This transcript was generated automatically and may contain minor errors.

If you would, open up your Bibles to Ephesians chapter six. Ephesians chapter six. That's where we'll be reading from tonight, verses 10 down through 20. It's good to be with you all this evening. I don't know about you guys, but after this week, I feel like I know a little bit more of what the Egyptians might have went through in the 10 plagues with all of the love bugs around.

I needed to stop. I'm about to drive... It's about to drive me crazy. I can't stand the love bugs anymore. Another reason, I'm ready for summertime to end, for a fall time to come.

But along with that, with fall time coming, as many of you probably are feeling as well, you're probably excited for football season to come. A lot of you, know, are Aggie fans. Some of you silently, hopefully, are Longhorn fans. And some of us, like me, don't have a dog in a fight because I never went to a state school, so I don't care. I just like watching.

But teams all around the country right now, they're in... Ending their, you know, training camps. They're starting practices as their seasons are beginning. All this preparation has been taking place. And so now it's time for all these teams to come together and start playing.

And, you know, whether you played football growing up or if you played any type of sport, everybody knows after all the planning when it comes to play... It comes time to play, a coach, if he's worth his salt at all, when he start... Before he start a game, there's gonna be some sort of pregame speech. Right? Everybody's experienced that.

You gotta have the one where your coach's veins are popping on his forehead. He's got that weird little gross spit drying on the side of his mouth, you know, he's screaming at you and flexed it or hitting you on the forehead, you know, those type of speeches, those pregame speeches. Those messages that they're meant to inspire players to complete the game plan that they've prepared and to work together to accomplish it. They are the speeches they create within you the sense of urgency and intensity as you get ready to play. So when the team goes and steps down the field, they're they're ready to go.

They're ready to hit the opposite team with all they've got. And Ephesians chapter six, I think about that, you know, that kinda idea with the armor of God, Paul is giving the... His Christian audience here a motivational speech, and he's using war imagery. And we usually use kinda a lot of war metaphors to talk about sports, especially football.

I mean, you're literally wearing armor in a sense to play football or other sports like that. But he's calling the Christians here to complete their mission to... In Ephesians, you know, the great big picture Paul's talking about is God is uniting all things in heaven and on earth under the head of the Messiah, Jesus. And at the same time, he's helping them try to remember that they need to remain united in the face of the enemies that would disrupt this unity that they're trying to bring about as God's church. And so as he's closing the letter, Paul's...

He's kinda summarizing a lot of his previous content as we'll see later on in the lesson tonight. And he's using the metaphorical image of armor in order to instill this urgency, this initiative, and this unity in his audience. And so tonight, you know, I think normally when we read the armor of God passage, and rightfully so, we kinda... We read it through more of an individualistic lens. Maybe it's a kind of a checklist for individual Christian values.

Do I have, you know, righteousness? Do I have truth? All these different things. But, really, I want us to consider this text tonight in... Through the lens of unity.

Because Paul's purpose really behind this image is is not merely that individual Christians stand themselves, but that the body of Christ stands together. So I wanna read Ephesians chapter six verse 10 through 20 with you really quickly, and then we'll dive into our study. I've debated on whether I should read this like a southern football coach. I'm not gonna put you through that. Do all...

You know, they're always, like, grabbing their belt and stuff like that, you know. I'm not gonna do anything like that, but let's read in verse 10. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm. Stand therefore having fastened on the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and his shoes for your feet having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints and also for me that the words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak. The armor of God.

Now when it comes to planning for games and sports and things like that, you always prepare for an ideal. You're running practice plays. You're anticipating how your opponents might be running against you in these different plays. You study film. You try to learn their plays.

You try to learn player's tendencies. You try to find noticeable patterns in your opponent to exploit. But when you play a good team, often when you finally step on the field, the game that you prepare for really isn't the game that you anticipated. And those type of games, they end up being a fight to the end. I think this is very much like the end of Paul's letter.

He's finished teaching how, you know, the ideal Christian how a household should look. How should the Christian home look there in chapter five and the beginning of chapter six? It's... They're supposed to be households that are shaped by the gospel. And, really, the letter at large really is trying to envision the ideal for the church, who the church is supposed to be.

And, of course, that big image is we already mentioned that big goal of God is to unite all things in heaven and on earth under the head of Christ there in chapter one and verse nine and ten. And then chapter three and verse nine and ten as well, the church's very existence, it testifies to the beginning, the unveiling of this very divine plan that These Jews and these Gentiles, this image we're talking about for the year, this temple, the Jews and Gentiles have become one body, one new man in the place of two in Christ Jesus. And so being under this head, the church is to continue making known this divine plan in both heaven and on earth as we'll see in a moment. But the unity and... Their unity and their mission is not gonna be without opposition.

It's not always gonna look like the ideal. So what do the Christians have to do to be able to meet their enemy on the battlefield to... What are they supposed to do when they're challenged by their enemy? Well, you know, if we summarize Paul's pregame speech, it's really simple. Right?

And this is kinda... Will be the trajectory of our lesson tonight. But if you wanna know his speech in a nutshell, he really just says, hey. Be strong, fight, and win. Sounds a lot like a sports coach's, you know, pregame speech.

Right? Sounds like a general preparing his army for battle. That's what Paul is doing here. But as we think about our first point here, be strong. You know, Paul, just like a...

You know, unlike a coach, Paul, he's not telling the audience here, hey. Look for some inner strength, you know, really, you know, really find it deep inside of you. He tells them to find their strength in the Lord. He says again in verse 10, finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of God. They're in verse 13, that you may be be able to withstand in the evil day having done all to stand firm. There's a couple of things that I think stick out here in this passage in particular. You know, on the one hand, it's false teaching on being in Christ. And then the other is the obvious one, you know, the image of God's armor, an illusion as we'll see in just a moment to Isaiah.

You know, Paul's emphasis on being in Christ is one of his really dominant kinda concepts of his letter. It appears 36 times alone in the letter of Ephesians and 23 times in just the first two chapters of the letter. And Paul's trying to help the Christians see here right at the outset, the closest letter. He says, you know, being in the Lord, our our strength isn't something that's gonna stem from ourselves, but really it's God's power. It's God's power that's at work within us.

Paul, he understood this of himself in his own ministry in chapter three in verse seven when he said that his ministry was according to the gift of god's grace which was given to him by the working of god's power. And likewise, he prays three times in the letter that the audience would know that the same power that was at work within him was also at work within them. He prayed that they would know that God is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think according to the power at work within us. This chapter three in verse 20 says. So since we've been unified with Christ, we are in Christ.

We're his body as he is our head. Not only have we been seated with him up in the heavenly places as chapter two and verse six says, but his power is also at work within us too. But that armor of god, that second image that we need to consider as well, you know, the power that we have from Christ is given... Or the power that we're given is is through the access to the power or the armor of God. Excuse me.

You know, it's kinda like a child who, you know, dons some camouflage. Maybe they get a toy gun and it's got the orange tip on it, you know, and they go and play soldier. They're imitating kind of the real thing. Well, it's kinda like how Christians were putting on the armor of god. We're imitating our father.

But the things that God gives us here, they're not toys. They're not fakes, but they're really the real thing. We have his armor, the text says. The same armor which the prophet Isaiah saw in his vision when he said that god puts on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head. He put on garments of vengeance for clothing and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.

In Isaiah, this picture of God's armor, this is God's personal armor that he's wearing to go and cleanse Israel of their sin. But for Paul, putting on God's armor, it really calls the Christians here to put on the character of god. We identify with god in putting on his armor, and we commit ourselves to his purposes. If we look at some of Paul's parallel kinda putting on passages here in Ephesians, this really becomes clear. Having heard of the gospel, having been instructed in Christ's ways, our minds are being renewed in such a way that he says in chapter four in verse 24 that we have put on the new self created created after what?

He says, the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. He goes on to say in chapter five in verse one and then in verse eight, he says, therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children. For at one time, you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Therefore, he says, walk as children of light. And so rather than armor, it is the new self, maybe in chapter four.

But at the same time, Paul's parallel, the image is exactly the same. That when we put on God's armor, when we put on this new self, we are becoming like God because we're allowing his character to shape our lives. So we think about that in terms of, again, calling... We're we're trying to think about the armor of god in terms of unity rather than simply us as individuals, but how it relates to us in a local body. But as a local body, you think of these two things, being in Christ in the armor of god and becoming like him.

As a local body, our strength and the unity that we possess together, it needs to be based solely on our relation to our head, Christ, and to the liken... And our likeness to the father. A lot of churches in our day and age in The United States, especially broadly speaking, they fall into this trap where they base their strength or their unity and the amount of people they have in a building, maybe the number of programs that they're offering to the community, maybe the way that they're held in regard amongst the larger community, maybe the size, the newness of their building. That's where their strength. That's where their uniqueness, their unity lies.

And we can fall in the same superficial traps if we're not careful too. And at the same time, we ought not be discouraged when we play these sort of games of comparison with our congregation, with other places here in our community or around The United States. Where we might think that, well, this church has something that we should have. We don't have that. We're lacking in that.

But neither our strength nor our unity, whatever our strength or unity, it can't rest in these superficial things. But really, solely, as Paul says, in the strength that comes from being in Christ and becoming like our God. And if we have a body of believers who are strong in Christ and we're helping one another become more like God, well, then we're fulfilling our mission. Even if we may not look like other groups, we might be a little bit more jealous of because they have something we think that we should have. But just as the sun was tempted in the wilderness, so does Satan through his powers of darkness try to drive a wedge between the father and his children of light.

We try to become like God and put it on his armor, and Satan comes out to war against us. But Paul tells us that God gives us this armor. He says, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. And those heavenly places here, when we talk about standing against the schemes of the devil, You know, this is a really kinda unique statement here in the New Testament, this idea of wrestling against flesh and blood.

You know, nowhere else in the New Testament is the life of the church described in, you know, conducting spiritual warfare as in this manner. The true battle, again, Paul says, is it's not in the flesh. It's not in the blood. It's not against humans, but it's in the heavenly places. In Ephesians, this word, this kinda concept, the heavenly places, it isn't really simply referred to a spiritual place like this heaven, but really what it's referring to is a reality that's beyond what we see.

It's God's world. It's the true reality in which we as believers now live having been placed in Christ. And so what do we do with this kind of description, this description of spiritual warfare? It's so unique. It's not something we see all over in the New Testament.

Well, on the one hand, we definitely need to take Paul's warning here seriously and at face value that, ultimately, we're fighting an enemy that we can't see and one that we honestly can't fully comprehend. But on the other hand, we also are not obsessed over the spiritual powers. We might not... We don't need to obsess or despair over what they might be capable of. Because Paul, he doesn't focus on this, but Paul has already revealed a really powerful truth for us, and that is that Christ has already conquered these powers.

He has conquered Satan, and Satan has already lost the war. In chapter one in verse 20 through 21, again, a lot of the same similar images and same words that are used here in chapter six of these different kind of spiritual forces are are already talked about here in the first chapter where it talks about God having seated Christ at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named. As if Paul's to say, in anybody else that you can find, any other power that's out there, every other name, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. In his triumphing over these powers, Christ has set us free from the control of Satan as chapter two and verse one and two says. And so now as his body, as Paul is trying to help us see in chapter six, he's trying to show us that we now fight alongside Christ against these same powers.

As chapter three in verse 10 says, that it is through the church that the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. But Satan's already lost, so why do we need to be concerned about wearing armor? Why do we need to be concerned about waging war? Why is Paul talking about this so much if the battle is already won? That's because the devil hasn't ceased in his opposition.

The devil knows he can't win, but Satan still is trying to disrupt God's plans. He can't win, but he can take us down with him by interfering with the work and the mission of God's church. Notice in Paul's parallel passage, the idea again, you know, putting on this new life in relation to the putting on the armor of God. And what follows after he talks about putting on our new life here, he gives us a specific example of what this new life in Christ looks like, and then he demonstrates how it ultimately has consequences on the unity of the church. So he says, therefore, having put away falsehood, your former life, the life you lived in service to Satan and his powers, he says, let each of you speak the truth with his neighbor.

The truth, that's the first attribute in one of the pieces of armor we'll look at in a moment. Why should you do this? He says, for we are members of one another. Then we live this new life, when we put on the armor of God, there's consequences to it. Good positive consequences that lead to the strength and the unity of God's church.

But he goes on to say, the falsehood and line, of course, fracture relationships. But truth and transparency are things that not only keep the bonds of members strong, but they also strengthen them over time. And this is exactly the type of thing that Satan's trying to prevent. If Paul here... Now he shifts from this positive image of unity, and now he starts to talk about the negative aspect, this image of spiritual interference that when we turn away from this new life, when we turn away from putting on the armor of God, and we turn back to our former life, that's when Satan's able to fulfill his schemes.

In verse twenty six and twenty seven, he says, be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. Paul says here that the devil is looking for an opportunity. He's looking for that opening. As Peter says in his own words in first Peter chapter five verse eight that the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking for someone to devour.

If the devil can keep us from putting on our new self, from putting on the new life, putting on the armor of God that is taking on God's likeness, then the devil can disrupt the body of Christ. Anger is just one of the many weapons in his arsenal, and it's a tool that can sow division, sow bitterness, and hatred. We've gotta understand when it comes to the schemes of the devil and the responsibility we have individually collectively in making sure we're all putting on this new life in the armor of God is that we all have a part to play in this and that all of us are either undermining or maintaining the strength of the church. There's no either or. There's no in between.

It's either or. Are you undermining? Are you de... Destabilizing the strength of the church? Maybe you consider some of Paul's own examples in particular.

You know, chapter five and verse three through five, he talks about sexual sin. You know, sexual immorality, is it something that's maybe taking you out of the fight because you're being ruled with shame? Maybe he goes on to talk about, you know, the influences, the people that you... That you partner yourself with. Maybe you're removing yourself from the body because you'd rather partner with those who practice the unfruitful works of darkness as Paul calls them.

Maybe think about his household codes in chapter five and six. Maybe you withdraw from your brethren because there's strife in your family or in your marriage. Are we undermining the strength of church because we're withdrawing ourselves because of the sin? Is... Are we allowing Satan to win to get an opportunity, an opening, a foothold in our lives, and how is that affecting the body of Christ?

But in contrast, you know, how is it that we're establishing... How are we maintaining the strength of the church? Are we encouraging, and are we keeping accountable our brethren who might be struggling? Are we teaching, whether it is formally or informally, by word or example? And are we being truly present in worship spiritually, not just merely bodily?

Are we helping strengthen the church and... As we participate together in worship? Because the devil, he's scheming. He is doing his best to cut the body off from the head. He wants to decapitate us from God and Christ.

And if the devil can successfully divide the house, then it's no longer gonna stand. But the... To be ultimately prepared for this attack that's coming, well, of course, this is where we land. The big image that Paul is trying to convey here. So we've gotta put on the armor of God.

And though we may do so individually, this should also be seen as a collective action too. And that's what I want us to consider. It's not just the armor being strapped on to individual believers as we usually might read this, but I want us to think about it in terms of us strapping the armor together as we do it individually onto the body of Christ. Again, Paul says in verse 13, therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm, stand therefore. Withstand, stand, stand, that's the language that's repeated there.

Paul's concern for unity elsewhere in the letter, it's really underscored in the section by the pronouns and the verbs that are used. They're all second person plural pronouns and verbs. You know? You, the y'all, right, that we would say here in Texas. The idea of being strong, put on, take up, stand, all these imperatives are to a collective group of people.

And so in other words, like elsewhere in Ephesians, Paul is not speaking to an individual soldier, but he's speaking to the church. And Paul's goal really in the book of Ephesians and really in using this metaphor of the armor of god, it's not simply to teach that god's armor is given to an individual Christian so that they might become a strong warrior themselves, but instead, it's given so that the body of Christ might remain standing. And so we need to understand that the armor is both an individual image, but also it's something that when we work together and we do this individually, we're creating a well armored body of Christ. But the armor of God also summarizes really the gospel shaped life of Ephesians. The book of Ephesians is trying to accomplish.

You know, you think about the indicative part of Ephesians chapter one through three. This is what Christ has done. Chapter four through six, the imperative portion. This is what you do in light of the gospel. And, really, this armor that's kinda bringing this idea to a close is really summarizing all of Paul's message of the book of Ephesians.

When it comes to these individual pieces, normally, we kinda... Sermons are preached on this. You know, we spend a lot of time trying to identify maybe why is it that this virtue is related to this piece of armor and things like that. Maybe we speculate on why that might be. Well, if you read first Thessalonians chapter five and verse eight, Paul uses the same type of imagery, but he switches the virtues to different pieces of armor.

I don't think that's necessarily the point. But really what I want us to see here is that Paul, he's gathering up all these previous themes, these these aspects of this new life that he's talked about already. And he's developed these in the letter, but now he's expressing them through this one condensed image of the armor of God. So as we might expect, the virtues are listed here, they appear all over the letter. And if you got a handout, all of these are listed on the back, so don't feel like you have to write all these down.

But if you want the handout and you weren't able to get one, I can get one of those to you afterwards if you'd like. But all of these virtues appear repeatedly elsewhere in this letter. And, you know, while the image of the soldier, again, it does imply that there's conflict there's to be had, but at the same time, Paul is still expressing an ideal, not only for who the individual Christian ought to be, but also for the body of Christ. The armor really is a summary of the gospel shaped life that Paul has been teaching about. So what is the well armed church look like?

We'll summarize the armor here rather quickly. We are a well armed church. We have the belt of truth. That means we speak truth to one another according to Paul elsewhere in the letter. It means we refuse to let falsehood break down trust.

When we're a well armed church armed with the breastplate of righteousness, we don't tolerate sin that destroys fellowship. We don't... Or we make sure that we practice right behaviors that reflect the gospel. We're well armed as a church when we have the shoes of readiness given by the gospel of peace, that we maintain Christ's peace that he is one in his body, but we also announce Christ's peace to those outside of it. We're a well armed church when we have the shield of faith, that we work with boldness and confidence in spite of whatever threats that we might counter as we try to fulfill this mission.

We're well armed when we wear the helmet of salvation, that we live with hope. We know that we are people who've already been redeemed in Christ. We're well armed when we have the sword of the spirit. We know that we really only need one weapon to fight. That is the gospel of Christ.

With it, we witness to the spiritual forces in the heavenly places. We ward off temptation on the earth, and the gospel and the word of Christ continually calls us back to our true allegiance. And then, of course, prayer, as Paul so famously ends, that prayer, he says, it keeps us alert. It keeps us persevering the enemy attacks. But he also says to make supplication for all the saints here.

The prayer here is not just merely for the individual, but as you read the close of this section, really, it's more stressing the unity and aspect of praying for other people rather than yourself. That we pray that God's church would overcome whether locally or universally or eschatologically at the end of time. So notice here how Paul ends his pregame speech. He doesn't tell them, hey, you know, pray for yourselves, but pray for all the saints. And I pray that the gospel would continue to be be proclaimed with boldness.

And so think about the armor of God. Again, collectively, we need to understand that our faithfulness in having the initiative to take up this armor as Paul is trying to admonish us to do, we take up the armor faithfully, that has effects on the people that stand beside us. You know, no doubt this image of the armor of God, of course, it calls to mind Isaiah 59. But for Paul's audience in their world, they would have definitely visualized this Roman soldier that I've had on the screen behind me. And a Roman soldier would have been a really, you know, formidable opponent by himself.

I'm sure. It would have been well trained. It would have had really good equipment with them. But it was really the Roman legion when they were all together, when they worked together, that's when they were truly powerful and almost unstoppable for so many centuries. I want you to consider just one item here of the of the armor of God.

I want you to consider the shield of faith again. You know, the shield, it may call to mind something about... Call to mind personal protection, but this too can be understood really as an image of unity. One of Rome's really strong formations looked like this behind me. It's called the tortoise, the testudo.

It was a formation that required a lot of unity. It required synchronization with a group of soldiers. But if they work together using all their armor together in one cohesive body, bringing their shields in line together, while they were almost unstoppable in war. I think it's what we need to understand here about the armor of God. You know, whether we read this text corporately or whether we read it individually, our personal accountability in taking up the armor of God, it affects those who are standing next to us.

You know, there's no Batman in the kingdom of God. You know, Batman. Right? He's like, I work alone, you know. That was a horrible Batman impression.

But, yeah. However, he would say that. I work alone. Right? He's all broody when he says that.

Right? You ever met Christians who were like that? I met one lady one time in my apartment complex and I was like, hey, you know, do you worship anywhere? She says, yeah. Right in there.

I worship with my father, the son, and the holy spirit. And she was just all by her lonesome. That's what she did. And she thought that that was what she ought to be doing. She was a Batman type of Christian.

But if we want strength, true strength, it starts with Christ as the head. But the strength that Christ offers, it extends through his body as well. And so if we wish to stand at all, well, we've got to stand together. We can't break formation. We've gotta take up arms working together and refusing to give the devil an opportunity to break our ranks.

So Paul's pregame speech here, he doesn't earn... End here with, you know, hey. Get out there. Go be the strongest Christian that you can be individually. Do it all by yourself.

I mean, what kind of coach would say that in the first place? That would be pretty terrible unless they have terrible team and, like, one star player or something. But he didn't say that. He says, know where your strength lies. He says, don't underestimate your opponent and stand together.

And the goal of the armor of god, again, it's not simply that an individual Christian becomes some mighty warrior in and of themselves, but it's given to the body of Christ might stand... Might... That might remain standing. So tonight, if you are a Christian, well, I want you to consider, well, how are you adding to the formation? If you haven't been holding up your shield, if you haven't been defending the body, well, you need to step back in line tonight.

We wanna help you do that. And if you're not a Christian at all, well, God's calling you into the fight. He's calling you to come and join his fellow saints. But you can't join the fight. You can't jump into battle until you join Christ Church.

And to be enlisted, Christ and the apostles tell us really clearly what it is that we're to do. We're to believe that Christ has all authority in heaven and on earth, that we confess that we have sinned, that we have fought for the wrong side, that we repent from our past life, that we abandon our past allegiances, that we would be baptized, putting on Christ, receiving the forgiveness of our sins, and being enlisted into his body, And then we would commit to living the life of a loyal soldier, one who shares in the suffering of Christ Jesus. So tonight, if that's your desire, we'd love to help you to come and join ranks with us as we witness to the kingdom of God together. You'll come now as we stand as we sing.