's like a little bit of a deeper dive, where we hit some things that didn't make it into the sermon, some theological concepts. We talk about things that are going on in our culture and how to think about them from a biblical perspective. We call that podcast Live Free, an episode releases every Monday that corresponds to the sermon. If you would like to check out Live Free, just go to the Lakepointe YouTube channel and look for the podcast tab there. We'll see you at Live Free. Now, enjoy this Bible teaching.

Jonathan Pokluda (0:33)

Lakepointe, how are we? So good to be home with you. It feels like home. It feels like home. As he said, as Pastor Josh said, I was here in Dallas, and when we were here, I was serving young adults, and we would bring some of them into our home. They would live with us for a season. We would disciple young men. I would disciple young men. And there was one particular individual that moved here from New York City. He was a fireman there in New York City during 9-11. And I was so excited about just getting to know him, his newer believer, and was going to invest in him. And there was so much of his identity wrapped around that career. He had the FDNY vanity plates on his car, and he had this gnarly tattoo. It was like a big shield said FDNY, and these flames coming up over his arm, and he had the fireman helmet and ax. And my kids were younger at the time. They would walk around the house in his yellow helmet, and had his fireman coat, and they'd drag him behind, and they would just walk around the house. And I would be inspired by the stories that he would tell. I asked him specifically about 9-11, like what was it like to be there? And he shared just some heroic stories. And I said, hey, would you write a devotional? Like from the Bible, a devotional will publish this. On the internet, people could read it and be encouraged. So he wrote this really powerful devo about what it was like to be a fireman during 9-11. And as we posted that on the internet, the fire department of New York City reached out to me and said, hey, that guy was never one of us.

And I thought, wait, what do you mean? And they said, man, we've checked every roster, every name we have, he was not one of us.

And my mind runs to, and not much surprises me, done ministry, I'd done ministry for a decade. I mean, I felt like I had seen everything, but I just thought the great links that he went to to show that he was from the fire department of New York City, he had a tattoo, you know, he had the license plates, he had the uniform, had all of the things. And yet, if he had to fight a fire, he would be no better equipped to do so than I am. He is not prepared to come against the fire. He's pretending he is acting. And I wonder how many people in the church are in a similar place. Like we say, hey, we believe we're in the spiritual war. We believe there's demons and fallen angels, and Satan is real, and he's here, and he's a tempter, and he seeks to still kill and destroy. And we're walking. We're in the Lord's army. I will never, you know, but I'm in the Lord's army. Yes, sir. But we're not really ready for warfare.

And we're getting our lunch eaten in the spiritual war. And the reason I'm so passionate about this is because I grew up in the church. I went to church every Friday and every Sunday. I went to church school. I'd get out of one church and go to another church. I went to Baptist Youth Group on every Wednesday night. I went to Dawson McAllister and the church retreats and the conferences and church camps. And yet I didn't have a real relationship with Jesus Christ. I knew when to raise my hand at the songs. I knew the lyrics and I memorized some scriptures. But I was losing in the spiritual war because the Holy Spirit was not living inside of me, alive and active.

And I want you to know that the risk, the danger of pretending to be a follower of Christ, but not actually having a real relationship with him in the spiritual war is deadly. And I don't want you to leave here afraid, but I do want you to leave here aware that you would know how to live as a real Christian, a real Christ follower in warfare, that you would understand the battle. There's a story. I'm going to be in Ephesians chapter 6 This is the spiritual armor chapter, if you want to turn there, but I'm going to start in Acts 19 because there's this story where the author of Ephesians 6, about 10 years prior to him penning this letter to the church in Ephesus, is he's doing powerful ministry. He's a fresh convert, Saul to Paul. Even as he walks, his shadows or people are getting healed, that they touched his shadows, or a handkerchief that he's touched. And then there's these seven brothers, and their dad's a Jewish priest named Skiba. And they go out, they kind of fancy themselves as exorcists. They see people get demons cast out of them, and they're like, you know what, we can do that. And then these seven brothers go to this man who's possessed by a demon. And they say, in the name of Jesus, who Paul talks about, come out.