Ephesians 6:10–18 (NIV)

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

Do You See The Fight?

Introduction

Years ago I was really into boxing. There was a Mexican fighter who I followed who had just become the world champion by beating a Puerto Rican fighter. Now, he was set to take on his next big fight and it was against a former and aging champion. We went to the Staples Center to go and watch the fight (and let me pause and tell you that I don’t care what other company owns that arena, it’s always going to be the Staples Center to me), and watching the fight in-person is different than watching the fight on television.

So there was this long delay before the main event. We were just sitting there waiting, and waiting, and waiting for the main event. We knew something was wrong, but they weren’t reporting it in-person.

So Pastor Chuy, who just preached last week, sends me a text, because he is also a big boxing fan, and he tells me that the Mexican champion was being accused of having loaded gloves. He was putting dry and hardened pieces of hand wraps in his gloves, which is like putting plaster around the knuckles of your hands. Basically, he was caught trying to cheat.

So the fight begins, and the Mexican champion was absolutely dusted. He looked out of his league. His punching power was gone. It was like watching a shell of the man who had just become champion.

And what we all learned about this fighter was he had been fighting and winning due to loaded gloves. He was not fighting fairly.

Transition

And although a boxing story is an unusual way to start a sermon, we aren’t reading a typical passage of the scripture.

Paul ends his letter to the Ephesians by telling them that they are in a fight, and what the rest of the scriptures teach us about our enemy is that he doesn’t fight fair.

Text

So before I get into everything that Paul writes about, I want to remind you where we have been…

Paul has talked to us about being IN CHRIST.

Paul has talked to us about the power we have in UNITY.

Paul has talked to us about walking worthy of our CALLING.

Paul has talked to us about how a FAMILY IN CHRIST should love and serve one another.

And now we get to Ephesians 6.

You need to first observe the tone of this passage. Paul’s writing is much like the Coach that is firing up the team in the middle of the game. It’s like half-time of a Championship Game and Paul is trying to get the church fired up for what’s to come. That’s how you need to read Ephesians 6.

Paul is a man on fire. Paul is ready to go and wrestle a bear.

Be Strong in the Lord

But the first thing that Paul tells them is to Be Strong in the Lord.

I know that this phrasing is a little unusual, so what Paul is saying is strengthen yourself in the Lord. Draw your strength from the God you serve.

That’s a powerful statement, and it begs the question, where else would we draw our strength from?

Well, I think that in this cultural moment there are those who are drawing their strength from their education. The degrees on their walls, and the initials after their last names can nauseate a person. They derive their worth and accomplishment through their education. They are drawing strength from education.

Then there are others who draw strength from their bank accounts. Their confidence comes from the material things that they have earned here in this life. There is a sense of strength that they get because they have accumulated wealth.

Then there are others who draw their strength from their worldview or political stance. They feel that they are superior to others because of their political science background, or in some cases their TikTok education. Whatever it is, they feel that they are culturally superior to others.

And I can go on and on, but Paul is making the argument that we need to draw our strength from the Lord.

We don’t trust in our accomplishments, we trust in the God we serve.

We trust in the God who is able.

We trust in the God who takes ordinary people, and he uses them to do extraordinary things.

Can I give you some examples from our Bible of people who learned to draw their strength from the Lord?

Moses - he was an orphan with a stuttering problem. He tried to tell God that he couldn’t be used by God to lead Israel. And what did God tell him? I will go with you. Moses drew his strength from the Lord.

Gideon - he was the least of his family, which was the least of their tribe, which was the least of their nation. Gideon told God, “my resume stinks! You don’t want me.” But instead the Angel of the Lord called Gideon a mighty man. He told him BE STRONG. Gideon drew his strength from the Lord.

David - he was looked over by his father and he wasn’t very liked by his brothers. And yet God anointed Him to be King. While everyone else thought he couldn’t be King because he was young and he was small, God made him the greatest King in Israel. David drew his strength from the Lord.

You see all throughout the Bible we find example after example of people that were strengthened by God. All he asked that they do is to trust in the Lord.

Believe that the Lord is on their side.

Know that the Lord will never leave them.

Listen to the voice of God.

Closely follow the commands of the Lord.

[PAUSE]

Can I give you the paradox of being strong in the Lord?

To be strong in the Lord is to live a life of complete surrender to God.

I know that feels backwards. I know that surrendering doesn’t feel like a show of strength. But remember we are not surrendering to the world or to the culture. No, we are surrendering to the one who reigns. We are surrendering to the one who has all power in his hands!

And today, before you leave, if you have never surrendered your life to the Lord, and if you have never accepted Jesus to be your Savior, we are going to give you the chance to do that.

If you’re tired of doing it your way, a fresh start is here today. You can hit the reset button. You can begin again.

It’s a Supernatural Thing

Let’s look at what Paul tells us next in the text. He reminds us that we don’t wrestle against flesh & blood. I know that sounds weird, so what Paul is saying is people are not your enemy.

People who don’t vote like you.

People who don’t look like you.

People who don’t share your world view.

They are not your enemy.

Last month during our series on mental health I made this statement - You can’t solve a natural problem with a spiritual solution. And this statement trigged people. Especially hyper-spiritual people. You know the kind who believe you can pray your cellulite away?

So I did something real fun, I posted that to TikTok.

And oh the views and the comments that followed…

Some people were losing their minds in the comment section.

“God can do anything!”

And yes he can, but can you develop discipline?

So let me once again make this point, but I am going to say it differently.

You can’t solve a supernatural problem with a natural solution.

Here in the text that is what Paul is reminding us about.

Spiritual warfare is real. The enemy is real. And where he fights is in the spirit. And we have Christians that don’t know how to pray in the Spirit. They don’t know how to engage in spiritual warfare. They are unaware that there is a spirit realm that is more real than the world that we see, and they have not learned how to engage in spiritual things.

Paul is waking up the church and listen to what he tells them:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

I said this with the men on Monday, and it’s worth repeating here. We are fighting against an enemy that knows us. He has studied us. He knows our weaknesses. He knows the sin you’ve been trying to hide. He’s got your search history. He’s crafty, he’s clever, and, he doesn’t fight fair.

And yet, we have followers of Jesus who aren’t engaged in their word. They aren’t engaged in prayer. They aren’t equipped to fight in the spiritual realm. And because of that, they’re fighting the wrong fight.

The church has spent far too much time trying to win our City by being agreeable, and cool, and permissive.

What our city needs is a church that prays for the strongholds to be destroyed.

The city needs a church that is praying for generations to be changed.

The city needs a church that is less concerned about style and preference and more concerned about loving people back to life.

This city needs a revival and it starts in the spirit.

Spiritual Warfare

Let me give you an explanation about how spiritual warfare works.

Satan launches a spiritual attack, and it is manifested in the natural world.

The spiritual stronghold of addiction is manifested in a person being an alcoholic or an addict.

People will struggle to quit because they are only trying to placate the symptom, which could be drinking or drugs, without breaking the stronghold of addiction.

The spiritual stronghold of lust is manifested in sex outside of the covenant of marriage or an extra marital affairs.

This is why we contend that in your singleness, you need to be devoted entirely to God. If you begin to give yourself to person after person, you could bring that with you into your future marriage, and marriage doesn’t break strongholds. Marriage doesn’t help your lust problem. This needs to be fought and won before you enter into marriage.

The spiritual stronghold of hate is manifested in gang activity.

So the cure is not just to stop the symptom of violence but to break the stronghold of hate with the Love of Jesus.

And so what community resource groups do, and what government agencies due, is they do things to treat the symptoms. They want to deal with the gang issue, they want to deal with homelessness, and the list goes on and on.

And all of those are good things to do, and they help in reducing the symptoms.

But there’s another dimension in the spirit realm that God needs his church to engage in. God needs his church to start praying for the strongholds to be broken. God needs his church to intercede for the lost. The church needs to have a burden and a passion to stir up a revival in the city. And when we engage in spiritual warfare we start to turn the tide on what is happening in the natural.

Are you following with me?

So, do the things you need to in the natural, but don’t neglect the spiritual! Wage war in prayer. Wage war with fasting. Wage war in intercession.

Remember, that you are not a natural person having a supernatural experience, but you are a spiritual person who is having a natural experience. The natural, the things that we can see, touch, and taste are temporary. But the spiritual things, the things that are unseen are eternal.

Do you see the fight that is happening all around you? If not, you need to wake up to see it and to step into the fight.

The Armor of God

And then we get to this very popular passage of scripture where Paul tells the church to Put on the Armor of God. Paul describes the full armor of God that we are to put on so that we can engage in spiritual warfare. And church, we see the brilliance of Paul as he writes about the armor of God.

I want to remind you that Paul is sitting in jail and there are armed guards around him. As he observes what these Roman guards are wearing he makes the application of their armor to the Armor of God. He’s looking at the guards breastplate, his shield, his sword, and so on, and one by one, he compares it to the Armor of God.

I want to show you something in the text as to why it is called the Armor of God. There is a reason Paul uses this language.

Paul said to put on the breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of salvation.

Isaiah 59:16–17 (NIV)

He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm achieved salvation for him, and his own righteousness sustained him. He put on righteousness as his breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on his head; he put on the garments of vengeance and wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak.

Paul said to put on the belt of truth.

Isaiah 11:5 (LEB)

And righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

So you see Isaiah, way back in the Old Testament, begin to describe the coming of Jesus to a soldier putting on his armor. Then Paul, he tells the Christian to do the exact same thing.

Put on the Armor of God.

See your Lord as a Lion, and do the same thing. Take up your sword and be ready to fight to your enemy.

All creation waits with anticipation for the son’s of God to be revealed. Take up your heavenly armor, dress like your Father, and step into the fight.

Pick the Right Armor (Conclusion)

As I consider the Armor of God I am reminded once more about another story in the Old Testament that centered around the wearing of armor. It is the story of the soon to be King David who stepped into a valley to fight with a giant.

The story goes that young David, who is just a teenager, has already been anointed to be the next King of Israel. He knows it, his Dad knows it, and his brothers know it. But the rest of Israel, they don’t know it yet.

And Israel is in a conflict with the Philistines, and the best Philistine fighter, Goliath, has called out the best fighter in Israel and no man would answer the call. This fighter, Goliath, was a giant of a man. All of Israel trembled at his presence and no one would fight this giant.

Then David one day was sent by his Dad to deliver food to his older brothers who were soldiers in the Israel army. David shows up and he sees this giant not only challenging Israel, but also mocking their God. And this didn’t sit well with David. It was one thing to mock the army, but to mock their Lord? David would have no part of that. So David answers the call. David steps up to fight their enemy and they bring him to the King, King Saul.

Saul questioned his ability to fight this giant since he was only a boy, but as I said just a minute ago, when you draw your strength from the Lord, it doesn’t matter who your enemy is.

Your enemy could be sickness…. draw your strength from the Lord.

Your enemy could be addiction… draw your strength from the Lord.

Your enemy could be divorce… draw your strength from the Lord.

It doesn’t matter who or what you face, but it does matter where your strength comes from.

And I want us to read what David tells the King:

1 Samuel 17:37 (NIV)

The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.” Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.”

David could stand in confidence because he knew where his strength came from.

But before he could head out to battle, Saul tried to convince David to wear his armor. He tells him to put on his weapons so that he wouldn’t be defenseless. But David refused to put on Saul’s armor and instead went out with nothing but a stone and a sling.

And there are many people in here perfectly content to put on Saul’s Armor rather than put on the Armor of God.

Saul’s armor represents mans way of doing things. Saul was the people’s King, he was not God’s King.

And whatever God creates, Satan counterfeits.

Don’t put on counterfeit armor.

Don’t settle for stepping into a fight with the enemy wearing the wrong armor. You’ll wear the wrong armor and you will get yourself killed.

Put on the full Armor of God. Wear the things that Jesus was equipped with and you’ll be able to stand against the attacks of the enemy.

Put on a belt of truth.

Strap on the breastplate of righteousness.

Lace up the gospel of peace on your feet.

Pick up the shield of faith.

Put on the helmet of salvation.

And finally, get the sword of the spirit.

And when you’ve done all of these things, then begin to pray as Paul says. And pray at all times.

Call

Next Steps…

Make a decision to follow Jesus.

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Sign up for Baptism Sunday on July 14, and our Baptism Class on July 8.

Sign up for Growth Track on July 13.