Every family is fighting something.

The tension in your marriage, the distance with your teenager, the anxiety that sits in your chest before the week begins again — these are not random. They are not simply the product of stress or bad circumstances or personality conflicts. According to the Scriptures, there is a war underway that most people — including most Christians — do not know they are in.

Over the next three Sundays at Liberty Baptist we are working through a series called The Unseen War — a biblically grounded, theologically careful look at what Scripture actually teaches about spiritual warfare. Not the sensationalized version. What the Apostle Paul actually wrote.

This week we started at the only place that makes sense: who we are.

 

The Key Question: Who Are You?

Paul's words in Ephesians 6:12 are among the most sober in the New Testament:

 

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

 

Present tense. Active. You are already in this war. The only question is whether you know it.

But you do not begin to understand this war until you understand who you are. Strategy without identity is panic. So this morning we went to Ephesians 2 and asked the only question that matters before anything else: who are you now — as someone who has been reached by the grace of God?

 

Point 1 — We Were Dead, But God Made Us Alive  (Eph. 2:1–5)

Paul opens with a diagnosis we would rather not hear but desperately need: before Christ, we were dead in trespasses and sins. Not wounded. Not spiritually unwell. Dead.

He identifies three forces that held us in that death: the world (the whole system of values and assumptions that surrounds us like water surrounds a fish), the devil (a real personal being with real influence, not a metaphor — full treatment next week), and the flesh (that interior disorder every human being carries from birth — the Reformers called it the noetic effects of sin).

World, devil, flesh. Three forces. And we were dead under all three.

But then verse four: "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ."

God did not wait until we improved. He did not wait for us to reach out first. He moved in the middle of our death. Unsolicited. Undeserved. Entirely His initiative. Think of Dunkirk — 330,000 soldiers stranded on a beach, no resources, no way out, the enemy closing in. The boats came toward them. They received a rescue they could not have initiated. That is Ephesians 2. You were stranded. And God moved toward you.

 

Point 2 — We Are Raised, Seated, and Saved by Grace  (Eph. 2:6–9)

Three past-tense verbs in verses six through nine are the foundation of the Christian life — and the only stable ground from which spiritual warfare can be fought.

He made us alive together with Christ — regeneration. He raised us up together — justification, a legal declaration of righteousness that does not go up and down with your performance. It is settled and permanent. And He made us sit together in the heavenly places — your present position, not your future aspiration. Seated. Now. In Christ.

And verse eight grounds all of it: by grace you have been saved through faith — and even the faith is the gift of God.

This matters for spiritual warfare because one of the enemy's most consistent tactics is to make you uncertain about your standing with God. He cannot take your salvation — but he will spend your entire life trying to make you doubt it. The answer is Ephesians 2:8–9. Your standing does not rest on your grip. It rests on the grip of God.

 

Think of two soldiers. The first is fighting a war where the outcome is genuinely uncertain — every setback could mean the end, every morning he wakes up not knowing if today is the day it all collapses. He fights desperately. The second soldier is fighting after the decisive battle has already been won. The enemy general is defeated — not pushed back, defeated. The skirmishes are still real. But he knows how this ends. He fights differently. Not carelessly — confidently.

 

That is the difference Ephesians 2 makes. The decisive battle was Calvary. The victory was the empty tomb. You are the second soldier. You are not fighting toward victory — you are fighting from it.

 

Point 3 — We Are His Workmanship, Transferred to a New Kingdom  (Eph. 2:10 | Col. 1:13–14)

Verse ten calls you His poiema — His masterpiece, His poem, His created work. Not a project God started and is hoping you will cooperate enough to finish. A masterpiece.

That word changes how you walk into your kitchen on a Tuesday morning. You are not a struggling sinner trying to hold it together long enough to be useful to God. You are a masterpiece, mid-creation, walking in works He already prepared for you. The enemy cannot tell you that you are worthless — because the Author of the universe has already called you His poem.

And Colossians 1:13–14 adds the decisive word: He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. Delivered — rhyomai — rescued, drawn out of danger. Conveyed — methistemi — transferred, relocated. Past tense. Done. You belong to a different kingdom now, under a King who has already defeated every power arrayed against you.

 

For Your Family

One of the primary arenas of spiritual warfare is the home. Fathers: you cannot lead your household spiritually from chronic uncertainty about your standing with God. Lead from your identity in Christ — transferred, seated, declared righteous. Mothers: your children need to see a faith that rests, not merely a faith that strives. Let them see grace received, not grace chased.

And for the young people: the enemy wants you to build your identity on anything but who God says you are. Your reputation. Your performance. Whether people like you. None of that is your identity. If you are in Christ, you are a masterpiece. Qualified. Transferred. Loved with a love that does not move. When the voice comes this week that tells you you are not enough — answer it out loud if you have to: I am a child of God. I have been transferred. I am loved with a love that does not move. That is not positive thinking. That is theology.

 

The Sermonic Sentence

 

"For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light."  — Ephesians 5:8

 

Not toward what you are trying to become. As what you already are.

 

Walk as what you already are.

 

Next Sunday, Week 2: What We Face — a sober, biblical look at the enemy. Who is he? What can he do? What can he not do? And where do the common errors in spiritual warfare teaching come from?

 

Join us at 11:05 AM, Liberty Baptist Church, Winchester, Tennessee.