The Strength Of His Might (Ephesians 6:10-12)

Introduction

A. Preliminaries

Welcome: Please turn with me in your Bibles to the sixth Chapter of Ephesians, beginning in verse 5. Our text this morning will be verses 10 thru 12 of Chapter 6, which you can find near the top of page 1163 in the navy blue Bibles found in your pews.

Ephesians 6:10–12 (ESV)

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.

This is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

B. Review (And “Finally...”)

This morning, our text is what I like to call “The Beginning of the End” of Ephesians. What I mean by that is that what we find here are the start of Paul’s closing words to the Church in Ephesus. How do I know that? Well, look at the text. Paul says...

Ephesians 6:10 (ESV)

Finally...

Do you know what the Greek word here literally means? It means Finally.

The word means “pertaining to that which is leftover after all the main has been said.”

Paul has been addressing various groups. Husbands, wives, parents, children, servants, masters. Now he addresses the whole group. And what Paul means to do in his closing words is give the Ephesian Christians (and Christians throughout the ages) strength. That’s his goal.

And I’ll bet you can understand why. For the last three months, we have been working through the latter part of Chapter 5 and the first part of Chapter 6. And we’ve been hearing about the work that’s before us.

The work for all of us. The work for wives. The work for husbands. The work for parents. The work for children. The work for servants and masters which we have paralleled to some extent to the work before employers and employees and basically anyone who is in authority over anyone else.

And you could be forgiven, after 3 months of that, for feeling a bit…tired. Or at the very least challenged. We have a lot of work before us. A lot of sanctification that needs to happen in our lives, in our homes, in our kitchens, and in our workplaces.

When you look at all you’ve been called to, odds are you will feel weary. The work of marriage, the work of children, the work of…work. Man. Maybe I should just sit down for a minute. I have lots of duties. And, as we’re going to see later in this text—some pretty impressive enemies. You tired yet?

And this Paul says “Finally…I want you to be strong. To be strong for this fight. To be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.

C. Transition

And so with that in mind, I want us to think this morning a bit about the battle before us. And I want you to see at least three things from our text today. Three aspects of this battle from our text. It is...

1. A Battle That Requires Strength 2. A Battle That is Real 3. A Battle That is Won

I. A Battle That Requires Strength

Paul begins this final admonition with these words,

Ephesians 6:10 (ESV)

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.

This is a call to strength. But the first thing we need to know about this, is that it’s set up in a passive voice in Greek. Which means it could also be translated “Be strengthened.” The reason it’s translated be strong is because it’s a command. But it’s a command in the passive. This fits well with Paul’s earlier words in Chapter 3

Ephesians 3:16 (ESV)

that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,

You obey the command to be strong by being strengthened. And where does this strength come from?

Ephesians 6:10 (ESV)

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.

from the strength of his might. Some translations render it more simply, “and by his mighty power.”

This is likely a callback to Ephesians 1:19, where Paul spoke of

Ephesians 1:19 (ESV)

...the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might

The call God has put before you, Christian is a mighty call. Overwhelming, some might say. But the power he has given you to fight is overwhelming-er.

So you must be strengthened for this fight. And He will strengthen you.

II. A Battle That Is Real

Ephesians 6:11–12 (ESV)

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.

The way that you are strengthened by the Lord is by putting on His armor. Over the course of the next few Sundays, we will unpack what that armor is and what it means and how to put it on and why it’s necessary.

Because this Battle is Real. We are a people at war. My mentor, Mike Sharrett, back in college used to tell me “There’s no way out of a fight. You are either at war with sin, and at peace with God, or you’re at peace with your sin, and at war with God. But there’s no neutral ground.”

And we must recognize that our opponents in this fight are pretty impressive.

Ephesians 6:12 (ESV)

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.

A. Not Against Flesh and Blood

Now it is really important that we understand what this means. Because very often in American Church life this verse is used not to equip saints to fight spiritual warfare, but to shame them for engaging in any sort of opposition with men.

So I want to interface with this question—when we say we do not wrestle with flesh and blood, do we mean that we don’t or we should not engage in any wrestling with people? With enemies of the Gospel? With political powers and civic authorities? Does this mean never fight with wicked men? Or with the state? (But I repeat myself).

Well, there’s good cause to say No. Remember that when Paul writes to the saints at Ephesus, he is writing on the basis of a previously established relationship. We know from the book of Acts that when Paul was in the seaport city of Miletus he...

Acts 20:17 (ESV)

Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him.

And he tells them that he’s going to Jerusalem. He tells them to take care of the flock (“Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers...”)

And then he says this to the Elders of the Church of Ephesus...

Acts 20:29–30 (ESV)

I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.

Some false teachers are coming. So what does Paul say. He says “False teachers are coming. But remember brothers, that you don’t fight against flesh and blood, so don’t pick any fights with them.”

No. He says

Acts 20:31–32 (ESV)

Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

He builds them up so that they are ready…to fight. Against human false teachers. Who are at the same time bringing through the doors a matter of spiritual warfare.

Our warfare is spiritual, dear saints. But in this world, we do not have the comfort of fighting abstract disembodied evil. When Paul says that our warfare is spiritual, he does not mean that we never fight with other people. He means that the Church is not the one deploying the armies, loading the guns, and executing men of blood and wickedness. That’s the job for the state. Our work is a spiritual work, but we do not go to war with vague and abstract concepts of disembodied evil. We go to war with principalities and powers, recognizing that their works, schemes, and personnel often have earthly names and identities.

Now are there some nuances and lines we have to draw here? Sure. If the magistrate—that is, a Ruler of the State—is a Christian, he has to double duty here, but never with the power of the Church.

The Church doesn’t fight with carnal, physical, worldly weapons. That doesn’t mean we don’t do things like defend our homes or our livelihoods. It means that the primary fights that confront the body of Christ as the body of Christ are not fights that we fight with the sword or the gun. It doesn’t mean that we don’t recognize wickedness, curses, and evil schemes in the political and civic realm. It means we do not fight those things with man-made weapons, because—as the body of Christ—that is not our fight.

If our Sheriff is a Christian, he’s going to have to do both. If an Army General is a Christian, he’s going to have to do both. If our President was a Christian, he would have to be mindful of both.

So our warfare is spiritual, our warfare is not a war that we wage by means of flesh and blood warfare. But at the same time we acknowledge that this doesn’t mean that we have the comfort of fighting vague and abstract concepts of nameless, disembodied evil.

B. Still A Very Real Fight

The reason Paul sets our focus on the spiritual nature of this fight is because—in our flesh—we always tend to reduce our fight to fights of the flesh.

I am convinced that the reason why Paul brings out spiritual warfare terminology here in Ephesians 6 is because we would otherwise be tempted to neglect the spiritual aspect of the challenges that confront us.

Remember he sets before us all these duties. Wives, husbands, parents, children, servants, masters, and there is a temptation in those good and proper directives and commandments to think “Well, I guess the fight is just between me and my temptations. Me and my weakness. Me and my problems. Me and my afflictions.”

But the reality is that the battles we are fighting are not the battles it looks like we are fighting. The enemy we think we are up against is rarely the one we are actually up against.

When you are having car trouble, you tend to only see the car parts. When you are having money trouble, you tend to only see the numbers. When you are having trouble at work, you tend to only see the conflicts at work. When you are having trouble with your kids, you tend to only see the kids. When you are having trouble with an illness, the illness is all you think about. You really messed up your choices. You failed again. You crushed your husband. You disappointed your wife. You were harsh with your kids. You stepped on a lego. Your trouble balloons up and crowds out everything else in your eyesight.

Because that is the real problem, isn’t it?

Not really. That’s not the point. It’s not God’s point.

Always be mindful Christian that

The thing God is doing and the thing you find yourself to be obsessed with are often not the same thing.

The point is that you learn to fear God, and not man.

The point is that the god-like version of yourself that you think you are has to die before God can be God to you.

The point is your temper and your ability to bless God in the midst of it.

You are focused on one thing, but the real game is different. It’s like you are playing handheld video games on the bench, and you’re so mad because you are losing. Meanwhile, the real game is five feet away, and your team is out there, losing.

We are very prone to misread the fight we are in. And meanwhile, we are losing the actual fight.

Our temptation is to take the spiritual fight less seriously than the one that is clouding up our vision.

When that’s the real fight, and the other things are simply tactical settings for that fight. The real fight.

Now look, there is an “other side of the coin” here. You can get so obsessed with the demons that you can find a demon under every rock and inside every car problem. So that everything is a high-drama, high-passion, high intensity fight for you. That usually has more to do with needing drama to make your life exciting. We will talk more about that in Sundays to come.

But the point I am trying to make here is that materialism is not maturity. We live in a fantastical spiritual world, filled to the brim with actual demons and powers and evils and spiritual fights, and that warfare is intensely real.

I love the way John Piper put it in his book Future Grace, he says,

It is true, as Martin Luther says, “His doom is sure” and “One little word will fell him,” but the fight is not a charade. We are not playing war games. The guns are loaded. The stakes are high. And our only hope is to live and fight not by our own strength...

So far we have seen that this battle requires strength. This Battle is Real. And finally this is...

III. A Battle That is Won

Ephesians 6:12 (ESV)

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.

The Book of Ephesians ends with a fight. But don’t forget that the Book of Ephesians began with a victory.

We fight under the banner of God our Father who raised our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. We know that...

Ephesians 1:20–23 (ESV)

...he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Our fight with the powers requires strength, because it is a real fight.

But we are meant to fight with the glee and the joy of a victorious people. One of the great accomplishments of the Devil in the last century has been to afflict the American Evangelical Church in particular with a sense of utter hopelessness.

For the last century, I have heard a great deal of hopeless defeatism from broad Evangelicalism.

Everything is getting worse. Everything is spiraling downward. We were made to lose. That’s our lot in life. We just lose all the time, and then we go to heaven. Don’t fight that hard for reform. Fight the personal individual sin in your own life, sure, but don’t hope for great victories in this age. Just read your Bible and wait for the Rapture. There’s nothing we can really do down here to change the tide for the better.

What this ended up being in practice is that broad evangelicalism catechized itself in 3,000 tons of cynical pessimism. We preached a pious-sounding retreat for decades. And then we were shocked to see our churches more empty, our streets more bloody, greater wickedness spread throughout the land, good being called evil, evil being called good. And meanwhile we just kept telling each other not to polish the brass on the sinking ship.

That is not the way the apostles talk in the New Testament. They tend to see every setback as the prelude to some sort of explosive victory for the Kingdom. The Apostle Paul speaks of a Savior-Messiah-King who is...

Ephesians 1:21 (ESV)

far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.

And I submit to you that American Evangelicalism needs to hear the reverse. We need to be told that he has all the power and authority not only in the age to come, but also in this one.

This is one of the lessons we are going to cover in the Wednesday Night Series “Lies that Christians Believe”—one of the big lies is “Everything around here is always getting worse.” That is not the arc of the Biblical narrative. Daniel speaks of a rock that becomes a mountain that covers the world. The Book of Acts closes with a Gospel that cannot be stopped and is about to conquer the Roman Empire.

We need to have the attitude of the prophet Elisha, surveying the army of the Syrians was ready for battle without a shred of fear because he could see the real fight. He saw the armies of the Lord and said to his servant, who was shaking in his boots, 2 Kings 6:16

2 Kings 6:16 (ESV)

He said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

And so my invitation to you as we explore some of these ideas in spiritual warfare together is not to preach to yourself a false gospel of cynical discouragement that refuses to believe that Jesus means to win.

He means to bring your prodigals home.

He means to make all of your trials into triumphs of his grace.

He means to take off your blinders that cause you to foolishly assume the problem in front of you is the biggest problem you have, and show you that your own sin, fear, cynicism, arrogance, lust, bitterness, and self-pity are making you a running joke to demonic hoards, and he means to make you a serious threat to their plans.

He means to make you, his Church into a band of happy warriors. What else could you possibly be, given the victory of your Lord?

So here’s a football analogy (for Amer). Imagine a football team halfway through a game. And to say they are down would be kind. They are down by 38 points. The first half has been a sound beating.

And the coach comes into the locker room. You can hear a pin drop. Everyone is dejected and depressed. Sure they’ll keep playing in the second half, but let’s be honest, they’re just polishing brass on a sinking ship.

And the coach comes in and says “Gentlemen, no time to explain how, but I have acquired time machine. I have come back from the future, and I have the game film of the second half. And he pulls down a screen in the locker room and to the awe of everyone in the room shows a radical comeback in the second half. They see their own faces laughing and even joking around as they absolutely school the other team and run up the score by a wild magnitude, all the way to a decisive victory, and they see themselves being interviewed afterward by absolutely stupefied press.

Then the film ends, and the coach says. “Let’s go.”

And the roar in that room is something for the history books, as they charge out onto the field and win the game while joking, laughing, and running with all their might, all the way to the last second of the fourth quarter. They won the fight because they saw the game film.

You see, the glory of a finished fight means that you can fight freely and happily. You can go to war while feasting and joking and laughing. You can sing Psalms with big smiles. Because shout on, pray on, we’re gaining ground, Glory, Hallelujah.

Because—to quote my mentor Mike Sharrett once more—he used to say “You are not struggling so that one day you can finally be free. You have been made free. So, start struggling. Start fighting. Start wrestling. But not with flesh and blood. But with the powers and the principalities and all the other things that can actually kill you. Were it not for the already finished victory of your King.

So come and celebrate a war that’s already won, so you can fight a war that’s already won. You’ll need strength for that. So let’s feast together. And refresh ourselves.

In the name of Jesus. AMEN.