WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.580 Our reading today is from the New Testament, from Paul's letter to the Ephesians, and this is 00:00:07.580 --> 00:00:23.660 ! Ephesians chapter 6, verses 14 to 24. And this is God's holy word. Stand therefore, having fastened 00:00:23.660 --> 00:00:29.339 on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for 00:00:29.339 --> 00:00:35.320 your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, take up 00:00:35.320 --> 00:00:41.600 the shield of faith with which you can exhaust all the flaming darts of the evil one, and take the 00:00:41.600 --> 00:00:46.659 helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying at all times in 00:00:46.659 --> 00:00:52.799 the Spirit with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, 00:00:53.579 --> 00:01:00.339 making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening 00:01:00.339 --> 00:01:06.900 my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, 00:01:07.459 --> 00:01:14.259 that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak, so that you also may know how I am doing and what 00:01:14.260 --> 00:01:19.200 I am doing. Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will tell you 00:01:19.200 --> 00:01:25.700 everything. I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are, and that he 00:01:25.700 --> 00:01:31.640 may encourage your hearts. Peace be to the brothers, and love with faith, from God the Father and the 00:01:31.640 --> 00:01:38.100 Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with you all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible. 00:01:38.099 --> 00:01:46.079 Let us pray. Lord, we ask now that you would give us eyes and ears to see and to hear what your Word 00:01:46.079 --> 00:01:52.000 has to say. We ask for the help of the Spirit to read it well and to receive it, and we pray this in 00:01:52.000 --> 00:02:00.119 Christ's name. Amen. We are in the very last look at the book of Ephesians, and last week we started 00:02:00.119 --> 00:02:07.599 talking about the command Paul gives here to put on the armor of God and to stand firm in that armor, 00:02:07.599 --> 00:02:14.699 against, ultimately, the schemes of the devil. So, he said the greatest enemy we face for Christians 00:02:14.699 --> 00:02:20.979 is Satan, and that's what we looked at last week. Thomas Brooks, I said Boston last week, it's Brooks. 00:02:21.240 --> 00:02:27.219 Thomas Brooks, 1652, wrote a book called Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, 00:02:27.680 --> 00:02:34.259 and one of the most famous quotes in it is he says, a Christian must spend the whole of their lives 00:02:34.259 --> 00:02:41.759 studying the greatness of Jesus, the inherent emptiness of our hearts, and the schemes of the 00:02:41.759 --> 00:02:46.879 devil. Now, Paul is writing this because he's addressing a problem that we all face, and that's 00:02:46.879 --> 00:02:52.819 that when we wake up every day, our natural instinct is not to think about and study the greatness of 00:02:52.819 --> 00:02:58.519 Jesus, the emptiness of our hearts, and the schemes of the devil. And so, what we naturally do is, as 00:02:58.520 --> 00:03:03.860 Christians, we tend to drift and coast because we don't put on the armor of God every single morning 00:03:03.860 --> 00:03:11.240 like Paul's talking to us here. If you think about your instincts, your natural instinctive life, 00:03:11.600 --> 00:03:18.300 the first step you take, the first move you make in different situations, do you tend to, think about 00:03:18.300 --> 00:03:26.219 your heart, do you tend to rest in God's plan for your life in hard circumstances, or immediately go 00:03:26.219 --> 00:03:33.960 straight to anxiety? Or if you think about your instincts, is it your instinct to go to God in 00:03:33.960 --> 00:03:39.020 prayer at all times whenever things are arising in your life that are really difficult, or is it your 00:03:39.020 --> 00:03:45.319 instinct to naturally drift towards prayerlessness? If you think about your instinct, is it your instinct 00:03:45.319 --> 00:03:51.639 to rest in your identity about in what God says about you, or more instinctive to you to care far more 00:03:51.639 --> 00:03:56.959 about what everybody else says? And Paul is saying here that it is the natural instinct of the human 00:03:56.959 --> 00:04:06.219 heart, the flesh, and when Satan gets involved, boy, it gets far worse to not rest, to not be settled in 00:04:06.219 --> 00:04:12.319 your identity in Jesus, and instead to just sort of slowly coast and drift away from the shoreline all 00:04:12.319 --> 00:04:16.360 the time until you wake up and you think, I haven't put on the armor of God for months, for years, 00:04:16.360 --> 00:04:24.860 for days. And that's what he's talking to us about here. There's a very famous quote. Nobody knows who 00:04:24.860 --> 00:04:30.720 said it originally, but it's about what a Christian ultimately wants to be and wants to become, and 00:04:30.720 --> 00:04:38.960 the old quote is this, what a person is on their knees before God is who they are, and they are no 00:04:38.960 --> 00:04:45.580 more. Whatever you are, the quote says, on your knees before the Lord is who you really are. And you hear a 00:04:45.579 --> 00:04:50.039 quote like that, and you read a passage like this, and it says, put on the armor of God, stand firm, 00:04:50.539 --> 00:04:54.539 fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil that's always trying to pull you away, and you think, 00:04:54.659 --> 00:05:01.419 that is who I want to be. Does anybody here think, that is who I want to be? A person who thinks, I can 00:05:01.419 --> 00:05:07.919 say that who I am on my knees before the Lord is who I really am. And Paul is coming to us here in this 00:05:07.919 --> 00:05:14.279 passage and saying, that is who you can be, and you can grow into that person. And the way to get there 00:05:14.279 --> 00:05:20.319 is to put on the full armor of the Lord every day. Do you want that? Do you want that? Do you want to 00:05:20.319 --> 00:05:26.739 be that? Do you want to grow? And here's how we can. Number one, we need a better warrior. Number two, 00:05:27.139 --> 00:05:33.939 we need readiness for our feet. Number three, we need great defense. Fourth, we need to go to the armory. 00:05:34.399 --> 00:05:43.319 And fifth, we need our fellow soldiers. Five things, all brief. Number one, this passage tells us that 00:05:43.319 --> 00:05:47.319 in order to become that person, we need a better warrior. This is a review of last week. If you look 00:05:47.319 --> 00:05:54.980 at verse 14, verse 14 says, having fastened on the belt of truth, having put on the breastplate of 00:05:54.980 --> 00:05:59.980 righteousness. And when you take those two pieces of armor together, Paul here is talking about 00:05:59.980 --> 00:06:07.620 having put on already an alien righteousness that is not your righteousness. He's talking here about 00:06:07.620 --> 00:06:15.519 justification. And justification means that though you're guilty, in Christ, God has said you're not 00:06:15.519 --> 00:06:20.720 guilty. That's justification. You've been pronounced clean, even though it's not actually true of your 00:06:20.720 --> 00:06:26.379 heart. Earlier in Ephesians, Paul put it like this. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, you can say, 00:06:26.959 --> 00:06:31.780 I was once walking in the deadness of my trespasses and sins, but God made me alive, 00:06:31.779 --> 00:06:38.599 for by grace I have been saved through faith. I'm not who I once was, and it's all because of Christ. 00:06:38.779 --> 00:06:44.500 Now, that's justification. That's the first two pieces of armor. And we could summarize it like this. 00:06:45.500 --> 00:06:50.619 Paul is saying, you put on the first two pieces of armor because Jesus Christ has already fought 00:06:50.619 --> 00:06:55.619 the fight for you. He's already won the victory for you. That's the first two pieces of armor. And so, 00:06:56.479 --> 00:07:00.399 he's telling us the first thing to know is Jesus is doing the primary fighting here. 00:07:00.399 --> 00:07:07.179 And you're being called not to be the primary warrior, but to stand firm in what he has already 00:07:07.179 --> 00:07:12.620 done for you and what he's already gifted you. When you have the breastplate of his righteousness, 00:07:12.879 --> 00:07:18.359 that the enemy cannot kill you. The victory is already won. That's the first thing. Secondly, 00:07:19.199 --> 00:07:24.159 then we turn to fresh material today. And that's then he says in verse 15, now you've got to put on 00:07:24.159 --> 00:07:29.000 the readiness on your feet, shoes, the readiness of the gospel of peace. Now, 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:34.500 what are these shoes that he's talking about? And he says the shoes themselves are the readiness 00:07:34.500 --> 00:07:42.800 that the gospel of peace brings to your feet. Feet are very important. We live in a walking city. 00:07:43.680 --> 00:07:47.600 And if you're, when you first move to a place like Edinburgh, when you've not lived in a place where you 00:07:47.600 --> 00:07:54.800 walk a lot, you realize how quickly shoes really do matter. I used to walk the Appalachian Trail every 00:07:54.800 --> 00:08:00.800 year when I was in uni, bit by bit. And one year, the second year I went, after having a great first 00:08:00.800 --> 00:08:04.759 year, the second year I went, I made one of the dumbest mistakes a hiker I can ever make. And that's 00:08:04.759 --> 00:08:11.660 I bought a new pair of shoes the day before we started. And by day three, my feet were bleeding. 00:08:12.480 --> 00:08:17.580 And I ended up having to take my shoes off and go barefoot through North Georgia into Tennessee 00:08:17.579 --> 00:08:23.579 in the Appalachian Trail until I could hitchhike out of the deep woods. And boy, I felt like a real 00:08:23.579 --> 00:08:30.779 hobbit, you know, for the first time in my life. You think about an ancient soldier, a Roman soldier, 00:08:30.879 --> 00:08:35.659 that's who he's talking about here. And one of the main things when you're a soldier is that an army 00:08:35.659 --> 00:08:41.279 has to be able to move swiftly across the empire. And their feet were so important. And we've all seen 00:08:41.279 --> 00:08:47.559 images in movies and films of the trenches in World War II when people had problems with 00:08:47.559 --> 00:08:52.599 their feet and how much that could literally destroy an army. And you think also about how 00:08:52.599 --> 00:08:57.000 important feet are because you also have an image here of a warrior, a fighter. So you think about 00:08:57.000 --> 00:09:03.199 a boxer. And I hear that when people coach boxing, one of the most important things is their feet work, 00:09:03.299 --> 00:09:09.099 their footwork, right? And so the first step you take in boxing or in fighting is instinctive. 00:09:09.759 --> 00:09:13.500 And he's doing both things. He's saying you've got to have the right shoes on your feet 00:09:13.500 --> 00:09:18.019 in order to instinctively take the first step when the time comes. 00:09:18.820 --> 00:09:23.240 In other words, what he's saying is that when you arrive at the battle every single day against 00:09:23.240 --> 00:09:29.120 the world, the flesh, and the devil, if you did not go to the shoemaker already the day before, 00:09:29.539 --> 00:09:35.220 and you didn't already prepare your feet with the gospel of peace, if you did not go to the shoemaker 00:09:35.220 --> 00:09:41.379 yesterday, you will not be prepared for the battle today. If you did not get ready in the gospel of 00:09:41.379 --> 00:09:48.620 peace, days and days, weeks and weeks, ingesting the gospel of peace, your feet won't be ready when 00:09:48.620 --> 00:09:55.100 today comes, when the battle actually confronts you. We mentioned last week Martin Luther's 00:09:55.100 --> 00:10:01.019 A Mighty Fortress is Our God, that famous Reformation hymn. One of the lines is, 00:10:01.419 --> 00:10:03.320 Prince of Darkness Grim, 00:10:03.320 --> 00:10:12.440 But his rage we can endure, for lo, his doom, his sure. And then Luther said this very famously, 00:10:12.900 --> 00:10:18.600 One little word shall fell him, shall strike him down. And commentators have always asked, 00:10:18.700 --> 00:10:23.100 what is that one little word that Luther was thinking of? He doesn't tell you. And lots of 00:10:23.100 --> 00:10:29.060 people will say it's the word liar, that when the Prince of Darkness Grim comes for you, 00:10:29.059 --> 00:10:35.500 the one little word you have to be ready to say is, you are a liar. When he accuses you and says, 00:10:35.619 --> 00:10:40.619 God could not love you if, boy, nobody would love you if they knew what you were thinking right now. 00:10:41.419 --> 00:10:47.659 And you have to say, you are a liar. But what we're being told here is your feet have to already be 00:10:47.659 --> 00:10:53.679 trained in the gospel of peace, so that when that moment comes, you're ready to say liar to Satan. 00:10:53.679 --> 00:10:59.279 And what brand of shoes are these? This is the longest one, by the way, we're going to look at. Feet. 00:10:59.620 --> 00:11:05.739 Very important feet. What brand of shoes are these? These, remember, these, this is the armor of God. 00:11:05.899 --> 00:11:12.859 It's shoes that God gives you. I was talking to somebody recently about how the Reebok pumps are back. 00:11:12.860 --> 00:11:20.120 I don't know if you remember the Reebok pumps, but they're back. And I remember in the 90s when the 00:11:20.120 --> 00:11:26.899 Reebok pumps came out, I was a kid and everybody wanted them so badly. And you would be 10 years old, 00:11:26.960 --> 00:11:32.519 12 years old, and you're four foot four, you know. But if you got those Reebok pumps and you pumped, 00:11:33.019 --> 00:11:40.800 pumped, pumped, you knew that you could dunk a basketball, right? And you would get the pumps and 00:11:40.799 --> 00:11:46.599 they'd come in and you would pump the pump on that tongue and the air would fill up in the shoe and 00:11:46.599 --> 00:11:52.500 you'd go for it and you'd be 30 centimeters under the net. You know, you wouldn't even. Now, that never 00:11:52.500 --> 00:11:57.099 happened to me. I heard about that. I heard other people never could touch the net, but that wasn't 00:11:57.099 --> 00:12:05.379 a problem for me as much. But look, that's a silly example. These, these shoes are shoes that only God can 00:12:05.379 --> 00:12:12.740 give. And they are the shoes of peace that the gospel brings into your life. And Thomas Brooks, 00:12:12.820 --> 00:12:17.779 what did he say? Three things every Christian has to study their whole life. Number one, the greatness 00:12:17.779 --> 00:12:24.220 of Jesus every day. Do you come and look at the greatness of Jesus every day in order to prepare 00:12:24.220 --> 00:12:30.139 your feet with the gospel of peace, the shoes that only God can give you? How do you know? Here's the 00:12:30.139 --> 00:12:37.139 evidence. Remember that fighter. When a punch is thrown, when a sword is swung in battle, the first 00:12:37.139 --> 00:12:41.580 step is so important. If you're going forward or backward, you think about it, maybe you don't like 00:12:41.580 --> 00:12:47.960 the soldiering metaphor. Think about a dancer. The very first step a dancer takes is so critical, so 00:12:47.960 --> 00:12:53.600 important. And in the same way, the way you know that you've got the gospel of peace covering your heart, 00:12:53.759 --> 00:12:58.759 that's where the shoes really are, your heart, you're ready, is the instinctive question. 00:12:58.759 --> 00:13:08.240 Let me put it in the words of Peter. 1 Peter 3 15, always be ready to give a defense and answer 00:13:08.240 --> 00:13:13.860 for the hope that is within you when anybody asks. So that's when you know. When somebody gives you an 00:13:13.860 --> 00:13:20.159 opportunity to talk about the gospel, you'll know if your feet are shod in the preparation of peace. 00:13:20.460 --> 00:13:28.419 If your first instinct is not quietism, not retreat, not anger, not debate. Why? Because what does Peter 00:13:28.419 --> 00:13:33.740 say, always be ready to give a defense and answer for the hope that's within you with gentleness and 00:13:33.740 --> 00:13:39.279 respect. Meaning you've got the gospel of peace so covering your inner life, you're at peace, 00:13:39.679 --> 00:13:45.439 and peace within is producing then peace without. And you're able to talk to somebody about the gospel 00:13:45.439 --> 00:13:50.259 without fear, because peace within has so soaked over you that you can grant peace without. 00:13:50.259 --> 00:13:55.399 And that's how you know you've really got the shoes in your life, the gospel of peace in your life. 00:13:56.779 --> 00:14:03.799 Third, not only do you need a far better warrior than you will ever be, and ready feet, you need a 00:14:03.799 --> 00:14:11.200 great defense. Verses 16 and 17, if you look at that, you'll see three pieces of armor there in verses 16 and 17. 00:14:11.200 --> 00:14:19.020 In every single circumstance, take up the shield of faith, and then the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the 00:14:19.020 --> 00:14:28.040 spirit, which is God's word. And all three of these pieces are about defense, ultimately. Why? Because in this 00:14:28.040 --> 00:14:33.840 context, he says, take up the shield of faith, and then there's a clause, and then the helmet of salvation, 00:14:33.840 --> 00:14:40.780 helmet of salvation. And in between is the reason. The reason is because the fiery darts of Satan are 00:14:40.780 --> 00:14:45.519 always being lobbed at you. All right, so what's this image? What is a fiery dart? It's a funny 00:14:45.519 --> 00:14:52.300 translation. All he means is arrows, and a fiery arrow is one in the first century that's been dipped in 00:14:52.300 --> 00:14:59.300 a chemical combustion substance that would be used a very long time ago. And so when the Roman soldiers 00:14:59.299 --> 00:15:07.059 came in a siege against a castle, the opposing army would dip their arrows in a substance and light it 00:15:07.059 --> 00:15:11.419 on fire in a way that it would explode when it hit the Roman army. That's the exact thing he's talking 00:15:11.419 --> 00:15:16.740 about here. And so what's this image? This image is that the soldier, which way are you going, Christian? 00:15:16.839 --> 00:15:22.819 Which way is the soldier going? Not away from the battle, but into the siege wall. You're not leaving 00:15:22.819 --> 00:15:27.899 the world. You're not running from the world. You're not becoming a monk or a nun. No, you're going 00:15:27.899 --> 00:15:34.819 straight at the firing line, straight into the battle, into the siege. And Satan is lobbing those 00:15:34.819 --> 00:15:41.579 arrows over the castle wall and trying to explode the army. And so he says defensively, you need three 00:15:41.579 --> 00:15:49.519 things. First, you need the shield. And in a Roman soldier's armor, the shield is not circular. The 00:15:49.519 --> 00:15:55.679 shield, you'll have seen it in film, the shield is oblong. It's about a two meter tall rectangular 00:15:55.679 --> 00:16:00.759 shield. It covers nose or above all the way down to the ground. And you remember in the films how 00:16:00.759 --> 00:16:05.319 the Roman soldiers will take the shields and they'll put them together, right? And they'll form this 00:16:05.319 --> 00:16:11.739 impenetrable wall as they siege a castle. That's the image here. In other words, your very first line 00:16:11.739 --> 00:16:17.859 of defense, the first thing that gets attacked is a shield. What's the shield? It's the shield of faith. 00:16:18.419 --> 00:16:22.859 What is Paul referring to? He's saying that the first line, not the most important line, but the first 00:16:22.860 --> 00:16:30.560 line of defense in a Christian life is your faith, the shield of faith. He's talking here about assurance 00:16:30.560 --> 00:16:38.080 of faith and certainty of faith. And when the fiery darts of Satan, the accusations and the temptations 00:16:38.080 --> 00:16:46.200 come your way, the first thing that you go to battle with is saying, credo, I believe. Lord, I believe. 00:16:46.200 --> 00:16:53.920 You think about Hebrews 11 is a great example, the roll call of faith in Hebrews 11, where the author 00:16:53.920 --> 00:16:58.800 walks through all these saints from the Old Testament and says, look at Abraham. What did he 00:16:58.800 --> 00:17:05.640 bring to the battle? Faith. Look at David. Look at Noah. Look at Rahab. Look at Ruth. They brought faith. 00:17:06.539 --> 00:17:13.720 Here's one example. Genesis 22. Abraham had been following the Lord and wondering, when are you going to 00:17:13.720 --> 00:17:19.920 give me that promised son that you had said? And then Isaac comes, and then the next thing, Genesis 22, 00:17:20.059 --> 00:17:25.920 God says, take your son, your only son, take him up the mountain, and take his life as a sacrifice. 00:17:26.700 --> 00:17:34.579 Obey me. Now, can you imagine the fiery darts coming from the castle wall at that moment from Satan? 00:17:34.579 --> 00:17:43.980 And where, but God is, that's immoral, Abraham. And how could God give you a son and then tell you to 00:17:43.980 --> 00:17:50.679 give that son back? And don't do it, Abraham. Don't do it. And what does the text tell us? It says, 00:17:50.919 --> 00:17:57.419 but by faith, Abraham stood. So Abraham only needed his shield, and the darts hit the shield and bounced 00:17:57.419 --> 00:18:03.019 off. By faith, he stood not knowing what God was up to. See, in other words, you need the shield in 00:18:03.019 --> 00:18:08.099 circumstances where you say, what is God doing in my life right now? I don't know. And he says, 00:18:08.139 --> 00:18:11.859 you've got to put up the shield of faith and say, I believe, I believe in the promises of God. 00:18:12.279 --> 00:18:18.759 I don't know what's happening right now. I don't know why. Why me? Why now? Why him? Why her? 00:18:19.619 --> 00:18:23.379 But you got the shield of faith. Now, but if it gets through the shield of faith, if your faith is 00:18:23.379 --> 00:18:30.319 really weak, and it will be at some points, what's next? The helmet of salvation. So when those fiery 00:18:30.319 --> 00:18:34.439 darts are being, those arrows are being lobbed, of course, some of them get over the shield, right? 00:18:34.539 --> 00:18:41.299 And you've got to have a good helmet. And the helmet of salvation is the helmet of salvation. In other 00:18:41.299 --> 00:18:47.279 words, what he's pointing to is that salvation and Christian thought and Christian theology in the 00:18:47.279 --> 00:18:55.179 Bible is far bigger than the forgiveness of sins. Salvation is the holistic hope of embodied 00:18:55.180 --> 00:19:03.519 resurrection. And you need not just your faith, but then you need, what, hope of something beyond the 00:19:03.519 --> 00:19:09.779 grave. That's the helmet of salvation. Now, think about Abraham again. Take your son, your only son, 00:19:09.900 --> 00:19:14.960 and by faith he stood and he trusted the Lord. But then Hebrews 11, what does it say? It says, 00:19:15.420 --> 00:19:23.080 by faith Abraham believed that God might bring resurrection to his son, might raise his son up 00:19:23.079 --> 00:19:31.839 from the dead. What did Abraham do? He said, even if this happens, even if I lose my son, I hope in the 00:19:31.839 --> 00:19:37.000 God who can raise the dead. So you see the two pieces of armor, the first two things. First, your faith, 00:19:37.099 --> 00:19:43.819 I believe in the promises. Secondly, if it gets past my weak faith, at least I've got hope. I've got hope 00:19:43.819 --> 00:19:48.019 that God will raise me from the dead. Here's a fiery dart that that could happen in your life. 00:19:48.019 --> 00:19:54.400 When that time finally comes, the terminal diagnosis finally comes, and it's coming for us all. 00:19:55.660 --> 00:20:02.259 And you think, I can't get past this circumstance. I can't beat this one. What do you need? Well, 00:20:02.460 --> 00:20:06.559 probably the arrows are going to get past your shield, but you've got the helmet of salvation 00:20:06.559 --> 00:20:12.119 because you've got hope. You see, I can't beat this with my shield, but boy, the helmet of salvation, 00:20:12.279 --> 00:20:17.019 the hope I have in the resurrection can beat this. My hope is in the Lord. My hope is in the 00:20:17.019 --> 00:20:21.980 resurrection. And then thirdly, if your faith is weak and if your hope is very little, then he says, 00:20:22.119 --> 00:20:27.599 pull out the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. And it's, I can't give any of these 00:20:27.599 --> 00:20:32.359 enough time. It's certainly not the sword of the Spirit. But he tells us the sword of the Spirit is 00:20:32.359 --> 00:20:37.720 the Bible, the Word of God. That's your third line of defense. And the reason I'm suggesting to you that 00:20:37.720 --> 00:20:44.119 it's defensive more than offensive is because think about Matthew 4 when Jesus was in the wilderness 00:20:44.119 --> 00:20:51.719 and he was there starving for 40 days and nights. And Satan came to him three times and did what? 00:20:52.379 --> 00:20:58.979 Lobbed those arrows straight at Jesus's heart and said, give up. If you will bow down before me, 00:20:59.059 --> 00:21:01.879 if you'll turn these stones into bread, if you'll jump off the top of the temple, 00:21:02.079 --> 00:21:08.239 I will give you the whole world. And what did Jesus do? He said, it is written. 00:21:08.240 --> 00:21:14.839 It is written. What did he do? He said, he pulled out the sword and he said, he knocked the arrows away 00:21:14.839 --> 00:21:20.220 by saying the Word of the Lord has already come. It's already spoken. The Bible has already told me. 00:21:20.720 --> 00:21:26.460 In other words, this is an invitation to be very basic and that's to memorize the Bible, memorize 00:21:26.460 --> 00:21:32.180 Scripture. That's what he's talking about here is you got to say, I believe in the promises. 00:21:32.180 --> 00:21:38.259 I know that because my Redeemer lives, the helmet of salvation will bring me into resurrection life. 00:21:38.360 --> 00:21:44.740 And thirdly, I've got the memorized Word of God in my heart. It's just a simple plea for Scripture 00:21:44.740 --> 00:21:51.060 memory, the sword of the Spirit. Back to basics. Now, fourthly and fifthly, very briefly, 00:21:51.740 --> 00:21:56.720 if you think about the whole picture of the soldier, 00:21:56.720 --> 00:22:03.980 the first place that Satan will attack is your faith and then he'll come and you've got hope 00:22:03.980 --> 00:22:09.660 and then he'll come and you've got the Word of God. But if, look, if your faith is weak on Monday 00:22:09.660 --> 00:22:15.019 and your hope is weak on Tuesday and you forgot what you memorized from Scripture on Wednesday, 00:22:16.880 --> 00:22:22.079 what's at the back of all that? It's the breastplate of righteousness. You see, those three are your 00:22:22.079 --> 00:22:25.779 defensive posture. It's subjective. But when you get to the breastplate of righteousness, 00:22:25.779 --> 00:22:30.980 righteousness, it's the impenetrable armor of Christ's justification that has been given to you. 00:22:31.980 --> 00:22:36.740 And so when you get there, it's saying, but my faith is weak, but Satan, he can't, he can't, 00:22:37.079 --> 00:22:42.160 he cannot separate me from the love of God. I've got justification. How do you, 00:22:42.339 --> 00:22:51.879 how do you really get this into your life as we close? And in verse 14, notice, he says, 00:22:51.880 --> 00:22:59.640 having fastened the belt of truth. In verse 15, 16, 17, he says, having put on the breastplate, 00:23:00.160 --> 00:23:05.260 having already taken up all these different pieces of armor. What is the nature of that 00:23:05.260 --> 00:23:11.900 participle having, having already done it? And you finally realize the answer to that in verse 17, 00:23:12.080 --> 00:23:20.040 when he says, praying continually. In other words, the way that you put the armor on every day, 00:23:20.039 --> 00:23:27.720 Paul is saying, is through prayer. Prayer is going to the armory every day and saying, 00:23:28.059 --> 00:23:34.639 my shield got blown up yesterday. I need a new shield. My helmet has a hole in it, and my sword 00:23:34.639 --> 00:23:39.299 broke in half. And every day you're going into the battle, and every day your equipment is breaking, 00:23:39.579 --> 00:23:45.480 and you're going back to the armory. And it's prayer that you redress in order not to go to the 00:23:45.480 --> 00:23:50.480 battle without your gear. Prayer is the real means for that. What do you need? You need the armor, 00:23:50.579 --> 00:23:54.360 and you need prayer. You need prayer, and you need the armor. You need the Bible, and prayer 00:23:54.360 --> 00:24:01.819 every day. It's back to basics for fighting in the Christian life. We need all kinds of prayer in our 00:24:01.819 --> 00:24:09.559 life. Intercessory prayer. We need kingdom prayer. We need prayers of grief. We need prayers of lament. 00:24:09.559 --> 00:24:14.079 We need prayers of celebration. We need prayers of adoration. We need prayers of confession. 00:24:14.700 --> 00:24:20.359 But I've not yet. Maybe you can tell me afterwards. I've never seen anybody talk about armor prayer. 00:24:21.279 --> 00:24:25.740 And this is telling us you need armor prayer every day. You need to say, Lord, I've come back 00:24:25.740 --> 00:24:34.079 to get re-clothed in the armor of God. I need my sword. I need the Bible, and I need everything else 00:24:34.079 --> 00:24:40.779 to go out into battle today. Finally, the last thing you need, and we'll finish, is you need 00:24:40.779 --> 00:24:46.699 fellow soldiers. Now, at the very end, I can only do a flyover here on these things. At the very end 00:24:46.699 --> 00:24:53.740 of this passage, Paul turns and says, will you pray for me? And he sends his servant Tychicus or Tychicus. 00:24:53.859 --> 00:24:59.859 People say it both ways. And just notice, if you think about the whole passage again, 00:24:59.859 --> 00:25:08.619 boy, I wish we had more time to look at this. He says, pray for all the saints as you're praying 00:25:08.619 --> 00:25:15.459 every day, all the Christians. And then he says, and friends in Ephesus, pray for me as I try to go 00:25:15.459 --> 00:25:21.259 out every day with the armor on me. And then he turns and he says, and greet Tychicus, my beloved 00:25:21.259 --> 00:25:26.439 brother, as he comes. And then he tells us why Tychicus has come. He's come to deliver the letter. 00:25:26.440 --> 00:25:32.940 But then he says, he's come so that he may encourage your hearts. Now, this is not technically 00:25:32.940 --> 00:25:38.220 part of the armor, but I think there's a final thing here, and it's this. He's telling us, 00:25:38.660 --> 00:25:44.279 we need one another, the fellow soldiers, shoulder to shoulder, to really make it through the battle. 00:25:45.400 --> 00:25:52.539 And notice what he says, greet Tychicus, my beloved brother. Do you have a beloved brother or sister 00:25:52.539 --> 00:25:57.899 in your life, a dear Christian friend who is a soldier who walks shoulder to shoulder with you 00:25:57.899 --> 00:26:04.659 and can put their shield next to your shield? And you think about it, sometimes I have trouble sending 00:26:04.659 --> 00:26:10.379 a text message to encourage some of you. Sometimes we struggle to send in, to make a phone call or send 00:26:10.379 --> 00:26:15.279 a text message to encourage somebody. But think about the links Paul goes to here to bring encouragement. 00:26:15.279 --> 00:26:22.619 And I can imagine Paul read this letter in prison in Rome, and he called Tychicus, come, I've got a 00:26:22.619 --> 00:26:29.980 letter ready, come and get it, Tychicus. And he's there at his prison cell, and he says, I need you to 00:26:29.980 --> 00:26:36.180 go to Ephesus. And Tychicus probably said, Paul, this is the first century. You know, this is not 2025. 00:26:36.180 --> 00:26:45.759 That is a long way. That is 60 to 90 days of sea travel across rough seas. And I don't know if I'll 00:26:45.759 --> 00:26:50.660 survive it. And he says, I mean, what is the big deal? What do you want me to travel from Rome to 00:26:50.660 --> 00:26:57.779 Ephesus for? And what did Paul say? He said, just so you can encourage them. And sometimes we struggle 00:26:57.779 --> 00:27:04.880 to send a text. And Paul is, what are we, we're being told here, the final piece of the armor is the 00:27:04.880 --> 00:27:08.720 brothers and sisters. This whole letter is really ultimately about the church. Who is the church? 00:27:08.820 --> 00:27:14.280 What does the church do? And we end on this, encourage one another. Say, keep the fight, put on 00:27:14.280 --> 00:27:21.800 the armor every day, go back to battle. Make encouragement of somebody else in this church 00:27:21.800 --> 00:27:28.480 family a daily discipline. That's the command here. Is encouragement part of the armor? Listen to 00:27:28.480 --> 00:27:33.060 Hebrews 3.13, how similar it is to Ephesians 6. And this will be the final word. 00:27:33.059 --> 00:27:42.059 Lord, encourage one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that you will not be hardened 00:27:42.059 --> 00:27:51.480 by sin's deceitful schemes. It's part of the armor. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for the better 00:27:51.480 --> 00:27:57.899 warrior, Jesus. We thank you for his justification. We thank you, Lord, for every piece of this armor, 00:27:57.900 --> 00:28:05.320 for the faith that you grant, for the hope that you provide, for the sword, the Bible, the revelation 00:28:05.320 --> 00:28:12.740 of your word, and Lord, for prayer, this gift, Lord. And we ask today in this prayer that you would 00:28:12.740 --> 00:28:19.640 indeed clothe us in the preparation of peace as we prepare to come to the table and then go back out 00:28:19.640 --> 00:28:24.160 into the battle of the Christian life. So we ask for that now in Jesus' name. Amen.