Standing in the Midst of the Greatest Storms (Opposing the Devil)

When everything seems to be going wrong around us, when fear, anxiety, violence, and death, seem to beat upon us like a mighty storm of wind, rain, and even a flood, how do we stand? How can we endure something that is so much bigger than us? The answer is quite simple actually. Just like a house weathering a storm, our standing depends on our foundation, what we have built our life upon. It doesn’t matter how strong the house itself is, if it doesn’t have a strong foundation it will fall all the more. Storms come in this world, it is the natural reality of living in a broken world. We can avoid them for a time, or weather the small ones, but without Jesus and His words as our foundation, we will fall. The more we build our lives upon unsolid, sandy, and loose foundations the greater that fall will be. We must firmly build our lives upon Jesus Christ and him alone.

I have to apologize. This sermon series has been trying to teach you and show you how to build your life upon the words of Jesus as they point us to Him and His Kingdom. I usually preach on our needs and rewards from a worldly more physical perspective. I have done this mostly because it is the most accessible. The truth is, however, that I have failed to teach you about our greatest need, our greatest enemy, and the greatest storms. For the future growth of this church and for the growth of God’s Spirit with us, I need to show you what we are equipping ourselves against, and why it is so essential to build upon God’s words only.

Wars, people fleeing their homes, false leaders in and outside of the church, and proclaiming Christians that don’t practice the love of Christ, feel like pretty momentous things, but it is not the surface things that we battle against, these are not the storms. Our enemy is not flesh and blood, but instead, our enemies are what is underlying all of these things, it is the spirit of deception that tempts someone to choose greed, anger, or pride before Jesus and building his kingdom.

I have avoided talking about the devil and evil spirits because I am still very much uncomfortable with the idea. For most of my life, I didn’t believe in them. For many of you, it might seem like a fantasy or wrong, but bear with me for a moment. Most of you know that we are more than flesh and blood and neurons. We have a spiritual need, and even most outside the church would recognize that. If there is evil persisting at a physical, mental, and emotional level, why wouldn’t there be one at a spiritual level? There have been numerous events over the last few years that have felt and been heavier than they were on the surface. There was an atmosphere, a spirit during COVID that was bigger than the sum of what happened to us, and in some ways, we are still living from those ramifications. When Trump was first elected there was a spirit of such enmity, hostility, and fear that consumed both sides. Again, we are still seeing that evil spirit at work.

I’m telling you all of this because you need to believe and watch. The enemy is such a tricky one that he will take the very best things and try to use them to lead you astray. He will use anything in his power to try to get you to build your life upon something that isn’t God. Maybe by distorting your image of God or by helping you think something is more important than God. He will try to get you to leave the house you have built. Maybe by showing you the struggles of life, or something that seems better or easier. The devil will try to get you to build a poorly maintained extension on that house that will only peel away over time or at the next storm. Like getting us to distort or ignore part of what Jesus said.

Remember how tricky the devil, the deceiver, that serpent was in the garden of Eden. He gently manipulated and changed God’s words to Eve. Then he told a half-truth, God doesn’t want you to eat the fruit because you will become like God, knowing good and evil. This was a half-truth, because they were already like God, made in his image. They were already being taught good and evil, as they were being prepared to hold dominion and tend the garden. What he didn’t tell them was that they would know evil, because it would live in them and we see that the natural result is that they turn against God, one another, even the animals and trees. The devil doesn’t stop there, because he shows Eve the fruit that looks good and desirable, but it is far from how it appears. The devil is crafty, but all Eve had to do to resist the devil was to trust God enough to ask him a question and be patient enough to follow him after.

That is the same way the enemy works in and around us. He gives us half-truths, he gets us to doubt God and Jesus, and he puts things in front of us that look really good and desirable, but in all of this the devil, the deceiver, leads us away from God and His Kingdom. In the midst of any storm, we can weather it by simply resting in our trust and dependence on God, but the devil will use any doubt or question we have to lead us astray, so it is important to understand how the enemy works.

This is becoming especially urgent for me to say because some amazing things are happening here at this church. People are coming to faith, returning to faith, growing in faith, talking about faith, sharing it, getting excited about their faith and there is such a godly life and love in this place. God is really at work through us and I want to commend all of you for the ways you are partnering with God and one another to make this happen. The problem is that this is exactly when the enemy shows up. This is when the devil wants to put a wrench in and tear us apart, divide us, make us seek other things, lose our excitement, and more.

It is also becoming urgent for me to say because I am seeing the wiles of the enemy more and more in and around us - and he will try harder and harder as our hope and potential in Jesus becomes greater. I have, wrongly, been trying to take on these storms on my own, trusting my faith in God and a few of the prayer warriors in my life. I have too often doubted your willingness, understanding, or faith and my ability to communicate or understand and I am sorry. But I can’t protect you, only our collective faith in God and building our lives upon the sure rock that is His word can protect us from the raging storms.

I can’t speak to all of the ways I have seen the enemy at work in this place or else, sadly, I would go on too long, but I will give you some general ideas of how I have seen the enemy at work. I have seen the enemy weaken our loving actions and welcoming by creating unease, or even fear. I have seen the enemy weakening our inner lives and faith, by getting us to dwell in exhaustion or anxiety or doubt. I have seen the enemy tearing down our willingness to forgive, by getting us to depend on self-protection, doubt of one another, and more. I have seen the enemy trying to tear down our faith and dependence on Jesus alone, by telling us that such exclusiveness creates enmity and hostility. I have seen the enemy filling our lives with good things, so that we don’t have time for God or those we meet and so that we can’t do the best things. I have seen the enemy show us things that look good and desirable all the while luring us away from God’s truth and word. Remember, that oftentimes, the enemy can work through us as much as around us. Remember, Jesus once called Peter, the devil, because Peter rejected the idea of Jesus’ death on the cross. To Peter, I am sure this seemed like love just as it probably would to many of us, but in it, Peter was tempting others to reject God, and their own salvation in the name of a lesser compassion than Jesus was about to show.

This is a hard sermon for me to preach because I don’t know how you will take it. It is not easy to see these spirits and to perceive how they have been affecting and manipulating us, but it is far worse to be drawn into temptation and fall into a pit of our own making. Our Father, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.

I am telling you all of this because I need you to know how important it is that you build your lives, wholly and fully upon the rock of Jesus’ words and life. It is more important than anything else you might do in this life because everything else comes from this. What good is it drinking from a broken cup, or living in a house that might fall and kill us and others at any time? Very little. So are our lives, and our ideas without Jesus Christ at the centre of them, without Jesus Christ being the only thing we build our lives upon.

As heavy as this seems, to me at least, the solution and our protection are quite simple. Depend on God, lean not on your own understanding, turn to him for support and guidance, trust in, and lean on him more than anything else. If we do that God will equip us to weather any storm. He will be our sure foundation in the midst of every storm. He will give us the belt of truth to help us move and live by what is right and real. He will give us a breastplate of righteousness, which is a good relationship with God protecting our hearts. He will give us a shield of faith that will defend us from all fiery temptations that would otherwise consume us. He will give us the shoes of the good news of peace, which help us to move and run, living in and creating peace. He gives us the helmet of salvation, which helps us to know in Christ we are saved and nothing needs to lead us astray. Notice up until now all these are protective. Lastly, he gives us only one weapon to fight the evil one which is the sword of the word of God, which is the Holy Spirit. It is the word of God spoken, inspired and interpreted through the Holy Spirit in us, that will help us to defeat our true spiritual enemies. It is the word of God spoken and inspired through the Holy Spirit in us, that becomes that foundation that helps us weather the storm.

Honestly, this week was a little hard for me. On top of the minor ways the enemy continuously tries to deceive or belittle the good things in my life, I saw, experienced and was praying through about 5 major attacks. Times when the enemy had so blinded someone from the good that they became instruments of evil. Thankfully, most of them barely involved people in these pews, but the enemy is trying to draw us into those deceptions and so I need to equip you. One night this week I went for a long walk and God gave me a vision. The cloud coverage was intense and yet the moon was shining brightly through. As the wind blew it looked like every moment the clouds were going to overshadow the moon and yet its light was never smothered. I know the moon is often blocked out by clouds, that was why it was astounding to watch. It was the tiniest little sign of God reminding me that when we reflect his light there is nothing that can overshadow us or dim Christ’s light shining through us.

I hope you are beginning to see how essential it is that we build our lives upon Jesus and His words. It is so easy to convince ourselves that we can do it on our own, we think we know what is right, and we think we can stand, yet it doesn’t take long if we really look to realize that we can’t. There are forces, realities, spirits and even people bigger than us. We need to build our lives upon Jesus and His powerful and potent word if we are to remain standing. We need to be equipped by Him and live out his word if we ever expect to truly defeat the greatest enemies of this world. If we rest in God, there is nothing that can defeat us. If we live out and speak his word, there is nothing we can’t overcome. As a result, here in this church, we are already beginning to see what God can create in us. AMEN