Have you ever made a bad decision in life, which you thought at the time was the right thing to do, but you did not take into account a very significant detail and the decision ended up being a costly mistake? Maybe you forgot to check the balance in your checking account. Or you didn't consider an outstanding check that had not yet showed up on the account's register at the bank. Maybe you scheduled an appointment for a time when you already had an important meeting somewhere else. Wouldn't it be nice If we could all just simply focus on every important detail whenever we make a life decision. Just imagine what it would be like to run a country. Or even better, try to imagine what it would be like if you were in charge of a country that was at war. And you had some critical decisions to make. In 1939, Germany included a small little detail that most of us never would have considered when Germany launched its blitzkrieg across Europe. They had the foresight to pre-think how they would keep all of their combat vehicles on the move. It would take massive amounts of fuel. The weakest link in Hitler's plan to conquer the world was the fuel supply chain. How would they keep the supply flow of the precious fuel out in the field when and where it would be needed? Hitler's plans relied on surprise attacks. If their enemy saw their reserves building up in one particular area, the enemy could easily figure out where the German army was headed next. Plus, Rails could be destroyed of the railroads. Tanker trucks loaded with fuel could be targeted. So the most inventive minds in Germany went to work on this project. They worked under the strictest secrecy, but they did it. They reached a viable solution that made German advancement seem unstoppable. It was such a simple solution, a small detail. Their answer has come to be known as the jerry can. Yes. It was a perfectly designed gas can of the right weight, shape, and carrying handle. Before their campaign was launched, they filled hundreds of thousands of jerry cans and easily moved them into strategic locations. The German war vehicles could be refueled faster with these than with any other implement. They could stay on the move. They could fuel up wherever they would relocate these without even being detected where they were advancing next. Adolf Hitler and his Nazis knew what was vital to their war effort, and they prepared meticulously With sustained determination, they made themselves ready for victory. Compare this to the average Christian today. Hmm? War? What do you mean war? I became a follower of Christ to enjoy peace and happiness. You may be at war, but I'm certainly not. Our passage in Ephesians, we saw beginning last week, says that we are engaged in spiritual warfare. And we have a very formidable enemy who is more dreadful than any human forces ever assembled on earth has been at any time. Look with a verse that we studied last week. It was right in the middle of our passage. I take you back to it to bring up this point. It says, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places. Now many of us are very familiar with this verse. We've heard it before. We've maybe even heard a lot of sermons that are preached on this. I don't know how many sermons that you've heard preached on this verse. I don't know if it even still causes a slight thump in your heart anymore. But I would like for you to know, as we begin this passage today, that whenever this verse is truly believed, it is very life changing. Today and for the next couple of weeks, we will be engaged in spiritual weapon training. It is for our provision, our protection, and our power in this war. Today, I'm gonna cover the battle equipment that is mentioned in Ephesians chapter six, verse four, 14. Next week, I will cover verse 15. Following week we're going to delve into what's covered there in verse 16, these implements of our spiritual warfare. Now please look with me at the first piece of our necessary spiritual armor. In verse 14 it says, stand therefore having fastened on the belt of truth. Now, you might be familiar with other versions of the Bible which translate this verse as saying, gird up your loins with truth. Most of us today don't gird our loins, do we? Today we buckle our belts around our waist. The belt of a Roman soldier's uniform, however, did a lot more than just merely hold his pants up or add a bit of personalized stylish flair to his attire. No, this heavy six-inch wide leather belt secured the soldier's tunic as he charged into battle so that the material wouldn't hamper his movement. Roman soldiers always wore a tunic. Now, this was an outer garment that was simply a square piece of cloth with holes cut out for the head and for the arms. Before the fight, the loose-fitting tunic could easily trip or encumber the soldier, unless it was tucked under this belt. Without the tunic being cinched up under the belt, the soldier would be powerless in battle. Maybe you've seen some slapstick comedy routines where people laugh at the clown or the comedian's trousers drooping or falling down. It may be funny in a comedy routine, but never funny with a soldier who's engaged in a fight. In preparing for this message, I read about a great battle of our past, and it was won by a very clever general who told his men to cut the belts of their enemy while they were sleeping. The next morning, the enemy troops were so busy holding up their trousers that they weren't able to shoot their guns, and therefore, they lost the battle. We are told to be girded with truth as we face the enemy. Truth is that which holds everything together. This belt would also help hold in place the soldier's breastplate and the sheath of his weapon. So this seemingly unimportant belt had the important function of keeping him free, protected, and agile enough to attack or defend whichever the situation the battle required. Paul writes that truth, likewise, performs the same kind of crucial function in our spiritual battle. Truth holds up our spiritual armor in place and it safeguards against deadly entanglements. So we better be sure we understand how Paul wants us to recognize this critical element that he labels truth. This is some kind of inner strength that gives us battle-winning confidence. Commentators have looked at truth in two ways, since it can have two basic meanings. First, it can mean the truth of God. In other words, Paul may be referring to Christian doctrine or the specific content of God's revelation in scripture. Is Paul's meaning that we put on the belt of truth by filling our hearts and minds with the word of God because it is truth. Maybe, perhaps there's a better answer. Now, if that were Paul's primary thinking, I think he probably, most likely, would have put a definite article here. The truth. But he didn't. He did not write, fasten on the belt of the truth, as in the specific truth, his holy word. Now, the second understanding of Paul's meaning of truth might perhaps simply refer to truthfulness or sincerity. The word for truth that Paul used in the original language of the New Testament here is the same word for sincerity. Whenever the Greek word aletheia is used in the New Testament, it can mean either truth or sincerity. And we need to look at the context, we need to look at the grammar, we need to look at clues there in the verse and determine which one of these is more likely. Well, here the context is there is no definite article, the, the truth as in the scripture or a particular doctrine. So I'm inclined to understand that Paul is, has a meaning more along the means of sincerity rather than the specific truth that we find here in God's word. However, I must admit that John Stott, I think he is right when he suggests that we do not need to choose between these two alternatives. You see, real sincerity, inner truth, begins with a knowledge of God. He is truth. And a knowledge of the truth of God. If it is really known, inevitably leads to a life of sincerity, a single-hearted, not being duplicitous. That's consistent with God's character. Listen, we will become sincere. We will be single-hearted people only as we feast on the revealed truth of God. Now when you really stop and think about it, when you are being sincere, you are being what? Truthful. You're being open, you're being honest. You're not presenting any image of yourself that fudges the truth even a little. Truth and sincerity are two nuances of the same concept. Insincerity makes a Christian soldier's pants fall down as they run into battle. A lack of sincerity makes our breastplate fall down over our knees and our ankles and trips us. It makes our sword that is attached to our belt inaccessible. Pretending to be sincere when you know that you're not leaves you unprotected and very vulnerable in the spiritual war that surrounds us. But a man or woman of integrity A Christian with a clear conscience can't face the enemy without fear, unless we consistently practice the truth. We cannot effectively use the sword of truth. Once a lie gets into a believer, everything begins to fall apart. Look what Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1, verses 18 and 19. This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith. The result of lacking sincerity is spiritual impotency. It's a shipwreck of our faith. But the opposite is true of those who cinch up their armor with sincerity. Single-minded sincerity, having integrity, keeping a good conscience, makes it possible to unflinchingly face the enemy. How's your battle been going lately? If it has not been going as well as it should, you must tighten your belt. Let's take a deeper dive into this concept of tightening this belt of sincerity. First of all, sincerity implies a desire to please God. 1 Corinthians 10.31 says, so whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. We often supersede the glory of God by operating from our own selfish motives for the things we do. Every action we take, everything we do at work, at home, with friends, or whenever we shop, Our main desire is not to please God. We're being an insincere follower of Jesus. Jesus has asked us to do all for the glory of God. So to the extent that you and I do anything simply to please ourselves, we're being insincere. Okay, so let's now cinch up our belts here. How many things have you done this week where you could honestly say, I did this solely to please God and not to please myself? I said those things. I conversed that way. I had those conversations. I said those things not to make myself look good, Not to try to impress others, but to glorify God. I showed my displeasure to that person because it was the best way to honor God. Not because I wanted them to know I will not be treated that way. I was kind to that stranger, not in hopes that others will treat me the same way in return, but I did it only to please God. Well, we might all have some belt tightening to do, huh? Even though it might hurt, God could not care less about anything we do here at Living Water, or at work, or at home, if anything has clouded our objective to do all to the glory of God, to please Him. Whenever we do not have a single eye to please God, we are being insincere. Okay, I'm gonna zoom in a little closer on this matter now. I'm gonna pull the belt a little tighter here. This past Wednesday I was having an elongated pin drop moment lecture with my students at the college in Bend. Everybody was wide awake and listening intently. Muscles were tight. They were leaning forward. Stillness filled the room as I hit a well-protected nerve deep inside every student. I give this lecture every term in my interpersonal communication course, usually with the same response, but Wednesday they seemed a little bit more dialed in. Here is part of my lecture. We all have multiple identities. You do. I do. We all do. Your self-image, how you see yourself, the true you, the real you, the self that you know yourself to be when no one is looking, is often very different than the image you try to project for others to see. You have a carefully protected presenting self that is often not the same as the real person that you know you really are. We all have foibles, defects, shortcomings, things that we don't want others to see. but we also have a polished, all shined up image that we want everyone to think is the real us. Now what happens when our presenting image gets challenged? If it gets threatened, if we sense someone is not buying into it, They're not believing what we want them to believe about us. Even though we know it is not true about us, how do we often respond? Perhaps we've all heard the term defense mechanisms. What is it that these mechanisms are defending? The answer is we are defending our presenting self whenever it is threatened, challenged, unbelieved, even though we know it isn't the real us. That was the introduction and things got even more quiet as I listed our most common defense mechanisms. I'm not going to do it here. But as I did so on Wednesday, students were nodding their heads and they began confessing them as I was speaking of them, saying, yeah, that's what I do. And now I know why. It just seems like an automatic response that I do that. From there we were able to discuss how damaging it is in our relationships and the foolishness of trying to defend the lie of our presenting self. But you know what, even we as believers do this. I want to tell you that it is even more foolish and damaging as believers in our spiritual warfare. You see, this is what this first verse is all about, cinching up the belt of truth and sincerity. By tightening the belt of truth, we start making our presenting self and our real self. one and the same. Tighten your belt of truth. Ask God to make you more aware of your presenting self. And those times when you are actively working to project it and to maintain it, confess it. Don't get tripped up in battle. First of all, sincerity implies a desire to please God. Second of all, sincerity implies that we will stop making snap decisions in our life. We make far too many decisions in our lives that are based on pride-filled assumptions. We don't have all the information necessary to make a right choice, but we think we do because we assume too much. We don't stop and pray. nearly enough. And we often suffer through the consequences. When Jesus and his disciple Nathanael met for the first time, Jesus informed him that he saw Nathanael under a fig tree where he had been contemplating prophecy. When Nathanael approached the Lord, Jesus remarked, behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile. You know what that means? No guile. It means having no deceit. It means here is somebody who's very sincere. Now why did Jesus declare Nathanael to be so sincere? What did Jesus notice? Well, let's take a look at the passage in John to discover something about what sincerity is. This is what Jesus noticed and this is what sincerity is. Philip found Nathanael and he said to him, we have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Nathanael said to him, can anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip said to him, come and see. Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, Behold, in whom there is no deceit. Nathanael was prejudiced. He was prejudiced against people who were from Nazareth. Now I sort of know what that's like, having come from Bakersfield. Can anything good come out of Bakersfield? I've heard that a time or two. Nathaniel assumed that nothing good can come from Nazareth, especially not the Messiah. This prejudice would have made most people make a snap decision. Nah, I'm good. I'll stay here. I don't need to go check this Jesus dude out. Because I know nothing good comes out of Nazareth. Jesus knew Nathaniel didn't make that kind of a snap decision. He got up and he went to see for himself. And Jesus called that sincere. Sincerity in us. would have us stop making so many snap decisions, especially those that are based on our own prejudices, our pre-thinking about something, when we don't have all the information. And our pride would have us believe that we do know enough and we don't even need to pray about it. Listen, all through the day, Every day, you and I need to be shooting up prayers to the throne of God and asking two things. God, is this your will? And, Lord, please make me willing to follow whatever your will is in this matter. even if it is not what I am most inclined to do initially. All right, we're ready for our next weapon. And having put on the breastplate of righteousness, Ephesians 6, 14, part B. The breastplate of righteousness is as essential as the Roman soldier's breastplate was to him. You see, our enemy, the accuser of believers, as Revelation 12, 10 calls him, loves to direct his arrows at the heart of our faith. You know what he's constantly telling us, you've heard it. You're not good enough. I know what you were thinking yesterday. I know what you did. I know what your motives are. How do you think you could pray What makes you think you could go witness and tell others about God when you do that? He goes right for the heart, doesn't he? He tries desperately to convince us that God can't bridge the gap that we've created. He hopes to plant seeds of doubt of God's infinite grace. He lobs missiles of guilt and shame and condemnation toward us, tempting us to believe that the love and the forgiveness of God, that's all conditional. But when we stand firm in the knowledge that God has declared us righteous, based solely on the blood of Christ, and that he empowers us to live holy lives by the Holy Spirit alone, the devil and his wicked workers must retreat in defeat. So let's turn our attention in the short amount of time that we have left here now toward understanding this concept of righteousness that we're to guard our hearts with. Like truth, righteousness can be taken in two ways. It can refer to what theology calls imputed righteousness, or righteousness of Jesus Christ reckoned to a Christian's account is that imputed. It enables him to stand before God. Or it can refer to specific acts, our own personal holiness, the actions that we do that are holy. In the third chapter of Zechariah, there's a scene in which Joshua, the high priest, is standing before the angel of the Lord in the temple. And Satan is also standing there to accuse him. Since we're told that Joshua is dressed in filthy clothes, representing his and the people's sin. Satan must have been pointing to these and declaring forcefully that Joshua was not fit to stand before the Lord in this specific office. It is a clear case of spiritual warfare going on there. But the angel of God intervened. Take off his filthy clothes, the angel says. Then in place of the filthy clothes that he had been wearing, the angel gives him new rich garments and a clean turban for his head. You can read this in Zechariah chapter three. Clearly this symbolizes the righteousness of Christ that was imputed, that was placed on him. The clothes were not something Joshua acquired for himself. They were rather something that had been given to him. And it is in this righteousness alone that he is enabled to resist Satan's accusations. On the other hand, it's significant that immediately after Joshua had been invested with those rich robes and this clean turban, symbolizing God's righteousness, The angel gave Joshua a charge, and it was this, Zechariah 3, 7. Thus says the Lord of hosts, if you will walk in my ways and keep my charge, then you shall rule my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you the right of access among those who are standing here. You have imputed righteousness, now act consistent to it. So imputed righteousness is not to be separated, it's not to be divorced from actual righteousness. It is because he has made us righteous that we are to live righteously, as the angel told Joshua. Because you have been made righteous, now live righteously. In this passage, Paul is urging those who are already Christians to put on this armor. And since they are Christians, they've already been clothed with God's righteousness. So what are we reading here in our passage? Well, the only thing they can put on then is practical holiness expressed in righteous thoughts and deeds. 2 Corinthians 2 verses 15 and 16 says, for we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? Do you have a righteousness which is through faith in Christ? The righteousness that comes from God and is by faith? If not, all you have to do is renounce dependence upon the rags of your self-righteousness and humbly ask, His righteousness will guard your heart as effectively as the finest breastplate. Why not do this now? And with that righteousness comes a righteous life, a marvelous offensive weapon in the hands of Christ. Would you pray with me? And if there are any here at home listening to this broadcast, who has never asked Christ to take control of your life, who has never appropriated the righteousness of Jesus Christ, why don't you do so today? Let Christ put on the clean clothes of righteousness onto you. Jesus died on the cross to take the penalty of our sin and to clothe us with clean clothes. If you've never done that, I'm gonna lead in a closing prayer right now. And I invite you to pray and ask Jesus into your life to cleanse you, to take away your sin and to forgive you Jesus, come into my life. Thank you for forgiving my sin. Thank you for taking my punishment. You died so that I could live forever with you. Come into my life and make me the kind of person you want me to be. Thank you for the righteousness of Jesus that you are taking in exchange for my unrighteousness. Thank you for this free gift. In Jesus' name, amen.