Sermon Tone Analysis

Covered by Righteousness

Summary: In the spiritual battle we need to be sure that our hearts are directed by God and not surrendered to Satan.

The breastplate of righteousness keeps your heart right.

Scripture:

Introduction: Once again we are planning to take a look at what it takes to win against the spiritual powers that fight against us.

Two weeks ago we talked about truth.

We talked about the fact that in spite of how unique God made each of us with different perspectives on reality, there are absolute truths that are always true.

Truth will help us if we receive God’s word and know it.

But truth is more than information.

Real truth brings transformation, which enables us to live it.

Truth must find expression in our lives.

And it is God’s plan that we not keep the truth to ourselves.

We are others the truth about God and His love for them.

The best guard against deception is the truth!

Know the truth!

Live the truth!

Tell the truth!

Satan’s Schemes

Sam

Sam, a 37-year-old father of three, developed an addiction to pornography.

He stumbled onto one of the more than three million pornography sites on the World Wide Web when surfing the Internet for relaxation after working in his home office.

That first image seemed to imprint itself on his mind.

He could not get rid of it, and soon found himself visiting more of the ubiquitous “adult” sites.

Sam felt convicted and ashamed, but he began to save images to his hard drive and searched nightly to add to his collection.

Sierra

Sierra has a sharp tongue and unusually quick wit.

She is known for her cutting humor—humor that contains a little too much spite to be truly funny.

If confronted she shrugs off the criticism, saying, “It was just a joke.

I didn’t mean any harm.”

Yet all in Sierra’s crowd are wary of her tongue and go out of their way not to cross her.

Ken

Ken is an elder in his church.

He likes to think of himself as an influential person.

But Ken is one of those people who hold back in any discussion.

He waits carefully to see what others think.

Even if he strongly disagrees with a direction in which a conversation is moving, Ken will keep his opinion to himself.

Or, more likely, he will speak out in support of whatever consensus is reached.

Ken believes that his pastor has some serious weaknesses, but rather than talk with the pastor about the things that bother him, Ken comments now and then on the pastor’s “weaknesses” to other church members.

Ken has been known to deny his criticisms when asked about them by the pastor.

Ken falls seriously short of Paul’s admonition, “you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to [your] neighbor” ().

It is not that Sam, Sierra or Ken is a terrible sinner.

Sam is physically faithful to his wife.

Sierra does not set out to hurt her friends.

And Ken does not cheat on his income tax.

Yet each falls short of living a righteous life.

Sam’s addiction to pornography falls into the category of impurity.

Sierra’s “jokes” reveal the malice she denies feeling.

And Ken’s withholding of his opinion is a form of deceit.

-Today I’d like to look at the 2nd piece of armor in Paul’s list of things we cannot do without – the breastplate of righteousness.

Righteousness is the quality or state of being morally right, being in sync with what it right.

-As a literal piece of armor the breastplate is quite easy to imagine.

It was made up of small metal plates which were tied together in a similar fashion to the way roof tiles are placed on a roof.

The armor was then placed over the shoulders to protect both the front and back of the soldier.

The bottom of the armor was tied to the belt.

A Greek word sometimes used to describe this piece of equipment literally translates as “heart protector”.

And that was the main purpose of the breastplate – to give protection to the heart and other vital organs.

-That is a description of the armor in a literal sense.

But this is not literal armor, it is spiritual armor.

In the midst of a very real spiritual struggle, you will need protection for your heart.

If your heart is not right then the rest of your life will not be right either.

If there are areas that we refuse to surrender to the Lord, then we have holes in our armor and are vulnerable to the enemy.

In the spiritual battle we need to be sure that our hearts are directed by God and not surrendered to Satan.

The breastplate of righteousness keeps your heart right.

How does it do that?

I.

It indicates right standing

-Justification by faith – God sees me with no sin.

God sees me as righteous.

I have been declared “not guilty” before the court of heaven, not because I’ve committed no offense, but because Jesus took my sin on Himself and declared me clean, righteous, holy before God!

-It is so important that we understand the nature of this righteousness.

It is not formula- based, but is relationship-based.

We are not declared righteous because we discovered the secret password or became privy to secret information.

We are declared righteous when we begin a relationship with Jesus that includes trust and confidence in Him.

That relationship brings us to a place where we recognize that Jesus truly is the Son of God and that He not only can forgive sins, but desires to and does so based on His own sinless life, which became a substitution for our lives when He died on a Roman cross.

-We can have a clean conscience because of the breastplate of righteousness.

The breastplate of righteousness provides protection for our heart, and other vital organs.

When the devil assaults us with lies about who we are and reminds us how imperfect we are, the breastplate of righteousness gives us confidence to stand against his accusations.

One of Satan’s tactics is to destroy your confidence before God so you won’t come close to God.

So the enemy says, “You don’t deserve to be forgiven.

You have failed so badly.

God couldn’t love you.

He is ashamed of you!” Well, we certainly don’t deserve forgiveness, but grace is not based on what we deserve.

It is based on who God is and what Jesus has done to change our nature and our standing with God.

-Satan is called the accuser and the Bible says that he accuses God’s people before Him day and night.

But the cool thing is that the Bible also says that God’s people win against the devil, and here is how they do it:

-Guess what Jesus, God’s Lamb did to make us righteous?

He died.

He shed His blood for us so we could be declared righteous.

-Right standing with God gives us confidence that we can come to God and have a close relationship with Him.

II.

It produces a right leaning

-This may sound a little strange to you like I was trying to come up with another point or something.

But the Bible uses a word that really brings this out.

It is the word “inclined” or “inclination.”

When someone inclines their heart to follow the Lord, it indicates a bending of their will in that direction.

We’re talking about a change on the inside that is followed by change on the outside.

Solomon prayed,

-The word “incline” paints a picture in my mind of someone leaning in the direction of their goal or destination.

I think of a runner in a race who leans toward the finish line.

When our hearts are inclined to the Lord, we lean our entire lives toward Him.