SPEAKER_00: 0:08

Welcome and thanks for joining us on this episode of the Midweek Podcast, brought to you by a Fresh Wind Church. Each week our team brings you new content to help you take steps towards Jesus and discover more in Christ. Today's episode is hosted by Pastor Ryan.

SPEAKER_01: 0:27

Hey, welcome back to the Midweek Podcast. Pastor Ryan joined as always with Pastor Tim. And uh this Sunday we kicked off a brand new series called Grow. And um, you know, Tim, I I do a lot of the sermon series planning around here, and you called me out of out of the blue the other day and said, Hey, I got a great sermon series. Let's talk about this. And man, then you read me the passage of scripture. Um, and I'm like, right during Thanksgiving. Um, but man, I it was so you kicked off this series yesterday, and I'm I'm talking week one. God already started doing some amazing things. I think this was a this is one of those God series, man. I think he's gonna use it. Um, so kind of uh walk us through Grow where this came from.

SPEAKER_03: 1:19

Well, I I've been uh noticing these lists all over the New Testament, and it has malice and deceit and envy, and and uh Peter talks, gives this list, Paul gives a couple lists, and you know, we read over those things and we like, yeah, gotcha. And uh we think, uh, yeah, I gotta I gotta keep that stuff out of um our lives. And then uh we're studying first Peter actually in the forge, and we came across um Peter's list in in chapter two, and I said, There's that list again. And I and I felt like and that was that was a couple of months ago. We don't go very fast in the course. Um I I said, There's that list again, and um I called and well I I began to talk about how deep one part of that list was, uh, which was deceit and how broad it gets and how much deceit is in our lives. Not people trying to deceive us, oh my gosh, we don't have enough time to talk about that, but how we have got into the culture of deceit and we deceive others with our life. And and I thought we were talking about it in the forge, and I was like, man, every one of these malice, deceit, envy, slander, and we were we were dealing with some slander here at the church um at that time, and how deep, deeply rooted in our culture these things are. It's just how we live.

unknown: 3:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 3:06

And I so I called you and I said, Hey, we should do a week on each of these. And you're like, malice, deceit, envy, and ego, and you and you were like, It's Christmas.

SPEAKER_01: 3:20

Yeah, we normally, you know, November try to talk about thankfulness and gratitude, and you know, we'll we'll push back against consumerism and that kind of stuff, but yeah, we're we're jumping right into the deep end of the pool here.

SPEAKER_03: 3:34

Yeah, I I I didn't think we were gonna do it this year. I just thought, hey, this would make a great um five-part series because we just came out of Philippians a couple of months ago, and we talked about working out your salvation with fear and trembling, living a life worthy of the gospel, and then Peter is basically looking me in the face and say, This is why you don't grow, this is why you don't work out your salvation, this is why you don't live a life worthy of the gospel, these five things right here.

SPEAKER_01: 4:07

And I'm like, No, it's because I'm lazy, right?

SPEAKER_03: 4:13

Um, and so we we, you know, um we need to specifically talk about these things and get them cleaned up. It's just one of those everyday Christian life confession things, and we're just gonna take a week and and do each one. And I think it'll be great. The Lord's already working on it. Um when I uh read the definition of malice, not just hatred, not just anger, but that you wish a harm on someone else. There were so many people who looked at each other in that church. I'm like, oh, I don't know what I'm getting into here. Uh so but we live in a we live in a country who thrives on vengeance and revenge and the gotcha moment. I mean, we don't even study a if we if we hear a debate on atheist against Christianity or um politics or even something that happened in the Bible and your interpretation of it, it's all about the gotcha moment. We don't we don't even study the source material anymore. It's like I'm gonna find a video where somebody gets someone, somebody who's on my side and they get someone else, you know, and the danger in our society, and I hate to bring this up every time we talk, but our algorithm gets influenced by that, and we find ourselves hearing what we only want to hear and seeing what we only want to see, and there's no way, there's no way out of that box. You you gotta go out there and find out what's going on. Right. And so the Lord said, This would be great. And I said, I gave it to you, and then I think wasn't we had something else planned and it didn't work out, and you were like, Well, let's just go with Tim said.

SPEAKER_01: 6:14

Here we are, here we are. Uh man, I think the Lord set this up for us. And I I think what you said on Sunday as you kind of introduced this series to the church, is you know, you you kind of compared it to being a bodybuilder, you know, and a lot of times we focus if you want to lose weight, well, I gotta start doing this, start doing this, start doing this, start doing this. And it's a lot of addition. Um, but sometimes it's about the subtraction and and what you don't do that's just as important as the things that you are doing. Um, and so we we will, I think there's a tendency to go about our Christian life and we say, All right, I need to start going to church, I need to start reading the Bible, I need to start praying more, you know, I need to get involved in the life group, I need to serve on a volunteer team. We got all these things that we're doing, all addition. And then as we do that, our bitterness and our malice and our deceit comes right along with us. We never deal with that. Um and then we wonder, why don't I grow? Why am I not growing? I'm trying all the stuff, I'm doing all the things that that I was told I needed to do in order to grow as a Christian.

SPEAKER_03: 7:24

And get to know Jesus better and love him more. And I just feel like now I got this burden, I got to do all this stuff, but I'm not getting anything out of it.

SPEAKER_01: 7:34

Right. And so I'm I'm plateaued. You know, I I I've hit a wall and I'm not growing. And the truth is there are some things in our life, and this is the stuff that we don't like to talk about in church. We don't like to preach sermons about, you know. Um, you know, even and and I don't even know if this is a purely American thing, because even the New Testament rights, you know, you you look for people who just tell you what you want to hear, um, tickle your ears, you know, like you that's you want people to just come along and just reaffirm everything you already believe and everything you already do. But man, we there's some stuff that and it's yeah, there's so here's Peter's list, but you'll find lists just like this, scattered all across the New Testament.

SPEAKER_03: 8:17

And it's interesting that uh we were in discovery class last night, and I think it was Julie that said, um, man, we haven't changed. It's been 2,000 years, and we are we are the same people they were back then. And uh and that's the truth. We are, and that's why the uh we're looking for relevance. Oh, we need to be relevant. The New Testament is the most relevant thing you can pick up. All the things we're dealing with in our culture right now, it looks like the New Testament was written specifically for us right now. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 8:59

Yeah, it's it's challenging. And so we we started with this one and said, all right, if if we're gonna grow, yep, there's all kinds of things you need to do to add to your life, um, to work out your salvation, um, to live lives worthy of the gospel. There's there's a lot that you you have to do um to be effective in your walk with Christ, but there's also some things we got to remove. Um and first one on the list was malice. And this isn't a word that we use a whole lot, you know. Uh, and and so I I appreciated the fact that you took time to kind of define this for the church because it's not a word that comes up in conversation. Uh, you know, I got all this malice in my heart. Right. When's the last time you heard someone say that?

SPEAKER_04: 9:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 9:42

Um, I got malice towards you. Nobody talks like this. Yeah. But I I think the way you defined it Sunday, like it it's beyond anger, right? Like I'm I wish ill will towards you. Is that how you defined it?

SPEAKER_03: 9:58

Yeah. And that's that's important to establish that. And uh, I think that's why that word's so shocking. You know, we all know that it's another level of hatred. Um, so we kind of kind of avoid it. We don't want to know about it, but it slips into our lives a lot, and uh like I said on Sunday, there's there's three ways that it it slips in. But let's uh we'll talk about that in a minute. But I want to talk about malice coming from hurt when you don't forgive you get bitter. And when you get bitter, you start to hate. And when you start to hate, the next level is malice. I just want them to hurt. I just wish they could hurt. I wish I could do to them what they did to me. You know, and it doesn't have to be murder. It can be I want to embarrass them the way they embarrassed me. That's malice too.

SPEAKER_01: 11:04

I think for a lot of us we you know, we're we're Christian enough that we're not going out there and slicing people's tires, you know, like but in so I think malice is deceptive in this way because we're like, well, I never do that. But it's the fantasy, you know. Right. We sit around and dream up all the ways that we could get back, all the ways that we could get even, all the ways that we could make them feel like I feel right now. Um, and man, if I if they if I would just say this and they would feel this, yeah, and we just we let those fantasies start to play out, and and that's malice growing right in our heart. And here's the thing about these lists is you know, it's we treat them a lot like genealogies in the Bible. We just ride right past it. Uh so-and-so begat so-and-so. It's like, okay, what's next? We get to the list and we just read it. Next, man, stop and pause for a second. What he's saying here, it is it's that shock to the system. Wait a minute. Do I have that going on in me? And the truth is, I think a lot of us, a lot of us do.

SPEAKER_03: 12:19

So think back uh a year or so ago, and if you ask the country, are you harboring malice? They would say, No, I'm not harboring. Maybe towards the president if you're on that side or whatever. But when um Elon Musk joined up with the president and started going through um AEID that it's not it's not our aid program to other countries, don't get that in your head. But when they started finding all that stuff and and everybody started screaming about it. And you and everybody who would have said, I don't have any malice in me, found themselves in front of a uh Tesla and thought, you know what? Here's how I can get back at them. And what what a what a crazy what a crazy was it a month that people were just attacking cars until until they realized that the Tesla are is recording them doing it. Um I and attacking and bombing Tesla dealerships. Now I I don't know if that would someone was paid to do that. It it always looks like that someone is trying to get other people involved in malice. So number one, there's other people out there who want you to be malicious, so you we gotta fight them. But there was a lot of people out there who who didn't know they had malice until they have an an opportunity for it to come out. And uh they didn't go, and I I didn't see any place where it looked like people were going up and down parking lots looking for Teslas. They just happened to be next to one and said, I'm gonna key this car. And that's maliciousness, that's malice, and a little bit of malice will grow into a forest fire of malice. Uh you've gotta, you've gotta be you've gotta be very careful as a Christian. Now, this happened to our country, it didn't happen in church, can't happen in church, but the only way to stop that is for Christians to stand up and say, No, look right here what the Word of God says. You're not to have this in your life, and we've got to get rid of it, and then we have to pray in resistance to it in our country. Every uh civil discourse that turns into a revolution, there's malice involved. Right? It was tea that we dumped in the in the bay before the Revolutionary War, uh, the Boston Tea Party, and then some people got killed. And that fired everybody up. And that's where that malice leaks in. Everybody quits thinking and just starts doing. And uh this is how riots start, you know. It wasn't a big deal until I got shot with a rubber bullet, and then I wanted to hurt 'em. You know, and these things are it's in us. If we don't if we don't take care of it, it can roll right over your decision making. And uh suddenly you're a monster and you don't know how you got there. If you ever been in a fight, you know what I'm talking about. You know? Um there's just a a place you go that you don't think no more. And so I just I wanted to let everybody know that this this maliciousness, this malice thing is something that Satans use to break up relationships. And we say that in a churchified way, you know, your relationship with your pastor, your relationship with your wife and your kids and and your best friends and the rest of your family. He wants to break those up, but he also wants to break up our relationships with our neighbors. And so the only way we can resist is for Christians to stand up and say no. And uh we see it in all these countries that are that are having terrible problems, it's their maliciousness, their malice takes over. And it's very dangerous.

SPEAKER_01: 16:46

You brought up in the sermon that um guy from was it New Jersey who just got elected? No, it was Virginia. Virginia. And he had, I mean, some text messages had come out, he had said some horrible things about this other guy and his family, and yeah, I mean, just stuff that and and you even said, I don't think if this guy had the opportunity, he would have never acted on that. He never would have done that. But he said it in a text message. And for a lot of us, we'd think, well, man, no way that guy gets elected now. You say that kind of stuff, you're done. I mean, you you just wished his whole family would die, his kids too. You're out. But but he got elected, and why? And and I thought the point you brought up was right on the money. The truth is a lot of us can relate to say, I've had that feeling before.

SPEAKER_03: 17:41

We resonate with it. Yeah, you know, it's just like, yeah, that's what I feel. He just said what I feel, you know. I would never do it either. I don't think he would ever do it, but he's like me. I'm gonna I'm gonna vote for him. And that's uh that's unfortunately, um that's how malice spreads. I was we were talking about Joseph and his brothers. Not everybody said let's kill him. Just one guy said let's kill him, and they all rose up to do it. Yeah and um because it resonated with him, we would be better off without him.

SPEAKER_01: 18:20

That's that's how we begin to spot that that malice in us. Because it's something that I think a lot of us, like you said, it we don't think we're these people until that opportunity's there. Right. Um and but you start to look, man, how often do I fantasize about these things? And and when those opportunities come up, what am I thinking about? And and those temptations that that come along with it. And you can begin to spot a little bit of that malice in your heart. Um Ty just got his driver's license, so he's 16 years old and had an eye doctor's appointment the other day. And I told him as soon as he turned 16, I'm like, I'm not driving anymore. You will drive everywhere. Um, I'm like, I'll pull you out of school to run errands. So he had an eye doctor appointment, and uh, so he drove. It was out in Avon Lake, and um we're he pulls in, we go in for the appointment 45 minutes later, we're pulling back out, and he goes, he gets to the road, he goes, Dad, do I turn left or right? Which was a little shocking for me because I'm like, you just did this 45 minutes ago. Just do the opposite. Um we're still working, he's directionally challenged like me. Um, I can get lost in my own neighborhood, and it's a you. Um my wife, Joy, she can get anywhere. Ellie, shockingly, can tell you how to get anywhere, like step-by-step directions.

SPEAKER_03: 19:44

I've experienced that myself.

SPEAKER_01: 19:46

Her recall is just phenomenal. But Ty was a little panicked about which way to go. So I'm telling him which way to go, and a car's coming, and he's a little bit nervous trying to get out in front of that car, so he waits. Guy behind him starts to beep. Well, now another car's coming, and Ty's like, oh dad, I don't know if I can make it. This guy beeps again. By the time Ty's like, okay, I'm getting ready to, now the dude's laying on his horn. Well, I'm sitting there in the passenger seat. I come up out of the seat and I'm looking through the back windshield, going to town on this guy, um, letting him have it. He looks at me, gives me this come on signal, and opens his door and starts getting out of his truck. And I'm thinking, man, I'm in my fresh wind shirt, and I'm gonna have to go punch this guy. And he drives a truck, so he's gonna win. You know, I drive a traverse, I'm not winning that fight. So I'm about to get my butt kicked here, but I'm gonna have to at least try to punch him or kick him in the shins. Something. And then I think he saw in my mouth, I said he's 16 years old and he shut his door, is I think what happened. And Ty pulls out, and all that I tell you that because I pull away, and for the next, like, I'm not kidding you, Tim, two, three hours. All I can think about was that moment with that guy. And I'm like, man, if what what would it I have done if he had gotten out of that car? What would I have said in that moment? And I would have told him this, and I would have told him that. And all of a sudden you're like, hey, there's that malice. That's what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_03: 21:19

I found it. I found it. And we all have a little bit of that uh in us, and that's why it's so dangerous, and that's why we need to confess it and keep it out of us. Because someone else, someone else, not even you, can fire that up to where it takes control of you. And that's why Malice um when the Disney character made Malibescent, is that how you say your name?

SPEAKER_01: 21:50

I know what you're talking about. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03: 21:52

She she was hurt, they embarrassed her um when she was young, and you put a curse on the baby and that whole thing. And that's what they were talking about. You know, that's in us, and it just grew and grew until she was a monster. And we need to understand that that little bit in us that makes you freak out when someone's beeping at your kid is something that someone else can use against you.

SPEAKER_01: 22:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 22:26

And that someone is Satan, and he is looking for those things in our lives so he can put a ring in our nose and lead us around.

SPEAKER_01: 22:34

You mentioned on Sunday that so I mean, you know, I think there's there's different sources of malice, right? Where it where it comes from in our life, and um some of it, you know, in this Disney character, it was external. Something some things that happened to her and that grew up. Um you mentioned some others, uh you know, culturally, we're right, we're this culture, we're the get even culture. Um and so that's part of it.

SPEAKER_03: 23:05

Um your team. That's another one. Uh your team. Um I heard someone say coming out pointed to her husband and said he wants the other quarterbacks to get hurt. And sometimes, you know, our team leads us to that. Um but yeah, culturally we're we're just we're in a team. Uh look what happened at 9-11. You know, boom, brought down the the buildings, the whole country was like, who was it? Yeah, yeah. We're all everybody assigned. We had football players leave the NFL to join um join the army. Yeah, we had uh, you know, when your team gets hurt, it'll bring up your malice. And uh unfortunately, you know, a whole country can get steered by it and uh not do the right thing or even the wise thing in the middle of it. Yeah, we're all gonna get revenge, but on who? We're just waiting for someone to raise their hand and say, pick me. Yeah. And I feel like that that whole thing back then was basically we were overrun with malice. And we need leaders that can lay that down and make the right decision.

SPEAKER_01: 24:34

One of the ones that you brought up that is a little less obvious, maybe, is um that that some of it is stuff that we've we've internalized, um, and then there's stuff that that's not even our own thoughts. Right, you know, and and you said there are some things that some thoughts that you entertain that are not who you are. Um but like you're saying, the enemy whispers these thoughts into our ears, um so that he can. He can drag us around and pull us into this mess and pull us deeper into that anger and that bitterness and that resentment until we begin to lose control. Um and all of a sudden we'll step back and be like, man, what did I just say? How did I go that far? Right. What did I just do? Um and it's it's this root of of malice in our in our life that we have not taken the time to dig up. You know, I I don't even know how this happened. I walked outside. We had been pulling some weeds, getting ready for a birthday party for our kids, and I went back in the house. And when I went back outside, like 30, 45 minutes later, there was this weed puller tool leaned up against my shed. No idea where it came from. I've never bought one in my life. Here it was. I don't know if a neighbor saw me out there on my hands and knees pulling weeds, was like, this guy needs some help. But they didn't knock on the door, didn't tell me whose it was. I don't know who to return it to, other than just start knocking on all my neighbors' doors. Or if God just dropped it from heaven. I don't know. Here it was. But man, this thing, you stick it in the ground, you step on it, and you pull back on it, and it just starts ripping weeds out. You don't even got to bend down. I'm like, where has this been my whole life? I don't know. I want one to I'll be praying. One shows up at your shed. No, I want that one. You want this one? That's envy. We're gonna talk about that too.

SPEAKER_03: 26:41

That's right, we're talking about that.

SPEAKER_01: 26:43

But man, we we need a little bit of that when it comes to this malice. You know, we need something that's gonna rip this thing out. Yeah. Um, because if not, it it gets control and and you look up and you're like, there's just a path of destruction behind you that you didn't even know you were capable of.

SPEAKER_03: 27:01

This kind of plays into what Paul was talking about in Corinthians, that um we don't battle against flesh and blood, but we're or we don't wage war with um carnal weapons or or natural weapons that we wage war in the spirit, and that we have to tear down these strongholds in our life. Now, when I used to preach that when I was younger, I used to get a big stuffed animal like a stuffed bear or something, and I'd take uh PVC and I'd make a little U and then I would sew it in the back of the bear so it looked like a handle. Right? And I said, This'll probably um make more sense to you when we talk about strongholds, because strongholds what he's what he's talking about, he's building a castle uh that has to be torn down uh in your heart and mind. But I I think that symbology works with my little teddy bear because there's a handle on your life where Satan can get a strong hold on you and malice is one of 'em. And if you there's no way uh that handle's sticking out of you all the time. And if he knows, if you've reacted and he says there's something there, he's gonna he's gonna work on building it. He's gonna work on uh what he can do to have a person um who's kind of like the person you're mad at, you know, embarrass you, do stuff to you. He's planning so that he has a he's has a strong hold on your life. Those things have to be ripped out. And the way the way we do it is by taking every thought and making it obedient to Christ. And when we read that, we think I need to take every one of my thoughts. No, no, not every one of your thoughts. Every thought, every thought that comes out of that YouTube video, every thought that comes out of that TikTok, every thought that's coming over the radio, on TV, your thoughts, and every thought that Satan puts into your mind has to be rung through and made obedient to Christ. And and that's the only way that we can not just get rid of malice, but keep it out, is to say, Hey, you know what? I feel like I want to kill that guy who's beeping at my son. I feel like I wanna I I just I wanna, I know I'm gonna lose. But I I want to protect my son. I want him to know I'm standing up for him and who is this guy? Who does he think he is? And you need to run that through the filter in what's what's obedient to Christ. That man behind you beeping that horn is made in my image. What if something terrible happens? And you knock him out and he never wakes up and he never gets a chance to profess me. I'm sorry, I'm going back to the wrong thing.

SPEAKER_01: 30:28

Yeah, this has gotten deep, man. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03: 30:31

To profess me as his savior and Lord. We need to understand that God does not think this way about people even when they deserve it. He thinks, I want to save you before you have to face your consequences. And and we have to take all those thoughts, and I'm telling you, you I don't think you understand because we've naturalized our walk. It's it's about my willpower and my knowledge of the Bible, and this is how I live my Christian life. No we do not fight with natural weapons. And you're trying to fight with natural weapons. We have a spiritual battle going on, and somebody's whispering you thoughts all the time that are contrary to being obedient to Christ.

SPEAKER_01: 31:26

You talk about the algorithm a lot. Scripture tells us that our enemy, Satan, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking those to devour. He is the original algorithm builder against you. He has been watching, he has been waiting, he sees the things that push your buttons. Um and then he builds up this algorithm. And when those things come up, he's like, Oh, I can pull on this string and I can push, and uh, they're a little, they're a little uptight, a little overwhelmed today. If I just have this thing here, um it'll set them off.

SPEAKER_03: 32:05

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 32:06

And he this is what he does. He he seeks to steal, kill, and destroy. That's who he is. Um, you talked on something, he's he's a liar and a deceiver. This is this is who we're we're going to to war against. And so when he speaks, these things, and I and I love how Paul says this, he says, you take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. Like there is it's verb, it's action. It doesn't just happen. And it's not even just reading scripture that does it. That's important, but then it's taking my thoughts that I have, and now I have to force them to be obedient to scripture, be obedient to God's word. There's we can't be passive in this fight, you know. It I I've got to engage in this so that I take every thought that comes, and like you said, not not just my thoughts, every thought that comes my way. And I have to make it obedient to Christ. What does God's word say about this? What does God think about this situation? What does God think about that person that I'm I'm plotting my revenge against? What would God want to happen in that situation, in that relationship? And I got to start making all of those thoughts obedient to Christ.

SPEAKER_03: 33:25

And when we look at this, we think, man, it's a mountain. But that passage of scripture is found in uh 2 Corinthians chapter 10. And we need there's a there's a part of it that we that we leave out. And I think that is also a satanic attack. We won't get into that though. Um it's just I'm just gonna read you the verses we're talking about. Verse 4 says, the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, we have divine power to demolish strongholds. What we're saying here, this is not an act of your will. I'm not gonna think like that. I'm not gonna, I'm going to make this obedient to Christ. A lot of times we can we can make that in our head, you know, God doesn't want me to think like this, but it never reaches our heart. We have divine power. There is no reason why you can't tear this out of you. There is no reason. Satan can't stop you. All you have to say in Jesus' name, I tear this out. I confess it as sin and I reject it. And nobody can stop you. Satan can't stop you. You have divine power. The Holy Spirit lives inside of you. This is a this is a spiritual thing. It's not a worldly thing. Quit trying to resist that thought or that thing, rip it out and resist the devil trying to stir it up in you again. That's b that's how you do it with divine power. And uh, we need to keep giving it up every time it comes up, and pretty soon um Satan will know that every time he tries to get you fired up and go in this direction, yell at your kids and embarrass them, uh, which is the worst thing you can do and to your kids, especially if you want them to uh grow up in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. You gotta stop that. And the way to stop it is to say, hey, I'm not gonna do that anymore in Jesus' name. I tear this stronghold out, I'm not gonna do it anymore, and then pray. And then Satan realizes every time I try to lead, grab his nose ring, and pull him around on this, he ends up praying, I'm gonna go somewhere else. I'm done. Yeah, I'm gonna find something else.

SPEAKER_01: 35:58

Yeah, I man, I I was talking to uh a buddy of mine the other day, and he's just wrestling through some stuff, and you know, he's he's struggling with some of these ideas and these thoughts, and he's like, Man, how do how have I become the kind of guy that's I gotta convince myself that's not who I am? I was like, what are you talking about? I said, for the past two or three weeks, you've been fighting and wrestling with this thing, proving that that's not who you are. I said, the devil's losing his grip. I said, every time those thoughts come, every time you have that outside pressure, that influence, that whatever it is in in your situation, and you, you know, you pray or you don't act on it, or you begin to go to God's word and say, God, what do you have to say about this? Every time you you turn that from you know fear or whatever, and and now you just begin to to worship, Satan loses his grip, and you prove this is not who I am, and it doesn't matter how many times you bring it against me. And so to even say, Well, you know, how do I gotta you give too much weight to the devil? Absolutely, he's powerless over you. You have divine power. And I I told him, I was like, buddy, you're you're in the last rounds of this fight because this isn't fun anymore. Right. It was fun when I could whisper things into your ear and get you all riled up, but now you pray. Now you go to God's word in front of the enemy.

SPEAKER_03: 37:35

Now you sink count, you seek counsel.

SPEAKER_01: 37:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 37:37

And these are the things that um you're gonna have to go through. You cannot let Satan build a castle in your territory. That's right. You have to tear it down. And it's and sometimes um you're trying to decide, is is that me or is that him? I guarantee you, I guarantee you, it's 90%. If you ask that question, if you even ask it, then you know it's him. You know it's him. Because what he wants is for you to think it's you. So if all of a sudden you ask this question, is that me? Then it's it's ninety-nine point nine percent sure not you. Yeah. And that that is the that is the problem that he wants to make it you if you receive it. Don't receive it. And this is the thing. He always starts from that branch. No, this is you, this is what you feel like. So I think uh I don't want to make too big of this. We're making we're making too big. So let's uh let's just go like this and I'll pray. Uh we need to be a people who sees this in our hearts and rips it out in the name of Jesus and then goes on with our life. We need to be the the Christians that recognize that we have an enemy, and that enemy is trying to destroy us. So don't let him convince you it's you. You have a brand new life in Jesus Christ, and you simply say, in the name of Jesus, I tear down this stronghold, I tear it out, and all those thoughts, I'm gonna compare them to Jesus' thoughts, and Jesus is gonna win. And when you do that, you don't second guess yourself. You'll be doing it tomorrow, and then you'll be doing it the next day, and then pretty soon that thing will be dug out completely, and just make sure you thank the Lord for it when you're done. Lord, thank you for showing me that, because that's exactly what's happening. Thank you for letting me know I had a big ring in my nose and helping me take it out. And if there's any other rings anywhere around, Lord, you know, let me find those two. And this is how you grow.

unknown: 40:10

Yep.

SPEAKER_03: 40:11

And pretty soon those things, uh a year from now, those things that you struggled with today, you'll think, did I struggle with that? I can't remember. I think I I think I did, but I can't even remember what happened now. And that's that's where that's how you grow. And and you won't remember. That's why I always say um you need a little journal for when you win those battles, you know, uh, so you can look back and say, hey, you know what? I was in that too. I'm not in it anymore. And let me give you hope.

SPEAKER_01: 40:46

Yeah, and scripture tells us that the God of all comfort comforts us so that we can comfort others in their time of need. And so one day, God's gonna use this battle so that He can He can comfort somebody else going through it, He can provide them hope while they're sitting there struggling, trying to figure out how they're gonna get through this thing and let that bitterness go. And you're gonna come along inside and say, Man, I know exactly what you're talking about. This is what God did for me.

SPEAKER_03: 41:13

I think um we need to get serious about this stuff, and we need to get serious about malice fast because deceit's coming up on Sunday.

SPEAKER_01: 41:25

Well, with that, Pastor Tim, why don't you pray for us?

SPEAKER_03: 41:29

Father, I want to thank you that you have given us divine power over these things. But Lord, we have to dig down deep and find those things. Um, we want you to search our heart and find any wicked way in us. And I know that's what you're doing as you bring these things out, as you've led us to this passage of scripture to preach to the people here at A Fresh Wind, that you're gonna reach down in there and say, Hey, see this ring? We need to rip that out. See this little castle in your territory? We need to tear the enemy out of there. And Father, as we begin to do that in faith, that you'll make us grow. As we take away the barriers to our growth, that we'll grow. And thank you, Father, for this passage of scripture that reaches right down into our heart and helps us grow in Jesus' name.

unknown: 42:25

Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_00: 42:26

Thanks again for joining us for this episode of the Midweek Podcast. We'd love to hear from you. Let us know how God is using this resource in your life or send any podcast questions or topic ideas to podcast at a freshwind.org. If you would like to support this ministry financially and help us continue offering new resources that equip you to discover more in Christ, simply text any amount to the number 84321. We're so grateful for your support. Make sure to tune in next week for a brand new episode of the Midweek Podcast. Be blessed and have a great week.