Take a Stand Part 2
Notes
Transcript
Welcome-
Call to Worship see 1 cor 2:1-16
Prayer
Worship through Song
Sermon
Introduction
Introduction
Last week we started the section on the armor of God where Paul brings together everything that he has been teaching and wraps it up in this parable and imagery of the full armor of God. To refresh ourselves this is how Paul starts this section.
10 Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength. 11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens. 13 For this reason take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand.
A true believer must be strengthened and that strength does not come from the inner parts of a man but from God the Father who has unmeasurable strength. This is the strength that allowed Paul to be taken outside of a town and stoned nearly to death. To be picked up by his brothers and after he is healed goes right back preaching the Gospel of Jesus to the Gentiles.
This is the strength that God gave Steven as he testified about God and was killed for it.
We have found a free streaming service called redeemed tv and it have quite a few shows about missionaries and another men and women of faith.
It is absolutely amazing the hardships that these people endured to spread the Gospel. They were imprisoned, separated from family, lived in various hardships and many were even killed while doing the work of the Lord.
These people lived strengthened by the vast strength of the Lord.
Paul tells the believer that with this strength they must stand for the struggle is not of flesh and blood but against the spiritual forces. This is the struggle the resistance to the schemes of the devil.
To resist the methods of this world.
16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s possessions—is not from the Father, but is from the world.
19 We know that we are of God, and the whole world is under the sway of the evil one.
The world is full of the schemes of the devil. ways in which he temps men and women to turn from God and to focus on themselves and their own selfish desires. There are many schemes of the devil.
He temps us to question if God is who he says he is. Is God loving, or good. Is he powerful? Is he really gracious and merciful? Is the bile really true? We are constantly tempted to question God’s truthfulness.
He temps us by constantly drawing us into the present time to focus on the pleasures and pains of this world. In conversations with an HR director that I know, he used to say that there are only two motivations of people. Pain or pleasure. In management those are the only things you have in this world to motivate people to produce certain behaviors.
He temps with the false teachings of people with silver tongues. They are really falsely teaching scripture that goes back to dealing with plain or pleasure worldly wants.
He temps us to waste our time. To spend our days here on doing things the do not have any significant value in the end. We are called to serve him and the enemy knows that if we are doing other things we will not serve him.
He temps us into division. To cause separation where God calls for unity.
He temps us with the desire to trust in ourselves and to rely on our own provisions and strength.
He temps us to living lives of hypocrisy. To say one thing and to do another.
He temps us to conform to the world. To give into peer pressure and to be like the Jones's. Or the neighbor down the road.
But in the end he temps us to be complacent, and dismissive of the Word of God. Which leads to all of those listed and many more.
13 For this reason take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand.
It is suggested by commentators that Paul is giving a call to arms speech and the ways in which the Greek is translated into English it is hard to convey the intensity that these words were conveying.
He says for this reason take up the armor, so that you can resist, being prepared, to take your stand.
The he says, stand again.
Ephesians 6:14–15 (CSB)
14 Stand, therefore, ...
To Stand with Truth
To Stand with Truth
It is as if he is saying this is what you must do so not do it. Paul is going to use 6 items that relate to a soldier to develop what is required to stand and resist.
14 Stand, therefore, with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest, 15 and your feet sandaled with readiness for the gospel of peace. 16 In every situation take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit—which is the word of God.
The first three are to be put on and to be put on and never be taken off. They are to be a constant part of a believers life if the believer is to resist the temptations of the world. The first on is the belt.
Ephesians 6:14 (CSB)
14 Stand, therefore, with truth like a belt around your waist, ...
Your translation may say something like having put on the belt or girding your waist with truth.
“Like a belt around” this is one Greek word. It means
To gird: Verb. to be or become fastened with a belt (or similar device) for securing one’s clothing; usually in preparation for strenuous activity or labor.
It is an action taken on by the subject. A believer is to gird themselves. This is a word we do not use today other than maybe the word girdle. This idea is kind of foreign to us today but it would have been very common back them. Men would wear tunics. Basically sheets with holes cut out for the head and arms. The material would be draped over the head and would be wrapped in a belt so that it wasn’t hanging out in the wind. They could be long or shorter. But they were not very conducive to running or hard work.
There was a method for preparing for work or to move fast if you were wearing on of these. You would pull up the fabric to your knees and gather the fabric in the front of you. The fabric would be pulled between the legs and split in half to be pulled back around to be tied in the front. Today it would remind us of a diaper. But to them it was something you did to be prepared to do something physical or laborious.
in Exodus during the passover:
11 Here is how you must eat it: You must be dressed for travel, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. You are to eat it in a hurry; it is the Lord’s Passover.
The Hebrew work to describe being dressed for travel also means to gird. They were to be prepared to leave, ready to move with all haste.
35 “Be ready for service and have your lamps lit. 36 You are to be like people waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet so that when he comes and knocks, they can open the door for him at once.
“be like people waiting”
It is this idea of being prepared and for the roman solder this was something they did as well. Before battle they would take the excess fabric from their tunics and secure it in the belt. In battles that would be in very close combat if you had clothing hanging loose it could give your enemy a hold and it could be life and death. So a solder would carefully prepare his garments for battle.
They are to prepare them selves in a state of careful consideration of the truth.
To stand with truth wrapped around you is necessary for a believer to resist. Truth here described true reliable statement that can be depended on.
Truth what a simple concept. To know what is real.
But we live in an age where the enemy has bombarded us with so many voices that feed us what they believe is truth. All forms of media. Movies, TV, news, social media, books, magazines, work places, government officials, pastors, false prophets and the list just keeps going on.
Truth is to be something we bind around us at all times. Without it there is not hope of resisting what the world will throw at us.
It is so hard to see and talk with people who struggle so hard with the attack of the world but at the same time they refuse to know the truth. They listen to the voices...
How could a loving God let bad things happen to good people…
God made you that way...
Abortion is not killing it is terminating...
If you invest in the kingdom and sow your seed, you will have a break through in your finances...
You are a God made in his image...
Prayer is man pulling God’s power from heaven...
God cannot do anything until you pray for it...
Since God is spirit then he can be anything to anybody, he can be male, female, gay, or anything else that a person needs God to be..
I heard all of these and many more the last couple of weeks.
It is so hard to see people try to stand in life without the truth. The word of God. The divinely inspired, inerrant, sufficient, book of God.
As an engineer there are many days that I am assigned a task that requires me to design something that if it fails it has a high potential to kill someone of to seriously damage equipment. One of my first assignments was to figure out a way to move a 180,000 lbf steel structure in our facility. We have beams and rigging and shackles, chain, steel welded to the top. It is a daunting task to know that people have put trust in your math. Yes my math. If my math and methodology is wrong the results could be catastrophic.
So how do I stand with my coworkers as they use my devices without any idea of the risks. I use code books and specifications. These are books that have methods that have been proven to be true. If I follow them then there is a very high likelihood that everything will be fine. In order to know how to deal with a situation I go to the proven processes.
The bible is the perfect example. It sets the perfect standard. It tells us everything we need to know to go and to resist the devil.
How do we know what the schemes are if there isn’t anything to compare too. How do you know how to react of deal with a situation unless you know how your flesh works and how the holy spirit works in tour lives.
We need so much discernment in the church today and in the lives of our families and friends. The only place that we will ever get that is from the creator himself. God through his word.
9 And I pray this: that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, 10 so that you may approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.
Without the truth not much else will be effective.
Paul continues with the breastplate.
To Stand with Righteousness
To Stand with Righteousness
14 Stand, therefore, with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest,
I am not sure why the CSB translated this as “armor on your chest” verses a breastplate because that is what the word means but either way is doesn’t really change anything because Paul’s main point is that the believer is to have righteousness on like armor on the chest. The breast plate protected the vital organs and a solder would never go to battle without one if possible.
This means to be dressed in a state of righteousness. The question is what is the righteousness that he is speaking of here.
Well many Christians clothe themselves in self-righteousness. They work hard to build the resume of good works. The purpose of the works is to boast or to feel good about themselves, to gain influence or to demand respect. But this type of righteousness is actually a false title.
6 All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment; all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.
They are acts that may look moral and right in the world’s and even the church’s eyes but they are motivated by the flesh and are results of living in the world.
The second type of righteousness is the imputed righteousness of Jesus that was put on a believer when that came to faith in Jesus as their Lord and savior. As Jesus lived a perfect obedient life without any sin, when he died on the cross and sin of man was imputed to him in his death. We receive his righteousness when we believe. There are commentators that believe that this is the righteousness that Paul is speaking of but the issue is that verbs that Paul uses are used for a person to put on the breastplate themselves. No one puts this on themselves it is given to them. The other issue with this is that once this has been given to a believer it is not taken off. It would not make sense for Paul to tell them to put on something that we permanently put on them already. Without imputed righteousness nothing Paul is teaching would mean anything to a non believer. And a lost person cannot stand separate from the world without salvation of Jesus.
Paul is teaching of the fruit of a believer.
9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator. 11 In Christ there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all. 12 Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive. 14 Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.
Paul is teaching of the fruit of a believer. To stand against the schemes of the devil the believer must be in a state of holy living. This is the constant life of living in obedience to the Word of God. If a person continues to live in the ways of the world they cannot hope to stand against the enemy. If we continue to live in the flesh verses the spirit there are just to many handholds for us to be dragged down by. Will we be perfect no but if what we do does not change after salvation then the world will run us over.
Speak on baptisms and salvation.
If a person continues to live in sin, to keep themselves close to the world, what can they expect but to fall pray to evil.
The world is slippery. You think you have everything all worked out and then you realize one day that you should have lived differently a long time ago. Made different decisions and hard decisions. To aid in this we are to
To Stand in Peace
To Stand in Peace
15 and your feet sandaled with readiness for the gospel of peace.
A roman solder would wear sandals that had spikes in them, much like cleats today. Without the correct footwear a solder would find themselves in a horrible spot.
Omak story.
See we are to stand with readiness for the gospel of peace. Once again we see Paul using words of active preparation and readiness. The Christian life is not haphazard. It is not go with the flow. It is to go against the flow. To stand upright in the middle of the hurricane of the world. To resist everything thrown at a person.
Our firm footing, our confidence comes from knowing the good news of peace.
6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For rarely will someone die for a just person—though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die. 8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 How much more then, since we have now been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from wrath. 10 For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.
Without the cross we are still enemies of God completely beholden to the ways of the world.
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s possessions—is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17 And the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does the will of God remains forever.
John tells us that the lost will always love the world. They will put their trust and affections on the things of this world and a true believer will put their trust and love in the things of God. We stand in confidence of the fact that though we were still sinners Christ died for us and that because of that the enemy does not have a hold on us anymore. We can live in a new way and that nothing can change that. I think of Steven again
54 When they heard these things, they were enraged and gnashed their teeth at him. 55 Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven. He saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 He said, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” 57 They yelled at the top of their voices, covered their ears, and together rushed against him. 58 They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. And the witnesses laid their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 While they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” 60 He knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” And after saying this, he fell asleep.
He and many other stood in the confidence of the Lord. And in the end he stood against the enemy and prayed for the souls of those that were killing him.
These are the first three items that Paul tell a believer to have in order to stand, truth, a life of righteousness, and absolute confidence in the peace we have with God.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Putting on, abiding in Jesus. Walking filled with the spirit
What is your commitment to his Word?
What is the primary motivation of your lives work?
Where is your confidence put?
How has this challenged the way you think?
How has this challenged your affections?
How is this challenging you to live differently?
Prayer
Prayer
13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.