You Are A Warrior!

Read The Word

Ephesians 6:10–12 NLT

A final word: Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil. For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.

Introduction

So these are the final words, the final charge of Paul as he finishes his letter to the Ephesian church. And one of the most important things that you can do and in the best way to help make sure that people are understanding and are focused on the task that you have presented to them when you're writing a letter, when you are in a position of authority, is to have a call to action. This is something that is generally at the end of a letter or a speech that is going to propel the next steps for the person who finishes listening or reading this letter, right? Or the speech and you see this with presidents, you see this with organizational leaders, right? When you have someone who is trying to make a difference and want something to change in your life. They are going to give you all the truth, and then they are going to have a call to action. And so Paul's call to action here is that we put on the whole armor of God. We put on all of God's armor. So, who puts on armor? What is armor? Can someone give me some answers here? And what does armor do? So armor protects you from enemy attacks. And people who wear armor are typically for people who are expecting a fight. And a person who is in a battle, right? This is sometimes used today, but especially in this time, would have been a warrior, right? You have someone who is actively going out into battle and they need protection from the attacks of their enemy. And that is who wears armor. Warriors wear armor. And when Paul references us to wear armor, we need to understand who we are fighting against. And there are a couple of different enemies, but we don't just fight against ourselves. We don't just fight against the world around us. But we fight against those enemies as well as these evil rulers in an unseen realm. These heavenly places where we have a battle going on. that we cannot physically see.

Answers to Questions

And so there's some questions that come up when we read these verses that I want to address before we dive deeper into the text. But the 1st question is, why are we being attacked, right? Did I sign up for this? Did I agree to be drafted into some war of that I can't even see? And so the answer, I believe, we see throughout scripture, but I think a good summary in 1st John 3, verse 7 and 8 says this, dear children, don't let anyone deceive you about this. When people do what is right, it shows that they are righteous, even as Christ is righteous. But when people keep on sinning, it shows they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil. So that is why we are in this war. There is a battle going on between God and between Satan, between good and evil. And if you are a Christian, you have picked the side of good. You have picked the side that is against Satan. And so the reason that we are attacked by Satan is because he hates everything that God is. He wants to undermine and destroy as much of as he can. Because he is a deceitful, lying, person. So. When we are talking about this, we need to make sure that we understand that we are in a fight and that if you have chosen to follow Jesus, then you are choosing to be at battle against evil. And the other questions I want to ask are regarding who we're fighting against. What do we know about these evil rulers and authorities in the heavenly places? And so we're going to dive in a little bit deeper into some of the concepts behind who we're fighting because obviously we know about the devil, we know about Satan, and we know that there are demons, but we don't have a ton of information. There's not some chain of command we can look at that tells us exactly how each one of these guys is going to try to attack us. But let's look at what Paul says here and the rest of scripture to help us unpack the enemy that we fight against.

Main Points

1. Satan’s Scheme is to Deceive

And the 1st point is this. Satan's scheme is to deceive. Satan is a deceiver. He is a liar. He wants to trick us from the Garden of Eden. We have seen that his goal is to try to twist God's words and twist our minds into believing him when he is telling a blatant lie. And these lies, right, come in the form, a lot of times, of false doctrine, and there is a trend throughout most of Paul's writings, and including even in Ephesians, if you go back to chapter 4, verse 14, then we will no longer be immature like children. We won't be tossed and blown around by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever that they sound like the truth. So Paul is concerned with these false doctrines or false teachings as kind of a simple way to define doctrine, right? These lies that are coming up within the church, that Satan is trying to sprinkle in in order to turn people away from Jesus, to turn people away from the truth and to lead people astray. These false doctrines are a huge influence in how Satan works to undermine us to to try to fight us. There's a quote by an early church father named Jerome that, I'm not going to quote, because some of the words are kind of old and all that, but to kind of summarize what he said, about Satan and how he works is that Satan doesn't want to just come down and look like some big scary being all the time we see, you know, pictures of what the devil looks like and all these demons and stuff. Jerome's kind of point was that it wasn't necessarily, that's not the best plan that Satan does. Satan actually comes down trying to disguise himself as a messenger of light. And what he wants to do is he wants to, to throw a little, a little bit of half truth here and a half truth there. And he wants to get you to start trusting him, and then when you when he gets that, when that happens, then when you've built trust and you believe that he's telling you the truth, he says, hey, this is what the Lord's told me to tell you. That is the enemy we're fighting is not someone who's going to try to be the boogeyman under your bed. He's someone who is tricking you to believe he's actually telling you the truth when he's deceiving you. He's lying to you and telling you in the name of the Lord, that you should do these things. And there's scripture that backs this up in 1st John. Excuse me. And 2nd Corinthians, um, 11, 13 says this. These people are false prophets. They are deceitful workers who disguise themselves as apostles of Christ. But I'm not surprised, even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, so it is no wonder that his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. In the end, they will get the punishment, their wicked deeds deserve. So while we don't fight against just people specifically, and we'll dive more into that later, but People are deceived by Satan. They are blinded, as scripture says, by the ruler of this world. And so in that, he deceives them and he uses these people through their choices to to bring lies into the church and bring lies into your life. And he does so by disguising himself in a way that seems appealing and that he's truthful. So we have to make sure we are fighting against Satan's scheme, that is to deceive.

2. The Enemy is Active

The 2nd thing is this. The enemy is active. This is not an enemy that is sitting back. This is not an enemy that we're going to have to fight later, some other day. We get time to prepare. The enemy is trying to attack right now. First Peter 58 talks about, um, Satan searching around, uh, looking like a lion on the prowl, looking for someone to devour, right? This is not a an enemy that is being lazy, just because we don't always see this enemy. Lions are very good at hiding behind, uh, cover and to to slowly track their prey. The prey thinks that everything's okay. They don't see anything wrong with what's going on in the moment, but all of a sudden, It happens. And there's an attack by the lion. We have to be on the lookout for this enemy. The enemy, Satan wants to keep you from the truth. He is absolutely okay. With you wandering around in a bunch of lies, you might not feel like you're being attacked very much. Because he's got you where he wants you. Why does it matter to him? Why does he need to do anything that might make you change your mind of where you're at when you're living in sin? No, he wants you right there. So he's gonna leave you alone. It's when you're trying to follow after Jesus that you typically experience the most attacks from Satan because he's trying to to steer you away from doing the the good things of following after the Lord, the things that the Lord has called you to do. So we have to make sure we are on the lookout for an active enemy, an enemy that is not sitting back, but an enemy that is always looking for a way and a time to pounce on us. We need to be prepared.

3. Spiritual Fights Call For Spiritual Weapons

Third thing is this. Spiritual fights call for spiritual weapons. And Ephesians, 613, if we would continue reading for where we left off, we're gonna read through what's called the armor of God, as Paul describes this. Verse 13 says, therefore put on every piece of God's armor, so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle, you will still be standing firm. Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God's righteousness. For she was put on the peace that comes from the good news so that you will be fully prepared. In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil. Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. If you'll notice in this armor, right, we have, uh, where we start in here, we have The belt of truth. We've got the chest plate, the breastplate of righteousness. Shoes, we have the good news. Um, the piece that comes from the gospel. And then we have a shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil. This is a literal reference to Satan trying to attack you. And then you have salvation as your helmet and the sword of the spirit, out of all of those pieces of armor. There is only one offensive weapon. There's only one attacking weapon that is included in this list and that is the word of God. If we are going to fight against spiritual beings, we cannot rely on our ideas of how to fight against Satan. We have to rely on what scripture has taught us is effective to fight against Satan. And that is by using scripture. Jesus himself fights back against Satan when he is in the desert, and he has been fasting, and Satan comes to him and tempts him. He responds with scripture. That is important to note that that when there is a spiritual attack coming from Satan, Scripture is how we fight back. We can come up with very practical ways to avoid sin, and that's all great. But at the end of the day, if we're not backing up our actions with scripture and we are not memorizing and learning scripture and and using scripture against the evil thoughts that we have or the lies that try to pop up in our life, then we are going to fail. Because we will try to be fighting a battle with all these other defensive things, but nothing to attack and push the enemy back. You also have to see that all of these things are important for us to continue walking and pushing forward. There's nothing that's on our back. We're not supposed to turn away from the end. We are supposed to push forward against the enemy. And knowing that, um, the, Righteousness that we have from God and the truth that keeps everything together, the peace that we walk in, uh, ultimately, the shield and the helmet, these are all things that if we take away, we are at risk of being vulnerable to an attack. And we're not gonna dive completely into all this, so I would love for you to read this and study the armor of God later, to really see how important it is, all of these aspects of our faith, to making sure that we are able to fight the spiritual battles with spiritual weapons.

4. Remember Who The Real Enemy Is

Our 4th point is this. Remember who the real enemy is. And this is just kind of an aside almost. This is really just to make sure that we are. reminding ourselves that people themselves are not the main problem. And what I mean by that is that while, yes, as we've said before, people are used by Satan to. Try to lead the church astray, try to lead you astray in your beliefs. We know that Jesus transforms people's lives. We know that a Saul, who is killing Christians and is actively against everything Jesus stands for, can then turn into a Paul who writes Ephesians and 2 thirds of the New Testament, I think it is. I mean, we believe in the power of Jesus. to change lives. So if we are making our enemies so much about the human being, right, not the spiritual sin that we are fighting. We can become to be callous to believing that God can actually change people. And we can get to a point that it becomes more about the team that we're on versus that the battle that we're fighting. And you see this a lot in politics and you see this a lot in other beliefs that people have and in groups that they're a part of, right? We like to be little tribes and we like to have our group of people. And think of everyone else as just terrible awful heathens. And again, in the Christian mind, we understand that that people who are without Jesus are in sin. They are not saved. They are outside of the will of God. They are doing terrible things that are against God and we know that. But our goal should not be to focus so much on fighting with them on moral values or political values, but that we should be praying for changing their hearts. We should be presenting the gospel out of a hope and a prayer that God would open their eyes and that they would see the truth of their situation. Not because we want them to join our political party or be a part of our country club, right? We want people to, to be radically changed by the gospel. So, remember who the real enemy is. It is not the people who are on the other side of the political spectrum, as you, or on the other side of whatever sports team or they have different interests than you, the enemy are these evil rulers and Satan himself, who are liars and deceivers and actively against God.

5. The Battle Has Already Been Won!

And the last point is this. The battle has already been won. This is the greatest news out of anything I could say this whole night. Is that knowing that we're in a battle is difficult, it's it's hard to live the human life. It is difficult to go through life. But we know that the battle that we are fighting, the war that we are in has already been won. We have confirmation from scripture and what Jesus did confirms that we know that we won't lose in this while we may lose individual battles. Right? We may fall into sin. We don't have to give up as if everything is over and that we've lost all hope. And the best place to look at this, I think, is Corinthian, or sorry, Colossians. Chapter 2, verse 12, says this. For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized, and with him you were raised a new life because you trusted the mighty power of God who raised Christ from the dead. So we're talking about Christians who have believed, right? They were buried in his death and raised to life. That is the visual symbolic representation that we do with baptism. That's the idea, right? Raised a new life because you trusted the mighty power of God who raised Christ from the dead. Verse 13, you were dead because of your sins, and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away, then God made you alive with Christ. For he forgave all all our sins. He canceled the record of charges. Against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross. While it was humiliating for Jesus to go to the cross and to endure the pain and the suffering that he did. How much more is the shame on the devil? How much more is the shame on these evil authorities when they see that Jesus is rose again and that he is on the throne? And that the work of the Lord and the Holy Spirit is still moving and changing lives in this world, that they know that it is over. The spiritual rulers may try to fight us and they may try to trick us and deceive us, but they have no authority over us. Jesus Christ has disarmed them. Have you ever seen someone who's tried to fight me with a sword? Maybe they've got a gun or something. maybe watching a movie and someone takes the gun away from them or they take the sword away and they're helpless. They can't do anything. They can't fight back anymore. That is what Jesus has done to these spiritual rulers and authorities. He's taken away their ability to win the battle. And he shamed them publicly by his victory on the cross. That word, shame, it alludes to another verse in beginning of the gospels where Joseph is trying to divorce Mary quietly because he doesn't want to put her to shame. So imagine the shame, right? If he were to make a big spectacle of of her being pregnant and assuming that, you know, he cheated on her, and been unfaithful, and all this stuff, I mean, the shame that you would feel in that situation, public change. I mean, the ability for everyone to look at what's happening in this situation. Um, would be devastating. That's how the enemy feels in this moment. When they saw Jesus on the cross, and they think they have won in some sense. But when they see him rise again, they're like oh no. This didn't work out the way we planned. That is the beauty of the gospel, is that when we were dead in sin, Jesus made us alive with Christ. All of the record of charges, that receipt book of all the sins that we've done that deserve hell, that would deserve punishment for eternity have been wiped away. And so as we close out on the series in Ephesians, as we finish this letter that Paul has written, I want to just charge you. I want you to tell you and give you a call to action of what you should do from this point on, having heard the truth, having read, what God's word is, This is what we are to know and take away from these last couple weeks that we've went through Ephesians.

Closing Statement

You are a warrior. Fight against the lies by understanding and staying grounded in the truth. Remind yourself of the calling we have received from Jesus out of the darkness and destruction we were you were heading to because of sin. Resist the devil, not in your own strength, but by the power of God. Fight every battle from victory because Jesus has secured our victory through the cross.