Welcome to the Mariners Church Life Group leader podcast. This weekly conversation is designed to equip and resource youth to build a healthy life group community that studies God's word, practices spiritual rhythms, and changes the world together. In our recent leader huddle, our discipleship pastor, Esther, interviews, Mariners legend and pastor Eric Kurt on the topic of spiritual warfare, it's a timely conversation designed to help you stay alert, grounded and equipped as you lead your group. So take a listen and be encouraged.
I'm going to welcome Eric Kurt. I'm going to be interviewing him, but I'm just so grateful for every single one of you guys because the posture and the heart that we want in leaders is someone that's not just willing to lead, but willing to always be a follower, always wanting to be a learner, always knowing that there's more to grow, there's more to engage with. So I just want to honor you guys and appreciate you for coming here. Thank you so much.
So we're going to be talking about something fun. I don't know. Did we share with you guys the topic? Yeah, we could do.
All right. So I'm going to be interviewing Eric about what we need to know about spiritual warfare. So before I hand it over to you to introduce yourself, I wanted to ask this group a few questions. If you're excited, if you're nervous, you're curious, or if you're cautious.
So I want to see some hands to see how we're feeling. The sense of the kinds of people that are in this room today. So if you're excited about this topic, you're like, I want you to learn, or where have we been finally? If you're excited, can you raise your hand?
Wow. I'm not going to have a map. That looks like 95%. OK?
Well done, Pastor Scott Kim for choosing this topic. How many of you are kind of nervous? Nervous to learn or? No?
Not really. OK. All right. How many of you are curious to see what God's going to share with you?
OK. Amazing. Maybe like 10%, 50%. All right.
How many of you are cautious? Like I've been around this kind of stuff. I'm cautious. My guard is up.
OK. OK. Amazing. I'm so excited that you guys are wherever you guys are at that you're leaning in.
And clearly, we believe in not just our leadership and choosing this topic, but we believe in God's leadership and choosing this topic and bringing this to the forefront today. And so I remember I read a book called Screw Take Letters by C.S. Lewis, anybody heard that? And there's a scene where there's an uncle demon that's talking to a nephew demon.
And I remember the nephew demon kind of wanted to disclose himself to the Christian. I'm going to spook them out. And the uncle demon was like, no, no, no, no, the keys to not let them believe that you exist. And so I remember that was a key turning point for me in my own awareness of spiritual warfare.
But I can't think of a better person interviewing Eric. He's right by. And the wall's not really a wall. Let's be really.
I hear everything that he says. And I could attest to the fact that you are a man of integrity. Is that working? Is this working?
It's on. There we go. Testing 1, 2, 3. Yep.
Here we go. Isn't on? I just love you're a man of integrity. You're consistent.
You're aware of God's word and the depth of the word of God. You're a theologian, but you're also a spiritual warrior. I feel like not a lot of people know you're really a general here in the spirit here. And so I love your humility more than anything more than your experience.
So it's such an honor to have you here today. Are you crying? It's emotional. I'm in women's ministry, you guys.
Working. OK. I'm not that you're a woman, but it's just kind of. Anyway, all right.
Do you introduce yourself? I didn't get one of the answers on Taylor Swift, right? And that's a tribute to my masculinity. None.
Oh, gosh. All right, Eric. Can you introduce yourself? Maybe so, unless we don't know you.
And I'll come up with it. Eric hurt. And been a follower of Jesus for 52 years. I've been a pastor 50 years.
I worked at a church for 23. I've been here 27 years. But Wyv's emotional is the fact that God, at the beginning of me coming to Christ, got me into work in the deliverance and freedom area right off the bat. And I've been mentored by incredible people in dealing with spiritual warfare.
So it's emotional because I long for people's freedom. I long for people to take this area seriously. And this is the first time I've been in a setting with a life group leaders where we're actually talking about spiritual warfare. Because if we don't know that we're in a war, we lose battles constantly.
Wow. So for me, I love ministry. And I do want to say the person that helps me to be the best pastor I can be is my wife Debbie who's in the back. Let go.
We've been married 45 years. When she gets to heaven, she'll be getting the wreath of her perseverance. And when I asked her if she would remarry after I die, she says, no, I don't want to raise another husband. So she's amazing.
But anyway, so it's great to be with all these leaders. I love that. Just so that we can start everybody on the same page, can you share with us a little bit about what is spiritual warfare? And can you share it in a clear and practical way for us to get started?
Absolutely. Just by the name spiritual, this is in a world that a lot of us don't readily see. Because we live in such a physical world. We're sitting in a seat.
We just had lunch. We have clothes. We have physical bodies. By the very term spiritual warfare, there is a war that is going on in the spirit realm that so many times we're not aware of.
And that's why Peter gives us this admonition in 1 Peter 5, 8, be sober in spirit. In other words, take this seriously. Be on the alert. Why?
Because it's regularly happening. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. So by its very nature, spiritual is in the spirit realm. And there are angels and there are demons.
In the demonic realm, they are relentless. They seek to trip us up, to tempt us, to discourage us, to take us down. When Jesus said, the thief, Satan comes to kill, steal, and destroy. Is there anything good in that?
No. But he is relentless. And so spiritual warfare is the battle in the spiritual realm. And who does Satan go after?
God's loved ones. You and I. Yeah. I love that.
And we're in a room full of life group leaders that are leading life groups with all kinds of different people from all different walks. Why do you think it's essential for a life group leaders in particular to be aware of this? I remember when Kim, you and I were kind of debriefing the questions you shared about how it was so practical and simple, so helpful to me. The enemy hates everything that God loves.
So what does God love about life group leaders? That the enemy hates that we should be aware of. In the New Testament, you can't get around the fact that God places us in community. There is a wisdom, there is support, and there is encouragement in community.
And so what the enemy will do is anything to disrupt that. God loves community. He loves his people when we gather together. And so what he wants to do is disrupt it.
Well, what will he do? Have you ever judged anybody? Oh, gosh. Misrepresented, slandered, gossiped.
It is so easy to be human, isn't it? And yet in the realm of like groups, and I used to be the, we used to call them small groups, and then we got rooted in them. Yeah, I had to transition 600 small groups into through rooted and into life groups. But honestly, what I've seen is most of the problematic issues in life groups and why they blow up is spiritual warfare.
See, the enemy doesn't want the people that are in your group, in your group. And he will do anything to get them to go, and a tireder, this group is boring, or you know, the leader's not really affected. The curriculum sucks. And so I know, I know, I know.
I know, not me, them. But honestly, the enemy just wants them out. And so as a leader, if you just let people leave and you don't find out why they're leaving, because they'll give someone, well, you've got a new job and they're lying. They seriously, the enemy is trying to get them out of the group.
So you have to be relentless in understanding who your people are and what they're going through in their personal lives. Because again, what's the safety and end of their lives? Community. You look at the New Testament, you know, there's 37 reciprocal directives in the New Testament.
To love one another, careful one another, pray for one another, support one another, admire one another, review one another. There's all these reciprocal passages, but you can't do that sitting in an auditorium. That comes in life, in life relationship, and Satan hates it. I have 10 groups I lead, and I just love it.
But man, it's a fight. I realize there's spiritual warfare. And sometimes you lose one, or a couple, and it's sad. And because the average stay of a life group is not very long, and I think a lot of that is due to spiritual warfare.
Yeah. Wow. Wow. Wow.
Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.
What is like one practical next step, or a spiritual posture, or a prompt and prayer that you would encourage us to kind of bring to the Lord? OK. When C.S. Lewis was interviewed about scruetape letters, well, actually, he was interviewed, and the interviewer said, what's the hardest book you've ever written?
Yeah. And he said, scruetape letters. And the guy goes, why? He goes, because I had to get in the mind of a sociopath.
Now, what's the practical application for us? You need to think about your group and ask yourself, how would the enemy go after the people in our group? Oh, wow. I will never forget when a couple in our group, the husband at the end of the night, in tears said, we've got something to share.
And it was that he had been having an affair for 12 years. He said, I'm a total farce. And they were fully expecting the group to just go, oh. And they would be cast out.
But our group leaned in. And we walked with them for five years, and that vulnerable stage where they had to rebuild their marriage. Well, what would the enemy want to do? Just cause shame and guilt to be, to overwhelm them, to the group that cast them out, which they thought would happen.
They pled with us to stay in the group. And he said, of course. And they did. And now they're one of the strongest couples in our group.
But if you don't ask yourself, how would the enemy take out the people in our group? It'll happen. And you're just going, oh. But you've got to fight it in prayer.
You've got to fight it with the sermon, awareness spiritually, aware of where each of the members of your group are. And again, it's asking yourself, it's like, for me, in my marriage, or with my kids, where would the enemy go after us? And be intentional. Like I regularly ask my kids, hey, is there anything I've done that's really hurt you or frustrate you that I may not be aware of?
And most of the time they'll go, no. But I go, great. Because I would never intentionally do it. Why do I do that?
Because the enemy, because I deal with a lot of the strangement between kids and their parents. And the enemy lies to the kids about their parents. And the parents don't even know. And I've seen a strangement.
And I do mediation. And when you get the two together, it was all lies. And that's one of his greatest plays is to get us to believe a lie. I mean, the scriptures he's called the father of lies.
Absolutely. And the accuser of the brother. I love earlier you brought up how Mariners even went from calling it small group to right group. But there's a complexity of keeping things small is one thing, incorporating life, right?
There's death. There's lots of jobs. There's promotions. There's raising kids.
There's so much complexity. But I also think about how our leaders are chosen by God to not just be administrative managers of like, hey, here are the discussion questions. But even like, hey, we are all actually spiritual leaders. Call to discern what God is doing in this group.
And to point everyone closer to the person of Jesus. And so that makes me just think about, wow, these life group leaders are spiritual leaders that our church has established and are empowering. And you and I talked about the rhythms of a life group. That is not just like really nice drawings and nice words.
That's life itself. I mean, prayer, study in the Word of God, serving, all of these things. Because again, who does the enemy go after? The vulnerable.
The spiritually unaware. But when we are spiritual leaders, when we're spiritual participants, again, we're already resisting the enemy. Because the Bible says resist the devil and what will he do? Please, when we walk in the spirit, when we're living out our lives, rarely do we have to worry about the enemy.
And but it's only when we're faulty in our thinking that he would never come after me. It comes after me all the time. And seriously, and he tries to do it at those volatile times. When you're tired, when you're frustrated.
Because he's sociopathic, he waits for the golden moment where your guard's down. You ever experience that or am I the only ones? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
And again, I had a guy that he came after me, death threats. And he would literally call me up and say, hey, I saw you in such and such a street, all it takes is one shot. I couldn't see him, but he knew where I was. And I remember going, that is the demonic realm.
They see us, and we don't see them. And that's why we have to be sober in spirit. We have to be on the alert. Now, do I fear the enemy?
Do I obsess about the enemy? No. But I also don't want to be cavalier. Let him who stands take heedless default.
The enemy is relentless in temptation and trying to get us to fall. Wow. When we were chatting, you said that when you become a Christian, you sign up for a fight. And I want to ask you, Eric recommended this book for us.
He talks about being an Ephesians, the full armor of God. And I don't want this time to feel like discouragement. We're defenseless. So I know the full armor of God.
I love if you could share them. And maybe even more focused on some of the offensive. And the armor that we have to compete against enemies. Because I don't think the Lord left us without hope and without preparation and guard.
Right. The beautiful thing is we are born into this battle. From the day we're conceived, we're born on this Earth. Gotcha.
Yeah. OK. So again, I grew up. I grew up in an atheistic family.
I was a drug addict, drug dealer, a womanizer, a thief, a liar. My life was a mess. And then Jesus comes in. And I had a guy, a friend of mine, who goes, now, everything gets better.
That was a lie. Did anybody experience that part? All of you. If I had me say to him today.
I still got the same alcoholic family. I still have the same friend. Yeah, it did not get better. In fact, now I entered into the battle.
Why? Because now the spirit resides in me, who wars against the flesh and the world. And so I've got this spiritual battle going on in my own life and in the world in which I live. But again, I'm not weak because the Holy Spirit resides in me.
And he leads me into a path to understand what this battle is really all about. And it's both internal and external. And so what I've learned is over the years, the walk in the spirit, you don't carry out the desires of the flesh. You become aware of the spiritual battle you're in.
And so when you get to Ephesians chapter 6, and it talks about the armor that we're aware. I mean, it's armor that you and I wear every day, the helmet of salvation. I know I am saved. And I know that salvation is the Christ alone.
And I proclaim that to others. And I'm busy about doing that, the Word of God, which is a sword. I mean, the Word daily as you are. And so when you start to look at the weapons of your warfare, when I put that armor on, I go out and I realize I am in a battle.
Amen? Can you not get amen? But here's the good part is that we don't fight alone. Because God fights the battle for us.
And he goes ahead of us. But I got to join hands with him. Because if I'm battling on my own, I'm defeated. And by the way, the Apostle Paul, who to me was one of the godliest men we read about in the New Testament.
What did he say? We don't war against flesh and blood, but against what? Prince of hallelujah. Prince of hallelujah.
If he, one of those godly men, wars, then we're in a war. So we don't want to be naive, nor do we want to walk in fear. So there's this tension that we live with. And what I love is it's your whole life.
I'm 69 years old. I'm still battling. But I love, can I just bury a friend of mine? There's a verse that came to me in 2 Timothy, in chapter 4, verse 7.
He says, I have fought the good fight. I have run my race. I have kept the faith. And I go, that's it.
Just keep going. Keep defeating the enemy. By the way, Jesus talked to the enemy. Do you guys talk to the enemy?
Oh, I do. Because remember when he said his weakest moment? And he's fasted for 40 days. He's in the middle of the desert.
He has no substance. And the enemy goes, well, I got him. Why? Because he isolated Jesus.
God in his weakest moment. Well, that's when the enemy comes after me. And so what he does, I go, good try. In Jesus' blood and by his authority, get away.
And so I will talk to him. Because I know he's there. Like the guy that was going to kill me. I know he's there.
I can't see him. He can see me. But I talk to him. And that just reminds me.
They're there, even though I can't see them. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. And how much of your own identity in Jesus?
Do you have to keep reminding yourself of it so that you can live offensively? I recently met some friends maybe about a year or two about Crystal introducing some godly group of people who live the only way that I could explain is offensively. Like they're not like, oh my gosh, my kids too. But raising kids is hard.
But they go, they say, what is our child's identity? How can we pray into that? And how can we help them come to alignment? So it's not like behavior modification.
It's living offensively. Like, no, my child is meant to be a solution to a problem here on this side of eternity. And so it's not about protecting your kids, but actually raising them to release them for the kingdom. So they went offensively.
But how would you say for all of us, even in our own private, like the Jesus, our insinceo Jesus, how important is it for us to revisit our identity? And how is that tied with knowing our authority of individuals, but also as leaders? Wow. That is a foundational question.
And again, Jesus said, as a man, things in his heart. What? So yes, we operate out of that identity. And I remember when I first came to know Christ, my youth pastor who said he wanted to disciple me.
And I looked at it and I said, is that legal? Because I didn't grow up in the church. I had no idea what he meant. And so he spent a year and a half with me and going through the scriptures, learning to pray, learning, evangelize.
And that investment paid off. But here's the thing. He said, you're going to find what God thinks about you is more important than what anybody else has thought about you. And I remember getting to Psalm 139, blew me away.
Because it talked about how I was conceived and woven together in my mother's womb. I was fearfully and wonderfully made. You go to verses like Colossians 3, 12. So those chosen of God, holy and beloved.
And so you start looking at how God views you. But man, so many of us will take on what others have said. I could never please my real dad abandoned me. My stepdad was an alcoholic and just assailed me.
And by the time I came to know Christ, I was just beaten down. But I'm no different than anybody else. There's things that people have called you, even things you believed about yourself that are not true. And that's why the Bible says, think upon the good, the right, the pure, the noble things.
Take every thought captive, the obedience of Christ. Because what we think about ourselves and about others is critical. Wow. And by the way, you brought up something that's really important.
There's three different types of spiritual warfare. One is the resistance model, which is simply where you walk in the spirit. You live in a spiritual way. You're in the Word, you're praying, you're serving, you're evangelizing, you know, you're worshiping.
So when I live, as God called me to live, I'm resisting the enemy. Why? Because I'm not going to be on those rhythms that we have in life groups and enruded. And they're part of who I am.
And so the enemy just doesn't have any opening into my life or very little. But then there are times all that lies in. And this is where Neil Anderson popularized what is called the truth modality of dealing with the enemy. And that is make sure you're holding on to truth.
And this is why rooted is so important. Enruded, we allow people to converse about what they believe. Does everything that people say enruded, true? No.
And that's where the group kind of self-corrects. That's where the Holy Spirit hovers. Because truth is critical. Truth sets people what?
Free. Free. And so Neil Anderson was really the truth modality of dealing with the enemy. Now there's the power model, which again, that's more where a demon will attach or invade a person.
And that's where you have to cast a demon out or off of someone. That's more rare in the Western culture. But it happens. And that's where I will deal with that.
And I don't need to go more into it. But so there's three kind of critical ways in which we combat the enemy, the resistance model, the truth model, and the power model. Wow. That's amazing.
That's amazing. Any of you guys encouraged or even stirred? Oh my goodness. I'm so grateful for you.
And so grateful for God's word that his word is truth. And we can fight the enemy with that. And I love what he said about how we never fight it alone. I remember somebody once said that, as a Christian, you're always in battles.
But you know who wins the war. Excuse us. By the way, can I just share one other thing? I do a lot of marriage work on the restore side.
That's when marriages get horrible. I've never dealt with a couple where there wasn't spiritual warfare. Oh, absolutely. Because what's the number one thing?
When I meet with a couple, I'll say, tell me about your marriage. It's a set up question. If I ever counsel you, you'll know. Because I already know the marriage is bad.
But they're going to tell me how bad it is. But the wife, typically, who's drug or husband, she will tell me how bad he is. And the guys just sitting there going, want to get away. And he's just sitting there.
And he's loading up his gun to tell me how bad she is. Do you see the enemy? Neither one of them. Not in 40 years of working with couples, I've never had one spouse say the problems mean.
Complete deception. The only person you could control in a marriage is you. But the enemy convinces you if your spouse was better, if they treated you with more respect or honor. You think?
And so God loves marriage. What does Satan? He hates marriage. So that is one thing I've seen time and time again for decades.
Wow. Any married couples like, oh gosh, yes, any men? Are we talking about? Well, not Debbie and I.
Ours is a perfect marriage. Too much. I'm sure. 45 years of bliss.
People will ask me how Debbie's doing. And I go, why would you ask? She's married to me. It doesn't get any better.
She hates why I say that. I just could tell you adore her so much. Come on. Oh.
I love that. And I have my marriage counselor here. Dr. Josh is one of our like group coaches for marriage.
And I'm like, oh gosh, I feel exposed. He knows all of our stories. But thank you for that. But he's not telling.
Yeah, that's true. That's true. There is confidentiality. So thank you so much.
Right now, we're going to honor Eric. Can we give it up for Eric? Oh my god. Thank you.
Just to lose his attitude. Yeah. Oh, by the way, we have a ministry. If people are really struggling with their identity, be well.
Are you going to tell them about it? I can. Maybe I'll talk to Scott after a discussion. But I'll be awesome.
I'll take a minute. All right. Thank you so much. Let's give it up for Eric one more time.
We have about 10 minutes to kind of share and discuss our tables. And I leave the question that we're going to be going over is what is one area where God is inviting to grow in spiritual sensitivity? And I kind of want to give a little, maybe some boundaries. It could be really tempting to maybe name call or immediately think about someone in your life group.
They're like, oh, I'm sure it has a demon. Or I don't know what it is. But this moment is actually an accountability moment for you. Because if that's coming out of the overflow of your heart, there is something in your own spiritual sensitivity and virtue of Jesus' worship over your life, maybe that you need a confess and repent.
And my husband and I were talking this morning after church we were coming here. And he said, yeah, God just called me to repent about some of these things. And I was reminded, I was like, babe, that's a kindness. Because the scripture is a kindness that leads to repentance.
So I'm just going to ask, pray in my heart, that God will expand these next 10 minutes that feel like 10 hours in the spirit. And so why don't you go ahead and share? What are some ways that you guys inviting you to grow and switch us into? Maybe it's something that Eric brought up.
I want to challenge you. What is it that Jesus is inviting you to? Not maybe somebody in your life would do. So go ahead.