Defeating The Devil

Summary

In this sermon, Pastor Adrian teaches on "Defeating the Devil," using Jesus' temptation in Luke 4 as a guide. He emphasizes that, like Jesus, Christians must rely on the Holy Spirit, use scripture, and surrender to God to overcome evil. Though challenges persist in life, true victory comes through faith, prayer, and dependence on God's power. Pastor Adrian also shares personal stories, encouraging believers to confront spiritual battles with the strength God provides.

Transcript

Well, we want to welcome everyone and we want to welcome all of our church family and church families from across all of our Connect Christian churches. So we want to welcome you guys. It's so good to have you with us and I hear awesome things. God's doing amazing things in our churches at Mornington and we planted there a year and a half ago and God's growing his church there and you're doing awesome and that's fantastic. Peninsula, Trevor and Tracy and Susan and the team, God's growing a church that had over 100 there last week and we're seeing new people come in and Hastings Church, we love you guys and do you know they reach every week? Hastings Church reaches hundreds and hundreds of people through our Harbour Care, Connect Community Care, through our food program, our kitchen there and help people in need. So you guys are amazing and little old Casey, Connect Casey with Pastor Frank and Gracie and Deeps and everyone else there, we love you guys and thank you for joining us.

And who's ready for the word? Luke chapter 4. Luke chapter 4 today, we're going to talk about this topic, defeating the devil. Thought we're just going to go for it. Every now and then, don't like to talk about the devil too much because he's a pain in the neck but sometimes you just got to sock it to him. So we're going to talk about defeating the devil and I thought the best way to do that is to go straight to how Jesus dealt with the devil and so we're going to go to Luke chapter 4 and I'm reading from my good old New King James version, the Spirit Filled Life Bible that I had through Bible College and I think there's a couple of notes about Norelle in here, because I used to sit next to her in Bible College. Anyway, I'll get distracted. Luke chapter 4, we went to Bible College together if you are wondering and that's where I fell for her and or she fell for me. No, I think it was the other way around. I fell for her and anyway, Jesus.

'Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry. And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” But Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’ ” Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.” And Jesus answered and said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ” Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ ” And Jesus answered and said to him, “It has been said, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’ ” Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time. Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region. ' Luke 4:1-14 (NKJV)

Luke chapter 4 verse 1, Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days he ate nothing. And afterward, when they had ended... This is profound stuff here from Luke. He was hungry. It's amazing, it's true. And the devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread. But Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. And then the devil, taking him up on a high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to him, All this authority I will give you and their glory, for this has been delivered to me and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if you will before me, all will be yours. And Jesus answered and said to him, Get behind me, Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him alone you shall serve. Then he brought him to Jerusalem, set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, He shall give his angels charge over you to keep you. And in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.

Isn't it interesting that the devil ends up trying to use the same weapon that Jesus had, the word of God, and tried to use it to deceive him. But Jesus answered in verse 12, And Jesus said to him, It has been said, You shall not tempt the Lord your God. Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of him went out through all the surrounding region.

Jesus, full of the Spirit, went into the wilderness, and there he was tempted by the devil. And the devil tried to control him, deceive him, just like he'd done with Adam and Eve. And Jesus passed that test and came out the other side. Isn't that awesome? Jesus wins. He didn't fall to the temptation like Adam and Eve did. He conquered. He defeated the devil. And we are called to defeat the devil too.

Sometimes as Christians we go, That's awesome. Jesus defeated the devil. And we win. And we're living in victory. And then we sort of think like our lives should be wonderful. And now I get to live in victory and I don't have to face problems. And then problems come our way, don't they? If you've been a Christian for a day or two, you realize that God does not suddenly create this paradise where you don't have any problems anymore.

Samara found that out. Give your life to Jesus. He's the answer. Oh, my kids still get sick. I still have to pay the bills. I still face other people who have problems in my life and saying and doing the wrong thing. We face a world full of sin. And this is the thing that we've got to realize in our lives as Christians, that we live in a world where we are constantly having to face evil and the devil's works. The Bible says he's the ruler of this world. And so I watch too many Christians over time that think that once you become a Christian, you join the Bless Me Club and God just blesses everything and it's all wonderful. Well, God does bless you and He does do wonderful things in your life, but He doesn't fix everything. And we still live. We're still faced with this. And so Jesus went in full of the Holy Spirit.

And this is the thing you got to learn. Just because you're facing evil and temptation and problems doesn't mean that you've done the wrong thing. Sometimes it means you have if you go on the wrong track. But sometimes you can be so you can be full of God and doing all the right thing and serving God. And you're still going to have to face the devil. You're still going to have to confront evil.

We just came back a few months ago. I came and we went away and over to Europe. We talked about it and Narelle and I just went and we had a wonderful time. And I came back relaxed. I came back on fire, ready to serve God. So let's go. We're going to plant a church here. We're going to do this. We're going to do this. And I got back and before I even got back home, I had phone calls from members of our staff saying, Adrian, we've got this problem. Adrian, we've got this problem. Adrian, you've got to do this. And I walked back into a whole bunch of issues. Not because things were going wrong, just because life was happening. We're a church, we've got two and a half thousand people across all of our churches. Guess what? Every week something's going wrong in someone's life, in something in the church. And I came back in and it was suddenly like, got to fix this, got to fix this, got to fix this. And I did that for weeks and months. And you know what? I got to a period of time just a little while ago. I was like, I'm exhausted because I've been facing issue after issue. You know what? I was in the will of God. I was on fire for God. We had a plan that we said, God, we're going to plant churches. We're going to do this. But it still doesn't mean that everything goes right. We're trying to plant a church in Wonthaggi right now. We can't find a building. We're trying to find a building. We've called churches. We've got churches down in Wonthaggi that aren't using their buildings. And they said, no, you can't use our building. We're like, but you're not using it. They're like, well, you can't use it either. I'm like, I didn't expect that. And things are going really well. But guess what? Don't you have that in life? Who's faced that in life? Yesterday, I mean, Narelle's car got fixed. Well, it was supposed to take two days. Well, it's been two and a half weeks. It's still not fixed. I was supposed to get a car, a new car. I still don't have a car. We had to catch an Uber last week. And then yesterday, I wake up and my dad's over and Narelle's over. And they're looking in our fridge. They're like, the light's broken. We're trying to fix the light. The light's broken. And Ella walks out and she goes, I think the fridge is broken, guys. Things aren't cold anymore. Narelle's like, oh. I'm like, oh, let's investigate. Guess what? Our fridge died. So we go, I've got no cars. I've got no fridge. Oh, woe is me.

Problems happen. Problems happen. And I know some of you are facing far deeper problems than that. I want to tell you, it doesn't mean that you're out of the will of God. It just means you're in life. And we've got to be people as Christians who are aware of that, that we are going to face temptation. We're going to face evil. We're going to face problems. The devil's going to come and try and sift us and destroy us and wreck us. But God has called us to defeat him. We are called to defeat the devil.

And so Jesus did three things here. There's plenty of things we can take from this scripture. But there's three things I want to look at that he did that we can grab a hold of in our lives. And if you will do these things, I promise you, you will be victorious. It won't look like the victory that sometimes we have in our naive state, which is no problems, Nirvana kind of state. It'll look real. It'll be kingdom victory. That's what God's called us to. The first of those is this.

1. Spirit to Confront

We need, just like Jesus, we need the Holy Spirit to confront the devil. The Spirit of God to confront him. Jesus went in to the wilderness full of the Holy Spirit, it says there. And guess who led him into the wilderness? The Holy Spirit of God. Can I say this? Whether you like it or not, you're going to have to confront the devil because he's going to confront you. And you know what he's going to do? He's going to find your weakest points. He's going to find your vulnerable points. He's going to find the points from your past that you're insecure about or have a weakness in. And that you, some of those things, it's like you can't do anything about. They're just there and he's going to find them and he's going to confront you with it and try and rip you off, isn't he?

So we got to be people that don't run and hide because that's what we learn to do. We run and hide from our pain, from those confrontations. We find other ways to cope that help us forget about that pain. But that's not the answer. Who knows that? We know that, don't we? That running away, it's like a kid who's, if you're scared of something, closing your eyes does not solve the problem. But we do that as adults. We close our eyes or we find something else to engage in that makes it help us forget about it. And I understand that. That's a natural thing for humans to do. But God hasn't called us to live that way. He's called us to confront the enemy. He's called us to say, see, Jesus went into the wilderness, led by the Spirit of God, knowing he was going to confront the devil. And actually Jesus' whole life and ministry life was confronting evil, was confronting the works of the enemy. You know, God's called you to be someone who's a warrior, who confronts evil, who stands in the gap for your children, for our society, for our generations and say, we're going to stand here for righteousness because the devil's trying to steal, kill and destroy. But God's called us to bring life and life more abundantly.That's who you're called to be. Now, how are you going to do that? Jesus needed to be full of the Holy Spirit. And so do we.

Here's the thing I've learned. If I go through this life trying to take on the devil myself, take on evil myself, it wears me down and it takes me out. I need to be to be full of the Holy Spirit. I need to ask for his power and his infilling and his authority within me to rise up. Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, went into the wilderness and he confronted the devil. And when you're full of the Spirit, I tell you, there's a confidence that comes. There's a boldness that comes. There's an authority that comes. I don't walk in my own name. I walk in the power of the name of Jesus Christ. And I want to tell you, it's not just for a pastor or someone with a certain personality. It's for every single one of us. We're all called to confront the devil by being full of the Holy Spirit.

I need your spirit. See, Jesus did this over his whole life. You remember the story of Jesus going into the temple? And he goes into the temple and he basically went to church. He went to the temple. This is where they do services. This is where they were sacrificing. All this stuff. It's where the priests were, the Pharisees. They're all doing their stuff there. And he walks in, but they were doing something that they shouldn't have been doing. And that was they're selling sacrifices at a very high price to poor people and taking advantage of them and making money out of them, out of spiritual things that weren't fair. And Jesus had enough. And he made a whip. He made his own whip. I love that. Jesus meek and mild. He was meek, but he wasn't weak. And he made his own whip. Can you imagine this? He walks into the temple and he just starts smashing his whip, starts yelling. He starts throwing tables over because he said, my house is called to be a house of prayer, not a den of thieves. And he confronted evil. Do you know the people there they plotted to kill him after that? Because Jesus full of the Holy Spirit confronted evil. God's called you to confront evil. We don't always have to do it like that, but God's called us to make a stand. Some of us in our families, in our household, there's evil coming in and you've got to make a stand. Some of us need to make a stand in prayer and saying, God, I will not let my child be caught up in this and be wrecked by the lies of Satan. And you stand and you intercede in prayer. Sometimes in our workplace, wherever it is, make a stand full of the Holy Spirit, not full of your own stuff. Sometimes I make a stand in things and Narelle's just like, settle down, mate. It's like, it doesn't matter what's for dinner. It's like, but I wanted this. Sometimes Narelle does it to me. She goes, I wanted lamb chops. I said, well, we don't have lamb chops. She goes, well, I'm buying lamb chops. I'm going right now to get lamb chops. I'm like, I'm not talking about that confrontation. I'm talking about a spirit filled confrontation.

Years ago when I was a young guy and I took this seriously and I got full of the Holy Spirit. I was just a teenage kid and our church, we were young adults back then and our church had this thing we did every couple of, twice a year, we did a thing called half night of prayer in our young adults. And we'd meet from about 6pm on a Friday night till after 12 midnight and we'd just pray. We'd get into a room, we'd have worship, we'd seek God and we'd just intercede and pray for our church, for the nation, for people to be changed. And I was like, this is awesome. So they announced half night of prayers happening and I was like, I'm there. This is going to be awesome. Six hours of interceding and seeking God. I can't wait. And about a week before they did or two weeks before the pastor got up and he said, look, he goes, everyone's a bit busy and it's holidays and he goes, so we're going to cancel our half night of prayer. So we're not having a half night of prayer and everyone's like, oh yeah, whatever, except me. I was like, you can't do this. We've got to pray and seek God. We've got to destroy the enemy. We've got to push back. I've been listening to you preach. I've been in my word. I've got to push back. We've got to pray and intercede. Otherwise who else is going to do it? And so I got all fired up as I have occasionally at times in my life and sometimes it's worked and sometimes it's backfired on me. But this time I went to my pastor and I said, he was like, what's up Adrian? I said, why have we cancelled the half night of prayer? He goes, well Adrian, because we're busy and things are on and just settle down. I said, I won't settle down. I said, we've got to pray and we've got to seek God. How's God going to move? And I gave him this whole spiel and sometimes people go, they call it an Adrian rant. And I did a little bit of a rant and got very fired up over it because I was feeling it passionately. And he went, okay, all right, mate. Thank you. Thank you. And I walked away and said, okay, well, I've said my piece. I felt like I should have, but I'm obviously going to submit and just go along with the plan and that's said what I need to say and I support them and off I went. And then a couple of days later, I find out there was a message came through, half night of prayer is back on. I was like, awesome. So I went along and everyone's there. There's hundreds of people there. We're praying, we're walking up and down. If you wonder why I pace a bit, because that's what I learned to do in my church. We'd pace up and down as we're praying. And the more intense you're praying, the quicker your paces get. And it's like, so you see me doing that sometimes. So I apologise, but that's just because I get fired up and you can blame my pastor for that back in Adelaide. But we're praying and my young adult pastor came alongside me as we're praying and walking up and down. And he said, hey, Adrian. I said, hey, how are you? He said, you know, we're here because of you, don't you? I said, what? He goes, yeah. He goes, I heard about you getting fired up about cancelling the prayer meeting. And he goes, you know what? You were right. So we've put it back on. And he goes, I want to say thank you for confronting it and standing for it. And I went, something got me in there. I went, there's sometimes a place to not confront and not be overzealous, but sometimes there is. And you know what? I was full of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit was speaking into my heart. And because I confronted that, there was change. And I want to tell you in your life, there are things that God's called you to confront. Not everything, but there are some things and you've got to be full of the Holy Spirit to know what they are. I'm not talking about confronting because you're personally offended at something or because it didn't go your way. I'm talking about when you're full of the Spirit, you'll be like Jesus. He didn't go into the temple because he didn't get his way. He was saying, I'm standing for the things of God and I've got to speak up and I've got to do it. And I want to say, God's called us to be Spirit-filled people who confront evil wherever we go. It's not time to retreat. It's time to confront.

What kind of person? Are you going to be a Spirit-filled person? Are you going to ask the Holy Spirit to fill you? Because here's the problem we have, my friends. We are too complacent. We have it too good too many times and we think we don't need to be full of the Spirit. But I'm telling you, the devil is looking around like a prowling lion, looking for whom he may devour, the Word says. He's looking. And I'll go, you know what? If he goes for you and you aren't Spirit-filled and you've been complacent, you're not going to be ready to confront him when he comes. And I want to tell you, friends, we have to be people who say, God, I'm hungry for you, fill me, Holy Spirit, fill me, lead me, guide me so I can confront the enemy. And when he comes in and tries to attack, I'll be ready. That's what God wants us to do.

2. Scripture to Confound

That's the first thing. The second thing is this, that we need the Spirit of God to confront him. We need Scripture, the Word of God, to confound him. Scripture to confound him. The word confound basically means to mess someone up, to confuse them, to shock them. They don't know what's going on. It's like, I'm confounded by what you're saying. Sometimes Narelle says that to me. She goes, I have no idea what you're talking about right now. She goes, you've skipped about seven topics in one sentence. I was like, well, I assumed that you were following along. She goes, I don't even follow the first thing you said, let alone the end thing. You've got to start that whole thing again. And then sometimes she goes, and just don't worry because I'm not really interested in any of that anyway. Okay, sometimes you need some good, honest conversation in the house. I don't know, I sometimes do talk too much.

Sometimes. To confound someone means to shock them and go, wow, God's called you to confound the devil, to shock him. He thinks he knows where you're at. He thinks he's got your number. You know that? The devil thinks he's got you. The devil thinks he knows your weaknesses. He knows how to get you. I'll just tempt you with this. I'll get you with this. I'll find a way. I know your weakness. I'll beat you. I'll push you down. I'll get you somehow. Don't you worry. I've been doing this. The devil's like, I've been doing this for a long time. You haven't been around that long. I'm going to find a way. And God's called you to confound him. But you can't do that if you don't know the truth. If you don't know the word of the living God. And when I talk about scripture, I'm not just talking about reading out a line. I'm talking about understanding how God sees things, how things really are. Do you understand the scriptures? Do you understand the truth? Because it will confound the devil.

If you look at what Jesus did in this passage through, the devil came to him with three areas. I'll show you. You can put them in different ways, but I'll put them like this. He came to him and said, these stones into bread. He was talking about, hey, provide. Ask God to provide for your wants and needs. He said, hey, bow down to me and I'll give you power and authority over all these kingdoms. He was offering him power in this world. Then he said, throw yourself off this pinnacle in Jerusalem and command the angels and command God to protect you and look after you. Make God prove that he's there for you about your protection. Do you know what all those are about? All selfish. The devil will always come to you and try and get you into selfish things. You deserve this. You need this. Sexual sin. You know what sexual sin's about? It's about selfishness. I need this for my well-being. I need this to feel good. I need it for myself.Materialism. You know what that's about? Selfishness. I need it for myself. You know what power is about? I need more power so I feel better. So I need to be more popular. I need more of this.

The devil will always come to you and try and deceive you with these areas, like he did with Adam and Eve, to cause you to think all about yourself and to dwell on yourself and the importance of yourself and what you need and what you deserve. He'll make you bitter and someone does you wrong and you'll be like, I'm going to hold a grudge against that person. And internally, why do you hold a grudge? Because you go, I've got the one up on you. Yeah, you don't even need to know it. But you know, every time I think of you, I think you're a loser. Because I need that for my own selfish well-being. My own needs. The devil will deceive us. This is what the world does. Convinces us that our own needs, what we need is provision, power, protection. God, I need it. And Christians, we can do this too. God, I need you to give me this. I need you. Do you know what Jesus comes back with each and every time? The word of God that speaks against the ways of the world.

He says here in verse four, devil says, hey, tell God, command these stones to become bread. And Jesus comes and says, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. I won't be selfish. I will be God-centered, selfless. I don't need God to provide my bread right now. I will live off the words God gives me. Because I'm focused on Him. When you know scripture, when you know the truth, you can confound the devil when he comes with temptation, saying, I don't need to be like that because there's something deeper. There's something more true. He comes to him and in verse eight, oh, bow down to me. And what does Jesus come back with? You shall worship the Lord your God and Him alone. I'm focused on Him, not my selfish needs, what I need. Comes back and says, hey, throw yourself down and command God to protect you. Verse 12, it has been said, you shall not tempt the Lord your God. What was he saying? This whole world is not about me and my needs and my selfish desires. It is about God. And the scripture will always point you and give you truth that helps you overcome the ways of the devil. Because you know, he'll deceive us. He deceived Adam and Eve. He got them to believe something that wasn't true. God's literally hiding things from you because he's worried about what you could know. Eve, if you get that fruit and you start to know good and evil, you're going to... God's going to go, oh, I didn't want him to know that. So he deceived them. Oh, you need this.You need the knowledge. You need the enlightenment. And therefore they disobeyed God.

Do you know scripture? Do you know the truth of the word of God? Or are you being deceived by the devil? Too many Christians, friends, we're being deceived. We're being deceived. We live in a world where our own selfish needs become the thing that we live for.

I want to ask you this question. And I'll get heavy on this because I just think we have to live our Christian lives in the light of history. And throughout history, there have been martyrs. There have been men and women that did not live the blessed life like we see in our Western Christian world. Oh, God's just going to bless and bless and bless. They died. They were tortured. They did not get the blessing in this life. In fact, they paid the price for their faith. And do you know what? It's still happening today in other countries. It's still happening today. And that puts my fridge breaking down into a little bit of context. Puts your problems into a little bit of context. I was looking this up the other day and I found someone I hadn't seen before. There was a woman in about 177 A.D. named Perpetua. Perpetua was a 22-year-old woman living in the Roman Empire in Carthage. And she became a Christian and she was part of a little community of Christians. And the emperor gave out an edict saying, basically, you weren't supposed to be a Christian. You weren't allowed. But he said, right, it's time to round them up and make them recant their faith. Basically, make them deny Christ. And if they don't, we're going to kill them. And so this ruling went out and the governor in the area found out about this group that was meeting. And he arrested them all. And Perpetua was there. There were five of them. Perpetua, there was another slave girl named Felicity, was part of it. And there was a couple of others. And they got rounded up and taken before the courts and said, you have been found to be serving Jesus. You need to deny Him and we'll let you go. And they refused. And Perpetua was a young... she'd just given birth to her first child, 22-year-old young mum. And she refused to deny her faith and they got thrown in they said, we're going to kill you. Interestingly, her Bible teacher, who was sort of their connect group leader, he found out that they'd been arrested. Get this for faith and stepping in. He found out they'd been arrested separately. He wasn't part of that group that had been caught and he went and handed himself in and said, he goes, I'm actually the leader of this group. Arrest me too. And they did. And they took them aside and they threatened them and threatened them for months and said, you're going to be thrown to the wild beasts if you don't deny Christ. And interestingly, we know this story is true because Perpetua decided to keep a notebook and she wrote about her suffering in prison. She wrote about the pain she suffered as a young mum, her child being taken from her and going through the pain of all this and being threatened. And she watched all the sufferings and she wrote it all down. And yet she would not deny Christ. And her father, you know what happened? I get it. Her father would come to her and beg and yell, please just deny Christ so you can go free. And she refused. And she'd write in her diary the pain she had watching her father go through that. I go, what leads? Your Christianity, my friends, has to explain those actions. It has to understand that going, the life we live, God doesn't come along. The life we live in this world where we confront the devil is going to involve some pain and suffering. It's going to involve confronting evil. It's going to involve things that are less, not selfish, but selfless because there's a higher standard. And Perpetua had in her heart the spirit of the living God and she had the word of the Lord in her heart. And she would go and pray and she would talk and say, God, you need to speak to me. And the Lord did speak to her. He gave her a dream where she saw there was this evil kind of warrior figure and he cut her down. But in cutting her down, she saw that he also was defeated and wrecked. And she told her brother about it. And she said, I think the Lord's spoken to me about what's going to happen. I think I'm going to die. But in doing that, I'm going to cut down the enemy. And she stood her ground. They took her into the theatre where they brought the wild beasts and there was a number of them. And you know what she did? Interestingly, she's a smart woman. She gave her notebook to someone else, a friend of hers, and said, I need you to finish the story. And so this person wrote down what happened to her in that arena. And they talked about how the wild beasts came and they took out other people. And we won't go into the details, but they were injured and all these things. And then if they weren't killed, they were put into a corner where the gladiator would come and slay them all at the end. And Perpetua wasn't injured by any of the wild beasts. And in the end, she got put into the corner and the gladiator was there and he was supposed to kill everyone and finish him. He couldn't bring himself to do it to her. And in the end, she took the sword that he had and brought it to her own neck and said, I give my life freely. And she died in that arena as a strong woman of God who said, I'm making a stand against the devil and I will not relent. That, my friends, is called defeating the devil. Her story's gone out for thousands and hundreds and hundreds of years. She's now been sainted. She's named as Saint Perpetua. There's a day for her. It's either March 6th. They changed it between March 6th and March 7th over the years. But every year, once a year, her life is celebrated because people have read her story and it's lifted their faith. I want to tell you, friends, sometimes defeating the devil looks different from how the world sees it.

You've got to have the spirit of God in you to confront him. You've got to have scripture in your heart that says, you know what? I'm not here to live a selfish life. I'm here to live a selfless life. And if that means laying my life down for others, I'll do it. That there's a deeper cause. Scripture to confound the devil. I think on that day, I think the devil was confounded by Perpetua and Felicity and the others that gathered around her. See, it doesn't matter how old you are, how young you are. There was a slave girl there, a young mum there. It doesn't matter. God doesn't care about any of that. He says, I've called you to defeat the enemy.

How are you letting scripture speak into the truth of your life? Are you letting the devil deceive you or are you letting God speak his word over your life and then confounding him with that truth?

3. Surrender to Conquer

Here's the third thing. It's so important. We need the spirit of God. We need scripture and we need the word of God. And then the third thing is we need surrender. Surrender to conquer him. Surrender to conquer how do you conquer the enemy? How do you conquer the devil? You've got to be stronger than him, don't you? In order to conquer someone, you've got to be stronger than them. In order to win, you've got to have more tenacity. You've got to have more fight. My daughter was boasting to me the other day. She's down at Hastings today playing keys. She came home from youth one night. She said, Dad, I beat the male youth leaders at planking. She put it out there and she said, oh, she goes, let's have a planking competition. You know, the thing where you sort of, what do you do? You got to flat out and just stay on your elbows, on toes for as long as possible without collapsing. And so a couple of the youth, they shall remain nameless. They know who they are. These male strong youth leaders said, yeah, no worries, Ella. Come on, mate. A 15 year old, we'll give it a go. And so they all did it. And so they planked for as long as they could. And Ella planked for as long as she could. And she was still there planking when they had to quit. And she's like, I'll beat you. And she won that little competition. And she thought all those youth leaders, she thought they was going to be so happy for her. She's like, well done, Ella. You're a champion. She goes, Dad, they weren't happy with me at all. She goes, they were like, oh, yeah, well, you know, it's easy for you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I said, that's because they had their girlfriends there. And they were watching him. And Ella was happy as Larry. And she's been doing weights and all this stuff. And she is 15 and it was probably easier for her. But I went, she came back and she goes, I conquered it. I won, I mean, a pointless competition. But she won it because she goes, I was stronger than them. You can't conquer anyone unless you're stronger than them. I don't take Ella on in anything anymore, because she is stronger than me. Arm wrestles, no. She tried to take me doing weights the other day and I lifted. Here's a confession, right, just to make everyone see I'm not paying anyone out greater than myself. She had the bar, this long bar, and she said, Dad, I'm going to take all the weights off and just lift the bar by itself. It's seven kilos. And I did. And she goes, Dad, you want to put some weights on it now? I said, no, I don't, because I don't want to hurt myself. And I think she was very proud of her father in that moment. And she definitely conquered me on the weights. In order to beat someone, you've got to be stronger than them.

And here's our problem. We're not stronger than the devil. You're not. He's been in it longer than you. He's got more tricks than you. He's going to get you. He gets us, doesn't he? That's why we needed Jesus, because sin and death got us. And some people out in the world, they haven't realized they've been defeated. They haven't realized it. They're in deception. They think, oh, look at me. I'm rich. I'm strong. I go, no, your riches have defeated you. Your seeming strength has actually deceived you. You've got nothing. You're a pauper. And Christians have just realized that we have been defeated and that sin and death got us. So how do you conquer the devil? How do you defeat him? There's only one way. You need someone stronger. You need someone stronger than the devil to be your champion. That's what they used to do. If you have a fight, you could call on a champion. That's what they did with Goliath. We're calling for our champion. And here's what we know. That Jesus Christ, our Heavenly Father, God, the Holy Spirit has said, I'll be your champion. I'll fight. But here's the reality. This is the Christian faith in a nutshell. You've got to surrender. If you want to fight the battle yourself, if you want to defeat the devil yourself and do it your way, you can. But you're not strong enough. And he'll get you. Sin will get you. Temptation will get you. The devil will get you. And he does in this life, even when it doesn't look like it. But the Christian believes this. And if you've given your life to Christ today, you believe this, that there is one who conquers sin and death and the devil once and for all. And his name is Jesus Christ. And because of that, I put my trust and my hope in him and I will surrender to him.

Some of us were trying so hard to fight, trying so hard to fight. But the key is to surrender to the Lord. See, Jesus, when he fought the devil, what did he do? He brought the word of God. He didn't bring human ability. He brought divine authority. He was surrendered. If you look at Jesus' life, he was there. Do you know what Jesus said when he was praying? He said, my purpose on earth is just to do the will of the Father. That's all I'm here to do. I'm surrendered to God, the Father. And I'll do what he says. Look at his words. He's my source and strength. I'm surrendered to him. Bow down to me and I'll give you authority and power. You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. Surrendered. Demand him to protect you from these rocks. You shall not tempt the Lord your God. There, you want to, what Trevor said today, Jesus Christ surrendered to him. And by the way, he was impressed by Pastor Trevor. He just, he had memorized that scripture and just spoke it out because he was full of the Holy Spirit and he's got the word of God in his heart. And so he can come and confront the devil and confound the devil by the truth of the word of God. That's why you've got to have it deep in your heart. He's been doing that all his life since he got saved. And then you've got to be surrendered to the Lord. Surrender.

I'm fighting my battle. You know, the other day I was fighting to see this church grow. I'm fighting, I'm working hard. I'm going, oh, I've got to, I've got to solve this problem. We need more help here. We need more help there. I'm going to drive down to Wonthaggie. I'm going to find the building. So Frank and I went down there and Kim joined us. I'll solve it. Well, I didn't solve it. I'm going to go plant a church in Italy. I'm going to go do this and do that and that. I go, oh, I've hit a blockage there. I've hit a blockage there. I don't have the answers. I got to the point the other day and I was overwhelmed and I was like, I came to a realization again. I'm not that good. And all my trying and all my efforts and all my talent, all my experience, I can't solve this and this and this and this. I'm not that good, God. And it overwhelmed me and it stressed me. And in that moment I was sitting at my desk and I just said to the Lord, I said, I said, that's it. I said, I've had enough of trying to fix these problems. I said, it's your problem, God. It's your church. You fix it. I was like having an attitude issue.I was having a little bit of a rant to God. Fix your own church. I've tried my best. And in that little moment, I realized something because I thought God was going to be annoyed with me. And I didn't feel his annoyance. What I felt was, he's like, ah, there you go. There you go. There you go, son. Remember that little thing that I taught you about when you're a kid and again, when you're 17 and 20 and 21 and 30 and 32 and just last month. And now right this moment, just give it to me. You can't do any of it. And I didn't ask you to. I asked you to surrender and serve me. It is my church. It is my people. For you, it is his family. It's your family, but it's his family. They're your children, but they're his children. It's your future, but it's the future he had planned for you. It's his problem and you can't fix it.

So stop trying with all your strength and do what the Apostle Paul said. He goes, that is why I strive so hard with all of his energy. And so I surrendered all the problems. How are we going to grow? God's done great things in our church. Oh, but I see so much more. God's spoken to us so much more, but I can't do it. So I said, God, you find the people. You find the places. You find the finances. Because I can't do it. I surrender it to you. And in that moment, you know what I felt? Victory. Victory. Because victory is not through me. It's through him. It's through Christ.

I want to ask you, what problems are you facing right now that the Lord's calling you to surrender to him? And saying, give up fighting yourself. You need the spirit of God to confront the enemy. You need the scripture, the word of God to confound the enemy. But you need to surrender to truly conquer him. And you put those three things together like Jesus did, and you're going to defeat the enemy. You're going to do mighty, mighty, great, incredible things.

It says in verse 14, after he had been tempted and the devil had tried to sift him, then Jesus returned in the power of the spirit to Galilee. And news of him went out through all the surrounding region. God's called us to defeat the enemy. What needs to be defeated in your life? Maybe it's a sin. Maybe it's a temptation. Maybe there's an attack coming. Maybe it's a health issue. Whatever it is, you need the spirit of God. You need scripture, the word of God. And we need to surrender.

And so this is what we're going to do before we close today. We're going to have to take a moment. We're going to bow our heads and we're going to close our eyes. And we're going to take a moment to surrender to the Lord, the things you've been fighting. What is it that you've been fighting that maybe the devil's attacking you right now? Or maybe you're doing okay right now, but if you're honest, you go, I'm not ready for an attack. I'm not ready to attack the enemy and I'm not ready for an attack my way. And either way, it's time to surrender. Put him in his rightful place. Say, God, I'm not going to be selfish. I'm going to surrender to you and be selfless. Teach me, show me, guide me. So we're going to do that right now. I want you to take a moment and say, Lord, here I am. I surrender to you all across this place, watching from all of our churches. God's called you. There's some mighty men and women of God. Some of you are facing difficult things, but God's called you to defeat the devil. He's called you to defeat him through the word of your testimony, through the word of God, through the confession of your faith, through holding on strong to him, even when it looks like failure in the world's eyes. You're not failing. You're conquering because we're surrendered to him.

Coming all over this place, all over our churches. Maybe you want to lift out your hands to God. Here's what I'm going to ask you to do. If you say, God, I've got a need right now. The devil's been trying to sift me. The devil's been trying to grab a hold of me. I want you to just with our eyes closed, I want you to lift out your hands to God and say, God, I'm surrendering it all to you right now. You're the king. You're the savior. You're the one. God, you're the one in charge of my life. Come on, there's power in your confession today. The devil is confounded when his people rise up and grab the weapons that they've been given by God. Surrender is that weapon. Surrender is the key. Not by my might or power, God, but by the spirit of the living God. Lord, greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world. So all over this place, all over our churches, Lord, right now, we surrender. We surrender. We surrender. We surrender. We surrender, God, whatever we're facing, whatever we're going through, God, we surrender our failures, God, to you. And we ask for an infilling of the Holy Spirit right now to fill our hearts, to fill our hearts with His power and love and grace that we can walk and confront the enemy for our children, for our church, for our lives. Amen. Amen. Let it be so. Let it be so.

[music]

God, all over this place and all over our churches this morning, if you want to agree and say, Lord, I'm going to stand with the Lord Jesus today, I'm going to say, God, we're going to defeat the enemy in our family, in our life, in our society, in our church, in my own spiritual life. I want to invite you to stand with me this morning. We're going to declare the words, Amen. Let it be so. Let it be so. Let it be so.

[music]

Some of us have been taught very special or important, but the Lord's word to you is, you are my child, you are my son, you are my daughter, and you are precious to me. And I will look after my children. I will help you defeat the enemy. In fact, I've already done it for you. So surrender and let me bring the victory in your life.

Some of you are watching your children go through struggles and the Lord says, parent, in the secret place, the prayer closet, you bring them to it and you declare victory over their lives. And you surrender and keep surrendering and you watch on working life is all about seeing beyond the natural into the spiritual. And God is doing a mighty as we stand.

So right now, if you're facing something right now, I want you to lift out your hand to the Lord all across this place. Pastors in our churches, you lift your voice and stay in line, but you lift your voice and pray. Lord, all over our churches, God, people who have been confronted by the enemy, Lord, we raise up a standard against it and we speak Lord Jesus, the name of Jesus Christ. We speak victory, Lord God. We rebuke the enemy's attacks and we say greater is he that is in us than he that's in the world. Lord, you love your children. You're going to protect and care for your children, Lord, no matter what we face. And so we put our trust in you, our hope in you. You are ours and we are yours, Lord. And God in you, there is the victory in you, Lord Jesus. You are stronger than the devil and every attack of the enemy and nothing shall defeat or conquer the beautiful love of God that is poured out for us. So we step into that victory in Jesus name and we receive it with great confidence and trust.

Maybe in this place, just before we finish, maybe you need to give your life to the Lord Jesus Christ and you need to surrender your life to him and make him Lord and saviour of your life. And maybe if you're really honest, you say, you know what, I've been the Lord of my own life. And you know what that means? If you're the Lord of your own life, the devil is the Lord of your life because he's the Lord of this world and he's controlling you in ways you don't even know. You think you're doing your own thing, but actually evil and the devil has been controlling your life. There's only one way out of that, my brothers and sisters. It's to give your life to the Lord Jesus Christ. He will set you free. He will forgive every sin you've ever committed and he will give you a new life in victory for eternity. And you'll be able to see the devil's devices for what they are. And so if you're in this place right now, you're watching with me and you say, you know what, I want to get out of the devil's clutches. I want to stop being the Lord of my own life and I want the Lord Jesus to be. I don't want to be religious. I need to be surrounded in relationship with the Lord Jesus as my personal saviour and Lord and I'll follow him. Then we're going to say a prayer and I want you to repeat this prayer. We'll all repeat it together. But you need to say this to say, I'm giving lordship to Jesus, not myself and the devil anymore. Is that okay? Come on, let's repeat this together. Dear Lord Jesus, I believe in you. I need you. I surrender to you. You are the son of God and you died on the cross for my sin and you rose again from the dead. So be my personal Lord and saviour. Forgive me of my sin. I will follow you forever. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. Amen.

Come on, let's give the Lord a shout, a hand of praise in this place. Can I tell you, if you said that prayer and you said I was either doing it again or I was doing it for the first time at the end of our service at our Get Connected desk, we've got a Bible we want to give you and it's a Bible. It's a really good Bible to get so you can get into the word of God and let him fill you with his word so you can confound and confront the enemy. And we want to help you and pray with you. So if you can go to our Get Connected desk, say, hey, I said that prayer. We'll give you that Bible. We'll help you and you can sign up for Alpha and God's going to do a mighty work in your life. Amen. God bless you.

We love you church. We're going to hand back to our lead pastors. Have a great rest of the week.

God bless. you.