It's good to lift our voices in praise to God and to hear the good congregational singing. It's good to have the accompaniment. We appreciate that very much. And we praise God. I'm excited about tonight. You know, whenever you see something possibly for the first time, and you start putting things together, it's really helpful, and tonight is, I think is, it's gonna help if you and I have ears to hear, and if we're willing to put this in practice, into practice, there's no telling what could possibly come of this. So we're in Ephesians six, and we're about to wrap this, wrap it up with this letter but there's so much here and you know we could we could go through it again and again. It's always been probably my favorite of Paul's letters. I don't know how this is but I know when I was converted I would just keep coming, it was almost like my Bible would just open to Ephesians and by the way I was reading my Bible before I was converted when I was a little kid the United Methodist, which they used to be united. I don't think they are anymore, but the United Methodist gave me a young reader's Bible. I mean, it was huge. I mean, I was just a little kid. They give you a Bible that's bigger than you, barely carried around. I used to put that thing in the floor and open it, and I'd just read it. I didn't like reading it. So I was drawn to that, and then as I grew up, and then once I was converted, Ephesians, just like, I didn't even know how to pronounce the name there. I know it seems easy to you, but I mispronounced it all the time. I called it Ephesians. That's the way I would pronounce it. Be that as it may, I liked it. And I've got a lot of yellow because I highlight in this wonderful letter. And we get to chapter six, and it's not like Paul's winding down, it's like he's winding up. And he just drops this from nowhere. And really, this armor of God thing is nowhere, is not in his other letters. He might allude to it, but he doesn't go into the detail that he does here. And so I was thinking about this passage of scripture, and it is the climactic portion of the book. Everything builds to this. And I hope we have ears to hear, that we want to take in, not just Ephesians 1, which is exceptional, and just the first sentence that takes in, I don't know, 13, 14 verses. It's just one long sentence in the Greek. And it's wonderful and powerful, and so much instruction there, but it's all for a purpose, and we think that it points everything up to this part of the letter just points to this and this is the climactic practical part of the letter and he said some things that are just I mean I don't I don't understand it all but I don't understand a lot about electricity but you don't have to to flip on the light switch amen You just turn it and you experience light. So let's let the Lord flip on that light switch tonight of our understanding. Let's take in the light and let's put these things together as we come closer to concluding this wonderful letter. So what I'd like to do is just go right back there to Ephesians 6 and verse 10, where he says, finally, and we know He's probably grinning when he writes that word, finally, because he's got a little bit more to add. He's not gonna end the book with one last thought. He's got quite a bit concentrated in this portion of scripture. So we'll read it from verse 10. We'll take it all the way through the end of the chapter, and we'll talk about it here in a minute. So finally, he says, be strong in the Lord. and in the strength of his mind. Now, if that wasn't possible, he wouldn't say it. And if it was good enough for those people 2,000 years ago, then and there, those Christians, those brothers and sisters in Christ that constituted the church there at Ephesus, if it was good enough for them, it certainly should be good enough for us. that he had a point to make with them, and this word, the crux of it, the importance of it, the power of it, carries through all those years to our hearts, here and now. It says, finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength or power of his might. Put on the full armor of God. so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places, therefore. take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day. And having done everything to stand firm. Stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, in addition to all taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. With all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, Be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints. And Paul says, and pray on my behalf that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. for which I am an ambassador in chains, that in proclaiming it, I may speak boldly as I ought to speak, but that you also may know about my circumstances, how I am doing. Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will make everything known to you. I've sent him to you for this very purpose so that you may know about us. and that he may comfort your hearts. Peace be to the brethren and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love. The word of the Lord. Father in heaven, we need your help in understanding and taking your word in and applying it to our lives. Help us to not only hear it with understanding, but to live it out with great enthusiasm. We pray in Jesus' name, amen and amen. So there's three points that we have. The first one is in verse 10. finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. So whatever Paul is about to lay on these Christians, these believers in Ephesus, he wants them to know that there is a power of God that can be appropriated by faith and they can live in the strength of his might. So obviously he does not want them depending on their own strength. He wants them to depend on his strength. And those, we can hear it. When you read this short verse, it is a strong admonition. First, finally. So last words can be important. Last instruction can be important. So we wanna highlight the importance of what he's saying. He's saying to these Ephesians, and apparently if there's any trouble in this church whatsoever from within or without, apparently it's not much. It doesn't seem like there's much trouble at all, but he's telling them to be strong in the Lord and the power of his might. That tells us something, and we've tracked it down a little bit. We looked in Revelation. Ephesians gets one of the letters. in Revelation. And what does he tell them? He says, listen, there's a lot of good, but you've left your first love. okay so he didn't talk about that in this letter but John gets revelation later he addresses that letter that revelation in a letter to Ephesus and he says listen you you've left your first love and if you don't repent it's not gonna be good God's gonna come he's gonna take your take your light away so Paul knows that perhaps this church is in, let's just say, they're living on the sunny side. Everything's fine. You ever been there? Things seem to be great, right? I mean, you look out, it's like if you imagine your life that you're in a boat. You know, it's great. There's not a ripple and you're out there and you're having a good time and there's no wind or very little breeze and the sun's shining and things are great. I'm glad we have days like that as Christians. I'm really happy about that. But not every day is like that. I think Paul's looking down the road And he is trying to prepare these folks for what's coming. Isn't that what this is, at least some of this is about? I mean, we may be on the sunny side today. I know there's a little snow on the ground, but so what? But things are relatively calm. But aren't we always preparing for that day? I think there's an aspect of that built into this Christian life. We are in preparation. I'm not gonna go into all the details and what that looks like, but the harder days, okay, whatever that is. But he says, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. So I would suggest that in the good times, Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. And when you are strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might, in the good times, you'll be preparing for the harder times of life. And then he says something that's just, it comes from nowhere. He's gonna tell him how. He's going to say, not only do you need to pay attention to your being, your existence, but you need to do something else. You need to put on the full armor of God. Put on the full armor of God? I mean, all of a sudden this sounds pretty military to me. Well, in fact, he is using the equipment of a Roman soldier as an illustration for the believer that he should be equipped for warfare. Listen to this. He says put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle, here it is, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against, and here's the word right here, spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Paul is saying our lives here as believers We do not engage in a physical battle. He is not calling us to physical arms, to take up arms physically. But he is saying that every believer needs to understand that we are involved in a great spiritual warfare. It's invisible. I think there can be physical manifestations of that, but it's largely invisible. We can't necessarily see these powers, these world forces of this darkness. Yeah, see that with the naked eye, but we know they're there. We understand there is this spiritual dimension. We know there's light. We know that God is the God of light and truth, and we know there is much darkness in our world. And Paul seems to think that this darkness comes against believers. It may be hard for some to understand or to accept, but this is true. So Paul gets back to, in verse 13, take up the full armor of God. So First of all, we need to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. He never encourages us to lean on our own strength, or our own wisdom for that matter, to rely on the strength of his might. I would suggest thinking about how strong and how mighty God is. Those three words in that one short verse, be strong, strong, in the what? In the strength of his what? Of his might. Be strong in his, in the strength of his might. I mean, what a mighty God we serve. And you think about Jesus and think about the strength, the power that came from Jesus. He's the one that walked on water. He's the one that spoke the word and calmed the storm. And every molecule in that sea came to rest. We think about Jesus, the one that made the blind to see, the deaf to hear. We think about Jesus who could heal with a touch or heal with the spoken word from a distance. He's a God of all power. Be strong in the strength of his might. I'm reminded of that one scripture, the writer of Hebrews. It's a short verse, but it's It's true, and that is Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And our God told Abraham, nothing is too difficult for me, and I hear those words ringing even now. Nothing is too difficult for our God. and we should appropriate by faith. Lord, I don't know how this looks. I'm just trusting you here. I want to be strong in you and in the strength of your might because you say we're involved in a spiritual battle and we dare not in that spiritual battle against these powers of darkness, against this struggle, this spiritual struggle, I dare not rely on my own wisdom and my own strength. I want to rely on your strength. He says, therefore, take up the full armor of God. He breaks it down. He says, so that you will be able to resist, here it is, in the evil day. In the evil day. So you will be able to resist in the evil day. Now, the evil day is what we were referring to a while ago. The hard time. The harder time. That evil day is the day that the enemy has chosen to just bring an assault to your life. That's what he means here. To resist in the evil day. I mean what else could it mean? So that you, so that you personally will be able to resist in the evil day. You need to be strong in his strength. and his might, the strength of his might, and you need to put on the full armor of God. And then he says, and having done everything, and having done everything. Okay, so far he said be strong in the strength of his might, and he said put on the armor of God, the full armor of God, and having done everything. Lord, I've done everything. I'm appropriating by faith your strength in my life. I dare not trust my own strength. I dare not trust my own wisdom. I'm depending on you and your power and your might. And I'm putting on your armor. There it is, and having done everything to what? To stand firm. So Paul seems to think that if you stand, or if you appropriate by faith the strength and the power of the Lord in your life, that come the evil day, you will be able to stand firm in the armor that he supplies. It's kind of interesting, he just, all he asks us to do is to stand firm. He doesn't even say win. He doesn't even say charge. He says stand firm. Evidently, if you're strong in the strength of His might and you're equipped with the armor of God, all you need to do is stand and you will stand in victory so he says again there in verse 14 stand firm therefore having girded your loins with truth so that's the first part of the equipment your loins girded with truth so we know how important truth is to our lives and the source of truth Jesus said thy word is truth so the word of God the truth of God going all the way back to Genesis 1 and all the way forward to Revelation the truth of God so we want our loins girded with truth and then having put on the breastplate of righteousness the righteousness of God so the righteousness of God for salvation would be that Jesus took upon himself when he died on the cross he took upon himself my sin and when I trust him he imparts or imputes his righteousness to my life therefore I do not stand in my own righteousness I would not dare try to stand in my own personal righteousness in order to get to heaven I want to stand in the righteousness of Jesus Some call that the great exchange, and it's a wonderful exchange. But the breastplate of righteousness, but we dare not stop there. This righteousness, we live out, not that we're entirely complete or perfect, but we are growing in sanctification. We are becoming more and more like Christ as we endure the trials of life. As we study the Word of God, as we pray, as we witness, as we share our faith, we become more and more like Jesus. He goes on, having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, that is, we're ready to share our testimony. We are ready to speak for Jesus. We're ready to point others to Christ. There's no other life, nothing like living and being joined to Jesus and living for Jesus and loving Christ, being devoted to him. There's nothing like that. We want to get that message out. The preparation of the gospel of peace. So he's talking about the shoes. And then he says in verse 16, in addition to all taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. So evidently the evil one, the enemy, on that evil day will begin, he will shoot those arrows at you. He says, and take the helmet of salvation. It's important right here, your thinking, your mindset, all that's important. It needs to be, it needs to be protected. Take that helmet of salvation. emphasizing the salvation that you have and the understanding of salvation and what that salvation is about. It's about his work, not ours. The work of Christ on the cross. Jesus risen from the dead. Jesus ascended into heaven. Jesus promises his soon return. And then he says, the sword of the spirit. And this sword here in the Greek is for the short sword that the Roman soldiers would use. It's not for the long sword that basically would be wielded with two hands. This is a short dagger-like sword. And he says, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. It's interesting here. You know that there are different There's a couple different Greek words that are in our language are translated word or word of God. And so there, one is logos, logos is the word. And this is logos, whether I'm reading it or not, it's logos, it's truth. That's not the word he uses here. The word he uses here is rhema. What's the difference? Well, Rayma, have you ever been reading the Bible and you go, it's just like the Lord just penetrates your heart, and you just go, that's for me, that's right now. I mean, you can't make it up, that's the way it is. If you've never had that experience, which is an experience, You know it. I mean, you know, it's not like, well, I got to think about this for about, you know, an hour or two. It's like, boom, he'll just drop it right in your heart and you're going, Lord, I thank you. I need that. It might be a promise from God. Maybe you're dealing with something, some issue. Have you ever been taught that? No, most people don't distinguish, they don't bother to look at the original. That word there is rhema, word of God. I think you can think about that with regard to your salvation, maybe someone spoke to you concerning the gospel, maybe you heard a message from a preacher, pastor, evangelist, what have you, and that word just went right to your heart. I mean, I remember hearing that sinners, if they die without Jesus, will go to a place called hell, a place of eternal torment. And I remember that pierced my heart. I mean, I knew that was me. I didn't have anything to say. in argument against that. And that just lines up with everything we know about Christianity. That we have a personal God who deals with us personally. Well, it gets better. You say, well, all right, all that sounds good. Be strong in the Lord and the power of His might. And this is where we wanted to get to tonight. Be strong in the Lord, in the power of His might, and put on the whole armor of God. Got it. Alright, well, how do you, how do you, how does all that become operational? I mean, how does it really, how does it put to use? I think that's a good question. That's what I was wondering. How's that put to use? You've got faith here, the shield of faith. You've got a helmet of salvation. You've got the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. You've got, and it is interesting here, that the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, that is speaking to you and it's also coming from you. I think both of those are true. And then you have Loins girt about with truth, breastplate of righteousness. It's all there. Feet shod with the gospel, the preparation of the gospel of peace. All that is wonderful. And we're just, you know, in full armor. We're strong in his strength. How does, how does it all come together? And it's right there. It's right. I thought about this. It's right under my nose, right there. Verse 18. That's it. I have a personal walk with God. With, connects it with what is previous. With all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the spirit. And with this in view, be on the alert. There it is. Be on the alert. with all perseverance and petition for all the saints. And then Paul includes himself as a request in this prayer. So to complete the whole picture of the Christian life and the Christian preparing for the evil day and the assault of the enemy, Which I think, I mean, who knows what the enemy's got in mind. But we know Jesus, I always tell folks, I've met people before, you'd talk to them and you'd think they've got a devil bigger than this room. And he's always after them. Listen, Jesus is much bigger than the enemy. Okay, so we don't need to fear the enemy, we just need to receive what Paul tells us here, to be strong in the strength of his might, the Lord's might, and we need to put on the whole armor of God, the shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit, breastplate of righteousness, feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, loins gird about with truth, And with that, pray. He says, with all prayer and petition. And there he uses that word again. So prayer and petition, and then he says, pray at all times in the spirit. And with this in view, there it is, be on the alert, on the alert. A watchman, a soldier should be on the alert and he says, be on the alert, and he adds this word, with all perseverance. Why would he say that? I'll tell you why he says it, because he says pray at all times. Pray at all times. That's a tall mountain to climb. Well, it's going to take perseverance, it's going to take being reminded And I personally don't think he's talking about super spiritual Christian here. I think he's talking about the normal Christian life. Just pray. Just pray. And I really appreciate the fact that this prayer is not only for the person who is being strong and the strength of his might and suited up, so to speak, equipped with all these spiritual values, this faith and truth and sharing the gospel, but he includes praying for others, and petition, pray at all times in the spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert, with all perseverance, and, there it is, petition for all the saints. Why would he say that? Well, because we care about our brothers and sisters in Christ, and they're in the same warfare that you're in. They're right there, pray for them. And then Paul says, pray on my behalf that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. We'll get to the mystery of the gospel next week. For which I am an ambassador in chains that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. So three things. Be strong in the Lord. Rely on his strength and wisdom. Secondly, put on the full armor of God. Don't leave anything out. You know, I've met folks before and they talk like, you know, I got, they talk about faith all the time, but they don't mention much about truth or they don't mention much about sharing the gospel. They don't mention much about salvation and an understanding, a firm grasp of salvation. Listen, don't leave anything out. That old Puritan, William Gurnall. The abridged version is three volumes. And he wrote on the Christian in complete armor. Wow. Don't leave anything out. And then thirdly, pray. Just pray. So how am I supposed to do that? Well, you're strong in the Lord. You're being strong in His might, not your own. Pray. Pray at all times. Pray with perseverance. Pray with conviction. And pray for the saints. So we may be one or two more weeks here. Let's pray tonight and that we'll be good soldiers of Jesus. Father in heaven, Lord, tonight, we have to agree based on not only the truth of your word, but based on the experience of living in this world, that there is a monumental spiritual battle taking place. And Lord, I know there's a certain segment of the church that's all about trying to live their best life now. But Lord, you've called us to be strong in the power of your might, and you've called us to suit up in full armor with these wonderful provisions, this wonderful equipment. And then, Lord, you've told us what to do when we're suited up to pray. And so, Lord, I pray tonight you would impress this message on each heart, each mind and heart, each life, that we would stand firm in you, and that regardless of the circumstances we're in, Lord, that you would bring the victory to our lives, you would be glorified by our lives, and you would be pleased with your soldiers. We pray this tonight in Jesus' name and God's people said, amen.