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If you would open your Bibles to the book of Ephesians. I pray that this walk through the book of Ephesians about, I think this is message 14, has been a blessing to you. I will confess we are going to finish our text today, but I might preach one more on Ephesians next week. Because this is not the last mention of the church at Ephesus in the Bible. There's another place where it talks about that. We won't get in that today. But I pray it's been an encouragement. I pray it's been a challenge. Ultimately, the book of Ephesians is a book that helps us to kind of reconnect with what is real and what is right and how we should live. It helps us to understand our place in God's glorious plan, that He had a plan, that it is amazing, and that you're a part of it if you're saved, and that ultimately, He's gonna rule the world. All is gonna be redeemed in Him, and we get to have a part in that, but also that because of that, we're to live a certain way. And these last three chapters have been about that. We've talked about some household codes. We've talked about our relationship with the Lord. And Paul, wrapping this up, wraps up with a message about battle. about warfare. I think it's possible, maybe not in our congregation, maybe there is a few, but many might feel like this text or this type of talk that Paul is giving us right here is pretty irrelevant for our present times. are super blessed to live in the state of Texas, which is a part of the United States. And in the United States, there have been very few instances, especially within the last hundred years, where there's been any kind of warfare on our soil. Texas, we don't I don't think many of us wake up in the morning planning to go to war. You might be prepared because we're Texans, amen? And we can be packing anytime we want to, but we don't wake up planning to go to war. And so we might think, well, you know what? This may not be terribly relevant to me right now, but let me tell you, our God is a, well, let's, Exodus 15, three says, the Lord is a man of war. Listen, it is absolutely relevant to our daily living, especially to our spiritual walk. Psalms 1839. He says, For thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle, thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me. When Paul is talking about some of the things he's going to mention, and we're going to try to examine all of those things, it's rooted in the Old Testament. Psalms 35, plead my cause, O Lord, with them that strive with me. Fight against them that fight against me. Take hold of a shield and buckler and stand up for mine help. Draw out also the spear and stop the way against them that persecute me. Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. Or Isaiah 42, very vivid. The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man. Listen, when you see something described, someone described in the Old Testament as a mighty man, we're not just talking about some kind of bodybuilder or something like that. This is a man of war, a man who's a heroic warrior. He shall stir up jealousy like a man of war. He shall cry, yea, roar. He shall prevail against his enemies. The message is we need to be ready for battle in our daily life. The Bible even tells us that the Lord also wears some of the items described in our text. You all know where we're going. We're going to be talking about the full armor of God. Well, in Isaiah 11, 5, "...and righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins." Isaiah 49, 2, and he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me and made me a polished shaft in his quiver hath he hid me. Listen, the Lord, this is the whole armor of God and it belongs to him and we're to walk in it also. So let's look at our text. We're going to begin in verse 10. And the first thing we see in this text is that we need to be aware that there is a battle. Okay, if you've sat here this morning a little bit and maybe had that thought I described that this is irrelevant to you, well, you need to be aware that it is not irrelevant, it is very relevant to you. Psalms, not Psalms, Ephesians 6, 10. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord. and in the strength and the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. We need to be aware of the battle. That there is a battle taking place around us. And in that awareness, we need to know that we need God's strength. In these verses, 10 and 11, and verse 13, especially in 10 and 11, it says, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Listen, you're gonna experience spiritual warfare. Probably far more often than you recognize. Probably far more often than you see and feel. You feel the effects of it, but you may not realize that you're under attack. But for us to endure, for us to have any success, we're gonna have to depend on God's strength. Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. We need to be strengthened by the Lord or we will crumble when we face the enemy. Where do we often look for our strength? Within ourselves. Yeah. We look to our resources. We look to our abilities. And if those aren't enough, we go to Google. Right? Or you know what, now you might go to YouTube. Lots of answers there and people trying to share their knowledge. Or we go to our well of our own personal experience, even as our personal experience as a Christian or in ministry. We'll go to our well of experience instead of to the Lord. Or we'll go to our limited knowledge of God's Word. But where should we look for strength? Brother Billy just said it a moment ago. We should look to God. Specifically, in this passage, he talks about our relationship. It should be rooted in our relationship with Jesus Christ. We should look for strength in His mighty power towards us. If we go back to Ephesians 1, which is a wonderful chapter, verse 19, and what is the exceeding Let's go back to verse 18. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of His calling and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe according to the working of His mighty power. We should be looking towards Him, His mighty power towards us. In 2 Timothy 2 verse 1, Paul writes to Timothy to be strong in the grace that is in Jesus Christ. We need to be looking to the right place. When you experience difficulty, when you feel oppressed, when you're feeling attacked by the devil, and listen, it can happen at any time in your life. Not just when your circumstances are not what you wish they were. When your circumstances seem to have it all, you have it all together. The bank account is full, the house is paid for, the car is paid for, all the, you know, you have money for vacation, you have all these things that we value in America above anything else. Listen, those are times when we experience the most spiritual attack. And ultimately, what we're gonna have to do is we're gonna have to look to the right place for strength to endure. And really that right place is the right person, that's Jesus Christ. Not only that, we need to remember who we are. We need to remember who we are and what is ours in Christ. If you need any explanation about that, read Ephesians chapter one again. The strength that is mentioned in verses 10, 11, and verse 13 implies, I love this, that it implies that the devil can be resisted in the Lord's strength. But we need to be aware. We need to know that there really is a battle taking place. If we open our eyes, we pay attention, you'll catch sight of it. You'll see it. Not only do we need to be aware of the battle, and we need to need God's strength, we also need to know our enemy. In the Art of War, Sun Tzu wrote this, he said, if you know the enemy and you know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself, but not the enemy, for every victory gained, you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. Listen, we need to know who we are. We need to know that our strength is in the Lord, but we also need to know who our enemy is. He has many names. Ephesians 4, 27, it says, neither give place to the devil. He's the devil. That Greek title that's given to him there in that verse is Diabolos. It means slanderer. He is the accuser. He is working against you. He opposes. The Hebrew name Satan means adversary. You know, as I was thinking about his name, the devil has many names. You know, the devil, he's also called the serpent, Beelzebub, the ruler of this present world, the god of this age, the evil one, the dragon in Revelation. He has many names. You know, God has many names because they all speak to his greatness and the qualities about him and his holiness, his righteousness, his justice, all the things that are about him. He has many, many names, far more than the devil, by the way. But you know, The many names of the devil displays that he is wicked. He is evil. Not only that, he is powerful. He is cunning. He is wily. We need to understand that this enemy is dangerous and he's powerful. Not only that, he has a certain type of behavior. He is evil. Paul describes him as evil in verse 12, spiritual wickedness in high places. Talking about evil in verse 13, in the evil day. He's wily. Paul tells us that he's wily. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. He's wily. Is that something we use in our daily texts in English? You know, you might use it as a Texan more often than someone up north, right? Boy, that's a wily guy over there. What does that mean? Oh, come on now, wake up. Clever, yeah, cleverer than Wile E. Coyote, right? Tricky, he's scheming. Listen, the devil is scheming against you. He's making plans right now in your life. You may wonder, well, I'm not a pastor. I don't teach a Sunday school class. Why would the devil be trying to get after me? Because he wants to destroy every one of us. He's evil, he's wicked. And I promised you that the devil is laying schemes in your life so that he might trip you up and draw you away from your relationship with God and pull you into destruction. That's his goal. He's strategic. That's what that wiles of devil describes. It means he's strategic. He's scheming. He's devious. He makes evil look attractive. He will camouflage evil beautifully in our life so that we might fall right into it. And I can't help but also notice in verse 12 where he says, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Listen, the devil will wrestle with you. Now, why is this important to notice this? Well, you know, when the devil engages in battle, it's not like the United States wants to engage in battle, which is from a naval ship where they might shoot off some missiles hundreds of miles away to hit their enemy, or like, it's not like the devil is firing off a cruise missile from far, far away. No, wrestling, you can't wrestle someone from far away, can you? I have two older brothers, and They're much older than me, but my middle brother, he lived at home long enough that I became deep into my teenage years and we could wrestle. And it was, let me tell you, when you wrestle with somebody, it's intimate, isn't it? I mean, you're in each other's business. You're, and you have to be crafty, you have to scheme a little bit. Listen, the devil wrestles with this. We wrestle with the forces of evil. The word that's used is the same word used to describe the sport of wrestling in their day. So it's not long distance warfare, it is the devil and his other evil forces are on top of us, trying to wrestle us into submission. It is a close, intense battle. Luke 22, Jesus said unto his disciples, unto Simon, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat. Listen, the devil wants to get in your business and he wants to ruin you. He wants to destroy you. Verse 32, but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not, and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. Thankfully, we have the Lord to help us. Who and what do we wrestle? You know, Paul certainly dealt with, we might consider Paul's personal life, and he dealt with plenty of physical trauma and struggle in his mission work. He was many times beaten. They tried to kill him, I don't know how many times. He was shipwrecked multiple times. But I think Paul in this passage, he's not talking about, I mean, he says it clearly. He says, we wrestle not against flesh and blood with physical forces in this world, but against principalities, powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world. He's saying underneath all of the struggle of the physical world, there is an unseen cosmic spiritual battle taking place. We're so focused on the temporal and our physical circumstances, the circumstances of our daily life that we focus on it completely to the degree that we ignore the spiritual battle that's taking place. Again, a beautiful scheme of the devil to distract us with difficult circumstances so that he can work his way into our life and spiritually destroy us. Each of you this morning, the devil wants to, he wants to destroy your spiritual relationship with God. He wants to rip all the passion out of it. He wants to ruin your passion, your fire in your life. He wants to take it away from you. But I love the fact that while he is evil, He is wily, that he is wrestling with us in a very intimate way. I love the fact that he's defeated. Christ has already won the victory for us. I just read for us in Ephesians 1, verse 19, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe according to the working of his, Jesus' mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he hath raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places, far above all principality, far above all power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come, and hath put all things under his feet. and gave him to be the head over all things to the church. Paul is not urging us to be ready to battle for the victory. He's saying we should stand. That's what it says in verse 14, or verse 13. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, verse 10, and in the power of his might, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand." Why is he asking us to stand? Why is he not saying, hey, you need to conquer? Because Christ has already conquered. He's already won. And so, Satan is already defeated. And because he's already defeated, he will fight all the harder. It's not common for an enemy in a battle, or for an army within a battle, that whenever they realize they're about to lose, it's not common for them to just give up at that moment when they realize they're gonna lose. They usually fight all the more fiercely, all the harder, and that's the way the devil is. Yes, he is defeated. He knows that he's defeated. But you know what? That doesn't mean he's gonna give up. He's still gonna fight all the harder. He's gonna fight to destroy, to take every inch that He can. He has a presence in our life. Talks about the evil day, that we might be able to stand on the evil day, withstand in the evil day. I believe that there's a few ways we could interpret this. But I'm gonna say I believe it talks about our present evil age, just the state of the world, but I also believe that we face true spiritual attacks on certain occasions. There's times where we're gonna have to cling to God's strength so that we might stand, that we might be able to endure. You know, often I meet real spiritual opposition on Sundays. or on the days when I'm in the office. I face it every week. Many times I don't even notice. But he has a presence in our life and he is working to attack us on certain occasions. We must also be aware that as a congregation, we're gonna face evil days in the church. Sometimes when we may not even notice. What's going on? So we must be immersed in prayer and in God's word. We're all in a spiritual battle, so let's be aware of it. But not only are we to be aware of the battle, these next few verses, very familiar verses to probably many of you, tells us that we need to be prepared for the battle. Look in verse 13, wherefore taken to you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery dots of the wicked, and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Paul tells us to put on the armor. And the first thing we should realize is that it's the armor of God. I hope you understand what I'm trying to tell you here. This is the armor Christ wore in battle. You could probably read through the the gospels and tell me, no, I never saw that Christ do any battle. He didn't wear armor. He just had a simple clothes. He was really poor. He probably couldn't afford armor. No, he had some spiritual armor that he put on and he wore it and he used it and he depended upon it. And that's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to follow his example. We're supposed to put on his armor. The first one we see is the belt of truth. You know, there's a movement in our society where we're told to speak your truth. Yeah, everybody wants to laugh about that. Let me tell you, there's nothing wrong with setting boundaries in your life and expressing your needs and your feelings. There's nothing, I'm all for that. But the fact of the reality is is that it will never trump God's truth. Your truth does not supersede his truth. His truth will have something to say about you and about your life. And so we're to put on truth. The gospel, chapter one, verse 13. Look at what it says. In whom you also trusted after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. In whom also after that you believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Listen, the gospel is truth. And so we need to put that on in our life. You know, I think one of the goals of our worship that we observe on Sunday afternoons and on the fifth Sunday morning of every month that has a fifth Sunday, when we observe the Lord's Supper, one of the goals is to put on the gospel. Is to remember how we're saved. Is to remember who we were and who we are now in Christ. We're to put on the gospel. Ephesians 4.15, though, says that we're not to just put on the Gospels, we're supposed to do more with it. But speaking the truth in love. May grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ. We're to speak truth. We're to be truth speakers. You know, we should live our life in light of the Gospel, and then we should let it flow from us into our life. I don't know about you, but I fail at this. I fail at this often. It's easy for me to wake up and go about the routine of our day and to just do the things I've always done and forget who I was and who I am now. To forget what Christ did for me and the power of the gospel in my life and how it has changed every facet of my life. You know, if we lived in that truth, don't you think that would show a little more in our speech? and our attitudes towards other people. It would maybe show more in our relationships and our household code relationships, like our marriage, our relationship with our children, our parents, even our relationships at work. Listen, if we would just put on truth and then live it, boy, our life would change. But he's not done, and he says, put on the breastplate of righteousness. We had some fun with this in VBS. It's not the best plate of rice and fish, okay? You didn't hear that, let me say it. It's not the best place of rice and fish. I can't hardly say it. No, it's the breastplate of righteousness. You missed it if you weren't here for VBS. You know, what does the breastplate cover? The chest. Against what? It's just to look cool, right? The breastplate is there to look cool. I have a picture in my sermon slide, you know, the breastplate, I almost used another picture, I had the breastplate, I had these cool rot fishes on it and all this artwork, really cool looking. That's what it's there for, right? To be showy. No, what is it for? To withstand attacks, to protect against assaults and arrows. We're to put on, and the righteousness, what is that talking about? Let me tell you, let me ask you this. Where do we find any righteousness anywhere? How about the ultimate standard of righteousness? Where are you gonna find that? In Jesus Christ. So we're to put on Christ's righteousness. Now, I don't think that we're talking about what we see in 2 Corinthians 5, 21, for He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. That's imputed righteousness. That is your position before God is righteous because of Jesus Christ. Okay? I don't think this is talking about imputed righteousness that has been put upon us because we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ and He has now given us His perfect, righteous, holy record for us to stand before God perfect and righteous and holy. in Christ. No, this is talking about maybe some practical righteousness. We're to put on our righteous qualities connected to our life in Christ. And we're the same qualities. These are the same qualities that we find in Christ's example to each of us. The life that he lived, we're to live like him. We're to make his virtues and the way he behaved, the way he treated people, the things he valued, they're supposed to belong to us now. And we're supposed to put those things on and live them out in our life. We're to put on righteousness. We're to live different. We're to live like Christ. That's what he's talking about. And then he goes on in verse 15. And have your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Your shoes are important. Did y'all know that? How many of y'all are wearing shoes today? Praise the Lord, but I smell your stinky feet. You know, I was thinking about this, how important shoes are. Shoes are so important that we have shoe stores. Stores that really are focused almost completely on footwear. That's the main focus of their business. In fact, think about this just for a moment. Those of you who drive, to church, think about the route between church and your home, and think about how many shoe stores there are along the way. We live about 18, 20 minutes from here. I bet there's at least a dozen shoe stores that I could think of off the top of my head if I paid attention. But there's probably more than that. Listen, shoe stores are everywhere. They're important. Shoes are important. In fact, I did a little research and in the U.S., footwear generates over $85 billion a year in revenue. Shoes are important. And the way this verse is worded, I think is a little strange. have your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. He's not saying put on shoes of the gospel. He's talking about, I'll just boil it down to this. I think we're to be ready to share the gospel. We should be ready to share it. All of us are supposed to do this. And y'all are quiet. Everybody is supposed to be prepared to share the gospel, not just a few. He's not talking to just a select few about putting on this armor and saying, hey, one of you put on the breastplate and then, y'all don't really need the breastplate, y'all can put on the belt of truth and that'll be enough for you. No, he's saying everybody needs to put on the whole armor of God and part of that is we need to be prepared to share the gospel. Listen, this is what we've been saved for. We've been saved to be redeemed and give God glory, and then to share the gospel with others. We're to share the gospel of peace, Isaiah 52.7. I think Paul was thinking of this verse a little bit whenever he wrote this, how beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publishes peace. that bringeth good tidings of good, and publisheth salvation, that saith unto Zion, thy God reigneth. Have y'all ever heard those words before? You might have heard the song, Our God Reigns. Listen, Ephesians 2.14 also, we see it there. For he is our peace. who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us. And in verse 17, and come and preach peace to you which were far off, were to be ready to share the gospel of peace. Jesus was the ultimate sharer of the gospel. He was going wherever he went, he was bringing peace. In the midst of all the spiritual warfare that we see Jesus embroiled in, in the midst of all the Pharisee attacks and all the temple mafia trying to destroy him and destroy his ministry, in the middle of all of that, guess what he was doing? He was bringing peace. He was always on mission, bringing peace. Listen, as part of the whole armor of God, we should be prepared to share the gospel. I'm not just, have you asked yourself this question, am I ready to share it? There's a reason why we teach this stuff in master clubs. There's a reason why I believe this should be in our answers in Genesis curriculum in Sunday school. We're to be prepared to share the gospel. And if you're not, And you come to Sunday school and your kids go to master clubs? Are you serving master clubs? I'm gonna tell you, if you're not prepared, then that's your fault. You need to be prepared. It's our job to be ready. We're to gear up. Gear up for war and we should be ready to bring peace. Also the shield of faith, verse 16. You know, there are multiple types of shields. and in the Roman military that Paul could have referenced here. And probably the one that came to my mind first, at least, was the one that looks like a little frisbee, you know, a little buckler. I don't know if that's a buckler or not, but it was a small shield, right? But what Paul uses, he uses a Greek word, and I'm gonna try to pronounce it, tureos, tureos. Which instead of resembling a small round shield, resembled this oval shield that was about the size of a door. Huge. That would protect you from top to bottom. He's described something that would cover the whole body. Like in Psalms 28 verse 7, the Lord is my strength and my shield. I think God is that kind of shield. The Lord is my strength and my shield, my heart trusted in him. I am helped, therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth. And with my song will I praise him. I think this is the kind of shield that God is. It's able to cover all of you from the dangers that this spiritual world has for us. We need that shield of faith to protect us. Again, this falls right along with putting on the gospel, putting on the truth. Our faith should be in him. And then verse 17, he says, and take the helmet of salvation. How many of y'all know a lot about Roman helmets? But Lester, was the Roman helmet a light helmet? Yeah, it covered you well. I did a little bit of studying on this and I found that the typical helmet of the day was about three pounds. Okay, the typical helmet of the day was about three pounds, but the typical Roman helmet was about five or more pounds. It was a heavy piece of equipment. It was a very strong helmet that could take serious, it provided serious protection. Paul's saying we're to put on something that's serious protection. And what does he call it? The helmet? of salvation. Where do we find salvation? Come on, wake up a little bit. Where have you found salvation? If you're here this morning, you've been saved, where did you find salvation? Jesus Christ. Listen, He is the hope of our salvation. If you're here this morning and you're not saved, let me tell you, there's no hope anywhere else. you're going to find. A lot of people are going to tell you about other things. They're going to tell you to do good. Your own sense will tell you that. You need to do better. You need to live a more righteous kind of lifestyle. And that's in us, okay? Because the law is in us. God's law is in us. So we know where we fail. We know that we're And so, sense will try to tell you, and this world will try to tell you, well, you need to be good. And then if you go to certain churches, they'll tell you, hey, we need to baptize you, and that's gonna wash away your sins. And churches like that, you, Mike, can get baptized every single Sunday. They'll tell you all kinds of things that will give you hope of salvation. The Mormons will tell you that you can be your own God. All you gotta do is just do everything that they say, no matter what it is. But the reality is, is the only hope for salvation is Jesus Christ. He is the helmet of our salvation. He's the one who gives us hope. And if we'll just keep our minds on Christ, I think it's gonna be really hard for the devil to get into your thoughts. We need to keep our minds protected by the hope of Christ. We need to have our hope in Him. We need to put on the helmet of salvation. And then the last piece of this armor that he talks about is an offensive weapon, the sword of the Spirit. What do you do with a sword? What should you do with a sword? How many of y'all have ever wielded a sword in battle? Oh, Eric, okay, only Eric has. What is the purpose of that sword? It is to engage or to protect? Engage, okay? I love that the sword of the Spirit, he says, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. If you're gonna face temptation, I promise it's gonna happen. You're gonna face spiritual warfare. You're gonna face attacks. It's gonna happen. But you know, Jesus had a really wonderful example for us. You remember that time when he went out into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights? You remember that? He went out there and he was praying and he was fasting for 40 days. And near the end of that time, what happened to him? He was attacked, wasn't he? He was attacked in such a way that I think probably every single one of us would have crumbled under those attacks. Every single one of us would have failed. The devil offer you the whole world? Everything you could ever dream of? All your problems have gone away because you've got all the money and all the power? I mean, that alone, I think, would cause most of us to really pause and consider. All you gotta do is bow down unto me, is what he says. But how did the Lord respond? He just hide behind his shield of faith? No, no, no, he didn't. What did he do? He responded with God's Word. Listen, when you face difficult times, when you face darkness, we're to speak God's Word. In fact, which is the word of God, when it says the word of God, that word word, how many of y'all know what the most common Greek word used that's translated into word? How many of y'all know what that word is? Starts with an L, logos, right? Logos. Well, in this passage, Paul uses a different word. He doesn't use the word logos. He uses the word word. He uses the word Rema, which refers to the spoken word. Listen, that's what the Lord did. Whenever he was faced with an attack, he spoke the word. I don't know how many of y'all do this. I think very few of us do this. Maybe some of us did it when we were young Christians. When I was a really young Christian, about 14, 15 years old, in my freshman year of high school, although I was going to junior high at the time, because we had three-year schools, and my life had changed. God had changed me radically. I had trusted Christ. I'd put my faith in Him. I'd realized I was a sinner and I had no hope of salvation but Jesus Christ. I got saved and everything changed about me. Not because I'm so great, but because of God. And I was kind of goofy about it, because teenagers are goofy, and I changed the way I dressed. I decided I'm not gonna dress like these guys at school anymore. I'm not even gonna try. I'm gonna dress in a way that might please God. I dressed differently. I worked really hard on my language and making sure I didn't have any dirty language. And you know what I did? Often, I prayed. I mean, all the time. I'd walk down the hallways of my junior high and I'd be praying. I'd sit down in an algebra test in my algebra class and I would pray before my test because I probably hadn't studied and I needed prayer, okay? But you know, there's a few instances where I needed God's word and there was a few instances that whenever I faced temptation, guess what came to me? God's word. And I didn't have to say it to somebody's face and throw it in their face and rub it in their, no, I just needed to hear it. I needed to say it. Listen, this is the example that we have in Christ. When we take the sword of the Spirit, listen, it's the sword of the Spirit, it's His sword, it's His weapon, it's effective because of Him, and it's God's word, God's word is eternally effective, it's never gonna be irrelevant. You can cling to God's word and not only that, you can use it to fight darkness in your life and to fight every attack. Let's read these last few verses. Verse 17, take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Verse 18, he says, we need to give ourselves to prayer. We need to give ourselves to prayer. He says, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching there into with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. That verse, how many times did he use some kind of a all? Four times. Always, that means at all times, with all prayer and supplication, praying faithfully in all situations of your life, and with all perseverance. Like good soldiers, we're to persevere and not be caught asleep like those guys in the garden. We're to endure. We need to be persistent in prayer to overcome all that hinders us. Talked about that a little bit last week, that if we ask God, he's willing to listen and he's able to save us and help us. We need to persevere. And then for all saints means that we should pray for all of our Christian friends, right? No, not just your Christian friends, or we should also pray for all of our fellow church members. No, not just those. It says we should pray for all saints, all the Christians. We should be faithful to pray for one another. We need to pray. What he's saying is you need to pray comprehensively, completely, at all times, in all situations, without faltering, with all perseverance, and for all saints. We need to be praying. We need to give ourself to prayer. And then verse, we need to also pray for boldness in those last couple of verses. And for me that utterance that may be given unto me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am ambassadors and ambassador in bonds that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. I could go into this a little deeper and talk about Paul's current situation and how he was in bondage in Rome and he was literally surrounded by lost people and able to preach boldly to guys that were chained to him 24 hours a day. The reality is what he described for himself is our situation too. We are an ambassador. An ambassador who does not represent his kingdom isn't doing his job. We're to be bold. We need to pray for boldness that we might share the gospel faithfully and with boldness. Verse 21, we'll just finish this passage and I want to draw one more thought to your eyes, but that you may also know my affairs and how I do. Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, shall make known unto you all things whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that you might know our affairs and that he might comfort your hearts." And like Paul, Paul often closed his letters like this. He said, peace be to all the brethren. and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, amen. He talks about, he wants to send comfort. This last verse is a little different than the way he closes most of these verses, or most of these letters he's written. It's grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. In his final salute, he draws attention to the reader's personal relationship with Christ. He's saying, grace to be all them that have a relationship with Christ. The reality is it's likely that in this room there's someone who doesn't have a relationship with Christ. And all these things you've heard me talk about, which apply to Christians, those that have been born again, I hate to tell you this, but it doesn't apply to you. These pieces of armor, this help from the Lord, they're not available to you. Not because there's something specifically wrong about you, except that you haven't trusted in Jesus Christ. The only hope that any of us have to have this help from the Lord, to engage in battle, to fight against the wiles of the devil, to face the enemy and to stand in victory, the only reason is because of the blood of Jesus Christ. If you're here this morning, you've never trusted Christ. Jesus came to die on a Roman cross, an innocent man, having never sinned. so that His shed blood would cover your sin. And the only thing the Word of God tells us that is required of us is to put our faith in Him. The same book, Ephesians 2 verse 8, for by grace you're saved through faith and not of yourselves, it's a gift from God. You might.
Ready for Battle
시리즈 Series on Ephesians
설교 아이디( ID) | 91023207422007 |
기간 | 48:39 |
날짜 | |
카테고리 | 일요일 예배 |
성경 본문 | 에베소서 6:10-24 |
언어 | 영어 |
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