Sermon Tone Analysis
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Chargers vs. Commanders vs. Vikings
We’re heading into the football season.
I love football.
I watch college.
I watch the pros.
And I love our Mighty Falcons.
Team names and mascots have always fascinated me.
If you peruse the names that we will be watching on Saturdays and Sundays, many of the names are reflective of animals, especially animals that are fierce and could hurt you.
Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my.
But there are those names that speak to the long tradition of comparing sports to war.
Raiders, Vikings, Buccaneers, Patriots, Chargers and now the Commanders in the professional ranks.
Spartans, Trojans, and Knights are some that come to mind when we talk about college football.
Warfare imagery reflected in the sports we love… and in football, the imagery somehow tames the violent undertones of trying to physically pound the other team into submission.
The struggle is real, even if death is not on the line.
For a few hundred of us, that struggle involves a lot of money and lifestyles and hopes and dreams, it’s own reality.
But still not quite war.
War itself is very, very real.
Life-altering and earth shattering.
The first few minutes of Saving Private Ryan make that abundantly clear.
If you’ve ever seen any kind of a movie or documentary regarding World War 1, war becomes real.
You can feel the evil at work in the stories and tales.
The war that Paul talks about in Ephesians 6 is very, very real.
And it’s very personal.
There’s a sense in which this war is even more real than the warfare of Ukraine versus Russia.
It’s not to be taken lightly and even more is at stake.
Today we continue our series Made for More.
The church is made to battle for more.
In the passage, Paul describes an armor of God that is to be worn… and again here’s how he describes it:
Truth: a belt around your waist
Righteousness: armor on your chest
Readiness of the gospel of peace: feet sandaled
Faith: the shield
Salvation: the helmet
The Word of God: the sword
If the church is going to fill all corners of society with Jesus, it must have armor, and this is what it looks like.
The church needs armor because the church is in a war.
This war has been going on since our very first parents decided they wanted to be gods themselves and threw their allegiance in with the serpent.
When God meets Adam and Eve with their lips still smelling of fruit, he promises that He will fix the sin problem.
He will save.
He will forgive.
But he also promises this:
Genesis 3:15 “I will put hostility between you and the woman.”
Hostility.
A war.
A war between God and the Evil One.
A war between God and man.
Hostility.
The Promise to fix the sin problem is a Promise to finally fix the war problem.
And throughout history God continues to make the Promise that someday everything will be made right.
No more war.
No more sin.
No more sickness.
And those Promises take the shape of a Person.
Christ, The Divine Warrior
And in Isaiah, that Person is being described as a Divine Warrior.
The God who fights for his people.
We read it earlier… the story of the Exodus, the One Man Army, the God who fights for his people.
And now Isaiah says this Warrior is going to bring about peace and justice.
The Isaiah passages
Listen to Isaiah as Isaiah describes this Divine Warrior who will come to save his people:
Isaiah: “He will strike the land with a scepter from his mouth, righteousness will be a belt around his hips; faithfulness will be a belt around his waist.
How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the herald, who proclaims peace, who brings news of good things, who proclaims salvation.
He put on righteousness as body armor, and a helmet of salvation on his head; he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and he wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak.
He made my words like a sharp sword;”
This Divine Warrior who comes to fight for his people is coming with
a scepter from his mouth, righteousness as a belt, faithfulness as a belt, righteousness as a breastplate, salvation as a helmet, gospel of people on his feet, his words are a sword.
This Divine Warrior is promised to be the One who comes to the rescue of His people and he is wearing for his armor his own salvation, his righteousness, his Words, his justice, his peace, his Good News.
All that God has promised His people is now being worn by the Divine Warrior as armor.
This Divine Warrior fights with Good News on the one hand and Vengeance on the other.
Revelation
Vengeance was carried out at the cross against the Divine Warrior’s enemies because the Divine Warrior died, fighting for His people.
The cross is a decisive win.
The enemy is crushed.
The Divine Warrior that died is described again in the book of Revelation.
Here’s how he is described:
Revelation 19:11-16 “Then I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse.
Its rider is called Faithful and True, and with justice he judges and makes war.
His eyes were like a fiery flame, and many crowns were on his head.
He had a name written that no one knows except himself.
He wore a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God.
The armies that were in heaven followed him on white horses, wearing pure white linen.
A sharp sword came from his mouth, so that he might strike the nations with it.
He will rule them with an iron rod.
He will also trample the winepress of the fierce anger of God, the Almighty.
And he has a name written on his robe and on his thigh: King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”
Again.
The Armor.
We are so caught up in all the imagery and trying to know what hasn’t been revealed that we miss the armor.
The great Cloud-Rider, the Divine Warrior, Jesus himself wields a sword which is His word.
He wears a robe for armor, this time dipped in blood.
And he makes war.
He makes war with his Word and with his blood.
The sword the word is his scepter… being wielded by a King.
This isn’t just the future.
This is who Jesus is right now.
The Divine Warrior, who has conquered the enemy at the cross.
This Text is not About Us
We are spending time showing the armor that Jesus wears and wore as an Army of One against the serpent and all of the evil cosmic forces because all too often we come to this text and we make this text about us.
This text is not about us.
Paul says put on the full armor of God and we run right past the God part and start figuring out how this battle is ours to be won.
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