enCOURAGEment

I don't understand the things I'm about to tell you.

I mean, intellectually I grasp them, but I need them to take root in my heart in a way that they haven't yet.

I need them to shape my worldview, to shape the way I think about life in a way that it's not quite yet there.

And uh I think that's probably true of you as well.

Do you ever feel like you will just never be done with some particular sin?

That you just will never overcome it.

Do you ever just feel like giving up because it's never going to go away?

Or maybe do you ever feel so guilty and your guilt and your shame just seem like they won't disappear.

They just cling to your heart, and you you find yourself falling into despair.

You feel yourself wondering and doubting your salvation?

Well, you are in the midst of a spiritual war.

We are all in the midst of a spiritual war.

Where does courage come from for that battle?

Where does courage come from for our spiritual fight?

Well, that's what we're gonna look at this morning.

And we're gonna we're gonna look specifically at Ephesians chapter 6, verse 10.

Ephesians 6:10

Dave read sort of the whole passage on the whole armor of God.

We're gonna look at the first three verses and really just focus on the first one.

And then next week, the Lord willing, we're gonna look at verses 13 through 20, sort of the second half, bigger half of the passage.

So we're gonna look at Ephesians chapter 6, verse 10 this morning, and we're gonna ask three questions.

Ephesians 6:10

Paul says in Ephesians 6.10, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.

So we're gonna ask three questions.

First, what does it mean to be strong?

What does it mean to be strong?

And in the face of our sin and our guilt, what does it mean to be strong?

Second, why do we need to be strong?

Why?

Why do we need to be strong?

And then third, how can I be strong?

Okay, so so what does it mean to be strong?

Why do I need to be strong?

How can I be strong?

Okay, so first, what does it mean to be strong?

Well, the command is be strong.

Be strong in the Lord.

And it's actually not a command to flex your spiritual muscles.

And that's what it sounds like to us at first.

Be strong, right?

Flex your muscles.

But really, this command is echoing one of the most common commands in Scripture.

And I've heard somebody say it's the most common command in Scripture.

I think it might be true, and that's the command: do not fear.

Do not fear.

This is actually in Ephesians 6, it's actually a call to be ready for the battle.

And you find this command other places in Scripture.

One notable place is in Joshua chapter 1, verse 9.

Joshua 1:9

You may remember it.

God is preparing Joshua to go into battle, to take the promised land.

And God says this to Joshua.

He says, Be strong and courageous.

Do not be frightened and do not be dismayed.

For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

See, God's getting Joshua ready for battle.

He's saying, Don't be afraid, Joshua.

I'm with you.

Be strong, Joshua.

I'm your God.

That's what's going on here.

God is encouraging us for the fight that's ahead of us.

He's encouraging us to be strong, to not fear, to be brave.

So what does it mean to be strong?

I mean, simply put, to be strong is to have courage in the face of the battles ahead.

It's to have courage in the face of the battles ahead, to have courage in the face of our spiritual warfare.

That's the first point.

It's the shortest point.

And it's the first point.

What does it mean to be strong?

It means to have courage.

Well, why do I need courage?

Why do I need to be strong?

And this is where we're going to camp out for most of our time.

Why do I need to be strong?

There are really two reasons we see in the scriptures.

They're both more or less explicit here.

The first is we have a strong enemy.

And the second is we're weak people.

Why do we need to be strong?

Well, we have a strong enemy, and we are weak people.

Well, we have a strong enemy.

Let's talk about that.

So we're about to talk about the devil, right?

That's what Paul talks about in Ephesians 6.

And, you know, when we begin to think about the devil, there are a lot of errors that we tend to fall into.

And the most common two are either we underestimate what he can do, or we overestimate what he can do, right?

We either underestimate it or overestimate it.

In our culture, the devil is a joke.

The devil is a little red man with horns and a pitchfork.

We live in a world where this physical world is all there is, people think, and there's nothing spiritual, nothing outside of this.

And the truth of the matter is most of us as Christians have bought into that.

I mean, we we we don't need courage.

We don't need courage because we're not afraid, and we're not afraid because we don't believe there's a devil.

And theologically, we know that's not true.

I mean, we we have our Bibles, we believe our Bibles, God says there's a devil, there are demons, right?

We we believe it.

Theoretically, we know it's true, but practically it just makes no difference to us.

We've bought in to the materialistic lie of our culture.

On the other hand, of course, there's superstition, right?

We get paranoid.

There are those who they they know there's a devil, but they think there's a devil under every rock and tree.

And they think there's a demon for everything, there's sort of a demon of this and a demon of that, and they're afraid, they're paranoid.

Well, that's not really the Bible's view either.

The Bible doesn't teach either materialism on the one hand or superstition on the other.

And I want to take some time to look at what the Bible teaches about our enemy, because it's important.

And uh all I can really do at this point is sort of skim the surface on what the Bible teaches on the devil.

And so I just want to mention two books, if you have any interest in reading more, if this wets your appetite a little bit, two great books on this topic.

The one is an older book by a guy named Thomas Brooks, a Puritan a couple hundred years uhgo.

Uh, and he wrote a book called Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices.

And it's a great book.

And uh he just catalogs different ways that Satan tries to get at us, different ways he tempts us, different lies he tells us, and then he talks about how to handle those.

It's a good book.

Another great book, a little more recent, is by C.

S.

Lewis, the screw tape letters.

And he basically takes the kinds of things that Brooks talks about and then turns it into a narrative.

It's maybe a little easier to read, but also very rich.

Well, what does the Bible teach?

What does the Bible teach about the devil?

Well, the first and most basic point that we need to hear, right, is that there is a devil.

There is a personal moral evil in the world.

He's not some abstract force, but a personal being.

And Ephesians tells us that.

It says that in verse 11.

It talks about the schemes of the devil.

Verse 12 actually lists a whole host of spiritual enemies.

It talks about rulers and authorities and powers and spiritual forces.

This is a whole host of spiritual enemies arrayed against us.

And yet you might say, okay, all right, so I believe there's a devil, I believe there are spiritual forces out there, but so what?

Right?

What difference?

Again, what practical difference does it make for me?

Well, one of the parts of the so what is, I mean, Ephesians 5, Paul is talking about a battle.

He's talking about armor and weapons and warfare and wrestling.

Well, in a battle, your enemy is out to do something to you.

He's out to destroy you.

You see, there we have an enemy, the Bible teaches, and that enemy wants to destroy us.

1 Peter chapter 5, verse 8 talks about this.

1 Peter 5:8

Peter says, Be sober-minded, be watchful.

Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

See, the devil has a goal.

He has a purpose.

And his goal is our destruction.

The devil wants us doubting and guilty and enslaved and condemned.

That's what he wants.

But it actually gets worse because not only does he have this goal, but he actually has a plan to put that into effect.

He wants to destroy you, and he has a plan to that end.

Notice verse 11 talks about the schemes of the devil.

The schemes of the devil.

It's actually mentioned a couple different times in the Bible, but the devil has schemes.

He has devices, he has a plan, he has a method for what he's going to do.

He has a plan of attack.

He wants to devour you, and he has a plan to do it.

Well, what's his plan?

And what's he doing?

Well, if you if you read through the scriptures, you find there are sort of three main strategies, I think, of the devil.

Three main strategies.

The first is deception, right?

He wants to undermine our faith with doubt.

The second is temptation.

He wants to enslave us to sin.

And the third is accusation.

He wants to overwhelm us with guilt.

We have these three things.

We have deception and temptation and accusation.

And they go hand in hand, right?

He uses every deception he can muster to tempt us to sin and then accuse us once we're down.

Let me break those down a little bit.

So the first strategy, deception.

He uses his words, he uses lies or half-truths or twisted truths.

Jesus says of Satan that when he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is the liar and the father of lies.

Now, some of his lies are really obvious attempts to undermine our faith.

So lies like God is not real or this world is all there is.

Lies like God is not good.

I mean, look at the trouble in your life, Satan points out.

How could God possibly be good?

Or lies like Jesus didn't die for sin, the Bible is just made up stories.

You see, obvious examples, obvious attempts to undermine our faith.

Some of his lies are a little more plausible, a little more believable, a little more subtle.

Genesis 3 says that the serpent was craftier than all the other beasts of the field.

In fact, at times, Satan will even quote Scripture.

I mean, you see that in when he tempts Jesus in the wilderness, Satan quotes scripture to him to try to tempt him.

He twists God's word.

It's deception, it's lies.

What's his second strategy?

His second strategy is temptation.

Satan wants to enslave us to sin.

And of course he again uses lies to do that.

He's called the tempter in Matthew chapter 4.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

And he tempts us through his lies, and some of them are simple.

He'll say things like, uh, oh, poor you.

You know, everybody seems to have it better than you.

And he tempts us, right?

He's tempting us to self-pity and bitterness and jealousy.

Or sometimes he tries to turn sin into virtue, right?

He says, Oh, there's nothing wrong with that.

It's actually a good thing.

You're not being lazy, you're just resting in God's love.

Or you're not being greedy, you're just a good steward of what God has given you.

And we could go on, right?

Where he takes a sin and he turns it into a virtue.

I think one of his favorite, one of his favorite ways of tempting us is actually to distort God's character.

Right?

He wants to distort God's character in our minds.

And so he'll highlight God's love and hide his holiness.

Right?

He highlights God's love and he hides his holiness in order to lead us to sin.

So he'll say things like, oh, God is gracious.

He won't stop loving you if you sin.

Yeah, that's tricky, isn't it?

It's tricky because it's true.

Right?

I mean, God is gracious.

If you believe in Jesus, he won't stop loving you if you sin.

But that's not meant to encourage you to sin.

The Bible tells us that God's grace is meant to lead us to repentance, not more sin.

But Satan twists that truth and he uses it to try to lead you to sin.

So Satan tempts us.

He lies and he tempts.

The third strategy is accusations.

He's called the accuser of the brethren in Revelation chapter 12.

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

He wants to destroy our comfort in the Father's love.

He wants to overwhelm us with guilt.

He wants to cause us to look more at our sin than we do at our Savior.

And so he accuses us actually often in the exact opposite way of the way he tempts us, by highlighting God's holiness and by hiding God's love.

See, if he does that, he can lead us to despair.

He can lead us to hopelessness.

He says things like, God is holy, he could never love a sinner like you.

Or your sins are so much worse than other people's.

Have you ever thought that?

That is Satan's lie.

Trying to tempt you, accuse you, and cause you to despair.

Or how about this one?

You've gone too far.

You just send yourself right out of heaven.

Right?

That's it.

It was the last straw.

It's a lie.

It's a lie.

And these lies, these accusations, they lodge in our hearts and they cause us to obsess over our behavior.

They cause us to despair.

You know, this is why harsh criticisms destroy us so easily.

Right?

Because they get stuck in our hearts.

And Satan uses them to crush us, to cause us to turn in on ourselves and look at ourselves rather than looking to Jesus.

He lies, he tempts, he accuses.

He wants to undermine our faith and enslave us to sin and overwhelm us with guilt to destroy us.

You might wonder, how does he do this?

Right?

I mean, how does he do that?

And it's a good question.

How does he do that?

And there's a lot that could be said about that.

Well, one thing is he's actually, Satan is probably more powerful than you think.

Probably is more powerful than you think.

You see this in the book of Job, chapter one.

Satan uses raiding parties and the forces of nature to take away everything that Job had.

Satan does that.

Uses a great wind and fire from heaven and armies of men.

Satan does that.

That's pretty powerful.

Well, how does he work, though, in our hearts?

How does he use these strategies of deception and temptation and accusation?

Well, you see in Acts chapter 5, verse 3, Satan fills the heart of Ananias to lie to the Holy Spirit.

Acts 5:3

What does that mean?

I think part of what it means is Satan, he never works against our heart, but he works with it.

He can't make us do things we don't want to do, right?

It's never, we never blame the devil.

The devil made me do it, right?

He can't make us think, uh he can't make us do things we don't want to do.

But he can appeal to our desires to get us to do things we would otherwise keep hidden in our hearts.

He tries to draw out and work with what's already there.

He has these allies in the world, doesn't he?

He has these allies of our sinful nature and of the world around us.

And he uses these two things.

He uses our own hearts, our own sinful nature, he uses the world around us to lead us to sin.

Now, I should point out, and this is very important, Satan can do nothing apart from God's permission.

And that's that's so important because, again, we don't want to begin to think that Satan is all-powerful.

He's not.

Only God is all-powerful.

Uh when Satan comes and wants to attack Job, God has to let him.

Satan asks to sift Peter like wheat.

Right?

God's permission.

He can only do things by God's permission.

So he is powerful.

There's a limit to his power because God is in control of all things, but he's powerful.

Now, some of you maybe are tracking at this point and you're thinking this is a little too weird or a little too scary, right?

Or both.

Well, it's going to get a little bit worse before it gets better.

So, just a little bit.

Satan is real.

He's our enemy.

He's out to get us, and he has a plan to that end.

But that's just one of the reasons that we need courage.

That's just one of the reasons we need to be strong.

The other reason we need courage is because we're weak people.

We're weak people.

You know, just as Satan is probably stronger than you think, you're probably weaker than you think.

You know, when it comes to doing the Christian life, we have no strength in ourselves.

We have no intrinsic internal resources.

It's just not there.

Paul doesn't say in Ephesians 6.10, be strong in yourself and in the strength of your might.

Doesn't say it.

Why doesn't he say that?

He doesn't say, uh, he doesn't say, don't be afraid.

You can do it.

He doesn't say that.

Because he doesn't believe it, because it's not true.

We have no strength in ourselves.

We try to be strong in ourselves.

We try to manage our guilt and our sin.

We try to play the game.

How good can I be?

How good can I look?

How good can I feel?

We try a little harder to be a little better.

We beat ourselves up with the law.

We pretend and perform and blame and excuse and compare.

All of these are just guilt management, sin management.

And really they all play right into Satan's hands.

He wants us to do sin management.

He wants us to do guilt management because if we think we can handle the sin and the guilt in our lives, we don't have to look to Jesus.

If I can handle it, I don't need Jesus.

And so by playing those games, we're playing right into his hands.

And yet you can only play the game so long, can't you?

Before you know it, what you know to be true forces itself to the surface.

You know you're guilty.

You know you're sinning.

And we end up in total despair or frustration or helplessness.

We end up guilty and tempted and undone.

So we have an enemy.

We have an enemy who has a plan of attack, and you are powerless in yourselves against his schemes.

You can manage for a little bit, but we're powerless against his schemes.

We have good reason to be afraid.

And yet Paul says be strong.

If we get, if we really understand the devil and his work in the scriptures, we're thinking, Paul, are you joking?

Be strong?

I can't be strong.

Or maybe you're looking at the title of the sermon, which is encouragement, and you're thinking, Luke, this isn't encouraging yet.

In fact, this is discouraging.

Well, be strong.

How can we have courage?

That's the last point.

So, what does it mean to be strong?

It means to have courage.

Why do we need to be strong?

Because we have an enemy who is more powerful than we are.

And we are powerless to stand before him.

Well, how can we be strong?

How can we have courage?

What can we do?

How can we not just manage sin and guilt by suppressing the truth, but have courage in the face of the enemy who wants to destroy us, crush us, overwhelm us with guilt and sin.

Well, Paul tells us, and it's still in this verse, finally, be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might.

Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.

Our courage is not in ourselves.

That's the first point.

How can I have courage?

Our courage is not in ourselves, but in God.

Paul says, be strong in the Lord.

You will never be strong in yourself.

The goal of the Christian life is not to be strong in yourself.

The goal of the Christian life is to learn to depend on Jesus in our weakness.

That's the goal.

Not strength, not I can do it, not I finally arrived, but more and more and more I'm learning to depend on Him in my weakness.

Our strength is not in ourselves.

Our strength is in God.

But specifically, our courage is not in ourselves, but it's in Christ.

Our courage is in Christ.

Paul says in Ephesians 6.10 that be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.

Now, this phrase, the strength of his might, it actually appears two times in Ephesians.

It appears once in chapter 1 and once in chapter 10.

It's in Ephesians 1.19.

It's translated a little different.

There it's translated his great might, but it's the same Greek words.

And it refers in Ephesians 1.19 to the resurrection power of Christ that God is working in us.

Do you want courage to face the evil one?

Look to the power of God demonstrated in the resurrection of Jesus.

That's going to give you courage.

Well, why?

Right?

Why?

What does God's power in the resurrection have to do with my sin and my guilt and my battle with the devil?

Well, everything.

Everything.

We have an enemy, we're weak before him, but but we can be strong in God's resurrection power.

And let me just list four ways in which the resurrection of Jesus will give us courage in our battle with the devil.

Four ways the resurrection of Jesus gives us courage, hope in our battle with the devil.

First, in the resurrection, we see we have new life for the battle.

It is God's power that raised Jesus from the dead, according to Ephesians 1.20, and it's that same power that raised us up with him, according to Ephesians 2.6.

We have been raised spiritually to new life by God's power.

You know, Ephesians 2.1 to 2 says that we were once spiritually dead following the devil, but because of God's resurrection power, we have been made spiritually alive and freed from the devil's bondage.

We have been freed to overcome temptation and to do good works, according to Ephesians 2.10.

See, because of God's resurrection power that we see in Christ and is at work in us, we have been raised from the dead spiritually and given new life.

Second, we see in the resurrection that the battle is already won.

You know, it's God's power that not only raised Christ from the dead, according to Ephesians 1.20, but also seated him in the heavenly places.

And according to Ephesians 2.6, it's that same power that has seated us with him.

So Ephesians 19 to 20, 19 to 21 talks about the power of God's great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and seated him 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, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.

So God has raised Jesus up.

He has seated him above all these things.

Now, I want you to turn back to Ephesians 6.10, or 6.12, actually, and look at 6.12 and compare it to Ephesians 1, verse 21.

Ephesians 1:21

And I want you to notice that what we wrestle with in Ephesians 6.10 are the very things that Jesus has been seated above, according to Ephesians 1.21.

So we wrestle against rulers.

Jesus has been seated above all rule.

We wrestle against authorities.

Jesus has been seated above authority.

We wrestle against powers over this present darkness.

Jesus has been seated above power.

We wrestle against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places, and Jesus has been seated above dominion.

And I have to sort of assume that because these two lists are the same, that that's covered, right?

Even though it's not quite parallel.

You get the point.

Everything that we wrestle with in this life, everything that we struggle against, Jesus has defeated in the cross.

And he has been seated above them.

He has been given authority over the very things with which we struggle.

You want courage for the fight?

Know this your captain has already subdued the enemy.

It's done.

They are under his feet, according to Ephesians 1.22.

And yet, what's more amazing, if there can be something more amazing than that, what's more amazing is that Ephesians 2.6 says that we have been seated with him in the heavenly places.

Just try to wrap your brain around that for a minute.

Ephesians 2.6 says God raised us up with him, with Christ, and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

What Paul says there in Ephesians 2.6 is that you have been seated with Christ in the heavenly places.

Because of God's resurrection power, from God's perspective, you have already won the fight.

If you belong to Christ, if you are in Christ Jesus, the language he uses in Ephesians 2.6, you have already won the fight, as far as God is concerned.

You're there.

Well, why?

How?

What does that mean?

Well, for one thing, and this is the third thing the resurrection shows us, in the resurrection, we see that sin's power has been broken.

Romans chapter 6, verse 9, has this startling statement.

Romans 6:9

We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again.

Death no longer has dominion over him.

Death had dominion over Christ for a time, but he has risen from the dead, and it no longer has dominion over him.

That's what Paul says.

Sin's power has been broken in the resurrection.

It's not only been broken for Christ, it's been broken for you also.

Paul goes on to say in Romans 6, verse 10 and 11, for the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.

Romans 6:10

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

You're dead to sin if you're in Christ.

Its power over you, its reign over you has been broken.

Okay, again, how?

Well, in the resurrection, we we see that we have new life, we see that the battle has already been won.

We see that sin's power has been broken, and we see that sin's guilt has been done away with.

In the resurrection, we see sin's guilt has been done away with.

Jesus bore our sin in his death, but once he paid for sin, death no longer had any right over him.

He paid for our sin.

He paid for our sin.

Which means death no longer has any right over us.

You see, sin and guilt and death and the devil have no right over you any longer.

In Jesus, in his resurrection power, we have new life for the battle.

A battle that is already won because sin's power has been broken and sin's guilt is done away with.

Do you want courage?

You want courage?

Come to Jesus.

Confess your weakness and see his mighty power in the resurrection.

And trust that he is working that same power in you.

He is, if you belong to him, working that same power in you.

And you will have courage.

You won't have perfection, you will have courage for the fight.

Jesus said, in the world you will have trouble.

But take heart.

Have courage.

Be strong.

I have overcome the world.

Let's pray.

Our Father, I pray that you would give us eyes to see Christ in his resurrection glory.

And that we would find confidence not in ourselves, but in him.

Teach us to live dependently on him in our weakness.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.