Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

How foolish would it be for a solider in the Middle East to go to battle without his gun or radio?

It would be crazy!

How weird would it be for a couple to go hiking without the proper clothing and shoes?

How would you feel if you had to take the ACT test and completely forgot to bring your calculator?

In all of these examples, something very important was forgotten for the task at hand.

Just as a soldier needs to have his gun and radio handy, a Christian must be prepared to stand firm against the devil’s schemes!

As we will be looking at this evening in the book of Ephesians, the apostle Paul shows how believers are to put on the “Armor of God” as they participate in spiritual warfare.

This action and these specific pieces of armor are largely foreign to us today as technology has changed drastically over the last 2000 years, because of this we need to try and put ourselves back in the 1st century city of Ephesus.

Ephesus was one of the largest cities in the Roman Empire (rivaled only by Rome and Alexandria) and had a population of nearly 250,000 (for context, Springfield has about 175,000 citizens).

Ephesus was a very wealthy city and a place where various religions and ethnicities were present, however the largest religious following in Ephesus was the cult of the ancient Greek god, Artemis.

In Ephesus lied the “Temple of Artemis”, one of the 7 ancient wonders of the world, and this magnificent temple was 425 feet long and 225 feet wide and was supported by 127 columns that were 60 feet high!

This was a huge temple that the citizens of Ephesus were very proud of.

During this timeframe, people did not have a separation of natural and divine like we do today, they believed that everything was supernatural.

Because of this distinction, the people in Ephesus were convinced that buying charms from Artemis would protect them from evil powers.

Paul, throughout this letter, shows how powerless these charms and incantations are and how powerful Jesus Christ is.

Paul does this because the Christians in Ephesus are having to go about their lives without the “help” of magic and he encourages them that they do not need the help of magic because Christ is infinitely more powerful than Artemis or any other god.

This is true because He chose us and He fights for us!

Paul’s letter of encouragement comes to a conclusion in chapter 6 as he shows how the Ephesian Church is supposed to “put on the Armor of God”.

So if you have not already, please turn in your copy of God’s word to , starting in verse 10.

Ephesians 6:10-20

Let’s pray!

1. Pray that we put on the whole armor of God and are able to stand firm against the devil’s schemes

2. Pray that God is glorified and that we draw near to His Word and point people to Him

The Believer’s Power (10)

Just as Isaiah shows in Isaiah 59

We have seen time after time that Christ is more powerful than the things of this world.

We focused on that this morning as we saw that we are to “Come, behold the mighty works of the Lord” and we saw how the power of God is infinitely greater than the power of mankind or of nature or any other power.

Paul calls the believers to “Be strong” in the Lord.

This phrase represents a growing strength (similar to what we see Paul say about Abraham in as Abraham did not waver but he grew in his faith and gave glory to God).

Paul is calling his fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to do the exact same thing here!

Grow in your faith, hold strong to the teachings that I have taught you about Jesus Christ and glorify God in all things.

Are these believers called to stand in their own might?

NO!

They are called to stand in the strength of His (Christ’s) might as they see that Christ has defeated sin and death.

Just as Christ defeated sin and death, believers too are “victors” because we share in Christ’s victory.

With that said, though, there is a threat and an enemy.

He is not superior to Christ but he uses deceit to confuse us and cause us to stumble.

Because of his attacks, we are to stand firm in Christ because Christ has overcome and defeated him once and for all!

The Believer’s Foe (11-12)

The enemy is powerful, wicked and cunning

In Paul’s characterization of them, then, the powers of darkness are powerful, wicked and cunning.

How can we expect to stand against the assaults of such enemies?

It is impossible.

We are far too weak and too ingenuous.

Yet many—if not most—of our failures and defeats are due to our foolish self-confidence when we either disbelieve or forget how formidable our spiritual enemies are.

Only the power of God can defend and deliver us from the might, the evil and the craft of the devil.

True, the principalities and powers are strong, but the power of God is stronger.

It is his power which raised Jesus Christ from the dead and enthroned him in the heavenly places, and which has raised us from the death of sin and enthroned us with Christ.

True, it is in those same heavenly places, in that same unseen world, that the principalities and powers are working (verse 12).

But they were defeated at the cross and are now under Christ’s feet and ours

Our enemy is not physical - “Not against flesh and blood”

Our enemy is spiritual as we are against

Some Christians are so self-confident that they think they can manage by themselves without the Lord’s strength and armour.

Others are so self-distrustful that they imagine they have nothing to contribute to their victory in spiritual warfare.

Both are mistaken.

Paul expresses the proper combination of divine ennabling and human co-operation.

The power is indeed the Lord’s, and without the strength of his might we shall falter and fall, but still we need to be strong in him and in it, or more accurately to ‘be strengthened’.

Principalities

Powers

Rulers of darkness

Spiritual wickedness

Think about the life of Paul in context of this statement.

Paul was beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, and imprisoned multiple times.

People have held you and stopped you from proclaiming the gospel as you had intended to do.

You have bled and had your flesh torn in the name of Jesus and yet you say that our struggle is NOT against flesh and blood?!

Whenever people think of Christianity they often think of living with God and having peace of mind, and those things are true, but think of Paul.

We rarely associate hardships with Christianity.

Yet, Paul is saying that our struggle is not with flesh and blood but it is deeper than that.

Yes, people did these things to Paul, however he is saying that the heart of the matter is deeper than flesh and blood.

We often think of persecution as the worst form of punishment that we can experience, however Paul is saying that the prince of darkness is the true enemy and he is more powerful than the forces who bring about earthly persecution.

That isn’t an inspiring or encouraging message for us to hear, however as the great Sun Tzu mentioned in his famous Art of War, ““If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.

If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

As the brilliant military leader Sun Tzu states, you must know your enemy and yourself in order to have victory.

For Christians, we must know our enemy!

He is crafty, he caused Adam and Eve to stumble in the garden and he has been deceiving humanity ever since!

It is not enough to know how great our Christ is, we must prepare and have a battle plan in order to overcome his schemes.

We are not to fight this battle strictly naturally but rather we fight this battle in the supernatural realm as well!

We participate in this battle in a variety of ways.

We fight through prayer, reading God’s word and hiding it in our heart, opposing evil and through worshipping as John shows us in the Revelation that worship is how we encourage one another to continue fighting in this spiritual warfare.

We must know our enemy in order to defeat him and we must see that there is a consequence if we do not fight (we will not be able to resist the devil).

We must participate in this cosmic battle and we do so by putting on the armor of God which brings us to our 3rd point today.

“Full armor” in the Greek means “all tools”.

We see that the source of this armor is our Lord Himself and we are to put

The Believer’s Armor (13-17)

We must keep in mind where the apostle Paul is whenever he is writing this letter.

He is in prison, chained to a Roman guard 24/7.

He see’s the magnificent Roman armor constantly and must’ve thought, “Just as this armor protects this soldier, Jesus Christ is my armor and the armor of all who are in Christ.”

What a powerful illustration that Paul uses in these verses!

Notice how Paul says to take up the “whole armor of God”.

Often times we will pray for discernment or for a peaceful day at work, however when was the last time that we truly prayed on the entire armor of God?

As a youth growing up at First Baptist Ozark, we had a program called Leaders In Training that 5th and 6th graders would go through on Wednesday afternoons.

The person who came up with Leaders in Training (Clint May) and wrote all the material was very passionate about the Armor of God.

We would do a daily Bible study as a part of LIT and in these studies (you can ask my wife as well), I grew so much in my understanding of this armor as we were called to pray it on as we would go to school or go to church.

The most memorable experience I have had with the armor of God goes back to when I was a freshman in high school and was helping out on a LIT mission trip in Dallas, Texas.

During this mission trip, there were hundreds pf 5th and 6th graders who were going to lead VBS camps throughout the entire Dallas/Ft.

Worth area!

Before we left on Monday morning to go out to our mission site, Clint opened us up in a word of prayer and as an entire body of believers, we put on the armor of God.

Was this a little strange?