In the late 1800s, doctors believed disease simply appeared out of nowhere. Then a French chemist named Louis Pasteur said something that sounded absurd: there are living things too small to see, they're on your hands and your food and everything you touch, and they can kill you.

Jon Stoe opens a new series with that story, and then asks whether we're making the same mistake about something else.

Paul spends five chapters of Ephesians on ordinary life. Marriage, parenting, work, getting along with people. Then chapter 6 arrives and he says something that barely seems to belong in the same letter: your real struggle is not against flesh and blood.

Jon works through what Paul meant, what Jesus said to the religious leaders in John 8 that Jon calls genuinely unsettling, and the two lies he thinks the enemy leans on hardest. He closes on a distinction worth the whole message: we are fighting from victory, not for it.

Part one of Battle in the Heavenly Realms, from Ephesians 6.

Litchfield Church of the Nazarene is a welcoming, bilingual community of faith in Litchfield, MN, whose mission is to produce fruitful disciples of Jesus Christ. We gather every Sunday at 10:45 AM. New messages drop on the podcast each week. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Learn more at litchfieldnaz.com.