What You Put on First
Notes
Transcript
How many of you before you came here you had to get ready?
Change your clothes,
fix your hair,
freshen up that deodorant (know what I mean?),
or you did something to get ready?
We all take certain steps necessary to get ready or to prepare for things that we are gonna do. Wether it’s the
first day of school,
or a big test,
or meeting someone important for the first time
nobody just ends up “being prepared”.
Before we get into some scripture this evening I got a question for y’all.
What's something you do every single day without thinking about it, that if you skipped it, everyone would notice?
Brush your teeth
Showering
Put on clothes
Deodorant
Brush your hair
These are things we all do everyday. hopefully.
You get ready, you prepare. Sometimes without thought. Your mind just knows to get up and do these things because it is what you have done for so long. That is the exact same kind of daily and automatic action that Paul describes in the passage of Ephesians that we have been walking through. The only difference is Paul is talking about not a physical act but a spiritual one and most of us forget to put this spiritual armor on constantly and without even noticing it.
Two weeks ago we talked about the enemy — that there's a real war going on, whether we feel like it or not. Last week we started looking at the armor that God gives us to actually stand in that fight.
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,
This battle isn't about you fighting for a victory that's still up for grabs. The victory's already won. Jesus already won it on the cross. Your job isn't to win the war — it's to stand firm in a war that's already been decided.
Last week we talked about the helmet of salvation. And before we could even talk about the helmet, we had to talk about what salvation actually is — that it's not something you earn, it's not a cleaned-up life or a good enough record, but it's a gift.
It's God doing for you what you could never do for yourself.
And we talked about where the enemy attacks first — your mind. He wants you doubting who you are. He wants you asking "did I really mean it" and "am I really saved" over and over until you're so far in your own head you can't hear God's voice over your own doubt. That's why the helmet matters. It protects your mind from those lies and plants God's truth there instead — not as a hope-so, but as a know-so.
Some of you responded to that last week. Some of you have gotten and are getting baptized because you made that decision. That's huge. That's your new identity on display for everybody to see.
But here's the thing about armor — a helmet by itself doesn't get you very far. A soldier doesn't walk into a fight with just a helmet on. There's a reason Paul lists the pieces in a specific order, and there's a reason the first two pieces he names aren't the helmet — they're the belt and the breastplate. Those are the pieces a soldier put on first, before anything else, because literally everything else depended on them being in place.
So tonight we're going back to the beginning of the armor — the belt of truth, and the breastplate of righteousness.
The Belt of Truth
The Belt of Truth
The roman belt worn by roman soldiers was actually a sign of authority in the Roman army.
An archaeologist named Stephanie Hoss did a study and looked at the armor that a Roman soldier would’ve worn and this is what she said about the Roman belt.
“Legally the wearing of arms at all times in public defined the soldier as such. The belt to which the sword was fastened became a distinguishing feature of soldierly dress. It became invested with meaning to such an extent that taking away the military belt of a soldier in public for hours or days was a humiliation used as a disciplinary measure by their superiors. Taking away the military belt permanently after a capitulation (the act of surrendering or giving up) or during a dishonorable discharge from the army seems also to have been practiced. The significance of the belt as a symbol of being a soldier continued well into the late empire as is demonstrated by the symbolic act of Christian soldier saints openly refusing to remain in the army by throwing their military belt in public.”
-Stephanie Hoss
In the roman world when you were initiated into the army they called it being belted. If you were kicked out of the army they called it being debelted. So your whole identity of belonging to this army was putting on the belt. So when Paul says you put on the belt of truth what is he really getting at with that sentence? He’s saying that It’s important. This is your identity. When you put on the belt of truth you are committing yourself and your identity. You’re in the army of Christ. You’re aligning yourself with ALL of the truths of God’s word, and to wear that belt sets you apart.
So what is the truth? John 14:6
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Jesus doesn’t just teach the truth, He is the truth. Truth isn’t just about honesty but it’s staying connected and aligned with the one who defines what that truth is.
So when you drift from Jesus, you don't just drift from a set of facts — you drift from a Person. That's the difference between truth as information and truth as a relationship. You can know all the right answers and still be far from Him. Staying aligned with truth means staying close to Jesus Himself — not just agreeing with what He said, but actually walking with Him daily. And that alignment isn't just internal, it shows up. It holds you together on the outside the same way it holds you together on the inside.
So if Jesus is the truth what does it mean to fasten ourselves with the belt of truth? What is the purpose of the belt in the armor?
The belt holds everything together.
It’s what ties down the breastplate that you’re gonna wear, it anchors the sword on your hip, it stabilizes all your equipment as you move, and without a belt
armor shifts,
weapons begin to fall,
movement is hindered,
you’re suddenly going to be extremely clumsy and because of that, because of the role the belt plays in holding the armor together, the truth is going to be the first aim of the enemy.
We have seen it since the creation of the earth.
Satans first words to Adam and Eve in the garden when he tried to get them to walk away from God in Genesis chapter 3 was “Did God really say that?”. His first temptation was to doubt the truth, doubt His goodness. Satan always comes to twist that.
The truth holds everything together. If you fail on the truth, if you give up on this you’ll give up everything else. There are lies the enemy will try and get you to believe and seeds of doubt he will try and plant in your mind.
What are the lies that you are telling yourself and find yourself actually believing today?
Where have you caught yourself questioning and doubting the truths that God has said?
Satan will make you question God’s truth and question your righteousness and he wants you to believe those lies because if you don’t know the truth he knows you will stumble and your weapons will fall. You won’t be able to wield the sword of the spirit that Paul talks about later on because truth is the word of God if it’s not the truth in your worldly eyes then it’s worthless to you.
So why is truth compared to the belt? because the truth as a christian is fastened to you.
It’s secure to you.
It’s central to your being.
It’s at your core.
It touches and impacts everything else in your armor.
Putting on the belt of truth isn’t the act of physically wrapping a belt around you and cinching it tight but it’s about filling your mind with scripture, sound teaching, and worship before the lies show up. Not scrambling for truth mid attack but that when you’re being attacked by the enemy you can combat with the truth of God’s word and the person of Jesus Christ and His spirit that lives in you.
What does that look like this week?
Maybe that means reading the verse of the everyday, multiple times a day.
Or finding a verse that really speaks to the season or situation that you’re in and making it your lock screen on your phone.
Maybe that means finding a friend, a brother or sister in Christ, and confessing to them the temptations you’ve been struggling and wrestling with so they can keep you accountable.
Truth is both about what you know and who you are when no one’s watching. The church, God’s family, conquers by holding fast to the truth. The times in history where we have seen
churches crumble,
leaders fall,
ministries fail,
it is because they have let truth be the first thing to go. The moment you start walking away from the truth every element that is in this spiritual armor will begin to fall on the ground.
Truth is central to your body and your identity.
Every day, every morning when you wake up and you’re about to enter into your day of spiritual battle you have to hold fast to the confession and make the decision that your allegiance, your identity is the truth and that you are putting it on and you are choosing to be aligned with the truth and with Jesus Christ.
Truth is essential. If you do not have the truth then you do not have a place for the rest of the armor that Paul talks about. Like the breastplate of righteousness.
Breastplate of Righteousness
Breastplate of Righteousness
We hear this term righteousness and some of us we automatically hear certain things or think certain things when we think of being righteous. We think of
perfection,
being holy,
or preforming to uphold a certain standard in the eyes of others
but if you notice Paul says to ‘put on’ the breastplate of righteousness meaning that it is not our righteousness that we are wearing but it is actually Christ’s righteousness alone.
All throughout the New Testament we are told to put on Christ.
The night is almost gone; the day of salvation will soon be here. So remove your dark deeds like dirty clothes, and put on the shining armor of right living.
But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him.
Well who is it that gives us the restored and perfected image of the creator? Jesus.
And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes.
What does that mean? What are you putting on?
You’re putting on Jesus and what He’s done for you. If you’re showing up in your own “righteousness” and by your own strength it’s not gonna be enough.
BUT
when Jesus went to the cross He took your imperfections and covered himself with them and suffered the wrath of God to pay for those imperfections, your imperfections, He clothes you in His perfections. So when God see’s His son and His perfections and looks upon Him with delight, joy, and love Jesus has now offered that to us to wear so we are now seen by God the way that He looks upon His only son.
When we put on the breastplate of righteousness we are seen as righteous by God.
But let us who live in the light be clearheaded, protected by the armor of faith and love, and wearing as our helmet the confidence of our salvation.
Paul names the breastplate here as both faith and love. He holds together both the righteousness Christ gives us at salvation and the righteousness we practice day to day. Knowing you're already declared right with God is what frees you to keep practicing it after you fail.
Here's why that matters.
If your righteousness depended on you — on never messing up, never slipping, always getting it right — you'd either
walk around exhausted trying to prove yourself to God,
or you'd give up completely the first time you failed.
But that's not the position you're in. You're not fighting for approval, you're fighting from approval. God already looks at you and sees His Son's righteousness covering you. That's settled. So when you fail — and you will — the breastplate doesn't fall off. You're not starting over from zero. You just get back up, still covered, still His, and you keep practicing it.
And once you're not carrying the weight of proving yourself, your hands are free to do something with that righteousness. It stops being just a shield you hide behind and starts becoming something you live out toward other people.
He describes the breastplate less as personal purity alone and more as a life poured out — serving people, showing hospitality, caring for those overlooked.
Righteousness that only protects you and never moves toward others isn't wearing the whole piece.
When you close your eyes and ask God
“Who should I be serving?”
“Who is being overlooked and how can I care for them?”
“How can I show them hospitality and make them feel welcome?”
Whose face do you see? Whose name comes to mind?
Maybe it’s your brother or sister,
maybe it’s your best friend,
maybe it’s that person that sit’s across from you in class and you’ve recognized the Jesus sized hole in their life.
These aren’t hypothetical questions. This is me trying to challenge you to open your ears to God’s purpose for you in your life.
You can live for Jesus Now.
You can be a light for Him now.
You can be His soldier now and not just fight for yourself in this battle but be a soldier in His army.
Every single one of you got ready before you walked in here tonight. You didn't think twice about it — you just did it, because it's what you do every day.
That's the picture Paul is giving you.
Truth and righteousness aren't supposed to be something you scramble for when the attack hits. They're supposed to be what you put on before you even walk out the door.
So here's the question for you to sit with this week:
what's fastened to you right now?
Are you standing on truth you actually know, or are you running on a hope-so?
Are you moving toward people God's put in front of you, or are you just protecting yourself?
You already heard a name or saw a face when I asked who's overlooked in your life. Don't let that be a nice moment you had in a chair tonight — do something with it this week.
And if you're still not sure where you stand with any of this — if the helmet, the belt, none of it feels settled for you yet — that's exactly why we're here. Come talk to a leader tonight. You don't have to have it figured out. You just have to be honest about where you actually are.
Let's pray.
