The Armor of God: The Sword of the Spirit

Life of the Church

Good morning everyone, and welcome to our worship service. It’s good to see you all here.

I have a couple of announcements from your bulletin that I’d like to highlight as we begin.

I’ll remind you that the graveside service for Roger Sparks will be held at 2:00 this afternoon at Calvary. Please continue to keep Rosemary, Ashley, Ned, Terry, and their families in your prayers during this difficult time.

If I’m counting right, this is my tenth funeral. I’ve talked it over with God, and He says y’all have to postpone going to heaven for a while.

Thank you to everyone who helped with the service yesterday, from ushering to DJ’ing to preparing and serving the food. When people leave a funeral smiling and even laughing, you know your church has done well.

The deacons will be having their monthly meeting this Tuesday. If you’re a deacon, please try to attend.

It’s also getting to be poinsettia time — and yes I did pronounce that correctly, I’ve been practicing all week. You’ll see a form in your bulletin to fill out if you would like to order one of those.

156 shoeboxes. Thanks

george?

Jesyka, do you have anything this morning?

Sue, do you have anything?

Opening Prayer

Father, you are the God of all blessings and the giver of all grace. We thank you for the gift of life and for the breath that sustains us, for the family and friends You’ve given us, for the many blessings we enjoy each moment.

We thank you for this community that is our home, for its beauty and its people, and for the history here that speaks to Your provision.

We thank you for the work You have for us to do, and the peace You provide, and the promises You’ve given to shelter, and feed, and bless each of us.

Truly you are a giving God, and truly we should be thankful every day. For these and all blessings, we give You thanks through You son, Jesus Christ, Amen.

Sermon

We’re almost completely dressed for battle now, aren’t we? Feels like we’ve been getting dressed for weeks. So as we begin this morning, I want to just remind you of all the pieces of armor we’ve talked about so far that you have to be wearing in order to fight your spiritual battles. Harvey’s helped us out with a presentation he came up with. Go ahead and put that up, Harvey.

We have our soldier, and the first thing he needs to put on is his belt — the belt of truth.

Paul says it’s the first thing you have to put on because everything else depends on it. Everything depends on how you answer one question: Do you believe that God and His word are true? If your answer is No, then you’re in trouble. If it’s Yes, then that belt gives all your other pieces power.

Once your belt is on, you can put on the breastplate of righteousness. This pieces covers your heart, and it reminds you that God’s forgiven you and you have the righteousness of Christ.

It’s not your good works, or anything you can do. You have to depend on nothing but Christ’s righteousness to guard your heart, or else you’re going to be led astray.

Next comes the shoes of peace. Roman soldiers wore sturdy sandals with spikes on the bottoms so they would have firm footing when they went into battle.

When you are firmly planted in the Gospel, you have peace even when everything around you seems to be going wrong, because you know that God is there, and God is in control.

Then you take up your shield of faith. This is what stops those flaming arrows that are sent your way. It’s trusting God even when you can’t see Him, can’t hear Him, can’t even feel His presence. But you still trust Him, because God is faithful and keeps His promises.

Last week, we talked about the helmet of salvation. It’s a very important piece of armor because it protects your mind, and most of your battles are going to be fought right there between your ears.

When you’re certain of your salvation, you’re able to stand firm against those attacks of doubt that could otherwise leave you paralyzed.

Which means we have only one piece of God’s armor left — the sword of the Spirit. If you have the rest of your armor on, you’ll have all the defensive weapons you need to be protected. But God doesn’t just call you to be on the defense. He calls you to fight too, and how can you go into battle without a weapon?

And we need that weapon, because as much as we pray for, and work toward, and even count on our lives being calm and peaceful, that isn’t always the case. In fact, life seems full of troubles and trials.

A pessimist might say that our happy times are just little pauses between our hard times. That might sound a little depressing, but sometimes life really does feel like that. Which is why maybe the most honest words in the whole Bible weren’t spoken by an apostle or a prophet but by Job’s friend Eliphaz, who said, “Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.”

That sounds about right, doesn’t it? You can rephrase that scripture in words that you’ll hear a lot of people around the South say — “It’s always something.”

It’s always something. It’s always problems with your family, or troubles with your faith. Always worries about your money or your health. Fears about the world and where the world’s headed. It’s always something, and it’s always something that’s out to rob you of your peace and the life that God wants you to be living.

So you have to be ready to fight all those problems and fears and worries. You need to be wearing things like truth and peace and faith, and the image that Paul uses for wearing all that is a Roman soldier’s armor. You have to be prepared for battle.

But in this case you’re taking your place on the front lines of a battle being fought in the heavenly places, places you can’t see, but the results of that battle appear in this life all around you. It’s demons and devils and angels. It’s attacks pointed at you by a darkness that hates you not because of you, but because of the God you trust and the Christ you love.

It all sounds so extreme, doesn’t it? So big and even overwhelming to think of yourself caught up in a spiritual war that’s been going on since the very beginning of history, and won’t be over until history’s end.

All of that is true. You make a great mistake when you forget that this ordinary life you think you live is filled with moments that don’t just influence your eternity, but the eternity of others. You make a great mistake when you forget there really is a devil out there, and that he wants nothing more than to make your life miserable.

But it isn’t fashionable nowadays to believe in the devil, or even in evil. It’s much more proper to think that the bad we do and the bad that happens to us is the result of ignorance, or a lack of education, or a poor childhood, or bad genes.

Thinking like that can simplify the trials we face. We say, “It’s always something,” and that’s true, but just leaving it there can make us forget that we’re in a great spiritual war, and how you fight that war makes an eternal difference.

But you can go too far the other way too. You can get so caught up in thinking about spiritual war that you start thinking all this armor you’re supposed to wear or take up is only for those times when life completely consumes you. When you’re completely overwhelmed.

That’s not true. That armor is valuable even on your most ordinary days, when everything is quiet and your world is at peace. You put that armor on not just so you can be dressed for battle. It’s so you can be dressed to live.

That’s especially true with the last piece that we have to talk about — the sword of the Spirit. Let’s go back to Ephesians 6 one more time, and round out what Paul says is the complete armor of God. We’ll be reading verses 10-17:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 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 the heavenly places.

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.

Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God …

And this is the word of the Lord.

This last piece of armor that God gives you stands out from all the others. All the other pieces are mostly defensive. The belt and the breastplate and the shoes and shield and helmet are all meant to hold you steady in the evil day. They’re to help you stand your ground.

And sometimes when things get so bad in your life, you feel like holding your ground is all you can do. You spend every ounce of your strength just trying to stay on your feet, just trying to make it through the day.

You know God is there. You know He’s with you. But it feels like all you can do is lift that shield of faith over your head while the whole world rains down on you.

But that’s not how God wants you to live. You are His child. You are Christ’s beloved. Angels surround you wherever you go. Even this moment, your spirit stands alongside Christ in the heavenly places.

You’re not meant to just hold your ground, you’re meant to charge headlong into your battle and take new ground. When that day of evil comes to you, you’re meant to attack. And so God gives you a sword.

Roman soldiers carried two different kinds of swords into battle. One of those was called a spatha. They were three feet long.

Then there was a shorter sword called a gladius that was about a foot-and-a-half long. It was more like a dagger, and that was the sword a soldier would use for fighting that was up close and personal when the enemy was right in his face. And when Paul tells you to take up the sword of the Spirit, that shorter sword is the one he’s talking about.

When Paul says, “Take up your sword,” he’s letting you know that sometimes the devil is so close that it feels like he’s right in your face. You’ll be able to look right into his eyes. You’ll smell the smoke on his breath.

Satan will bring his fight as close to you as possible, which means sometimes that fight will even be inside you, in your mind and your will and your emotions.

And let me tell you, that fight is the toughest you’ll ever have. The Christian life is one long battle between what you believe and trust and what you think and feel.

Time and again, you’re going to feel like there’s no way to win that fight. Your bad thoughts will always be stronger than your good ones. Your doubt will always be stronger than your faith. Fear will always overpower your trust. You’re trying to swing that sword, but it feels so heavy in your hands.

Do you know why you’re always feeling that way? Because you’re trying to use that sword yourself. You’re trying to swing it with your own strength. And that’ll never work, because guess what? That’s not your sword.

Paul says it’s the sword of the Spirit. It’s the Holy Spirit’s sword. It’s the only weapon we’re ever told that the Holy Spirit uses.

You can’t use that sword. You can’t win your battles. You can’t overcome your sins, or your fears, or your depression, or your anxiety. But you think you can, don’t you? All of us think that we can do things on our own.

Moses made that mistake when he thought he could deliver Israel in his own strength. Peter made that mistake when he cut the ear off one of the soldiers who had come to arrest Jesus.

In both of those cases, what was the lesson they learned? You can’t take a human approach to a spiritual battle. You can’t compete with an enemy who’s fighting in a whole other world that you can’t function in. You have to let God fight for you.

Paul talks about this more in Romans 12:19, where he says to never take revenge for yourself, but leave room for the wrath of God. Another way of putting that is to always leave room for God to work in your circumstances.

That means letting go of your way of fighting whatever battle you’re in right now and letting God do it His way. It means letting go of that need to respond to your emotions and rest on what God says is true.

There’s so much power in the sword of the Spirit that God says it’s the only weapon you need. You’re told to “take it up” in verse 17, and verse 17 also tells us what that sword is. It’s the Word of God. But to understand what Paul means by that, we have to understand the different ways the Bible talks about itself.

I had to learn some Greek words this week, so now you’re going to have to learn them too.

There are a couple of places in the Bible — 2 Timothy 3:16 is one and 2 Peter 1:20 is another — where scripture is described by the Greek word graphe. When Paul and Peter use that word, they mean the actual book that’s in your hands. It’s the words and the pages and the cover, or even the app on your phone.

Now, when you think of God’s word in that way, does it have any power? It doesn’t, does it? Because it’s just a book. It’s an amazing book, a masterpiece, but it’s still just a book. When Paul says, “Take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,” he’s not talking about picking up that book you’re holding.

Don’t make that mistake, because a lot of people do. They keep Bibles on their coffee tables or in their cars and think that book has some special power to keep them safe. But that’s not truth, that’s just superstition.

Your Bible isn’t a good luck charm. Those words on those pages aren’t enough to change your life and help you live in a fallen world. In order for those words to do that, you need to know what they mean and use them.

That’s why there’s another Greek word that the Bible uses to mean the Word of God, and it’s one you’ve probably heard before. It’s Logos. That’s a powerful word. John writes about the Logos in the first chapter of his gospel when he says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

When John says that, he means Jesus. He calls Jesus the Logos because Jesus was sent as God’s messenger to be God’s message to us. And that’s the important part — the message.

When you read your Bible slowly and prayerfully, or hear a sermon about a part of scripture, or attend a Bible study, then you’re doing a lot more than just reading a book, aren’t you?

You’re really digging into it. Now you’re using the Logos, and now you’re getting somewhere, because Hebrews says that the Logos is sharper than a two-edged sword. It’s a living thing that’s active in your life, and it’s job is to act like a spiritual X-ray. It shows you the truth of things.

The Logos is what turns those words in a book into a power that can change your life, but it’s still not what Paul means when he says to take up the word of God.

In Ephesians 6:17, when Paul says to, “take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,” the Greek term he uses is a word called rhema, and that word just means what’s been spoken. More specifically, it means what’s been spoken to you.

You might have never heard of rhema, but I bet you’ve experienced it. You know how there are verses and stories in the Bible that you know by heart? You know everything about them. You’ve heard it all.

But then one day you read that verse or that story, and all of a sudden there’s something new in there that you’ve never heard or seen before. And most importantly, that something new speaks right to the problem you’re having, or the need you’ve been praying for, or a struggle you’re going through.

That’s rhema. It’s something that God speaks directly to you out of His written word. That that is the sword of the Spirit that God gives you in your battles.

That’s why it’s so important to make sure you’re treating the Bible the way you should. Because there are a lot of people who never get past thinking that the Bible is a book they take out once a week to bring to church.

And you should always bring your Bible to church. I’m going to start getting on anybody I don’t see with a Bible here on Sunday. But that Bible is still just a book until you open it up and read it and hear God’s spirit speaking to you through it.

Then there are other people who get stuck in the Logos. They’re all about understanding the sermon, and they attend every Bible study they can, and they have whole notebooks filled with notes. But they haven’t gone back and used anything they’ve learned to get through the hard parts of their lives.

That’s why it’s so important to read and study the Bible every day and then use what it says. Because you have to hear God speaking to you, and then you have to take what God says to you through His word and say it right to the devil. It’s the most important weapon you have. It’s the only weapon you have, because it’s the only one you need.

Years ago, I heard the chaplain of the U.S. Congress speak. He was an old dignified black man with white hair and he had this deep, smooth voice that you’d imagine God Himself would use. He stood up to deliver his sermon, and the first thing he did was raise his battered old Bible in the air and say, “Un-sheath your swords.”

I love that. You can’t win without your sword. You have to un-sheath it. And you can’t win if that sword is knocked out of your hand. That’s why the devil’s going to try to keep that sword away from you, especially when things go bad. If he can twist God’s words — or worse, if he can get you to ignore those words — then the devil’s going to have the run of things.

We see that happening all around us now, don’t we? I read a poll last week from the Barna Group, which is the largest polling group in the country when it comes to religion. The question they asked was a simple one: What do you use to determine what’s right and wrong in your life?

Here’s what they found: Less than a third of the people in America now say that it’s the Bible that determines right and wrong. Keep in mind that there’s still 64% of the country that calls themselves Christians. Sixty-four percent, but less than 30% say the Bible determines what’s right and what’s wrong. There’s something very worrying about that.

The most popular answer — given by Christians and non-Christians, by the way — is that people determine what’s right and wrong by what they feel in their hearts.

Aww. That sounds kind of lovely, doesn’t it? Kind of like the whole world’s a Hallmark card, and everyone’s kind and generous and filled with love. The problem is that the world isn’t a Hallmark card, and people are sinful, and every bit of that sin begins in the heart, in the one place that all those people are deciding right and wrong.

The second most popular answer is even worse: Right and wrong should be decided about the government. What are governments but people with sinful hearts? From Rome to Nazi Germany to Communist Russia, Iran, China, to North Korea, history has proven time and time again what terrible things are guaranteed to happen when people make government is the sole authority of right and wrong.

Satan loves to hear you say, “Well, I think … ” Laughs every time you say, “Well, my opinion is … ” Because he knows what we so often refuse to understand: there’s no power in what we think, or what we feel, or what other people say. But when you stare the devil in the eyes and tell him, “God says … ” he turns and runs.

That’s how Jesus fought the devil. Do you think you can come up with a better way of fighting your spiritual battles other than the way Jesus did? All he did when Satan tempted him was quote scripture. “It is written, it is written, it is written.”

And the devil fled, just like he’ll flee from you. He’s scared of that sword God’s given you. The devil can’t stand against the truth. But you have to learn how to use that sword every day. You have to dig into the Bible and let God talk to you.

You’re armed now. You’re prepared for battle. You have all of your armor on and everything you need to fight the devil. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.

I have one more visual aid to show you this morning. [Harvey, can you put that up?] It’s the perfect picture of you in the middle of spiritual warfare. I found this a while back when I started working on this series, and it’s become one of my favorite things.

This painting is called “Checkmate.” It was painted in the 1800s by a German artist named Muritz Retzsch. For years it was displayed in the Louvre in Paris until it was sold.

The inspiration for that painting was taken from a very famous play called Faust. That’s poor Faust there on the right. He’s playing a game of chess against the devil there on the left. And the stakes are high, because if the devil wins, he gets Fausts’s soul.

I want you to notice a few things here. Look at the devil’s expression. He’s confident, isn’t he? Smug. Completely in control. He knows that he has Faust overmatched here. The devil’s been playing this game for countless years with countless people.

On the other hand, look at Faust. You can tell by the way he’s leaning over the board that it’s his turn to move. He’s got one hand on his forehead, trying to figure out what to do. He’s worried. He looks weak, doesn’t he? He’s as weak as the devil is strong. In fact, Faust looks scared out of his mind.

And he has good reason to be scared. Look at how many pieces the devil’s already captured. He has almost all of them. In fact, on the devil’s last move, he captured Faust’s queen. You can see it still in his hand. In chess, the queen is the most powerful piece.

If you look at the board itself, you see how much space the devil controls. He has plenty of room to move. Faust doesn’t. He’s been pushed back about as far as he can go.

You don’t have to know anything about chess to know the devil’s winning here, and winning by a lot. Faust is in trouble. In fact, the game’s over.

So the story goes, in the late 1800s a chess grandmaster was visiting the Louvre and came across this painting. He stood there for almost an hour and then suddenly screamed.

He called for the museum’s director and asked for a chessboard (I guess back then, everybody had a chessboard handy). The grandmaster got the board and arranged all the pieces in the same way they are in this painting, and then he realized something incredible.

The game in that painting really is over. But it’s the devil who’s about to lose. All Faust has to do is make a single move, and he’ll have checkmate.

See the angel back there? That angel represents God. What’s God looking at? He’s not looking at the devil. God’s not worried about the devil. In fact, it’s almost like the devil doesn’t know God’s even there.

It’s amazing the way that angel is painted, because it has one eye on the board and the other on Faust. God’s been in control the whole time. Every move on both sides has been according to His will, and now He’s just waiting for Faust to ask Him for help on how to make that final move to defeat the devil.

That’s how it is with you. God’s always right there with you. God’s always in control. The devil can smirk and fight and take all the pieces he wants, but he can’t defeat you. Not as long as you have Christ. Not as long as you’re wearing his armor.

It might feel like you’re one move away from losing everything, but that’s because you’re looking at the board instead of looking at God. If you look at God, you might just find you’re one move away from gaining everything instead.

We’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving this week. For many of us, it’ll be a difficult time. This day of thanks will remind us more of what’s been taken away than what’s been given.

But I think right now there’s nothing we need more as a people and a nation than Thanksgiving. Nothing we need more than a day that asks us to remember God’s blessings on each and every one of us, and to see our lives not through worldly eyes but eternal ones — to see with the eyes of faith.

Faith that says God is on His throne. Faith that says with Him, you will overcome. Faith that says what Satan would have you think is loss is truly gain, and more gain than you could ever think possible.

Faith that says He holds you tight in His arms and won’t ever let you go. Faith that says you are not alone in your battles, because Christ Himself dresses you and fights for you, and because of that you will stand in the end, and stand firm.

Let’s pray.

Father, life can be so hard sometimes. We know we will face trials and troubles, and yet so often they still sneak upon us and leave us shaken and stunned and wondering where You are. That’s why we’re so thankful for all the armor you give us to not just endure our times of suffering, but to overcome them. And not just to overcome them, but to find at their end that You’ve made us stronger, You’ve made us more faithful, and You’ve brought us closer to You. So thank You for our hard times, Father, as difficult as that is to say. And thank You for the peaceful times that always follow. For it’s in Jesus’s name we pray, Amen.