Sermon Tone Analysis

Last week we started this 2 part series entitled “Living as a Christian in Enemy Territory.”

We started with this analogy.

Let’s say that you were sending a group to go 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 can still get the work done but that is definitely going to affect the way they 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.

Ephesians tells us what it means to be a Christ follower and then it tells us what it means to live as a Christ follower.

But, Paul ends by telling us we live as Christ followers behind enemy lines.

That is going to affect then how we accomplish the mission.

Last week we looked at two exhortations that Paul gives us on how to live as a Christian behind enemy lines.

I. Be strong (v.

10-11)

We have to fight in the Lord’s strength because we don’t have enough power to defeat our enemy in our own strength.

This means we walk in humility.

It takes humility to put on someone else’s armor.

II.

Know Your Enemy (v.11-12)

The devil fights with schemes.

That means he lies to you in order to trick you into sinning.

He fights ruthless because he doesn’t fight alone.

Much of life seems like a battle doesn’t it.

If we are not careful we will mischaracterize what our real battle is.

We think our battle is against a spouse that won’t listen to us, or kids who hate us, or parents who are unreasonable, teachers that give too much homework, the bank that wants the mortgage whether or not we have the money, a sickness that doesn’t care about your situation, a boss that wants more out of your than you can give, etc.

On a national perspective, republicans think then enemy is the democrats, democrats think the enemy is the republicans, and independents think everybody is out to get them.

We can look at social situations and say that our enemy is abortion or the homosexual agenda.

All of those are real issues, but none of those are our real enemy.

Look what Paul says,

Every battle that we face is ultimately a spiritual battle.

That’s because our real enemy isn’t physical enemy; it’s a spiritual one.

The mistake of looking at our problems like they are physical problems is that we think the solution is a physical solution.

I did a Google search for self help books and came up with over 90,000 results.

If I can just learn to relate to people better, or manage money better, or change this aspect of my life all my problems will be solved.

Well there’s over 90,000 books on solving every problem you can image and things are still a mess.

Why?

I’m not saying there aren’t physical components to our problems or there solutions.

What I’m saying is that the real battle behind all our problems is a spiritual war.

Look at how he describes the enemy, (v.12).

And you can’t conquer a spiritual enemy using physical weapons.

Look at how our enemy is described rulers, authorities, cosmic power, present darkness, spiritual forces of evil.

There is actually a whole lot in this but I don’t have time to deal all this morning, nor deal with all the emails with questions you would send me if I did.

But to sum it up for you, notice that this is governmental language.

There are different evil spiritual being place into a spiritual hierachy throughout the world to lead every tribe, tongue, people group, and nation away from Christ and into darkness.

The mass murder of the unborn and assault on biblical marriage did not come about because the Supreme Court made bad decisions.

These are agenda of high level rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers of this present evil darkness.

So realize, these are not enemies that can be overcome by reading a book on stress management.

You are not going to defeat “cosmic powers” by learning how to win friends and influence people.

The war we are living in is being fought in a different arena.

To live Christian lives here behind enemy lines, we have to go to war with the weapons of spiritual warfare.

All of those are real issues, but none of those are our real enemy.

Look what Paul says,

So, here are two more exhortations on how to live as a Christian behind enemy lines.

I. Prepare for war and stand your ground.

(vv.

13-17)

We are to stand in the sense that when the enemy comes, we don’t give up ground.

At Northside where my kids go to school, Noah plays football.

They all have shirts that on the back that say, “Build the Wall.”

It’s not a political statement.

It means they control the field and don’t give an in to the opponent.

We stand our ground and we don’t give an inch because we are prepared for his attack.

You do not have to fall into temptation.

He tells us how to be prepared.

Paul uses the imagery from physical warfare to describe how we should get prepared for spiritual warfare.

How do we prepare to fight?

We put on spiritual armor.

What is the spiritual armor? 5 very specific weapons of spiritual warfare: 1. Truth, 2. Righteousness, 3. Readiness, 4. Faith, 5. Salvation, and 6. the Word of God.

Those are the very characteristics of Christ.

Ephesians has taught us that we have new identity in Christ.

I’m not going to make a big deal about the physical armor that these are connected to.

The reason is that this imagery has been used before in Scripture and sometimes it’s the same as what Paul mentions, but it often varies.

truth

For example in Isaiah, the God of Israel is angry because no one has been willing to stand up for justice, so he put on armor for the defense for the cause of truth.

Here there are extra armor of vengeance and zeal.

Isaiah

In , look at the attributes that the Messiah will have.

Also, Paul himself changes his metaphor in .

So, here righteousness is the belt.

In Ephesians, truth is the belt.

The point is that these attributes of the Messiah are the attributes that Christians are to live with.

That’s why we shouldn’t be concerned when Paul changed the metaphor in .

Also, Paul himself changes his metaphor in .

Here righteousness is the belt not the breastplate.

Here righteousness is the belt not the breastplate.

In , it’s the breastplate of righteousness, not faith and love.It doesn’t matter what the breastplate is.

It matters who Jesus is.

And Jesus is a Messiah of faith, love, and righteousness.

His attributes are what we live by and we fight with.

Let’s take a look at these attributes that Paul points to in .

Fight with Truth.

A. Truth (v.14)

Jesus called himself, the truth.