The War - Cooper Scherr

Leadership July 12, 2024

Cooper Scherr's talk "The War" delves into the concept of a spiritual battle happening around us. Drawing from personal experiences, he stresses the importance of recognizing the enemy, which he categorizes as the world, the flesh, and Satan. Through Ephesians 6:11-12, he urges listeners to put on God's armor to stand against evil forces and to avoid falling into worldly desires. He closes with a call to action, urging believers to boldly confront the enemy and seek strength from God in the ongoing spiritual war.

Transcript

I kind of brought up how God has really been showing me the war that we're in right now and the reality of that around us.

If you look at the sheet that I passed out, I put a CS Lewis quote at the top, says, the New Testament talks so much about a dark power in the universe, a mighty evil spirit who is held to be the power behind death and disease and sin. Christianity agrees the universe is at war.

When I was younger, my dad gave, you know, he has those seven things he prays for every day. So he showed me those when I was younger, and I've been praying those for a while. And the first thing, if any of you guys pray those things or have seen that, the first thing on that list is that God would show me the things that are unseen, that he would show me the war that's going on around me, the reality of what's actually going on around me. And lately, I feel like he's been doing that. I feel like that has been pretty evident in my life, and I'll kind of explain a little bit.

So a month and a half or so ago, I got the news that this old campaigner girl died. And I have a picture of her. I just thought, like, the pictures would be funny. This is our. It's like one of my first camp trips that her name's Taylor, and.

But yeah, an old campaigner girl. She was like, she had graduated, and she was, like, coaching soccer at Cooper at that time. She was also helping, like, the same club team, right. And they were at club practice that day wherein she just collapsed on the field. And I don't know what happened, but is weird, like, hearing this, and we have one of her younger sister is in Megan's Bible study and has been around for a while, too.

I remember for those of you guys who work here, there was a leader weekend years ago where Ryan Meekum came and talked. I think that might be something you have to listen to in NLT. Is that right? So you probably listen to it. And in that, at the end, he talks about some funerals that he went to of students of, you know, ways in which they passed away and stuff.

And one thing he said was, if you lead long enough, this will probably happen to you. And I was thinking about that, and I'm like, I don't feel like I've been leading for that long. And just, I thought of that when I was at her funeral.

But as all of this has happened, and I've talked to our core group or whatever about it, because there's tons of girls who were there and newer.

One of the cool things I got to tell him was that Taylor knew Jesus. That is cool. You get to put a hope and there's a, you know, got to tell them, hey, listen, Taylor is having a way better time than any of us right now. She is probably not even thinking about this world right now because she's so enamored by Christ and being in heaven like crazy. And that is so awesome.

It's so cool.

And yeah, fast forward to last week. And I wake up, my phone's blowing up and stuff and read the news. I'm sure all of you guys have heard that there was. So there's a party going on. It was a old kid that used to come around all the time.

His name is Brendan. It was his 21st birthday. And the kid came in, the gun, shot and killed four people. Three other people went into the hospital, which is weird, right? Like, you know, I know Cooper district isn't the nicest, but, like, you just don't hear about something like that.

And, uh, this picture, that's the only picture I had. It's just on my phone. Probably from them taking it. That's here. The girl on the left.

Her name is Delaney.

She is one of the girls that died. She used to come around all the time too. It was really sweet.

But I don't know if deling to Jesus, like, you know, I'm not sitting here saying I'm the judge and I don't know what happened. I hadn't talked to her in like a year, but I'm not sure if she knew Jesus or not. I was talking to some guys about this the other night because this is. That's like a hard pill to swallow. It's hard to kind of grasp that and to understand it.

And, you know, I know you know the same. I know scriptures, you guys know, like, I know that. Like, jesus says, he's the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through him. Right, I get that.

I know that he says that many will come to me on that day and say, lord, did we not do this in your name? Did we not prophesy? Do we not cast out demons? And he's going to say, I didn't know you. But then I also know that, like, Jesus, when he was on the cross, there was a thief next to him.

And like, at the last moment, you know, he turns to Jesus and like, jesus, like today you're going to be with me in paradise, right? So I know those things, but I don't. I don't know. I don't know what happened and.

But what I. It's hard seeing people in us. We. There's death and these things happen, and we like to make ourselves feel better about it, right? And we say things like, oh, but they're in a better place.

And things are, you know, you see them again and things like that. And I hope, but at the same time, like, he does say that many will go down the wide path that leads to destruction, right. And that narrow is the road that leads to life, and few find it. We have to be people. Like, we have to understand that, right.

It makes understanding the war we're in even more important, right.

Because at any point, that can be yours. That's your students, right. And, like, this is stuff that's been going on in our community and whatnot. Like, I'm sure. I'm sure it's going on in your guys's, too.

I'm sure stuff is going haywire at your schools. I haven't heard anything. I believe it. I'm sure if it hasn't, it will. You know, we're in war.

We're fighting.

Open your bibles to ephesians six.

I'm gonna be jumping around to a few places, so you don't have to flip if you don't want to, because I'll do the whole thing in the reading.

Ephesians 611 and twelve. If someone read that for me, please.

Six. Weapons, sex, love to them. Thanks. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against the flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of darkness, powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm.

Like I said, we are at war right now. And I think as we understand this and as we are, we know about this, we have to have a good understanding of, like, who the enemy is, right. Where he's attacking us, where he's coming against us, because, like, it happens, and it happens in small ways. We don't even see it, and we have to have a good understanding of the ways that he comes at us, right. And who our enemy is.

Right. And how we fight against it.

I think I left some blanks, did I not? Yeah, I left some blanks. First, to understand the war we're in, you definitely have to understand who the war is against.

And that first one is that it's not against goddess. This war is definitely not against God.

Revelations, 1217. It's right there on your paper. I'll read. It says, then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring. Those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

This war that we're in isn't against God, right? Like, he conquered, he won the ultimate war, right? I mean, like, when Jesus was put on a cross and he rose again in three days, like, the ultimate war was done, right? It is complete. It is finished.

This is not against him, right? I mean, think of, like, Jesus versus Satan. That's, like, not comparable, right? Jesus, like, it's not even a competition, okay? I mean, a billion times out of a billion wins, okay?

Doesn't even come close. The battle is not against God. William Grinnold. This is old guy that wrote books, says, it is the image of God reflected in you that so enrages hell. It is this at which the demons hurl their mightiest weapons.

The battle is against me. The battle is against us. Right? It's. Right now it's against you and me, see?

Not against God.

And to have a good understanding of the enemy, we have to understand that this. It is against us. It is against you. And I'll get into even more so this group, too. But we have to understand the enemy.

I split it up kind of into, like, three different groups of, like, the ways, I think, in which the enemy, what our enemy is. The first is the world.

You don't have to flip here. The verse one, John 215 16, says, do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the father, but is from the world.

What the world has to offer us is our enemy. You are fighting against it every single day. We are fighting against what the world is offering and putting in front of you, right? And it's Satan works in immediate gratification, right? He works in this.

He lives in the short term, right? That's how he works. And I know, like, you're thinking, you know, I pray for my students to let go of the world in tons of ways, right? Like God, man. Just, like, have them let go of those things and that they're running to over and over.

Like, I know you're doing the same, okay? But it doesn't change how the world clings onto us, because it does. And it happens in such small ways, and we don't even know.

They don't even look like bad things. The way that the world clings are, a lot of times it looks like comfort for us, comfort in our time, comfort with our money, comfort with our spouses, comfort with our life. Right? It's okay when, like, certain things get. We give things up, but, like, as soon as it's out, just, like, there's too much.

Right. There's, like, a time where it's, like, okay, you know, I don't want to fully give that up all the way. Right? And the world just, like, clings on in such a small way as that will grow. We can't let the world hold on to us.

Second Timothy 226 says, escape from. To escape from the trap of the devil. That's exactly what this is. He sets traps in the Vietnam war. If anyone knows anything about the Vietnam war, they were, like, experts at setting traps, okay?

They would, like. It was, like, throughout the jungles, and so they would, like, disguise these traps all throughout the jungle, and soldiers would get caught in them, and they wouldn't. They would never see them coming, right? They were disguised so well and so perfectly that it killed, like, thousands of soldiers. These traps throughout the jungle.

It's crazy when you look up the numbers because they couldn't see them. They didn't realize it was a trap. As they're walking through, the same way this happens with us in the world, you don't realize it's a trap. You don't realize the comfort. The things that we just hold on to a little bit are traps, and they fester and grow over time.

I was. I had a conversation with this.

This old leader. This is a little bit ago, and he's, like, pretty old, like, older than Zach, I think. And all of you in this room, he was like, yeah, I was talking to him, and it was at this, like, function, like, where my family was there, and so he was. He was there, either. He hasn't.

He's got the whole family. He's got, like, three or four kids that are older, and he travels a ton for work. He's an engineer, and I think he works for Toyota. I'm not sure. And I'm, like, asking him, like, what do you do?

Whatever. And he starts telling me about what he does, and this is the craziest thing. He starts telling me that, like, he is the lead of, like, he designs these certain cars and actually what they're in the process of doing. He, like, is living in California a ton of the times, and he was telling me how he is designing flying cars.

I know that's weird. I was like, okay, really? And he's so serious. Like, no, yeah, we're actually partnering with Uber. I.

And it soon, it'll eventually be this system to where the cars are, like, landing in certain spots of the city, and people will get in and they won't actually need a pilot, but we'll have one in there. So they feel that people feel safe, and they'll get up and I'll fly them to different places. And I'm like, are you serious? This is crazy. Like, and he's telling me all about, you know, this, the ways that he's, you know, making this fly these flying cars.

And I'm like, I don't. Oh, yeah, you know, whatever. I don't know. And then, you know, conversations over. I'm like, this guy might be one of the coolest people I've ever met.

And he gets done, and he's like, so what do you do? And I'm like, you know, well, Lee. And, you know, actually just went on staff and, you know, all this stuff, and it was crazy, the shift that happened with him, I start, you know, telling him about what I'm doing, and then he starts, like, he's like, oh, man. And his face lights up, and he's like, starts, like, reminiscing on the days when he did it, when he led. And he was like, oh, yeah, those were the days.

Like, you had a job where you got off at 03:00 and you went and you went to coach, and you were there, and you were coaching, like, multiple sports, and you were just with kids all the time. And he, like, is going on for, like, five minutes, like. And I'm just. And he's just like, bright as day as he's talking about this, just listening, right? I'm like, I feel like I'm having a one on one with, like, a 45 year old guy.

And he keeps going, and he eventually kind of, like, comes back and is. Looks at me, I'll never forget this. And he's like, don't ever stop doing what you're doing. Don't ever stop doing it. And then he said this that I'll never forget.

He was like, if I could go back and change it all, I'd never stepped on it. And I'm like, all right.

Not even the guy who designs flying cars was the world enough.

And I'm sure for him, it just happened over time to a point to where he probably feels stuck. Like he can't go anywhere.

The world is our enemy. The next one is the flesh.

Verse James 114 15 says, but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived. When it has conceived, gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.

The flesh in us, the sin is an enemy that is at work all the time. Okay? I mean, when scripture talks about the battleground that's before us, your mind is the battleground, right? I mean, I could. We.

Somebody could give, like, a whole leadership on each of these things, but it is. I mean, you guys know this. The training of your mind, of these things, to walk in the spirit, to live in the spirit, to abstain from the desires of your flesh. I mean, it is, like, constant, right? I mean, you guys, for me, I'm like, if I am not in check, in thinking, in holding myself true to scripture and reminding myself of this, like, all times, like, quickly, my flesh hops right in the.

Does not wait. Hops right in one. Peter 211. What I just said, to abstain from sinful desires, which, let's go say, wage war against your soul. And, you guys know, this doesn't.

This isn't all of what I'm talking about isn't these big, huge changes, these big things that happen in our life. It's like these small thoughts is how it works. These small little thoughts that happen, and they grow and they fester, right? Whatever those thoughts are, right? I'm just ugly.

I look so ugly in this. Just not enough for that person. I'm not enough for my family. I'm not enough for this. I just don't have the time to do this.

I'm just so busy. I just don't have time for all of this where I'm just overwhelmed. So overwhelmed by everything going on in my life. I just so overwhelmed. Maybe it's like, I think I can do it better than that person.

I think I can make it better. It's these small thoughts that fester and grow in your heart. Okay? If you don't catch them, okay. It continues to grow.

It continues to grow. Eventually it grows into division, right? Into.

Into bitterness, into laziness, right?

The criticism of others, depression. Like, that's where that leads. Our flesh leads to death. There is no life that is found as we entertain those small thoughts in our mind, right? It is so important that we are understand that our mind is a battleground.

To take those thoughts captive at all times, every moment. Every moment. There is no, like, timeout. There's no breaks in that, right? It's at every moment of the day to be taken in captivity all the time.

I put an aw Tozer quote. So it becomes the devil's business to keep the christian spirit in prison. He knows that the believing and justified Christian has been raised up out of the grave of his sins and trespasses. From that point on, Satan works that much harder to keep us bound and gagged, actually imprisoned in our own grave clothes. He knows that if we continue in this kind of bondage, you're not much better off than when we were dead.

The enemy is your flesh. It is the end.

The last point is the prince of this world, John 1231.

Now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler of this world be cast out is where Niv calls it. And the prince of this world, right? Talking about Satan, it's pretty clear that he's our enemy, right?

I mean, I never thought that I would be. I would, like, hear about a mass shooting of kids at Cooper, right? I never thought.

It makes sense.

It makes sense. He's the prince of this world. And if I'm being honest in the business that we're in and what we're doing, we better start to expect it, right? 94% of christians, right, say that they came to Christ before the age of 18.

That's the case, yeah.

That map, what we're doing. You better believe Satan knows us.

He knows all of you.

And if you haven't started to experience it, you will. It's going to happen at our schools everywhere, because I promise you, he doesn't want God's kingdom to advance to here. He doesn't want that to happen.

He doesn't want you to run as hard as you can after your students at the school you're at. He wants you to slow down. He wants you to look at the world and remember the things of the world and look to your flesh and get distracted.

Second Corinthians, 1113 and 14. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen masquerading as apostles of Christ. No wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light, because Satan's not gonna. Demons aren't gonna pop up foot of your bed, right? You've heard that it's not going to happen, right?

You would just run straight to God. That's not what he wants. You know, what he does want is just a little bit. He just wants you to hold on to the world a little bit, right? Just wants you to hold on to your flesh.

The things just a little bit. He just wants you at 99%.

That's it. As long as you're not at 100%, as long as you. There's just something that you're holding back. That's all he wants. Right?

He's not. He's not in the business of turning us away, of saying, you know, he wants you, you know, off and just turned away. Running away from him, running away from God, turning to, you know, going, I don't know, getting something crazy like going. Getting drunk and doing drugs. I don't know, like, that's not.

It's not what he cares about. Not for us. He just wants you to grab on and hold on a little bit.

Just wants us to forget about it. He wants us to forget about this war that we're in. He wants us to forget about the mission world. He wants us to forget about all of it. And just look to the world and look to these things and look to our life in our troubles and our schedule and everything that's.

That focuses on us and forget about the world. Forget about the war that's going on.

He just wants you at 99%.

Young leaders in here, don't buy what the world is offering. Don't buy. Okay?

And I understand. It's not some.

It's not some american dream that we're chasing anymore, okay? You're told a lot of lies. Okay? And we have this idea of some christian american dream that we have, right?

Okay. I don't know why we don't talk about this, okay? Because none of us are running to an american dream. We get that. We've all seen John Piper talk about it.

No one's run into that. But there's this christian american dream that we have. Oh, yeah, I'll lead for, like, four years. And then, well, I need to get married for sure. And then, you know, to have kids.

Definitely stop, you know, gotta slow down. I gotta. I have to do that. I can't. I can't.

I have to slow down. And now I want to get a nice, nice house. Whole family can fit in it. It'll be nice and cozy, comfortable. Maybe Rick will ask me to leave a Bible study.

Like, is that what this is about?

Don't buy it. All of you young leaders, don't buy it. It's not. It. It's not where life is found.

It's not where joy is found, okay?

You're told to just condense stuff, be full of pride, not talk to. I mean, the older leaders on your team are heroes, okay? Like, the fact that they are still doing this, being older, having kids and being down, that. That is incredible.

Seek their counsel, okay. And don't buy what the world is offering, even the christian world, right? You're not going to be condemned for talking about Jesus. No one's doing that here.

But you are told to be comfortable.

Don't take too many risks.

It's not where life is found. It's not where joy is found.

Older leaders don't quit.

And I don't mean leading. Like, don't quit. What? The mission that God has called you to, don't stop. Don't stop taking risks for him.

Don't stop giving every part of your life, everything to him. Don't ever stop.

Just miss out on joy that's offered to don't quit. Keep going.

The last thing I have is the response before I say that I was fit. That I think about for you, older leaders, all of you. I think about the guy I talked to, flying car guy.

He felt. He felt like he was stuck, like, he probably couldn't go and take a risk for Jesus, right? I don't know what that looks like, but I did see in his face, like, man, he was like, miss the joy that, like he had when he was. Just gave it all up.

It's never too late to take risks for him. Even if you have a set job, even if you have a family, even if whatever the. Whatever it is, whatever your life looks like, you can still do it. I know it feels like you can, but you can.

You can always take those risks, and joy is found in them. Always.

The response. Acts 429 through 31.

It says, now, lord, look upon their hearts and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness while you stretch out your hand to heal. And signs and wonders are performed through the name of your Holy Spirit servant, Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

The knowledge of the enemy in the war that we're in, it demands a response. It does. Demands a response.

How many. Does anybody in here know who William Booth is?

So, William Booth, you can flip your paper over.

William Booth was the founder of the Salvation army. He Salvation army now is not what it was. So the Salvation army now is like, used to give out resources and things to places of need and things like that. So William Booth, in the late 18 hundreds, he lived in England and was a part of the church and, like, saw this great need outside of the church. And it was just seeing nobody come to Christ.

It was like wild to him. Right? And so he basically, I'm not going to go into the whole story, but starts what was called the Salvation army. And they literally were like an army. He actually called himself General Booth.

And they would go into cities and go into places, and they had uniforms that they would wear, and then they would march in, parade down the streets of the city and start preaching Jesus. And it's crazy. From the time that the Salvation army started in the first, like four or five years, there was over like 200, 300,000 people that came to Christ from this. It started in England. It made its way to America eventually.

Crazy story. Read about him. He's a crazy guy, but he had this vision before, before the Salvation army was created. He had this vision from goddesse. I'm going to read it.

In it, I saw a dark and stormy ocean over which black clouds hung heavily. Every now and then, vivid lightning flashed and loud thunder rolled while the winds drove foaming waves into a tempest that was claiming lives. There were myriads cursing, struggling, and drowning. And as I watched some of them sink to rise no more. Then I noticed a mighty rock that rose up out of the dark, angry ocean.

Its summit towered high above the platform. Onto this platform, I saw with delight that a number of the poor struggling wretches were continually climbing out of the angry ocean. I saw a few of those who were already safe on the platform, helping others onto the rock. Many were working with ladders, ropes, and boats to rescue those who were drowning. Occasionally, someone actually jumped into the water, regardless of the consequences.

In their passion to rescue the perishing, I hardly know which sight delighted me more, the sight of people rescued or the devotion and self sacrifice of those who had rescued them. Looking more closely, I realized that people on the platform were quite a mixed company. They occupied themselves in different ways. Some spent their days trading, while others amused themselves by dressing up for the admiration of their peers. Many were chiefly concerned with eating and drinking, and yet others were taken up with arguing about the people that had already been rescued.

Only a very few of them made it their business to rescue people from the sea. What puzzled me most was the fact that although all of them had been rescued from the ocean at one time or another, nearly everyone seemed to have forgotten about it. And what seemed equally strange was that they did not even seem to care about the people who were drowning right before their eyes, many of whom were their own spouses, brothers and sisters, and even their own children, those on the rock, had received a call from the one who had himself gone down into the sea. They heard his voice and felt that they ought to obey it, or at least so they said. They professed to love him and to sympathize with him in the task he had undertaken.

But they were so distracted by their profession's pleasures and their preparation for going to the mainland that they did not help him. So the multitude went right on before them, struggling, shrieking and drowning in the darkness. And then I noticed that some of the people on the platform were crying out to him to come to them. Many wanted him to spend his time and strength in making them happier. Others wanted him to take away various doubts and misgivings they had concerning the truth of some letters he had written to them.

Some wanted him to make them feel more secure on the rock, so secure that they would be quite sure that they would never slip off again into the ocean they met. And climbing high on the rock, they would cry, come to us. Come and help us. And all the while he was down among those drowning in the sea, trying to rescue them, and looking to those on the rock for help.

There's a war going on around us right now. We're going to continue to see it more and more.

And it's our choice whether we make it our business to be the people that are jumping off the rock, rescuing them from the city.

Let me pray.

Father, I just thank you for the hope that you give us. Lord, I thank you.

Thank you for your son that like my life is just never going to be the same. That I have a hope that can't be taken away from me, that I have something that can't be stripped. No matter what happens to me or my life. God, you always remaindeze. God, we see the war going on.

Lead us in this. Help us have the courage to jump off the rock and to follow you to the ones drowning.

God, we love you. Help us see your truth. Help us know you more every single day of our life. Let us not be 99% in with you, but 100% of our life, completely dedicated to you, to your mission, for us, for your our entire life. God, we praise you for the cross.

We praise you that we are no longer the same. We love you. We pray all these things in your son's name. Amen. I.