Welcome to the Valley Baptist Church sermon podcast.
We're so glad you're here, and we hope this message inspires you,
builds your faith, and moves you toward a deep relationship with God.
Today, you'll find great insight into the Bible
and learn how you can apply it straight to your life.
So welcome and enjoy the message.
If you have your Bible, please open it with me to Genesis chapter 3 in a message I'm calling
God Declares War.
In the beginning of Genesis 3, we find Adam and Eve living in a perfect world in which
God had made.
They're living the perfect life.
But a serpent in verse number 1 emerges, And we know from the book of Revelation that that
serpent is none other than Satan. And Satan tempts Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, the tree, the one tree that God had forbidden them to eat from. You see,
God created mankind with a choice of whether they would live in perfect harmony with God and perfect
relationship with Him or whether they would choose their own path, Satan's path. Well, the serpent
tempts Adam and Eve, and they join Satan's rebellion against God. Now, last week we looked
at the devastating consequences of their sin in the second half of chapter
three.
We read about how pain now accompanies all the blessings of God and how mankind now dies
both physically and spiritually.
You see, because of our sin, not only do our bodies die, but our spirit dies as well.
That means that our spirits are separated from intimacy with God.
You see, God created each and every one of us in his image, and we were created for a relationship
with him, to love him and obey him and serve him and to glorify him in perfect relationship with
him. But sin messed all that up. And so when we sin, God departed from us so that within every
human heart, there's this hole. And the hole is shaped like God. Now, we try to fill that empty
hole with all kinds of different things, whether it be drug or drugs or alcohol, money, sex,
power, fame, you name it. We even try to fill it with good works, but none of those things
fill that hole. The only thing that fits is Jesus Christ. Now, when we receive Jesus by faith as
our Savior and our Lord, He comes, God comes to live within us, and He offers us this intimate
relationship with Him once again by His Spirit. What was lost in the Garden of Eden
is restored through the cross of Jesus and the resurrection. Now, last week we skipped over a
couple verses in the middle of this chapter where God curses Satan, and we went straight to mankind's
consequences. But God didn't start with us. He actually started with Satan, whom the Bible calls
the enemy. So let's read Genesis chapter 3 verse 14. It says,
So the Lord God said to the serpent, because you've done this, cursed are you above all
livestock and all wild animals. You will crawl on your belly and will eat the dust
all the days of your life. Here's
the first thing we see. God cursed Satan. Now, I'm not sure if you noticed last week, but
God cursed the ground, but He didn't actually curse mankind. Men and women, we experience
terrible consequences because of our sin, but God didn't actually pronounce a curse upon us in Genesis chapter 3. I think because God's not done with us. Before time began, God had a plan
to save humanity from their sin, and He would do so by sending His one and only begotten Son, Jesus,
to pay for our sins upon the cross so that God could give us life instead of death. But we see here that God doesn't offer the same grace to Satan.
Instead, He gives him an eternal curse.
Now, it's true that when we sin, we are completely responsible for our sin,
but Scripture also indicates, in a sense, perhaps we're also victims of the enemy, the devil.
God says to Satan here, he says,
because you've done this, because you've tempted mankind, because you've helped cast them into
utter darkness and to death, because of that you're cursed, and you're now going to be confined
to your belly, and of the dust of the ground you're going to eat all the days of your life. Now, I'm not exactly sure what this serpent looked like at this point,
but apparently it moved more gracefully than a snake does. But now in humiliation,
it is going to be confined to the ground to slither about. Now, it's important to remember
that this curse upon the serpent is also symbolic of the curse on Satan himself.
Verse number 15, we read, God says, and I will put enmity between you and the woman
and between your offspring and hers.
He will crush your head and you will bruise his heel.
Now, you may not see it at first glance, but this verse, Genesis chapter 3,
verse number 15, is one of the most important verses in all of the Bible. It's been called by
many the Proto-Evangelion, meaning the first gospel. This is the first prophecy in the Bible
of a coming Messiah seed who would deliver a death blow to Satan and save his people
in the process. Now, we know
that person to be Jesus, our Savior and our Lord. But I want us to break down this verse because
there's a lot packed in here in this one small little verse. God begins by saying, I will put
enmity between you and the woman. And I think this is the beginning of why women hate snakes so much. Now, to be honest,
I hate snakes as well. But my son Micah, for whatever reason, he loves snakes. It just,
it boggles the mind. He'll go out and catch them. In fact, believe it or not, this week,
weather was good. He caught 12 snakes along Round Mountain Road.
I mean, this dude's nuts, right? A couple of years ago, a few years back, he caught a little baby
snake while we were in Oklahoma, and he decided to take it home with us to California. Now, he snuck
that snake under his seat in a little container, and Kelsey, when she realized it was in the van with us,
she started panicking. So Micah, he assured her the snake was harmless, which meant nothing to
Kelsey. And he said, it is in the perfect container. It can never get out. Well, somewhere,
somewhere in New Mexico, I'm in the back seat sleeping, and I wake up to screaming
an absolute tear.
The van's jerking back and forth, side to side, and I knew exactly what happened.
That snake got out.
And not only did it get out, it slithered its way to the front of the van. It climbed Kelsey's charging cord for her phone
onto the steering wheel before she saw it. And so she is scream crying. And I wake up and I start
shouting. I said, please don't kill our family. Please don't kill our family. Because she's
jerking back and forth. Remember, we're on I-40. She's going like 75 miles an hour and there's semis all around. She had lost almost
all rational thought in her mind. So her body was involuntarily jerking the wheel back and forth.
And so finally I convinced her, slow down, pull to the side of the road, Kelsey, stop. So she does so. She gets out. She runs like
50 yards away, flailing her arm, doing this dance, right? Adrenaline pumping.
At that point, I told Micah, I said, Micah, you have every reason to fear for your life. Why? Because God put enmity between the serpent and the woman.
But let us remember, the serpent is the devil. So primarily God is speaking here. He's saying,
I'm putting enmity between Satan and the woman, his seed and her seed, his offspring, her offspring. Now, this word
enmity is a very strong word. It means conflict, or it is even stronger than that. It means war.
The beginning of World War II, America was trying to stay out of the war until Japan unexpectedly bombed us at Pearl Harvard, killing over 2,400
soldiers and civilians. And the next day, President Franklin Roosevelt took to the airwaves,
declaring war with the now famous words, this is a day that will live in infamy.
Well, I think in Genesis chapter 3, we see that in God's peaceful, perfect garden,
Satan, the enemy, dropped some sin bombs on Adam and Eve. And God basically is saying here
in verse number 15, this is a day that will live in infamy. And in that moment, God declared war
on Satan. He declared war against the enemy, the devil, who is tempting mankind to
follow him into rebellion. It's as if he said, Satan, you started this, but I'm going to finish
it. And I'm actually going to finish it by using a human being to do so. I'm going to put enmity,
war, and conflict between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed.
Now, this word seed is a unique word both in Hebrew and in English
because it can be either plural or singular based on context.
That makes it the perfect word for this prophecy.
It's translated in Greek as sperma. We get our word sperm from it. It
refers to offspring. God says, I will put enmity between your seed and her seed. Now, her seed
refers to God's people and specifically the Messiah, the coming Messiah. I think the devil seed refers to everyone who has not yet trusted Jesus
as their Savior. 1 John chapter 3 verse number 10 says,
in this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest. Whoever does not practice
righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. So John implies if you're
not of God, if you're not
a child of God, you're of the devil. You're the child of the devil. You're still blinded by his
lies. Now he says a couple of verses earlier in verse number eight, he says, he who sins is of
the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil. So the Son
of God was sent by God, why? To destroy the works of the devil. Now, but according to Genesis 3.15
that we've been reading here this morning, it's not the Son of God that's prophesied to destroy
the devil, it's the Son of Eve who will destroy the devil.
So which is it? Well, the truth is the promised Messiah seed would be the son of man and the son
of God. Now, how could that possibly be? It's only through the woman's seed. You see her seed,
that's a unique terminology. It doesn't even make sense at first glance because seed is referenced
a whole lot in scripture, but every other time it's referenced, it's in even make sense at first glance, because seed is referenced a whole lot in
Scripture, but every other time it's referenced, it's in reference to a man's seed. Why? Because
the woman doesn't have seed. She has an egg. The man has seed that fertilizes the egg. So what in
the world is this signifying, talking about a woman's seed? It signifies that the coming Savior, Messiah King, would be born
of a virgin. And we know that prophecy happened thousands of years later when Jesus, our Savior,
was born in the little town of Bethlehem. Verse number 15, again, we read, and I will put enmity
between you and the woman, between your seat and her seat.
He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
And we see here that God promised victory over Satan.
He didn't just declare war, He promised victory.
See, the war with the enemy not only involves humanity, it involves a savior and it involves a king.
Now, from this promise on there in the Garden of Eden, after rebellion had take place by mankind,
from this point on, the devil set out on a quest to thwart the plan of God.
And for thousands of years, we read about it in the Old Testament,
for thousands of years, he tried to destroy the seed line, the nation of Israel. And I actually
think it started before Israel became a nation. We're going to see next week in chapter four that
after Cain killed his brother Abel, Adam and Eve gave birth to another son that God had given them, Seth.
And Eve said of Seth, she said, God has appointed another seed.
She uses the word seed for me instead of Abel who can't kill.
You see, on Eve's mind was still this promised seed from God.
Now, as we read throughout the Old Testament, you just read about this coming
seed, this coming Messiah all throughout. God keeps telling us a little bit more about the
coming Messiah. He would be a descendant of Abraham. He would be a descendant of Jacob,
of Israel. He would be of the tribe of Judah. We find out that he also will be the son of David,
of his line. He'll be a king. God keeps whispering
throughout his unfolding revelation of who he is. He's saying the seed is coming.
The seed is coming. I have not forgotten. Eve, I have not forgotten. The seed is coming. And the
seed finally came. And he was born of the Virgin Mary, of the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
Now, when he was born, it's not like Satan just gave up.
He didn't throw in the towel at that point.
He tried to have him killed by King Herod.
They had to eventually flee to Egypt.
We know that all throughout Jesus' public ministry,
the devil kept attacking him over and over and over again.
In fact, he spent 40 days in the desert,
tempted by the enemy, toe to toe with him.
He had spiritual, I mean, demons flocked to Israel,
I think, to attack.
And so he had to cast out these demons.
He faced opposition at every turn,
but unlike Adam, he withstood all the attacks of the enemy
all the way to his suffering death on the cross.
Now, what in the world are we to make of this bruised heel and this bruised head, this crushed
head? Well, this striking of the seed's heel is a reference to the cross. You see, on the cross, the serpent struck the heel
of Jesus. But in the process, Jesus crushed the head of the serpent. You see, what Satan meant
for evil, God meant for good. Now, the bruising of Jesus upon the cross, it was necessary, wasn't it?
Here's our principle. The bruising of Jesus was necessary to forgive our sins. It was necessary
for the God-man to pay for sins. Isaiah chapter 53, there was a prophesied hundreds of years before Christ,
speaking of the coming Messiah, but he was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we're healed.
You see, the Bible says there is no forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood.
You see, our greatest need in all of life is to be forgiven. That's our
greatest need. We desperately need to be forgiven of our sin. Otherwise, we got to be held accountable
by God for our sin ourselves. We need to be forgiven. And our greatest need through the cross became God's greatest accomplishment.
I heard about a professor who used to begin his semester each year with the first day of class
by putting two numbers up on the whiteboard. He put the number four, and then out beside it,
he put the number two. Then he asked the class, what's the answer? And someone would,
you know, shout out six, or they shout out eight, or another person would shout out two,
but each time the professor would just shake his head no until finally when they're frustrated and
they're done guessing, he would say, the reason you can't find the answer, the reason you can't
find the solution is because you have all failed to ask the pertinent question,
what's the problem? And I think that's our world. They can't seem to find the solution to this big
mess of this broken world because they have not correctly identified the problem. We have a sin
problem, and our sin causes pain, suffering, and death. We have a holy God. And so we're distant
now from God. Our relationship has been severed and broken with God. And it also has been broken
with other people so that it separates. We desperately need more than anything else is to
be forgiven by God, for God to forgive us and make us clean. You see, as soon as Adam and Eve created
the biggest problem on earth, God stepped in with a solution for the ages. And the battle with Satan
for God's children, that battle was won by the bruising of the cross. See, Satan was playing checkers. God was playing chess. Now, we know
from the scriptures that this cosmic battle and war is actually still taking place.
And humanity, because of our sin, we're prisoners of that war. We're malnourished slaves of sin. We're malnourished slaves of the devil, weakened
and blinded by the God of this age. But what God did on the cross is he paid the price for our
freedom. And anyone willing to leave the devil's hellhole of sin can now be made free by the blood of Jesus. Now here's the deal though. While victory over
Satan has been secured through the cross, it won't fully be realized completely until Jesus returns.
In fact, that's our principle. The victory Jesus secured through the cross will be fully realized upon his return.
On June 6, 1944, just a few years after the U.S. entered World War II, the Allied forces stormed
the beaches of Normandy in the largest seaborne attack in history. We call it D-Day. And in that
great battle and the great invasion was the beginning of the end of Nazi Germany and the war.
Victory was secured that day.
But it was not until 11 months later on May 8th, 1945, that we celebrated victory in what is now called V-Day.
Well, historians will tell you the outcome of the war was decided not on V-Day, it was decided on D-Day. Because on
D-Day, it was now only a matter of time until victory was fully realized. Using that as an
illustration, the cross was D-Day, and Christ's return is V-Day, meaning the outcome of the war right now is inevitable.
Jesus has already secured victory.
Even though the devil's still kicking, he's still fighting, he's still trying to take people down.
Victory is inevitable.
You see, someday Jesus is going to return to this earth, this time, not as a suffering servant, but as a ruling king. And his return will usher in a series of events
that will lead to the final blow upon the enemy.
We read about it in Revelation chapter 20, verse number 10.
The devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire
and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are.
And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
Someday King Jesus will finish crushing Satan's head once and for all.
I remember as a young kid walking out of my grandparents' house in Oklahoma
and walking right up on a rattlesnake in my mammy's garden.
And so I ran back in the house to tell her there was a snake there
because my dad and papa were out working cattle.
And so I ran inside and I said, there's a rattlesnake in your garden.
And she didn't believe me because that's a pretty sandy area.
Normally they don't get rattlesnakes.
But she came out and sure enough, there's a rattlesnake right in her garden.
And I'll never forget what happened next.
Without a
word, she grabbed a hoe and with one swing, she chopped that snake's head off. My eyes were big.
She's like, wow, grandma, you know. She knew out there on the farm that if you're going to strike a serpent, you better take its head off.
And God knew that exact same thing.
So the serpent who came into our Lord's garden that he had perfectly made,
he'll be crushed, and he will spend an eternity in hell.
Rightful judgment.
Now there's one last truth about the crushing of the serpent that we actually learned from the New Testament. I'm going to give you the principle, then we'll look at the verse.
We, as Christians, are actually soldiers in the Lord's army, and we will be used to crush
the serpent. God tells us in Ephesians chapter 6, those of us who are believers, that we are to
put on the whole armor of God. Why? Because we're soldiers in the war. Why else would we need armor?
It's because we're soldiers. Did you know that as Christian soldiers, we actually get to participate
in crushing the enemy's head? We learned that from Romans chapter 16, verse number 20.
And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. Isn't that amazing? You see,
Jesus will crush Satan under our feet because Christ's victory is our victory. Now, how's that going to actually happen? Well, I think
we see a glimpse of how it's going to take place in Revelation chapter 12, verse number 11. It
says, and they overcame him, that's the devil, by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their
testimony, and they did not love their lives to death. See, the devil started this whole war, and we joined him. In our sin,
we joined his side instead of God's side. But now God is on a rescue mission for the world,
and he's calling many of us. He's calling us out of the domain of darkness into his domain of love
and light. And many of us listening, maybe not everyone in this room,
but many of us, we have defected.
We've defected from the enemy's camp,
and we have now joined forces with the Lord's army,
joining the fierce battle against the great enemy.
But the question is, how do we overcome him?
Well, first of all, it says,
they overcame him by the blood of the lamb.
You see, it's not primarily our doing. It's Christ's doing. It's God's doing. Hebrews chapter
2 verse number 14 says, inasmuch then as the children were taken of flesh and blood, he himself,
that's Jesus, likewise shared in the same. He became a human. Why? That through death, that's the cross, he might destroy him who had the power of death,
that is the devil.
You see, Jesus destroyed the devil through the cross,
through the shedding of his blood.
So we overcome him by the blood of the Lamb,
but also by the word of their testimony.
Let me ask you,
how often do you share your testimony as a Christian?
How often do you share your story? That is, your story of how you met Jesus, how He saved your life.
Now, I think a good testimony includes your story before you met Jesus, your story of meeting Jesus,
and now your story after meeting Jesus, what He's done in your life. And as we tell
our story, we must always tell His story, the story of Jesus. Paul says in Romans chapter 1,
verse number 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God
to salvation for everyone who believes. So let me ask you, are you ashamed?
Are you ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ?
Instead of shame, we ought to feel pride.
Pride that we have defected and been called out of darkness,
and now God has offered for us to walk in light
if we will just
walk there. I love that every week at our Wednesday evening service, someone stands right
here on the ground, and they share their testimony. There's not a week that goes by that I'm not
greatly encouraged. I mean, the Lord uses it to bless my soul and to give me
courage to keep on keeping on, to see people that were once in darkness and God has called them out
of it and saved their life. It just gives me courage to keep on in the fight. So we need to
be sharing our testimony with each other in life group, in our circles, in our congregation with
other Christians, but we also need to be sharing our story with the world
that doesn't know Jesus yet.
Jesus called them the lost.
They've been lost.
We've got to be sharing it with them.
Now, when you share your story with the lost,
you're not trying to win an argument.
You're not trying to argue with them at all.
You're simply telling them about how you once were lost, but now you've been found.
You were blind spiritually, but now you see.
You were a beggar, and you're sharing with another beggar where you found some food.
That's what Christians do.
That's the word of their testimony, And God uses our testimony in powerful ways.
In fact, I believe it is the most powerful tool that we have in reaching our friends
and our world for Christ.
They overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony.
And then it says, and they did not love their lives to death.
What does that mean?
That means they went all in. Did you know that you are not really ready to live
until you're not afraid to die? I really believe that. I mean, when you come to the point where
you're all in for Jesus, whatever happens, wherever he takes you, If I die to live as Christ, to die as gain. When you come to that
point, that's when life takes off. That's when you're really living. And that only comes by
complete, utter dependence upon God, complete surrender to Jesus. I love the old song. In fact, I wish we sang it more. It says, all to Jesus I surrender.
All to him I freely give.
I surrender all.
So let me ask you,
have you surrendered it all to Jesus?
Have you surrendered it all?
Or are there still some of the malnourished goodies
of the enemy that you enjoy?
Or there's some of the lies that the devil loves to tell
that you still believe?
Or there's some of the enemy's actions
that you still are mimicking?
Have you come out of the camp?
Have you come through the doors of freedom?
What does your life look like? I heard about an old story about some Roman soldiers who were,
these guys were true warriors, and they traveled by boat to a little island off of Britain
to conquer it. And as the soldiers got out of the boat, the people from the village that were up on
the hill, they saw these soldiers getting out of the boat, and the people thought, well, we've got
to defend our island. Now, they weren't warriors, but they were motivated. So they got sticks, and
they got pitchforks, they got rocks, they got anything they could possibly get their hands
on that they could fight with, and they started down the hill to meet the soldiers. And as they
were walking down the hill, they noticed and saw that when the soldiers got out of their boat,
they turned around and the soldiers set fire to the boat. And when the people saw that,
they dropped their pitchforks and rocks and they surrendered. Why?
Because they realized that those Roman soldiers hadn't come to retreat.
They had come to conquer that island
or die trying.
Let me ask you, Christian soldier,
have you kept a boat pulled up on the beach of your life
for just in case?
Or have you set a fire
to your old life?
Cut ties
with what the devil offers?
The old song says,
I have decided to follow Jesus.
No turning back.
No turning back. No turning back.
Sometimes a drunk who's even trying to come off alcohol, he's trying to quit drinking.
We'll keep a bottle hidden away somewhere for just in case.
Listen, Christian soldier, burn the boat.
Dump out the bottle and give it all to Jesus.
No turning back.
Let's bow together in an attitude of prayer, if you will.
This is a holy moment in the life of our church.
We're asking it not to just be a holy moment for our church as a whole,
but for it to be a holy moment for you individually.
The Bible says that God's word never returns void.
That means that God has something for you today, every one of us.
And the beauty and the brilliance of the Holy Spirit is that he takes his word and he applies it
in specific ways to individuals.
And so what God may be really telling you today
might be completely different
than what God is telling someone else.
And that's okay.
That's the work of the Holy Spirit.
That's the beauty of it.
I'm asking that you make this moment a moment where you receive and say yes to whatever God's putting on your heart. Now, it could be, and likely is, that there are some listening to this message today who
are still a POW, a prisoner of the war.
You're still a slave to your sin.
And as soon as you seem like you've, you know,
started to get a handle of one sin,
another sin pops up,
and you're just a slave to it.
You can't seem to get out of it.
That was all of us.
The Bible says, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
I want to invite you to receive the one who came to set you free.
And you know what?
His mission to come set you free,
it cost him dearly.
The truth is,
we must receive what he has done on our behalf in order to be set free.
The Bible says,
whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall
be saved. So you can just call upon the name of the Lord and he'll rescue you. He'll free you.
Not free you to live a life of sin and rebellion. That's enslaving. That's not freedom.
That's what everyone experiences, living for self.
What he's going to do is he's going to free you to live as you were created.
A relationship with God, that's when freedom really takes root and becomes alive and it
flourishes. The problem is sin, isn't it? And at the root of sin is self, and at the root of that is pride. And so what becoming a Christian requires of us
is to humble ourselves, to come to the end of our rope, to realize we can't do it on our own. We need God to do it for us. See, we are saved by the grace of God through
faith. It's not of works, as anyone should boast or be prideful. It's a gift, and we receive the
gift by faith. So I want to invite you to give your life to Jesus today. In just a moment, we're
going to stand as soon as I sing, and there's going to be pastors, as soon as I pray, there's going to be pastors and other leaders here at the front, prayer partners,
and we're just going to invite you to step out wherever you're at, and come down these steps,
these staircases, walk down one of these aisles, and say, I want to give my life to Christ, and
these folks will know how to help you. You say, man, I don't even know what that means exactly.
They'll know how to help you. You just come as you are don't even know what that means exactly. They'll know how to help
you. You just come as you are. You don't have to come with all the answers. You don't have to come
with your life cleaned up. In fact, you can't come with your life cleaned up. You come and then God
begins to work in you. So I want to invite you today to do just that in just a moment.
Or maybe you say, I want to be baptized like others today or join this church family.
Or maybe something else completely is on your mind and your heart
and you want to come to these steps,
pour out your heart to the Lord.
Maybe you're a Christian
and Jesus has set you free from the prison of sin.
He's unlocked the door to your prison cell he's even opened up the door
but for whatever reason you're still in there
you haven't come out or maybe you came out for a while and you went back in
i'm telling you for those of us who are in Christ, we're no longer slaves to sin.
Jesus has set us free. You don't have to live there. Why would you want to live there?
I want to invite you, if you're a Christian today, to go all in,
to burn the boat and say, I'm all in, in the Lord's army, wherever he calls me,
however he wants me to live, that's how I'm going to live. Let's pray. Father, we thank you, Lord,
for the gift of your precious son, Jesus.
Lord, here in Genesis chapter 3, it's such a depressing chapter,
the fall of mankind, the fall of creation from the good state in which you made it. Lord, here in Genesis chapter 3, it's such a depressing chapter.
The fall of mankind, the fall of creation from the good state in which you made it.
But tucked away in the middle of the chapter is this glorious verse.
It's our hope, Lord.
You see, Jesus, you're our only hope.
This world doesn't offer any hope.
None. None.
You are our hope.
And we thank you, Lord, that it's not a blind optimism kind of a hope,
but, Lord, it is secured in the death and the resurrection of Jesus.
Please, Lord, do a work in our hearts, build up our faith, open our eyes, give people courage, Lord, the courage that it takes to not walk in pride,
but to walk in humility.
May your spirit, Lord, break them down
so you can build them back up.
We ask in Jesus' name, amen.
Thanks for listening today.
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If you feel the Lord calling you to take the next step in faith through salvation, service, or giving, don't wait.
Reach out to us by texting PODCAST to 88988.
That's PODCAST to 88988 or connect with us on one of our social media platforms.
You can also visit our website, valleybaptist.org, to find even more great resources.
No matter where you are in your journey, know that we love you.
We're praying for you, and we can't wait to see what God will do in your life.