…Get In The Fight

And here's my big idea today, is that you guys are planting churches that are dangerous for the darkness. Dangerous

for the darkness. And today, we're gonna open up a passage in Acts chapter 20 where we meet a man named Paul who is dangerous for the darkness. And my great hope for you is not just that you'd be part of a church, not that you'd just be part of a church planting movement that's dangerous for the darkness,

but that you personally would make an impact. That you personally, by the way you live your life, would make the darkness tremble. And so today's message is literally called Get in the Fight. Look at your neighbor and say, Are you in the fight?

Yeah, that's all right. You can yell it if there's like two seats now. That's fine. Get a little spittle on them. It's great. It's gonna be fun this morning. Get in the fight. We're in Acts chapter 20. If you do have a Bible, I hope you'll open up to Acts 20. That's where we'll be. This whole thing is about evangelism.

If you're not familiar with the term evangelism, it is the idea of convincing people who have no hope and are outside of the hope of Christ about the hope of Jesus through the gospel.

Convincing them of Jesus' death. Convincing them of the resurrection, and allowing them to see the beauty of your story and the gospel story so that they would move from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God's beloved son, Jesus.

When we engage in evangelism, what we're doing, you need to have like a bigger vision, a higher vision for what evangelism actually is. You are taking the spiritual war that is always going on behind the veil. This war between dark and light, hopelessness and hope, emptiness and substance.

There is always a war. But when you and I engage in evangelism, it is like we're dragging something of that unseen spiritual war into the present through convincing people to move sides.

That's exactly what we're going to see in this passage. There is a real spiritual war. Dietrich Bonhoeffer you guys know that name? Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor and theologian in Germany at the time of Hitler's rise to power. And they Nazified the churches, meaning they took all the hymnals and switched them for Nazi hymnals.

They started to demand that the pastors would teach Nazi doctrine, and most of them conformed, but not Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He decided to start what was an illegal seminary, to build upon what they called the confessing church, believing in right biblical true doctrine, resisting the Nazis.

And you can only imagine this is out in Finkenwald, right off the Oder River. They have this very intense seminary. I mean, they're going at it, up early, studying scripture, memorizing stuff all day long, prayers and so forth, all the way into the evening, living together in this camaraderie.

Well, his buddy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's friend, shows up and he's like, dude, this feels like really intense. What are you doing? He said, you think this is intense. Come out and row the boat out into the river. So they row out to where this clearing is, and you can see through the trees this this Nazi airfield,

the Luftwaffe. Goring's men, they are marching. You can hear the sounds of the marching in the train. You can see the aircrafts taking off into the sky, the rigor, the discipline, the intensity, these young terrifying men being trained for battle.

And Dietrich Bonhoeffer looks at his buddy and he says, Hey, this seminary has to stand up against that Nazi airfield. That's why this is so intense.

And so my question for you today is, are you in the fight at all? Like do you understand the intensity of what we're a part of? I want you, and if you're taking notes you should write this down, be dangerous for the darkness. Be dangerous for the darkness.

And we're gonna see two things today as we do look at Acts 20. We're gonna see two things. And the first one is this. You should expect opposition when you live on mission. You should expect opposition.

If you're gonna step into the fight, if you're gonna get serious about the battle that we are already in and make a difference, you're gonna face opposition. Paul the Apostle is the main character of this story. If you're new to the Bible, Paul became a Christian after having been a persecutor of the church.

He had letters from the Jewish elite, the Jewish leaders, allowing him to drag off men and women for believing in Jesus and imprisoning them. He had already overseen the death of a young man named Stephen who was preaching Jesus. Now on his way on this road to Damascus,

Jesus shows up manifests himself to Paul. Knocks him off his horse. Paul says, Who are you, Lord? He says, I'm Jesus who you're persecuting. Paul, after this encounter with Christ,

switches jerseys and goes from persecutor of the church to preacher for the church. He ends up being the most effective church planter missionary in the world even to this day. He writes about half of the New Testament. Fast forward to the end of Acts where we find ourselves in Acts 20. He is now on his third major

missionary journey. We meet him in Ephesus where there is a darkness, a stronghold. There is magic.

This is exactly what happened to the Garden Church. People are burning their magic books, turning to Jesus through the preaching of Paul. And now this church is massive, and God is doing things. But it doesn't come without a cost. And Paul is gonna be opposed.

In fact, there is a plot against his life. Look at Acts 20 and verse one

through three. It says, After the uproar ceased, Paul departed from Macedonia. There he spent three months. And when a plot was made against him by the Jews, as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia. You think? He is a man who is hunted.

I mean, guys want him dead. In just a few chapters from now in the book of Acts, what we're gonna find is that they try to jump him when he goes back to Jerusalem, which is a bad idea if Jews want you dead to go to their headquarters

in the temple. They try to kill him. The Romans have to save him. Paul is a man whose life is always in danger. Jump down with me in Acts 20 to verse 19. You guys still in your Bibles?

No? Perfect. Me? I'm getting in. Let's go. Acts twenty nineteen. Highly recommend the Bible. It's awesome. He says, I am going to Jerusalem. Again, bad idea, but why is he doing it? Constrained by the Spirit. Constrained by the Spirit. God is leading him into the danger.

Not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me that God has great plans for Paul's life. Everything's gonna go well. All things work together for good, Paul. No. That's not what the Holy Spirit tells him. So the Holy Spirit testifies

to me this wonderful world. What word? What is it? That in every city, what? Imprisonment and afflictions await me. Some of you guys are like, I'm looking to God for his plan for my life. God's like, imprisonment and afflictions for preaching me. He's like, no. You got the wrong number, God.

You know what happens at the end of the book of Acts? If we were to jump forward to the end, Paul does get imprisoned. He preaches before kings. He fulfills his assignment from Jesus. But here's the thing. What happens in Paul's life, we actually don't get written in the book of Acts. We get it in church history.

The church historian Eusebius of Caesarea writes this, It is therefore recorded that Paul was beheaded in Rome itself. So Paul's journey, Paul's mission leads to death. In fact, I'm going to show you all the different ways he suffered. In fact,

Acts chapter nine verse 16, Jesus gives him this commission. Here's his commission. I will show you how much he must suffer for my name's sake. Paul is gonna suffer. Why? Because Paul really lived on mission. I mean Paul was dangerous for the darkness.

I'm gonna show you now a list on the screen. I won't read every one of these, but this massive list is gonna kind of rotate through of all the different instances that Paul suffered for preaching the gospel, for sharing his faith, for trying to make a difference in people's lives for Jesus.

He gave them hope, and many of these cities hoped that he was dead. In fact, one of these cities, just to zoom in, is Lystra, and Paul gets stoned in Lystra. Now if you're new to Christianity, I'm not talking about like getting stoned. Okay? That's a different team.

Paul gets stoned meaning they pelted his face with stones until

he was ostensibly dead. He fell down and so they thought he was dead. His disciples actually drug him out of the city like, No Paul's dead. Let's drag his body. And you can only imagine Paul woke up. He's like, why are you guys dragging me? He gets up and they're like, wait a second Paul you're alive. Like,

we're dragging you because we thought you were dead. Like it wouldn't matter I guess. And so Paul he wakes up and he's like, I'm I'm fine. And Paul,

this is crazy. This is actually in the text. You have... The conversation must have essentially been this. Well, did they believe in Jesus? And they're like, what do you mean did they believe in Jesus? You preached and they tried to kill you. We thought you were dead. So they didn't believe in Jesus? They're like, no. So you know what Paul does in Lystra?

After getting stoned to what they thought was dead, he gets up and he's like, well I gotta go back in there and preach the gospel again. Paul is a psychopath. Or he's a biblical Christian living on mission the way all of us ought to be.

The men in history who have most preached the gospel have always been men and women in history who have faced opposition for the gospel. Acts fourteen twenty two, this is Paul's own teaching, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations

we must enter the kingdom of God. Someone's saying to you like, what is it like to be a Christian? You say through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. Why tribulations? Well, here's why. Because we're dangerous for the darkness. Because we're dangerous.

William Tyndale was a pastor and theologian who was trying to get the Bible out of Latin and into the everyday language of people so that they would genuinely know their Bibles. And this was a time of corruption in the church, and so he fought against that by secretly translating the Bible into English. I love this. Illegally. He's so punk rock. This is William Tyndale.

And he was smuggling those Bibles in wool barrels across the English Channel. So William Tyndale was very dependent on wealthy benefactors to help him in his ministry who owned businesses and these kinds of things. One man named Henry Phillips ingratiated himself to William Tyndale as a supporter. I'm gonna help fund your ministry.

And he knew that the church wanted him dead. And so ultimately, like out of a movie, William and Henry are going to lunch one day when out of the shadows, some guards pounce on William Tyndale. He had been betrayed by Henry. Then he ends up in prison,

falsely accused, falsely tried. After a couple of years, they tie him to a stake, strangle him to death in front of everyone, and then burn his body for all to see. This is the kind of opposition that we face. So some of you guys are like, I'm facing persecution.

I mean I'm... The devil is after me for my faith. And you're like, what happened? A lot of young people at the Garden Church, they say this kind of thing and you're talking to them. They're like, oh yeah. I hit every single light on my way to work. Like no that's not persecution.

Like not today Satan. I'm like dude take that shirt off. What are you doing? Like you need to get up earlier and go on time and then that won't be an issue. I'm like I'm facing persecution. Me and my wife are arguing. Maybe that's persecution. Maybe that's demonic warfare.

Maybe you're just an idiot. Know what mean? Like it could go either way. But listen, when you are genuinely on mission you're gonna face opposition where people actually don't like you for preaching, for talking about your faith, for living, for standing on your convictions without saying anything.

You're going to be opposed. Now I say this, and the tension in the room is this. Is anyone opposing you at all? Have you ever been mistreated for the gospel? You ever been misunderstood? Christianity is as unpopular today as it has ever been.

But some of you are facing exactly zero opposition because, watch this, you're not on mission. And I have a vision for you today. Like I want you to make an impact.

I don't want you to be a vanilla Christian that crosses zero enemy lines and does nothing for the gospel until you see Jesus face to face. Is that the vision you have for your life? I have a vision that you would live in such a way that on the day of your death

all of hell would rejoice that you are finally out of the fight. I want to challenge you to step in and make a difference. To make a dent in the darkness. Some of you guys are gonna say, Okay wow that is a vision for mine.

But dude like you're talking about like engaging in spiritual warfare and evangelizing all my neighbors and all this stuff. Like I'm just trying to survive Monday.

You know I mean? Like I'm just trying to make it to the office on time. Apparently that's not persecution. So what do I do? Here's what you do. If you need a first step into this, and we're gonna see this in the passage in one of the craziest passages in Scripture which we're about to dive into. Here's

your step. To get better at the mission of God, you need to grow in the Word of God. That's it. Just start there. Just start by cracking open a B I B L E. To get better at the mission of God, there's actually research that Daniel M, a theologian and also researcher,

found that those who are in their Bible the most preach Jesus the most.

That those who are in the text of scripture every day, they tend to be the ones, statistically speaking who understand how to share their faith the best. Isn't that wild? And so to get better at the mission of God, grow in the Word of God. But this is coming straight out of the text. Let's jump down now to verse seven.

We're still in the Bible, and I love the Bible you guys. It's so good. This is a hilarious story. I actually have never heard a sermon on the Uticus story, this main character we're about to see. Now Paul, the whole context is Paul's persecution, but now we're gonna zoom in on a guy that Paul preached to. And just so you know, it doesn't go well for Uticus.

Okay? So jump in, verse seven. It says, On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day. So Paul is preaching to the Ephesian church because he knows this may be the last time he ever sees them.

So he's going to equip them. He is going to pour into them, and he's going to spend time giving them the most important thing he can for the mission of God, and that is the word of God. Now watch. We're gonna continue in that same verse. It says, And he prolonged his speech until what? Midnight.

Homeboy goes to the middle of the night in the text of scripture. I love a guy like that. You know what I mean? Here's a guy in the Bible. We're going till midnight, verse eight. There were many lamps in the upper room where they were gathered. And a young man named Uticus sitting at the window sank into a deep sleep

as Paul talked still longer. You know that long talker? You got that friend who just goes on like the Energizer bunny that he can go on and on and... This is Paul. And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. It's a bad ending for you to guess.

But God had him. Verse 10. But Paul went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms said, do not be alarmed,

for his life is in him.' And when Paul had gone up and broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while until daybreak. I love that a dude dies and rises from the dead, and they're just like, Let's just finish church. You know what I'm saying? They're gonna keep doing it like let's have some fellowship brother.

They continue on converse for a long time till the morning and so departed. And then they took the youth away alive

and were not a little comforted. I just have a couple quick notes on this particular. This is an awesome passage. Yes? Can you believe this is in the Bible? This is awesome. The book of Acts is fire. Highly recommend. Two quick things. Number one is you should never ever complain about how long church is.

You should never complain about how long pastor Bill preaches or Jonesy or any of these pastors at this church. They go maybe forty minutes. Paul went till midnight. Bill has never killed anyone through preaching. Zero dead here at Rock Point Church through the sermons. Paul sermoned this guy to death.

You know, he got preached to death like, get to heaven like, how'd you die? Paul preached me to death. I got killed by falling asleep listening to Paul's preaching. So don't complain. It's a good thing. Second thing, and really this is the seriousness of this passage, this demonstrates the supreme value of God's word.

Here at Rock Point, it's a Bible church, and the reason for that is because of passages like this. These believers are in one of the darkest cities ever, and so Paul knows what you need

is you need lengthy Bible teaching. I mean you need to unpack the text. You need to know God's Word. You've to be equipped in the Gospel. You've got to understand theology. You've got to grow in God's Word if you're gonna get better at God's mission, if you're gonna stand firm, if you're gonna live with conviction,

if you're gonna raise kids that know Jesus,

you've got to be in the text. In fact, let's zoom in on a little bit of detail. Can I nerd out in the Bible for a sec? A couple details. Look at Acts chapter 20 verse eight. Is anybody like Bible nerd in here? A couple of us? Alright. Let's go. We're going in verse eight. It says, There were many lamps.

I'll get into that. In this upper room where we were gathered. If you know the history of Roman architecture, they had these large open windows on like the third story. Just so you know, we don't create houses like this anymore

because of things like this. As well, it says here in the text that in this upper room where we were gathered. You say, why is the word we so important? Well, here's why. Luke is a medical doctor who wrote the book of Acts. He is funded by a well-to-do benefactor.

He is well connected and intellectual. If you study two of his books, Luke, the Gospel of Luke, and Acts, you will find that there is correct and proper medical terminology. He was a PhD. He was brilliant. In fact, scholars today recognize even if they're not Christians that Luke was a genius.

And so in his writing, you can tell, so he's a credible person writing this down. Some of you say, I don't care about God's word because it's not credible. It's mythology made up to, you know, help little children who are afraid to die and old ladies and stuff like that. The Bible's just a mythological joke. It's not true. We have a medical doctor writing this here, and you'll know in the passage he says, We. Meaning what?

This is a part of Paul's story where Luke was an eyewitness. Luke was there. You can trust your Bible. He's saying, You don't believe in miracles? I, Luke the doctor, was there, and I saw this young man rise.

Okay. That's one detail. Notice the other detail. It says, Many lamps here. You say, Why did they include this detail of many lamps? Well, there's a couple reasons. One is it's almost like Luke is saying, hey, listen. I know Eutychus fell asleep and died,

but let's absolve the church of responsibility here because we had many lamps. You know what I mean? Like, there's plenty of lighting. Like, he fell asleep. That's on Eutychus at that point. And so there's this protectiveness of the mission of God. Protectiveness

of the Church of God. And we've got to have a heart for the Church and a heart for the Word, and so He's protective. But this also shows us that mini lamps means

there was a lot of people. You only lit up the part of the room where there were people, and so this is maybe dozens, if not hundreds of people who are gathered around for God's word. And here's why that's so important. Because it is that many people who are willing and desirous of listening to Paul preach the Bible

for that long. Listen to me. In every major move of God, it has always been centered on the Word of God. There is no major movement that doesn't elevate and seek the Word of God. And so you've got to understand every massive revival, every massive awakening, it's centered on the Word.

I mean it's people gathered together from all ages seeing that these pages are precious. This is what causes the darkness to be shoved back. I think of the Jesus movement. How many of guys know what the Jesus movement is in the 1970s? They made a movie about it recently. Here's a picture of Calvary Chapel by...

Calvary Chapel Church in Costa Mesa, California. And you look at this room and you say, Why is that significant? There are thousands of hippies here. Dirty hippies who are not prone to be into Christianity. This was a sudden and explosive movement. And in this room on any given week at the height of the movement was 25,000

hippies coming out of drugs, sex, and rock and roll. Skipping out on Woodstock to be here at the church.

25,000. You say, well there's thousands of people here at Rock Point. Praise God. But this was unheard of at that time. They didn't have quite the amplification. They had terrible music. Like it wasn't an LED screen. Like they have

nothing that you need to pull this off. Why would thousands of young people gather like this? Let me tell you why. They would gather

because of the pure teaching of the word of God. They were hungry for the word. In fact, you know it's the Word they were hungry for. You know who the pastor was of this church? Was he some very suave, debonair, well spoken, eloquent man? No, he was a short, chubby, bald man who talked about this fast.

If you heard Chuck Smith. I've listened to lot of his teachings. You have to listen on double speed because he goes verse by verse

through the Bible. And you're like, Oh my gosh. Look, speed it up, dude. Bill is literally a thousand times better than Pastor Chuck Smith. God bless him. Love me some Pastor Chuck Smith. But listen, Bill is so much more entertaining. They're gathering here not for a personality.

They are gathering here for the power of God's Word. And if you are taking notes I need you to know this. If you want to experience the mission of God. If you want to see people come to know God that the wildfires of revival are always fueled by the wood of God's Word. The wildfires of revival

are always fueled by the wood of God's Word. How many of you guys have ever made a bonfire? Every dude in here at some point has gone up to the Flagstaff, tried to build the biggest bonfire. Probably illegal.

And what you do I come to you from the Pacific Northwest. That's where I was born and raised. And in the Pacific Northwest, there's nothing but trees. We have these things called trees. We don't have them here. And if you were building a bonfire, you just keep going and getting what? More wood to stoke that fire. And listen, in the same way, if you want to experience a wildfire of revival here, you've got to get in God's Word.

If you want your own heart on fire for the mission of God, you've got to feed yourself the fuel of God's Word every morning. If you want your marriage to be changed and transformed,

talk with your spouse about the ideas found in Scripture. If you want kids who are dangerous for the darkness, you got to raise them on the kids bible and be talking about them about scripture. If you want to see a nation turned around, if you want The United States and this generation to experience awakening,

we have got to get serious about the Bible. Amen? We've got to get in the text. If you're new to Christianity, it's the text that's gonna awaken you. I was like 16 years old when I got saved. I came... I had accepted Charles Darwin into my heart. Alright?

In Portland there's not a lot of Christians. We all get raised on like weird things like new age crystals and crystal meth you know. And so by this point like I'm not a believer and I'll never forget hearing Bible taught the first time. My heart awakened, I was like, I don't know much about this. All I want is Jesus.

And from there, dude, all my buddies were non Christians, and so I thought, I have to get them to Jesus. And so one by one I started dragging all my buddies to the student ministry,

and we got so many students at this one point. I used to drive my dad's like Astro van, this big gnarly van, and I was like, dude, can't fit everybody. So we would take the seats out of my dad's Astro van and pack all these students into the van dude. And we were driving them, no seat belts, illegally to youth group.

I do not recommend this form of evangelism. Please do not do that. We'll have you arrested. Alright? I should have been. But here's the point. When you catch on to the power of God's word, I mean I'll never forget when my student pastor gave me my first study bible,

and I just remember holding it in my hands and feeling the weight of that bible. Listen, there is something of revival inside of those who read God's word. In fact, look at verses 11 through 12. This is the whole point of the miracle. Just taking him in his arms.

He said, Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him. Jumping down to the end of that passage it says, And they took the youth away, what? Alive. Why is he reemphasizing twice in this passage the life of Uticus? Here's why. Here's why. You would never forget this miracle. I mean you would never forget a man falling out of the

third story coming back to life. Would you ever forget that? I have forgotten whole years of my life at this point. You get old enough, right? Like twenty fourteen doesn't exist to me. I'm like, what happened? I don't know. Forgot the whole thing. Older people in the room, yes. But there are some days you never forget.

And God was indelibly printing this miracle in their hearts. Why? I mean, they're gonna tell their grandma about the Grammy. I saw dude rise. Died from preaching. You tell your grandkids about this one day decades later that, Listen, son, I saw Eutychus, old Eutychus. I saw him get up. He died. We saw him dead lifeless,

but he was brought back to life. And here's the miracles are never an accident. There's always a deeper meaning. That's why the Bible often calls them signs, because signs point to a deeper spiritual truth. It's not just a throwaway miracle, and so here's what God is doing. He's saying, Don't you ever forget it. Don't you ever forget this.

The world brings death to you, but my word, my word does not bring death. My word brings life

to people who hear it. My word brings life to those who believe it. And my word, if you would be dangerous for the darkness and get in the fight, my word will bring life to this region. My word will bring life to the East Valley. My word will bring life to your family. My word has power. So preach that gospel and get into the word.

This is the power of God's word. It brings life and not death. Don't you ever forget it. And this is why, in conclusion, we need to do something about it.

The first group I want to speak to is those of you, what do we do with this? You're sitting here and you may be a skeptic with us. We are so grateful you're here. I mean this is a church for skeptics. This is a church for people with questions who are curious about Christianity.

And if that is you today, here is my message for you. What do you do with all of this? You need to do this. You need to put your faith in Jesus today. And when do you do that? Here's number one. Today is the right time. Today is the right time. Why is today the day that you need to be saved?

That you need to say yes to Jesus, be forgiven of your sins, trust in His cross, trust in His resurrection, and surrender your whole life to Him and be part of this great mission. Here's why today is so important. You don't know the day of your death. I mean you don't know if you're gonna make it out of here today.

Listen. Why do I say that? Eutychus, part of the story here is do you think Eutychus thought, I'm gonna go to Bible study tonight and fall out dead? Eutychus had no idea he wouldn't have gone to Bible study if he would have thought that. Yet this

random it's a reminder to us that you don't know the day of your death. I was driving by a place I go by every single day just this week, and I saw a car flipped upside down. Just Monday.

You don't know your last day, and listen, it's appointed once for a man to die, and then comes the judgment, but you can be set free through Jesus. You can see God. You can know Him.

Some of you guys are holding onto something saying, I'm not ready to let go. Do you know how they catch monkeys, the poachers? They'll make a little box with an opening big enough for your hand to go in, for the monkey's hand to go in, but once it grabs the banana, it can't get out.

And the monkey could easily be free as the poachers are approaching. All he would have to do is loosen his grip and he'd be free.

And listen, some of you guys are hanging on. You're hanging on to secrets. You're hanging on to sin. You're hanging on to something that you want instead of Jesus, and the invitation to you today is today is the time to let go, and there is freedom on the other side of a loosened grip. Confess your sins. Say yes to Him, and be set free by Jesus.

Listen, we as the church have a truth in Jesus that is worth dying for in a world that has nothing to live for. Come to Him and know Him. Today is the right time. Now if you're a Christian in here, here's

my message for you, and this is what you need to do with this. You're saying, I don't know how to get in the fight. Like you're saying, go change the world. No, I'm not. What I'm asking you is to get in the fight is simply this. Number two, fight for just one more.

Fight for one more. You're not going to reach the East Valley. You're not going to reach your whole workplace. You're not even going to reach your whole neighborhoods. But here's what you can do. You can reach just one more.

Everybody in this room knows someone who is close to you but far from God. And at our church, we have everybody has a one more. Just one more. We literally have everyone in our church, thousands of people, they put in their phones at one p. M. An alarm with the sound on, bro.

Obnoxious. It's awesome. And that alarm goes off every single day, and on that alarm is the name of one person who is close to you but far from God. My whole vision as a church is I want one day every Costco in the West Valley at 1PM to have

this obnoxious, like, what cult is here right now? It's like, we're the garden church. Let's go. And we're reaching people for Jesus. You can fight for one more. You can be dangerous for the darkness. Now, this is intimidating. You feel like, man, who am I to preach?

Who am I to reach? I I can't get in the fight. I... I'm not equipped to fight. Look at me. And did you know that it's not up to you. Ultimately, you don't fight alone. There is one who fights for you. I was in eighth grade, and I had a big mouth. I talked a lot. You can't... It's probably hard to imagine.

And because of this, there were these five senior dudes. I'm an eighth grader. They jumped me at the movie theater. It's a busy packed movie theater. And I remember being surrounded, and they're all bigger than me.

And I thought, man, is this really that serious? And then somebody punched me in the mouth. I was like, okay, it's serious. So I text for my ride like, hey, you've got to get me out of here. I need a ride home right now. And nobody showed up. And so I did what you do. Like a man,

I hit the emergency exit and ran out the back door. And I'm booking it at this point, and I can feel them running after me. And I was pretty fast. Okay? And I'm like, I'm booking it, and there is a busy road on that Friday night. I mean,

is zooming, and I've got to calculate at this point very quickly. Are my chances better going into the busy traffic in the road or turning around, and I was one hundred and ten pounds soaking wet and fighting five senior gang affiliated dudes.

And the road was looking super good at that point. You know what mean? Like, I was like, by better chances at a car going 80. And so right then, I'm, like, about to run into the road. When I hear it, this Ford Mustang peels

out right in front of me. And I'm like, what is going on right now? Out of this Ford Mustang is my brother's car. My older brother

stepped out of that car, and he was not small like me. He was he was about... He was just out of senior year. He's he's the opposite... The big football player looking dude. He's like, what is going on? Like, why are you running? I'm like, there's these guys. They're gonna kill me. Let me in the car. He's like, these guys wanna fight you? I was like, yeah. So let me in. He's like, Nah.

You're not getting in the car. We're gonna fight them right now. I was like, No. Anything but that. He's like, Yeah. You're gonna fight. He grabbed me by the nap of the neck. He's like, You got yourself into this. We're gonna fight them right now. I was like, No.

And we go. These guys run into my brother, and all five of them, it was like out of a movie, right then fall down. They fall down. He's like, Who wants to fight Nolan?

And one of the the biggest dude of the bunch, he gets up. He's like, I'll fight I'll fight you guys right now. And he's like, what are you gonna do? This guy, about the same size as my brother, head butts my brother. And I'm like, oh no. My brother goes, bad idea bro.

And punches his lights out right there and knocks the dude out cold. It was awesome you guys. I am not recommending violence. Please don't do this. We were both non Christians. This is not the point of the sermon. But listen, I didn't fight anybody bro.

I think one of the guys who fell down, little guys, he's like trying to get up. I was ski down. I like pushed him back. You know? My brother won the whole thing. And listen, I need you to know this in the same way. You and I, we get into the fight because Jesus has already won the fight.

Listen. All we gotta do is believe. All we gotta do is say yes to him to enter into the mission. He has already defeated sin on the cross. He has already made a way for entrance into the kingdom of God. He has already defeated our enemies of Satan, sin, and death by getting up from the grave.

This is the victory of Christ that we proclaim and our role is not to fight for victory. Listen. We are fighting from victory. We are those who proclaim the battle is won. Jesus is risen and what are you gonna do about it? That's our role to play. So be dangerous for the darkness by getting in the fight.

And Father God we thank you for this opportunity to be reminded of the power of your word. That all we do is we open it up. We trust and we believe. And we are strengthened and lit on fire by this word. It is your power and your gospel that saves. But God, we know that comes with opposition.

And we wanna be on mission. So would you strengthen the souls in this room, and would you use us in a way that only you can. Let us participate in sharing the gospel and evangelizing by simply telling the truth of Jesus. He's already won. And God, those who are here today and

they are not sure what they believe, I pray that today would be the time that they say yes to Jesus. We praise you and we thank you. And all God's people said, amen and amen.

Church, would you stand as we continue to worship our powerful mighty God? He deserves all the praise, so we sing to him. I could sing your name for my

Amen.

Message, you felt the Lord stirring something in your heart and you wanna learn a little bit more about what it means to follow Jesus, in the back, we have people who would love to pray with you, talk with you, and answer any questions you might have. And for those of you who call yourself Jesus followers,

we just want to encourage you, get in the fight. Wherever you're at in your workplace, get in the fight because lives are lost and the Lord wants to meet them where they're at. We'll see you guys next week. Thanks for joining us online this weekend. You can stay connected with us through rockwind.io or our social media.