New Strength

[0:00] Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armour of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.

[0:16] 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.

[0:38] Therefore, put on the full armour 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.

[0:51] Stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.

[1:08] And in addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

[1:28] And pray in the Spirit on all occasions, with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people.

[1:42] Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me, so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains.

[2:00] Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should. Antichocos, the dear brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will tell you everything, so that you also may know how I am and what I am doing.

[2:18] I am sending him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are, and that he may encourage you. Peace to the brothers and sisters, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

[2:36] grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ, with an undying love. Good morning. Good morning.

[2:47] Many of you may recognise me. I've been here before. As Anne says, I'm currently your moderator. I'm walking with you during this time when you look for a new minister. I'm also the pastor at Chatsworth Baptist Church, who send their greetings to you this morning.

[3:02] What a very sobering and challenging video we've just watched as well. I'm pretty sure I watched a film about Harriet Tubman. He mentioned Harriet Tubman, didn't he?

[3:14] I think she's got a robe named after her here in Hearn Hill, doesn't she? Harriet Tubman. She was quite an extraordinary lady who I think was in slavery. She escaped. And then I think she was known as kind of a Moses character, or she was nicknamed Moses because she used the rail...

[3:30] Someone's saying yes, thank you, that's helpful. ...that she took people out of slavery, and she took them up the states to get them out to another... Someone's nodding here.

[3:40] I'm remembering this rightly, yeah. Because I think when we get to this passage, and we read from Ephesians chapter 6, and it says, For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against authorities, against the powers of this dark world.

[3:55] I just think someone like Harriet Tubman knew that firsthand. She experienced that firsthand, didn't she? Of all the things that she could have dealt with about the dreadful way some humans treat other humans, and how every morning Harriet Tubman must have had to put on the armour of God to think, Today I'm going out with people who actually want to kill me, and who don't like what I'm doing, because I'm setting people free, and they are dead set against me.

[4:22] And I'm sure she could have said it was very easy to think, Well, my fight is against flesh and blood, because of what she was experiencing, and the dangers that she faced. Rather than understanding there was some other force behind all of this.

[4:37] I thought, fascinating. And if you've not seen the film, I saw the film, I thought the film was extraordinary. And I think also, when we come to Ephesians 6, and it says, Pray in the Spirit on all occasions, what I do remember about Harriet Tubman is, she had headaches.

[4:52] This is right? Yeah, thank you. She had headaches. And it was almost, thank you, helpful, it's from the side. But it was almost like, she was speaking, praying in the Spirit on all occasions.

[5:05] I feel like, she always said, I just feel God is telling me where to go, and what to do. And I think, extraordinary, when we come to Paul writing this letter, to think, Harriet Tubman, probably put on the armour of God, and was praying in the Spirit on all occasions, because she was open to God leading her, and telling her the right way to go.

[5:23] And who doesn't want that in life? I want that. I don't know about anybody else. Whatever, we may not be facing what Harriet Tubman is facing, but I could do that. I could do with some of that armour, and some of that courage, and some of that direction in life.

[5:38] An extraordinary person. So here we are. That was just the introduction. I didn't even know I was doing that bit, by the way. But seeing that film. Ephesians chapter 6.

[5:51] I'm sure for a lot of you, this is a very familiar passage. You've come to it, you've heard, you've probably heard a million sermons about it. And I come to it, and I struggle past the first verse.

[6:05] I don't know about you, but the first verse I find quite challenging. Finally, Paul says, be strong in the Lord. And that's where I pause.

[6:16] And I think, oh, what does that mean? What does that even look like? Because I can think about lots of occasions, perhaps, when I've been weak in the Lord, and I've said things that I shouldn't say, or I've not said things I should say, or I've done things I shouldn't do, or I should have done things I didn't do.

[6:33] And I think, oh, I could probably give you lots of examples of when I've been weak in the Lord. And then you read scripture, and you find other people who've been weak in the Lord. And yet, an angel turns up again towards this young girl and says, you found favour with the Lord.

[6:50] And I think, well, what did she do to find favour? Mary. Or then, an angel turns up to this cowardly young man who's treading grapes in a wine press and says, you're a mighty man of valour.

[7:02] And I think, well, no, he's a cowardly bloke and, you know, a Gideon. And I think, well, they both appear to be weak. How could suddenly they be strong?

[7:13] What does God see in them? And I think, well, sometimes we judge these things by our own strength, don't we? I think often, first we have to say, well, we're weak.

[7:24] And it's God who is strong. And it's his strength that we want to be putting on ourselves. It's not our strength. After all, Moses decided that he would deal with things in his own strength.

[7:37] And when Moses dealt with things in his own strength, he got into a fight with an Egyptian, he killed him, and then he ran away. But when he trusted in God and he took on God's strength, he went up before Pharaoh and said, let my people go.

[7:54] There's a difference, isn't there, about doing things in our own strength or our own weakness and in trusting God. So it's God's strength we put on.

[8:07] Now, what does that look like? And I think about the story of David and Goliath, that incredible story of David turns up to give some food for his brothers that his mum's given them and he turns up to see that the army's pretty scared.

[8:23] And there's this huge soldier on the opposite army called Goliath. And David says, I can go and take this Goliath on and I'm sure the rest of the army are going, what are you little guy?

[8:35] What are you talking about? And they try to put armour on him, but the armour doesn't fit. It's all too big and he takes the armour off and says, that's fine, I'm going to trust in God. And he goes out, he picks up five stones, he puts them in his thing and he wallop, done.

[8:51] Nice and easy. But I think, I don't know who you think you are in the story, but I know, I'm one of the cowardly soldiers. You know, standing on the side going, Goliath's pretty tall.

[9:04] He's pretty tough. And it's actually Jesus who goes out and defeats Goliath, who defeats our Goliath. It's recognising that actually we are weak and he is strong.

[9:17] And that we need to put our trust in him that Jesus may defeat those principalities and powers that Jesus may defeat our Goliaths in our life.

[9:30] And we do, we face these things. We face difficult things and situations and things that affect us and plague us. And, you know, I think of the story of the Gerasene demoniac.

[9:42] This is the story of when Jesus travels with his disciples and they go to a place and there is a guy, he's named in the Bible, sort of a Gerasene demoniac because he is oppressed by demonic spirits.

[9:56] He thrashes about, he's violent, he lives amongst the tombs. He's quite clearly out of his mind. And Jesus sets him free. Jesus commands the demons out of this man.

[10:08] And he sends the demons into 40 pigs, I think it is, or whatever it is, into a herd of pigs. And the pigs race off the side of a cliff and they drown in the water.

[10:20] And the man is set free. So when Paul comes to write and says, you know, this is our battle against the rulers, authorities, powers of this dark world.

[10:30] Well, the powers of this dark world had this young man captured. And Jesus came and set him free. Praise God. But the lesser known part of the story or the bit we don't really pay attention to is what happens next.

[10:47] The man is free. The village find out about what's happened. The village find out what Jesus has done to this man. And the village turn up and what do they say to Jesus? Go away.

[11:00] And we find out that actually the village would prefer to live in darkness. That the village don't want to see the light. That they themselves have been blinded and are not open to seeing the truth that's in front of them.

[11:15] So yes, the story appears to give focus to the demoniac guy who's set free by Jesus. But perhaps we can relate more to the villagers who are living in fear and are not willing to actually face up to some of the things in their life.

[11:31] They were willing to say, you know what? We're comfortable with how things are. We don't want to take that step to be free and what that might mean for us to face up to our own fears.

[11:43] That when the principalities and powers come and perhaps blind us to what's going on in our own life and things that we personally struggle with. Perhaps we have our own thorn in the flesh that Paul talks about later.

[11:56] Perhaps there are addictions and things that we just don't seem to be able to get rid of. And perhaps like the villagers we feel, Jesus, go away from me. Perhaps I'm not worthy even to be in your presence.

[12:08] But that Jesus has come to set us free. Set us free from that which plagues us or plagues our world, plagues our situation.

[12:18] Whether it's an obvious demoniac thing, whether it's a fear that just resides within us. We know that we want Jesus to come and set us free and whether we're going to be open to it and allow him in to those areas of our life.

[12:34] And in all of this, we think, well, if I'm going to allow Jesus into these areas of my life and if I'm going to put on these attributes of Jesus, I'm going to put on this new armour, I'm going to live in this new way.

[12:50] I want to know that this new strength, that, you know, almost I have the authority to do this, that I have the ability to do this, that I have an assurance that I can act and live this way.

[13:04] And Paul, when he writes and he talks about the armour then, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness and your feet fitted with the readiness of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith and finally the helmet of salvation, which I think kind of tops it off to say, this is your assurance of salvation.

[13:23] This is an assurance of who you are in God that you may be free and free to put this armour on, free to put on the attributes of Jesus, free to live in this new way, free from the fears that you've lived with previously.

[13:37] When you put on the helmet of salvation, it's an assurance that your eternal life is secure and therefore you have the ability and the assurance to be able to live and walk in this new way, in this new strength.

[13:49] There's a story of a pastor in Russia during the communist era and the communists come and they knock on his door and they say, Pastor, we want to talk to you and they come in and he comes and they sit in his little house and they said, how can you believe in this stuff?

[14:08] This faith nonsense, it's nonsense. How can you believe in a God? You're deceived. Even from your own scriptures, we can show you that the way that you're going is wrong.

[14:20] There's a story, they say, from your Bible which talks about a shepherd who has a hundred sheep and one of them goes off and the shepherd leaves the 99 to go and search for the one.

[14:33] What nonsense, say the communists. Obviously, the 99 should be the main focus. Why would you bother with one? That's just one. Here's 99.

[14:43] You stay with the community. You make sure they are safe. Why would you leave them alone? Surely they now are fearful. You should, the shepherd should have stayed with them. This shows us that your story is wrong and your God is wrong.

[14:57] The pastor says, no, you've misunderstood the story. Actually, the 99 are more secure because the shepherd goes after the one. Because the 99 know that if ever they get lost, a shepherd will come looking for them.

[15:13] So the strength is in the fact that the shepherd goes looking for the one and the 99 are secure. And I think it comes to our salvation too, to know when we have the helmet of salvation, we are assured.

[15:27] We have assurance of our eternal salvation. We walk with Jesus. We walk this new life and we can let Jesus into those areas of our life that need light in our darkness.

[15:38] We can take authority over those things which oppress us and others because we are secure in our relationship with God and our eternal salvation. In all of that, we get to wield the sword of the Spirit, says Paul.

[15:53] This kind of, everything else is defensive but this appears to be offensive, doesn't it? And there's that great story, isn't there, where Jesus, if you like, jousts with the woman at the well.

[16:05] And there we are at the woman at the well and it's wrong time of day. She should be going to collect the water in the morning of course with the rest of the women where it's safer.

[16:17] She'll be on the road with all the other women but she knows she comes at midday, the hottest part of the day, perhaps because she's persona non grata in her own village because as Jesus later reveals she's had five husbands.

[16:30] Likely of course, she's a victim of patriarchal society. She can't divorce the women herself. It's the men that divorce the women. Here she, she's a victim but she's treated as a leper, if you like.

[16:43] Jesus meets with her and she says, well this and that and Jesus, but I've got living water for you. She doesn't really understand and she wants to come back and say yes but that's what you Jews do.

[16:54] Us Samaritans want to worship elsewhere and Jesus uses if you like the sword of the spirit. You know, he uses the wisdom to be able to speak into her heart and her situation to say but this is what you really need and we realise that when we have the sword of the spirit we're not there to win arguments.

[17:13] We're there to win hearts. We're there to win people and introduce them to Jesus Christ to set them free, to set the villagers free from their fears, to set us free from our fears that the sword of the spirit may, you know, like a, he's alive and active, sharper than any, the word of the Lord is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword.

[17:34] It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the hearts. That's where we want to get to, isn't it? That's why we're putting stuff on.

[17:47] That's why we want to set people free. That's why we want to walk in freedom ourselves. And then we come to Tychicus to finish us off.

[18:02] Tychicus, I don't, do you know anything about Tychicus? Tychicus, who Paul mentions right at the end of this letter. Tychicus, the dear brother and faithful servant in the Lord will tell you everything.

[18:14] Wow, what a responsibility on Tychicus. Tychicus will tell you everything. I don't know whether Tychicus felt that brave or honoured or what. But Tychicus appears a number of times in the letters.

[18:28] He, in some circles, he's known as God's postman because he delivers the letters. Here he is delivering the letter to Ephesus, perhaps to Colossae as well for Corinthians.

[18:40] Tychicus also accompanies Onesimus. Onesimus is Philemon's slave. So when Paul writes to Philemon about Onesimus, it's Tychicus who goes with him.

[18:52] So Tychicus, quite an interesting character, though we don't really know much about him. But I imagine, like Harriet Tubman, each morning he felt he had to put on the armour of God to be able to travel the seas, the boats, the sea worthiness of the boats, the roads that he had to go down.

[19:13] Whether they were safe, whether he walked from Jerusalem to Jericho and was assaged by robbers, I don't know. But I think Tychicus may well have had to put on the armour of God each day to think, I've got a responsibility to share this and to walk with other people and to go and to, to go, I think there are other times he stands in for Timothy and Titus to be a pastor to people I don't know.

[19:41] And so I think Tychicus, when we get to the end of the letter and Paul says he'll tell you everything, I think Tychicus is probably a character who had to put on the armour of God, who probably had to do business with God in his life to make sure there was no darkness and that there was light.

[19:57] He perhaps had to wrestle with principalities and powers, perhaps he had to deal with people who wanted to stop him going around and delivering what he was doing and delivering the good news to those who needed to hear it.

[20:10] Perhaps Tychicus had to face these things. Perhaps we too may feel we're not like a Paul, we're not like the Gerasene demoniac, we're not like the disciples, but perhaps like the villagers we're facing our own challenges.

[20:25] Perhaps like Tychicus, perhaps our journeys feel a little bit mundane, but we have our own struggles along the way. And in all of that, I feel Jesus and Paul writing here about Jesus to say, take on the goodness of God, be open to things in your life that you are allowing lighting, that you are willing in a place to put on the armour of God to strengthen you for your journeys ahead, perhaps like Harriet Tubman did, perhaps like Tychicus did too, because each of us need it for the struggles that we face.

[20:57] Let's pray. Lord, we are struck by the bravery and courage of people like Harriet Tubman, Lord Jesus, and of how she did take on the principalities and powers of this world.

[21:13] Perhaps we feel like Gideon and we want to hide away, Lord, and we don't feel we have that courage. But we know, Lord, that when we put our trust in you, you can do remarkable things through us.

[21:25] that when we trust you for the next stage, we can be a mighty person of valour. Because we're assured of our salvation.

[21:40] We have the sword of the spirit to be able to speak into people's hearts and lives. Remind us, Lord, of the tools that we have to face the world that we live in, that we might be encouraged and emboldened with new strength in your name.

[22:01] Amen. Thank you.