"Armed for Battle: Swift and Sweet" Ephesians 6:15 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Ephesians 6, verse 15.

Ephesians 6:15

And as shoes for your feet, having putting put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

I was on a short-term mission trip in Belize many, many years ago.

I was at the time employed by Major League Soccer, and yet I had taken time off to go on this mission trip and uh spent a couple weeks there working with kids at a VBS, and the kids would play soccer in this field there that was not a soccer field.

I use the word field very loosely.

It was mostly dirt.

Some of it had like more vines on it than grass, like those little like crabgrass kind of vines that had thorns and stuff on it.

There was standing water in parts of the field, uh, and parts of it were solid dirt.

However, all of the kids were playing barefoot.

None of them were wearing shoes.

And so here I am at this doing VBS right next to the soccer game.

It's happening every day, and the kids are always asking the Americans to come play.

And I felt just like such weak sauce, not wanting to go play.

I mean, I was I was working for a soccer league, and I'm on a short-term mission trip, but I didn't want to play with the kids in the field.

So obviously I gotta play with the kids in the field like day three.

I'm like, okay, I'm in.

But I'm not gonna be the American that like rolls onto a soccer field with like Belizean high school kids, and I'm the only one wearing shoes.

So I ditched the shoes and play barefoot, which was not a smart move.

Um I mentioned the standing water, the the vines with thorns on it.

It was a total mess.

And those kids were just insane.

I don't know what were on their feet like galvanized steel, I think.

But by the time I came back to the US, my feet were just incredibly infected and just a huge mess.

Uh I went and saw a league doctor.

Um, and the doctor uh who was assigned to the team in Denver at the time, he's the one that I went and visited, and he you know had to lance open my foot, and he wanted to know what happened, and I told him I played soccer barefoot in Belize, which is a dumb thing to say.

And he gives me this lecture, like, do you I mean, do you even understand what worms are?

I mean, that's how they get into your body.

This is how you this is how people end up without feet.

Do you understand this?

Like, I felt like it was like my mom yelling at me.

Uh, or some of the people in first hour that were yelling at me during this um illustration.

Uh you learn in something like that the importance of proper footwear.

You can get away uh doing a lot, you can get away for getting a lot in life, but if you're not wearing the proper shoes, you're not going to get very far.

That is sort of the point of Ephesians 6, verse 15, that uh you need to understand the importance of shoes for your approach to the spiritual life.

Ephesians 6:15

In fact, I'm going to give you an outline this morning, how to make the most of your shoes.

How to make the most of your shoes.

Now, somebody this week commented that as we're going through the spiritual armor, that it seems very masculine.

You know, last week we were talking about armor for warfare and you know getting conscripted into the Lord's army kind of language, and it has kind of a masculine uh push to it.

Uh are these uniquely masculine descriptions here of the spiritual armor?

And the answer is no.

Uh these descriptions apply to both men and women equally, and so today I'm going to give you two competing outlines.

One will be in blue, one will be in pink, and you can choose which outline is most applicable to your own life.

So how to make the most of your shoes.

There's a a manly way to read that heading, and there's a feminine way to read that headling, and do what you want.

The first point is you have to find you.

Ryan, I told you this is a bad idea.

The first point, you have to find the right shoes for the job.

You've got to find the right shoes for the job.

Or to say it differently, you have to pick the right shoe for the occasion.

You have to know what you're getting dressed up for so that you can choose the right shoe for.

You have to know what job you're being sent to do so you can choose the right shoe from the shelf.

Now, the Roman soldiers had shoes that were uh outlandish.

They were noticeable, they were everything about the Roman soldier stood out.

I mean, the helmet was outrageous.

Uh, it was designed to be easily identified in a crowd, and was basically having like a standard raised above his head.

Every Roman helmet was like that.

I mean, these dudes stood out.

Their fabric outside of them was bright red, their shield was noticeable with big insignia on it.

I mean, these guys stood out, and that was the point.

Um, the shoes stood out.

The shoes were, uh, first of all, they were high tops, they went up over their ankles uh to keep them from rolling their ankles and they were digging in.

But secondly, they had about a half inch of leather at the bottom, and the leather on the bottom was put in layers, and then through the leather, they had uh nails sticking out of them, like picture of football cleats.

And so they put one leather down, nails to the leather, another leather on top of that to keep the you know the nail from digging into the feet.

So the soldiers were basically wearing what we would describe as cleats, and they did that for all kinds of reasons.

They were kind of standard issue in the Roman Empire.

Some of the Roman garrisons were in like, you know, walking through sand, a desert, North African kind of areas, somewhere in terraced areas like you know, the Mediterranean basin in Europe or even Jerusalem had a lot of terraces in it and hills, and these guys would have to be able to scamper up uh any any environment, any hill, rocky terrain, sand, dirt, farm, they would have to be able to push through anything.

The Roman soldiers would stand at doors and guard buildings, for example, and sometimes the Romans weren't welcome in a lot of places, and so there would be massive crowds outside of Roman buildings, and the soldiers would stand their ground outside as the crowds were forcing their way around them.

Those soldiers aren't going to move.

If a soldier gave up his guard post, he could be put to death.

And so they had these shoes that were designed to help them stand in place.

But the real point of the shoes is that behind the door, as crowds were gathering, Roman soldiers would be queuing up, and the first two would have shields, and those behind them would come in rows with bars, and they would fling the door open, and a, you know, a line of soldiers would come out with shields, and the bars were pushing the Roman soldiers, by the way, the pushing the dudes with the shields, pushing them forward through the crowd to disperse the crowds.

And the shoes uh functions to dig in and push against people.

Think of, for they had another function too, to intimidate people.

And I think of kind of the flashlights that American law enforcement used for so long, not anymore, mind you, but you know, 20 years ago or so, American law enforcement used those big flashlights.

Uh it was one purpose of it was to light up dark places, but another purpose of it was to hit people with them.

And that's what how the that's why they were so big.

And that's the way the Roman shoes were.

Uh they were designed to dig in, but also once you burst into the crowd, you're running over people, you're stepping on people, you're kicking at people, those Roman soldiers were, to get them to disperse.

And so the shoes were noticeable.

Nobody else had shoes like that.

But the Roman soldiers did.

You know, a Pharisee wouldn't.

If you were a scribe, you wouldn't have shoes like that.

If you were a farmer, you wouldn't have shoes like that.

If you uh worked in the home, you'd have shoes like that.

The only people that had these shoes were the Roman soldiers.

And they were good for kicking people and scaring people and digging in against a crowd.

That's how they functioned.

You know, American military has a similar kind of concept.

When you think of, you know, at like the infantry level, people get the same shoes, but the more elite units, those when this person gets selected for an elite unit, they go through uh kind of a rigorous uh examination of their feet to get them the right shoes.

They're individually outfitted for their boots by a professional using computerized equipment that measures their gait and their gait analysis and foot construction, and they have individual orthotics made as they're um when the person finally makes it through all that training, they get just scores of different boots.

Scores of different shoes.

And they they keep them in a locker.

A locker that's by the way, the size of a garage.

And when they get a specific mission assigned, they think about what the mission is and they choose the right shoes for that mission.

That's the way they function.

The point here in Ephesians 6.15 is that you have to understand that you have the right shoes for the job.

So the obvious question then is what is the job?

What is the mission you're given?

If you're given the right shoes for this, what is the job you're being called to do?

Well, the threefold command in Ephesians 6, three times, it's repeated that you are supposed to stand.

Stand, stand, stand.

You're supposed to stand in the Lord, stand in the strength of his might, stand against the evil one, stand against the enemy.

That's what you're called to do.

You're supposed to stand against the attacks of the devil.

So there's this temptation in the world.

The temptation is to get you to conform to society.

The temptation is to get you to live for yourself, to value your life over the world, to value your success over everything else, to evaluate, to evaluate a sense of accomplishment, to value your own agenda over what the Lord would have you to do.

That's the temptation.

And the devil is behind the world systems that tempt you in that way.

The devil is behind getting you to live for yourself and to throw yourself headlong into sin.

The devil's behind false religions, the devil's behind materialism and self-righteousness, the devil's behind all of that.

The enemy is external.

The devil doesn't dwell in you, demons don't dwell in you, the devil didn't make you do it, demons don't make you do it from the inside.

Rather, the devil tempts you and attacks you externally by tempting you external to yourself to sin.

Now, when your heart becomes in love with sin or you believe the lie of the devil, now the battle shifts from outside to inside.

Then it becomes a battle where you're fighting yourself, really.

The temptation to sin is it's seen in the heart and in the affections, in the mind, and what you love and what you think.

You've got to take your thoughts captive, you've got to fight the temptation to sin in your heart.

That's where the battle is.

But the enemy is outside of you.

And you're supposed to stand against him.

He's pressing against you, he's pressing against your heart, he's knocking on the door of your life, just like the crowds would knock on the door for a Roman soldier.

They're trying to knock the door down, and the sin in your life is trying to bust into your heart and get you to live for it.

That's where the war is at.

And you're supposed to dig in, you're supposed to be ready for it at any moment.

So, what is the right shoe for the occasion?

I mean, the analogy only goes so far.

At some point you have to ask, okay, I get it.

God has given me what I need to stand against the devil, but what is that that he gave me?

And the right shoe for the occasion, it says in verse 15, is the gospel of peace.

That's the tool that you've been given.

You're called to stand against the devil and advance peace in this fallen world, and God gave you the gospel as the tool by which you can do that.

There's a futility to leading a spirit-filled life without the Spirit.

Okay, so your mission is spelled out here in Ephesians 5.

Don't be drunk with wine, rather be filled with the Holy Spirit.

That's the initial command here.

So put off living like the world and put on living for Christ.

Be filled with the Spirit.

And that plays itself out through Ephesians 5 and 6.

So, husbands, lead and love your families.

Wives, submit to your husbands.

Children, obey your parents.

Parents, teach your children about the Lord.

Don't provoke them.

Workers, submit to your bosses and work hard.

Bosses, care for your workers and be concerned about them and don't embitter them.

So those are the basic spirit-filled commands.

You know, it's nothing that extravagant.

It's normal Christian living.

But it is impossible to do that without the gospel.

That's where the battle is.

Like you hear me read that list and you think that's not that big of a deal.

I mean, do you understand how counter-cultural that is?

For husbands to sacrificially love their wives, or wives to submit to their husbands, or workers to work for their bosses if they're working for the Lord, or bosses to care for their employees, like they're going to be judged by God.

That's radically countercultural.

That's not the way it sounds so basic when you say it like that, but that's not the way the world operates.

And so if you want to bring this spirit-filled life into the world, if you want to fight against sin and fight against the devil and fight against the systems of the world, if you want to be effective in that fight, you need the right tools.

And the tools begin with the shoes.

I mean, imagine a Roman soldier rolling into one of those crowd control operations and trying to push people forward.

Well, he's barefoot.

The guy would get wrecked.

You need the right shoes.

Imagine trying to lead the Christian life without the gospel.

You would get wrecked.

You would get wrecked.

And I've been asked, I can think of maybe three or four occasions in my pastoral ministry where a couple who's not a Christian, not Christians, they would say, if I were to ask, are you Christians?

They would say, No, we don't believe the gospel, but they have come to the church, they've come to me asking for marriage help.

They want marriage counseling, they're having a rough marriage, they're fighting, or whatever, they need marriage help.

And so they know Christians that go to Emmanuel and you know they know the counseling ministry, and so they come looking for help with their marriage, but they don't, they're not Christians, they don't know the gospel.

And so what can you do with that?

I mean, you can I guess you could teach a couple like that like communication principles.

Here's better ways to communicate.

You know, here's how here's better ways to have arguments and how to resolve them.

And you can give them those tools, but I mean it's kind of like rearranging the chairs in the Titanic at that point.

I mean, you can make them more comfortable, but the ship is going down.

You know, or parenting.

I'm having such a rough time parenting.

You know, Ephesians 6, you know, teach your children about the Lord.

I mean, that at some level, all of these Christian principles will make even a non-Christian's life better.

We understand that.

You know, as husbands love their wives, even if they're not believers, that principle will make their marriage better.

Or as wives honor their husbands, even if they're not believers, it'll make their marriage better in a sense.

Or kids, if they obey their parents, listen, it will definitely make your life better, I promise.

Parents, it's good for you to teach your kids about the Lord even if you don't believe it.

Even if you're not a Christian, it's good for you to expose your kids to the Bible and bring them to church and you know, give them some sense of morality is probably the goal there.

It's good for you to do that.

It's better than not doing it, but ultimately it's not gonna be effective.

It's not you need the gospel to make those things effective.

You can't lead the spirit-filled life without the spirit.

You think of the Roman armor that we're going through so far, beginning with the belt.

And the belt, remember, was the was was truth, and the belt was for the fabric around you.

You know, the Roman had kind of his undergarments and they would stretch down, they'd be almost like a skirt kind of thing, and but when they reported for duty, they pulled it up and they cinched it around them, and sometimes it was an actual belt, sometimes it was just clips or knots.

The point isn't so much what the actual belt is, as much as what is under what is touching their skin, what is under what they're wearing, that is truth.

That's the image there.

So the very foundation of this is truth.

After that was the breastplate that defends you, which is righteousness, your holy living, you're leading a transformed life.

God gives you his righteousness, you're living it out through your life.

That's protecting you, that protects your your vital organs, that's your protects your chest.

But if you're gonna actually dig in on this thing, you need the shoes.

I mean, I coach soccer now, and players will show up to soccer practice, forgetting all kinds of things.

You know, they're not stapled to their body, they forget them.

And you can get away with forgetting all kinds of stuff with soccer practice.

You show up without a shirt, you forgot your shirt, whatever, wear the shirt you wore to school.

I don't care.

Wear your polo.

You forgot shorts, go to the lost and found in the PE office and grab a pair of shorts.

That's fine.

You forgot your socks, wear the socks you wore at school.

It's their dress socks, it's kind of funny, haha, but whatever.

Nobody cares.

You forgot shingards, nobody wears them anyway.

But you forgot your shoes, I can't help you, nobody can help you.

You forgot your shoes, you can't practice barefoot, see the previous illustration.

You can't wear your dress shoes that you wore to school, your parents will kill me.

You know what I mean?

If you didn't bring your shoes, you can't do anything.

So your challenge here, your call, is to lead the spirit-filled life.

To put off drunkenness and put on being filled with the spirit, to put off living like the world and put on living the spirit-filled life.

You cannot do that if you don't possess the gospel.

Since Adam sinned, our feet have been naturally accustomed to walking in darkness.

Adam walked his way out of the garden.

Remember Adam, the first human being, he and his wife sinned, and they had to literally walk out of the garden.

They left the place where life was easy and where their own four feet walked into the place where life would be difficult and hard, thorns would hurt, they would die, they would be buried.

That is the human life.

You right now are born in this world with feet that are leaving, walking away from God.

Walking into the world where it is hard, suffering in the world, and you find this out.

As you walk away from God, as you say, I don't know if I believe it's the Bible, whatever, I'm gonna walk away from it with my life, you find that life is hard.

It hurts your feet, so to speak.

Because you don't have the right shoes for this world.

Your feet are going wherever you want them to go.

Job 13, verse 27, just an incredible verse about the futility of trying to lead a life without the Spirit.

Job 13:27

Job says, God, you put my feet in the stocks and you watch all my paths, you set a limit for the soles of my feet.

Man wastes away like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten.

What Job is saying there, let me translate that for you.

What Job is saying is that because he's not able to walk as God commands him to walk, his life is wasted.

It's like his feet are bound in stocks and he's supposed to walk.

A prisoner might be shackled to the legs.

What's he gonna do?

Run away?

He can't get very far.

He keeps falling.

That's what life is like without the Holy Spirit.

You're just falling all over the place, and you think you can live without the Lord, and you just keep hitting your head.

It's interesting when God calls Moses back in Exodus 3, he says, Moses, come here, and Moses says, Who's talking?

Oh, I see there's a burning bush.

Who's talking?

And God says, To me, the Lord, I want you to take off your shoes.

Because you are standing on holy ground.

In other words, you want to approach the Lord, you recognize that you've got to shed your shoes.

You want to approach the Lord, you want to come to faith in Jesus, you've got to take off the way you've been walking before.

There's a repentance involved.

You take off how you've been living to approach God, because God in his word is holy.

You understand with the spiritual armor here, you're not talking about your own effort or your own strength.

You're not talking about working your way to God.

You're not talking about trying to climb the mountain with your own feet to get to God.

That's not what this is about.

This is about taking off the shoes you were born with and finding the shoes that God has made fit for the challenge of leading the spirit-filled life, namely the gospel.

If you want to approach God, you have to approach God through his terms, and God says the only way to approach him is through Jesus Christ.

You cannot approach him through your own work.

Because Jesus is the way to approach God, by the way, because earlier I said every human feet wander away from God.

The one exception, that is Jesus' feet.

Jesus was fully human, but he didn't wander away from God.

He obeyed God in everything.

He led the perfect life.

And so your feet are prone to wander.

Jesus' feet follow the path of the Lord, but his life ends by him taking your sin and his feet getting pierced.

He's crucified, nails through his feet, because your feet wander away from the Lord.

But through his feet being pierced, your feet can be cleansed.

Your feet can be changed.

When you come to faith in Christ, he gives you new feet, so to speak.

Psalm 40, verse 2.

Psalms 40:2

David talking about how wonderful it was to be rescued by the Lord.

He says, You drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and you set my feet upon a rock and you made my steps secure.

Before you know the gospel, your feet are wandering away from God.

You're doing whatever you want to do with your own heart, and you keep hitting your head over and over and over again.

When are you going to learn?

And you come to Christ, you take off the way that you were living, and you look to the feet of Christ that were pierced for you.

And then he gives you new shoes.

Number two You have to lace them up.

You get the shoes of the gospel, lace them up.

Or, to borrow a phrase that for a period of parenting is the most common expression used in the foyer of your house.

You have to tie your own shoes.

You know what I mean?

Mean by that, like little kids, they can't, you know, littlest kids, they can't even reach their feet, you know, their arms are this long.

Um, but then they get to a phase where they can actually reach their feet and they put on their shoes and they're the Velker shoes, and that's wonderful.

And they upgrade, you know, around six or whatever age, they upgrade and they get some laces in their shoes, and then you're back to like step one again.

It's like the parents tying the shoe, and you gotta learn to tie the shoe backwards or through your kids' legs.

It's a huge mess, it takes forever.

When you see parents with kids that age that are like 30 minutes late everywhere, it's because they were tying all their kids' shoes.

You know, you tie one, and then by the time you get to the other, they untie the first one.

And there's a glorious day when they learn to tie their own shoes.

And the angels rejoice.

It seems like you have so much more time in your life.

And a few months later they regress, of course, you know that.

Or they're back to, I don't want to tie my shoes.

Can you tie my shoes?

They remembered what it was like in the golden era.

So you're getting out the door, shoelaces everywhere, and you're like, tie your own shoes.

Mercy, child.

You gotta actually put the shoes on.

If I've got yard work to do, step one for me, is I choose them.

I might wear my work boots, I might wear shoes that I don't care about, they can get muddy, whatever.

I'll choose them, I'll go to put them by the door to wear, and then I'll get distracted.

There's something important on my phone or something, who knows what.

And like 15 minutes later, my shoes are still sitting by the door.

And my lovely wife might even ask, are these your shoes out?

But yeah, I was just going to wear them.

I was just going to get to work.

I was just gonna go do what I was planning on doing.

I was just about ready to do it.

The point is, it's not enough to identify the shoes that you need to wear.

You have to actually, and hear me out, you have to actually put them on your feet.

You gotta actually kit up and get the shoes on and for you to do anything with them.

And one person this week told me that uh in the army, this is what this is what happens.

Not earlier I was talking about a more elite unit, but in the army army, and every infantry unit basically gets the same boots.

Everybody's assigned basically the same boots, but the immediately when they get them, the soldiers will get to work.

They modify their boots to match their feet.

You know, somebody after first hour told me he got it got the boots, and he'd even make it back to his uh dorm before he already ripped the soles off of his shoes.

They get to work right away.

You replace the soles, you replace the inserts, you stretch the leather, you experiment with different kinds of socks and thickness of socks to find the perfect balance for your foot, your gait, how you walk, where you're walking, what how your foot is shaped.

You know, you and your roommate both might have size 10 shoes, but they're not the same size 10s, of course, and so you go to work to make it exactly your own boots.

That's what Paul is describing here.

You have to have your feet actually shod with the gospel of peace.

And shod is a very weird word.

You don't use you probably never use that word unless you're talking about a horse.

But it's it's something strange in the Greek here.

It's a middle, the voice is middle here.

That middle, of course, is when you do something to yourself.

Active is you do something to someone else.

Passive, something is done to you.

Middle, you're doing it to yourself.

All of the spiritual armor here is in the middle voice.

You're putting on your belt, you're putting on your breastplate, and here you are putting on your shoes.

And it's oddly worded, of all the spiritual armor, verse 15 is the hardest to translate.

It's translated different in just about every translation.

Uh, because the first word in the Greek here is the middle voice for having your shoes put on you.

Like it's almost like you discovered your shoes.

You look down, and whoa, you already put your shoes on.

That kind of epiphany here.

Like you got your belt, you got your breastplate, whoa, my shoes are on.

But you put them on.

You had to put them on for yourself.

That's the idea.

You it's not enough to know the shoe is the right shoe for the job.

You got to put it on.

Now, let me put it to you this way: it's not enough to merely know the gospel.

You have to make the gospel your own.

You have to appropriate it for yourself.

Knowing the gospel is not a quiz you have to pass, it's something that you have to own.

You have to believe.

Now, listen, knowing the gospel is the minimum to get to heaven, but it is not sufficient.

It's required, but not sufficient.

Let me put it to you that way.

You have to know the truth of the gospel, that Jesus Christ crucified on the cross for your sins, resurrected from the grave on the third day.

Your only hope of salvation is by putting your faith in that, that he died bearing the punishment you deserve.

You would stand before God and be judged by God.

That judgment was taken from you and given to the perfect man, Jesus Christ, God in human flesh.

And he died in your place.

And he was resurrected from the grave because it wasn't his sin.

He took it from you, but he conquered death because it wasn't properly his.

And now he reigns this day in heaven.

That's the gospel.

And you have to actually not just know that, not just be able to explain it, but you have to believe it for yourself.

Philippians 3 verse 12.

Philippians 3:12

Paul says, not that I've already obtained this, not that I'm already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, he says.

Paul says, I don't want to just look at the racetrack in front of me.

I want to run all the way.

I want to make this race mine.

I want to go from the stands to the fields.

I want to make it my own.

Knowledge of the gospel is requisite, but it is not sufficient.

And listen, I know how this, I know how it happens.

Somebody invites you to church.

And you come to church once.

And then you come to church twice.

Maybe for a few months.

You make friends there.

This is at any age.

High school kids, all the way up, the whole flow chart there.

You come for several months and you make friends there, then maybe some of those friends move.

And you make new friends there.

And you're just coming to church.

Months go by, and at Emmanuel, I mean so many people are military, they're coming and out, all the place.

You're here for a few years.

You're here longer than anybody else you know.

But you never actually made the gospel yours.

You're aware of it, and maybe you even serve in the church.

Maybe you you know you serve in any number of capacities, and everybody just assumes that you're a Christian because you've been here for so long and you're serving in so many different ways.

They don't even ask.

You just hear.

But you've never properly moved from the stands to the field, you've never made it your own.

You know the truth about the gospel?

You just never made it, you never appropriated it for yourself, you've never put your faith in the gospel.

You're still watching.

And like I said, you can forget anything at soccer practice, but not your shoes.

How sad would it be if you did all the church things and came here all the time?

You just never actually put the shoes on yourself.

You can point to the shoes.

You can tell somebody what the right shoes for them to wear is, but you just never made it your own.

That would be so sad.

That would be so sad.

I remember how I met JJ, our middle school director.

He came to uh my door doing door-to-door evangelism, rings the doorbell, thought he was a door-to-door shoe salesman, and I would have been right.

So my kids went to the door.

I had a friend who's a pastor uh over at my house, and his kids were there.

All the kids ran to the door.

Um, and I forget if it was JJ or the guy he was with, asked the kids, if you were to die and stand before God, and that he were to ask you, why should you be allowed in heaven, what would you say?

Very good question to ask in evangelism, by the way.

That's a great question.

Just exposes what the person believes, exposes what they're trusting.

It's a great question to ask.

So they asked these six kids that question.

And uh, man, the answers were were really interesting.

The kids all, I would say all of them, in order, got said the right answer.

They all said, because Jesus died for my sins and I put my faith in him, and that's why I get to heaven.

So that's how all of them said it, until the last one.

Uh, my friend's oldest daughter.

And she said, Well, uh, I know that Jesus is the only way to heaven, and he died on the cross and he rose from the grave, but my mommy says, I love sin way too much to be a Christian.

You know, she was probably the most truthful one in that conversation.

And that shows you the difference.

Like, I feel like in some sense she got it.

Like, that's the truth of the gospel, but have I actually made it my own?

Do I actually believe this thing?

You know, I mentioned when Moses was called by Yahweh, he had to take his shoes off to approach the burning bush.

Not very long later, not very long after that is the first Passover.

And God commands Moses to tell the Jews, whenever you eat the Passover, not just this first time, but whenever.

It will be a statute throughout the history of Israel.

Whenever you eat the Passover, you eat it in your own home, you cut the throat of the lamb, you spread the blood on the doorpost, and you gather around as a family, and you all must wear your shoes, it says.

In the ancient Near East, you don't wear shoes in the house.

It would be filthy.

It'd be it'd be incredibly offensive to wear your shoes in somebody's, in your own house, even much less.

Shoes are what you put on when you need to go to the facilities.

It's not what you put on when you're in your house, except for Passover.

Passover, your shoes are on your feet.

Why?

Because it's your way of saying that I am going to obey whatever God calls me to do.

God, you want me to run?

I'll run.

You want me to run into the water?

I'll run into the water.

You want me to run into the Red Sea?

I'll run in the Red Sea.

You want me to plunder the Egyptians?

I'll do that.

You'll pass over my family.

You won't take the life of my firstborn because of the blood that's my substitute.

But I will obey you.

I have my shoes on.

I'm ready for the battle.

Thirdly.

Then you gotta get to work.

You find the right shoes, you lace them up, and then you get to work.

Or you pick the right shoe for the occasion?

You know, have your kids tie their own shoes, but then this one.

Fashion is confidence.

You got the right shoe on for the occasion, you gotta go rock it.

You gotta go wear it with confidence.

You picked the right shoe for the occasion.

It's fashionable, it's stylish.

Now you gotta wear it.

You gotta actually go out with it and look good with that shoe on.

That's what I mean by fashion is confidence.

Now, when I ran this outline by one of the other pastors, I won't tell you his name, but his initials are Steve Hawley.

He told me I needed several more in the pink box.

He said, like, is anybody else gonna be wearing these same shoes?

How do these shoes make my leg look?

You know, and I told him I would never say that from the pulpit ever.

It's just not acceptable.

So that's the list in the pink box there.

So you know the right shoe.

The gospel.

You've put it on yourself.

Now you have to get out into the world.

Listen, for the soldiers, the shoe was not a fashion statement.

They weren't making a the Roman soldiers, Paul is likely writing this looking at a Roman soldier.

He's likely in custody as he's writing the book of Ephesians.

There's a Roman soldier who's keeping guard over him.

He's probably working through the armor, like as the guard is looking at him, is like, okay, helmet, shield, breastplate, shoes.

The dude who's on jail duty, practically desk duty, is wearing those shoes.

It's because a Roman soldier's not going to show up to work, even if he's on desk duty without those shoes on.

He doesn't know when he's going to be called to action.

He doesn't know when a mob is going to show up.

He's ready to roll at any moment.

So you know the gospel.

You appropriate it for yourself.

And now you've got to get to work.

As I mentioned, for a soldier, the boot is not a fashion statement.

It's about efficiency.

I mean, I mentioned earlier a combat controller or a special forces person.

Why does the government spend money to analyze his gait through computer technology and to all of that?

Not so he feels good about himself and so he feels esteemed, because his next mission might be parachuting in 15 miles from a country's border, walking into the other country, doing what he needs to do there, walking 15 miles back out to be picked up all before the sun rises.

That's why he needs the right shoe.

If he doesn't have the right shoe, he could die.

His mission could fail.

This is the point here.

You get it through all this in verse 15.

You've put on the gospel.

Notice the phrase it's the gospel of readiness.

You're ready for this.

You put it on because you're ready to get to work.

So now get to work.

Carry out the mission.

There's something about having the right shoe that gives you the confidence to do that.

It was Bet Midler who said, with the right shoes, a woman can conquer the world.

We live in an age of doubt.

We live in an age of compromise.

We live in an age of uncertainty.

And you as a Christian have put on the studded shoes of certainty.

You've laced them up.

You have confidence about how to interact in this world.

You know, all these, many of these spiritual armor here is not unique to Paul.

He's drawing this imagery from Isaiah.

We looked at some of these verses last week, so I won't repeat them all again.

But Isaiah 52, verse 7, makes this point.

Isaiah 52:7

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings the good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, your God reigns.

What's happening in Isaiah 52?

The Assyrians are attacking, they're killing everybody.

Isaiah is not saying it's good to tell everybody, hey, don't worry, you're being slaughtered, but there is peace.

That's what a false prophet says.

A false prophet says, peace, peace when there is no peace.

This is prophetic.

This is looking forward to what you might be familiar with Elsa's in Isaiah 52.

It's that the Savior is going to come.

He's going to have his hands and his feet pierced.

He's going to be crucified.

He's going to be stricken for our afflictions.

He's going to be smitten for our transgressions.

That's what's happening in this chapter.

Israel is looking to their future, and one day the Savior is going to come.

And the feet of those who bring that good news are going to be well received.

The feet of the people who go into the world and say, there's a way for you to be right with God, that person's going to be esteemed.

The picture is that of a soldier going into war in order to bring peace.

It's kind of a complicated word picture, isn't it?

And the simple person says, that's a contradiction.

Soldiers don't bring peace.

Soldiers are for wars.

If they cared about peace, why do they have so many weapons?

It's a pretty simplistic way of viewing the world.

A slightly more robust or sophisticated way of viewing the world is recognizing that the better outfitted a soldier is, the more likely he is to bring peace.

Sometimes peace is only achieved through conflict.

Sometimes peace only comes through war.

That's not a contradiction.

That's Paul's imagery here.

You have the shoes of the gospel, which are the preparation for peace.

You're supposed to bring peace to the world.

The world is at war.

Nations are at war with nations.

People are at war with God.

People in this room are at war with God, trying to run from him and to keep running into the wall, running away from him and hurting themselves because they're at war with God.

And you are called as a believer as an ambassador for peace.

The ambassador didn't have the sword, by the way.

The ambassador went out in front of the enemy lines, walks over to the enemy's side, unarmed, and says, My army is going to defeat yours.

I encourage you to make peace right now.

That's what the ambassador did.

Very different than an American ambassador who gets like a Cush palace somewhere.

The Roman ambassadors, it was a very dangerous job, and they went forward and they begged the army for peace.

You need to get reconciled with God before he sends his army.

And if they believe the ambassador and they and they turn from their sin and they receive peace, then they esteem the ambassador, even they say, How blessed are the feet of those who bring good news?

Jesus, if you remember, stood over Jerusalem and wept before he was crucified.

And he said, I wish you, you, even you, Jerusalem, knew the things that would make for peace, and yet yet your eyes are closed to them.

You don't see them.

Listen, the gospel is what brings peace to a world in strife.

Don't get all dressed up for nothing.

Don't put on the shoes of the gospel and then not plead with people to come to faith.

To be quiet at work or quiet around your neighbors, or quiet when you have the good news of salvation, you have the shoes on your feet.

But don't be afraid to walk in them.

The gospel is what God gives you to bring strife, to bring peace in a world filled with strife.

And it can bring peace to you.

If you're here this morning and you have never given your life to Christ, I want you this morning to see that you can have peace with God.

That you can have peace with God through faith in Jesus Christ.

He has shoes that fit you.

Lord, we're grateful for the gospel.

In some sense, it's a Cinderella story.

It's the shoe that changes the world.

The gospel comes into our lives and gives us new hope.

I pray for our congregation and pray that we would be ones that are marked by the gospel of peace, ready to lead a life of peace, to advance the cause of peace in this world.

We know the peace that you are a herald of is the peace between God and man.

So I pray for people's hearts they would have faith in you and we'd be reconciled to you this very morning.

I give you thanks for that in Jesus' name.

And now, for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with Jesus.