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Ephesians 6:10-20
! Introduction
We left our watches at home.
We set up our umbrella and our lawn chairs.
The lawn chair was in the recline position.
It was a beautiful day at the beach and the agenda was to relax and have fun.
We spent time in the water, reading, eating ice cream and having enjoyable conversation.
It was pleasant, easy and enjoyable.
But life isn't always like that.
They called me because their young son was having bad nightmares and they were afraid that it was caused by demonic influence.
I went and prayed for their son and for God to be sovereign in his room.
The nightmares stopped and we recognized that this had been an attack of the enemy.
Last fall when we were beginning to plan for our move, I experienced a serious bout of worry.
It seemed greater than normal worry and because someone had indicated that I might experience a spiritual attack we began to pray that God would give peace.
Peace came and we understood that this had been an attack of the enemy.
More than once I have spoken with people as they near the end of life.
Several times people who have been solid, faithful followers of Jesus have expressed doubts about their assurance of faith.
So we have read verses of assurance in Scripture and prayed that God would let them know that He loves them and that they would have peace about their eternal situation.
I have realized that the enemy doesn't give up easily and continues to try to get people to lose faith.
God has called us to represent His kingdom in a hostile world.
Sometimes that isn't easy and sometimes we act as if it is an optional activity.
Satan will try to discourage us and tempt us to take it lightly, but Scripture makes it clear that this is what our life is about.
Not taking God's mission seriously is also a spiritual attack.
In other words, life is not a day at the beach.
How do we live life and build the kingdom of Jesus in the face of an enemy who continues to try to defeat God's kingdom?
This is the question Paul answers in Ephesians 6:10-20.
The text begins with the word, "finally" and although these are the last things which Paul says in Ephesians, this translation does not give us the full thought of what the word means.
A better translation would be, “from now on” or “for the rest of the time.”
We are between the times.
Jesus has come, has died and risen again and has defeated the enemy.
But the final victory is still something that we are looking forward to.
We are in the last days, but not on the last day.
The message Paul has for the Ephesians and for us is a message which is relevant during this time.
He is saying, for the remainder of the days until Jesus returns, this is the reality in which you live and these are the things which you must do.
!
I. The Struggle We Are In
!! A. The Nature of the Enemy
The reality for Christ followers is that we “struggle” or “wrestle.”
He uses sports imagery to indicate that the game is on.
We are in a contest of epic proportions and the stakes are extremely high.
Grey Cup, Stanley Cup or Super bowl have nothing on the stakes of this contest.
He also uses military imagery to say that we are in a battle.
Both images help us remember that life is not a day at the beach, but a difficult contest with much at stake, a conflict in which we need to be constantly alert.
The Message translates it, "This is no afternoon athletic contest that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours.
This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels."
The struggle we are in is not against an opponent whom we can see.
Paul is very explicit and warns us that “…our struggle is not against flesh and blood.”
The enemies we encounter sometimes seem to be the neighbor who creates problems, the business deal that we are trying to accomplish or the people we need to relate to.
These can be difficult challenges in life, but the battle we are in is much more difficult and much more insidious than that.
The battle we are in is a spiritual contest.
In verse 12, Paul describes this enemy by using the word “against” four times to identify different things about the enemy.
The enemy has authority and is a ruler, but the realm of his reign is darkness and he is over the spiritual forces of evil.
If we were wrestling against a human foe, we would have some hope that we could help them see reason.
But when our enemy is evil to the core and his only intent is to bring us into darkness that is a scary thing.
When we see that his opposition is in the whole world, we understand that we are in a battle that is very serious.
On the television program "Wipeout," people enter into a contest in which they are required to go through a series of obstacles.
The person who is able to do it the quickest wins the contest.
The point of the show is to watch people in the most awkward situations trying to stay upright, but wiping out all the time.
They throw things at them, they place slippery obstacles in their way and make it as difficult as possible to get to the finish line.
In the game it is all in fun and the people have a good time doing it.
The same cannot be said about our enemy Satan who is doing the same thing.
He puts distractions and obstacles in our way but has the malicious intent of trying to cause us to stumble in any way he can.
He wants to prevent us from making it to the finish line and to prevent us from being faithful to God in our ministry in the world.
Penner says, "One great cause of spiritual failure among Christians is that we do not realize we are in a battle."
Sometimes the enemy shows himself in obvious ways, but often the attacks are much more subtle.
When we doubt its not just doubt, it is the enemy.
When illness or other struggles come, the enemy is behind it.
We need to be aware that it is game day and we all play.
The battle is on and it is serious and it is difficult.
!! B. The Nature of the Battle
And so the text encourages us to “be strong.”
If we think of this from the metaphor of sports we might imagine that now is the time to put on our rally caps.
That imagery implies that we dig deep in order to win the game.
But Paul is definitely not saying try harder, dig deeper, do all you can.
The call to be strong is a call to rely on the strength of the Lord.
“In the Lord” is the important part of this sentence.
We are to live in dependence on God.
He is the one who gives us the power we need to win and to move forward!
The reason we have strength in the Lord is because of what He has already accomplished.
In the resurrection of Jesus, God has demonstrated His power over death and it is that power on which we rely.
In the death of Jesus on the cross, God defeated the enemy not by smashing him, but by taking away all power by defeating death.
Through death, Jesus has conquered the enemy who now has no power left.
It is in the victory which Jesus accomplished in His death that we have victory.
Because Jesus died and rose again, God has sent the Holy Spirit to accompany everyone who belongs to Jesus and it is in the presence of the Holy Spirit that we are strong in the Lord.
Matthew Henry says, “We have no sufficient strength of our own.
Our natural courage is as perfect cowardice, and our natural strength as perfect weakness; but all our sufficiency is of God.
In his strength we must go forth and go on."
Watchman Nee was a Chinese pastor who wrote a book on Ephesians called Sit, Walk, Stand.
Nee divides the book into three sections.
First of all, he says that we need to learn to sit.
The early part of Ephesians tells us that we need to sit in the presence of Jesus and recognize the wonder of all that He has done for us in redeeming us and making us His children.
The next section of the book talks about walking with Christ.
This is the ethical section of the book and reminds us that those who sit in the presence of Christ must also walk in obedience to Him.
The last part of the book talks about standing and that brings us to this passage.
Nee says, “We must know how to sit with Christ in the heavenly places and we must know how to walk worthy of Him down here, but we must also know how to stand before the foe.”
All of these are important in order to be able to stand.
But we shouldn't think that standing is only protecting ourselves.
Standing does not imply a fortress mentality.
Often this passage has been interpreted as describing those things with which we can defend ourselves as believers and be protected.
But that is too small an interpretation of this passage.
The shoes of the gospel, and the sword of the Spirit tell us that we are in a battle not only to try to survive in this difficult time and quietly remain in a safe position.
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