Scripture: Ephesians 6:10-14
Listen Link: www.lcepc.org then look for “sermons” tab.
In recent news: May 31, 2019, in VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — A Virginia Beach police officer is alive after being shot by the person who walked into the city’s municipal center and killed 11 people Friday. The officer was one of six people hurt in the shooting. “I can tell you that one of the individuals shot by the suspect is a Virginia Beach police officer and he was saved by his vest,” Police Chief Jim Cervera said.
Body armor has changed a lot since the days of the Roman soldiers, but it still essentially does the same thing. It protects your vital organs by providing a hard and nearly impenetrable shell, so that projectiles and sharp objects do no harm, or at least a lot less harm, when you are under attack.
But do you wonder why Christians need to be dressed in God’s armor? Are you really under attack? You seem to live a peaceful life. You’re not struggling financially, much. But you trust God to meet your needs. You’re in reasonably good health, and if there is need of healing there are doctors and prayers to the God who heals. You probably enjoy your neighbors, or at least there’s no outward conflict or fighting, so maybe you hardly even notice them. You’re minding your own business and getting the most out of this life, with confidence that you’ll be off to heaven in the next because you believe in Jesus.
But if that’s all you see, the devil’s got you hoodwinked after all. When you became a Christian, what really happened is that you switched sides in the spiritual battle raging in our world. When you were dead in sin you were satan’s captive, but not just held in a prison off the front lines. No, as satan’s captive he was able to use you as a pawn in his game of lies and deceit. Once you are a Christian, you are commissioned to preach the gospel, you change from being and enemy of God to becoming an enemy of satan. Now he sits up and takes notice. Like anybody with a bad temper and an evil heart, he does not like to lose even one of his captives.
Once you believe in Jesus, the devil is either going to try to take you back if he sees you as a threat to his plans, or just let you sleep on the battlefield not responding to God’s call to join the fight. And if you’re not in that fight, for whatever reason, you may not even be a Christian at all. If you don’t see the spiritual reality I am describing to you, you may be a cultural Christian, in name only, and not a genuine, on fire for the Lord Spirit filled believer who is eager to take up the cross, take up the cause of Christ and preach the gospel using the spiritual gifts you’re given at birth, your born again birth that is.
Or, maybe you do think that the spiritual battle is real and the fight you’re winning is to keep up a good attitude, love your neighbor, be nice, be honest and ethical in all your dealings. Be charitable too and lend a helping hand when you can. That’s all good and those are all useful to God for gaining a hearing for the gospel, so do more and more of that, and we’ll have more great testimonies like John and Joyce Taylors’s story we heard this morning. And we’ll have more wonderful thank you cards like the one form Jim and Marvel Craft.
But, just being a good person is not the main thing. The main thing is to make the most of every opportunity to preach the gospel, make and baptize new disciples, and teach them how to live for Jesus. Because Jesus told us the main thing is the Great Commission is the main thing and all these other things we do just open doors for that. Be involved with that, using the spiritual gifts you receive as a believer and you will definitely need the spiritual armor we’re talking about in this series. And doing it FOR the reward is not the main thing either. We do it for God and for His glory, not our own. Otherwise we will be as Jesus said, just like the pagans who know how to do good things for those who love them back.
Remember that the main point is to be strong in the Lord. You know, Paul was very familiar with Roman soldiers, and as he dictated the book of Ephesians one of them was actually chained to his wrist, up close and personal. But besides that, the language describing the spiritual armor was first inspired by God and written down in the book of Isaiah. Specifically, Isaiah 11:5 says, “Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.” Paul changed that belt image to Truth for his own illustrative reasons. Metaphors have flexibility. Isaiah 52: 7 says, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings.” That relates to feet shod with the gospel of peace that we will get to next week. And Isaiah 59:17 says of God, “He put on righteousness as his breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on his head.”
The one we’re talking about today is the breastplate of righteousness. But it’s all God’s armor that he shares with us. And unlike Saul’s armor on David, God can make sure that His armor fits us to a tee! There is a reason why the breastplate is connected with righteousness. The goal of salvation is to get your heart right with God. The breastplate of righteousness guards your heart against discouragement.
When you put on Christ at salvation, you are justified before our holy God. It's not your righteousness, but Christ's. 1 Corinthians 1:30 says that “It is because of him [God] that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.” And Philippians 3:9 says that we do not have “a righteousness of my [our] own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.”
Christ’s righteousness will never fail you. So, when Satan aims an arrow at you by saying, "You're not good enough to be a Christian," you can respond with Paul in Romans 8:33, "Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies." Your righteousness in Christ is your protection against Satan's accusations.
It's like when Noah got in the ark. That was like getting into the righteousness of Christ. God provided the ark, its idea and plan. True Noah actually built it, by faith acting in obedience. But God provided it. Noah would have drowned with everybody else if God hadn’t told him about salvation through the ark, and we would die in our sins just like everybody else if God hadn’t told us about salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. Noah would have drowned just like everybody else if he didn’t get into the ark. He was saved by faith in the ark. And we would have died in our sins just like everybody else if we didn’t get into Christ. We are saved by faith in Jesus.
In a way, since all the unrighteous died in the flood, Noah was made righteous by the ark and survived the flood, not because he had become a perfect person, but because he was in the ark. In the same way, we are made righteous by being in Christ, not because we are morally perfect, or even “good enough,” but because we are simply, in Christ. The breastplate of righteousness is a good picture of that because it has a front and a back, it is the one piece of the armor that we really get inside of when we put on Christ!
Even though we rejoice in our position of righteousness in Christ, we still have a problem with sin. We are well aware that the way we actually behave doesn’t always line up with the righteousness of Christ. We can get discouraged by that and wonder if we lost that breastplate of righteousness somewhere along the way. We believe that standing firm in our righteousness requires us to live in continuous agreement with God, but we regularly fail too. We’re still in Christ. We’re just not acting like it. That is why God has given us the grace of 1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." As often as we need to.
But that doesn’t mean that as long as you’re wearing that breastplate you can go on sinning without any concern for how you behave. Confession is different from saying "I'm sorry" or asking forgiveness. The Greek word for confess says it quite literally. Homo-logeo means, “same word.” You confess your sin when you say the same words that God says about it. Here are some examples: "I entertained a lustful thought and that's a sin." "I treated my spouse unkindly this morning and that was wrong." "Pride motivated me to seek that board position and pride doesn't belong in my life." To confess is not just to get away with sin. To confess means to acknowledge or to agree with God, so you end up saying and deciding, “You’re right, I shouldn’t do that. I’ll stop. I don’t want to do that again. It’s not good for me.” When you confess properly and repent, your character improves.
Satan will make confession as difficult for you as he can. First, he will blind you to the need to confess by concealing the truth about your sin and God’s view of it. But if you are wearing the belt of truth and know you have sinned, satan will try to convince you that it's too late for confession, that God has already erased your name out of the book of life. That's another one of his lies. You're in Christ. You’re in the breastplate of righteousness. You're already forgiven and that will never change. That’s the Truth. You are the righteousness of God in Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:21 assures us that, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus did that for us. That means it is a done deal. Your confession of sin clears the way for the fruitful expression of righteousness in your daily life. We should be like Paul, who said, "I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men" (Acts 24:16).
So, Paul is telling us that we ought to do the same. Now here is where this message really gets practical. Does what you wear make a difference in how you behave? I once wore a clown suit in a parade, and since many clowns work in silence, I decided to try that, and I refused to speak while I was a clown. What I wore changed my behavior. Also, I think military persons can know the difference it makes when you “put on the uniform.” For some people, just wearing a suit instead of casual clothes can make a difference, even if it’s just because you don’t want to get the nice clothes dirty. Would you change the oil in your car wearing a business suit?
So, I ask you, if you can maintain some awareness that you are dressed in the breast plate of righteousness, do you think it could make a difference in how you behave? I think Paul says it should. This breastplate of righteousness is part of the armor of God. That ought to make me fearless and bold, as well as strong and mighty in the Lord. If I put on a scuba suit, along with the tanks, I can breathe underwater, at greater than usual depths! If I put on a space suit, I can walk on the moon. Just think what I could do for God in the breastplate of righteousness! I am in Christ!
Psalm 118:6-8 say, “The LORD is for me; I will not fear; what can man do to me? The LORD is for me among those who help me; therefore I shall look with satisfaction on those who hate me. It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man.” David's question in Psalm 118:6 introduces a common fear among Christians: the fear of man. The timid man is quick to respond to the question, "I'll tell you what man can do to me. He can abuse me, he can fire me from my job, and he can even kill me."
True, but Jesus tells us to lay those fears aside: "Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28). If you fail to take God as your refuge, the fear of man will control your life.
However, when you make God your sanctuary, you free yourself to live a responsible life. Wearing the breastplate of righteousness, you can be bold to speak about the gospel. You can be brave to lend a helping hand to a stranger. Even if costs you something in the process, you have the assurance that God will meet all your needs. I want to be a God-pleaser, not a people-pleaser. Give me strength to stand up for the truth no matter what the cost.
There’s another interesting thing about wearing special clothes. I have noticed that other people treat me differently depending on how I dress. I get more respect in a suit. I would get even more respect if I had a right to wear a police or military uniform, or maybe less respect, depending on who I meet. But my point is, the devil will have to give you more respect when he sees that breastplate of righteousness all polished up and effective at warding him off. Certainly, you have a lot less to fear from him when you are in the breastplate of righteousness because it means you are in Christ! He can’t touch you, and his accusing lies just bounce right off that shiny breastplate!
Just one more little detail and we’ll be done. The breastplate also identifies you. Its design tells everybody whose army you belong to. Even today, if an archaeologist were to find an old breastplate on a dig somewhere, he could tell pretty easily whether or not it was a Roman design. When you wear the breastplate of righteousness properly, people around you can sometimes tell you’re a child of God. That’s why Jesus says in Matthew 5:16, “let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” Certainly, the devil knows, and trembles. He ends up more afraid of you than you are of him.
Let’s pray. Lord, as I continue to wear the breastplate of righteousness, or even if I just put it on for the first time today, thank you for the assurance of forgiveness and acceptance that is provided by my being in Christ. In Christ I will seek to maintain a blameless conscience before You and the people around me. I want to see myself as dressed and ready for the spiritual battle, so I can faithfully fulfill my share in the great commission to save more souls for your Kingdom! In Jesus’ name amen.
Listen Link: www.lcepc.org then look for “sermons” tab.
In recent news: May 31, 2019, in VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — A Virginia Beach police officer is alive after being shot by the person who walked into the city’s municipal center and killed 11 people Friday. The officer was one of six people hurt in the shooting. “I can tell you that one of the individuals shot by the suspect is a Virginia Beach police officer and he was saved by his vest,” Police Chief Jim Cervera said.
Body armor has changed a lot since the days of the Roman soldiers, but it still essentially does the same thing. It protects your vital organs by providing a hard and nearly impenetrable shell, so that projectiles and sharp objects do no harm, or at least a lot less harm, when you are under attack.
But do you wonder why Christians need to be dressed in God’s armor? Are you really under attack? You seem to live a peaceful life. You’re not struggling financially, much. But you trust God to meet your needs. You’re in reasonably good health, and if there is need of healing there are doctors and prayers to the God who heals. You probably enjoy your neighbors, or at least there’s no outward conflict or fighting, so maybe you hardly even notice them. You’re minding your own business and getting the most out of this life, with confidence that you’ll be off to heaven in the next because you believe in Jesus.
But if that’s all you see, the devil’s got you hoodwinked after all. When you became a Christian, what really happened is that you switched sides in the spiritual battle raging in our world. When you were dead in sin you were satan’s captive, but not just held in a prison off the front lines. No, as satan’s captive he was able to use you as a pawn in his game of lies and deceit. Once you are a Christian, you are commissioned to preach the gospel, you change from being and enemy of God to becoming an enemy of satan. Now he sits up and takes notice. Like anybody with a bad temper and an evil heart, he does not like to lose even one of his captives.
Once you believe in Jesus, the devil is either going to try to take you back if he sees you as a threat to his plans, or just let you sleep on the battlefield not responding to God’s call to join the fight. And if you’re not in that fight, for whatever reason, you may not even be a Christian at all. If you don’t see the spiritual reality I am describing to you, you may be a cultural Christian, in name only, and not a genuine, on fire for the Lord Spirit filled believer who is eager to take up the cross, take up the cause of Christ and preach the gospel using the spiritual gifts you’re given at birth, your born again birth that is.
Or, maybe you do think that the spiritual battle is real and the fight you’re winning is to keep up a good attitude, love your neighbor, be nice, be honest and ethical in all your dealings. Be charitable too and lend a helping hand when you can. That’s all good and those are all useful to God for gaining a hearing for the gospel, so do more and more of that, and we’ll have more great testimonies like John and Joyce Taylors’s story we heard this morning. And we’ll have more wonderful thank you cards like the one form Jim and Marvel Craft.
But, just being a good person is not the main thing. The main thing is to make the most of every opportunity to preach the gospel, make and baptize new disciples, and teach them how to live for Jesus. Because Jesus told us the main thing is the Great Commission is the main thing and all these other things we do just open doors for that. Be involved with that, using the spiritual gifts you receive as a believer and you will definitely need the spiritual armor we’re talking about in this series. And doing it FOR the reward is not the main thing either. We do it for God and for His glory, not our own. Otherwise we will be as Jesus said, just like the pagans who know how to do good things for those who love them back.
Remember that the main point is to be strong in the Lord. You know, Paul was very familiar with Roman soldiers, and as he dictated the book of Ephesians one of them was actually chained to his wrist, up close and personal. But besides that, the language describing the spiritual armor was first inspired by God and written down in the book of Isaiah. Specifically, Isaiah 11:5 says, “Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.” Paul changed that belt image to Truth for his own illustrative reasons. Metaphors have flexibility. Isaiah 52: 7 says, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings.” That relates to feet shod with the gospel of peace that we will get to next week. And Isaiah 59:17 says of God, “He put on righteousness as his breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on his head.”
The one we’re talking about today is the breastplate of righteousness. But it’s all God’s armor that he shares with us. And unlike Saul’s armor on David, God can make sure that His armor fits us to a tee! There is a reason why the breastplate is connected with righteousness. The goal of salvation is to get your heart right with God. The breastplate of righteousness guards your heart against discouragement.
When you put on Christ at salvation, you are justified before our holy God. It's not your righteousness, but Christ's. 1 Corinthians 1:30 says that “It is because of him [God] that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.” And Philippians 3:9 says that we do not have “a righteousness of my [our] own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.”
Christ’s righteousness will never fail you. So, when Satan aims an arrow at you by saying, "You're not good enough to be a Christian," you can respond with Paul in Romans 8:33, "Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies." Your righteousness in Christ is your protection against Satan's accusations.
It's like when Noah got in the ark. That was like getting into the righteousness of Christ. God provided the ark, its idea and plan. True Noah actually built it, by faith acting in obedience. But God provided it. Noah would have drowned with everybody else if God hadn’t told him about salvation through the ark, and we would die in our sins just like everybody else if God hadn’t told us about salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. Noah would have drowned just like everybody else if he didn’t get into the ark. He was saved by faith in the ark. And we would have died in our sins just like everybody else if we didn’t get into Christ. We are saved by faith in Jesus.
In a way, since all the unrighteous died in the flood, Noah was made righteous by the ark and survived the flood, not because he had become a perfect person, but because he was in the ark. In the same way, we are made righteous by being in Christ, not because we are morally perfect, or even “good enough,” but because we are simply, in Christ. The breastplate of righteousness is a good picture of that because it has a front and a back, it is the one piece of the armor that we really get inside of when we put on Christ!
Even though we rejoice in our position of righteousness in Christ, we still have a problem with sin. We are well aware that the way we actually behave doesn’t always line up with the righteousness of Christ. We can get discouraged by that and wonder if we lost that breastplate of righteousness somewhere along the way. We believe that standing firm in our righteousness requires us to live in continuous agreement with God, but we regularly fail too. We’re still in Christ. We’re just not acting like it. That is why God has given us the grace of 1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." As often as we need to.
But that doesn’t mean that as long as you’re wearing that breastplate you can go on sinning without any concern for how you behave. Confession is different from saying "I'm sorry" or asking forgiveness. The Greek word for confess says it quite literally. Homo-logeo means, “same word.” You confess your sin when you say the same words that God says about it. Here are some examples: "I entertained a lustful thought and that's a sin." "I treated my spouse unkindly this morning and that was wrong." "Pride motivated me to seek that board position and pride doesn't belong in my life." To confess is not just to get away with sin. To confess means to acknowledge or to agree with God, so you end up saying and deciding, “You’re right, I shouldn’t do that. I’ll stop. I don’t want to do that again. It’s not good for me.” When you confess properly and repent, your character improves.
Satan will make confession as difficult for you as he can. First, he will blind you to the need to confess by concealing the truth about your sin and God’s view of it. But if you are wearing the belt of truth and know you have sinned, satan will try to convince you that it's too late for confession, that God has already erased your name out of the book of life. That's another one of his lies. You're in Christ. You’re in the breastplate of righteousness. You're already forgiven and that will never change. That’s the Truth. You are the righteousness of God in Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:21 assures us that, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus did that for us. That means it is a done deal. Your confession of sin clears the way for the fruitful expression of righteousness in your daily life. We should be like Paul, who said, "I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men" (Acts 24:16).
So, Paul is telling us that we ought to do the same. Now here is where this message really gets practical. Does what you wear make a difference in how you behave? I once wore a clown suit in a parade, and since many clowns work in silence, I decided to try that, and I refused to speak while I was a clown. What I wore changed my behavior. Also, I think military persons can know the difference it makes when you “put on the uniform.” For some people, just wearing a suit instead of casual clothes can make a difference, even if it’s just because you don’t want to get the nice clothes dirty. Would you change the oil in your car wearing a business suit?
So, I ask you, if you can maintain some awareness that you are dressed in the breast plate of righteousness, do you think it could make a difference in how you behave? I think Paul says it should. This breastplate of righteousness is part of the armor of God. That ought to make me fearless and bold, as well as strong and mighty in the Lord. If I put on a scuba suit, along with the tanks, I can breathe underwater, at greater than usual depths! If I put on a space suit, I can walk on the moon. Just think what I could do for God in the breastplate of righteousness! I am in Christ!
Psalm 118:6-8 say, “The LORD is for me; I will not fear; what can man do to me? The LORD is for me among those who help me; therefore I shall look with satisfaction on those who hate me. It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man.” David's question in Psalm 118:6 introduces a common fear among Christians: the fear of man. The timid man is quick to respond to the question, "I'll tell you what man can do to me. He can abuse me, he can fire me from my job, and he can even kill me."
True, but Jesus tells us to lay those fears aside: "Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28). If you fail to take God as your refuge, the fear of man will control your life.
However, when you make God your sanctuary, you free yourself to live a responsible life. Wearing the breastplate of righteousness, you can be bold to speak about the gospel. You can be brave to lend a helping hand to a stranger. Even if costs you something in the process, you have the assurance that God will meet all your needs. I want to be a God-pleaser, not a people-pleaser. Give me strength to stand up for the truth no matter what the cost.
There’s another interesting thing about wearing special clothes. I have noticed that other people treat me differently depending on how I dress. I get more respect in a suit. I would get even more respect if I had a right to wear a police or military uniform, or maybe less respect, depending on who I meet. But my point is, the devil will have to give you more respect when he sees that breastplate of righteousness all polished up and effective at warding him off. Certainly, you have a lot less to fear from him when you are in the breastplate of righteousness because it means you are in Christ! He can’t touch you, and his accusing lies just bounce right off that shiny breastplate!
Just one more little detail and we’ll be done. The breastplate also identifies you. Its design tells everybody whose army you belong to. Even today, if an archaeologist were to find an old breastplate on a dig somewhere, he could tell pretty easily whether or not it was a Roman design. When you wear the breastplate of righteousness properly, people around you can sometimes tell you’re a child of God. That’s why Jesus says in Matthew 5:16, “let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” Certainly, the devil knows, and trembles. He ends up more afraid of you than you are of him.
Let’s pray. Lord, as I continue to wear the breastplate of righteousness, or even if I just put it on for the first time today, thank you for the assurance of forgiveness and acceptance that is provided by my being in Christ. In Christ I will seek to maintain a blameless conscience before You and the people around me. I want to see myself as dressed and ready for the spiritual battle, so I can faithfully fulfill my share in the great commission to save more souls for your Kingdom! In Jesus’ name amen.
Comments
Post a Comment