Sermon Tone Analysis
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Paul starts this section of Ephesians by saying, “Finally.”
(6:10).
Paul is signaling that the end of his letter is near.
A little like a preacher who says, “In conclusion.”
That’s the point where everyone starts closing their Bibles and putting and folding their pens in their notebooks.
The preachers almost done and its almost time to go.
And if you are not careful, you don’t really here anything else after those words, “In conclusion.”
But, we can’t afford to miss what Paul is saying as he begins the concluding remarks of this letter.
What he says impacts the way we are to understand everything else that he has said in the letter.
If we take a moment and think back about the message of the letter, you’ll remember that chapters 1-3 are about how God is working to redeem in Christ what was so broken by sin in the world.
Jesus is King and he has come to bring all things under his reign and in dominion to him.
We experience his power as King as we bow our knee to him in faith and put total trust in him as our Lord and Savior.
By his grace we are saved through faith.
Then in chapters 4-6, we are taught what it looks like to live as a citizen of the Kingdom of God.
What it looks like to live out the new identity we have in Christ.
What it means to put off the old life and then put on the new.
This is how God wants us to live in his Kingdom.
Now at the end of the letter, Paul sets the entire Christian experience on this earth in proper context.
And the context we are to live it out in makes all the difference in how we approach our mission.
In his sermon on this text, Tim Keller gives this illustration to explain this.
Let’s say that you sent a group of people off to build a fort.
You tell the people, “You are the masons.
You are the carpenters.
Here are the blue prints.
You have the materials.
Now go get to work.”
Now just before they turn to leave you say, “Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, the place you are going to build the fort is enemy territory.
So, while you are working, there are going to be people shooting at you and trying to kill you.”
They will say, “You are just telling us that now?”
We will still get the work done but that is definitely going to affect the way we go about the work.
That is the reality of the Christian life.
That is the reality of living in the Kingdom of God.
The Kingdom of God on the earth doesn’t have boarder lines around it.
It doesn’t exist as a geographical location on the map.
The Kingdom of God exists in the hearts of people.
The Kingdom exists wherever people bow the knee to King Jesus.
It’s not as if when you become a Christian that you get transported to some safe tropical island somewhere where all Christians live and you are completely safe there forever.
No. God grows extends his Kingdom in every nation on earth.
So that when we get to heaven there will be people from every tribe, tongue, people group and nation.
But for now, all Christians bow the knee to King Jesus.
But, we do it behind enemy lines.
So, we must understand that the context in which we are called to live out the Christian life is spiritual warfare.
We have an enemy that wants to destroy us.
Paul wants us to fight.
And, he wants us to understand the power that we have to fight with.
Now someone mights ask, “if Jesus has already won the war, why do we have to fight?
Why can’t we just eat, drink, and be marry?”
One commentator wrote this: “Assurance of Christ’s superiority does not deminish the seriousness of any given conflict on any evil day nor give certtain assurance fo victory in any particular battle.”
The way I interpret that is that the war for the salvation of believers has been won.
But, the battle over your faithfulness today has still yet to be fought.
It can be won or lost.
The battle of whether or not you even continue in the faith has still yet to be won or lost.
I have had several friends over the years who have abandoned the faith in Christ that they said they had when they were young.
How do you know whether your faith is truly saving faith?
You fight and you persevere with your faith.
The superiority of Christ is not in question.
The eternal plan and counsel of God will never fail.
Please remember that God’s plan from eternity is that victory is given to those who overcome.
That’s how we know who true believers are.
In , his ending words to the church of Ephesus this:
Conquerers are believers.
Therefore, believers must fight.
We must fight for everyday holiness though our flesh is plagued with temptations to sin.
We must fight with home with hope though our world seems hopeless at times.
We must fight knowing that this is not our home, but one day we will be home.
And until then, we live on mission fighting the fight of faith making ground against the enemy every chance we get.
2 Exhortations for those Following Christ behind Enemy lines.
I. Be strong (v.10)
Notice
“Finally, be strong.”
(v.10)
Notice that he doesn’t say, “Get strong.”
He says, “Be strong.”
At first that sounds a little strange to me.
You don’t put someone in the gym for the first time and go, “be strong.”
You might say, “get strong.”
But Paul says concerning our spiritual warfare, “Be strong.”
Because the strength needed for your spiritual fight today, you already have access to.
We don’t have to muster up the strength ourselves.
He says,
Notice v.11
He doesn’t say craft your own armor.
Next week we are going to go into detail and discuss what this armor is that we have access to.
But today, I just want to get the point that putting on God’s armor requires humility.
It says to yourself, God, and the devil that I’m not strong enough to win a single spiritual battle.
But, I know my God is.
It takes the weakness of humility to experience the almighty power of God.
One of the best things I’ve ever read on this comes from A.W. Tozer, in his book, “We Travel An Appointed Way.”
A compilation of his writings.
not how strong we are, but how strong he is.
But it is also whether or not we put his strength on us.
The enemy never quite knows how to deal with a humble man; he is so used to dealing with proud, stubborn people that a meek man upsets his timetable.
And furthermore, the man of true humility has God fighting on his side—who can win against God? Strange as it may seem we often win over our enemies only after we have first been soundly defeated by the Lord Himself.
God often conquers our enemies by conquering us.…
When God foresees that we must meet a deadly opponent, he assures our victory by bringing us down in humbleness at His own feet.
After that, everything is easy.
We have put ourselves in a position where God can fight for us, and in a situation like that, the outcome is decided from eternity.
Be strong.
And strength requires the humility to recognizing that you are not.
But, God is.
Like it or not you are going into a battle that you can’t win.
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