From the sermon preached on August 31, 2025
You feel it, even if you can’t name it.
Something keeps pulling you back to the habit you swore you’d quit. Your relationships feel like they’re falling apart from the inside out. You scroll through the news and nothing makes sense anymore — and somewhere underneath the noise, there’s a question you can’t shake: Is there more going on here than I can see?
The answer, according to the Bible, is yes. Spiritual warfare is not a religious concept reserved for movies or medieval theology. It is the unseen battle happening right now — in your home, your mind, and your community. And the stunning news is this: if you’re in Christ, you are not fighting for victory. You are fighting from it.
That distinction changes everything.
Why Does Life Feel Like a Battle You Can't Win?
The apostle Paul — one of the most important figures in early Christianity — traveled to a city called Ephesus in what is now modern-day Turkey. Ephesus was a major port city, a gateway to Asia, wealthy and influential — and completely saturated in spiritual darkness. The enormous temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, sat at its center. Idol-making was the city’s most profitable industry. Witchcraft, sorcery, and occult practices weren’t underground — they were mainstream.
In other words, Ephesus looked a lot like the world many of us are living in right now.
Paul spent two to three years there — longer than anywhere else in his travels — because he understood what was at stake. He recognized that when darkness runs deep, the ground is fertile for the gospel to do something extraordinary.
Writing to the church he eventually planted there, Paul described what was really going on beneath the surface of life: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness” (Ephesians 6:12, ESV).
This is not poetry. Paul is naming the actual enemy. And it is not your coworker. It is not your ex. It is not the political party you can’t stand. The true enemy operates behind all of it — and his tactics haven’t changed since the beginning of time. In Genesis 3 and again in Luke 4, when Satan tempted Jesus himself, the playbook was the same: the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.
Today those tactics show up as cultural confusion, moral compromise, relentless distraction, and the slow deconstruction of truth. The enemy has not gotten more creative. He has just gotten louder.
What Happens When You Try to Use God's Name Without Knowing God?
Acts 19 tells one of the strangest and most revealing stories in the entire New Testament. A Jewish high priest named Sceva had seven sons who worked as traveling exorcists — essentially spiritual consultants who would cast out demons for hire. They watched the apostle Paul doing extraordinary things in Ephesus — healings, deliverances, miracles — and they thought they saw a formula worth copying.
So they walked into a home, stood in front of a demon-possessed man, and said, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.”
The demon’s response is almost darkly funny: “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?”
What happened next was not funny. The man leaped on all seven of them, overpowered them, and they ran out of the house naked and wounded.
The sons of Sceva knew about Jesus. They had heard the name. They had seen the results. But they did not know him — and that difference was exposed in the most humiliating way possible.
This story isn’t just an ancient cautionary tale. It is a mirror held up to anyone who has grown up around church, around Christian culture, around the right vocabulary — without ever having a real, surrendered relationship with Jesus. You can attend every service, lead a small group, and still be operating on borrowed faith. The theological term for what the sons of Sceva offered is “strange fire” — worship or spiritual activity that looks real but has no authentic relationship underneath it.
Authority in spiritual warfare flows from relationship, not from religious familiarity. You cannot borrow someone else’s faith. You cannot inherit someone else’s conviction. At some point, the question becomes personal: Do you know about Jesus, or do you actually know him?
What Does It Look Like to Burn Your Idols?
After the debacle with the sons of Sceva, something remarkable happened across the city of Ephesus. A holy fear fell on the residents — Jews and Greeks alike. And then people started coming forward. Not just to watch. Not just to attend. They came to confess.
Believers who had been secretly holding onto their old practices brought out their sorcery books and burned them publicly. Historians estimate the total value of what was destroyed that day — scrolls, occult materials, idols — was equivalent to the annual salaries of 150 working men. That is how much people were willing to lose in order to be free.
That is revival.
And here is the hard truth it carries for us: the gospel cannot coexist with an idol. An idol is not just a carved statue. Romans 1:25 describes it plainly — idolatry is when we “exchange the truth about God for a lie and worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator.” An idol is anything we trust more, love more, or serve more than God.
For some people, that’s an addiction. For others, it’s money, comfort, success, or the approval of other people. It might be a relationship that’s become consuming. It might be the security of a retirement account. It might even be a good thing — family, career, reputation — that has quietly moved into the place only God is meant to occupy.
Closing the door on those things requires more than willpower. Willpower will carry you a certain distance, but it cannot deliver you. The people of Ephesus didn’t just decide to stop using their sorcery books — they burned them. There is power in the decisive, irreversible act of surrender.
Sometimes that looks like deleting an app. Changing a contact. Ending a conversation. Whatever it is that the Holy Spirit keeps bringing to the surface — that is the door God is asking you to close.
What Are the Signs That the Gospel Is Actually Winning?
|
The World’s Answer |
The Gospel’s Answer |
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Fight harder with more willpower |
Fight from victory already won |
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Accumulate more spiritual experiences |
Know Jesus personally |
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Manage your sin |
Surrender and close the door |
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Tolerate the darkness around you |
Advance the light into it |
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Hope things get better |
Trust the One who already won |
Colossians 2:15 says that Jesus “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them” in his death and resurrection. The battle has already been decided. The cross was not a defeat — it was the moment the enemy was stripped of his ultimate weapon. And when you surrender your life to Christ, that victory becomes yours. Not something you work toward. Something you already possess and now walk in.
Jesus himself said it plainly in Matthew 16:18: “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Gates don’t chase you down. Gates are defensive structures. Which means the church — and the individual follower of Jesus — is meant to be on offense, advancing toward the darkness, not hiding from it.
How to Apply This to Your Life This Week
- Name the battle honestly. What area of your life feels like a constant losing fight? Addiction, a broken relationship, a persistent fear? Stop calling it just a bad habit or a personality flaw. Name it as a spiritual battle — and then bring it to God specifically in prayer.
- Check whether you know God or just know about him. Spend five minutes this week not asking God for anything — just talking to him like a person you actually know. If that feels strange or empty, that’s important information.
- Close one door. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you one specific thing that has become an idol or an open door to darkness in your life. Then do something decisive and irreversible about it — delete, block, discard, or confess it to someone you trust.
- Put on the armor. Read Ephesians 6:10–18 out loud this week. Not as a ritual — as a declaration. You are reminding yourself and the spiritual forces around you of what is already true.
You Were Made to Be Light, Not Just to Survive the Dark
The people of Ephesus lived in what was essentially the spiritual capital of the ancient occult world. And the gospel still won. It consumed the counterfeits, shattered the idols, and overthrew the darkness — not by force of personality or perfect strategy, but because no darkness can withstand the light of Christ.
That same light is available to you today — in Miami, in whatever neighborhood you call home, in whatever private battle you’ve been fighting alone.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is spiritual warfare, and is it real today?
Spiritual warfare is the ongoing battle between God’s kingdom and the forces of darkness described throughout the Bible. It is not imaginary — it shows up in real life as deception, division, distraction, and confusion. Ephesians 6:12 describes it as a battle not against people, but against “the rulers and authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness.”
What is the armor of God and how do I put it on?
The armor of God is described in Ephesians 6:10–18 and includes truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, and the word of God. “Putting it on” is not a ritual — it means deliberately grounding your life in these realities each day, praying with intention, and standing firm in what God has already secured for you through Jesus.
What is the difference between knowing about God and knowing God personally?
Knowing about God means being familiar with religious information — stories, doctrines, church culture. Knowing God personally means having a surrendered, ongoing relationship with him — talking to him, listening to him, and allowing his word to shape your actual decisions. The sons of Sceva in Acts 19 knew about the Jesus Paul preached, but they did not know him — and it cost them dearly.
What does it mean to "fight from victory" in spiritual warfare?
Colossians 2:15 says Jesus already “disarmed the rulers and authorities” through his death and resurrection. That means for a follower of Jesus, the ultimate outcome is already decided. Fighting from victory means you don’t approach spiritual battle as someone desperately trying to win — you approach it as someone enforcing a victory that already belongs to you in Christ.
How do I close doors to sin and break free from addiction?
Willpower alone is not enough — the people of Ephesus didn’t just decide to stop; they burned their occult books publicly. Closing a door to sin means taking a decisive, concrete action: deleting something, ending a relationship, confessing to a trusted person, or seeking professional help alongside prayer. The strength to do the hard thing comes from the Spirit of God — not from trying harder alone.
