Richard Coleman preached about the clashing kingdoms of Satan and God. The death and resurrection of Christ has fundamentally secured the Kingdom of God’s victory over Satan. However, a real battle still persists between God and Satan until Christ’s return. Disciples of Jesus will inevitability experience the reality of this conflict. Scripture states that the devil prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). We must stand our ground in Christ. 
This morning Richard Coleman preached about the clashing kingdoms of Satan and God. The death and resurrection of Christ has fundamentally secured the Kingdom of God’s victory over Satan. However, a real battle still persists between God and Satan until Christ’s return. Disciples of Jesus will inevitability experience the reality of this conflict. Scripture states that the devil prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). We must stand our ground in Christ.
At times, we can attempt to straddle the fence between “the world” (in this context meaning the things that stand opposed to God) and following God. However, Richard reminded us that we cannot be a friend of the world and a friend of God at the same time (James 4:4). Instead, God calls for our complete allegiance. We are not to love the things of this world because then the love of God is not in us (1 John 2:15). In addition, Scripture teaches that we are to be unstained by the world (James 1:27), and resist conformity to it (Romans 12:2). Instead, we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2).
An important component of “being transformed by the renewing of our minds” is living in the awareness of our identity in Christ. If we are in Christ than we are a “new creation, the old has gone and the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Our lives are now hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3). However, the Kingdom of this world can clash against this new identity. Our uniqueness, which Christ brings into unity with the distinctiveness of other Christians (Galatians 3:28), can instead be used as a tool to divide Christians. For example, walls are built between whites and people of color, between people living in the city and people living in the suburbs, between Baptists and Presbyterians, etc. Our unity as followers of Christ gets lost in the focus and emphasis upon our differences. Just as God was to give Jerusalem a new name in Isaiah 62:1-7, 12, so too God gives us a new identity as disciples. Through Christ, the walls that once divided are now broken. In the midst of these challenging and tempting times, we need to live steadfastly as people marked by the cross of Christ.
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