The Church was made to BATTLE More (part 2)

Chargers vs. Commanders vs. Vikings

We’re heading into the football season. I love football. I watch college. I watch the pros. And I love our Mighty Falcons. Team names and mascots have always fascinated me. If you peruse the names that we will be watching on Saturdays and Sundays, many of the names are reflective of animals, especially animals that are fierce and could hurt you. Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my. But there are those names that speak to the long tradition of comparing sports to war. Raiders, Vikings, Buccaneers, Patriots, Chargers and now the Commanders in the professional ranks. Spartans, Trojans, and Knights are some that come to mind when we talk about college football. Warfare imagery reflected in the sports we love… and in football, the imagery somehow tames the violent undertones of trying to physically pound the other team into submission. The struggle is real, even if death is not on the line. For a few hundred of us, that struggle involves a lot of money and lifestyles and hopes and dreams, it’s own reality. But still not quite war.

War itself is very, very real. Life-altering and earth shattering. The first few minutes of Saving Private Ryan make that abundantly clear. If you’ve ever seen any kind of a movie or documentary regarding World War 1, war becomes real. You can feel the evil at work in the stories and tales.

The war that Paul talks about in Ephesians 6 is very, very real. And it’s very personal. There’s a sense in which this war is even more real than the warfare of Ukraine versus Russia. It’s not to be taken lightly and even more is at stake.

Today we continue our series Made for More. The church is made to battle for more. In the passage, Paul describes an armor of God that is to be worn… and again here’s how he describes it:

Truth: a belt around your waist

Righteousness: armor on your chest

Readiness of the gospel of peace: feet sandaled

Faith: the shield

Salvation: the helmet

The Word of God: the sword

If the church is going to fill all corners of society with Jesus, it must have armor, and this is what it looks like. The church needs armor because the church is in a war.

This war has been going on since our very first parents decided they wanted to be gods themselves and threw their allegiance in with the serpent. When God meets Adam and Eve with their lips still smelling of fruit, he promises that He will fix the sin problem. He will save. He will forgive. But he also promises this:

Genesis 3:15 “I will put hostility between you and the woman.”

Hostility. A war. A war between God and the Evil One. A war between God and man. Hostility. The Promise to fix the sin problem is a Promise to finally fix the war problem. And throughout history God continues to make the Promise that someday everything will be made right. No more war. No more sin. No more sickness. And those Promises take the shape of a Person.

Christ, The Divine Warrior

And in Isaiah, that Person is being described as a Divine Warrior. The God who fights for his people. We read it earlier… the story of the Exodus, the One Man Army, the God who fights for his people. And now Isaiah says this Warrior is going to bring about peace and justice.

The Isaiah passages

Listen to Isaiah as Isaiah describes this Divine Warrior who will come to save his people:

Isaiah: “He will strike the land with a scepter from his mouth, righteousness will be a belt around his hips; faithfulness will be a belt around his waist. How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the herald, who proclaims peace, who brings news of good things, who proclaims salvation. He put on righteousness as body armor, and a helmet of salvation on his head; he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and he wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak. He made my words like a sharp sword;”

This Divine Warrior who comes to fight for his people is coming with

a scepter from his mouth, righteousness as a belt, faithfulness as a belt, righteousness as a breastplate, salvation as a helmet, gospel of people on his feet, his words are a sword.

This Divine Warrior is promised to be the One who comes to the rescue of His people and he is wearing for his armor his own salvation, his righteousness, his Words, his justice, his peace, his Good News. All that God has promised His people is now being worn by the Divine Warrior as armor. This Divine Warrior fights with Good News on the one hand and Vengeance on the other.

Revelation

Vengeance was carried out at the cross against the Divine Warrior’s enemies because the Divine Warrior died, fighting for His people. The cross is a decisive win. The enemy is crushed. The Divine Warrior that died is described again in the book of Revelation. Here’s how he is described:

Revelation 19:11-16 “Then I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse. Its rider is called Faithful and True, and with justice he judges and makes war. His eyes were like a fiery flame, and many crowns were on his head. He had a name written that no one knows except himself. He wore a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. The armies that were in heaven followed him on white horses, wearing pure white linen. A sharp sword came from his mouth, so that he might strike the nations with it. He will rule them with an iron rod. He will also trample the winepress of the fierce anger of God, the Almighty. And he has a name written on his robe and on his thigh: King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”

Again. The Armor. We are so caught up in all the imagery and trying to know what hasn’t been revealed that we miss the armor. The great Cloud-Rider, the Divine Warrior, Jesus himself wields a sword which is His word. He wears a robe for armor, this time dipped in blood. And he makes war. He makes war with his Word and with his blood. The sword the word is his scepter… being wielded by a King. This isn’t just the future. This is who Jesus is right now. The Divine Warrior, who has conquered the enemy at the cross.

This Text is not About Us

We are spending time showing the armor that Jesus wears and wore as an Army of One against the serpent and all of the evil cosmic forces because all too often we come to this text and we make this text about us. This text is not about us. Paul says put on the full armor of God and we run right past the God part and start figuring out how this battle is ours to be won. That’s not what is happening here. Paul is concluding this letter to a congregation weathering some pretty fierce storms, especially against the gospel and against unity. And they need to be prepared for battle… a battle that has already been won.

And Paul doesn’t just grab the picture of a Roman soldier and start running through the armor of the Roman soldier and applying it to Christian warfare. That’s how this is taught. Every Armor of God Sunday School lesson I ever heard had a picture of a Roman soldier and walking through the armor and figuring how this protects that and why this is needed on this body-part here. That kind of lesson from this text totally misses the point of the text. While the Roman soldier would have been something that Paul and his audience could reflect on, Paul has in mind something grander and older and deeper.

The Armor

So Paul says,

Ephesians 6:13 “Take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand.”

Take up or put on the full armor of God. Filling all things requires a fullness armor. And then he gets into the various pieces of the armor that the church is to put on. We’re going to say three things about this armor. And the very first one is the most important.

This Armor is Jesus’ Armor.

This Armor is defensive Armor.

This Armor is Gospel Armor.

We have already seen this is Jesus’ Armor. The Armor Paul speaks of is the armor of the divine warrior in Isaiah. The Armor of God is the Armor of Christ. And the armor that the church is to put on has already been worn by someone else who defeated the enemy in the very same armor. Paul says “put on Jesus”. Put on the armor that Jesus wore. Put on the Armor of Christ.

This armor is a gift from the One who has won using the armor!

One of the cool things that you see at the end of football games is the exchange of jerseys. It is a prize, a gift.. the uniform that was worn in the battle of a game. Game-worn jerseys fetch a lot of money, especially if the jersey was worn by a Hall-Of-Famer. If you’ve ever been to a historical museum, chances are you’ve seen the very uniform that a military hero wore in battle. Some uniforms I’ve seen, still have the wound marks of a bullet or a sword. Every uniform has a story. Jesus gives us the uniform He wore in beating the devil at the cross.

The enemy has already been conquered in this armor. It’s battle ready because it has been battle-tested. The Armor Jesus wore and wears is the Armor the church wears. The church gets to participate in a war that has already been won for them by their King and Savior.

We said it last week. Paul opens this entire paragraph by saying receive from Jesus His Strength. That’s what it means to be “be strong in Jesus”. Receive your strength from Jesus. Let Jesus strengthen you through His Word and through His Sacrament. And now Paul says.. put on Jesus’ armor. The strength is not ours. The armor is not ours. The Armor of God is the Armor of Jesus. The Divine Warrior of Isaiah has come in the person of Jesus and has defeated the enemy wearing his helmet of salvation and his robe dipped in blood. His Word is his might and he is a shield for his people. So put on Jesus. Put on his armor because there is an enemy out there who is not all that keen on seeing the church fill all of society with Jesus.

Defensive

The second thing we can say about the armor is that it is defensive.

Here are the pieces are armor to be put on:

Belt

Body armor (chest protector)

Sandals

Shield

Helmet

Sword

These are all defensive pieces. Paul doesn’t mention armaments, or arrows (except the arrows from the enemy), or javelins. No horses or chariots. Just defensive armor. This is in keeping with his multiple exhortations here to stand and resist. The sword is the only weapon, and given the call to stand and resist and the fact that the rest of the armor mentioned is all defensive weaponry, you get the sense that the sword is to be used in self-defense. The armor is received from Christ and the gear is defensive.

Ever listen to an organ at a major league baseball game? We grew up with one at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. To this day, my favorite piece from the organ was Duh-duh-duh-duh, Duh-duh-duh-duh, duh-duh-de-de-de-duh.... CHARGE! My brother and I went to a Reds game when we visited Ohio last June. Kept waiting to hear it… sure enough, around the 6th or 7th inning.. Duh-duh-duh-duh, Duh-duh-duh-duh, duh-duh-de-de-de-duh.... CHARGE! That little ditty was created in the 1940’s for the Southern Cal Trojans football team. It’s a rally cry meant to mimic the calls for troops to charge in battle. There is no duh-duh-de-de-de-duh.... CHARGE! in Paul’s writing. No charging. No attacking. Just stand and resist in Christ’s armor.

What’s the first thing we want to do when we have been accused unfairly? What do we want to do when we think our reputation is on the line? Attack. Paul here is telling the church to put on Christ’s armor, defensive armor and stand. Resist. And when we see what the armor consists of, we begin to see that this warfare into which we are called is a different kind of a warfare unlike the way our culture wants to fight.

The Gospel

Here’s the content of the body armor, which again, closely matches what the Divine Warrior wears:

Truth

Righteousness

Gospel of Peace

Faith

Salvation

Word of God

We wage war against the enemy with the Gospel. These words here are all Gospel words. The Good News of who Jesus is. What He has done for us. What He continues to do for us. In his life, death, and resurrection. We are filling every area of life with Jesus and His story and His forgiveness and grace for us and for others. And the very same Gospel with which we fill all things is the Gospel that defends us against the enemy. Filling all things with Jesus means God is actively saving us and others. The armor we put on is actively saving us from the Evil One and his schemes. Truth, Righteousness, The Gospel of Peace, Faith, Salvation, The Word of God… all of it actively saving us. It’s the armor Jesus wore in saving us. It’s our armor against the Evil One. The Gospel.

I can’t begin to tell you how important it is that we get this right. There is no law here. There are no commands being waged in our warfare. We do not resist the arrows of the devil using the 10 commandments. Doing battle with the Evil One and his forces has absolutely zero to do with fighting against the morality and behavior of our culture. Zero. But that kind of defense is everywhere. The claim is made that we are being attacked by the devil on every side. We talked last week that the evil Paul is talking about is the evil, not out there, but in here.. the stuff we see in the mirror, the stuff we see in our homes, the temptations to not believe Jesus that I find everywhere. But then we not only misread the evil here, but we put on all the wrong armor. The devil is apparently beaten by better arguments, and better laws, and better principles for living the godly life. It’s all law. The law, in the Bible, is never a weapon against the Evil One. Only the gospel. This armor is all Gospel. Truth is another word for Gospel for Paul and the New Testament writers.

So, standing for truth, which is a rally cry in our culture, is best understood as Standing for Forgiveness, Standing for laying down the life of the cross, standing for salvation through faith, standing for Jesus and his love and kindness and gentleness, standing for grace, standing for mercy, standing for God’s unconditional love for sinners. That’s what it means to stand in these verses.

Standing and resisting and the armor is all about the gospel and salvation.

Truth, righteousness, gospel of peace, faith, salvation, and the Bible… the Promises of God. That’s the armor we are to put on.

The evil one is confronted in the gospel. The gospel is the last thing the evil one wants to see. If Paul were writing one of the popular Christian books of the last 100 years, Paul and Jesus and John would write that a sure sign of the devil’s success is all the sin being cleaned up and removed from the public square. The devil’s success is a squeaky clean society.. because that society has no need for Jesus. Good moral people have no need for Jesus. Instead, we live in a mess. We wage war with grace, salvation, and forgiveness.

Filling every corner of society with Jesus is not about morality campaigns. It’s about bringing the gospel into every corner of society. Living lives of forgiveness, peace, grace, mercy, compassion, and kindness. Paying grace forward. The wicked one wants to take us out and take us down and our response is to continue to bring good news to people sorely in need of good news. We wear the armor that our Divine Warrior wore… the Gospel, the Good News that Jesus wants a relationship with us. Jesus wants our hearts. Jesus wants to fill every area of our lives with himself and his salvation and his forgiveness and his grace. When the heat comes, and it will, we stand and resist with the same Gospel promises that Jesus gave us when he made us His own.

Let’s Pray.

This Table is the answer to the enemy. This Table tells the enemy you do not win. This Table is how we war against the principalities and powers. This Table is our forgiveness. It is our life. And it is our salvation. The enemy has his arrows, his flaming arrows, lit with fire from hell itself and this Table quenches the fire. Christ’s broken body. His shed blood. FOR you! This is your armor. We come to this Table and we take our stand. We resist. We resist the temptation of self-sufficiency and self-salvation. We resist the temptation of always having to be right and always trying to win. Because at this Table Jesus lost. For you. In losing, Jesus won. That is our armor. The Gospel. Right here, right now, in the Promise for us!