Our Unseen Battle; The Helmet of Salvation

Well, friends, we um are continuing this

morning in our series on the armor of

God. You probably picked that up in our

liturgy already that we're talking about

the helmet of salvation today. Um we're

talking about this unseen battle we're

in. Uh we can't always reach out and

grab it and touch it and name it. Um but

but Paul tells us uh in this metaphor of

putting on pieces of armor how we are to

stand in the face of evil. How we are to

make it through when the world feels

dark and overwhelming. And so here the

word of the Lord. We've been reading

this each week from Ephesians 6:10-18.

Ephesians 6:10–18

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in

his mighty power. Put on the full armor

of God so that you can take your stand

against the devil's schemes. For our

struggle is not against flesh and blood,

but against the rulers, against the

authorities, against the powers of this

dark world, and against the spiritual

forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Therefore, 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 have done everything to stand,

stand firm then, with the belt of truth

tucked around your waist and the

breastplate of righteousness in place,

and with your feet fitted with the

readiness that comes from the gospel of

peace. In addition to all of this, take

up the shield of faith with which you

can extinguish all the flaming arrows of

the evil one. Take the helmet of

salvation and the sword of the spirit,

which is the word of God, and pray in

the spirit on all occasions with all

kinds of prayers and requests. With this

in mind, be alert and always keep on

praying for all the Lord's people. This

is the word of the Lord.

>> Thanks be to God.

Well, several weeks ago, we began this

series by like unmasking evil, trying to

help us understand uh our real enemy,

who Paul tells us is not flesh and blood

human beings, even though we often want

to make them our enemy.

Um, but it's actually these other

spiritual forces of evil and darkness in

the world that are trying to corrupt the

good, that are trying to cause us

division and hatred and ultimately

violence. The whole letter to the

Ephesians is all about how we are to be

in relationship with each other and that

there is nothing that should tear us

apart from one another. All these

distinctives that we used to think

matter when we become the people of

Christ, the family of God, we put them

aside

and and we choose to love each other. We

choose to be unified. Not uniformity,

but unified

with all our diversity. Um we come

together in the love of God. And so Paul

says evil is actually all the things

that try and divide you that try and

make you think that there are insiders

and outsiders.

There are people good enough and then

there are people that are not good

enough. And Paul says pay attention

because that is a battle. And to be able

to stand firm in the face of that in in

all that would divide us. Um, the only

way we're going to be able to do it is

to put on these attributes of God, this

armor of God. Things like truth and

righteousness and peace and faith.

Attributes that I remind you again this

morning, they're not just like random

attributes, random pieces of armor. They

are the very attributes of our God. This

is God's armor, God's God's faith, God's

trust,

God's peace that we strap to ourselves

in order to be able to stand firm. We

wrap that stuff around us and then when

we face evil, we will be able to stand.

This morning we turn to one of our last

pieces of armor, this helmet of

salvation. But I think to kind of get at

this, we kind of need to know what we're

talking about when we say salvation. I

mean, what does it mean to be saved?

That's a very churchy word if you've

been in church long. And people

interpret salvation and being saved in a

number of different ways.

Now you should know that in the Greek um

we see over and over these two terms or

variations of these terms. So is the

word for salvation or deliverance or to

be recovered. Think of recovery work or

healed.

Soo is just the verb form. So to save

something or someone to rescue.

Um but it's pretty broadly used in

scripture this word.

It really is. You can find examples of

people being saved physically. So like

think of from danger

or storms,

being saved from an illness, being

healed or delivered.

And then we see it used more

metaphorically like talking about

emotional salvation.

Salvation is experienced through our

relational repair. we read about a and

then we often and I think this is the

way we we most often are talking about

it especially in church settings we see

salvation talked about spiritually like

God is saving our souls

God is transforming us by this salvation

work God's doing

and then beyond all the ways that

salvation is talked about um in

impacting the world healing and rescuing

and redeeming the world and us it's also

used in all the time tenses too. And so

you will read lots and lots of texts in

the past tense. God has saved you.

That work on the cross accomplished your

salvation. You can be assured that you

are saved. Lots and lots of those. And

then you see them in the present tense.

You'll read passages of scripture that

say that God is presently at work saving

us. That the salvation work of God is

happening in us even now at this moment.

And so you're like, "So God already

saved me and God is still saving me

according to scripture." Yes. And then

you even get the future tense, these

promises of a future salvation. So your

your body will not ultimately be the end

of you, that we will go on to be saved

in time and eternity. And so salvation,

it's all over the place. Um all the

tenses, it's all the ways past, present,

or future that God is rescuing us.

rescuing the world, saving you, saving

me, saving the world. And so, we're told

to take this idea, this concept of

salvation, and we're supposed to strap

it on our heads like a helmet to protect

us.

But how is this protective armor? How is

salvation protective for our minds?

How does it help us stand in the face of

evil?

I want to suggest kind of two key ways.

The helmet of salvation, it protects us

in how we think and what we believe.

And I'm sure there are other ways, but I

just want to hit those two this morning.

How we think and what we believe. Let me

just ask you a few questions to just

think about rhetorically.

How do you discern what's right? Like in

your thinking, when you're confronted by

something, how do you go, "Yep, that's

true." And that's not

h how do you discern what's the ne next

right step to take? H how do you

evaluate your thinking? Do you have a

process of of how you evaluate your

thoughts

to see if there have been any like

dangerous ideologies that maybe have

slipped in or you've gotten stuck in

some really bad theology

and suddenly you're aware of it. Or or

maybe it's more about like

self-fulfilling narratives of shame.

How do you recognize when your thinking

patterns have started to circle around

that stuff?

Do you have a way of doing it?

What about when you even know when

something's evil, but you really can't

seem to help stop thinking about the

dark thought

that keeps surfacing again and again?

Maybe it's hateful or it's about revenge

or about something else.

But even though you know it's not what

you want to be thinking about, there it

is again.

There are some very real threats, I

think, to keeping our thinking healthy.

Um, in fact, I'd say that our thinking

is probably the place where I think the

enemy can get to us real quick, real

fast.

We talked a few weeks about ago about

how evil is subtle, right? It's sneaky.

It never comes in just like straight and

directly at you. It comes sideways. And

it sounds true, but it's not quite true.

And I think this is part of why Paul

says, "Put onto your head the helmet of

salvation." be really careful about your

thinking patterns

because if evil can start to warp those

things then it will impact every other

area of our life

which means that guarding our minds by

the truth of God's rescue putting on

this helmet of salvation it actually

ends up being pretty lifesaving

relationships saving for us

um you guys know that I often quote

Father Richard Roar he's a Franciscan

priest an incredible author I think he's

probably one of the greatest living

spiritual teachers of our time. Um, and

he talks quite a bit about this. He

talks about what he calls stinking

thinking.

I know. I love that. Um, it's used it's

a it's a phrase used in recovery work a

lot actually. Um, and he's written a

book on the 12 steps actually. Um, but

he I'm going to show you a threeminut

clip from him right now where he talks

about how how do we guard our minds? Um,

what does it mean to think about our

thinking?

The best thing is to invite them

to observe their stream of consciousness

with some degree of honesty

and to notice the patterns. This doesn't

sound spiritual at all. I'm sorry, but

it really is. It's an exercise in huge

canosis, letting go of because you're

going to see that not just a few people

are OCD.

The universal addiction is that all

people are addicted to their way of

thinking.

>> We all are. I am. You are. You are. Why

wouldn't you be?

>> You process things in a certain way. You

have to suffer that humiliation by

seeing how silly it is that this dog of

my mind is going back to the same vomit

to quote Proverbs. The the every 30

seconds I'm tending to resentment.

Whatever it might be, I'm tending to

judgmentalism. I'm tell t tending to

dismissal. Whatever your pattern is,

paranoia,

anger, superiority complex. Uh, oh my

god, this is humiliating.

Now I think that's why contemplation so

easily has died out again and again

>> because when the spirit you know Mark 1

1313 13-50 where the spirit drives Jesus

into the wilderness you have to be

driven there almost and the first thing

that comes up are the wild beasts if you

remember the text. Huh?

>> Yeah.

>> The wild beasts just all your crap. I

hate to say it.

>> St. Anthony as well.

>> Very good. All your silly stupid

patterns. of repetitive. You know, it

was u uh Echartole who lives in

Vancouver that I I wrote to after he

wrote his book, The Power of Now. And I

thanked him. I said,

>> you know, you really opened up the older

contemplative tradition. But you did it

in a most wise way without using

Christian vocabulary so people could

write you off. But we call it the

practice of the present moment or the

sacrament of the presence of God in in

Catholic vocabulary.

>> Uh and I said, 'You said it without

saying it.

>> Thank you. And in that first book, if

you ever read it at that point, he says

82% of human thought is repetitive and

useless. And somewhat jokingly, I wrote

to him, he lives in a rather simple

apartment close to the airport at that

time in Vancouver. And uh he wrote me

back a sweet note uh because I said I

only disagree with you on one point. I

think it's 92%. And I was saying it

somewhat facitiously but if you look at

his latest book he says 98%.

>> Wow.

>> 98% of human thought is repetitive and

useless.

>> So you know

>> whole city is running on that stream of

thought.

>> Yes. Yeah. You know, it's so humiliating

to see this that we think think the same

thought over and over and over again. So

when Dart, who we've been making the

whipping boy for hundreds of years,

rightly so. I think, therefore I am, he

actually was halfight. The western

person thinks they are their thinking

>> and their thinking is stinking thinking

by spiritual standards. It's obsessive,

compulsive, repetitive, paranoid, angry.

I mean look at our politics. yours

appears to be a little better than ours.

Uh but he just want us to cry

>> at the level of American political

discourse.

>> So we can have all these people we've

sent to universities

educated in intellects but have not gone

above the ceiling to wisdom.

>> Oh, I should just have Richard Roar

preach more of my sermons.

Uh but he he speaks and he writes about

this stinking thinking quite a bit

actually. Um and he reminds us that he

he refers to it as contemplation in that

video. But things like prayer and

meditation and ruminating on scripture,

these are these practices of

contemplation that teach us how to

observe our minds, how to think about

our thinking, he says, with some degree

of honesty.

Some degree of honesty.

I love that reference from Echartole who

now agrees with him that it's more than

the the first book. 98% of human thought

is repetitive and useless or

destructive.

I mean, think about your own thinking

for a second.

Repetitive, useless, and potentially

destructive.

I I think that's what he means when he

says it's humiliating once you realize

it. I'm going to quote Roar here for a

second.

Because when we come to see how

self-serving, how petty, how

narcissistic, how compulsive our

thinking is, we realize how trapped and

unfree we are. We might even call it

possessed.

I truly believe the only cure for

possession is repossession

by our original source by God. To use

the language most often found in

recovery circles, this is what a vital

spiritual experience does for all of us.

Whether we name it as Jesus, God's

spirit, higher power, or love.

Afterward, we simply know that we belong

in this world, that we are being held by

some larger force. For some seemingly

illogical reason, life then feels okay

and even good and right and purposeful.

This is what it feels like to be saved.

I loved that line.

If you're thinking makes you feel like

sometimes you must be possessed, what

might it mean to be repossessed

but by the love of God?

This is what I think Paul is getting at

when he says, "Put the helmet of

salvation on your heads.

We are to measure our thinking patterns

according to the love of God, the truth

of God." And and Paul doesn't just talk

about this here in Ephesians, friends.

This is in every single letter he writes

to the church in Corinth. He says this,

"For though we live in the world, we do

not wage war as the world does. The

weapons we fight with are not the

weapons of the world. On the contrary,

they have divine power to demolish

strongholds. We demolish arguments and

every pretension that sets itself up

against the knowledge of God. We take

every we take captive every thought to

make it obedient to Christ.

Later to the Romans, he'll write this.

Do not conform to the pattern of this

world, but be transformed by the

renewing of your mind. Then you will be

able to test and approve what God's will

is, his good and pleasing and perfect

will. to the church at Philippi. He

writes this, "D" not be anxious about

anything, but in every situation by

prayer and petition with thanksgiving,

present your requests to God, and the

peace of God which transcends all

understanding will guard your hearts and

your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally,

brothers and sisters, whatever is true,

whatever is noble, whatever is right,

whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,

whatever is admirable, if anything is

excellent or praiseworthy, think about

such things.

Are you seeing the theme here for him?

Every letter, our thinking matters.

Stinking thinking,

it will take us right out of the battle.

But protecting our minds with the truth

of our salvation in Christ, it holds us

steady,

especially when we're up against

spiritual darkness and conflict. That is

one way the helmet serves us. It

protects how we think. The other way, it

protects what we believe. how we

believe.

I especially about who we are. I think

this is really important. And and some

of you might be thinking, wait, thinking

and belief, Jamie, that's the same

thing. And I would tell you, no, it's

not. No, it's not.

Belief is different. Your beliefs go

deeper. They're like down in your core

identity. In fact, what we believe, we

don't even think about it. We just

assume it's reality. It's not even

something we have to investigate. We

take our deeply held beliefs for

granted. They're often rooted so deeply

in our identity and value system that we

don't even it doesn't occur to us to

even think about them, much less

question them.

And it can be one more place that I

think the enemy and evil can get us if

we if especially if we've got deeply

held beliefs that are dangerous.

And and we can talk about like

ideologies and cultural values and

things like that, but actually I want to

talk a little more personally.

Do you believe you matter?

Do you at your core think you're

not really capable

of ever being truly saved?

Do you think you can't possibly deserve

that?

Is there somewhere deep inside of you

where you think you're just too broken?

that you won't be able to come back from

whatever it is that's happened to you or

from whatever it is you've done. Or

worst of all, the most dangerous belief

I think we can hold, and I know way too

many people that feel like this. Do you

believe that you're really not capable

of being loved?

You're unlovable.

Which is why I think I'm an earworm to

many of you because I say this all the

time.

But I want you to hear it again today.

The truth about who you are,

who I am, and who everybody else is. The

most true thing about us is that we are

the beloved children of God.

It is the most true thing about you.

No one gets to take that away from you.

And there I I know are lots of things

that are true about you. True about

things you've done. True about things

that have happened to you to be sure.

But that is not the most true thing

about you. The most true thing about you

is that you were created in the image of

God.

That the divine is imprinted on your

soul. That you come from love. That you

were made for love. That goodness is

ultimately what is most true about you.

You are loved.

That is actually who you really are.

And holding on to that belief, getting

that so deeply inside of you that it

informs your thinking patterns and the

way you live and operate in the world.

That is maybe one of the most important

things you can do.

And it is what the helmet of salvation

will help you do because it is a

constant reminder that God has rescued

you. That you are worth rescue.

That nothing will be able to keep you

from the love of God. Nothing.

And when we lose sight of our

belovedness,

we get we get offkilter real quick. So

what does it look like real quickly to

have the helmet of salvation on your

head? Here, here are five things. There

could be many others, and I'll rattle

through them really quick.

I think if you were wearing that helmet

long enough, you give up on regret.

You give up on it. You don't need to

ruminate anymore about like the past

because you have realized that

everything belongs.

Like your whole life, every every part

of it, the good, bad, and ugly, like

none of it prevents you from being loved

and included by God. And so you don't

need to live in regret.

You no longer need shame to define you.

Two, I think people that wear the helmet

of salvation are slower to speak

because they know the allimp important

truth that you only know what you know,

right? And you don't know what you don't

know. And so there's this humility to

being wrapped in the salvation and

rescue of God that allows you to go,

maybe I'll listen before I respond.

maybe I don't know what their experience

has been like. So, they're slow to

speak. Three, I think they live

open-handed

with everything. I mean, that they can

let conflict roll off their shoulders

because they really believe that God

fights their battles for them. They can

be generous with their time and their

money. They can give power and

leadership away. They can help other

people get ahead because they trust that

God's got them. They're so rooted in in

their salvation that they don't have to

save themselves anymore. And so they

live open-handed.

Four, I think they're not worried about

the future.

Why? Because they don't need to be in

control anymore

because they so believe that God's got

it. That they've been rescued already

and that God will surely rescue them

again when they need it. And so there's

not a lot of energy spent on like what's

going to happen tomorrow and in 10

years. And then finally, I think they

live in gratitude.

I think they live with this like

generous posture because like they are

aware of their rescue. And so they can't

help but just be like, "Thank God for

it." And anytime they see somebody else

that's trapped that could use a little

rescue, they're ready to show up and

say, "God's got you, too.

You're not actually unlovable.

I I could go on and on, but that's what

someone looks like and thinks like and

believes like, who roots themselves in

the salvation of God, who wraps that

around their mind and their heart.

And and I will say this, if you're not

heading in that direction, friends,

here's my advice to you. It's the same

as roars. Evaluate your thinking.

Think about your thoughts with again

what he said with some degree of

honesty.

Where has stinking thinking grabbed

hold? How much of your thinking is it?

98% that's repetitive and useless and

potentially destructive

because we don't want to head into

battle with our h our head exposed. We

want to strap that helmet on. We want to

root ourselves in the saving grace of

God and let that be what is true about

us and inform our living. And so I want

to close by just inviting you to recite

this prayer with me.

God, you have made me and saved me. You

know my mind, my beliefs, and my

thinking patterns. I have believed

things that are not true. I have lived

by biases and beliefs that undercut my

beloved identity.

Please heal the repetitive, useless, and

destructive thinking patterns of my mind

and stop connections in my brain that

are tied to old ways of thinking that do

not lead to life. God, please create and

deepen new neural pathways with the

truth of your salvation. Help me

remember what is true about me. Rewire

broken places to bring life and love

more deeply into my consciousness. Help

me know deep down that I am filled with

your mercy and I am not trapped by what

the world and what it says about me. Put

your helmet of salvation upon my head

and protect me from evil. Help me stand

firm. Amen.