======================================================================== SHOW ME YOUR SWORD by Sandeep Poonen ======================================================================== Summary: This sermon emphasizes the power and importance of memorizing, meditating on, and being molded by the Word of God, particularly focusing on Romans 8. It highlights the transformative impact of immersing oneself in Scripture, allowing it to shape one's thoughts, actions, and faith. The speaker urges listeners to prioritize God's Word above all else, as it is the ultimate weapon against the challenges and temptations of life. Duration: 22:22 Topics: "The Power of Scripture", "Transformation through God's Word" Scripture References: Romans 8:22, Romans 8:31, Psalm 119:11, Isaiah 40:31, 1 John 5:4, Psalm 1:2, Romans 8:32, 1 Corinthians 8:1, 1 Corinthians 13:13, Hebrews 4:12 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon emphasizes the power and importance of memorizing, meditating on, and being molded by the Word of God, particularly focusing on Romans 8. It highlights the transformative impact of immersing oneself in Scripture, allowing it to shape one's thoughts, actions, and faith. The speaker urges listeners to prioritize God's Word above all else, as it is the ultimate weapon against the challenges and temptations of life. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ You can join me when you want, as I say this. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers, the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but we ourselves, having the first fruits of the spirits, even we ourselves, grown within ourselves, waiting for our adoption as sons, the redemptions of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. In the same way the spirit helps with our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the spirit intercedes with us, with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the spirit is, because he intercedes for us according to the will of God. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good, for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. And those whom he foreknew, those whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified, and those whom he justified, he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who will be against us? If God did not deliver his own son, but delivered him over for us all, how will he not along with him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge to God's elect? God is the one who justifies. Who's the one who condemns? Christ is the one who died, who was raised, who's seated at the right hand of the father, who intercedes for us all, who will separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, shall distress, shall famine, shall nakedness, shall peril, shall sword? Just as it is written, for your sakes, we are being delivered to death all day long. We are like sheep led to a slaughter, but in all these things, we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us. For I'm convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Let him who boasts, boasts in this, that he understands and knows the Lord, declares the Lord. As I was thinking about what to share, this was what was on my heart. If I were to title my message, I'd ask you this, soldier, where's your sword? Soldier, show me your sword, and I'll tell you whether you have a chance of winning. Show me your sword, and I'll tell you whether you have a chance of winning. This passage, Romans 8, that I quoted, we memorized this over 12 years ago, I think. Our church did. So I'm not standing up here saying what I memorized. Our church did it. And I want to give you a little bit of how we did this. We did this one verse a week, just like we do now, one verse a week. There are 39 verses in Romans 8. We were so slow at it that we didn't finish it in a year. We had to take a second year. There are 52 weeks in a year. We had to take a second year to complete the memorization of it. It took us 104 weeks to memorize 39 verses 10 years ago. There are about 10 people at least in this church still here today who probably could come up with a little bit of refresher, one hour. We did it. We committed to doing it. We were diligent. And this is not a feat of intelligence or prowess. It was discipline and endurance. And we stuck with it. And it is in my head. Why did I share this with you? Why did I do it? I'm trying to make a point, especially to the young people. Get to know the word of God. There is no chapter in the Bible that has influenced my life more than Romans 8. And it is not because Romans 8 is the best chapter in the Bible. It is a wonderful chapter. But there's a reason why Romans 8 has changed my life more than any other chapter. Because I gave God space to work with it. I gave him the space by constantly repeating it in my head. Soldier, where's your sword? Show me your sword. And we'll see whether we have a chance to win this war. I want to show you a picture that's on the screen of that you may have seen before. On the left hand side are the attacks of the enemy. And on the right hand side is our response. Who is this a picture of? You say it's Pilgrim. I say no, it's a picture of Jesus. So I want you to see that this is how Jesus overcame. Way before any story did it. This is how Jesus overcame. We heard about the difference between temptation and sin. You think the devil didn't come at Jesus and scare him in ways that looked scary to some of us? It did, but he didn't fall into that. He didn't give into fear or anxiety. And he overcame children, Jesus, young people, adults. We all have to realize that the way Jesus overcame was the same way that person did with the sword. I wish I could find a picture of this. Christians decked out in full armor, except for no sword. And the devil coming at him or her. Do you know what that picture looks like? A Christian in the fetal position. Not going to die. He's got the helmet of the salvation, has the shield of faith to extinguish all the fiery darts of the evil one. But in the fetal position, not able to fight back. Not able to attack back because the only weapon we have that has been given to us in the armor of God is the word of God. Nothing else. That's our only hope. It says in 1 John 5 that this whole world has been given over to the evil one. We're not smart enough. We're not determined enough. And we can fool ourselves that we have a good enough moral behavior. We have a good enough culture to think that we can overcome the evil one. But God's word is true. The only choice, chance I have against the flood of evil that will come against me. The only chance I have against the overflowing prosperity that can come in me and seduce me. The only chance I have is the word of God. It's the sword against which I must battle it. And it could be persecution or it may be prosperity. Either one. My only warrant is the word of God against every feeling, against every attack. The whole creation suffers and groans. We're seeing wars, rumors of wars groaning. We ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, the redemption of our body in hope we have been saved. I would never have known about the Christian hope. And as it clearly defines it in Romans 8, if I had not memorized it. What's the definition of Christian hope? With perseverance, we wait eagerly for it. That's our hope. And so that's how I take a sword. Romans 8 is a sword full of swords. And there are many other verses that are full of swords for us to attack the evil one. We've talked about three M's. I wanted to share just three M's for those who may not have known as we've shared this from the beginning as we were memorizing Romans 8 over 10 years ago. These are the three M's that we talked about. And it's in different font sizes because that's the importance. Memorize, meditate, and be molded by it. Why is it three M's? Just because it's easy to remember. It probably doesn't translate well to other languages, but that's fine. It's for us, the English speaking crew to get this. Memorize, meditate, and be molded by it. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. That's what knowledge is meditating. Love is being molded by it. It's not that knowledge potentially could puff up. Knowledge puffs up. And so if I don't drag knowledge and make it love, and if I don't allow the Holy Spirit to grab all my knowledge and make it love, it'll puff me up. It'll make me arrogant. It's guaranteed to make me arrogant. All my Bible knowledge, all my intelligence, all of those things, RIP, will surely puff me up and will surely kill me. Riches, intelligence, power, prestige, whatever it is. But that doesn't mean I go to the other extreme and then say, I'm not going to memorize God's word. I'm not going to pay attention to it. I'm not going to be diligent about it. I also want the young people and all of us to know there are many talented people in the world, but it takes hard work. It's going to take discipline for us to meditate on God's word. I want to say that specifically as I've thought about Christian music. A Christian musician is one who knows God's word better than he knows his instrument. Can you show me Christian musicians, the playlist you listen to, do you know Christian musicians who know God's word better than they can modulate their voice? They can do vocal gymnastics with their voices, but do they know 10 of God's promises and have made it life? We can play runs up and down the keyboard. We can do all kinds of solos on the guitar. But do they know God's word better than they know their craft? We want to be excellent in our craft, but I find it hard to find Christian musicians or anybody who really know God's word. That is why I know why God chose David as the best song leader to be shown in scripture. Why do we know any of his tunes that he wrote? You know, he was an incredibly gifted harpist so much so that he drove demons out of King Saul. You know how many of his tunes we know? Zero. You know, do we have any recordings of his tunes of his harp? He must have been an amazingly gifted fingers on the harp. Do we have any of that? Zero. You know what we have? We have his words and celebrated in the middle of my Bible is the greatest celebration and a clear call to us. Why is David the greatest musician? Because 176 verses on his love for the word of God. That is why he deserves to be up there because he didn't love his heart more than he loved the word of God. And he sharpened his sword. And that is why he was able to sing for the Lord and write for the Lord. We memorize God's word. We can go to the next slide. This is how we memorize God's word. We bring the metal. I want to use a simple analogy, children, that you can understand. I've talked about the sword. What is memorizing do? As I've sought to memorize God's word, this is what I've sought myself to do. Lord, I'm bringing a bar of metal. That's all it is. It's not going to defeat any enemy. It's not a double- edged sword as yet, but it's the material you asked me to bring. Jesus told the servants to fill the water pots with water. I'm bringing water. Is it going to be wine? No, it isn't. But you told me to bring water. I'll bring water. I'm not thinking I'm somebody because I fill the water pots with water, but you told me to bring it. So I'll bring it. And God tells me, take in my word. Thy word I have treasured in my heart that I might not sin against thee. Bring the metal and know that it's a metal. But God says, you got a metal? You got some metal with you? Then I can fashion it into a sword. And then as we meditate on it, it says we are transformed by the renewing of our mind and God's shaping it as we meditate on it. I can't tell you as I've memorized it, so many different verses, the Lord has corrected me and said, it's like this. I would never have known how the greatest enemy was my flesh if I had not meditated on Romans 8. I would have never have known how it was such a great way to eliminate all complaining by Romans 8 32. I said, if he did not spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all, how will he not freely along with him give us all things? That's how I also got confidence that Jesus will give me the Holy Father will give me the Holy Spirit. It's from the word of God that I have my confidence. As brother Stanley was saying, it looks like a thin rope that rehab holds outside the window. I have this picture of me drowning in the ocean and a chopper, a helicopter is coming in a big B757 is coming to me as huge rocket is coming to pull me up. Hanging these huge ropes to pull me up. And then here comes a pigeon with a little leaf and says, grab ahold of this. And that's what the word of God looks like. It's the Holy Spirit, sorry, not a pigeon, a dove, like a little dove holding a little olive branch. And God says, will you trust this olive branch? That's the word of God. That's how weak the word of God looked 3000 years ago when the prophet said, men may trust in chariots, but we will trust in God. Why do they trust in chariots over the men of God? Because God's God looks so puny, look like a little dove with a little olive branch and saying, grab ahold of this and you will live. Not knowing that the dove is the Holy Spirit who created the heaven and the earth, who raised Christ Jesus from the dead. He's the Holy Spirit. He's that Holy Spirit who looks like a dove, looks like a little olive branch. And he said, grab ahold of it and you will live. Yeah, young people, all of us, we're going to be shaken. But the only way I've found to be stopped from shaking is to allow the word of God to become a sword. But if I'm not putting it into my mind, I'm not even coming to the table. God says, go back, go bring me some metal that you can meditate on. We love Psalm 1, it's the psalm of a godly man. What does it say there? On thy law, he meditates day and night. We have busy lives. We have children to take care of. One verse a week. Is that too difficult? But I've seen the work it has done in my life. I'm afraid. I'm afraid of my children. I'm afraid of all our children. They know more about Steph Curry. They know more about all kinds of different sports people. They know more about trick shots. They know more about YouTube channels. They know about all kinds of other things, but we don't know the word of God. And we're growing up, teaching our children to grow up and be excellent in studies. That's wonderful. And me as an adult, I know so many things about Ukraine and this and that and my craft, but I don't know the word of God like I should. That's the first step. That's not going to get me anywhere. Who's the person in the world who knew the Bible the most? In Jesus's time. It wasn't the Pharisees. It was Jesus. There are a million other Pharisees, but Jesus knew the most. And that's how he won the war. So let's not think that just because the Pharisees knew God's word and corrupted it, that we shouldn't go and be like Jesus who overcame the devil every time. This is what overcomes the evil one, our faith. And our faith comes from hearing and hearing the word of Christ. But if I don't memorize, I do not know how you do it. Maybe it's listening on audio somehow, but get that the word of God and meditate on it and allow our minds to be renewed to the truth. Or what God says about anxiety, what God says about complaining, what God says about all these things. But then it's also meditating on it is useless if I don't obey. Jesus said, here's the wise man who obeyed, who heard God's word and obeyed it. That's the big M. The small M is memorize. The bigger M is meditate. But it's all worthless if we don't get molded by it. The last slide, Psalm 119 verse 11. Your word I have treasured in my heart. What a beautiful one verse things that some of you can even memorize just looking at it in a minute. You want to overcome sin. We want to overcome sin. Maybe we just start with this verse. Take God's word, not the stats of ESPN, baseball or football or all the recipes of cooking channels and all those things are wonderful and all of our crafts. But can I treasure God's word in my heart so that I may not sin against these. It's a direct line in God's word. We all teach our children don't blaspheme God's name. We heard about it, the 10 commandments. Don't take God's name in vain. There's a verse in Psalms that says, I have valued my word. According to my name, or I think one of the words is above my name. We're so careful to teach our children. Don't take God's name in vain. What about God's word? Do we know that God values his word as high as his name? And we cherish it. If that was our only way out. Dear brothers and sisters, the helicopters are not going to save us. The rocket ships showing big retirement plans, whatever. They're not going to save us. It's the dove with a little rope, which is God's word that is connected to the throne in heaven. Heaven and earth will pass away. As we said, there's a flood coming, a flood of fire coming. There's only one thing that will hold us. Confound through the word of God. And if our lives are shaped by the word of God, we have to go back and say, where is this in the word? I was talking to a brother or sister, not going to say who the other day, and they said something. And I just let it go. And then I realized, where is that in the word? Wasn't in the word. Was not in the word. It was just a cool quote. Sounded great, but was not scriptural. And I had to fight against that. I had to say, look, where is this in the word? Where are these things coming from? These wonderful quotes and all of that. Let's back it up with the word of God, because that's the only thing. It may look like a dove. There was another picture we had once when we were memorizing of the Lord is an everlasting rock. The word is an everlasting rock. When we're dangling off the rock, when our feelings make us feel like we're going to drop a million feet to fall down. That's all we have is that little rope. That's all the rock climber has. That's tied to the rock. And the word of God has to be like that unbreakable rock. It can look like a dove, can look like a little olive branch that's holding us. But dear brothers and sisters, blessed are those who do not see, but yet believe. We need those words to become more true in our lives. I pray that we will have a greater appreciation for God's word. Let me end with knowledge puffs up. Knowledge will make arrogant, but love edifies. If I don't take all of God's word and meditation and turn it into love, if I don't have a greater love for God after all my memorization or meditation, it's been a waste. If I don't have a greater love for the people Jesus died for, my family, the church, neighbors, co-workers. If I'm not growing in love, I'm not being built up. I'm just being puffed up. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. We're going to be evaluated by the quality of our faith, hope, and love. Faith comes from hearing the word of Christ spoken to us through the word of God. Knowledge puffs up, love edifies, and hope means we wait eagerly for it. We have this as our anchor. The word of God must become an anchor that stops us from shaking among the world, and then we've got to grab a hold of it. Those who tie themselves, that's what Psalm Isaiah 40, 31 says. Those who tie themselves to the word of God, those who wait upon the Lord. That's not waiting saying, God, I'm just waiting for you. No, it's an eager expectation. I'm absolutely convinced that there are people who may have memorized Romans 8 or Psalm 119 with the punctuation or not, who may not even be in heaven. The devil is our example of that. So let's not get it twisted that this is all about memorization. Let's not have a to-do in our parenting journals. Let's make sure all our children know the word of God. But let's make sure that we bring the raw material in our minds, and especially as adults. When we're taking, when we're with our children at the baseball game, and just throwing balls, is there a place in your mind to meditate on God's word? Sure is. If you're driving, is there a little bit of space to turn off the radio and meditate on God's word? Sure is, if you memorized it. There are plenty of opportunities, dear brothers and sisters, that we can do it. Let's become a group of people, young people. You want to be sure of your salvation? You want to be sure of you being a soldier, being called in God's army? Show me your sword. Inspect your sword regularly. Grab a hold of it and let that sword be sharpened by God's word. We'll see the results in our life. May God help us. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/4ilS_OXScQ0.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/sandeep-poonen/show-me-your-sword/ ========================================================================