WEBVTT 00:00:00.220 --> 00:00:07.080 Good morning. Thanks for the warm welcome. Yeah, Daniel and I have a friendship that 00:00:07.080 --> 00:00:13.820 spans, I think, almost exactly 20 years now. Yeah, back to when I was 16. Now you know 00:00:13.820 --> 00:00:22.080 how old I am. This morning we're going to be looking at Ephesians chapter 6, verses 00:00:22.080 --> 00:00:27.240 10 through 20, a passage that was read on the armor of God. 00:00:27.239 --> 00:00:35.619 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. It was said of Alexander the Great 00:00:35.619 --> 00:00:42.659 that he was more valuable on the battlefield than 10,000 men, that his coming could change the outcome 00:00:42.659 --> 00:00:50.280 of a battle because his courage, his courage, was the courage of his men. In one battle, his army was 00:00:50.280 --> 00:00:58.320 surrounded and outnumbered five to one, and still they took the victory. Be strong in the Lord and 00:00:58.320 --> 00:01:05.900 in the strength of his might. And in fact, in his 13-year reign, beginning at age 20, he never lost 00:01:05.900 --> 00:01:12.099 a single battle. And this was not for lack of battles. He took more ground single-handedly than 00:01:12.099 --> 00:01:17.879 anyone ever had before him, conquering the whole of the Persian Empire, including large parts of Africa, 00:01:17.879 --> 00:01:24.140 Asia, Asia, India, making his one of the largest kingdoms the world has ever known. Be strong in the 00:01:24.140 --> 00:01:33.899 Lord and in the strength of his might. To fight with Alexander, with him, under his authority, was real 00:01:33.899 --> 00:01:42.159 strength. It made all the difference in the world that he was your commander. It changed the way you 00:01:42.159 --> 00:01:47.759 fought. Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 00:01:48.679 --> 00:01:54.379 The Apostle Paul, here in Ephesians 6, writing to one of the earliest churches, a group of Jews and 00:01:54.379 --> 00:02:01.840 Greeks in Ephesus, is telling this group of Christians that by following Jesus, that by trusting in Jesus, 00:02:02.219 --> 00:02:08.900 they are entering into real battle. Be strong, he tells them. Put on armor, he tells them. 00:02:08.900 --> 00:02:16.180 Stand, wrestle, do battle, he says. But not physical battle. Of course, this is not a matter of 00:02:16.180 --> 00:02:26.120 flesh and blood, not of metal swords and fleshly wounds, but a spiritual battle against the rulers, 00:02:26.280 --> 00:02:32.340 against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness. And this morning, 00:02:32.340 --> 00:02:40.099 we're going to consider together the nature of this spiritual battle by asking and answering two 00:02:40.099 --> 00:02:49.800 questions. Where are we? And what are we to do? Where are we? We're in a spiritual battle. What are we to do? 00:02:50.620 --> 00:02:59.659 We're to get dressed for battle. So first, where are we? Again, according to Paul, whether you and I know it 00:02:59.659 --> 00:03:06.159 or not, whether we're aware of this or not, we together are in what he calls a spiritual battle. 00:03:07.300 --> 00:03:13.599 Now, I'd imagine that most of us here are in one of two camps in response to this. You know, maybe 00:03:13.599 --> 00:03:17.900 you're here and you're thinking, good, you know, this is an opportunity for us to finally consider 00:03:17.900 --> 00:03:24.039 the things that many of us don't tend to think about, the spiritual dimensions of life, right? 00:03:24.039 --> 00:03:30.340 That we are in this spiritual battle, that we don't talk enough, maybe particularly in the Western world, 00:03:30.799 --> 00:03:36.219 right, about things spiritual. We tend to materialize everything. And we get so distracted by what happens 00:03:36.219 --> 00:03:40.819 in our bodies and with our families and in our workplaces and just in mundane day-to-day life. 00:03:40.899 --> 00:03:45.379 That seems to be our great preoccupation here in the West. And we don't think enough about the spiritual 00:03:45.379 --> 00:03:51.560 forces. And it's actually the spiritual realm that really matters. We should think less about the material realm, 00:03:51.560 --> 00:04:00.199 more about the spiritual. Or maybe you're in the opposite camp. You respond in the opposite direction. 00:04:00.319 --> 00:04:06.159 You hear these words of spiritual battle and you're not sure what to think about these words. 00:04:07.439 --> 00:04:13.199 You hear these words, spiritual battle, talk of miracles, maybe talk of demon possession, 00:04:13.680 --> 00:04:18.800 and all of this seems very strange to you. Because you tend to think that most of the world's problems 00:04:18.800 --> 00:04:26.040 are historical. They're economic. They're political, not spiritual. We don't want to spiritualize 00:04:26.040 --> 00:04:32.460 things. Our world's problems lie elsewhere, not in this spiritual darkness thing that Paul is going 00:04:32.460 --> 00:04:38.500 on about here. And what I hope becomes clear as we spend some time considering this text and the world 00:04:38.500 --> 00:04:44.980 that this text presumes, is that each of these approaches actually misses the mark. Whether by 00:04:44.980 --> 00:04:52.220 over-spiritualizing life in this world or by under-spiritualizing life in this world. Because 00:04:52.220 --> 00:04:59.400 Paul, and the whole of the scriptures with him, offers us a different approach. Again, not an 00:04:59.400 --> 00:05:04.500 over-spiritualizing, not an under-spiritualizing, but instead what you might call a radical spiritual 00:05:04.500 --> 00:05:12.280 materiality. Okay? Or what you might call a radically material spirituality. Okay? That these things 00:05:12.279 --> 00:05:18.319 go together and must be kept together. That as humans, body, soul, spirit, everything that we do 00:05:18.319 --> 00:05:25.519 is spiritual. Okay? At least it's not spiritually neutral, everything that we do. In the same way 00:05:25.519 --> 00:05:30.199 that as physical beings, and I think we can all agree that as physical beings we can't do anything 00:05:30.199 --> 00:05:34.719 apart from the physicality of our own bodies. This is just the way that God has given us to engage 00:05:34.719 --> 00:05:38.719 with the world around us and with one another, is with the physicality of our own bodies. And so 00:05:38.720 --> 00:05:44.480 it is as spiritual beings who can't avoid our spirituality, we can't do anything apart from 00:05:44.480 --> 00:05:49.960 the spirituality of who we are. So as Paul says elsewhere, whether we eat or drink or whatever 00:05:49.960 --> 00:05:56.960 we do, we do this to the glory of God and as spiritual material beings. And we see this throughout 00:05:56.960 --> 00:06:03.000 Paul's letter to the Ephesians. Before we ever get to this passage on spiritual forces of evil, that for 00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:10.259 Paul, the spiritual life does not consist in spiritual feelings. Okay? Paul says very little, 00:06:10.360 --> 00:06:15.660 if anything, about spiritual feelings or even a sense of the transcendence, which is how I think 00:06:15.660 --> 00:06:21.480 many in our day understand spirituality, right? When we feel certain things, when, you know, chords on a 00:06:21.480 --> 00:06:27.860 piano are played in the right way or when we're observing God's universe, which is beautiful, and we have 00:06:27.860 --> 00:06:32.699 these feelings of transcendence, and we think that's where spirituality lives, right? That's where we see 00:06:32.699 --> 00:06:37.819 spirituality at work, is in these feelings of the transcendence. And that, for Paul, would be a very 00:06:37.819 --> 00:06:44.400 reduced form of spirituality, right? Instead, for Paul, here's what spirituality looks like. Here's what 00:06:44.400 --> 00:06:50.720 the spiritual life looks like. Okay? If we just do a quick survey of the letter that's leading up to our 00:06:50.720 --> 00:06:55.759 chapter 6, the last chapter of this letter to the Ephesians. Spiritual transformation for Paul looks like 00:06:55.759 --> 00:07:01.779 reconciliation across racial and ethnic boundaries. It looks like those who, in the power of Christ, 00:07:01.920 --> 00:07:09.719 stop living how we used to live, he tells us. Those who lie, you're to stop being deceitful. Those who 00:07:09.719 --> 00:07:15.680 steal are to no longer steal. In your anger, do not sin, he says. Do not let the sun go down while you're 00:07:15.680 --> 00:07:23.699 still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. This gives us maybe an insight into what spiritual life, 00:07:23.699 --> 00:07:29.719 what spiritual forces look like, right? We could pause here. What does the spiritual battle look 00:07:29.719 --> 00:07:36.560 like for Paul? What does it look like to give the devil a foothold? Here's what it looks like. 00:07:37.879 --> 00:07:44.519 It's when you and your friend, or you and your spouse, let the sun go down on your anger. You're in a fight, 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:50.800 you're angry with each other, and you put off bringing this to a resolution. Here is where the devil 00:07:50.800 --> 00:07:57.180 is given a foothold. Spiritual battle in the midst of a basic relationship. 00:07:59.199 --> 00:08:03.280 Paul then goes on to talk about relationships between husbands and wives, children and parents, 00:08:03.439 --> 00:08:09.660 slaves and masters. And all of this, for Paul, is what it means to be engaged in spiritual battle. 00:08:10.400 --> 00:08:17.420 Parents, when you're impatient towards your kids, as I was this morning, when you neglect them 00:08:17.420 --> 00:08:25.920 for lesser things. This is not just a matter of material reality. There's a spiritual dimension 00:08:25.920 --> 00:08:32.379 to all of this. All of this, for Paul, is what it means to be engaged in spiritual battle in the 00:08:32.379 --> 00:08:38.279 midst of our family lives. Children or youth, when you don't respect and honor your parents. 00:08:38.279 --> 00:08:46.139 That, too, is a place where you children in here who are listening, where you are engaged in spiritual 00:08:46.139 --> 00:08:51.379 battle. When you're choosing and wrestling with whether or not you should listen to your parents 00:08:51.379 --> 00:08:57.059 and honor them, and engage with them, and listen to them, respect them. This is an opportunity for 00:08:57.059 --> 00:09:02.039 the devil to get a foothold in your life. There's something very serious going on in our disobedience, 00:09:02.039 --> 00:09:09.019 in our rebellion. Friends, when you're malicious or envious or just mean, gossipy in the way that you 00:09:09.019 --> 00:09:15.360 speak of those around you, behind their backs, be careful, Paul is saying. Be careful. These are 00:09:15.360 --> 00:09:21.360 spiritually destructive acts. They are destructive to you and to those that you speak of. 00:09:22.319 --> 00:09:27.779 So as we engage our passage here in Ephesians 6, we need to recognize that at the end of Paul's 00:09:27.779 --> 00:09:32.919 letter here in chapter 6, he's not starting a new subject. Sometimes we can read chapter 6 on 00:09:32.919 --> 00:09:39.459 spiritual battle as something that's disconnected from the rest of Paul's letter. But that would be 00:09:39.459 --> 00:09:43.199 an unfaithful reading. He's not concluding his letter with something unrelated to everything he's 00:09:43.199 --> 00:09:48.339 just said. Quite the opposite. He concludes his letter by reframing everything that he's just said, 00:09:48.659 --> 00:09:54.059 but now from the perspective of the spiritual realm. Spiritual realm of darkness. 00:09:54.059 --> 00:10:01.599 So again, when he brings up wrestling against the rulers, against the authorities, against the 00:10:01.599 --> 00:10:05.599 cosmic powers over this present darkness, the question is, where does this all happen? 00:10:06.059 --> 00:10:11.519 Where does this wrestling, this battle, where does this play out in our lives? And as Paul's already 00:10:11.519 --> 00:10:18.799 said, here's where it happens. It happens when you let the sun go down on your anger. Again, he's not 00:10:18.799 --> 00:10:26.819 talking about needing to cast out demons in the context of Ephesians. He's talking about human 00:10:26.819 --> 00:10:31.859 relationships when we allow sun to go down on our anger. You want to talk about demonic attacks, 00:10:32.399 --> 00:10:39.179 according to Paul. Well, here's one. It's when you're angry, and instead of being self-controlled 00:10:39.179 --> 00:10:44.279 in your anger, in your anger you choose to sin against the person with whom you're angry. 00:10:44.279 --> 00:10:50.360 You're unwilling to reconcile, and the devil is given a place to stand. It could go on. When you 00:10:50.360 --> 00:10:57.139 steal, when you lie, when you deceive the person, you know, people around you. Okay, all of these 00:10:57.139 --> 00:11:04.539 things, Paul is saying, this is where the spiritual battle happens. And you say, but that doesn't sound 00:11:04.539 --> 00:11:10.839 demonic, right? I mean, this doesn't sound demonic. I thought demonic stuff was the stuff of dreams and 00:11:10.840 --> 00:11:18.320 evil spirits and unseen things. But again, that's not how Paul sees it. These forces are at work all 00:11:18.320 --> 00:11:23.560 the time in the most mundane of relationships, all around us in the ordinary stuff of life, 00:11:24.040 --> 00:11:30.320 in times of conflict, temptation to lust or to take, periods of compromise. 00:11:32.280 --> 00:11:35.900 You can even think about, you know, another kind of obvious place in scripture where we see 00:11:35.899 --> 00:11:42.419 spiritual battle taking place. Think about Peter, when he responds to Jesus' own claim that he needs 00:11:42.419 --> 00:11:49.519 to go and die, right? What does Jesus say in response? Get behind me, Satan. Get behind me, 00:11:49.579 --> 00:11:55.939 Satan. Here's a spiritual battle at play. Somebody wanting his own way rather than the way of God 00:11:55.939 --> 00:11:56.799 to move forward. 00:11:57.319 --> 00:12:01.220 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, 00:12:01.220 --> 00:12:06.360 against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil 00:12:06.360 --> 00:12:13.779 in the heavenly places. The battle we find ourselves in is a spiritual battle. But it's a battle fought 00:12:13.779 --> 00:12:22.800 out here, here, in the ordinary stuff of life, right? It's fought every morning that you wake up 00:12:22.800 --> 00:12:29.279 in the things you choose to do and not to do, in the thoughts you choose to dwell on and not to dwell on, 00:12:29.279 --> 00:12:33.620 in the prayers you choose to pray or not to pray, the things you choose to read or not to read. 00:12:33.620 --> 00:12:38.279 It's fought in how you live with your spouse, in how you live with your parents, your children, 00:12:38.419 --> 00:12:46.679 your housemates. This life, it turns out, is the arena of the spiritual battle of which Paul speaks. 00:12:46.779 --> 00:12:52.379 So where are we? Paul says we're in a spiritual battle and that this is our everyday situation. 00:12:52.379 --> 00:13:00.240 Now, what are we to do in response? If it's the case that we are in this spiritual battle in our 00:13:00.240 --> 00:13:06.139 day-to-day lives where spiritual forces of evil are at work all the time to destroy us, to tempt 00:13:06.139 --> 00:13:11.179 and to accuse us, which are kind of the characteristic features of what the devil is trying to do, 00:13:11.720 --> 00:13:16.279 right? You could think of even the story of Adam and Eve. He seeks to tempt them and once they follow 00:13:16.279 --> 00:13:21.399 into their temptations, what does he do? He then accuses them, right? The devil is constantly involved 00:13:21.399 --> 00:13:27.899 in this temptation and the work of temptation and accusation. What are we to do in response? 00:13:28.740 --> 00:13:34.360 We are to get dressed for battle, we find. Verse 10 and 11. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the 00:13:34.360 --> 00:13:40.939 strength of his might. How, we might ask, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand 00:13:40.939 --> 00:13:47.059 against the schemes of the devil. We might ask at this point, what is this strange armor that we are 00:13:47.059 --> 00:13:53.199 to put on? Paul goes on to talk about the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, shoes of 00:13:53.199 --> 00:14:00.199 the gospel, the shield of faith, helmet of salvation, sword of the spirit. What's going on here? And how 00:14:00.199 --> 00:14:07.719 does somebody put on a breastplate of righteousness anyway? One common approach is that these armor 00:14:07.719 --> 00:14:13.799 pieces are all to be put on by faith. Okay, so for instance, we put on the belt of truth by believing 00:14:13.799 --> 00:14:18.459 God's truth. The breastplate of righteousness by believing in Jesus' righteousness and so on. 00:14:19.000 --> 00:14:23.779 And in this perspective, the armor of God is all about believing and thinking rightly. Okay, knowing 00:14:23.779 --> 00:14:29.779 the right things and believing accordingly. And it's more a matter of thinking and believing than of what 00:14:29.779 --> 00:14:37.859 we might call spirit-empowered doing. Okay, understood this way, to fasten the belt of truth again, it's about, 00:14:37.860 --> 00:14:44.419 it's more about believing the right things. Okay, and less about living the Christian life in truth. 00:14:45.120 --> 00:14:51.100 Okay, but what I'd argue is that what Paul is going on about here is that this armor that we're to put 00:14:51.100 --> 00:14:57.000 on, that this is all active, this is a matter of spirit-empowered obedience. Okay, that to put on the 00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:02.440 belt of truth is not simply about believing the right things, but about living in the truth. Okay, 00:15:02.440 --> 00:15:08.760 in truthfulness, aletheia is the Greek word, meaning truthfulness or sincerity, living in truthfulness. 00:15:08.940 --> 00:15:15.560 It's a wholehearted commitment to love and to obey God. Put this on, Paul says. Do this. Commit yourself 00:15:15.560 --> 00:15:21.300 to living the Christian life in truth, and you will be protected. Okay, that Christian living and Christian 00:15:21.300 --> 00:15:28.320 obedience, when we do the things that we ought to do, that this is protection for us. It is spiritual armor. 00:15:28.320 --> 00:15:33.500 Putting on the breastplate of righteousness is likewise not about putting on Christ's righteousness 00:15:33.500 --> 00:15:39.840 by faith, although that is to be done, as Paul says elsewhere. But here, what's in view is to put 00:15:39.840 --> 00:15:45.020 on the breastplate of righteousness is a call to live righteously, right, to live in righteousness, 00:15:45.300 --> 00:15:51.500 to be clothed in good deeds and in righteous acts. If you want to know how to be protected against the 00:15:51.500 --> 00:15:58.399 wiles of the enemy, one of the ways that Paul is giving us for armor is to obey God, okay, to obey God, 00:15:58.879 --> 00:16:03.820 to live righteously, to do the things that we know we ought to do, to not be immoral, you know, 00:16:04.259 --> 00:16:11.000 sleeping around or whatever it is, engaging in lust, okay, whatever temptations that face you. 00:16:11.399 --> 00:16:14.460 Because as we do these things, what we find is that the enemy runs with this. 00:16:14.460 --> 00:16:21.000 He runs with this. He seeks to tempt us and then accuse us and destroy us. And the call is then to walk 00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:28.460 in obedience, right? Don't let resentments fester in your relationships, and don't let sin and lust linger. 00:16:29.180 --> 00:16:33.680 Do everything you can to get these things out of your life in order that you might be protected 00:16:33.680 --> 00:16:41.160 spiritually. Wear this armor. Because in every act of disobedience, what Paul is saying is we open up our 00:16:41.159 --> 00:16:50.259 lives to spiritual destruction every day. Stop it, he says. Stop it. Put on this armor. Put on the 00:16:50.259 --> 00:16:55.899 breastplate of righteousness. Again, this is real armor in the real world, and it will protect us from a 00:16:55.899 --> 00:17:02.699 world of hurt and of darkness. I had a nice conversation last night with my grandmother who's here, 00:17:02.700 --> 00:17:12.360 great-grandmother to my kids, of course. And she was bringing up how challenging it is for people 00:17:12.360 --> 00:17:16.759 oftentimes to offer forgiveness to others, right? This is like a basic call of Christian living, 00:17:17.259 --> 00:17:23.819 right? But the way that when we choose to not offer forgiveness, what that does to us, right? That we 00:17:23.819 --> 00:17:28.160 become encumbered. This opens up, again, a world of opportunity for the devil to have at us, 00:17:28.160 --> 00:17:34.120 right? To cause us to be bitter and resentful towards others. My grandma was commenting on how 00:17:34.120 --> 00:17:39.920 it shows on people's faces when they're unwilling to forgive, right? This is spiritual protection. 00:17:40.080 --> 00:17:44.860 This is spiritual armor, living the Christian life, walking in obedience. This is the way that Paul 00:17:44.860 --> 00:17:51.900 gives us to find ourselves protected and well-armored in this spiritual battle. We don't have time to cover 00:17:51.900 --> 00:17:56.720 all of these in depth, but Paul goes on to speak of the readiness given by the gospel of peace 00:17:56.720 --> 00:18:01.600 as shoes for our feet. He speaks of the shield of faith, helmet of salvation, sword of the spirit, 00:18:01.680 --> 00:18:06.620 which is the word of God. And in all of these things, he calls us to take up a particular dimension 00:18:06.620 --> 00:18:12.220 of Christian faith and obedience. Okay, take these things up, put them on. They will be armor for your 00:18:12.220 --> 00:18:18.620 souls. Now, I would guess in a room this size, from all the different walks that we come from, 00:18:18.620 --> 00:18:24.539 that there are some of you here who have been Christians for years. And in this particular season of life, 00:18:24.539 --> 00:18:33.740 of your Christian faith, perhaps you feel stuck. Stuck in complacency, or in repetitive patterns of sin, 00:18:34.399 --> 00:18:41.839 or in doubt. And let me ask you this morning, in response to these struggles and you feeling stuck, 00:18:42.200 --> 00:18:48.839 are you putting on the armor of God? Or are you leaving yourself unprotected to the wiles of the enemy? 00:18:48.839 --> 00:18:56.619 Today, have you set out to live the Christian life in truthfulness and in sincerity? Are you guarding 00:18:56.619 --> 00:19:03.559 yourself with righteous living? Or are you letting some sins go? Giving in? Not living the righteous 00:19:03.559 --> 00:19:10.119 life? Not doing what you ought to do? Not cutting sin off at the root? Are you putting on the shoes of 00:19:10.119 --> 00:19:16.220 the gospel of peace? I mean, how often, just by neglecting to do the things that we ought to do, do we find 00:19:16.220 --> 00:19:21.539 ourselves like King David, who didn't go to battle, finding ourselves in periods of temptation? 00:19:21.960 --> 00:19:26.579 Are you putting these shoes on to be ministers of the gospel of peace where the Lord has you? 00:19:27.420 --> 00:19:31.220 Are you arming yourself with faith and the truths of salvation, the sword of the spirit, 00:19:31.900 --> 00:19:36.980 in response to the lies of the flesh, the world, and the devil? Are you doing these things? Because if not, 00:19:37.680 --> 00:19:42.279 you've been living a long time, perhaps, unprotected in a real battle. 00:19:42.279 --> 00:19:48.899 Well, we find here that the devil is not messing around. That's clear throughout the scriptures, 00:19:49.399 --> 00:19:55.639 and that we can't afford to either. If you're not diligent, he'll do everything he can to tear 00:19:55.639 --> 00:20:03.399 your life apart. And maybe he's already on his way to doing that. Put on the armor of God, Paul says. 00:20:03.400 --> 00:20:13.880 But it's important that we ask, before we end our time, who can do this? Who can put on the armor of 00:20:13.880 --> 00:20:19.740 God in this way? Can you, sitting here? How is it going for you in putting on the armor of God, 00:20:19.820 --> 00:20:25.519 putting on truthfulness and righteousness and faith, being a messenger of gospel peace, 00:20:25.640 --> 00:20:31.440 wielding the sword of the spirit? If I'm honest, I can find ways that I failed in every one of these 00:20:31.440 --> 00:20:38.480 areas, and that I continue to fail. Who can do this? Who can be so diligent in putting on this armor? 00:20:39.940 --> 00:20:45.039 Believe it or not, the prophet Isaiah actually was asking this very same question 700 years before 00:20:45.039 --> 00:20:51.559 Jesus ever arrived on scene. Who of God's people can put this armor on? Who can do this? Isaiah was 00:20:51.559 --> 00:20:56.059 asking. Here's what he says in Isaiah 59. The Lord saw that there was no man righteous, 00:20:56.059 --> 00:21:04.079 and wondered that there was no one to intercede. See, after all God's faithfulness in this context, 00:21:04.659 --> 00:21:11.099 you know, God had given Israel a king, a land, prosperity, all that they needed. And the Lord 00:21:11.099 --> 00:21:16.059 looks down on his people at this point and says, they've all turned away. They've all gone their 00:21:16.059 --> 00:21:21.960 own way. They've all failed to live the righteous life before me. Every single one of them has failed. 00:21:21.960 --> 00:21:28.700 None of God's people, not even Isaiah, the prophet, was righteous, apparently, before God. And so what 00:21:28.700 --> 00:21:36.519 does the Lord do? As the verse continues, it says, then his own arm brought Israel salvation. 00:21:37.440 --> 00:21:41.759 Here is God's response to the fact that no one was righteous in Israel. Here's the Lord's response 00:21:41.759 --> 00:21:47.579 according to Isaiah the prophet. Then his own arm brought Israel salvation. He, the Lord, put on 00:21:47.579 --> 00:21:55.199 righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head. You can ask, what's going 00:21:55.199 --> 00:22:02.159 on here? The prophet Isaiah is saying that where Israel fails to put on the breastplate of righteousness, 00:22:02.679 --> 00:22:08.819 to bring righteousness into the land, where Israel fails to put on the helmet of salvation, 00:22:09.319 --> 00:22:16.839 of God's rest and peace, we find this promise that the Lord himself, God, Yahweh, the God of Israel, 00:22:16.839 --> 00:22:22.299 will come down to put it on himself. It's quite a promise. He goes on to say, 00:22:22.819 --> 00:22:27.819 and the Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression. And this 00:22:27.819 --> 00:22:33.459 is the good news of the gospel for you and for me this morning. Proclaimed 700 years before Jesus 00:22:33.459 --> 00:22:39.740 arrived on the scene that there is a Redeemer who came to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from 00:22:39.740 --> 00:22:45.859 transgression, and his name is Jesus, the Christ. And while you and I and all of Israel 00:22:45.859 --> 00:22:54.659 failed to be truthful, to put on the belt of truth, we find that there's one who came and lived only ever 00:22:54.659 --> 00:23:00.699 and always in the truth, even in the face of all liars, in the face of unjust power. There's one who 00:23:00.699 --> 00:23:06.839 came and lived a truthful life, full of aletheia, sincerity. And while we failed to be messengers of 00:23:06.839 --> 00:23:11.019 peace and put on these gospel shoes, he fitted himself with the shoes of the gospel to proclaim 00:23:11.019 --> 00:23:17.579 peace to those who are near and to those who are far off, we find that the Lord, Jesus, is the one 00:23:17.579 --> 00:23:22.680 who put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head. 00:23:22.680 --> 00:23:30.880 And the good news for all who are near and for all who are far away, the good news for all who are 00:23:30.880 --> 00:23:38.200 ensnared by the devil and for all weary Christians who try and fail and try again to put on this armor 00:23:38.200 --> 00:23:46.860 of God and fail again, we find that the good news is that Jesus has armed himself for us, that we have 00:23:46.859 --> 00:23:52.439 a savior who has armed himself for us so that in all of our efforts and all of our failures, 00:23:53.099 --> 00:24:00.399 the final words to us and to you this morning is grace. The final word is grace. 00:24:02.719 --> 00:24:09.779 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. As I said at the beginning, to fight with 00:24:09.779 --> 00:24:14.759 Alexander the Great, with him, under his authority, was real strength. It made all the difference in the 00:24:14.759 --> 00:24:23.859 world that he was your commander. It changed the way you fought. And in Jesus Christ, we have a Lord 00:24:23.859 --> 00:24:31.519 and a Savior who not only fights with us and for us, but binds himself to us in faith so that we can 00:24:31.519 --> 00:24:36.839 say with all the confidence in the world that his victory is our victory. His victory over sin and death 00:24:36.839 --> 00:24:42.920 and the devil, that's our victory. His life is our life. His obedience is our obedience. His death is our death. 00:24:42.920 --> 00:24:52.200 His resurrection, our resurrection. His eternal life is our eternal life. And his armor is our armor. By faith, 00:24:52.740 --> 00:25:00.220 all is ours. And now, in light of this, in light of this good news that he's done everything for us, 00:25:00.620 --> 00:25:07.259 given us the victory for us, in light of this, we're called to take up the whole armor of God, 00:25:07.259 --> 00:25:16.299 that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand. Would you pray with me? 00:25:19.240 --> 00:25:25.220 Our Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus, and we thank you for these words from the Apostle Paul 00:25:25.220 --> 00:25:32.879 to this early Christian community. These words that call us to do something very real, take up real armor 00:25:32.880 --> 00:25:40.260 in the spiritual life. We ask, Father, that you would give us grace. We ask that you would also help us to know 00:25:40.260 --> 00:25:48.880 deeply that in Christ, all has been done. The battles have been fought. All has been done. 00:25:49.580 --> 00:25:55.920 That our victory is secure in him, and help us to be a people who respond to this good news of grace 00:25:55.920 --> 00:26:08.500 by taking up armor, and by fighting against the devil, the flesh, and the world. We ask all of this in 00:26:08.500 --> 00:26:10.900 Jesus' name, for his glory. Amen.