Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Well, good morning, church. Before you sit down, say hi to a few people sitting around you. Say hi to a few people sitting around you.
[00:00:08] Tell them it's good to be in church and it's good to see you this morning. Thank you, Nate. I appreciate you.
[00:00:17] Say hi to a few more. If you don't know them, introduce yourself, brothers and sisters around here.
[00:00:28] Alrighty. Righty. Well, it's good to be with you all this morning. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Logan. I'm one of the people on staff out here. Our good brother Jovan is on vacation, so I'm filling in. And y', all, we've done it. We have come to the end of the Ephesians series.
[00:00:45] So for those of you who have been here for the past three months or four months, thank you for running the Endurance with us. Thank you for running the race. It is a bittersweet moment for me, hopefully for you as well. It's been a wonderful thing to see this and it's also going to be fun to jump into something new. But before we jump into scripture, I want to make sure that you're aware of a few things.
[00:01:07] Coming up on October 25th, we are doing baptisms and baby dedications.
[00:01:15] On one hand, dedications are a moment where as parents, you get to say and commit that you're going to raise your kid in the church. As a church. We likewise commit to help raise your kids to the best way that we can because we believe that God has a plan for every generation, and it starts with the next one, the young men and women in this church, because who knows knows what God might do in their lives.
[00:01:49] But for some of you, you have either grown up in the church or maybe you've come to Christ a little bit later in life and you've come to trust him as your Lord and Savior. Baptism is a moment. It is a milestone in the Christian life where a Christian makes public their confession, their faith, their trust in Jesus.
[00:02:10] And it's a moment as a church where we get to celebrate, y'. All. When we start clapping and cheering, it's as loud as the super bowl is, wherever that's going to be next year. But it is far more significant because this is a moment where people are saying yes to Jesus. So if that is you, if you have said yes to Christ and you want to make that public, if you want, if we can celebrate with you, our friend Carmen over there in the back, she's going to sign you up, we'll get you Hooked up and we'll go from there. If you have any questions, talk to Carmen. Talk to myself after the service. We'd be happy to answer any questions that we have. Any questions that you have. Pronoun trouble. Sorry about that. All right.
[00:02:53] Ephesians, chapter 6, verse 10.
[00:02:59] This is what Paul says.
[00:03:02] Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.
[00:03:08] Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
[00:03:15] For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
[00:03:32] Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day. And having done all to stand firm.
[00:03:46] Stand.
[00:03:47] Therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.
[00:04:12] And take up the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Praying at all times in the spirit, with all prayer and supplication.
[00:04:23] To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplications for the saints and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the Gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak, so that you may also know how I am and what I am doing. Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will tell you everything.
[00:04:53] I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are and that he may encourage your hearts.
[00:05:01] Peace be to the brothers.
[00:05:03] And love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:05:10] Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ, with love incorruptible.
[00:05:18] This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let us pray.
[00:05:24] Dear Heavenly Father, you reign sovereign over all creation.
[00:05:32] You are uncontested in might.
[00:05:37] No one can plumb the depths of the riches of your wisdom.
[00:05:43] All things are. Are under your control and are subject to you.
[00:05:52] And, Father, as the apostle Paul shows us, the Christian life is a battleground.
[00:06:02] We live in a time where, although the enemy has been defeated, there are still moments where we succumb to his influence.
[00:06:17] Father, I pray that through your spirit you would teach us to use the tools you've given us to be able to withstand that.
[00:06:27] I pray that from everything we've learned in the book of Ephesians that we would learn to apply it in the kind of way that we reach, that we become the men and the women that you've created us to be.
[00:06:41] Would you please help us? Would you please bless us? And I pray that in all of this, Jesus Christ would be glorified, both now and forever.
[00:06:51] Father, we love you and we thank you and we lift this up through your Son's name.
[00:06:56] Amen.
[00:07:02] Because it has been such a marathon of a series, I want to do a recap. Some of you, this might be your first time here. Some of you have been with us back in June when we started this thing.
[00:07:14] So let's go through a brief overview of what we've talked about.
[00:07:20] Paul starts off the book of Ephesians by telling us that the Christian life originates from. From God, who is eternally blessed in Himself.
[00:07:32] The blessed God has blessed us with every blessing in the spiritual way.
[00:07:40] Some of those spiritual blessings include him choosing us in Christ, him redeeming us through Jesus blood by making us heirs with Christ, and by sealing us in Christ by the Holy Spirit.
[00:07:56] After Paul opens up our minds to this, he then prays for us that God would be generous with people like you and I in that. In doing so, God would open up our hearts to see the hope to which we have been called, the riches of our glorious inheritance in Christ and His mighty strength.
[00:08:19] Then Paul says, you have to remember, you have to think about this. This was not something that was yours by nature. It was not mine by nature.
[00:08:27] By nature we were dead in our trespasses and sin.
[00:08:32] But.
[00:08:34] But by the riches of his mercy, the riches of his grace, the riches of his kindness, God made people like you and I alive together with Christ.
[00:08:52] And he has seated us with Christ that he might show the surpassing riches of his kindness in Christ Jesus.
[00:09:02] And we look that as believers start to get together, we start to realize there's barriers separating us from each other.
[00:09:11] There are differences between locations.
[00:09:14] There are differences in culture. There are differences even in cities between people.
[00:09:20] Christ in coming, removes those barriers so that we have more in common with each other than what we have distinguishing us from each other.
[00:09:31] There were walls of hostility blocking us, separating us from God.
[00:09:38] And by the cross, the God made peace with us, to reconcile us, to draw us back to Himself.
[00:09:49] And in thinking about this, Paul couldn't help but make another prayer that we would be strengthened in Christ to be filled with all the fullness of God, and in one of the most astounding verses in all the Bible, that we would have the capacity to know the love of God, which it goes beyond any width we can measure, any length that we can see, any height, any depth. It goes beyond comprehension.
[00:10:25] And after he establishes these truths, he then goes on to say, important truths, but here's what you do with that.
[00:10:36] The very first thing that he says is, the Christian life is marked by unity.
[00:10:40] There is something as we draw closer to Christ, we're supposed to draw closer to each other as well. There is supposed to be a Christian love that is extended to people, whether we know them well, whether we don't know them well, whether by nature we would get along, or whether by regular life things would more than likely divide us.
[00:11:04] Part of that, of maintaining that unity, Paul continues, is dealing with the ugliness, the evil inside of each one of us.
[00:11:14] If you want, there's a list in Ephesians 4, the second half. You can go through that and see these are things that are not good in life in general, much less in the Christian life. Okay, we're not going back through those. You can look through that list.
[00:11:30] We can all find things in there that dwell in us. Paul says, if you're going to have unity, you have to deal with that first.
[00:11:38] And then he goes on to say, part of maintaining that unity is proper relationship management.
[00:11:47] Spouses and people considering marriage have to submit to one another in love and reverence for Jesus Christ.
[00:11:55] Parents have to treat their kids well, kids have to treat their parents well. And in every circumstance we find ourselves, we have to make the most of those opportunities, because how we navigate that reflects something of the wonder and majesty of Christ to the people around us.
[00:12:15] But Paul isn't finished there.
[00:12:19] Paul says, there is something that you also have to be aware of, and it's something very important for our own day and age.
[00:12:29] This is the main point of Paul's message, that the Christian life requires standing firm against evil, and Christians strengthen themselves against evil in Christ.
[00:12:46] There is an evil that dwells within us, and we'll get to that in a second. But there is also something on the outside.
[00:12:55] There is an enemy, and there is someone who has an agenda that is contrary to what God had in store for people like you and I.
[00:13:05] And this is what Paul says in verse 10.
[00:13:08] Finally, finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
[00:13:23] For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over the present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day. And having done all, to stand firm. And there's really two things that we need to pull out from this. We're not going to go line by line, but this is what Paul wants us to know. First of all, the Christian life requires complete dependence on Christ.
[00:13:57] Three times in these verses, Paul says something to this effect.
[00:14:03] Be strong in the Lord. It can also be translated, make yourself capable. Strengthen yourself in Christ.
[00:14:13] You must clothe yourself with the whole armor of God. You must take up the whole armor of God.
[00:14:21] Paul's looking around and saying, if you're going to live the Christian life, if you're going to navigate the next 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, however many years you're here of your life, you cannot do it apart from the work that Christ has done in you and in me.
[00:14:40] We are not capable on our own. We're not strong enough.
[00:14:46] All right? And Paul is going to highlight what this looks like in a practical way. When you go through the pieces of armor, if you look, those are all things God has done for us. Those are not things that we have to muster up and strengthen ourselves with. They, they have been accomplished. The question is, are we applying them in our lives?
[00:15:07] The Christian life requires complete dependence on Christ.
[00:15:12] And Paul gives us some reasons why.
[00:15:15] In verse 11, he says, to stand against the schemes of the devil.
[00:15:20] That word schemes is actually in Greek method, the methods of the devil. The devil is not just a impersonal force. He has an agenda. He works on trying to figure out what makes us tick and what ticks us off.
[00:15:36] All right?
[00:15:39] If we want to stand, if we want to accomplish this, we have to depend on Christ.
[00:15:46] Verse 12 says this. We are fighting an enemy that is out of our league. Paul says, okay, if you're wrestling against flesh and blood, you need flesh and blood kind of tools, okay? Back in Paul's day, Rome was basically unconquerable. Their legions, their auxiliaries, their military was absolutely undefeated in Paul's day. Wherever they went, they conquered. Whenever an enemy came against them, they were repelled.
[00:16:17] It required physical, tangible tools for the job.
[00:16:25] Paul says, you need different tools for this job because you're not fighting flesh and blood. There's something deeper going on in reality.
[00:16:34] If you're trying to hammer a. If you're trying to get Nails into a floor, you need a hammer.
[00:16:40] If you're trying to sink a screw, you need a screwdriver or a drill.
[00:16:45] We know how ridiculous it would be if you tried to cut a lawn with scissors. It would take forever. And then by the time you're done cutting the grass, the other half of it's already grown and it's no longer level.
[00:16:56] You need the right tool for the job, which is why Paul says you have to set your sights a little bit higher and a little bit deeper in reality and in fighting enemies out of our league. It would be like trying to pit me against Usain Bolt in a race. Okay, if you look at me, I'm not going to beat him in a race in my lifetime, maybe if I trip him, but I'm not going to catch him. To be able to do that, all right, you have to be capable. We have to be capable, and we lack that strength apart from Christ. And then the last thing that Paul says with that is to stand firm in the evil day.
[00:17:33] Whether we realize it or not, every single day has its skirmishes.
[00:17:39] Every single day has its micro battles in our minds, in our hearts, in our relationships. Those little times where we let those thoughts in of aggression, of distrust, those little skirmishes add up.
[00:17:59] But it's also true that some seasons are significantly more challenging than others.
[00:18:08] Not every day is going to be the same.
[00:18:10] Not every season is going to be as difficult or as easy as the one that you're in right now, that I'm in right now. There will be ebbs and flows, and especially when things are at their most difficult, if we are ill equipped, if we don't have the capacity, if we don't have the strength, we cannot hope to navigate it.
[00:18:31] Well, Maybe I should have put this one first, but this is an important one.
[00:18:43] The Christian life recognizes the reality of evil.
[00:18:49] We have to think about the order. And this is why I did a little bit of a recap. First, Paul doesn't start off by talking about evil as a personal force before he deals with the powers, the principalities, the rulers.
[00:19:09] War is not against flesh and blood. He starts off by looking inside and saying, look, each and every single one of us have something in our own souls that needs to be addressed first before you can look outside and say, there's evil out there, We. We have to recognize the reality that there is evil in here.
[00:19:30] Because until we learn to deal with what's going on in here, what's happening out there isn't going. We won't be able to Deal with what's going on out there. Does that make sense?
[00:19:42] Okay.
[00:19:44] Evil is a reality in the Christian life. To the degree that we reverse the order looking outside before we look inside, we are always going to be looking for fixes, changes out there rather than the actual problem, which is in here.
[00:20:04] All right.
[00:20:06] I also want to say this because I spent the last week and a half, two weeks trying to do a lot of reading on this.
[00:20:13] And what I've learned is we don't have a whole lot of information about what this looks like.
[00:20:18] If you read Paul's letters, if you read, you can get some information, but he doesn't have a five volume theology on evil.
[00:20:28] That's not his purpose. But there are two pitfalls that we need to avoid as Christians. And C.S. lewis brought them out in his book the Screwtape Letters, and they were very helpful. The first pitfall is being so consumed with evil beings and making them larger than life.
[00:20:50] The second pitfall is saying, well, they really don't have that influence and they don't really exist.
[00:20:56] All right, on the first one, has anybody seen the old Disney movie Mulan from the late 90s? Okay. Handful of people. Handful of people. There's a really funny scene where this dragon who is assigned to protect the main character, Mulan, goes and meets her for the first time. And instead of just showing himself, he hides behind a rock, starts a fire and it casts this massive shadow on the wall behind him. And he's making himself intimidating. He's going around saying, I'm going to be this, I'm going to be that. And then he finally shows himself and he's this big something you can drop, kick over a fence.
[00:21:32] Not intimidating whatsoever and also not very helpful. All right.
[00:21:36] One of the pitfalls that we have to avoid is thinking that evil is all powerful. It's not the Unholy one. Anything that Paul deals with in this section is not an equal opposite force to God.
[00:21:54] Evil. The Unholy One has some capacity, has the ability to do some things, because if he didn't, then Paul wouldn't say anything about him. But he is utterly subject to Christ.
[00:22:09] The final battle, as it were, over evil, was decided 2000 years ago on a cross.
[00:22:17] We're not fighting an undefeated enemy. We're fighting against a defeated enemy who's trying to do damage on his way out.
[00:22:27] This is not saying you take the fight to the enemy because Christ needs you to do his work for him. He's already done it.
[00:22:34] The Unholy One has absolutely no authority outside of what God allows him to have, and only for the duration that he's allowed to have.
[00:22:46] But there's an equal or there's another pitfall on this spectrum that we have to be aware of, thinking that these things don't exist whatsoever.
[00:22:56] All right? We live in a culture right now that has completely naturalized every single aspect of life. If there's evil out there, it's a system, it's a group of people. It's not in me, and it's not something supernatural.
[00:23:12] All right?
[00:23:14] What Paul is trying to say is, look, you can believe in it, or you cannot believe in it, but if it is out there and it can still do something to you even if you don't believe it, Paul says, you cannot be caught unaware about this.
[00:23:30] But along with this, we also can't think of, we're coming up on Halloween.
[00:23:37] What the unholy one can do is not like the Exorcist movies. You're not going to be twisting your head around on puking everywhere, floating on the ceiling. I haven't seen them. I don't know what they are, but okay, that's not what happens.
[00:23:50] Paul is saying, look, there's actually two words that are used here or that have been used in Paul's writings. Hasatanos, Satan, and had diabolos, the devil.
[00:24:02] The two things that the unholy one can do is hasatan, which means accuse the accuser, and diabolos means slanderer.
[00:24:12] Two things that evil can do is accuse you, slander you, and deceive you.
[00:24:24] It doesn't have the capacity to make us do things we don't want to do.
[00:24:30] And that's part of the problem.
[00:24:33] If it was just the devil trying to control people, if it was evil trying to control people, that would be a lot easier.
[00:24:39] The issue is he can play on the very things that we know need to change, which is why we need something stronger than ourselves. Do you see what Paul is trying to get at here a little bit? If you're dealing with an enemy outside of your league, you need a strength that makes you capable of dealing with it.
[00:25:04] We have to view evil in its proper context.
[00:25:08] And we also have to strengthen ourselves in Christ through the means that he's given us. All right? And this is what Paul gives us as an application of all this through a military imagery.
[00:25:23] Christians stand firm against evil by employing God's methods.
[00:25:30] This is verse 14.
[00:25:33] Stand, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and has shoes for your feet, Having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one, and take up the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
[00:26:00] All right, four times. Paul says, the Christian life is about standing firm, resisting, standing opposed, standing firm in certain situations.
[00:26:15] Okay? It is not a strength that we muster up. If we say, I'm a pretty good person, I can handle what's coming my way. That is the first step towards defeat.
[00:26:25] All right? Paul says, you stand firm by applying what I've shown you in this letter.
[00:26:33] I did as much reading and thinking through this passage as I could. I could not make many.
[00:26:39] I was trying to see if there were logical connections, if there was a certain order. I wasn't getting anywhere. But what we can understand is this.
[00:26:46] Every single one of these qualities is something that Christ has done for us that we can then apply in certain ways to be able to deal with the evil in us and around us. So take, for example, this one. Christians stand firm through truth.
[00:27:08] There's two ways that you can understand the word belt for this one was it was either a tunic you would put on underneath that would go to your knees or so and it would help deflect some arrows, or it was a belt that held things together. Okay?
[00:27:24] Paul is saying you have to think about truth as holding things together.
[00:27:30] All right? Truth abstractly, truth generally, truth practically. Okay, what does he mean, we have to think about the truth?
[00:27:39] Well, first of all, we can think about this. What is true about God?
[00:27:44] If the unholy one delights to either lie or accuse, this is what this might look like.
[00:27:54] There's something that maybe last week you did something that you said you wouldn't do.
[00:27:59] You yelled at somebody.
[00:28:01] You told somebody they were number one.
[00:28:03] You said you thought a thought that you didn't want to think. Whatever the case, all right, there's usually a little whisper that follows, you're a loser.
[00:28:17] How could God want somebody like you hanging around Him?
[00:28:24] All right, that is a lie and an accusation.
[00:28:29] What do we know is true about God?
[00:28:32] That little lie is trying to get us to distrust something of the character of God.
[00:28:38] So to combat that, we use truth to remind ourselves who God is.
[00:28:46] Yes, it is true. I said what I didn't what I said I wouldn't say I did what I said I wouldn't do or I didn't do what I said I would do.
[00:28:54] But let me remind myself of this truth, when I was dead in my trespasses and sins, by the riches of his mercy and grace, and God made me alive together with Christ.
[00:29:11] How could God want to hang around somebody like that? Who did that? Who said that? Who thought that?
[00:29:17] Because Jesus said this. Come to me, you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
[00:29:25] That wasn't for the people who got their lives together. That was for the people who acknowledged they didn't.
[00:29:33] Paul said, Jesus Christ came to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
[00:29:39] Do you see that truth about God counteracts the accusation, the lie that comes our way.
[00:29:49] All right? But there's also truths about us.
[00:29:54] Okay, you do something you said you didn't want to do, there's an accusation that comes.
[00:30:04] You're always going to be the same.
[00:30:06] You're never going to change. You're never going to get this right.
[00:30:10] You call yourself a Christian?
[00:30:13] How.
[00:30:18] A counteractive truth looks like this.
[00:30:22] In fact, this was a hymn that was absolutely beautiful. Or part of a hymn that's absolutely beautiful. Listen to this.
[00:30:29] Well, may the accuser roar. Of things that I have done, I know them all and thousands more.
[00:30:37] But the Lord, my God, knows not one.
[00:30:43] Do you know? Yes, it is true that we are sinners, but we are simultaneously justified.
[00:30:51] Meaning God treats us as if we had not sinned.
[00:30:57] Yes, it is true we do things on a regular basis that.
[00:31:02] I'll speak for myself. I've done things. I do things that I would love to be able to leave behind so I could be a better man.
[00:31:10] But this is also true as far as the east is from the West.
[00:31:17] So far has God separated our sins from us.
[00:31:20] That is a truth. Not that you have to manufacture, but that God says is true about you and about me.
[00:31:30] We use truth to combat the lie. Does that make sense?
[00:31:35] Okay, Christians, stand firm through righteousness.
[00:31:47] Breastplates were something that covered you both front and back to protect you against attacks against your vital organs. Okay?
[00:32:00] Paul once wrote, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ.
[00:32:08] When there is an accusation against you because of something you remember you've done something that you did. Whatever the case, you get to look and say, God has called me or has said, I am not condemned if I trust Christ, if I am in Christ, there is not condemnation. There is peace with God.
[00:32:31] All right? But then that righteousness calls something out of me.
[00:32:35] If God desires to make me righteous, if he calls me righteous, if he wants me to be a certain way, then when temptation comes, I get to look at that and say, God has called me to a higher standard.
[00:32:52] Look, maybe that is something that I would really like to do, or maybe it makes sense in the moment, or whatever the case might be, but God has called me to live in differently than that. We get to look at that and say, look, maybe that was who I was before.
[00:33:07] God has created me for something better than that moment.
[00:33:17] For those of you who like sports, think about it this way.
[00:33:21] Athletes practice months and months and months off the field outside of a game just to be able to make that one catch, to make that one pass, to hit that one ball, to throw whatever basketball do, to sink that one basket.
[00:33:45] When we talk about righteousness, there is what Christ has done for us to make us right with God.
[00:33:52] But then there is the daily application of living in line with how God has called us to be with who he's created us to be.
[00:34:01] It is those moments off the field, it is those moments in the daily skirmishes of life that help shape the greater trajectory for us.
[00:34:20] Christians. Stand firm through the gospel of peace.
[00:34:29] Gospel means good news. What is the good news?
[00:34:36] That God has a love for you that transcends width, height, length, depth, any sort of measurement we can bring.
[00:34:45] The good news is that while we were dead in our trespasses and sins, that Christ made us alive together with Him.
[00:34:53] And what happens with that is there is peace.
[00:34:57] There is genuine reconciliation between us and God. Okay, why does that matter?
[00:35:04] The more we internalize this good news, what Christ has done for us, the more stable our lives are.
[00:35:15] If you have ever tried to start a new friendship or a relationship or anything like that, has anyone ever had a moment where you've said something, you went away from that conversation and realized, ooh, I really hope I didn't offend them there. I really hope I didn't blow it. I really hope. Anyone ever had that before?
[00:35:32] Yes. No, Maybe.
[00:35:34] Okay, when it says there is peace, a gospel of peace, we never have to be worried that God is going to turn on us tomorrow and be frustrated.
[00:35:48] If we have confidence that the peace we have with God was established by his work, then we can move through confidently to say, look, if I do what I'm supposed to, then glory to God. If I don't do what I'm supposed to, then I can have confidence. I can go to him, ask for forgiveness, receive it, and that relationship is still there. He doesn't change his demeanor towards us if we are in.
[00:36:32] But the more we internalize that peace, the better we will be able to share It.
[00:36:39] This one's interesting. He said the shoes of the Gospel of Peace.
[00:36:44] Shoes aren't meant to sit on your feet as decorations.
[00:36:48] They're meant to get you to go out and walk.
[00:36:51] I don't know if you've tried to walk out barefoot before in grass or concrete and gravel. It hurts sometimes, especially in summer when it's 95 degrees and black asphalt. Okay, not a great idea. Shoes are meant for moving. Shoes are meant for walking. And what happens is, the gospel is not meant to stay with you and I. It's meant to be shared with the people around us.
[00:37:16] The more confident you are in the peace that exists between you and God because of Christ, the more confident you and I will be about sharing that peace with the people around us.
[00:37:27] Not only will we have better peace with each other, but we can call them up to say, there is peace avail. Excuse me, there is peace available for you with God, just as there was for me.
[00:37:43] It's a beautiful moment that allows people to connect with God in a new and a fresh way.
[00:37:52] But peace also leads to a visible unity in the church for outsiders.
[00:37:59] All right, I'm going to say this because I've been getting about a million pieces of mail saying opposite things as well as commercials saying opposite things in a month and a half or so. We have this election cycle going on.
[00:38:15] All right?
[00:38:17] The church's job is not to tell you how to vote.
[00:38:21] It is the church's job to say, however, Christ is more important than that.
[00:38:30] If we lose our peace together because we disagree over who we vote for, if we sacrifice the peace of Christ because we have differences of opinions in political matters, we have lost the fight.
[00:38:46] Brothers and sisters, the world is hungry to see unity brought about by peace.
[00:38:56] The world is longing for a beacon of hope that we don't have to be at each other's throats because we disagree with each other.
[00:39:08] And by the way, don't believe the commercials. Don't believe the ballots. The enemy is not on the left. The enemy is not on the right.
[00:39:16] Paul says our enemy is not flesh and blood.
[00:39:19] There is a deeper enemy we have to deal with during this season.
[00:39:29] Let the peace of Christ make the final call for you.
[00:39:39] Christians. Stand firm through faith.
[00:39:46] Interestingly, Paul, This is the only weapon that Paul, or the only piece of armor that Paul gives a rationale for that. You should be able to extinguish the flaming darts of the unholy one.
[00:40:02] All right? These shields that the Romans would use were about 2 1/2ft wide by 4ft tall. They were massive. They were overlaid with, they were a couple of pieces of wood glued together, iron on top, iron on the bottom, overlaid with some leather and sometimes even dipped in water. If they, if they knew that their enemy was going to be using flaming arrows. All right, how does faith protect us? How does faith defend us?
[00:40:31] Faith is a reminder that we are wholly dependent on Christ.
[00:40:37] The strength we get from faith is not from faith in itself.
[00:40:44] The strength we get from faith is the strength of the object of our faith. And here's what I mean by that. I've been standing on this stage for, I don't know, half an hour, 25 minutes. I have trust that it's going to be able to hold me up.
[00:41:01] It doesn't matter though how much trust I have in it.
[00:41:06] If it is a strong stage, it's going to hold me up. If it is a weak stage or has been weakened in some way, I will fall right through and it will be a hilarious moment for you all.
[00:41:20] The strength of faith is in its object.
[00:41:25] And the object of our faith is God Almighty.
[00:41:31] Let me give you something that God says about Himself. This is a beautiful thing. When we need to remind, when we need to strengthen our faith, we remind ourselves about who God is.
[00:41:42] One of the most beautiful clear cut statements about who God is comes from Exodus 34. In fact, I may have shared this with you guys a couple of weeks, oh, a month ago now. Oh, wow.
[00:41:53] The Lord. The Lord, God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. He is the one who keeps steadfast love for 3000s, forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sins, but who by no means clears the guilty. Visiting the iniquity of the fathers of the fathers and the children to the third and fourth generation. All right, here's what God is saying about Himself.
[00:42:25] First of all, merciful and gracious. The very first thing we have to remind ourselves, the very first thing God characterizes himself by is grace and mercy, treating us better than what we deserve and being a God who delights to relieve misery, to relieve our suffering.
[00:42:47] Merciful and gracious, slow to anger, he doesn't get riled up quickly. And he's abounding in steadfast love. His love is unconditional.
[00:42:59] Our love tends to be conditional. I love you as long as you do this, as long as you don't say that. As long as this doesn't happen, his says, without border, without boundary, my love remains loyal to you.
[00:43:13] All right, do you see what happens when we start thinking this way?
[00:43:17] Our confidence in God starts to go up.
[00:43:23] When I think he's run out of mercy, I. I remind myself he is the God of all mercy and comfort.
[00:43:30] If there is any mercy to be had, it is to be had in Him.
[00:43:35] If I need grace in my life, then that grace is to be found in Him.
[00:43:41] Even that last part. He's a God who by no means clears the guilty.
[00:43:44] Here's how this works. There are times that people do very unpleasant things to us.
[00:43:50] And in the moment, it feels like we have a right to get back at them.
[00:43:54] When we hear that, though, we can say, dear God, justice belongs to you. And I am willing to trust that you will make the best thing happen. I am entrusting this to you.
[00:44:08] It allows us to move quicker to peace. It allows us to not hold onto the very things that would ruin us on the inside.
[00:44:21] All right.
[00:44:23] Christian stands firm through salvation. I'm going to move quickly through these last two because I'm running out of time.
[00:44:33] When we talk about salvation, there's a couple of things to think about.
[00:44:38] On one hand, it is something that God has done for us.
[00:44:43] When we trust Christ, he begins doing his good work in us. He makes us his sons, his daughters. He draws us to Himself. All right. But then there's an ongoing process in us.
[00:44:57] I'm not the man that I will be when I stand before Jesus Christ.
[00:45:04] Paul himself said that God has a plan, that Jesus himself has a plan to present the church without spot and without blemish.
[00:45:14] And he doesn't leave projects half finished. He doesn't give up on the puzzle because it's too hard to put together, too complicated, too messy.
[00:45:23] Those are the very things that he continues to do.
[00:45:26] We have confidence that, yes, we struggle here and now, but that's not how it will always be.
[00:45:35] The one offensive piece of equipment we have is the Word of God.
[00:45:42] When Jesus was tested in the wilderness, he didn't say, hey, look, I'm God, you're not.
[00:45:48] Get out of here.
[00:45:50] He didn't say, well, that really doesn't matter. That isn't really what's going on. Blah, blah. Okay, no. What does he do?
[00:45:57] Man shall not live by bread alone. You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. You shall serve the Lord your God and worship him only. Those are all quotes from Scripture.
[00:46:09] The more we have scripture going through our heads, the more we engage with it regularly, the better we will be able to handle what comes our way. Because, by the way, I don't know if you've ever tried sword fighting before.
[00:46:21] You can't pick up a sword and just start swinging. That's a recipe for a bad disaster. If you've seen Olympic fencing, it is calculated strikes and it's usually over in a couple of swings. That's it.
[00:46:37] If we're going to be people who know how to use God's word, well, we have to train in it. We have to be constantly engaging with it. All right?
[00:46:49] And then Paul says, we apply this all through prayer. We stand firm against evil through prayer, praying at all times in the spirit, with all prayer and supplication to that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints. Paul starts this section with dependence on God and then ends this section with dependence on God. With dependence on God being run through the whole thing.
[00:47:15] I think I've talked to you about prayer two or three times in the sermon series already. So this is a great way to close.
[00:47:24] Are you connecting with God regularly through prayer?
[00:47:30] It's like trying to drive 500 miles in your car that goes 100 miles and refusing to stop at a gas station. It ain't gonna go well.
[00:47:45] We pray at all times when things are going well and when difficulties are coming and when things are as hard as they've ever been, we pray with all prayer and all supplication.
[00:47:59] Jesus wants to know what's going on in your heart.
[00:48:02] He wants to know what you're looking forward to.
[00:48:07] We have to believe that he delights to answer prayer.
[00:48:13] Not always the way we expect, not always what we want. If you've ever prayed for a million dollars, that usually doesn't happen.
[00:48:20] All right.
[00:48:22] He cares, though.
[00:48:25] With vigilance. In all perseverance and prayer.
[00:48:31] The times we are most prone to attacks, temptation is when we let our guards down.
[00:48:37] When you think you have it all in the bag, you think you're good to go and then something happens.
[00:48:43] You see it with sports people. They think they've got the ball right there and then somehow they drop it.
[00:48:52] All vigilance at all times.
[00:48:55] And by the way, Paul says, pray for one another.
[00:49:01] It is a beautiful thing when brothers and sisters get together and lift each other up in prayer. All right, this is a lot to think about. This is a lot to go over, but I want to close with this.
[00:49:15] What is Paul asking us to do?
[00:49:17] Think deeper than skin level. There is something going on besides just you and I. This flesh and blood world that we see, the way we deal with it the way we encounter it is by using the methods God has given us.
[00:49:34] God has saved us. He's redeemed us. He's given us truth. He's given us peace.
[00:49:41] Everything we need to be able to navigate this life well.
[00:49:46] But it requires an absolute dependence on him. Brothers and sisters, we cannot get through this life without him. We cannot hope to live the Christian life apart from him. But with him we will succeed.
[00:50:07] We will stand firm.
[00:50:12] Our dear Heavenly Father, how great you are.
[00:50:18] We praise you for the riches of your grace, your mercy, your kindness, your glory, and for generously sharing them with us.
[00:50:29] I pray that you would complete your good work in us, and that would be to the praise of your glory.
[00:50:35] And Father, I pray that we could apply everything that we've learned here well. I pray that we would be men and women who apply the armor that you've given us well.
[00:50:46] I pray that we would not grow slack, but that we would be diligent, vigilant at all times.
[00:50:56] I pray that we would learn ourselves well to know where it is that we need to change, where you're calling us to be different.
[00:51:05] And, Father, I pray that your spirit would stir us towards prayer because we are absolutely dependent on you.
[00:51:12] Father, would you please help us and would you please bless us?
[00:51:15] We love you, and it's in your son's name that we pray. Amen.
