Shoes And Shields (Ephesians 6:15-16)

Our text this morning is verses 13 and 14, but for reasons that will become evident to you I am going to start by reading our passage from verse 10. You can find that on page 1163 in the navy blue Bibles found in your pews.

Ephesians 6:10–15 (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. 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.

B. Armor to Stand

By way of reminder, Paul has been building a point here in this section of chapter 6 using the idea of standing and standing strong. You see it starting in verse 10.

Ephesians 6:10 (ESV)

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

So strength is in play.

Strength to do what?

Ephesians 6:11 (ESV)

Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

Standing is the goal here.

Ephesians 6:12–13 (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. 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.

And so we learned last Sunday that these commands are spotlighted in the text, because they are repeated.

Be able to stand.

Withstand.

Having done all, Stand firm.

This waves over this section of Ephesians like a war banner. There’s this call to stand, and then Paul describes the aristea--the body of the church putting on this armor together for spiritual warfare.

We talked last week about the belt of truth and the breastplate of righteousness. This morning we talk about shoes and shields.

So there are at least three things I want you to see in this text. We are given here

Shoes for Standing A Shield for Believing Faith for Fighting

I. Shoes for Standing

If you will join me at verse 15

Ephesians 6:15–16 (ESV)

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;

Now just as the images of belt and breastplate were borrowed from the Prophet Isaiah, so we see that continue here.

Isaiah 52:7 (ESV)

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

This verse speaks of an old wartime tradition in the ancient world. That a man would be sent out after a victorious battle. And his job was to run as fast as he could back to the city, to bring the good news of victory to the city. He’s coming home and shouting “We won!” “We won!”

His function was something like the two crier or the boys hawking newspapers in the cities in the 20’s. Standing on the street corners and shouting the headlines.

Except there were three things that this fellow would often be shouting as he ran:

“Peace” and

“Good Tidings” and

“Salvation” and a fourth thing (we know from this text in Isaiah)

“Your God Reigns”

Now remember the repeated phrasing here in this section about standing firm. Shoes are going to help with that. It’s why athletes wear cleats that dig into the dirt.

So let’s think about these shoes.

Ephesians 6:15 (ESV)

and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

So notice: The readiness and the shoes are the same thing. You put on the readiness given by the Gospel.

A. Readiness

The word readiness is interesting. The verb “to be ready” shows up often enough in the New Testament, but this word readiness–this is the only time it shows up in the New Testament.

The idea is that your feet are fitted and ready for spiritual warfare. Because you’ve got some running to do. This is really important. This means that the Gospel of peace is not meant to be kept in a treasure box somewhere. To receive it is to receive the mission to spread it. And furthermore, to receive it is to receive a readiness to spread it.

When Paul picks up this language from Isaiah, he’s doing something really interesting with it. Because the runner with the good news would be deployed after the battle was over. But this runner who is carrying the good news of the victory is still engaged in the warfare. Do you see? This gets at that “now and not yet” reality in theology. That the Kingdom is both here and not yet here fully. These shoes are for delivering the good news of a finished victory and a finished peace, and they are shoes for the battle that is still going on.

This is important because it shines some light on our growing understanding of these commands to

Be able to stand.

Withstand.

Having done all, Stand firm.

Standing firm apparently doesn’t only mean standing. It also means running. It’s not just defensive, it is also offensive. It’s not just celebrating the victory of Jesus over your sin, it means carrying the attack into enemy territory, and plundering Satan’s kingdom by announcing the promise of rescue to captives.

This means that believing the gospel of peace readies your feet to spread the gospel of peace. The Spirit-wrought willingness to believe the Gospel will bring with it a Spirit-wrought willingness to announce this Gospel.

What we have seen so far is that these pieces of the armor of God bear a parallel to God’s own work in the Old and New Testament and so we see that here again. We are a people ready for action, ready to take up this work of spreading the Gospel of peace because that is exactly what our Lord Jesus did. We learned that back in Chapter 2.

Ephesians 2:14–17 (ESV)

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.

Here is what I want you to learn from this:

First,

The Putting on of the shoes is the Readiness to Announce the Gospel

(Gospel means good news of the death, resurrection, ascension, and reign of Jesus. Announce means to speak.)

The Announcement of the Gospel and the Fight of Spiritual Warfare cannot be separated.

We must know this, in two areas:

Area 1: Withstanding Temptation

As you fight the fights of temptation, you need the Gospel to do it. The law awakens you to your sin, and the Gospel delivers you from your sin. You see, even Christians forget what God has said. Sin clouds our vision, clogs up our ears, puts a fog over our hearts, and sometimes we need to again here God’s Yes and God’s No.

But the fight against temptation must include the Gospel, because only forgiven men can fight this fight. If you believe that God will forgive you once you win, you will most certainly lose.

In the fights against lust, against anger, against laziness, against self-pity, against fear and anxiety, against hating and despising your brothers and sisters. Against your tendency to emotionally manipulate others to get what you want. Against all kinds of temptations—if you believe that Jesus will consider your application for forgiveness once you successfully get your act together, you will most certainly fail. Only forgiven men and women can fight sin.

And that is why

The Announcement of the Gospel and the Fight of Spiritual Warfare cannot be separated.

Area 2: Advancement Into Enemy Territory

Our readiness to announce the Gospel of peace is part of spiritual warfare, because it is our advancement into enemy territory.

One of the things I have learned in the last few years is that there are people who love to have mild lighting in a house. Sort of like mood lighting. They like low lights, lamps and candles and dimmers on low and so on. Or maybe just minimal natural light. Don’t touch those light switches. And then there are others who like to have every light in the house on. Maximum brightness. And these two kids of people almost always marry each other.

But the spread of the Gospel throughout the world is running to all the dark rooms in the house and turning on the lights. And it is the advancement of the body of Christ through all the dark places until all the light switches have been turned on. Over the centuries, some places where the lights were brightly shinning have grown dim, so we have to double back and crank the dimmer switch up.

But God has given this mission to his body to suit up. Shoes on. Get moving. There’s work to do. And the lights need to come on.

Because the messenger in Isaiah comes shouting “peace” and the result of that peace is that all the nations see it...

Isaiah 52:10 (ESV)

The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

This is fulfilled in the death of our Lord Jesus Christ who destroys the alienation between Jew and Gentile, and creates in himself a new humanity (Eph 2:15-16

Ephesians 2:15–16 (ESV)

by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

Christ has made peace through his death and now his messengers spread the news to the nations. And so in this really glorious paradox, we are a people who go to war by announcing peace. And we are made ready to do so by the peace of the gospel itself. Made ready. Not waiting for the day when we feel ready. But made ready.

II. A Shield for Believing

Ephesians 6:16 (ESV)

In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;

So we, the body, are called to take up the shield of faith. The word for shield here is not the small shield, but the large shield that covered the whole body..

Now the use of a shield as a metaphor in the Bible is pretty common, especially in the Old Testament where the shield is used many times as an image of God’s protection, probably one of the best known examples is Prov 30:5

Proverbs 30:5 (ESV)

Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.

Now here in Ephesians 6, the shield is our faith.

Now faith at many times in Ephesians has been the means of acquiring divine strength. Paul speaks in Chapter 1 of

Ephesians 1:19 (ESV)

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

And, in Chapter 3, he says

Ephesians 3:16–17 (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, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love,

So there is already this idea throughout Ephesians that faith and divine strength are connected.

So,

To take up the shield of faith is to believe God’s promises for us.

Not just for me on an individual level, but for us.

To take up the shield of faith is to believe God’s promises. To believe the Lord Jesus when he promises to meet us, as a people, when we gather to hear his word, and feast at his table.

And we must do this together. Because as many of you know, the shield was not just for individuals to be protected. I trust many of you know about the testudo shield wall.

When you think about this way of doing warfare, it really becomes important as we remember that the armor is for the body, and that we are fighting this fight together.

And to form a shield wall meant that every man had to be faithful to hold his shield up as they marched forward. If anyone got too scared or lost their nerve, the only way out of the battle was to drop your shield and run. Because the shield was big enough to cover your body and weighed about 20 pounds. So if you wanted to retreat that thing was your biggest liability. And so the expression developed in Roman culture, when a young man was going off to war, his mother would tell him “With it or on it.”

Come back home with your shield in your hand. Or being carried on your shield in death, as a coffin. But do not drop your shield and retreat. Come home with it or come home on it, but do not come home without it.

But if you see the Body of Christ as a body that fights together with the shield of faith as we move forward fitted with the Gospel of peace on our feet, you start to realize that the strengthening and maintaining of one another’s faith in the promises of God is one of our primary callings as Christians, and one of our primary tasks in spiritual warfare.

III. Faith for Fighting

This is why we place such a high priority on our gathered worship. Because by faith, we believe that our worship together is our marching together. This takes humility, because it means I can’t do this on my own. I need to confess my sins around other believers. I need to hear that my sins are forgiven. I need to sing with the saints. I need to hear the preached word. I need to commune with Jesus and His people at his table. I need the faith that believes that Jesus will meet me exactly where he has promised to be—In word spoken and in word made visible.

It’s faith that our fellowship is not just visiting. In most of the places I have lived we did not use the term visiting to describe spending time together. To my ears a “visit” is something that happens when you go to see relatives at Christmas who you’ve not seen since last Christmas. But since living here, I’ve learned that in certain parts of the South visiting just means spending time together. But our fellowship is not just visiting. It is building meaningful community with each other. I’m not saying you have to bear your soul and all your sins every time you get together with each other. There’s a time for that, and it’s not all the time.

But what I mean when I say community is a consistent pattern of preaching the Gospel to each other. Of speaking God’s words to each other. This is why we sing psalms and confess creeds and learn catechisms, and memorize Heidelberg 1, so that when we fall into the pit, we have an army of shields around us, with voices around us shouting “Don’t give up! Don’t drop your shield! What is your only comfort in life and in death? Don’t forget! Don’t drop your shield. “I need no other argument. I need know other plea. It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me.” Don’t drop your shield. Stand up and let’s sing again about God’s promises so we don’t forget. Keep going. The Lord will provide. The Lord will sustain.

Faith sometimes that we have to go back to work again (Well that didn’t work, let’s try again!)

Faith together in the goodness of the Lord Jesus. Martin Luther said that the two hardest words to believe in the good news of the Gospel are the words “For me.”

And so when those doubts come, we need to help each other raise the shield of faith. Because we have been well fitted with made ready with this gospel of peace. So raise your shield, church. With it or on it, let’s charge forward.