Trust the Armor

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Ephesians 6:13-20

Please stand…

13 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. 14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, 19 and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.

Pray
Paul declares at the end of our text today that he is “an ambassador in chains”. Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon were all written by Paul while he was on a two year house arrest in Rome.
Paul’s charges were minor, so he was able to live by himself, entertain visitors and Acts 28:23 says “…they came to him at his lodging in greater numbers. From morning till evening he expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus both from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets.”
Paul was able to freely preach the Gospel to outsiders while He was in chains. He was able to write letters and correspond, doing the work of the ministry without hinderance, but it was likely that the whole time he was chained to a Roman guard. Day and night, no privacy.
Being a Roman citizen, seeing a soldier would not have been a new thing. They would have been on the streets in the markets, at the tax booths, everywhere. Much like we don’t think much about seeing police officers driving around, but imagine how much more you would notice about that police officer if you had to be chained to him.
You would see the bullet proof vest, the taser, what kind of pistol that he carried, how many back-up magazines, how many bullets each magazine contained. You would see his handcuffs and his belt and the kind of shoes that he wore. You would be intimately aware of that uniform after two years of being chained to one.
The Roman soldier had a helmet, a breastplate, a sword, a shield. A belt to hold up their tunic, that supported their breastplate and held their sword. They had shoes on their feet so they could be ready to run at a moments notice on any terrain. They were ready for the fight.
During our time in Ephesians, Paul in chapters 1-3 has taught us what we have been saved to. A new life in Christ, the giving up of the old life and walking in the new. We are one in Christ, that despite all that we have done, Christ has called us and saved us to do His work.
In chapters 4-6, Paul is showing us how we should conduct ourselves with this new life. We walk in love and we submit to Christ and we live in a manner worthy of our calling as imitators of God, but while this is happening there will be attacks by the evil one. The enemy wants to steal joy from the believer, and as the Spirit is plundering the house of the evil one and taking souls from his numbers, he is not giving them up without a fight.
We must protect ourselves from the schemes of the devil and put on the armor of God because we will be wrestling with the enemy. Paul is living proof of what life could be like as a believer. There is no promise of sunshine and rainbows. Paul fully believed in the truth of Jesus, he preached it, he was beaten, imprisoned, stoned and eventually killed because he loved Jesus. He had everything this world could offer and it was taken away for the cause of Christ. Paul gives us no illusion that this life will be easy just because we are in Christ, but he tells us many times that the suffering is worth it.
Through the Spirit and the mind of Paul, God gives us assurance of our victory and He also gives us armor to combat the world. The armor isn’t there for looks, God is telling us to put it on. The enemy is at the gate and if you do not take what God has given you, you will be defeated. Just like I know that God gives me the money that is in my bank account, if I choose to not show up on Sunday mornings, or not to prepare, or not to do the work He has put before me, I will lose this position. We work with God. He controls the outcome of our labor, but if we are disobedient with what He has given us, we cannot expect blessings or victories.
Today’s text is a call to action. We don’t let things just happen to us. We hold every thought captive to the Lord, we are not conformed to this world, but we are transforming our minds and testing each thought so that we can discern what is the will of God. This is an active life that requires active participation. It is not religion in the sense that the world says. It is not, I do this, I go here, I say this thing, I check this box, that kind of thing is easy, but to truly be in a relationship with Christ is a much different thing. It’s like a young man becoming a super star, the world and the enemy all the sudden become very interested in you. They will throw everything at you to get you to walk from your faith or disgrace your relationship with Jesus. The world and the enemy offer nothing but quick excitements and temporary satisfaction of the flesh. Paul knows this. The enemy tried to do everything to stop Paul and make his life difficult so he would throw in the towel. Paul is keenly aware of the armor of God.

13 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.

Paul tells us to take up the whole armor, not some of it, all of it. He knows we are going to need it. When we don’t have all of our armor, we are exposed. Enemies always exploit weaknesses.
In Sun Tzu’s THE ART OF WAR, he says, "In war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak".
Putting on the whole armor is to be ready for whatever the fight brings on the day of evil. Each day we live here on earth is a potential for an evil attack. We should be roused from our comfort and be ready for an attack and stand firm. There is victory when we are ready to fight, though the day is evil and the enemy is evil, “if God is for us, who can be against us?”

14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth

Stand and face it. Christianity is not soft. It is not passive in dealing with sin. Our Lord was not passive. He cast out demons and sternly sent them away. He combatted those that would prey on the uneducated that were trying to twist the truth about God. He turned over tables when men tried to profit off the poor and make a mockery of the house of God.
We are to stand and be bold in our proclamation of the Gospel and bold in the fact that the Lord is with us always. When sin enters our minds or our hearts we should be quick to rebuke it. We don’t let it sit and build a camp and grow. We strike fast and fiercely because it is a battle for our heart and soul. This is not to be taken lightly. The armor is protection that God has given us to stand and fight the battles He has sovereignly chosen to put us in. We stand and we trust the armor.
The belt holds everything up. The truth holds everything up. We can’t build on math equations if 1+1 is not 2. We can’t do scientific experiments if we do not know the constants. We can make no plans for the future if we don’t know if the sun is going to come up again tomorrow. The truth is essential in the beginning of our understanding.
Knowing that we have the truth of the Gospel and it is invading our lives and we are seeing the fruit of it, should spur us on to spread it. We are the ones that found the pearl of great value that sold all we had to get it. We are to go to the world and tell them that they can have that same pearl.
If Jesus is the truth, then life only makes sense through Him. You can’t make sense of suffering without Jesus. There will be a day when all the wrongs will be righted. There will be a day that He will reveal the reason behind our pain. He gives us purpose in our pain. The world doesn’t have that. Jesus can give you true healing from your hurts, psychology can only try and mitigate the pain. There are brilliant psychologist, but they can’t fix the problem, only Jesus can heal suffering.
He gives us purpose in our pursuits. We are to be Kingdom builders. He is coming back, it is true, so we must do the work here in light of this. We raise children in the truths of God because we want them to impact the world for the Gospel. All things are for His glory and our good. Do you believe that truth?
When we give our lives to the truth of Jesus we are able to build our house on the rock. Anything else will be like shifting sand. We will be blown to and fro by emotions and life without the truth of Christ. When we build on the rock of truth we know that God has a purpose for our life and His ways are best for flourishing as humans.
Once we are established in the truth of the good news of Jesus, a next step is taking on His righteousness.

having put on the breastplate of righteousness

Paul tells us in Romans 13:14 “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”
The breastplate protects your heart. That is where the suggestions from the enemy hit first. The whispers of the devil go after your unmet needs and longings. Your sinful longings and your desires first come from your heart. Christ protects that with His righteousness. He calls us to live this new life in Him. Our heart should reflect His heart. He changes our affections when we put on his righteousness.
There are so many things I did when I was a younger man that I thought were so cool, that meant so much to me. They took up a lot of real estate in my mind and ego and they, today are meaningless. I don’t care about any of that old stuff anymore. To bring it closer, there were sins that I used to be drawn to and now they repulse me. I know that there are things I think about today that will also be a distant memory to me in 10 years that won’t matter.
We need our heart protected by His righteousness. It reminds us that we are freed from our past. Those past mistakes or loves hold no weight on us anymore because He has taken them away from us, separated them from us as far as the East is from the West and that righteousness, most importantly, saved us from the wrath of God. God is not waiting to condemn us because His wrath is complete at the cross.
Knowing this, when faced with sin, we flee because this new life is so much better than the old. Why would we return to it knowing the tremendous sacrifice Christ made for us.
Knowing this and knowing that the world is still in bondage to their own desires and draw of the flesh, we should take the keys of freedom to them.

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

We need to be ready to go out and spread this great news of the love of Christ to a dying world.
Romans 10:13–15 ESV
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”
This means that our job is to put action behind your faith. When you put on the shoes of readiness, God will give you everything that you need when the time comes to talk to someone about the Lord. Always be looking for an opportunity to share this faith. Just like a soldier in uniform is always ready to fight, we should always be…

prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you (

This hope that you have is the weapon that we need to fight against the evil that comes against us. When we do this, we….

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

The Roman shield was big enough to cover their whole body. It was made of wood, covered with animal hide and bound with iron at the top and bottom. It would be dipped in water before battle so that when literal flaming arrows hit the shield the water would extinguish the flames.
In our fight with the evil one, he comes with suggestions that are trying to fulfill your unmet needs and with accusations from past sin. Believers, when we put on the shield of faith, we are protected against the accusations of the enemy. When we put Christ on, which is what happens after we kneel to Him as Lord, though we were separated from God through sin and death, in Christ we are made one with Him again, by Christ righteousness, not our own. He is perfect and He imputes His righteousness on us. No longer do the accusations of not being good enough, not being worthy, or “you’ve sinned too much” hold any weight at all. Because we are in Christ, the world has no hold on us. We are not carrying around the weight of our past before God. When Christ made His sacrifice for us and said, “it is finished.” He meant it.
Remember we have Christ’s righteousness that covers our sins, but our faith in that work is crucial.

11 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (

Our faith is our belief and trust in what the Word says about God and about us. If I trust that I am His and no one can pluck me from His hand, I can live in confidence knowing that He is with me, working and moving through the power of the Spirit, and I will be with Him one day.
That is when we…

take the helmet of salvation

What is so fascinating about this text is that it is not just that Paul saw the Roman guard and used something common among the people to show how we need to don the principles of God, but this same language is used as a Messianic prophesy in Isaiah 59:15-17. That text is referring to a time when…
Isaiah 59:15–17 ESV
Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede;
Could we do anything about our sin? Could we find truth on our own? The enemy deals in lies and the world goes after the lies. God had to come down and do this for us in the person of Jesus and continuing in that text
Isaiah 59:15–17 ESV
then his (God’s) own arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness upheld him. He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head; he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.
Like we spoke about last week, it is not our power that we war with the evil one on the evil days, but we lean into His power. We put on the armor and He fights the battle. We have …

the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,

and we want to wield it well. The Word is not something that we use for our own gain. We don’t want to twist the words to make it fit our own thoughts or justify our actions. It stands as the great equalizer. Under the weight of the Word, we find ourselves, in ourselves, completely lacking. It shows us our sin and our need for a savior. It shows us the truth about the world and who we are. We want to use it efficiently and effectively, and it is good to study it and know it back and forth. It is good to go to school to learn it better. It is good to learn all the arguments and how to fight against or defend them but listen, it is only God, not your brain, study or might, that pierces the heart at the end of the sword. He is the one that cuts and divides soul and spirit, joint and marrow. He is the one that discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
That is why when we are engaged daily in this warfare we are to be…

18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.

Our prayer should always be, God show us which direction to wield the sword next, which way should I be walking and carrying this message. Is my armor on correct? Am I protected? Do I have my shield, is my helmet securely fastened? God help me.
Notice that there is no armor in the back. That tells us two things. First, we are not to retreat. We move forward in our walk with Christ and our wars with the devil. Jesus says in Luke 9:62 “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”We go headlong into battle because we know that our salvation and victory are in Christ.
Second, there is no armor on your back because God is there. St. Patrick had that great prayer, “Above and below me, before and behind me, in every eye that see me, Christ be all around me.” He is our protector. We do not have to worry about what it behind us because it has all be dealt with. That is the past. In Christ, there are no arrows coming from that direction anymore. Paul knew that. If he didn’t submit himself to that level of faith, his remorse, his guilt and his shame for approving of the murder and imprisonment of the early church leaders would have crippled him. He knew that he needed all the armor and the prayers of the other believers…

To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, 19 and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.

He ends his teaching telling us and this body of believers to continue to pray and ask God for help for ourselves, each other and the teachers that are on the front lines of the battle. His prayer is that he would get the words that he needs to boldly proclaim the mystery of the gospel.
I ask that of you today. Pray for yourselves, pray for your brothers and sisters and pray for the people that you allow to teach the gospel in your life. If it is just me, pray for me that I would be a conduit for God to speak to you. If you have other pastors you enjoy, pray for them. We need God to move or we can do nothing. We don’t have our own ores in the water. We have nothing, can do nothing, and can say nothing that will move a heart apart from Christ. I pray that He would ignite a fire in the hearts of all that hear my words to boldly stand with the full armor of God, in love, to bring this message of a loving God that gave His only Son to the world, that despised and rejected Him, so that they could know true freedom and be with Him one day.
Our redeemer lives, He has invited us to join the fight. We are victorious in Him.
In 1893, the mayor of Chicago was shot and killed in his home. That murder inspired, of all people, a local Catholic priest, Casimir Zeglen, to invent a bullet proof vest. He had the largest Polish congregation in the country with 40,000 names in the parish. See what you can do when you don’t have TV.
He saw that there was a problem that needed a solution, so he went about working on the vest. Earlier attempts at the vest were weighty and not that effective, but there was an idea that silk sewn the right way could stop a bullet. Finally, after 15 years of tinkering and testing, he had a design that worked.
The idea is that the vest would be worn and if someone shot you with a pistol caliber round, it would not penetrate the vest. To show the public how safe the product was, Zeglen, donned the vest and stood as marksmen shot bullets at his chest. He survived, the armor worked. His invention, and iterations after, have saved countless lives of law enforcement, kings, and soldiers.
He wore the armor he invented and survived.
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