Making Hard Decisions - Asking For A Friend Part 1

0:00 Well, good morning and welcome to Real Life Church. It is so good to see your smiling faces out in the crowd today. We're so pumped just to worship God with you today. Well, hey, if you're with us here in person, active. Tech and thrill Or maybe you're joining us online today. Just go ahead and stand your feet. We're going to worship God Big Together today. You give life an eternal spark. I call you healer because you can mend any broken heart. I call you faithful father. You finish everything you start.

0:47 My soul is made to respond. No. You'll buy a. Falls in there, and you deserve every single one giving me a million ways. So you amazed you what you've done in life falls in wonder. I don't leave. You know you'll buy it. Falls in there. And I say I'm back to you. You deserve the highest starter. Your love is bounded beyond what I could drink, your craziest pictures and you never give it up on me. I call you bondage trader because you're handing out the prison keys.

1:52 My soul. So be free to pay the free tomorrow. Know you'll buy 1000. Eggs deserve every single one. Giving me a million away to give you answer what you've done, honey. God's in wonder at all. You know you'll buy 1000. Sing all back. Sing all back.

2:37 Sing all back. Sing all back. I came forever, the beginning and the end, while Lord answered it, the sign of a man, the line of the Tudor wrote. The reason that the second had to lead us all.

3:20 Why always glory? Feeling. Fishing. Boom. What? Ocean? Carter Who? Who may go away? Watch it. GPA say Mom and Gray walk on the see while we chill. You are Jesus, my child. No one should die. Know you'll buy its mouth. In it you disturb every single one.

4:05 Giving me a million ways. I'm the lazy way You've done mine. Know you'll buy its mouth in here. Disturb every single one Given me a meal away. The men do what you've done. And I am lost in one day. And I'll be tea. Don't you buy 1000 hay and I'll sing on bed to you. Sing on my back. Sing on my back.

4:58 Amen. You've got some praise. You see all those? Names of God listed out. It's incredible that we barely. Touch such a small piece of all of who God is. But when I look at that list, the name that means the most to me sometimes is that Emmanuel, that God with us, and that God promises that no matter what we're walking through or we're going through, that he is going to be there with us right beside it. He is a close God. So we're going to continue to lift up that no matter what you're going through today, God's with you and he loves. You because there's a grace when the heart is undefined, another way when the walls are close, and then when I look at the space between where I used to be and this reckoning. I know I will never be.

5:54 There was another in the fire standing next to me. There was another in the waters holding back the seas, should I ever need reminding. How I bet separate there's across that there's a burden where another died for me, there is another in the fire. My dad let me leave the waters cause I'm no longer a slave to my sin anymore.

6:53 And should I pull in the space between what remains of me and this reckoning? Either way I will bound to the things of this world. I know and I know I will never be alone. Be another in the fire standing next to me. There is another in the waters holding back the seas. And should I ever meet, reminding the power set me free. There is a grave that holds nobody. And now the power lives in me.

7:43 There is a never in the fire, fire, fire. There is a never in the fire. There is a never in the fire. And I can see the light in the darkness, and the darkness bows to him. I can hear the word in the Heather and the space we wish them.

8:27 I can feel the glow shake the deepness, and the Prince and walls hate it. Another temperature. There is no other name but the name that is Jesus and he who was and still is and will. Be through it all, so come what may and. Space between all the things and scene and this reckoning, because I know I will never be alone. Because I know I know I will never be alone, Will be another in a fire that's to me.

9:37 Go be another. We're in the waters holding back the seas. And should I happen to be back my day How good you been to me. I'll count the joy come every battle because I know that's way over here. And I can see. I can see the light in the darkness. How the darkness bounces. I can hear the. In the heavens of the face between us and I can feel the ground shaking beneath us.

10:17 And the Prince and walls came in. Nothing's in between us. Nothing's in between But be in lover in the fire. The scarling looks to me But be in lover in the water. Holding back the scene. Should I play with my day? Hope you do better tonight. Or count the joy. Come every battle. There's no That's where you'll be. Count the joy from every battle. Count the joy from every battle.

11:09 Battle count the joy come every battle. Count the joy come every battle. Because I know that's where you'll be. Just how comforting. It is to be able to say that. Then there's another in the fire standing next to you and things are rough and crazy and maybe you just don't know where to turn and God is with. You always He is right there, right beside you and this next song available, and there's just nothing more humbling and fulfilling than saying yes. To God, your hands open wide, your heart open wide, just as a willing vessel to be.

11:53 Used by him. I mean, there's no higher calling than just being open and available to letting God use your life. There is a road may seem I'll follow away your spirit leads. As my life may be, I will give you every piece and I you call, I am available and I say.

12:50 Kiss the Lord. I am available. I am with open hands, counting on your grace again. Listen, me and boy of you. I just want to see you move while here you call. I am a baby boy.

13:38 I say yes, alone I am. The bull I hear you call, I am available, I say Yes, the Lord, I am available.

14:24 My hands are open wide too. My heart is open wide. Come, do whatever you want to. Here I am. Here I am. You can have it all. You can have it all. Here I am. Here I am. You can have it all. You can have it all. Here I am.

15:05 Here I am. You can have it all. You can have it all. Here I am. You can have it all. You can have it all. You can have it all. You can have it all. You can have it all. You can have it all.

15:54 That the sound of true is in the room by sayings to you. You're the one who gave me life. Nothing is a sacrifice. So use me how you want to guide. Have you thrown within my heart?

16:41 I hear you. I hear. You call, I am available, and I say, yes, the Lord I am available and I hear you call I am. A visible. Here I am.

17:49 Here I am. You can have it all. You can have it all. Here I am. Here I am. You can have it all. You can have it all. All right, man, let's give it up for a big God this morning and let that just be the cry of our heart this morning, that we can just lay our lives down to him. That could be a scary thing. But, man, that we can just surrender to his will less of him or less of us and way, way more of him. I hope that's the cry of our hearts today. It's an honor to be with you this morning. It's so great just to worship together as a group of believers.

18:43 And before we keep this thing rocking and rolling today, can we take a moment and can we recognize an awesome group of people hanging out with us today called Real Life online? So I'm wondering, can they hear you this morning? Can we make them feel welcome? That's that's what's up. Yeah. We're glad you're here real life online. And we're equally glad that you're here in the room. So I want you to take about 30 seconds and greet someone around you, maybe even learn a name really quick Connect. 30 seconds. Then you can have a seat. Go for it. Awesome.

19:25 Love watching you all connect out here in the room today. Well, hey, we are honored and excited to spend our Sunday morning with you right here at Real Life Church. Want to welcome anyone. That's brand new in the room today. If you're a first time guest, welcome to Real Life Church. I have a step for you. I would love for you to take on your seat. Maybe you're sitting on it, hopefully not. Probably on the ground in front of you you'll see a long card and a pen. That's our connect card and I would just love to invite you right now while I'm talking. Go ahead and grab that. Man, I want you just to fill out as much information as you're comfortable filling out. Here's what we would love to do. We'd love to connect with you this week. Nothing weird.

20:08 No one's showing up at your door. Want to mail you something and want to just send you a message of encouragement this week to check in with you. So go and fill that out. You actually drop that in the bucket at the end of The Gathering today, so fill it out now. Hang on to it there till the end and everyone else in the room, I invite you to also pick that up. This is an all skate moment because even if you call real life home, even if you serve on the dream team, you've been here a long time. If you're not brand new, there's still so many things on there we would love for you to fill out on that card. Like your prayer request. Want to celebrate some praises that are going on in your life? We don't want anyone at the end just to throw in throwing a card in the bucket all by themselves. So kind of weird to single out.

20:51 So we're all going to do it. So go ahead and do that. This morning. We would love to just celebrate with you. Pray over those cards this week here at Real Life Church a little bit more about us. We are at church on a mission. That mission is to see people far from God discover their real life and purpose in Jesus. Why is that our mission? Because souls matter to God. That's what it's all about. People matter. Souls matter, and that's why we exist, is to bring Jesus to people. So we invite you. If you're currently not on mission at a church anywhere, or you've been hanging out with us and you're not on mission with us just yet, we invite you to join us side by side. We would love to serve side by side with you on mission.

21:35 God's done an amazing, amazing job this year through real life and it and it years not even close to being over with. We're excited to see what happens here on this home stretch show. We'd love for you to partner with us. There's some cool ways you can do that you'll hear about coming up later. Man, I'm excited because this week we're going to kick off a brand new series called Asking for a Friend. There's so many questions that we have like real personal questions, kind of hard to ask out loud, really to be vulnerable and talk to people about. And so this series is going to try to tackle some of those questions we might be too nervous to ask and really answer them in a a Christ centered way, a meaningful way, a practical way, full of grace, but also full of truth.

22:20 And so I'm excited we get to welcome a special guest to kick this off. So I want you to give a big real life welcome to our very own Barry Hardy as he leads us in asking for a friend. Bring us to the throne, Barry. Don't you guys love Drew? Give it up for Drew. Here's what I know about Drew. He always dresses for success. I love your shirts. I know your wife doesn't always appreciate him, Holly. Is that right? But I love how you how you just present yourself. That's right. You know what I also love about Drew? Drew's got a big heart, and he's emblematic of so many of you guys here. So I'd love listening to you guys worship. Isn't it a great day to be in God's house?

23:01 You guys excited? We have another praise. Our mission team made it back from Columbia all in one piece. And that's good, because half of them were my family and I almost. I almost died. We ran out of macaroni and cheese. I didn't know what to do. We were me, me, and Bree. We were. We were on our last or last. Life support, right? So I want to invite you guys back next week. We're going to hit a pause. I know we're launching the series today, but we're going to hit a pause next week just to hear what the mission team experienced. I know that God really moved. They saw some awesome things they were able to minister and they were ministered too as well. And I'm excited to hear just the whole breath of what God did in that trip and how you guys invested in them to send them out. So be ready to come back next week and just hear those awesome stories so as we kick off today.

23:53 Asking for a friend. Have you guys ever asked that question that you were too embarrassed to ask, you didn't know the answer to? And so you're like, I've got this friend Drew, and he's got this issue right. And I love you, Drew. I appreciate you sitting up here. We all have those, right? We have those questions that if I were to verbalize it, that person would judge me. I would have condemnation. I'd have guilt. I'd have shame. Well, I'm too embarrassed. I, you know, you ever hear the, the, the sayings? Like there's no such thing as a dumb question. I really believe that because if you don't know, you might as well ask. It's better to be thought a fool than to act like one. I want to know what I don't know.

24:35 And so when we're talking about asking for a friend, these are the questions that we're going to lean into. These aren't easy questions. They're not. They're not ones that often are dealt with because they're so sensitive. And they're the ones that, especially in church, we don't want to bring up because we know or we think we know the answers to them already and we don't want to hear anything that's going to go against what I already believe. What I have are already hold. And so that's why this idea of asking for a friend is so important. And once you guys know something else, this isn't a wingtip church. We wear steel toes around here, right? There's too many collapse for that one.

25:15 I don't know. We step on each other's toes, but we do. And the reason, as Drew said, it's not because there's any condemnation here. There's no judgment. We want the best for you and we don't hold just. I hold myself accountable. I'm wearing these steel toes because I don't want you guys to step on my toes when I need it as well. So as we go through these questions, I want you guys to keep in mind that there's a vision for where we're going and we're going to spend the majority of our time today on laying out that vision that call in our life. And at the end, we're going to ask one question, and I'm not going to be able to do it justice, but we're going to spend just a little time going through that one question. But before we get there, I want to lay this out for you because I want you guys to have a heart for what we see as leadership here at real life. Because if I just jump into this and start answering questions, I'm going to be, I'm going to be messing some of you guys' Cheerios up.

26:05 You know what I'm talking about. I'm going to upset some people, and I may upset some people here anyway. And again, that that's okay. We can have disagreements, but I want you to know what we're going to bring to you. It's not. What Pastor Sean says is real and true. Just based on Pastor Sean. It's not just what I think is right and it's true. It's going to come back to the most important thing that we can give you, and it's based on God's word, right? Because if it's just me, it's just what I want you guys to do. What does that mean? And if it's just what you want, what good is that? Because we can all be wrong. And so we're here as a church, as a body, as a people called out by God in this community to live on mission for him, to hold each other accountable. And so my prayer for you guys is this is that sit back and let go and give it to God.

26:55 Because maybe there's something that we can learn, maybe there's something that we can take and it comply to our lives that will help us individually and help us as a church to move forward. And so I know if we allow the Holy Spirit to do that, it will radically change not only our today, but our tomorrow. And that's what God has for us. I remember the other night, while the family was still gone, did you guys see those cool storm clouds that were coming in the distance? They were on the north side. I think it was Friday night. I mean my daughter, we walked outside and you just see these massive clouds and it was dark and you just see the lightning move through those clouds. It was so cool. She's out there taking pictures. Anybody else in here like thunderstorms? You guys enjoy that. It's cool just to see it. And I really think that people are are are interested in storms different way and people see storms in different way. There's people that I know that morning they could have said without knowing the news or the forecast, they said, hey, we're going to get a storm tonight because they could see some signs in the sky.

27:46 Now I'm more like the person. I I can't do that. But I see a storms coming when I see the clouds coming and I see the lightning. And then there's some of us in here. We enjoy the storm. We're the people out there walking the tornado signs are going. Tornado signs are going off. We're out there with a camera. Right? Ethel, look. The cows flying through the air. Anybody in here? That you? Anybody here? Tornado chasers. You go out there. You're the idiot like me. Yeah, I can't. I don't see it yet. That's right. I knew you would be, Tim. Can I tell you guys something? And I don't think this is an opinion. I see storm clouds coming. I feel raindrops already starting to land.

28:28 And am I going to sit here and say, like, this world is falling apart in the sense, like, this has never happened before? History repeats itself. I'm a student of history and I think history is repeating itself. And I see these storm clouds building and I see a couple things very, very clearly. I think we're in a time. In this world, in this country that we're facing something that we haven't seen for a while. And you can't stop and listen to the news or listen to the political factions and know that this world is broken and set itself against itself. Because this world so divided on its values, what we believe, what we think should happen, that there is something coming and I don't know what it is and and that's not my purse here, to tell you that we're in for the next civil war.

29:11 But I think back in history, what was happening in 1855, five years before the Civil War, do you think those people knew that something bad was going to happen? I think anybody with a half a brain might not have picked it out, but they would have known something's going on. What about in 1929, Germany? Nobody knew Hitler was going to take over the world, but they could have known something was going to be going on. And I think we're in that state here. And that's the first thing that I see. There is something brewing. There's something different right now that's happened in the last 10 or 15 years. Something is coming and it starts with our values. If you'd have gone 50 years ago, most of the people in this country would have claimed the title Christian. Now, I don't have any illusion that they were all Christians, but they would have all said something along like, yeah, well, yeah, I think what the Bible says is real. Whether or not they live that way or not, they would have, they would have, they would have made a statement that way. A high, A high proportion.

30:04 A high majority. We live in a time now that that's not the case. I remember when I was little, they used to fight about should we have prayer in school now? We talk about what happens if you teach your kids something different. Do you get reported to DFS? And if you think that's something that's crazy, watch the news. This battle lines are moving and they're going further and faster than I ever dreamed would have happened. The second thing I see clearly is this is that. In this world, we have no grounding. We have no common ground to have discussions. And that's why I I believe in this presidential candidate. I believe in that presidential candidate or no, I believe in this or I believe in that.

30:45 And we can't have a discussion anymore because we don't even have a belief in truth. And the thing that follows out of that is this, is that the whole world is spinning and falling apart. And the question that comes to my mind is this. Where's the church? Have you guys ever asked that question? And here's the issue that I see is that sometimes the church disappears because the church doesn't look any different. Why do the divorce rates, Why do the the pornography rates look no different in the church than they do in the outside world? And this is something that is, is, is is is a burden to those that that have a call of God in their life.

31:26 And it's something that we have to evaluate not only on a church level, but as an individual level. I also see a a third thing and maybe it's because I've missed it, but I see and this is this is the uplifting part. I see for whatever reason men of God, pastors that are recognizing the things that are coming at our doorstep and they're saying no more. We have to take account, we have to take responsibility for what God's called us to. And so I see men like Pastor Sean in these discussions that I have with him. How do we alter? How do we change our life groups? To pour truth into people's lives because we have people without hope. We have people without purpose.

32:09 We have people that are just lost. They're mores and they're people that come to church, even people that would call themselves Christian. And so I see them in like Pastor Shawn and some other pastors that that that I follow. And they're running back to the word of God in a way that though we've always valued the word of God here, they're running back to an emphasis of like. This is where we have to start from. This is what we have to get into our people's hearts. Because if I go and tell you guys, here's an issue you should be dealing with, but you don't have any way to communicate the gospel, the basic thing that God's given to us, your leadership has let you down. And so our responsibility is to give you guys the things that God has given us.

32:56 And then your responsibility is to take that and apply that to your lives and teach the next generation. Because if you don't do that, we'll have a generation that doesn't know God in the in the consequences that come from that will be ones that we should have seen, we should have seen those storm clouds coming. There's a guy that most of you probably don't know, His name's Augustine, Saint Augustine, and he was a Bishop in Africa in in the in the early 5th century. And he wrote this cool book, and it's called The City of God. What he told his, his peers and his church back then, it would apply to us as well, he said. You guys have to be part of the city of God, not the city of man, and I would wholeheartedly agree with him. Now I want to say this real life is known as a little rough around the edges.

33:43 Would you guys agree? We're a little salty and you want to know why? Is because we have this value. We want to see people far from God discover their real life and what? And I love that. And I know as long as Pastor Sean's here, is here, and as long as I have any say at all, we will always be a church that is open to the broken, the hurting, the people that are far from God, the people that have been burned by church. That's who we are. And so we're always going to have an element of having people that have broken, messy lives. And that's great. And that's awesome. But I can I tell you this is that is, as a church, if we stop right there and we get people to to the to the message of salvation and they accept Christ, that's good.

34:32 But we can't stop there, because that's not where the gospel start stops. The gospel comes into a person's lives and it gives them salvation, and it reunites them with the purpose that God had for them. To to worship him and be in in, in in a relationship with God. That's what was lost in the Garden of Eden. But it has a ramification that has to change our entire lives. We can't have Jesus on Sunday and then I run my own life on Monday through Saturday. That's not how it works because if you do, we're going to live like a person that has a broken mind and you're going to go this way and then you're going to go that way. James talks. It talks about it being tossed to and fro.

35:14 And that's what the church is in a lot of ways today. We don't know which way to go because we don't know who's on the throne on that day. The things that affect us and destroy us are the things that we allow to come into our lives. And so I believe that we have a call on our church in Augustine in the city of God. What he was reacting to was this is that he had some people coming along. You guys know, Rome, the Roman Empire. It was one of the most powerful, most significant empires to ever exist. And in the time of of Augustine, it was in decline. It was falling apart. And you had these people that were coming along and saying, hey, you know why Rome is falling? It's because of those Christians.

35:55 If we would have stayed with the old pass and the old gods, this never would have happened. We would have never lost our power, our prestige. And Augustine comes along and he lays out this beautiful book and he says no, no, no, you guys are missing it. The city of God, the real church, the people that are living on mission for God. If they weren't here, it would have been so much worse. And you know why? That you are destroyed and you're falling and you're declining is because you have allowed the city of man to rule your world. And the Roman Empire fell apart from an internal rot and internal decay and internal loss of values for what the reality of God says is true in our world. And when you read a book like The City of God that Augustine wrote. Over 1500 years ago.

36:41 I can't look at our culture now and not see the same similarities that is happening today. If Christians would just get out of the way, this world would be better. If Christians weren't so bigoted and backwards, we would be better in that battle. That we fight is one that most of the rest of the world they won't understand. And I look at our world and I can't. I can't help. But point to the things that God has done, the blessings that God has brought through the church to the world and say, hey, look what this is. Look what God is doing. But the world pushes back. And it's something as simple as as a movie called The Sound of Freedom that talks about the exploitation, the trafficking of children.

37:26 When that gets pushed back from Hollywood and gets no notoriety and no recognition, I'm, I'm dumbfounded. I'm blown away. I love, I love Avengers. I love Marvel movies too, right? But I want to know what's happening in the real world and the values that this world is pushing and that the church is accepting are ones that will destroy us if we allow it to happen. Paul Paul dealt with this issue in a church called Corinth and he wrote a couple different letters, letters. First Corinthians, the 2nd Corinthians. And Paul comes in and he chastises the church in a way that. That I I think that Paul would chastise us as well. And then here's the issue with Corinth. Corinth had the message of the hope. They had the gospel and they gave their lives to Jesus, but they didn't want to give up the things they had before. And so we would take a little bit of Jesus over here and they would add a little bit over of whatever they wanted to do. I'm going to worship God on on Sunday, but I'm not going to allow God to change my identity the rest of the week. And Paul looked at Corinth and said, what are you guys doing? You guys think you have this liberty in the gospel to do whatever you want to do, and it's so bad. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, he calls the church out.

38:47 And he says this. He goes, you're doing stuff that even the pagans are shaking their heads at. And does the world shake their heads at us sometimes For what are you guys doing? We don't even do that. There are search churches out there like that that have gotten so far away from the gospel. And even the world looks at them like, ah, you, that's too far. So as Paul chastises the the the Corn Church, that chastisement comes back to us today and it's not one out of judgment and hate. Paul wanted the best for that church and Paul would wanted the best for us. And so as we as we move forward, we have a couple different choices and that we have to make and these are the hard decisions that you have to make today and as we move into these other questions throughout the rest of the series. When you get your toes stepped on, I want you guys to think back to this, this platform, this, this framing, this common ground.

39:38 And you have to ask yourself, am I going to be upset by what Pastor Sean or whoever speaking up here has to say? Or am I going to allow God to touch my life and work through that through the common ground and what God wants for our lives? Because if we come to a situation and a decision that it has to be about me, where does that leave us? If I'm going to do me, and I'd only care about what I want, what does the church even exist for? At that point, we might as well be a Country Club, something that we just hang out, play some cards. I don't play bridge, I play pitch or spades, but I don't know what else they do at country clubs. We might as well be a Country Club. Or we might as well just be a selfhelp seminar that meets once a week just to make ourselves feel good about what we're going through the rest of the week.

40:30 But there's no life change. There's no ultimate significance. There is no real life and purpose in that. And so the hard decisions that we have to make have to come back to, am I going to submit to what God wants for us? And we think of submission is giving up. We go through the freedom group and we talk about that. What does submission look like? And we have this negative connotation of submission is surrender. I give up and it's over. But submission to God is freedom. It allows you to live the life that God has for you, the one that you were created for originally. That freedom pulls you away from just the the brokenness and the messiness that we all have. There's nobody in this room that doesn't have damage and trauma and issues that have come from either what has been done to us or what we've done to ourselves.

41:17 And God wants something better for us to get to that next level, to get into that battle. I want you guys to realize this is that you have an enemy. You guys have an enemy. Who is that enemy? Satan. We have an enemy. We get it messed up all the time, though. Who is the enemy? Yeah, a lot of times. So if I listen to Kanye West, who are the enemies? It's all the Jews, right? I'm like Kanye, you're What are you doing, man? You sound like Hiller. It's like, no, no, no, no. You're messed up. My grandma, my mom's mom, she had an indelible impact in my life.

42:03 And when my parents were getting divorced, she was one of the rocks in in my life. But she had a lot of issues. And you know who the enemy was for her. You guys know the word Illuminati. The Illuminati. Don't get me started on the Bilderbergs, the Trilateral Commission. There's also lizard people living in the center of the earth, right? This is the enemy. I believe that if you don't know what I'm talking about, you're better. You're better off. Who? The enemies that I I point out all the time. If you're friends with me on Instagram and the politicians and the policymakers, I shake my head every day. What are you guys doing? Even the ones that I would supposedly have agreed with five years ago. I'm like, you guys are missing the boat. Or Holly.

42:44 We mentioned Hollywood, either or the media is that. Are those the enemies? They are against God, but they're not the enemy that you should worry about. I want you guys to read with me in Effusions chapter 6, and this is where we're going to land today. If he's in chapter 6, we're going to go through this fast. Who is your enemy? Verse 12 says for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this Dark World, and against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms. Your enemy is not flesh and blood. It is not the other political party. It is not your boss. It is not the person that disagrees with you. It isn't.

43:25 Again, it's not Hollywood. It is not any of these things that we point to as being in opposition to us, even though that that's true. Your enemy is a super intelligent, super super strong, dark evil spiritual force. The King James Version puts it in this way, Powers and principalities. That's how I learned that verse growing up, the powers of principalities and what we don't realize is, is that God has given Satan dominion over the world in some level. That's why when you when when Jesus was tempted in the in the desert, it was a real temptation because Satan came to him and said I will give you the entire world and that was in his power to do it.

44:11 And there's powers of principalities set up across this world. And I don't know what they are. I just know that they're real and that they're active and they're looking for one thing and that's your destruction and my destruction. And this church is destruction. What is affecting your life? Who is attacking you? And I've told you guys this story before and this isn't if you're new here, I know this is going to sound all kind of weird. And let me trust me. This isn't the church that finds a demon. And under every rock, we're not the ones. Like, hey, I stubbed my toe. I got to get rid of that demon.

44:51 I got to exercise that one, right? That's not this church and that's not me. But we live in a world that discounts the supernatural so much that when we start talking about these things, whether it's Satan or the OR the demonic world, we're like, I'm done with that. It's not real. It's not true. But that's not, that's not the case. There is something out there and there's a reason I think that we love the movies that we love and we read the books that we read and the stories that they come across of good versus evil. There's a reason those resonate with us. And if you've been in in the church at any time at all and you've been in the ministries, whether they're in the prison ministries or recovery, recovery ministries, you have faced and you have seen and there's testimony of something that's other outside of this world.

45:43 It's more than physical account on a dozen different men in here. They have experienced it, have seen it, and they will tell you they've seen it with their own two eyes. But for the rest of us, we live in an enlightened age. We live in a postmodern age. The only thing that we see and touch is what we what we can experience here, and we discount everything else. And we do that to our detriment as a church. When we misidentify who our enemy is, we're swinging at the wrong fence. We're in the wrong battle. And can I tell you this is that if you're a Christian and you believe the Bible, can I tell you the biblical writers believe in the supernatural world. Jesus believed in the supernatural world, supernatural world, believed in Jesus.

46:27 One of the one of my favorite stories in the gospel. Jesus comes up to this guy that's possessed and he he can't be bound. And every time that he's chained, he just destroys it. And when he walks up to this guy, this guy comes running to Jesus, he says, Jesus, son of God, are you here to torment me? How did he know who Jesus was? Jesus only been around 33 years at that point, give or take. But he had prior history. Jesus had prior history with these, this demonic world. And so if that happened, then do we think that anything's different now? It may manifest if different depending on where you're at, but the demonic world, that super intelligent agency, he's here for us. So here's the choice that we have. Are we going to fight or are we going to cut bait and run? There's this guy that I follow, there's a couple other guys Patrick follows and this guy's name is Jocko. Do you guys know who Jocko Welnick is? Some of you do.

47:29 He does a lot of leadership stuff and got good, good stuff if you ever want to check it out. Ex Navy SEAL and I was watching this podcast one time and he got this question. He said, hey Jocko, what is the best martial art that I do that I need to learn to get into a fight if you know, to to win because I want, I want to be able to take anybody out. And Jocko's response was kind of interesting to me. He said, you know, the first thing you should be able to learn to do in a fight, run away. And I'm thinking this dude's huge 63240, There's a story about him actually breaking a guy's neck, just wrestling, just messing around. This guy would destroy almost everybody. And his advice was run, he goes, because nobody wins a fight. But he says, but if you're in the fight he goes, you got to be prepared. Now there's some fights you can run away from, but there's some fights you can't run away from.

48:20 And this spiritual fight that I'm talking about, the the thing that is looking to destroy you, there is no neutrality. You don't have a choice. So you can either ignore it or you can face it. And the interesting thing is this, and I know there's some of you guys in here, you guys love to physically fight, right? You guys have been in a couple brawls. I don't love it. You know why? Because the, the, the, the outcomes never, always is never guaranteed. So we can pull a gun, so we can pull a knife, whatever. With the fight that we have against Satan, can I tell you that the the victory is already assured?

49:00 It's already won. We're in the midst of a battle, but God has already declared victory. So when we walk into these fights, you don't have to walk in wondering what's going to happen, Am I going to win these decisions, these questions for a friend that are going to destroy me or or or set me up for victory depending on my choices. You have a way to to have victory. And I want to go through the rest of Ephesians chapter 610 through 18 and this is going to be your quipping this you're going to call and we'll get into one last question that we're going to deal with. So read with me in verse 10. These are the this is what Paul gives us. To go into this fight that we have, says finally be strengthened in the Lord and the strength of His power. close yourselves with the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

49:46 The devil is scheming to come after you, for our struggle is not against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this Dark World, and against the spiritual forces of evil and heavily realms. And therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground. And after you have done everything to stand, stand firm. Then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist. Who knows that we need truth? We have to have. We have to know what the truth is and what it's not. We have to have the blessed, the breastplate of righteousness. Are our lives lined up with the righteousness? Not as we define it, but it's how God defines it. This is, that's your next weapon. And with the feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace, we have to know the gospel. We have to really.

50:33 We have to know it better than than than we currently do. When somebody comes and talks to you, do you have that hope? Can you articulate that hope? That's our job, to equip you with that, to be able to to to to articulate what the the gospel is. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith. Our faith has to be strong. We can't waver with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God. And again, I'll pause right here for a minute. We we don't know the word of God the way that we need to know the word of God. We don't go do it. We don't go do a job and not know the manual to do our job.

51:14 Well, how do we do the job of life without knowing what the word of God says? No wonder that we we mess up and we have disagreements about what we we should do. No wonder that we have these these fights in our church about do I accept this or is that allowed because we don't know the word of God And he finishes with this is the Praying the Spirit on all occasions, with all kinds of prayers and requests. And with this in mind, be alert, Always keep on praying for all of the Lord's people. This is the tools. This is the fight that we have. What is the decision that we make? Can I tell you this? When we get lost, we think the battle's going to be won on pulling the vote station and who we put to DC? Or we think that we're going to win by going to a picket line. Or we think we're going to win by boycotting the right, the wrong type of beer.

52:07 Right. I never thought I would see Baptist preachers boycotting Bud Light. And yeah, you guys should drink Modela. I'm like, that's not the Baptist preachers I grew up with. We're not going to win that battle. We're not going to win that battle that way. I love what it says right here at the end of the Ephesians. You know what our battle cry has to be, Has to be God, what you want us to do. And our first action of our war isn't running in to beat somebody up. It's to fall into our knees and submission and prayer to God. And if we don't start there, we're doomed. Submission has to be to God. Our strength comes from God asking for a friend. This is where we'll land.

52:54 Pastor Sean was in here. I'd like Pastor Sean. I've got this friend and we're going to deal with this. One question. Pastor Sean, I've got this friend, man, he's a Christian, but he deals with depression and anxiety and he doesn't think God shows up in his in in his life and he does. He's not sure why he should continue to go to church is because if God doesn't take this from him, is God really real and his faith really is. Is is faith really real? And this is a question that a lot of us have dealt with. So what do you think Pastor Sean says in that situation? What do you say in that situation? If you've asked yourself that maybe you don't know and depression and anxiety is a thing that can destroy our lives, tie this back to what I already said. We think that that that anxiety and depression is just something simply that everybody deals with. And it's true at some level and there can be different reasons for it.

53:56 But there is a factor here that so many of us don't take into account. Is the enemy trying to attack you? Because what is the goal for Satan to attack us? To bring anxiety and depression to our lives is to take you out of the fight, right? Because who wants to fight when you think there's nothing to fight for? This issue is something that has affected my family in in in ways that are is very real and very personal. And I'll wrap this up with sharing just a a bit of my story from from my family. I mentioned my grandma earlier, the Illuminati grandma, right?

54:37 I loved her and she did so much for me. But one of the things that she struggled with was the depression that she had all the time made her so negative and it just brought everybody down around her. And there were times I know that she questioned God because of of of how she felt all the time. And it wasn't till I as a kid I didn't understand it. I I just knew it was like she's cranky. I don't like being around her all the time. And I didn't, I didn't know why, what was the issue? And I found out later the things that she'd experienced in her life affected where she was at at that point and really the rest of her life. Because what I didn't know was, is that her mother, we struggled with some of the same issues. And in the in the in the 20s and the 30s there wasn't a lot that we could do.

55:24 And can I got can I tell you guys right now there's a reason why we we sponsor people. We send people to counseling. We pay for the first four sessions because we believe that that's a good thing. Counseling is good and the blessings that we get from doctors and and the medicines and the and the drugs they give us can be a very good blessing. It's the same way that we treat heart disease or cancer. So I would never discount that. And again, if you, if you or your loved one or somebody you know need that, we would love to connect you. But in the 20s and 30s, they didn't have a lot of that. So here's what I didn't know about my grandma. Her mom was done with that life couldn't live that way anymore. And my grandma came home one day after school and found her mom hanging in the basement.

56:11 I can't imagine. I think what what would that do to you? Maybe you've experienced that. I I haven't. So I saw what my grandma dealt with, with depression, and it came from the trauma, the things that she saw. The person that was supposed to love her the most walked away through this act and she didn't have a mom anymore. My grandma ended up finding hope in Jesus, but she had this constant battle of is Jesus enough? Is Jesus going to walk away from me? The interesting thing, the cool thing that really has has been a blessing in my life and it's changed me. Is this is that she?

56:52 Even though she struggled with it, she put something in my mom. The idea that you can rely on God, that faith is enough, that God has your best in mind, and she lived with that gospel in her life to change my mom's life. And then my mom passed that on to us, and that generational curse ended up being broke. The one that my great, great grandma had, that great grandma had, and that my grandma dealt with was broken because of a reliance on God, because they didn't believe the lie anymore. They knew that they were under attack from Satan, and they gave that to God, and they went in and they won the battle by believing the gospel and having that shield of faith and relying on the sword of the spirit.

57:36 Again, I can't touch this whole issue in this 5-6 minutes and I'm not doing it justice and we may touch on this again later. My whole impetus in bringing up this question at this level is this is that God has an answer for you, but God has called you to a hard decision. What are you going to do with that call in your life? What are we going to do with that call in our life as a church? Because if we don't want to be that Country Club, if we don't want to be that, just that health self seminar, selfhelp seminar, we have to rely on something more than just ourselves. We have to rely on each other. But more importantly, we have to rely on God, on Jesus as revealed in the word of God. Because He's called us to something great. He's called us to be the hope of the world, the light on the hill, the city of God.

58:29 Will we take up that call? Will we make that hard decision to do the the thing that God has for us? Can I tell you this lastly before I pray for you guys, I don't like the alternative because I see where it leads. I see where it takes a family, I see where it takes a church, I see where it takes a nation, and it's all bad. I want to walk into that battle with you guys and not be fearful of that super intelligent, dark, heavenly force that has our destruction of mind. Guys called us as a church to go break down the gates of hell. Will you guys go with me?

59:11 Let's pray God as we as we ponder the things that you've given us. God, I just thank you for this this church. Number one. God, I thank you for the people that have come here and God just thank you for their willingness to to hear what you've got for them. I want to pray for two groups of people. Number one, I want to pray for the Christians that are in the house today. God, I know that every person here has a struggle of of a choice they have to make. Are they going to put you on the throne or are they going to put themselves on the throne? And this is a daily decision. So God, I want to pray for each person here that calls real life home in any way, shape or form, whether you're online or whether in in person.

59:58 God put a blessing on their life. God bless them in a way that you you're so real. And everything they have to gain by living their own life is just pills in comparison to the to the abundant life that you have for them, the freedom that you have for them. You got to. I pray that not just for their benefit, but I pray that for the benefit of what you've called them to do. God, you've called them to do wonderful things in your name, to be an influence wherever they're at, to lead their families. Well, to lead this church. Well, God, I pray as a church here at real life that we are known as a people that know your word, as a people that follow your word.

1:00:43 I want to pray for one last group of people. Maybe you're here today and this is new for you. Maybe you have never been to church or it's been a long time or you don't have a relationship with God and you don't understand everything that I that I've set up here today and that's okay. But can I, can I, can I speak to you just for a second? If you don't know God, you're in a battle as well. But you're you've set yourself up against the wrong side. And I'm not saying that you follow Satan in the sense that you're a Satan worshipper, but you've put yourself on the throne. But you were created by a God that has brought everything to existence by his word and he's loves you and he's looking for you. You're the prodigal that that has run so far. You don't know where to turn because of the things that have happened in your life through the sexual trauma, through the addictions, through the sense of loss, through the broken relationships that you've been in and you don't know where else to turn.

1:01:42 And maybe you're here today because this is the last place you have to go. Can I tell you that you're at the right place and you're at the right place Because we will show you and and tell you about the person that you are looking for. And that person is Jesus, the one that came and died. He gave up everything to reunite you with God, and that's who you were created to worship. That's who you were created to love. So if that's you today, I would encourage you and invite you to pray a prayer. A prayer that the words don't save you, but your heart behind them does. And that heart is this is that you're tired of living your own life and in your own way. And that God has reached out and he wants to change your heart and is changing your heart right now. And your next step is to accept what he has for you. So if that's you today, and you're done, you're done with living life your way, and you're ready to live God's life from what he's got for you.

1:02:45 Pray something along these lines with me. God, God, I know that I've messed up. God, I know that my life is so screwed up that I can't fix it. And God, the things that I've done, I can't go back and change and there an offense against you and the sin that I have in my life. I need you to take that away. And God. So today I asked you to take my past and my brokenness and my sin and take that off of me. And I accept your son is the one that has made that possible. And in today I accept the life and the salvation that he's given me. And I accept that today. Amen That we give it up for everybody here today that has just made that decision. And come to Christ as you guys, as we as we get into the series. I'm seriously encouraging you guys. There are things you're going to hear that you're not going to like, things that you don't agree with. Allow the Holy Spirit to open your hearts. Because I know that God wants to do a work here and He will do it through us if we allow him to do it. Amen.

1:03:56 Hey, let's give it up for Barry sharing that word this morning. It's no easy day to get up into, just talk about the things of the word of God. But I'm just appreciative to have a team of people willing to jump in and do that whenever as part of real life, we do. Here, the early believers in the Bible are actually called the People of the Way. And how powerful is that to be something that we'd be known of me. And those people are after God's heart. Those are people who wanting to follow God. And so I'm just excited to see where the series goes. I'm excited for today. I'm glad that you were all here with us, that you've come to worship with us, spend your Sunday morning with us. It is so special for us that you're here. And maybe today you are. You've heard this word, the gospel that Barry shared his prayer and he said, you know, maybe today this is all new for me.

1:04:41 I've never heard this story of Jesus who died for me. I've never heard about a God who would love me above all else. And if that. You and you're like, you know what, That I made that decision today. We want to celebrate with you and we have some steps that you can take to help you on your journey with Jesus. Because we really, we know that God has something for you. And I want you to be able to hold on to that truth here at real life. And so here I have a few things for you. One is Congrats, we're happy for you. We're so excited that you're putting God into your life. We have a couple of resources for you and there's a few ways you can get them. You can text RL next to 97,000 that's going to connect you to part of our. Our website where we can get your information. We'd love to send you this book that's behind me called Begin. It's a short book.

1:05:23 It's about 100 pages, but it really like what do I go from here? How do I know about God? What do I do on these first steps in my faith. And we would love to send. We'll mail you that resource. If you fill out that, you can scan the QR code. We also have the connection card on your chair. You can check that box that says I committed my life to Jesus. We'll also send this book out to you this week. We want to be here as a resource for you as you're on this journey with Jesus. The second thing is this, and this is just put in the back of your mind. It's not this week, but in about a month on our birthday celebration, we're going to be doing baptisms. So maybe you're like, I've been following Jesus a long time but never decided to get baptized. I never made that decision for myself. Or maybe you've just recently came to know, Christ, we're going to be baptizing.

1:06:06 You can go to our website, reallifechurchcasey.com click events, and there's a place to sign up to get more information. We'd love to get connected with you in this step, but keep that in the back of your mind that's coming. Coming up and it's such a special time of celebration of what God is doing here at real Life Church. And the next one is this for this same group I, you know, just started following Jesus. I've known God for a while but I don't know how to make my faith my own. I am on these baby steps of my journey with Jesus. Next week during the first gathering we are starting the next session of our No God class and this is a place where you can say you know what, I have questions and it's not only okay, it's awesome. We have very wise and awesome people coming alongside. You to say, let me show you how to understand the Bible. Let me give you some resources as you're taking these steps on your faith to know the basics of how do I read the Bible? How do I know how to pray?

1:06:56 How do I know what is baptism? Why should I do it? Why do we go to church? You know, all these questions that are kind of like, I just want to know more about that stuff. I'd love to sit down. We offer that it's four weeks long and it's during our first gathering time, So you can still come on in and go to the second gathering, still be a part of what God's doing in real life. But even if you serve on a team or you come alive. But I would say our team would love to push pause on your serving for a month to get into that class and say I want to know more, I want to go deeper in my faith. So that starts next week. We'd love to give you more information if you need some, but it's in the next steps room, which is just pass the bathroom starting next week. You can sign up for that. You can reach out to us. We'd love to get you connected with that class.

1:07:38 And then you know what? There's a lot coming up at Real Life. I have a note card today because I could not keep it all committed to memory. There's so many things, but for all of us, not just those of us who are newer to the faith, there's several next steps. And the first one is this. Maybe you're not new to God, but you're new to real life. And you're like, I want to know a little bit, what is this thing about? Well, today, right after the second gathering, so you guys can go out, grab a brunch, come on back at 12:15, there's just going to be a few of us from the leadership team in that same Next steps room just talking about real life. What is this place? Why did you start it? What is your story? We would love. To hear that about you, how did you hear from us? What's your story with God? How can we encourage you? It's a very casual, conversational time to get to know a little bit about real life for us, to get to know a little bit about you. And if you're like, I'm not sure where I'm going to land. This is a perfect first step to say, I just want to get to know some people, ask some questions, hang out. We will have food for you, we'll have food for your kids. Our real life kids team will continue to hang out with those kiddos, keep them having a fun time, having some lunch. So come on back at 12:15, We'd love to connect with you at the New Year Social.

1:08:39 And also, let me challenge you Barry unpacked a lot of information in a very short time and a cool resource that we have or you can continue the conversation is the YouTube. I'm sorry, the YouTube. Wow, EU Version Bible app. I don't recommend staying up all night and then talking. It's not a good idea. EU Version Bible app is a very cool tool that a lot of you may use to read the Bible. But what you might not know is if you go down to the bottom of the app, there's like 3 little lines. You can get a whole bunch more resources. If you click events, it's actually going to bring up our message notes for the day. Yeah, you can save those. You can screenshot them. But it has these cool things called talk it over, questions that you can talk about in the car on the way home. Use it to challenge each other throughout the week. Talk with your spouse about it.

1:09:19 Ask your kids about it. It's a way that you can continue the move of what God's doing on here through your whole entire week. A lot of our life groups, when they start up, use this as a tool to have conversations about spiritual stuff. So that's not just we're believers on Sunday. And then the rest of the week we kind of move about our own way. So I challenge you if you haven't downloaded. That it's on all the platforms. It's free, there's not ads. It's an awesome app. But we use it in a special way so that you can continue to see what God is doing. Okay, we're almost made it through my long list. If you got saved, if you didn't get saved, if you have all the things. The last one is this. If you're like Okay, I've been coming for a little bit of time and I think I like what's going on here. I wanna dive in next.

1:10:01 Sunday we are having our crash course and this is about two hour long time hanging out at our Hope center. So you get to check that place out. It's awesome what God's doing there. We get together with a few of our leadership team and this is the okay. I'm ready to take the step in my faith where I want to get more involved in what God is doing in your real life. I want to know what things there are that I can be a part of. Ways that we can pour into you. Ways that you can use your gifts and your abilities to pour back into serving and the purpose of God. That's that real life and purpose piece. We love to connect you with who. God made you to be what? How he's gifted you and then how you can use that to make a difference for the Kingdom. And so this is a really fun 2 1/2 hour interactive again, casual time. It's at our Hope Center. It's next Sunday, so if you want to come, there is a sign up online for you.

1:10:45 I don't know if this QR works, but if not, that's okay. But go to reallifechurchkc.com, click events. There's room for you. You know what? If you just show up, we'll still be there whether you sign up or not. So we'd love to have you. It's next Sunday, 2:00 to 4:30 at our Hope Center. Ask one of us if you need an address. Who we made it. It's going to be great. And you know why it's an awesome week? Because our Columbia emissions team had just got back yesterday morning, which is why my brain doesn't work and I need some coffee. Yeah, let's give a hand. Our team had an awesome week. You are not going to want to miss. I promise. Next week we are sharing about what God did through our team, what God did in our lives. And it is going to be a very inspirational and exciting morning because we get to take a step back and say not just what is God doing in real life, What's God doing? We belt and what's got to in our community, What is God doing across the world and how has he called and given us the opportunity to be a part of that? And by you all praying for us, giving here your generosity money here allows us not only to send a team to go, but it allows us to take on some of the responsibility and the weight we've been giving to say that there are incredible men of faith across the world.

1:11:53 You want to do more to reach more people, and we need your help. Because the stuff that they want to do isn't just something that, you know, that Sean and I can just fork out some extra money and say, let's do this. They have big dreams, big goals, they serve a big God, and they're excited about what he's doing in their country to reach the World. And so we get to encourage them in that. And so when you give here, you're a part of partnering with our global partners. We have partnerships with different pastors, different ministries, different missionaries across the world, and we get to be a part of that. And so when you give a real life, that's fruit to your account. The gospel has moved forward across the world because of you. And so thank you. For those of you who do that, thank you for those of you who've taken that step of faith to say, I want to give, I want to be more generous.

1:12:36 I promise you, when you see what is happening across the world, it breaks your heart. So you can't say like, it's OK take it all, Lord, you know, like the song we sing today, like you can have it all, but when you give, you can make a difference. And so if you haven't given, I challenge you too, because there's three ways you can do that. If you call real life home, go to reallifechurchkc.com. Click give text any amount to 84321. We'll have some buckets in a moment, or we have a giving box in the back if it's more convenient for you to put cash or check in there. And I'll say that if you and your family are in immediate need of food, clothing or shelter today, please reach into the buckets when they pass by. Take that out. Because our heart is also to be generous here and to be generous to you and your time of need. And so I would encourage you to grab and take advantage of that. God can do big things through us when we give, and so I would challenge you to take that mantle today. So check out what else is coming up in real life. This is Paul.

1:13:42 It's backyard Hangouts, couches and kitchen tables. It's story shared and moments worth remembering. It's hoping and praying and taking chances. It's jokes and laughter and shoulders to cry on. It's questions and answers and I don't knows knowing. You don't have to figure it out by yourself. It's messy and imperfect. It's giving and serving and growing Better Together. It's life, and we weren't meant to do it alone. Life is Better Together.

1:14:35 Find a life group today at reallifechurchkc.com. Literally today, life groups are going Live Today. You'll see a big wall out here. You can scan the QR code for those different groups. I just encourage you to take that to heart. Don't do life alone this upcoming semester. There's a group for every single one of you and just be praying over that. We love to just interact with you and they'll start meeting in person the week of August 27th. So you can Sign up today, but we're not going to meet for another couple weeks or so. Awesome. Like. And said let's press pause on asking for a friend next week as we come back at 9:30 or 11:00 and hear about everything God did on this missions trip. Huge God.

1:15:22 Huge wins. Can't wait to see you here as we celebrate with that team next week. If you want some prayer this morning, we'll have people down in front that would love to just pray with you this morning. And remember, whoever finds Jesus discovers real life and purpose. Have a great week. This is the end of this podcast. We hope you've enjoyed it. If you have, be sure to hit the subscribe button so you don't miss another inspirational podcast for more great content. And updates visit reallifechurchkc.com.