CMLC 2024-09-01 Sermon

As a person, I tend to try to follow the rule, to try to do what's right.

For instance, I wear my...

I think it's pretty much the law everywhere.

At least it was in Illinois.

You have to wear your seat belt.

You know, there's a law.

You can get a ticket if you don't click it.

Click it or ticket.

They have a type of thing.

So I wear my seat belt almost all the time.

You know where that might be headed?

Almost all the time.

One day, a long time ago, back in college, I didn't.

I was riding...

Usually I was, you know, drove by myself everywhere.

So it was just kind of getting the car clunking and there it goes.

But with my friend, I just jumped into the car and we ran off to somewhere.

And of course you might know what happens after that.

Because we were college students and drove fast and everything like that.

When you got close to the stop light, it turned yellow.

And what do you do when the light turns yellow?

Yeah, punch it.

He punched it.

It's a good old car and somebody else decided they'd try it too and turn left right in front

of us.

So I got this bump on my nose from that very thing.

I didn't have my seat belt on.

The much greater loss is his wonderful car was destroyed in a total.

And he had a clunker after that.

But anyway, yes, seat belts don't do any good if we don't use it.

It was right there.

I'm sure the thing worked awesome.

Boom.

It was great.

But I didn't use it, so I didn't get the benefit out of it.

They aren't like airbags.

This would have been like a long time ago in the 80s when I was in college.

They didn't have airbags back in those days.

So they didn't have that advantage.

Airbags just work.

Whether you think about them or remember them or not.

I'm just guessing that my car has airbags in it.

I don't even know for sure.

I guess there's a little sign somewhere that says it because maybe you're not even thinking

about them either.

We like things to be like airbags.

They just work.

We don't have to think about them.

We can just go on with our life and do whatever we hop in our car and drive around.

And they pop out only when they're needed.

That's nice.

We like it that way.

And God's grace and love are like that.

They're always there when we need them.

Totally undeserved.

Even if we're not thinking about them, they're there.

But that's great.

We love that.

God's love and grace are like that because boy, I'm certainly not thinking about God

or anything like that every minute of my day.

And so it's great that God has that undeserved protection and care that he has.

But other things in Christian life do require our participation, our involvement.

We have to be present.

We have to be there, our effort.

There is some effort to the Christian life.

Not to achieve our salvation.

That's already been done.

We've got that in grace in Jesus Christ.

But Christian life does sometimes take some effort.

We have to show up for them and be actively involved.

Things like our family life.

That doesn't just happen by accident.

Christian growth and maturity.

That's something that we have to be involved in.

Our Christian influence and witness to others, people.

And most importantly, our relationship with God.

We still have to have some active involvement with it, just like we have to have that active

involvement with any other relationship that we have.

The armor that God provides in Paul's letter works the same way.

It only protects if we're wearing it, if we're involved in it.

I pray that we can learn the importance of what God provides for us for our protection

and that we daily put them into practice.

Now a person can say, well, why do we need this armor of God?

I mean, aside from the fact that God tells us that we need it through Paul in this letter,

a Christian could say, I really didn't know about this armor of God.

I had never heard about this before.

And my life is fine.

I've just seen people who have been fine without it.

I'm not in jail.

I still have a job.

I have a family, friends, et cetera, et cetera.

I have all this kind of stuff.

So is it really all that important?

I can tell you personally, as someone who has known a long time, you have to learn about

these kind of things when you go to the seminary.

I even before then learned about them through reading the Bible and Bible studies and so

forth.

But I saw I've known about it most of my life.

But I very often, even probably two days ago, or actually this whole week I've been writing

this sermon, guess what?

I probably remember most of the time then as I was working on this.

But the week before that, who knows?

I might have not been thinking about it as much too.

And so that happens more times than I care to admit.

But the point is, I can see the difference in my life when I'm conscious about it and

when I'm just kind of doing whatever I'm doing.

It does make a difference when I do or I don't.

You may be you've heard we can sometimes be our own worst enemies.

But really truly, that's not the case because there is a real enemy.

And that real enemy, our best, our worst enemy is the devil and his gang, his crew.

Paul talks about them in this letter.

He's very serious about it.

Paul encountered resistance from the devil and those guys on a day-to-day basis.

And so he describes them in terms to be taken seriously, not like the little red guy with

a tail and a pitchfork and all that kind of silliness.

But he calls them things like, they're not flesh and blood.

That's important.

They're spiritual.

But the important point from that is that they're not flesh and blood, is that people,

people are not our enemies.

Yeah, they may act like it.

They may do things we don't like.

We may have trouble with somebody at work or family or neighbors or who knows.

You might have somebody that kind of gives you some grief.

But that person, however they are acting, is not truly the enemy.

They're basically just serving without realizing it, probably, the real enemy.

They're just in some ways kind of a puppet.

They don't realize what they're doing a lot of times.

And that's why Jesus even said, as he was being nailed in the cross, Father forgive

them for they know not what they do.

Because he know who the real enemy was in that situation.

And so Paul describes things in terms, is serious.

They are rulers, authorities, cosmic powers, spiritual forces of evil.

That's serious stuff.

Somebody not to be taken for granted.

And so it stacks up like this, basically.

If we go up against them on our own, because I think I'm pretty smart.

I'm an actuary if you have any idea what in the world that is.

I'm a professional smart person.

So yeah, I can do that.

I can play 3D chess with the enemy God.

I don't play chess with anybody, no one 3D.

But anyway, I can go up.

I'm a good person.

I've been a Lutheran my whole life.

And I went to church since I was ever.

So yeah, I can do this.

But if we go up against them on our own, we're going to fail.

Not all the time maybe, but we're going to fail.

In the long run, we're going to fail.

We're not going to do well.

If we are strong in the Lord and use what He has given us, we stand.

That doesn't mean we're going to be perfect all the time.

No, not at all.

But we'll do much better.

And that does have a real consequence in our day to day life.

Like I said, I can see it in my family life.

My wife, my two sons are sort of in college now.

It's a story in and of its own.

But the life that we have and everybody else that I interact with,

it makes a difference.

I can see how that works with them.

We are told in the Bible, no weapon formed against us

will prosper if we're walking in the Lord.

So here are the items.

Six things.

Some people say, if you remember, three Bs and three Ss.

B on belt, breastplate, and boots, that's one.

Then shield, helmet of salvation.

You have to cheat a little bit on that.

You have to use this S for salvation.

And then sword of the spirit.

So three Bs and three Ss.

The belt of truth.

A belt holds everything together.

It's a good thing to have.

It's the belt of truth.

It's important as Christians for us

to realize that truth is not a concept.

Truth is a person.

And what person is truth?

The church answer.

Jesus.

The children's sermon answered everything.

Jesus.

And there's a good reason for that.

It's a person.

It's not what is the truth.

It's rather who is the truth that matters.

Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

How do we know what's true?

God's word.

God and His word.

They are the measure of what's true.

The straight edge that you work off of.

That Jesus is faithful in truth.

He always keeps His word.

He's always dependable, straight, and simple.

On the other hand, lies are complicated.

They're crooked.

They're fabricated.

One lie requires another.

And another, and another.

What a tangled web we weave when we first

decided to deceive.

That's not exactly quite right now.

But you get the point.

And my life has definitely exhibited that as a kid.

Sometimes I would do something.

I was always running around my little small town

with my buddy getting into trouble

that my mom mostly didn't know about, which was a good thing.

But yeah, sometimes a lie, a lie.

Then you have to kind of remember your lie.

Because it's easy to remember what actually happened.

But when you've told somebody something different,

you have to remember it then.

And then another lie, another lie.

And it just kind of works that way.

It's definitely not fun.

And I've got myself caught in lies

because I didn't keep them all straight.

That's not great.

The thing is, the devil is the father of lies.

Jesus even said, when the devil speaks a lie,

he's speaking his native language.

He's a liar from the very beginning.

And it all started all the way back in the Garden of Eden

when he said, you will not surely die if you eat from the tree.

And of course, what happened?

They ate it.

And then they eventually died.

They didn't die right that day, though.

Although, yes, they did.

They died in their relationship with God.

And that was the most important thing.

So lies are the devil's greatest and only weapon.

But they have sort of served him well over time.

It's easy to cause a lot of trouble.

It's important to know God's truth.

And to believe, speak, and hold fast to God's truth.

To line ourselves up with it.

That's that belt right there.

To be people of truth, integrity.

That what we say and what we do is consistent.

And despite my checkered past as a kid and whatever,

I've learned over time the importance of consistency,

especially as a father.

I've learned it because, boy, if there's anything,

kids are good.

They're good at smelling a fake.

They're good at smelling inconsistency.

But you said, it's like, yeah, 20 billion.

You don't remember which day for breakfast this morning.

But you remember whatever I said.

And now you're calling me on it.

So it's important that integrity.

And kids are not the only one that catches it.

People know somebody who is what they call authentic.

That is, they're genuine.

What they say and what they do match up.

They're not one person here.

And in private, they're a different person.

They're the same no matter where they go.

It's important that we be honest.

And part of being honest, we've already done today.

We were honest with God in the confession of our sins.

That's part of our being consistent.

Yeah, we're not perfect.

We never will be.

But we can be honest.

And that's why I have to be honest with my sons, my family.

And when I fail, and they may not like it so much,

but at least they know that I'm being straight with them.

The more that we know what is genuine,

the less we will be fooled by what is fake.

An interesting thing that I learned from, of course,

sometimes the internet is good for things, most of the time not.

But in this case, the Treasury Department,

when they're trying to deal with counterfeit bills,

that's part of what they do.

Me, you know, these counterfeit bills,

I actually had some counterfeit bills.

I didn't make them, but I found out

that they were counterfeit later on.

And fortunately, I just found them.

I didn't even pay with them and then lost the money.

But anyway, the way they figure out,

the way they learn about counterfeits,

they don't study counterfeit bills.

They study the real dollars.

They study the real currency and study them and study them.

They know that the genuine article is so well

that they can always see the fake.

And that's the thing.

We know the genuine article in Jesus Christ

and we study him and focus on him.

But something doesn't smell quite right,

something isn't quite right.

We're much more likely to be able to sniff it out

and avoid the trouble that's caused by it.

The blessed breastplate of righteousness.

Yes, righteousness.

You know, the righteousness God gives us

protects our heart.

Righteousness means being in right standing.

You know, it's a thing.

He's a real righteous dude,

or whatever I'm showing my age.

I was like back in the 80s.

But you know, the idea of being righteous,

somebody's good and solid.

And then in reality, our righteousness,

how good is our righteousness?

Not good.

I mean, yeah, that's again, what we confess.

What I see in the mirror.

You know, what my kids remind me of, whatever, however.

Our righteousness is always like filthy rags.

That's what I believe in says.

But the righteousness that God gives to us,

that is perfect.

The one constant area, one of the constant areas

that the devil likes to attack people is,

is our sins and failures.

Because we know we got them.

We may try to hide them and hope the people

don't find out about them.

Or you know, kind of live that facade, that front.

Like, yeah, we're a good church family.

It's kind of a joke that the worst things happen

with families on the way to church.

The big arguments come up.

Everybody's all dressed up and try to go to church.

Or a good Christian family go to church.

And all that stuff happens.

You know, that's again, that's reality.

That's life.

But the righteousness that God gives us

is more solid than that.

So anyway, he likes to, the devil loves to tempt us.

To do something.

And then once he's got us to do it, then he attacks us.

He kind of rolls it up and starts whacking it.

What kind of person are you?

You know, you did this and you did that.

That's the thing that he does all the time.

Beats us up over and over again.

As long as we keep the focus on us.

And how good we are, or whatever, or not good we are,

he can keep us down.

Because we know that we're not as good as we should be.

As good as we want to be.

As good as we want people to think that we are.

And we're never going to be.

But the good news is, this isn't about us.

It's about God.

And His grace to us and Jesus Christ.

That's what it's about.

So while I try to be a good person in general terms,

I realize that that's not the focus.

My focus should be on Christ and His righteousness

that covers me.

And that pray that by basically soaking in it,

that it will rub off on me, that it will show in my life.

Not that I'm perfect, but that I worship somebody that is.

And that his life is lived through me.

We'll always be imperfect in this world.

There's no qualification about it.

But Jesus is always perfect.

That's what God sees in us.

When God looks at us, he doesn't see the stinky things that I did

when I was six years older, the stinky things that I did six minutes ago.

Or six seconds ago.

He sees the righteousness and the pureness and holiness of Jesus Christ.

We can live with the humble confidence that we are secure in God's love and forgiveness.

That security is a strong place for us to show grace and love to others in their failing.

When I know that I'm not a perfect person and God loves me,

it helps me to have patience with other people.

Who guess what?

They're not perfect either.

Whether it's my boys, whether it's my wife, whether it's my mom, Parkinson's and whatever.

That's not her fault and that's not sin.

But I mean, this is an example of the people in my life.

My sister who's taken care of me who gets kind of aggravated sometimes

because of the difficulties that she has to deal with.

And I'm 700 miles away, or 800 or however far it is.

I'm not there.

So yes, it's a strong place for us to deal with and show grace to others in their failings as well.

The next one, I would say, if this is going to be smart out,

okay, this is the one the ladies will like.

It's about shoes.

But us guys, we like shoes too.

Boots, whatever.

Good shoes, good boots help a soldier to be steady on their feet.

Paul, because he says elsewhere, he's an ambassador in chains.

Paul knew a lot about Roman soldiers and their gear,

because that's what he's writing about.

He was not in the military, never was,

but he was chained to a guy who was for about two or three years in a house arrest situation.

So he had a good chance to study and look at it and even ask questions

about all their different gear that they had.

And so he uses that.

So yes, that makes them steady, able to react to anything to go almost anywhere they need.

And it's what is our footwear, the readiness of the gospel of peace.

The peace that we have with God through Jesus is a solid foundation,

a solid footing to handle anything in life that the enemy would throw at us.

We know that no matter what, we are always still God's children, no matter what.

No matter if it's storms, job loss, whatever it could be.

He will never leave us or forsake us.

Like a cat, we can always land on our feet knowing that God's got this.

That peace gives us an opportunity, the readiness, the opportunity to share with others

and wonder how can we be so calm and troubling times.

In my financial world that I worked in, I worked for, you know, it's called core bridge.

Talking about things shifting and changing.

I worked for AIG, you know, it was core bridge, whatever.

Maybe you've heard it, seen the building, whatever.

But I've been laid off twice in there.

Once was two months before I was getting married to my wife.

We were house in Springfield, Illinois, and then the Memorial Day Massacre happened.

That's when one of the guys at work called, he had a sense of humor.

But I think, of course, he didn't get laid off.

But you have to know Steve Wielander, he's quite a character.

But anyway, people are standing around talking about it.

What are you going to do?

Oh, you're going to be married in two months.

Oh my gosh, yeah, that was, it set off a whole domino of different things.

But hey, I'm here today.

Whatever it was, my wife, you know, it was a bumpy way to start our marriage.

But God got us through it, and my wife's a good, solid Christian also.

We help each other.

But that was the thing, you know, it's like, how can you be so calm?

What are you going to do?

And I said, I don't know what I'm going to do.

But God's taking care of me all this time, and he's going to take care of me now.

And then when I got laid off about 10 years ago, it was the same thing.

You know, what's going to happen?

I don't know.

I didn't even have to move that time.

I worked in Houston, I still here in Houston.

God took care, he provided something.

That's, and the point is, is the peace that we have, people notice it.

And sometimes, that's why he puts us Christians in difficult situations.

Not because he's not happy with us, not because we did something wrong, blah, blah, blah.

Sometimes it's because by the way we handle the difficult situations in life,

I don't know if you want to name them off, you're familiar with different things that happen.

The way we handle them is a witness to people.

And I don't just kind of go around and say, hey, do you know Jesus is your same?

Do you know Jesus is your same?

I don't do, maybe I shouldn't.

No, no, it's actually, I know I shouldn't just be doing that.

But that's not a way you reach out to people.

But by living a Christian life, that again, I'm not trying to blow Trump,

look at me, look at me, type of thing, and neither should you.

But despite not consistently living the Christian life, people will notice,

even if they don't understand and ask questions.

What's this all about?

I have a very good friend at my church, and he's like the plant manager

in one of the plants in Baytown over there.

And his workers come up to him, and they got problems and ask him.

He doesn't go to talk to them and say, I'm a Christian, I'm your manager, I'm a Christian.

We have come from an office, but they just see something different in him, and they come.

And he shares the stories with me.

And quite honestly, I get kind of jealous sometimes.

Wow, we should be able to come to me.

So again, living that peace provides an opportunity.

And so as I go through work, I pray for, of course now I don't see people at work anymore,

because we all work remote and all that garbage.

I don't miss driving, but I do miss that opportunity.

But I would pray for the opportunity, and even now I pray for that opportunity,

wherever it might come from, neighbors or whatever else.

So that's those good shoes.

And then the shield.

The devil likes to throw fiery darts, you know, arrows that were on for them.

Put them in tar and light them on fire.

Shoes, those.

He likes to throw fiery darts that they give heartburn and worry, you know.

Are those things real?

Do people have anxieties, worries in their life, Christians or not?

You know, there are some people that kind of live on antacids.

You can get them by them in big jars.

These antacids, alchemy, whatever they are, I think we have some in our cabinet.

You know, they're there.

And tranquilizers, I used to know the various names of them,

Xanax and different things that people would be on.

I watch a lot of old people TV, but I just don't pay attention.

So I don't, I can't remember the names anymore, all the different drugs they got on TV, commercials.

But that's very real.

It's a part of life.

The enemy likes to place doubts.

Will God really take care of me?

Will He really provide for me?

Have I lived a good enough life?

What's the answer to that?

Have I lived a good enough life?

You don't even know me, but here, tell them listen to my story.

Have I lived a good enough life?

No, not at all.

You know, I don't, I don't look down on anybody, because I know where I've been and what I've done.

And while it's pretty, I think of a polite word for kind of white bread, but still,

I've been kind of a stinker at various times.

As a Christian, as a matter of fact, my friend who wasn't a Christian, he has more of an excuse.

He wouldn't follow in Jesus and he was just believing in his life how he was.

But I am going to church since I was like, couldn't even walk, you know, the day I was born, basically,

and doing some of the stuff that I was doing.

But, you know, I haven't lived a good enough life.

But I know that that's not what matters.

What matters is Christ is what matters.

You know, does God exist?

You know, does God really exist?

We talk about God all the time, but when was the last time any of us ever seen God?

You know, I haven't in my entire life, but I do know he exists from the experiences I've had.

Does God really care about me?

Okay, a lot of people throughout history believed that they're God, they're God or God's,

but that they really care about us, you know.

We know in Christ that God does.

Faith in the many promises of God fulfilled in Jesus extinguishes those doubts and fears.

You know, knowing, believing, and trusting the promises.

The faith in trusting God protects us from those attacks and lets us sleep at night.

I sleep pretty good at night, all in all.

That's not right, it's just the truth, because of trusting in God, not because of anything about me.

You know, God has always taken care of me and my family.

Even now that we have high prices, I have teenage drivers, that's my confession.

If I had anything I'd get nervous about is my two sons.

They each did start real great.

I think that's kind of a thing these days from what I've talked to other parents.

But so my insurance rates aren't necessarily the greatest.

So yeah, when they're driving back to college station and my other guy has to drive three days a week to Houston,

that's about an hour, anyway, he's driving, all this driving they're doing, I'm just coming out.

And of course, there's a confession, I'm not really worried about them, I'm worried about the cars.

If I thought about it through, I would be worried about them too.

But it's like, man, we get the rates go up, we're out without a car, we're already kind of short on cars as it is.

With all the kids, people needing cars.

So anyway, college expenses, whatever, whatever, whatever.

It can get a bit tight at time, finances wise, but I know God's got it.

It's not that big a deal.

He'll take care of us, it may not be to the level that maybe I want,

but we always have enough to wear and eat and everything else.

So that's that shield of faith, trust, trust that God's got us.

Salvation, two more to go.

This is about our eternal security with Christ.

Do you think most people live thinking, how I live today determines where I go after I die?

Do you think they're like, wow, how I live today is going to determine where I go after?

Do you think most people think that when they're living their daily lives?

No, not at all.

Now, the world would probably be a better place if they did do so.

But is it true, is it true that how I live today determines where I go after I die?

Is that true?

That's true or false?

That's the first thing.

What am I supposed to say?

Should I say that?

Yeah, which way is it?

You can't get in trouble with church for having a wrong answer,

but I can understand that it's kind of, it's like, this is a trick question?

Yeah, probably so.

But anyway, the answer to that is no.

How I live today does not determine where I go after I die.

If it did, guess where I would go?

Yeah, no.

What determines where we go after we die?

Christ.

His sacrifice for us on the cross received in faith.

That's where it is.

Now, how about this?

Knowing where I go after death, this is, I already know that, I got that, I know that.

How does that affect how I live today?

That's a different question.

Since I know where I'm going, since I know where that's going to happen after I die,

how does that change how I live today?

And I just say the short answer is it doesn't change as much as it should,

but I do try to think about that.

Eternal life has already begun for us.

And what happens when we die is just a change of location.

We already had eternal life in Christ.

It began when we came to faith in Christ, usually for most people, it's our baptism.

And so when we're faced with the uncertainties of life, the world we live in,

we know that in the end who wins?

God.

Exactly.

There's no doubt.

There's a lot of doubt when it comes to this and that going on in the world,

who's going to get elected president, does it matter,

all that kind of stuff.

It does matter in some manner or fashion it does,

but I've probably even heard, I don't want to get into the specifics of anything.

I actually heard, I'll just tell you this,

some people have said, this is not the first cycle this has been set.

You know who I want as president?

Jesus.

Jesus for president.

Because everybody we're offered is usually, guess what, an imperfect person.

So sometimes people get really upset,

whichever side of the aisle you want to sit on,

well if that other person gets all things going to be terrible, blah blah blah blah blah blah.

You know, I've read the end of the book, Revelation Young Things,

we'll probably get bad before Jesus comes again,

but guess what happens after?

Good stuff.

You know, that's the helmet of salvation, right, the eternal security.

No matter what, Jesus will be king.

I don't know when that date is going to be, actually I do know.

He is already king of the universe.

That happened at his death and resurrection.

He's already the king, and eventually he'll be so that everybody will know it for sure.

That's the day I don't know.

But our future is secure, and our present is also secure in him.

That's the helmet of salvation.

When we remember that, it's easy to, what if the stock market falls, what if this, what if that,

what if a meteor strikes us, what if dinosaurs come back and you know,

just come up with the wildest, craziest whatever situation.

And it's like, there is, there isn't, yeah, it would be different, you know,

if there is a, the society collapses, that would be kind of bad.

But guess what? Jesus is still king. Guess what? He's still coming back.

Guess what? We'll still be in heaven forever.

So it's not like I don't care, but I don't let it bother me.

And I am one of those people, confession time, that used to spend way too much time on the Internet,

agonizing about this and that.

And the person gets elected, and if this vlog gets passed, and this, and sending,

I almost became one of those people that you may have, I mean, that's the 20 year,

people sending you emails about all the bad things that are happening.

You can get your inbox flooded with emails from cousins or whoever, you know,

talking about, you got to sign this petition because this is going to, you know,

and I believe in being active in our world.

But then again, Jesus is coming. That's what matters.

All right, last I go on too much longer.

Last is an offensive weapon, the sword of the spirit, the word of God.

And in this case, it's the spoken word.

There's three different kinds of words for word in the Bible, and this is the spoken out loud word.

God spoke, and the universe came into existence.

In his temptation and in the wilderness, Jesus spoke the word of God,

recorded in Deuteronomy to defeat Satan's lies.

He didn't use his own head, even though he was omniscient God.

He used the word. The word is our weapon, our arsenal in the Christian life.

Do Christians know enough of God's word to use it?

Just generally speaking, not you of course, but just other Christians.

I don't know. Can Christians learn enough to use the word? Absolutely. Absolutely.

Now, I'll just give one quick example.

As I am getting to be an old person, you probably could tell,

but I am getting to be an older person.

And so a couple of years ago, I'd get these night anxieties.

Like, what if I, you know, this happens like a two or three in the morning.

I don't know where does this come from, but I get these anxiousness.

What if I become paralyzed and I can't speak, but my brain is still active

and I can't communicate with anybody, and I'm just there for years,

like people in a coma or whatever.

Where did that come from?

But it would really get me worked up in the middle of the night.

And I just, after it happened a time or two, I just said, okay, enough of this.

And so I used, you know, the word, you know, I said, you know, in Christ we are all more than,

you know, basically different passages from Romans.

Let's look at whatever I can remember at three in the morning.

Spoken out loud, you know, you know, God makes all things work for the good of those who love Him.

You know, Romans chapter eight is a very good chapter for this sort of thing, you know.

You know, in Christ there is no condemnation for us.

So whatever, I haven't speak those out.

I haven't had any of those in years now, but, you know, it's good to know the scriptures so that we can use them.

And it's also good when we're trying to encourage other people in need,

so we don't just kind of go there, there, you know, we actually have something positive to say to them.

And the best thing to say is from God's word.

All right.

So, in closing, in medieval times when a squire, that was the step right before you became a knight,

when a squire was about to become a knight,

next morning he was going to get, you know, dubbed as a knight,

they would often times stay up the night before, the entire night before, in the castle chapel in prayer,

you know, pouring their heart out to God, because it was a very serious deal to be a knight.

Your life was basically on the line.

You're out there marching, you know, riding around and all that kind of stuff.

And so the squire, the ex-squire would have his whole armor there in the chapel,

and he would pray over each piece of his armor as he depended upon God for his courage

and his survival.

And so that's an awesome picture.

So it would be good for us to prayerfully consider each piece of God's armor that he has given to us

and how we can use it each day, you know, and in the morning.

And I try to remember myself to think about, you know, the armor of God,

because that's what I have, and it makes a difference in my day,

is I go look at the belt, you know, the sword, the helmet, you know,

you don't have to get them in the right order, that's not that important.

But just remembering, because it's comforting, you know, of what God has given to us

and put them on one by one, you know.

Thank God that he does protect us, even when we forget our armor of grace.

But that he would more and more help us make use of all the things that he has given to us

for our good and for those in our care, because, you know, it's not all about us.

It's about the people around us, too.

You know, God has given us that charge, especially for parents

or, you know, have other people in life.

Therefore, I'll leave you with Paul's words,

put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes,

you may be able to stand your ground, and after you've done everything to stand. Amen.