Preparing for Warfare 2

Holy Spirit Living Breath of God (Official Lyric Video) - Keith & Kristyn Getty

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Psalm 139:7–17 NIV

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them!

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Announcements

God Calls Jeremiah

Jeremiah 1:4–10 NIV

The word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” “Alas, Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.” But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord. Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”

Worship in Song Set

Ephesians 6:10–13 NIV

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.

Preparation through song and prayer

Preparing for Warfare!

10,000 Sermon Illustrations (The Leash Goes Slack)

Robert, an experienced sky diver, was readying himself for a jump when he spotted another man outfitted to dive wearing dark glasses, carrying a white cane and holding a seeing-eye dog by a leash. Shocked that the blind man was also going to jump, Robert struck up a conversation, expressing his admiration for the man’s courage. Then curious, he asked, “How do you know when the ground is getting close?”“Easy,” the blind man replied. “The leash goes slack.”

Contributed by Taylor Yu Zhong, Reader’s Digest, July, 1996, p. 66

We may chuckle at the humor of this preposterous story, but I cannot help wondering how many Christian people live their lives like this. They are content to be blind hurtling through life, until such time as death is inevitable and then they respond to God. Much like the man whose death bed confession I read a few weeks ago.

The Christian life is not something that just happens. It is something we are actively involved in by choice. Even more, we understand that we are in a war. We have an enemy and he is seeking to devour us. So, we need to be alert and like any good soldier, we need to always have our armor on for protection. We should be prepared to give immediate response when our Commander-in-Chief instructs us to move as well as being alert for the attacks of the enemy.

Paul understood this well. He spent a great deal of time in enemy territory, both physically and spiritually. He understood how the enemy works and he knew what equipment we needed both for offensive and defensive. He mentions these tools in other letters, but his most thorough writing on the subject was his letter to the Ephesians who lived in the very heart of enemy territory as we saw last week.

Today we will begin to return to the letter and see how Paul’s teachings relate to spiritual warfare. Today, we return to...

Ephesians 1:1–23 NIV

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory. For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

The Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!

Prayer

II. Spiritual Battles Require Spiritual Armor

Last week, we talked about how the war we are in is a spiritual one. That means, it is not so much a physical battle (though there are physical aspects to it at times), but it is a mental battle. We could literally put on Roman armor and it would have no benefit in these battles. Spiritual battles require spiritual armor.

The other issue with spiritual battles is that they can take place anywhere, anytime. If you are in the army, you wear a uniform, but you do not don your armor until you are headed to the battle lines. For the Christian, we are always on the battle lines. So, spiritual armor needs to be always in place. For this reason, we need to daily don the armor of God.

Now Paul was well acquainted with the armor of the Roman soldier. He spent a great deal of time among the Roman soldiers considering all the times he spent under their guard. So, he uses them as an object lesson to help us understand the tools we need to fight this spiritual battle.

I should alert you that I am not going to preach these in the order he placed them in Ephesians 6, but in the order he addressed them in the letter. So, we will begin with...

A. The Helmet of Salvation Ephesians 6:17a

Ephesians 6:17a (NIV) Take the helmet of salvation...

The helmet was the last piece of armor a soldier put on and it was probably the first they took off. For the Christian however, the helmet represents the first critical battle front: our brain. To understand why, we need to understand the kind of attack it is protecting us from. So, look with me first at...

1. Satan’s Attack: Our Thoughts 2 Cor 10:3-5

We have already said that this is a spiritual battle and that means it has a mental component. We looked at Satan and his demon army last week and we find that they wage this war by speaking into our spirit. They lie, they lure, they entice. They cannot read our thoughts, but they know human nature and they take time to study us and watch our responses to things. They make it their business to try to figure out what we like and is most likely to temp us. They are devious and clever.

They do not wait for us to mature before they begin. They begin as early as they possibly can. The best way to stop someone from becoming a Christian is to cause so much damage to them as children that they become too dysfunctional to see or be able to claim God’s love. Why do you think our culture is trying so hard to get to the children of our world? It is Satan working to destroy them before they begin.

Satan and his demons watch like a hawk for something to happen and then they strike. It is their objective to render us useless by attacking our sense of worth. If they can tempt someone to sin against us, then they can use our pain to plant thoughts in us like...

“I do not deserve anything better.”

“I am useless.”

“I am unlovable.”

“I have no talents or skills.”

In other cases, they do not wait for something to happen, but they cause it to happen. I believe that is what is happening in our school systems right now. The enemy is literally out to destroy children and he is using our current culture to try to take control over all children.

Paul understands this battle of the mind. Therefore, Paul says we are to “take captive every thought...”.

2 Corinthians 10:3–5 NIV

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

We must take captive every thought that whispers we are not worthy, or that we are useless, or unlovable. We must take captive of every thought that would white wash the consequences of sin or that would lure us into sin. So, our first line of defense is to protect our thoughts. Therefore, the...

2. Required Armor: A Helmet Isaiah 61:1-3

The helmet is the equipment that protects the head/brain which is the control center for the rest of the body. If the helmet is damaged and a brain injury is inflicted, the rest of the armor is useless. The enemy has won or has a significant upper hand. So, let us look at the Roman helmet for a moment.

(Galea image)

For the Roman, the helmet was called a galea (gal-lay-yuh). It began as a basic skullcap, but over time they perfected it to cover the neck and even the cheeks. It became very difficult to inflict a head wound to a soldier with his helmet in place.

The helmet is meant to be an defensive tool. It does not inflict damage upon the enemy but provides protection from the enemy.

Satan works to create despair, depression, and feelings of doom, but this is not what God wants for us. Christ came to free us from all of that. We know God provides peace and joy in place of the darkness that Satan would saddle us with.

Isaiah 61:1–3NIV

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lordis on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.

Of course, we know that the idea of a helmet is figurative. Whereas a metal helmet can deflect a blow to the head, it cannot deflect the thoughts whispered to us from a spiritual source. So, what constitutes our helmet?

3. The Helmet’s Power: Assurance of Salvation Eph 1:3-14, 16-19; 3:14-19

Salvation frees us from despair, but only if we understand it and have a deep appreciation of the truth of it. The helmet’s power is not salvation alone, but our comprehension of salvation. The understanding that God saved us because He loves us. It is one thing to say we are loved and saved, but it is another thing to believe it in the very depth of our being. Paul knew this and he prayed for this knowledge for all those he ministered to.

Ephesians 3:14–19 NIV

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

It was out of this love, that God did what He did to provide for our salvation. It was no easy task, and it was a common goal of the full Godhead. To help us better understand it and the love that prompted it, Paul shares the part that each of the Godhead played in it in Ephesians 1:3-14. I will read through these and I have color coded them, yellow for the Father, blue for the Son, and green for the Holy Spirit. I will not take time to go into further detail as we did that a few weeks back.

Ephesians 1:3–14 NIV

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

What a tremendous work they all did on our behalf! Why would God go through all that planning and work if He did not love us? Paul is so moved by the incredibleness of it all, that he is moved to give worship throughout “to the praise of his glory.” Three times for three members of the Trinity. Paul knows we need to understand this work of salvation.

Ephesians 1:16–19 (NIV) I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength

So, we now understand that the power of the helmet is the understanding of this salvation. But how do we go about equipping the helmet?

4. Equipping the Helmet

If we were playing a video game, all we would need to do to equip a piece of equipment would be to push a button, but equipping this helmet is not quite as simple. It takes some work to learn to equip the helmet of salvation.

a. First, you need to have the assurance that Jesus has saved you, not because of good deeds you have done, but because of his love and mercy. 2 Tim 1:9

2 Timothy 1:9NIV

He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,

Remember that God created you. He predestined you to be His child. You are a unique individual because He made you unique for a purpose. A good purpose. Not to be His slave, but to be His child. Now, this sometimes takes some work because of the lies that Satan has already planted in your thoughts. I will help you with that in a moment.

b. Second, remember that when you were saved, you became a new creation. The sins of the past are in the past and no more. 2 Cor 5:17

2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

You can let go of the wrongs of your past. God has forgiven them and forgotten them, so you should also!

c. Third, remember we are in a war and the enemy will strike. You will experience difficulties and persecution at times. Matt 5:11-12

Matthew 5:11–12NIV

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Do not be discouraged or disappointed by this. God did not promise you a bed of roses until after this life. We are at war. God has been very clear on this point. However, God is with you no matter what the enemy brings your way. God will give you the power to overcome.

d. Fourth, if you stumble, remember that God is always ready to forgive and give you a hand back on track. 1 Thes 5:8; Heb 2:3

God’s forgiveness and salvation is our strength!

1 Thessalonians 5:8 NIV

But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.

Hebrews 2:3NIV

how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him.

Each day, we need to pray and thank God for His love and salvation. We need to claim that salvation and when we do, we are donning the helmet of salvation before we head out into our day.

Conclusion:

In closing, I wish to add one thing more. As I said earlier, it is not always as easy to claim this salvation as it sounds. Much of it depends on your life and the experiences you have had in life. Chances are we each have lies of Satan buried deep in our subconsciousness. These lies can spring to life when we least expect them. Something may trigger one of these lies. If you are struggling to believe God’s love for you. If you struggle with depression and find it difficult to feel the victory offered to you in Christ, here are a few things you can do to help you come free of those lies.

Try to discover the lie. Start with whatever emotion you are struggling with; fear, depression, stress, feeling unloved, etc… It can be any negative emotion. Go find a quiet place where you will not be interrupted. Think back to the first place you ever remember experiencing this feeling (give time and follow the emotion). When you get to the place that feels like the right one, ask Christ to reveal Himself to you in that place and to help you discover the lie of Satan you came to believe in that moment. Once you have discovered it, confess it to God. Ask Him to help you let it go and to replace it with His truth. Then renounce the lie, out loud if you can. Ask God to take that thought captive and to replace it with His truth. Then look for a scripture to memorize in its place (again out loud as you are able).

Ex: Psalm 139 read earlier.

1 John 3:1NIV

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

Galatians 4:6–7NIV

Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.

Visualize God holding the egg that was your beginning and his loving care to create you, making you unique and special. Thank him for making you, you. Perhaps you can tape a picture of you as a child somewhere and each day when you see it, bless that little child.

If you are finding this difficult, come talk to me. I can help walk you through this process of looking back into your past. I will not counsel you, as I will allow the Holy Spirit to do that, but I can help you walk backwards try to discover the moment and God can free you from the stronghold that Satan has claimed in your life.

YOU…ARE…A…CHILD…OF…THE…KING!

This morning, we will close with prayer. We will take time to pray for our nation. We will take time to pray for our denomination. Use the prayer guides handed out earlier for suggestions. And I want you to take time to allow the truth of the helmet of salvation to sink in. If you feel impressed to pray out loud, do so. If you wish to pray quietly to yourself, do so. I will close us in prayer when I feel we are done.

Pray

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